History of the development of Mass Effect. Mass Effect: review of the first part of the Mass Effect trilogy, plot of the game
The question immediately arises: is this a big failure or a masterpiece with a Game of the Year nomination? My thoughts on this a little later, but now let’s remember how it all began.
What happened before this time? How did the series begin its journey and who is this Shepard of yours? In this article and video you will hear all the answers and decide for yourself which part is the best. Beware of spoilers! However, I don’t plan to go through the plot thoroughly.
Mass Effect 1
Back in 2007, the first part of the trilogy was released on Xbox 360, in exclusive form for a year. Then Microsoft needed good games to sell the new console. That's why they turned their attention to the studio BioWare after successful Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
The task was to come up with some kind of alternative. For about six months, the team only worked on the story and appearance concepts. The script was led by Drew Karpyshyn and Casey Hudson.
The action takes place in the 22nd century, where, with the help of technology, repeaters were created and travel across the universe became possible. People discovered new opportunities and races and joined the interplanetary party.
The story of the game begins with a simple mission to transport an artifact of an ancient civilization. (Prothean) from Mars. The task was given to the main character and part-time commander of the spaceship Normandy. Only according to the law of the genre, everything went wrong. The Geth get involved in the fight for the artifact. (a race created by the Quarians with AI, as a workforce).
Shepard would not be Shepard if he had not won and taken the artifact, which told him a lot of Prothean knowledge and a terrible secret - the apocalypse is approaching, reapers near (another ancient race that restores order to the universe by destroying everything). During the mission, it becomes clear who was involved in such aggressive behavior, and his name is Saren. However, that's all. Then my team and I start chasing the traitor throughout the universe.
But this did not make the plot dull and predictable. At that time, Sci-Fi projects were rarely released, and for fans of the genre this game was like a breath of fresh air. Everyone still admires the local atmosphere, and the notes found in the vast locations forced one to read oneself in full, helping one to comprehend all the secrets of the lore.
By the way, the well-known dialogue selection wheel first appeared in. Here, your relationships with the outside world depended on your answers; they could influence the ending or force your partner to undress and please you. Or rather, not forced, but by mutual consent, and the partners were 18 years old (both male and female).
The leveling in the first part is one of the best, or to be more accurate, it is extensive. By correctly placing stat points, you could unlock a new ability, the ability to say something extra in dialogue, or learn to put on different armor. And customization, due to different stores, was not mediocre. Shepard often purchased not only new weapons, but also clothing.
The combat system was not the most outstanding aspect of the game. Even now, true fans are indignant that with each part there is more and more action. They are used to talking with virtual partners, traveling around the galaxy and riding the Mako. True, the last statement is controversial. The physics of the machine were poor, to put it mildly, and after the 10th planet, exploration became dull due to the lack of variety.
The battle itself partially takes place in a stopped mode, where time freezes, and the player is able to give orders to two partners - where to shoot and what skills to use. In part, this is all reminiscent of, and also, because then it came out quite recently, and the cover system migrated to Mass Effect. Moreover, this was implemented better in the Girzas.
Mass Effect 2
Two years later, in 2010, on store shelves (and now on PC immediately) the second part has appeared. At the same time, the replayability of the first part increased, because all the decisions made could be transferred to the company’s new product. And these changes cannot be called cosmetic - the actions of the player depended on which characters would be in the game and, if they did not die by your will in the first part, what their reaction would be when they met and in the future. Interaction with the heroes from your squad has increased significantly. This is what the main plot will be based on.
But the plot is completely different. While patrolling the outskirts of space in search of remaining Geth, Shepherd's team is attacked. Many die, the ship is destroyed, and the main character dies. The end... It could have been, but the racist organization of people Cerberus found him and miraculously resurrected him, setting a new goal for the captain - to find out who they were Collectors and destroy them, because before the Reapers this threat is a priority.
The search for Collectors took a back seat for all players - the main mission was to find partners. And in order for them to join the detachment, they had to carry out their instructions. It sounds banal, but by doing so we learned more about these people (or other creatures), and it was very entertaining. Plus the ability to change everything to suit yourself using the dialogue wheel. The new system of saving someone, being rude or killing them at the decisive moment has tickled many nerves.
In the second part, the developers made a big emphasis on action: the battles became more dynamic, there is no need to be distracted by customization (it was almost completely demolished, but could have been improved better), pumping has fallen under the “katana”, now there are much fewer characteristics, and this is upsetting, because we didn’t fall in love with the series because of the battles.
Contrary to this, the combat system increased levels and was liked by many. The AI of teammates has increased, commands have become easier to give, and weapons have been replenished with new types - both various healthy guns, like rocket launchers, and other cartridges, for example, incendiary ones. But BioWare didn't do everything right; the new planet scanning system was even duller than riding a Mako. More time was wasted, but there was no pleasure from the gameplay.
Mass Effect 3
In the year when the end of the world was supposed to happen, it happened in . Shepard worked on the ground as a staff officer, he was transferred here because of the help of Cerberus, or he could have been imprisoned altogether. The commander's attempts to prove that the Reapers are nearby have finally borne fruit. The council decided to listen to him, but it was too late. Throughout the galaxy where life was observed, skirmishes with the ancient race began. Shepard again had to take command of the frigate Normandy SR-2 and assemble an army that would confront the main enemy.
The third part used the storytelling mechanics from the last game, where we needed to assemble a team, only now the scale has grown. It is necessary to join entire nations, resolving their internal conflicts and helping them escape from the Reapers for the final battle.
Moreover, there is only room for important decisions; there are no neutral answers at all. It is necessary to help one race or another, but helping both creates big conflicts. For example, the three hundred year war between the Quarians and the Geats. The choice is not easy, if you rely on the previous parts. And for those who missed Mass Effect 1-2, released a playable comic where you could select all the important events and transfer your saves to the last part of the trilogy.
The combat system hasn't changed much, but Shepard has gained more mobility. Now the developers have found that balance for an interesting battle with the enemy. You move faster over cover, and when it slams while standing, rolls have been added. During story missions, although infrequently, stationary weapons came across the level, helping to diversify the game process.
There are still 6 classes left in Mass Effect, each with their own specific skills and characteristics. But if previously everyone used their own weapon, now the restrictions have been removed. And at the request of fans, customization was added to the game - now you can once again modify your power armor and weapons, which have expanded their list significantly. Using the same principle (pleading and requesting), the planet scanning system accelerated its gameplay. This is still not the most fun part of the game, but you don't need to waste a lot of time now.
Another controversial point is group game. Having put together a team of friends from the real world, you could enter co-op mode, where you had to fight off waves of opponents, periodically completing additional tasks. But they were needed only for the sake of raising the detachment from one point to another part of the map. The battle area varies both in weather conditions and size, as well as in different opponents. Each troop type, as in the single, is weak to a specific weapon. It can be opened over time by leveling up your multiplayer character.
This mode had nothing to do with the main plot, players acted as a special forces squad and performed all sorts of small (and, in my opinion, rather boring) work while Shepard saved the galaxy.
Mass Effect: Andromeda
And now, finally, on virtual shelves (21st century in the yard) appeared. If we were waiting for the previous parts and predicted in advance that the game might not turn out to be a masterpiece, but it would turn out more worthy than its predecessor, now such guesses are questionable. Everyone has already accepted the fact that Shepard will not be there, and the plot is developing in another galaxy, where colonists were sent to conquer uncharted parts of space. There is no longer any need to save the universe, all you need to do is find a new home and lay the foundation for the next trilogy.
The updated team has introduced many innovations to the series, these include realistic graphics with day and night cycles, and thanks to the new engine, destructibility. We added an improved dialogue wheel and a greater focus on characters in the story. There is also a jetpack for better movement, Mako has been returned. Physics was also brought in, which gives a pleasant feeling from exploring on a 6-wheeled companion. It's a pity they removed the weapons.
It should be noted that the battle system has been redesigned. The tactical mode also remained, but the speed increased. It would seem that in the third part everything was almost perfect (specifically for), but now the formula has been improved and that necessary pinch of dynamics has been added.
But what became 100% obvious and immediately was the eccentricity of the animation - both movement and facial expressions. Mainly facial. Emptiness in the eyes, random emotions and lips like a bow - how could you make a mistake with such an important aspect of the game, in which dialogues take up an impressive amount of gameplay time? Fortunately, these disadvantages may not be noticed, because we need to read the subtitles, the main thing is not to raise our heads...
This is where my story comes to its logical conclusion, and you write in the comments which part stole your heart, and in the meantime I’ll prepare something new.
More than five years have passed since the release of the first part of one of the best Sci-Fi trilogies in the gaming industry, which is why I decided to remember each game in the trilogy and what its ending caused in the community.
To prevent the text from being too long and unreadable, I decided to divide the text into four parts: three parts for three games and one more about the endings of the trilogy.
Playing through the best game trilogy in the world took me back to the distant 2008, not only because it was then that the first part of the Mass Effect series was released, but also because every time I started the game, it insistently demanded that I insert the disk into the drive, which then buzzed for another 3-4 days. , while I was playing through the game, but even that's not all. I also had to solve the problem that the scan of the system from 2008 simply did not understand what kind of OS was running on this hardware, which for the same year was akin to a spaceship. I had to launch everything through the direct path to the game; let me remind you that the standard shortcut created on the desktop is a shortcut that opens the launcher with settings, titles, etc.
Mass Effect first appeared on the XBox 360 in 2007 and remained a Microsoft console exclusive for a year, then a year later in 2008 the game was ported to PC.
Mass Effect was based on all the science fiction that the studio that makes the best RPGs, BioWare, had reached and, at the same time, it was a completely new universe.
Background.
In 2148, scientists discovered on Mars the remains of an ancient civilization of space travelers, who, by pure chance, left a description of their technologies, on the basis of which, several decades later, they were able to discover the power that allows them to overcome the speed of light, this technology was called Mass Effect.
A few months after the discovery of relays, mechanisms by which one can move through star systems, Humanity encountered alien life forms. Self-confident Humanity aggressively occupied everything it could reach, but an older race, the space of the Citadel not yet open to people, stood up to defend the attacked relays. Thus began the War of First Contact with the Turians, but after not even two months, the War was stopped by the Citadel Council, the highest governing body.
It was from the Council that the young race of People learned that they were far from alone in the universe; many other races had been using repeaters and a huge space station - the Citadel - for several millennia, left by the ancient Prothean race, the level of development of which had not been replicated for several thousand years.
The beginning of the events of Mass Effect.
The plot of the first part of the trilogy begins several years after the events of the War of First Contact. The first thing the player sees is an unusual character creation editor, which offers to choose the class, childhood and “character” of the main character.
After a few minutes spent in the editor, the player is greeted by a beautiful view of our home planet, against which senior officers can be heard talking about the upcoming mission.
The best ship of the Human Alliance, the SR-1 Normandy, has been sent to Eden Prime, as the colony has not responded for several days. Along with the crew, a fighter from the elite SPECTER unit comes to the ship to check the readiness of one of the soldiers for Specter status.
On Eden Prime, everything goes wrong, Shepard meets an unknown race that looks like mutated people. After a short investigation, it turns out that the colony was attacked by one huge ship of the Dreadnought class, almost the entire colony was killed, only a handful of those who managed to hide remained. During the mission, Shepard and his squad find a mysterious Prothean artifact. Due to careless actions, he is brought into activity and Shepard sees a vision, but it is vague. It is also learned that Saren is a traitor in the ranks of the Specter, and he organized the attack on Eden Prime.
Upon returning to the Citadel, Captain Shepard is promoted to the place of the first Specter from Humanity and our hero goes in pursuit of the traitor.
Gameplay.
The gameplay is standard for 2008. Actually, Gears of War appeared on the shelves very recently, so all games of any genre borrowed the cover system, which migrated to Mass Effect. Unfortunately, Captain Shepard cannot roll as deftly as Space Marine Phoenix, so in the first part he looks like a log that can only run and run a little faster.
The Tactical Pause system was also borrowed from KOTOR, when when you press the Space key, time stops and you can calmly give orders to the squad.
At higher difficulty levels, from a simple action game, Mass Effect turns into a tactical one, not like XCOM, of course, but very interesting and lively. You can choose different partners (of different classes, as in all RPGs), who can do their own thing, and non-obvious combinations of abilities can save your life more than once, not twice, or even twenty-two times. Very difficult battles can throw off the fairly fast-paced narrative, but for fans it's all very well done.
Personally, I really like the gameplay in 2008 and now. On low difficulty, you can just shoot at everything that moves and not even think about any difficulties, just enjoy the story, but on high difficulty, tens of minutes are inevitable in an attempt to cope with the enemy’s defenses.
But there are other sides to the gameplay. Dialogue and research parts. The dialogue part consists in the fact that during a conversation the player can choose one of four proposed phrases. The player is free to decide who he will be: a hero who saves everyone around him, or a martinet who is rude to everyone and strictly follows orders.
The research part is presented in the form of the M-35 Mako all-terrain vehicle. Landing on various planets, the player can travel through the picturesque expanses of various worlds in an almost immortal armored car and look for secret bases or minerals.
Honestly, it’s getting boring on the tenth planet, but there’s no way out. Looking ahead, I’d like to say that in ME2 the research part was completely ruined, so rides on the M-35 are still the best, especially when going through the trilogy again.
By the way, in the first part there is a rather deep character customization system. In the world of the game, there are several military factories that produce equipment. Therefore, throughout the game you will come across all kinds of spacesuits, weapons and improvements to them, which can be combined quite interestingly, again, looking ahead, I will say that in the second part all this was cut clean. So here sometimes a message would pop up saying that the inventory was full and you should get rid of unnecessary things, which led to cleaning that took up to fifteen minutes of real time.
Mass Effect also has a familiar leveling system, on which a lot depends: from an extra line in dialogue, to a new class of available armor or, for example, a new ability for Captain Shepard. The “leveling up” itself is not very different from those presented, for example, in the Dragon age series: we kill adversaries, complete quests, grow in levels, simultaneously receiving points with which you can buy new abilities.
Mass Effect made a splash at that time, because good Sci-Fi had not been released in the world of that time for several years, and the phrase on the box with the game was intriguing: “Think ahead, decide who you want to be, all this will be useful in the next parts.” So the developers said that they would have a sequel, and not just a simple one, but with a save transfer, which raises replayability to unprecedented heights.
Even if in the gameplay part everything was not as smooth as we would like, but the plot justified some of the shortcomings in that part, and walks on Mako were absolutely balm for the soul.
As far as I can remember, the Mass Effect trilogy is the only one where there is a transfer of saves, which specifically changes the entire world of the game (in Dragon Age, for example, there was also a transfer, but all the changes were almost cosmetic in nature).
The game’s beautifully staged and interesting plot was captivating. The dizzyingly huge world was simply stunning, the study of the backstory of each race, the study of all the technologies and much more forced one to bury oneself in the Codex (local reference) for a very long time. An interesting, endless world was in your hands, the entire life of the galaxy depended on the player’s actions, even if the decisions made did not always change the world beyond recognition in the future, but the very possibility of choice pleases players to this day, and Mass Effect provides 25 hours of a wonderful story based on your choice.
If you find an error, please highlight a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.
There have been some negative trends in the role-playing game genre recently. We would not dare to call it a crisis, but the stagnation is obvious: once or twice a year, sequels of well-known series are released, in which there is no hint of an attempt to somehow develop the genre. In the general flow, the only thing that stands out is "The Witcher", but this thing is so hardcore and niche that it is unlikely to affect RPGs as a whole.
In fairy tales, at such moments, a knight usually appears on a white horse and saves everyone. We, of course, do not live in a fairy tale, but now everything happened exactly like this. As you may have guessed, the name of this savior is Mass Effect, and this, jokes aside, is a completely new gaming experience, something that has a good chance of setting the vector of development for the entire genre.
At the same time, it is important to note that Mass Effect excels not so much due to innovations in gameplay, but due to more subtle matters: direction, staging, style, and in general everything that we call games art. This is almost an independent cultural phenomenon, which is clearly cramped within the framework of the concept of “game”. This, friends, is a real space opera, no less exciting and large-scale than "Star Wars" or Star Trek. With just one amendment: the main character of this epic story is you.
About high
It is very important that this time BioWare placed the game in their own universe: within the framework of Star Wars ( Knights of the Old Republic) and near-Chinese mythology ( Jade Empire) their works fit in with difficulty. In this case, nothing restrained the imagination of Canadian developers and they got the opportunity to show what their creative genius is really capable of.
And, as it turned out, he is capable of much. When trying to describe the Mass Effect universe, the adjectives that immediately come to mind are “huge,” “elaborate,” but most importantly, “living.” This is the basis of the basics: the player must understand that he has not come to a deserted and lifeless world, but to a place where a lot of events took place before his appearance and where he is just another supporting actor. At least at first.
So, in 2148, humanity was slowly exploring the solar system when something incredible was discovered on Mars. Namely, traces of extraterrestrial civilization. The mysterious aliens - the Protheans - have gone so far in their development that even a superficial decoding of their heritage pushed the development of earthlings forward several centuries. Just a few decades later, people discovered mysterious stargates, which, upon closer examination, turned out to be a whole network of portals for interstellar travel. All this, as expected, led to the construction of extraterrestrial colonies and the beginning of the exploration of the galaxy. However, the colonists were in for a shock: they soon discovered that they had nothing special to explore. The known part of space was inhabited by at least a dozen intelligent races, which long ago mastered the artifacts of the Protheans (their traces were expectedly found not only on Mars, but also on a bunch of other planets; by the way, they also invented the system of interstellar travel) and divided space into spheres influence. The so-called Council, a conglomerate of the three most advanced races, controls the affairs of the galaxy from the Citadel - a titanic space station built, again, by the Protheans. Humanity was allowed into the Citadel as a “developing” nation, and in order to prove its significance, and even more so to enter the Council, something out of the ordinary has to be done.
The mission to increase the prestige of earthlings in the eyes of brothers in mind falls on the shoulders of Commander Shepard (the last name remains unchanged in any case, but the name, gender, appearance, as well as origin and military specialization can be customized to taste). However, as you yourself understand, everything is not so simple, and an “ordinary” secret mission to obtain an important scientific artifact turns into a story about saving intelligent life in the Galaxy. In general, no one expected anything else (see the sidebar nearby for why no one is surprised by this turn of events).
Despite the abundance of clichés and predictable twists, the plot remains one of the game's strongest points. The thing is, How all this is served to the player. Before this, no one - except perhaps the authors Metal Gear Solid- it was impossible to tell such a large-scale story so convincingly. The player literally lives from one dialogue to another, from scripted scene to scripted scene. Everything else - gameplay, role-playing system and character development - acts as a connecting link and an auxiliary exercise for warming up the fingers. The main thing is the story of Commander Shepard and his team.
The production and direction in this game are, without exaggeration, magnificent. If they had written in the credits that the game was directed by Spielberg or Lucas, everyone would have believed it. Mass Effect looks and feels fundamentally different than any other role-playing game. But there is nothing new at all: BioWare simply added here what was previously in any decent action game or quest. At least here are the dialogues. Previously, in any role-playing game, a scene of artistic winking between talking heads played out in front of us. The maximum that the characters could do was move their lips, move their bodies a little and make faces. Now the heroes walk freely around the rooms and demonstrate convincing animation (including facial animation, it turned out simply wonderful - even a humanoid reptile can portray reliable emotions). If during a conversation they quarrel, they will start pushing each other and waving their arms; if the atmosphere is heated to the limit, they will point weapons at each other. All this is shown from several angles at once and is accompanied by special effects. And don’t forget the main thing - you can directly influence what happens!
The effect of all this directing is fantastic in every sense. It’s one thing when you observe a situation from the outside, and quite another when you understand that the development of the plot may depend on your actions. The atmosphere at certain moments naturally sparkles with tension. Dialogues in Mass Effect are not an auxiliary tool for feeding you another portion of the plot, but a full-fledged part of the gameplay. In addition, it is an extremely dynamic part of it. This game cannot be played over a cup of tea - it calls for decisive action. Therefore, we see the response system that the developers came up with as particularly elegant. The fact is that we do not choose a specific phrase, but only set the direction of the dialogue. This is logical, considering that in real life the answer is born in our head even before the interlocutor finishes his thought. So here - no kilometer sentences, only succinct phrases like "I disagree", “Die, you bastard!” And “What did you say about the Protheans?” And this, in turn, also gives dynamics to the conversations.
All these artistic techniques can be safely multiplied by everything that makes BioWare games strong: well-developed characters and excellent graphic style. And if the second one is at least conveyed by screenshots, then special mention must be made about the heroes of the game. Of course, each of them is unique and keeps a whole company of skeletons in its closet. We can have thoughtful conversations with everyone (however, as usual, no one forces you), which will change your idea of this or that companion more than once or twice. At least Rex. At first glance, he is a taciturn and sullen mercenary. But if you talk to him, he will tell you a lot of new things about his race (Rex is a representative of the dying race of krogans, which in the old days terrified the entire civilized space, but the Council army defeated them and forcibly infected them with a genetic virus that reduces the survival rate of born children to one out of a thousand), about his difficult relationship with his father and about past exploits. And such a story is ready for each character - you just need to give them time. It’s even somehow inconvenient to talk about the unique quests and rewards that they sometimes give out.
| Script Anatomy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Anyone who has been following the work of BioWare for the last five years can easily guess how Mass Effect will end. Some details may change, but virtually all the plot moves were invented by Canadian developers a long time ago (back in the days Baldur's Gate!), and now they are being exploited with enviable stubbornness. And even the order of their use does not change! For clarity, here is a comparative table of the plots of the company’s last three games. ( Attention! Possible spoilers!)
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About the mundane
You probably think it's strange that we still haven't said a word about the gameplay? In fact, this is quite logical - the gameplay, as we have already said, is, if not secondary, then certainly not as important as its artistic component.
No, just don't get us wrong: the gameplay in Mass Effect is amazingly good. It’s just that it’s completely, well, not the least bit new. Moreover, before us is nothing more than... Knights of the Old Republic, improved and expanded. So KOTOR 2.0.
Here's what it all looks like. In peacetime, the character spends his time wandering around space stations and planets. Receives quests, communicates with NPCs, purchases equipment - everything is as always. Sometimes they only give you a ride in a Mako - it’s such an armored personnel carrier, nimble and bouncy.
As a rule, you can move between worlds in any order. We have the experimental spaceship Normandy and the entire galaxy at our disposal. No more than two dozen planets are available at a time. At the same time, four or five locations are plot-based, and the rest are reserved for third-party quests. The latter suffer the effect Assassin's Creed: the first five to ten times exploring abandoned bases and rescuing miners is still entertaining, but then mortal melancholy sets in. But the plot of each side quest (meaning the text part - the gameplay is always the same: arrive at the place and kill everyone) is unique, and it is always interesting to study it.
Let's move on to the role-playing system. It's as simple as a cork, but proven. There are three main classes: soldier, engineer and, let's say, psionicist. The first one can shoot accurately, the second one can pick locks and do dirty tricks on enemies (cutting out the protective field, overloading robot electronics, knocking down sights, etc.), and the third one lifts enemies into the air and hits the walls painfully. In addition, there are four hybrid classes. As they complete quests and kill enemies, heroes gain experience and grow in levels. With each level we are given a certain number of points, which we invest in improving our abilities. Moreover, any basic ability eventually opens access to a more advanced one; There aren’t enough points for everything, and you have to decide what’s a priority. In addition to this, Shepard has two additional capabilities: persuasion and intimidation, with the help of which he manipulates his interlocutors.
Another calling card of the game is the gigantic size of the tower. |
Have you had a feeling of déjà vu yet? If not, then here's a story about the combat system. It suddenly resembles... third-person action games. This is not a joke: all battles take place in real time and we need to naturally aim at enemies with the mouse (you can choose the level of “assistance” in aiming - at a minimum the game becomes almost indistinguishable from any Kane & Lynch). There is one fundamental difference - at any time you can hold down the space button and enter the game into tactical pause mode. Here orders are given to companions (there are few options - attack, hide and follow the hero) and special abilities are activated. In addition, the heroes know how to hide behind the nearest snags (in full accordance with the latest action trends), throw grenades and generally behave like real special forces. It's hard to surprise with such a concept lately, but this is new for BioWare and role-playing games in general. And (yes, again!) fits perfectly into the overall fast pace of the game.
Combined with all the other joys of the action mechanics, Mass Effect turns into a furious, ferocious game, and thirty hours (that's how long it takes on average to complete) fly by.
And finally, about some very mundane things. The studio was involved in porting the game to PC Demiurge. There are practically no changes compared to the console version, except that the interface was optimized for mouse and keyboard control (it’s quite comfortable to play) and the mini-game that accompanied opening locks was changed. None of the promised graphics improvements happened, but we weren't particularly upset - Mass Effect looks nice and without any plastic surgery.
| Knight at the crossroads | |
The plot of Mass Effect is quite linear, with only one ending. But during the game we will be asked to make several key decisions on which the fate of many characters will depend: someone will receive a new position, someone will harbor a mortal grudge against Shepard, and someone will even die. At the same time, the impact on the gameplay is minimal, but here psychological mechanisms come into play very usefully: how well the player relates to certain heroes and whether he is ready to sacrifice any of them. An example of such a borderline situation is given below. So, the mercenary Rex learns that on the planet where Shepard’s team ended up, they are engaged in secret research that can save his endangered race. However, all the freshly bred krogans will certainly go to the service of the main villain, so the incubators must be destroyed. The heroes point blasters at each other, a classic “Mexican draw” is evident. The player can: 1. Get Rex on your side. To do this, Shepard must have well-developed persuasion skills. 2. Shoot Rex. The easiest option for poorly leveled heroes. In this case, the team loses a valuable warrior. 3. Signal another character to shoot Rex. From a gameplay point of view, this option is not much different from the previous one. 4. Force Rex to give up his beliefs. To do this, in turn, Shepard needs a developed threat skill. |
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Mass Effect, it seems to us, is direct evidence of the renaissance of interactive entertainment: a game assembled from gameplay elements as ancient as the world looks great due to things that until recently were completely atypical for games: direction, staging and the creative potential of the writers. This is a very good sign: technology in games is gradually coming to serve the gameplay, and not vice versa. This is far from the first such example: there were the same BioShock, Kane & Lynch, domestic King's Bounty, finally. All this indicates the birth of a new subspecies of games that can be called art without a twinge of conscience and adjustments for numerous “buts”. At least that's what we really want to believe.
P.S. By the way, localization of the game from the company Snowball Interactive should go on sale simultaneously with the worldwide release of the game on PC. In addition, a special version is expected in the fall, in which all the dialogues will be translated and bonus content released at that time will be included.
Replay value-Yes
Cool story-Yes
Originality-Yes
Easy to learn-Yes
Meeting expectations: 100%
Gameplay: 9
Graphic arts: 9
Sound and music: 9
Interface and control: 9
Did you wait? A big, smart, beautiful and original RPG from BioWare. The first contender for the title of “Game of the Year”.
"Fabulous"
But as the release approached, we had to do what developers love least of all - cutting off ideas for which there was no longer enough time. The volcanic planet Caleston, where Shepard was supposed to meet Liara for the first time, went to waste - the plot invented for her “moved” to the planet Therum. They almost completely postponed the story about the mysterious organization “Cerberus” for the next part, and also abandoned multiplayer - although initially Hudson assigned it almost the main role in the concept (the network mode was implemented in the second and third games, but still played a secondary role) . It was not easy to cut to the quick, but the developers almost met the deadline - in early October 2007, Casey Hudson told his colleagues that Mass Effect had passed quality control and was going to print.
Path to glory
This is not to say that the game became a legend overnight. Yes, it was one of the most important releases of 2007, but unlike Star Wars: Knight of The Old Republic, which was literally idolized upon release, Mass Effect was received more restrainedly. Reviewers were rarely generous, and some even voiced the opinion that BioWare had made an incredibly beautiful and in many ways original game, which, however, looked more like a prologue to something more grandiose. The following parts confirmed that the first part was indeed just a warm-up.
Mass Effect began to transform with great speed into one of the brightest franchises of our time - the first souvenirs, comics and books appeared, and a fan community began to form, which is now considered one of the most active among all gaming communities. In January 2010, Mass Effect 2 was released, a landmark game for the series, after which it finally became clear how complex and addictive the developers had come up with the universe. A little later, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures bought the film rights to the project from BioWare - but, alas, for almost seven years the creation of the film has not gotten off the ground.
The story of Commander Shepard ended in 2012 with the release of a rather controversial, to some extent even scandalous, third part. The ending of the game (and the global plot that developed throughout the trilogy) turned out to be so vague and unsaid that fans threw a real hysteria about it. Mocking videos and texts, tens of thousands of comments on forums, petitions and angry letters to the BioWare office - for some time it seemed that the only thing on the gaming market was Mass Effect 3 with its problems. The developers released a free patch with a more detailed ending, but even this did not answer all the questions.
This, however, did not prevent the series from becoming a real cultural phenomenon of our time. Throughout the five years that separate the release of Mass Effect 3 from the release of the next part, forums dedicated to the series remained very active: players replayed the trilogy (a separate story with addons: for each part there were about a dozen of them, and some revealed very interesting details of the universe), looking for secrets , came up with various theories about the plot and characters, and also waited for the new Mass Effect, discussing what it would be like.
Six months after the release of Mass Effect 3, Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzika left BioWare. And in August 2014, Casey Hudson, the driving force of the entire series, also left the studio. Will the largely renewed BioWare team cope with the launch of the second trilogy in the world of Mass Effect? We'll find out the day after tomorrow, when a review of the game appears on the site.
The official legend is that the technology of the stealth mode was tested, but the whole team senses a catch, because for some reason there is a super-agent “spectrum” of turian appearance on board.
To get to the platform, you will have to deal with a droid and several zombies. One well-aimed shot at a pressure cylinder will save us from some of the problems.
In a temporary hut behind the hill, smugglers are hiding, calling themselves “peasants.” They will offer Shepard a free gun, but if you want, you can squeeze out some more contraband and, in addition, the name of an accomplice. He is hiding behind the boxes - he will tell you what happened to the turian, and, if the hero is convincing, he will give him useful things. Now we know where the lighthouse is - they managed to transport it to the settlement.
The droids crept up unnoticed. After searching the platform, do not rush down the stairs to the train - they are waiting for you there. It’s better to go down the stairs to the piled up stones, hide behind the parapet and carefully poke holes in the destroyer droid from afar.
Getting close to the train will not be easy - it is covered by robots. They shoot from afar, but a successful outcome of the battle is a matter of time if Shepard climbs into cover and takes out a sniper rifle.
Saren ordered the droids to cover their tracks by planting four explosive devices on the station, and he himself went to the lighthouse to imitate the flights of David Copperfield. And there would be no horns or legs left of the colony if Shepard’s team had not arrived by train.
You have five minutes to defuse four bombs. The first one can be dealt with right away, but the rest will have to be tinkered with. Gethi are found in large numbers here, but the container behind the stairs will provide you with your first hiding spot. After shooting several robots, Shepard will reach the second bomb and another shelter along the bridge. Now you can take your time. Hiding behind the boxes, get rid of the last droids and defuse the last two bombs. There are a couple more robots and zombies separating you from the lighthouse - but don't touch the archaeological rarity until you've cleared the entire platform and admired the spectacle of molten rock where the Overlord landed.
Of course, there is a surprise - one of your partners (which one depends on the gender of the hero) accidentally activates the beacon, and Shepard receives a certain amount of chaotic and incomprehensible information directly into his brain before the device self-destructs.
Talk to the doctor about how you are feeling, and give your unlucky partner a tip if you wish. Captain Anderson will describe the general situation. The situation is delicate. The Citadel Council demands reports, and the operation cannot be called successful. "Spectre" is killed, the beacon is destroyed, Shepard himself is tormented by migraines and incomprehensible visions.
You need to fly to the capital of the galaxy, to a star station called , to talk about your adventures and how bad a turian Saren turned out to be. Wander around the ship and give the command to the pilot to dock with the station.
Main storyline
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