"In the year 2148, human explorers on Mars uncover an ancient alien artefact with the power to enable transportation to the furthest stars in the galaxy in mere moments. Humanity would come to call this the greatest discovery in human history while the rest of galactic community refer to this as MASS EFFECT."

This simple epilogue sets the stage for BioWare's latest and quite possibly largest Science Fiction RPG with more instalments being planned in the future and the start of my game diary on Mass Effect so lets begin shall we?

The Gamestop I go to hadn't been open for an hour when I went and picked up my copy at 10 AM however sadly I wouldn't be able to start my grand adventure until after work. Mass Effect and the thought of going to Florida for the holidays were the only thing that kept me sane until 4 O'clock roled around and I went to my room told anyone messaging me on MSN that they better be engulfed in a superfire and the only way to put the fire out was by messaging me and turned on the 360 and started what has been my latest addiction.

Now for the nitty gritty of this diary, like every other RPG out there Mass Effect starts with the character creation. Unlike most RPG's however where you're the silent champion, in Mass Effect you have a name and a history. You can change your first name however everyone in the game will refer to you by your unchangeable last name, Shepard. The history portion of the character creation is quite fun in several aspects. One, this sets up a part of the kind of person your character is and it gives some extra dialogue in regards to your character in the main story. The first part is where you grew up, you can choose between space traveller, earthborn, or Colonist I went with a space-traveller, my parents moved from colony to colony, starship to starship. The second part is your military history since you're a commander in the Galactic Alliance. You can choose between war hero, sole-survivor and ruthless. These set up your "good/evil" side which I'll go into later. I went with Sole-survivor as it's mainly neutral and offers a 1 point bonus to both sides while the others offer 2 points to 1 side.

The character creation is quite fun though somewhat limited in some aspects. You can only play as a human so sorry alien wannabes but the type of human you can play as is nearly limitless, you can be a man or a woman and you can customize your character or you can choose the preset version seen on the ads. I went with a custom build and gave my character a scar across the right side of his face since he was a sole survivor of a massacre.

Once you've created your character, now you need a class for them. There six main classes in Mass Effect. The three base classes, Soldier, Engineer and Adept and 3 mixed classes, Infiltrators, Sentinels and Vanguards.

Soldiers are the walking Tanks, specializing in weapons combat, Adepts are like your mage, weak physically but they pack a mean punch with their biotic powers which are the games magics, and engineer is a bit of a mix though it's a pure class, sort of part healer/techy/rouge, they're best suited for the mechanical stuff in the game from hacking to taking down mechanical enemies.

In the mixed classes you have Infiltrators which mix soldier and engineer, sentinel which mixes biotic and engineer and vanguard which mixes soldier and biotic. I went with the Vanguard as they have a good mix of offensive abilities in both combat and biotics.

Now for the good and evil aspect of the game, in Mass Effect your main story is that you have to save the galaxy from a mechanical menace known as the Geth and no matter what you do you will so essentially you're a good guy but it's your methods that that you can choose to how to save the galaxy. It's more like Good cop/Bad cop. You can play as either the good cop known as the paragon where you help people out and try to solve conflicts with words first and violence last or the bad cop known as the Renegade where you get the job done by any means necessary. So far I've been a paragon although I've gone renegade a few times.

Now that we got the beginning out of the way, (yeah it's quite a bit but it's not as bad when you play it) time I get to my play time. Again I had been waiting to play this all day when I first got it but I also had to pack since I was going home for the holidays so I told myself that I would play it maybe for an hour or so at the most just to get the feel of the basics of the game.

four hours later...

This game is the equivalent to cocaine. I finally got appointed as a Spectre, sort of the megacop in the story. They answer only to the galactic council and no one else and believe me, this is only two or three hours into this monster of a game. I finally left the citadel and had three choices as to where to go, I could either help save a colony from a geth attack, look for an Asari scientist or go to a planet to look up a lead. I chose looking up a lead at the icy planet of Noveria, home to a corporation that's working on several top secret projects. Already I've been the target of at least one assassination attempt. (story wise)

I do apologize for the length of this opening diary but looking at the length of the game it's understandable. I'll update after I leave Noveria and head out for more leads and until then, some tips for those starting this game. Save often and the Galactic Codex is your best friend. It offers a lot on the backstory of the game and will help you out when you need some information.

Tags : BioWare : Game Diary : Mass Effect : microsoft : RPG : Sci-Fi : Space Opera : Xbox 360

Comments

By: ApplesauceNinja On: 03:47 Nov 22nd, 2007 Offline	My friend, TacoSoldier, bought this game at launch. Screw him in the A. Screw anyone in the A who currently owns this title. I want it so badly, but I'm a little short on the scratch right now. Dammit. Dude, you've done nothing but make me salivate over this game even more than I already did. Thanks.

By: MistaRob On: 08:44 Nov 22nd, 2007 Offline	Glad I've got one fan. :) Well I'm starting to think I've developed a problem in regards to this game. Twice whilst playing I turned my head while playing to look at the clock, the first time it said 7:30 PM and the next time I looked, 10:52 PM. Now on to the gaming update. Well I made it out of noveria, the story on the icy planet was that they had brought back an insect species known as the Rachni literally back from extinction. The problem is that the original Rachni operated with a hive mind taking orders from their queen. These Rachni weren't able to develop with their queen and had become quite mad so I was given the task of giving PETA the mega-finger and re-extinct the Rachni. I did find their queen and had the choice to get rid of the rachni once and for all or let her go as she made a decent argument of just wanting to live out the rest of her days. I took the kind hearted approach and let her live. For the Hippies out there that are taking a break from shouting "Corporations own everything." outside while annoying passers by, I'd like to congratulate you some as you are right. Several of the space colonies I've been to have been owned by mega corporations. One I went to wanted to see the full effects of a sentient mind controlling plant. (Yes I said that. No I'm not crazy.) The corporation wanted to see its effects by testing it on the colonists. +1 more for you hippies. But I then and went and pissed off the tree huggers by killing the plant and ended up freeing an Asari slave of the plant so -1 for the hippies for shame wanting to let a mind control plant live! To say the story and characters of this game are deep would be an understatement. Twice I've had to watch two of my characters die. (No I don't mean I'm too cheap to go buy pheonix downs, I mean they've died.) One a krogen who was on my side turned after finding out the main bady was working on a cure for his species. They had been infected by a genophage because they rebelled against that galactic counsil and the genophage causes only one out of a thousand births to be viable, as in only a few babies would survive childbirth. Effectively giving his whole species a death sentence. And the good guys did it! He was mean, ugly as sin and was about to kill me but I could understand his plight. He saw hope for his dying breed and I think any of us would do almost anything if it would stop our own impending doom but sadly his story ended with a bullet to the brains. Shortly after one of my crew's demise I came up to the first fight with the game's main baddy. The first few times I saw him I thought "great he's like Sephiroth, was a legend and now is doing vile things cause he can/wants to." But after this meeting I've come to see that even he has depth. He's come to realize the cycle of civilizations on a galactic scale in that civilizations grow, evolve, apex and eventually die and now he's working with the causes of the death cycle in order to stop it in exchange for some freedoms such as free will. In essence he's saying "Yeah I know what I'm doing now is nasty and the terms are unfair but because of them I will help save more lives than can be counted." He believes in the ends justify the means and that in the end he will do a great good at the expense of some bad. Afterwords I had to make my grand escape and this is where I lost my second crewman, my biotic who I didn't use much but still he sacrificed himself so I could escape but the main thing was that I was the one who effectively gave him a death sentence. It was between him and my soldier and I needed a combat personal and I sent him on the diversion team so though it was the enemy who pulled the trigger, in hindsight I was the one responsible. To say the story and characters don't pull you in is just wrong. Though I lost two crewmembers I did gain one new one, an Asari biotic to replace the one I lost, she's pretty powerful and came with some fun combat abalities that I know I'll enjoy later. that's all for this update. I know it's short but aside from leveling up that's all that I can give from just four or five hours of gameplay. I've seen a few worlds. Took out one thresher maw (think those worm things from tremors but bigger and spew acid) and have been working on my character. I can't use a sniper rifle but my shotgun has been powered up to the point where it's a hand held cannon. Stay tuned for more updates!

By: MistaRob On: 10:41 Nov 25th, 2007 Offline	Sorry I haven't been keeping up on this like I should but I'm back from the folks and holiday. Big update, I completed the game on a basic run through of just doing the main quest with a few side quests and barely any exploration, even then I was pushing well past fifteen hours just on the main quest alone. For those who are wondering if they should get this game and still aren't convinced I've got something for you. Most games after you complete it either Save to just before the final battle or keep going after the main story so you can complete the sidequests and after that there's not much else. Mass Effect however, after you complete the game, you can go back and play through it again but with your current character instead of making a new one. Why this is awesome is that it means you can get some awesome stuff at the very beginning and complete Sidequests that you may have missed the first time around. This time I'm taking my time and have already hit the five hour mark and I'm only on my second planet. I've been doing some exploration, taking out space pirates and finding lost marines. This time around I also got my specialization class for my character, it was either between nemesis which increases my offensive biotics or Shock Trooper which helps my over all defenses. I went with Shock Trooper because it helps my barrier biotics and gives me a boost to my adrenaline rush power which I use a lot as it restores all my abilities and restoration icons. So this will probably be my final update on this diary as aside from alot of sidequests there's not much else to report on the main story aside from the different dialog options that honestly do change the course of gameplay from times where I've had to go into a gunfight now I can avoid unnecessary bloodshed. With that said, I leave with these final words. For those of you who've had the ability to get this game but for reasons unknown haven't. I'd like you to take your keyboard, hold it up and smash your face with it. Then after the you've stopped bleeding, go out and get Mass Effect. Yeah the controls are a bit difficult at first but once you master them you'll become immersed in the galaxy. Simply put if you like either action games, RPG's with an immersive storyline and solid characters with depth and emotion that'll make you feel as if you're in the game, or a game that you simply won't be able to put down, you will love Mass Effect.

By: Mobius Zero On: 11:03 Nov 25th, 2007 Offline	Wow, that is alot of stuff that you can do in this game, I am very surprised with this Bio-Ware masterpiece what will they come up with next. Just by reading this, I want this game! drowns in a puddle of his own drool