Mass Effect: A Retrospective

With the pending release of Mass Effect 3, one of the year’s most anticipated games, for those of you that haven’t played the previous installments in the series I thought I’d do a retrospective and bring you up to speed.

On October 4th, 2005, BioWare Studios announced Mass Effect, an Xbox 360-exclusive sci-fi action/RPG third-person video game. Prior to Mass Effect, BioWare was well known for the Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic series’ of video games.

Players would take on the role of Commander Shepard, a human soldier attempting to prevent the destruction of all advanced life in the galaxy by a race of sentient machines called Reapers. Shepard’s appearance and background could be chosen by the player through a robust customization system. The choices players would make through their speech and actions would have lasting repercussions throughout the series, continuing in Mass Effect 2 and culminating in Mass Effect 3.

Upon it’s release, Mass Effect was hailed as a masterful achievement, with a Metacritic score in the 90s. It was heralded as the next great science fiction franchise, and was a huge commercial success. However, with success usually comes some form of controversy. A conservative blogger falsely indicated a brief intimate scene at the culmination of 30+ hours of gameplay was hardcore pornography. This claim was later picked up by Fox News, which exaggerated the claims further without actual investigation. The gaming community fought back, eventually forcing Fox News to retract the claim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOGkiHZeu6A

On February 20th, 2009, BioWare posted the first teaser trailer for Mass Effect 2, the sequel to Mass Effect. Taking place two years after the conclusion of the original game, Shepard is once again thrust into action against the Reapers, this time working against one of their intermediaries called the Collectors. Most notably, if a player makes poor choices in regards to their teammates, it is possible for Shepard to die during the final mission. As he or she is the central character of the story, that saved game would be unable to be used in Mass Effect 3.

Mass Effect 2 was an improvement over Mass Effect in virtually every way, and the review scores reflected it. Metacritic puts Mass Effect 2 as one of the highest rated games ever. Moreover, since it’s launch in January 2010, BioWare has released seven downloadable content packs continuing the story from Mass Effect 2, as well as various additional weapons and armor packs.

On December 11th, 2011, BioWare officially announced Mass Effect 3, originally scheduled for a Holiday 2011 release. Mass Effect 3 is planned to be the final part of the Mass Effect trilogy, completing Commander Shepard’s story.

In this installment, the Reapers have invaded Earth and it’s up to Shepard and his team to assemble enough resources to end the Reaper threat once and for all.

Little is known about the game, other than a handful of characters, locations, and a general synopsis. New in Mass Effect 3 are different gameplay modes: action, story, or RPG, in which conversation options and combat difficulty are adjusted based on the player’s preference. Moreover, for the first time in the series’ history, multiplayer has been added as well. The final installment of the trilogy is intended to be the most difficult by far, with players fighting a variety of different types of enemies.

Controversy has already somewhat clouded the game’s release, as details about the first DLC pack, From Ashes, have emerged. Gamers were disappointed by the apparent exclusion of what many felt was an important inclusion to the series’ main storyline, and being forced to pay for it.

Mass Effect 3 will launch March 6th, 2012.

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