Features Mass Effect

* Science-fiction RPG

* Explore uncharted worlds and uncover mystery

* Real-time, squad-based combat

* Character customization with a deep role-playing systems

* Credible digital actors

Details Mass Effect

* Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.

* Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches ; 2 pounds

* Media: Video Game

* Release Date: November 20, 2007

Description Mass Effect
Amazon.com
A Spectacular New Vision of the Future
The galaxy is trapped in an endless cycle of extinction. Every 50,000 years, an ancient machine race invades the galaxy. With ruthless efficiency, the machines wipe out all advanced organic civilization. They leave behind only the scattered ruins of technology, destroying all evidence of their own existence. Few believe this ancient legend. You, however, know it to be true. The fight to stop this extinction event has become the most important mission in the galaxy.
"You must act without remorse, without hesitation, and outside the limits of the law." It is your mission. As Commander Shepard of the SS Normandy, you will take your elite recon squad across a galaxy in turmoil, in a desperate race to stop the return of an enemy without mercy. To stop this enemy, you must act without remorse, without hesitation, and outside the limits of the law. Your only imperative is to preserve the safety of civilized life in the galaxy - at any cost. You must become the tip of the spear of humanity, for you alone know the full extent of what is at stake if you should fail. Science-fiction Role-playing: Perfected Mass Effect allows you to create your own customizable version of Commander Shepard (or jump in and use the pre-created character) and plunge yourself into the center of an epic science-fiction story. Choose your squad-mates, your weapons, skills and abilities, and customize your vehicles, armor and appearance - you are in complete control over your experience.In the course of your mission to stop the machine invasion, you may choose to follow the path of the soldier, the tech-specialist, or the biotics-specialist…each of which brings an arsenal of unique yet equally powerful abilities to use against the enemy. Wield a multitude of weapon types with precision accuracy…utilize your technical skill to turn enemy war machines against their creators…or unleash the full power of Dark Energy against your foe with devastating effects. As you progress throughout the game you will improve your character's skills, abilities, and equipment (including weapons, armor, biotic implants and more) to ensure that you have the means to face the growing threat before you. The role you choose to play in Mass Effect will have tremendous consequences on the galaxy around you. You will face moral dilemmas in which the decision you ultimately make will significantly alter the fate of civilized life in the galaxy. The Vastness of Space Beckons Your mission will take you into the deepest reaches of known space - and beyond. Aboard your ship, the Normandy, you will choose which planets to investigate, and where to take your team. In addition to the major worlds of the main story arc, you will have the freedom to visit a wide array of uncharted planets and other locations such as asteroids and abandoned space freighters adrift in space. On many worlds, take your team planet side in the MAKO in order to explore and find alien life, ancient artifacts and ruins, rogue trader colonies and a host of other amazing discoveries. Lose Yourself in a Living Galaxy Mass Effect combines astonishing photo-realistic graphics with innovative new dialog systems to create a cast of living characters to interact with. Engage these characters in real-time conversations that allow you to immerse yourself in dramatically charged situations. Characters communicate with full voice-acting and amazing animation that displays their emotions right down to subtle nuances in their facial expressions. Every wrinkled brow and slight twist of the mouth is captured to infuse every interaction with a feeling of realism. Lead Your Squad in Intense, Real-Time Combat Lead Your Squad in Intense, Real-Time CombatThe struggle to stop the return of the machines will ultimately be a violent one. You will assume responsibility for the lives of your squad as you lead them into often uncharted, hostile alien environments. Each decision you make could mean the difference between victory and disaster. Although combat will take place in real-time, you will have the ability to pause combat and issue commands to your squad which they will then execute with the precision of a highly trained elite force. Upgrading certain skills and abilities as you level up your character will also allow you to increase your ballistic skill - this can ultimately lead to easier aiming, more damaging use of weapons, and biotic effects with the power to turn the tide of battle in your favor.

Description Mass Effect
Set 200 years in the future in an epic universe, Mass Effect places gamers in a vast galactic community in danger of being conquered by a legendary agent gone rogue. A spectacular new vision from legendary developers BioWare, Mass Effect challenges players to lead a squad of freedom fighters as they struggle against threatening armies to restore peace in the land. Mass Effect is the first in a trilogy of games with an overarching story, where the real conflict between organic beings and artificial intelligence comes to life in startling clarity. Intense, in-depth story where the fate of life as you know it depends on you Features six character classes, along with six more unlockable ones - each class contains several talents As each talent is leveled, the character either gains stats (extra health, stamina, etc) or unlocks new abilities. Players can fully customize their appearance, gender, abilities and even military background. Four classes of conventional weapons ESRB Rated M for Mature
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Deep story unfolds in early going, very immersive experience
By Shann Yu "BIOE major" (Rice University)
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First off, I've been waiting for this game since the previews came out late last year (2006). So far, Bioware has done a great job of pimping out this game. And deliver it does...

STORY: A+
The 'cutscenes' are really not cutscenes at all. The conversations you have are pretty dynamic and integration of the choices of stuff to say is so seamless it seems almost natural. Early on, you get a sense of this when choices of stuff to do in the field enable you to remake your character as a mission-oriented commander or more of a compassionate search-for-survivors kind of guy, among some. The story picks up pretty much where the prequel book left off, and immerses you in the experience. You keep on wanting to learn more. You definitely feel like a part of this epic and that will keep you coming back. Unlike Halo 3 and Gears of War which launch you into an ongoing war, Mass Effect sends you into a very deep, very complex world to explore. Imagine yourself as a hypothetical CIA agent before the war begins. Expect to see yourself running around the world, talking to people and gaining intel on people, and then having fight scenes from time to time. When you get sent on a mission to track someone down and there are lots of enemies between you and the destination, then you begin to see more of the combat-intensive aspects of the game.

GAMEPLAY: A
Expect to see a third-person shooter with a heavy RPG influence. While out in the field, it's like a Gears of War experience with a basic tactical system. Run. Take cover. Take some guys down. Order your friendlies to flank the enemy or to fall back. Outside of this, the RPG system comes into
play when leveling up, when you get to choose abilities to level up, weapons to equip (ie, if you have 3 types of sniper rifles in inventory, which one will you equip?. I will cover this in more detail below). The controls were overall slightly different from control schemes used in comparable third
-person shooters. It didn't take me long to get used to the system used here in Mass Effect. You can pretty much figure it all out in the first level.I had the mistaken view that only snipers and pistols can be trained into an over-the-shoulder Gears of War camera angle when aiming (holding down the left trigger). Apparently, this is because I started off as an Infiltrator class. Different character classes can train different weapons. The soldier class can train all weapons. Sniping took some getting used to. When you first start off, Shepard is very shaky and thus it is very difficult to snipe. Adding points to level up your sniping ability seems to limit this shakiness greatly.The tactical system is very very bare bones. You can order people to fall back, take on a specific target, regroup, or storm the area. Nothing much to it. Therefore, players can fight with their AI teammates as much of a unit (though I feel the AI tends to die a lot).You also get to drive vehicles. Much of you have seen the trailers and saw that tank drop out from the Normandy. That tank handles like a Warthog from Halo 3, except with rocket boosters and a repair function. A heads up - repairing means you can't move or fire any of the tank's weapons. Therefore, make sure you're in cover when repairing. I love the rocket boosters as it gives you an extra method of dodging rockets and charged shots from the geth. The big disadvantage is that you have to drive and shoot at the same time. This makes for some very frustrating vehicle fight sequences. I am a big fan of how the game feels thus far. Having RPG elements yields a lot of control over how your character plays on the field. The shooting system is pretty good, but not flawless. My biggest complaint early on was the many loading pauses you have to go through, but the deeper I went into the game, the less it affected gameplay. Loading pauses don't happen in the middle of the heat of battle, but it definitely wouldn't hurt to possibly fix this up in future patches.Finally, a decent portion of the game involves going out and doing side missions. This means jumping in the tank and driving from the landing zone to various points on the map. I think driving around like this is the most painful experience of the game. There's almost always nothing but an occasionally frustrating 5-minute drive between the LZ and the destination, and once you get there, after doing a few of the side missions, you realize that the site layout is a recurring theme. Therefore, if anything else, the side missions are a great way to practice and to level up. There's some more of that RPG stuff working for you.

RPG Elements: A
For weapons and armor, the feel is similar to something like Diablo II, where you pick up random equipment as you go along. Each equipment has a certain class: armor, assault rifles, pistols, sniper rifles, shotguns, etc (I haven't seen the other classes!). Depending on the character class you chose at the beginning, you have different combinations of these classes available to you. For example, my character class may allow me to equip an assault rifle and armor only. This means that I can equip only 1 assault rifle at a time and 1 armor. But since I pick up a lot of these in the field, I must choose which assault rifle I want to use and which armor to equip. The equipment select screen where you actually do this shows a lot of equipment data, ie damage of a weapon, 'clip size', so on.Upgrades for each weapon can also be picked up and installed, including different rounds (ie, shredder rounds that add bonus damage when fighting organics, vs. armor piercing rounds against synthetics) and a wide range of add-ons (ie, heat sinks to decrease gun overheating).Another big thing is that you gain experience out in the field as you fight more stuff. You earn points this way that you can spend upgrading, say, your ability to snipe or your armor's damage reduction settings. There are definitely a variety of choices to look through while you decide what to level up.

CHARACTERS: A+
I enjoy interacting with the characters to see what's going on in their heads. The characters are all very multidimensional and very well thought up and implemented in the game. Voice acting and video synchronization was flawless.

REPLAYABILITY: A
I have played through the story at least 3x by now, amassing more than 60 hours of gameplay. Having 6 character classes to pick from and 6 squad members to choose from, including the ability to choose whether to build your reputation as a ruthless military man or a compassionate and humane leader (or somewhere in between) definitely keeps you coming back to see how you
can change the way things play. The different character classes really play differently so have fun with them.To sum up, some of you may be looking at Mass Effect and wondering whether or not it's worth the $60. And I say it is.

PROS: Deep and immersive storyline that captivates from the beginning, well-made characters, seamless incorporation of dynamic cutscenes, unique integration of 3PS with RPG. This game plays very differently from anything you've tried before. It's no Halo 3 nor Bioshock. It's a very well-made original game.

CONS: Minimap is not intuitive at first, plays too much like a movie at times, driving between points on a map in the Mako can be excruciatingly boring, a lot of recurring layouts with the sites of side missions.

FINAL VERDICT: A+. Very well-made game, well worth that whole wait from June till now. I've been anticipating this game for a while and it delivers an epic storyline of gigantic portions in a way that no others have done. This is definitely for people who want to experience being in an all-new sci-fi epic and building up an altogether new and unique hero.
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Mass Affect, November 26, 2007
By S. Murray (NYC)
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 I'll start with a few cons since the majority of reviewers are blowing sunshine up Bioware's backside:
- This is a chatty game. If you have no patience for potential conversations that can last minutes, move on. And by conversation I mean, selecting one of three choices and then followed by a prerecorded cut scene that can go on for five minutes. Some are good, some are far far too long. At times I'd select a response then watch regular TV and come back later.
- Some unnecessary slow elements. Inside your own ship, there's an elevator. That goes down one floor. It takes 5 seconds for the doors to close... and 30 seconds to get to the next floor. I'm not lying I timed it. WTF make some stairs! That friend, is stupid and very aggravating, like quite a few elements in the game.
- Most of your planetary wandering is in a rover vehicle. It feels borderline un-beta-tested. It pops up in the air and almost flips over the most minimal planet surface feature, and can only accurately fire if shooting straight ahead (although a 360 degree turret). It utterly lacks any finesse. Bioware, next time hire someone who's coded vehicles, get some planetary physics like varying gravity for each planet, and give the rover some weight... it's got 6 wheels... make them move independantly... instead it feels like a toy being yanked on a string flipping all over the place.
- While the graphics are excellent, a few other reviewers have noticed poor redraw rates. This happens mostly in equipment and squad interfaces, and it's a bit dodgey. You'll be looking at your character for 2 minutes wondering if they were unexpectedly burned because they have no eyebrows or eyelashes... and poof! they appear as you're changing something. Okay, time to pour on the sugar... the Pros:
- Storywise it's excellent, and absolutely deserving of the praise. Side quests feel episodic, and the primary quest feels powerful and very cinematic. All your NPC characters you pick from are absolutely involved in it, and interact with each other, and respond to the smaller missions as well. On top of that, your character's behavior without a doubt affects the game... so you begin choosing responses "in character" as an actor might decide how to play a role. It's very involving.
- Graphics, aside from redraw glitches, it's not just pretty and texture-riffic... it's good design. Whoever designed this made a very impressive 1960s looking space age, and it all fits together. There's no hackey "brutes" or other arbitrary creatures or armor or weaponry like in other games... everything fits and this was done very intelligently. It feels scifi but doesn't get in the way of the story, and the game really is about your character.
- Audio is excellent and I'm very snobbish about crappy audio and bad voice acting... this is probably one of the best games I've played in terms of voice acting. (It's got Lance Henricksen, FTW) The soundtrack is phenomenal. Early 80s ambient electronica that reminds you of Dune, Blade Runner, and Dr. Who. I bought the soundtrack and I usually hate soundtracks from video games... it's that good.
- Fighting... the fighting can be frustrating since you are limited by the character you play... for example if you aren't one of a few characters that can specialize in sniper... no scope for you. Actually, not even a crosshair. Seriously though, the fighting is similar to Gears of War, using cover, and gets better as you level up. The biotics or "spacemages" of the game are helpful... do yourself a favor and play a character that can use weapons, it's more fun.
- Planets and nebula are well made... and I really like the look and feel of various planets, lighting, weather, terrain... it's very very cool. My 2 favorite being on "Red Planet" that felt like mars (with red filter so even your vehicle has a red cast) ... and another night planet that seemed like you were on a frigid moon of a gas giant. The planetscapes have a very "OMNI magazine" look to them, ultrafuturist... and nicely done. So highly recommended except for those short of attention, but I can only give it a 4 stars since my gripes listed above really mess up the flow of the game. Those would have been easy to fix and it makes the game feel like it was rushed to production. Overall a very good title in a year that produced a bushel basket of quality titles for the 360.
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Massively Effective, December 28, 2007
By Mark Hills "Nobody gets me, I'm the wind, baby!" (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)
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 In a nutshell, Mass Effect was not only worth the wait, but it is one of those few games that actually lives up to the hype behind it. It simply is the best game that I have ever played, largely because it has every element that I like to see in game like this: It is epic, with a sprawling story arc that covers thousands of years of galactic history, it is heroic- the character you play fits the mold of a hero in every way- depending on the choices you make determines how `light' or `dark' he or she becomes, the art, graphics and music are first rate, and unlike Halo 3 or Gears of War, Mass Effect might actually be the `killer app' the 360 has been waiting for. Above all, it's fun. There were lots of places to go and explore- something I can't get enough of in these so-called role playing games (If you are familiar with Bio-Ware's Knights of the Old Republic or Jade Empire, a lot of Mass Effect will seem instantly familiar). I will grant that the story is not entirely original, and the game borrows a lot from Babylon 5 and Star Wars, though with a pedigree like that, it's hard to go wrong, because they took all of the best elements from both. What it does achieve is an immersive story that provided me with hours of entertainment. The human race is a johnny come lately to the galactic stage after discovering an alien data cache on Mars that advanced a lot of our existing technology at least 200 years. Namely, the " Mass Effect " which is created when an electrical current is passed across a material known as "element zero"- a negative current and the object becomes lighter, a positive current and it becomes heavier. That alone would enable ships to overcome the nasty effects of relativistic space travel. They also discovered in the ice on Pluto a small mass relay- essentially a space catapult that transports ships vast interstellar distances almost instantly. A nice little draw back is, relays can only send to other relay. In so doing mankind discovered a host of other races already in place and in charge and promptly went to war with one of them- the turians, a short conflict the humans won. The other races have been in space, some for as long as 2000 years and established a sort of cooperative empire based on an enormous deep space station known as the Citadel. Everything- the mass relays, the Citadel were already there waiting for younger races to find them, having been built by a long-dead species known as the Protheans. You play as John Shepard (or his female counterpart, Jane), no, not Joe Flannigan from Stargate: Atlantis, a Systems Alliance commander and second in command of a brandy new starship called the Normandy sent to investigate a Prothean artifact discovered on the human colony world of Eden Prime. The Normandy arrives just as the colony is under attack by an unknown alien spacecraft. It's your job to uncover why the colony was attacked, the vision given to you by the Prothean artifact, eventually save the galaxy, and prove humanity's worth. You will be joined by numerous human and alien NPCs, some of which have their own agendas, but all of them are useful in one form or another. For example, if you take on the Soldier class for your character, you will likely take NPCs on missions who are more capable in tech based skills or biotic powers. Biotics are another mass effect product developed when a fetus is exposed to an element zero reaction in-utero, a process that has limited success. Either you get cancer and die or super powers. Mass Effect is, in my opinion, the killer app that the 360 has sorely been lacking. The Xbox 360 has been out for a year and a half now and most of the games do not interest me and those that do haven't been all that great. Mass Effect is also an RPG that thankfully doesn't fall into Final Fantasy trap of static `wait your turn' combat, but instead allows you to move about the battlefield, issue orders to team mates, duck for cover, switch weapons and more. The game gives you lots of things to do- side missions, exploration, surveying mineral deposits, following up on clues, computer hacking, and lots and lots of bad guys to blow up. There are a thousand points of achievements to boost your Live! Gamer Score. The graphics and sound are first rate, with some of the best character and face modeling I have yet to see in a game. Mass Effect and Halo 3 are two completely different games, but for my entertainment dollar, Mass Effect is better. I finished Halo 3 in maybe 6-7 hours, Mass Effect took me 22 hours to finish and I still hadn't completed all of side missions, which took another 24 hours in my second run through. I love the fact that you can upgrade virtually all of your equipment. Guns get enhancements that make them more accurate, less recoil, and different kinds of ammunition. You can also improve your armor with better kinetic shields, better first aid equipment and more. There are only four basic weapons- pistol, shotgun, assault rifle and sniper rifle, but there are dozens of variants of each that get more powerful as you gain levels. You also get to outfit all of your NPCs including where they put their skill points, and that doesn't always mean keeping the best kit for yourself, depending on your class, etc. you may find armor that you can't wait because it's made for a krogan or a turian. All in all there are hundreds of upgrades. The game is not without its problems, however, but most of them are of a technical nature. First, it uses the DVD rom drive constantly- on my 360 it never stops reading from the disc and gets so loud that my girlfriend commented on it from across room. It also fails to load all of the textures, leaving objects as black silhouettes- usually crates, but some of the NPCs on Feros were also rendered this way. Also, the short load times means it takes several seconds to load all textures when the action does start, leaving surfaces with only their primary texture layer. In the end, Mass Effect provided me with over two solid days of play time and I'm still not finished with it yet, I still want to try the other character classes and see how the game changes accordingly. They left it open for a sequel and my hope is BioWare won't pawn it off to a second-rate developer as they did with Knights of the Old Republic II.

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No spoiler here, just my take..., December 18, 2007
By Mern "meepers" (Four dimensional space)
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 Played as a pure Soldier.
Ok, so after nearly 40 hours of play this game has been completed. First off, is it for everyone? No. That's how I got my copy. A friend played it for a half hour or so and gave it to me, he hated it.The game basically breaks down into three pieces.

 1. The first half of Mass Effect is rather slow and repetitive. Lots of dialog and not too much action. After a while it starts to get grindy (searching planets in grid patterns for minerals comes to mind...repetitive level lay out...yawn) If you are like me you want to get all the assignments done before you jump into the missions. First off the missions will beat you down if you try them too soon. Which is a good thing because there are not many missions...but tons of assignments. You will sort of figure things out after a good many hours of play and hopefully have enough curiosity to push you through. The assignments though do get very repetitive and lame after a while.

 2. The latter half of the game is divided in two. The first portion is when you finally get on your feet and have a good understanding of what's going on. Don't expect this until at least 20+ hours into the game. At this point you can hold your own and start gravitating towards the main missions. Unless you rush through the game in which case it may happen sooner...But if you're blowing through dialog in hurry-up mode, then obviously the game is already lagging for you (case in point).

 3. The second portion of the last half is when it gets real good. Gone is the repetitiveness of assignments. Now you are into the meat of the story, but this portion of the game is far too short and long in coming. By this time you are so stoked that things actually picked up that you whiz through it. Still very cool. So in the end I was glad to have finished it but it was a long road. I have zero interest to play it again. I wish there were real boss battles, I found this part to be very lacking. Yeah you have culminations but only one "boss battle" comes to mind, aside from the end, that was sort of cool but over all it lacked inspiration. There were no "OH MY GOSH!" bosses that you had to fight. Bummer. Another thing is I wish it gave you things to strive for as a quest/reward system. Basically you get exp and cash. After a while they both don't really matter. A carrot on a stick is needed at times to keep things rolling...And when you catch that carrot, you get a good feeling of accomplishment...Plus you get to eat the carrot (use item). Not in Mass Effect. Plus my found stuff blew away anything that could be bought in the game, so there goes that avenue of motivation. Over all, not too bad. But if you are looking for a true RPG and are a seasoned RPGer, you may be let down. This is more a shooter with a long winded story (cool one, don't get me wrong) with a teeny-tiny bit of puzzle and no real quest/reward system.

80% Story

19% Action

.5% Puzzle

.5% Reward

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Great but not perfect, December 2, 2007
By B. Lee (fremont, ca)
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The Good:
-Great storyline in the tradition of Bioware RPG games
-Good action and a variety of content
-Freedom in what you do: you can be good or evil, multiple ways to solve a problem, and you can choose where, when, what, and who you want to help; this is the way RPGs should be
-Better action than past Bioware RPG games
-Great graphics

The Bad:
-Lots of loading screens
-Graphics are not always great all the time (due to the game having to reload them constantly)
-loss of framerateThe reason for both problems is that Mass Effect does not use the XBox 360's hard drive for anything but save games. This is really annoying when I have close to 110GB of free space. It's nice that Bioware will cater to people without hard drives, but it would be better if they gave an option for people with hard drives to get better performance out of the game; it's really annoying to see things (both characters and the environment) as plain blank blocks....

Conclusion:
This is a great game that you need to play even with its weaknesses

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Could have been more Mass..., November 26, 2007
By M. Randall "Deadpool" (Allen Park, MI)
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Mass Effect was a real fun game and I can't remember the last time I had so much fun playing a game that was strictly 1 player (no co-op or online modes). The characters were likable, the story was pretty engrossing and to top it all off, when you make decisions in the game, you actually feel what you did or said made a difference on the outcome of conversations and situations... something RPGs usually don't pull off very well. My only problem with the game was how quickly it took me to beat it. I was able to complete the game in less than a week and that was while only playing 2 to 3 hours a day. In my game I did the majority of the side quests as well. An average gamer who only plays the main quest will beat Mass Effect in a solid 5 to 10 hours... Kinda disappointing. The first time you play things can be rather confusing as you're forced to learn how to do everything on your own (distributing talent points, assembling your team, choosing their weapons, making them use their talents, upgrading everyone's guns and ammo) which can be a bit overwhelming at first. Despite the lack of tutorial and the short play time, its one of the best 360 games of the year. 3rd person shooter and RPG fans will be in heaven

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