Mass Effect: In HIndsight

I finished my first playthrough of Mass Effect early last week. The conclusion was too easy (I played as a Soldier on Normal difficulty), but so thrilling and cinematic that it inspired me to roll up a brand new character and reply the campaign almost immediately.

My experience so far on my second playthrough has been a lot more frustrating. I'm now a low-level Vanguard fighting enemies on the Hardcore setting, so the combat is far from the cakewalk it was when I was a Soldier. The frustration has really begun to set in, however, and there's been something missing. While I'm making a concerted effort to play a very different character on my second attempt and make different choices in the way I handle missions, the story and the pacing of the game no longer grips me. There may be a lot of room to create a very different Commander Shepherd, but the RPG element is not pulling me in like I thought it would.

I already know why this is the case. The RPG elements are not drawing me in, simply because there are so very little RPG to the entire game in the first place. The way the character of Commander Shepherd is presented in the game is excellent, thanks entirely to the highly refined and highly cinematic dialog system. All the talking you do in Mass Effect, ironically, provides for most of the best moments in the game. The problem with the rest of their RPG formula is that it lacks any sort of depth. Each level gain gives you a couple points to use towards a set list of skills related to your chosen class. The progression in each skill is linear and there is no other trait development beyond this. When I first bought the game and was so engrossed in the gorgeous graphics and other bells and whistles, I nearly forgot that I used to enjoy simply pleasures in my RPGs, like branching skill trees, a cool selection of abilities and spells and highly customizable loot.

A lot of this is missing from Mass Effect, which has left me feeling very disappointed so far on my second play through the storyline. Now, more than ever, the game feels like a second-rate Gears of War with some very poorly conceived RPG elements tacked on for good measure. This realization has recently triggered a sort of gamer's hunger fixation and it had me craving a good RPG experience on my 360. I needed my fix and I needed it fast.

I have now run into the waiting arms of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. The winner of every conceivable RPG award in 2006, Oblivion largely satisfies what Mass Effect failed to deliver. When you want an open world to explore and a large variety of quests to pursue, you can't beat this game. BioWare's game has spoiled me on the graphics front, so the dialog system and look of the NPCs in Oblivion feels a bit primitive (literally, so many character faces in this game resemble apes). At the end of the day, it's still a beautiful game in its own right with its own fully realized fantasy world. An epic fantasy RPG does make a fine companion piece to an epic sci-fi (quasi) RPG and who can blame me for now owning the best RPGs for 2006 and 2007?

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Xbox 360: The Year That Was...

If I wasn't so lazy I would dig up my Future Shop receipt to find out the exact date of when I purchased my Xbox 360 last year. As I write this, it's been roughly a year, give or take a couple days. I wanted to take a moment now to reflect on the year that was; the year that I became a full-time console gamer again after more than 10 years of dedicated PC gaming.

2007 was a banner year for Xbox 360 gaming. The console was a full year ahead of the competition and was beginning to pick up steam with various high-profile game announcements, a solid online service and a decidedly safe, "middle of the road" strategy to win the hearts and minds of the core video gaming market. While Sony was inducing sticker shock with its sleek, expensve PS3, Nintendo pulled a few tricks out of its own hat by sticking to the family and courted the burgeoning casual games audience. The Xbox 360 played it safe, and continues to do so. They singled-mindedly target the young male, hardcore gamers and through its catalogs of games, stubbornly sticks to the bread and butter of games. Shooters, action games and more shooters dominate the 360 games library. Not that I have any problem with that.

I wanted to do a quick pass through on my gaming highlights with my 360 since last Christmas. Hit the jump for my personal year in review.

Gears of War and Rainbow Six: Vegas
What can be said about this double-whammy? Gears of War was often touted as the 360's first legitimate killer-app and I will gladly admit that it played a massive role in getting me to plunk down my $450 for my Premium edition box. Gorgeous graphics combined with fluid, responsive play mechanics to complete a game that truly felt next-gen when it came out in November 2006. I didn't actually pick this game up until around the end of December and have since played through it three times on co-op, once on each difficulty level. This speaks to how fun and polished the game is. Looking back on it now, it's likely one of the best co-op shooter experiences available anywhere.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Six: Vegas caught me a bit by surprise. I had played a few unsatisfying minutes of it over at my friend's place before I got my Box and only bought my own copy at his incessant recommendation. He sang its praises, calling it the "complete package". Hundreds of hours sunk in to the solo campaign, multiplayer and its addictive co-op modes, I can safely confirm those kudos. For a shooter fan like myself, RS:V had it all. Here was a tactical shooter that kept all the nail-biting realism of combat only if it made the overal gaming experience more fun. Did did away with the withering tedium of planning out every single step of a mission plan and opted for a fast-paced, intuitive squad system that put the fate your mission's success firmly in your hands, yet provided enough tactical depth to really make you feel like a commando ordering your troops around in the heat of battle.

While the game seemed to provide diminishing returns the more you played it, what with the brigade of bugs that ranged from annoying to the game-stopping variety, the full suite of online options gave this title so many legs to last months well after launch day. My personal favourite become the co-op terrorist hunt mode and I can't even begin to imagine the hours I wasted away ranking up on LVU Campus and Dante. And the terrorist body count, oh the body count!

Crackdown
Although this game came out a full two months after I purchased the 360, I consider it a system seller title just as much as Gears of War. Here as an open-world game that was truly open, allowing you to explore the entire world the moment you stepped into the shoes of a futuristic super agent. And explore you did, leveling up your agent's abilities as you used them and eventually earning the ability to clamber up the tallest buildings and leap across rooftops like an amped-up version of Morpheus from The Matrix.

Crackdown never full delivered on gamers' expectations that they would be immersed in a believable, breathing world and the skimpy narrative that drove the main campaign was hardly engrossing. There were crimelords to take down and you're the only capable of taking them down. So, what are you waiting for? Go get'em! The game was also criticized for its graphics. I loved the graphics in Crackdown. It may not have had the most intricate texturing or artistic design, but it provided such a sense of scale and momentum and comic book attitude that really supported the core gameplay. There were virtually no load times, as each section of the massive city would stream into memory and online co-cop notwithstanding, the frame rates were buttery smooth.

Xbox Live Gold
One might expect that an online service with a yearly price tag of $60 would be a hard sell for a veteran PC gamer so used to free online matchmaking and content. And in the beginning, I myself barely considered the possibility of getting a Gold membership. I was content to play Gears offline, along with all the passable single-player games that were bundled with my 360, including the likes of Gun and GRAW.

The temptation of playing online co-op in Gears and RS:V eventually wore down my resistance against the Live service. I worked out my investment of $5 a month to be a reasonable price for unlimited online play and took the plunge in early February. In the course of a Saturday afternoon, I upgraded to a new wireless router, went through the maddening network configurations and got myself online. It's been a sweet ride ever since. I've made some nice gaming buddies in the time I spent playing RS:V as well as meeting my share of Internet jackholes. I've been lucky enough to only have had one incident where I was compelled to leave an inflammatory message for another player and then proceed to ban them from ever communicating with me again.

How can I talk about Xbox Live without giving some online props to the fantastic community of mature gamers over at Adult Gaming Enthusiasts (AGE)? These friendly boys and girls focus on a fun, communal gaming experience and they get it down week after week.

Forza Motorsports 2
Forza is my most neglected good game in my library. Maybe it was the bad taste that Ridge Racer 6 had left in my mouth, but I was suddenly in the mood for a full-featured, realistic racing game. There were very few big game releases back in May, so I took the leap of faith and picked up what I knew would be a very frustrating racing experience.

Much to my surprised, I took to the steep learning curve very well. In fact, the curve wasn't so steep, it was completely customizable to how fast I was willing to learn and take on new challenges. That, in a nutshell, is the crowning achievement of this game. While the car graphics were superb and the tweaking, painting and upgrading mini-games proved to be quite addictive, none of that would have mattered if the designers didn't do such an amazing job of letting you dip you toes in, little by little.

In just a couple of weeks of regular play, I was turning off most of the driving assists, driving stick and barreling around the tracks, actually winning races and have a grand old time. It's any wonder why my Forza gaming petered out so drastically after another couple of weeks. I still want to finish the solo career mode and unlock the bevy of cutting-edge racing prototypes that are still available to drive. One of these days, I'll get back to playing.

BioShock
Hailed by many as the undisputed game of the year when it was still only August, BioShock slapped the gaming public awake after a seemingly endless drought of game releases during the summer. Here now was a game that pretty much heralded the avalanche of gaming goodness that would continue with Halo 3 and all the quality titles that have come out this fall and winter.

I never played the System Shock games. BioShock is the spiritual successor to that series and based on my experiences with 2K Boston's masterpiece, I can understand why those games are still held so near and dear to gamers' hearts. This game stands out in so many ways: the eye-poppingly sumptious visuals, the mature story that was heavily influenced by Ayn Rand's ideologies, the integration between adventure, shooter and RPG genres. This game pretty much has it all, with the exception of multiplayer options and truly satisfying replay value. The end game was also particularly weak given the quality of the early parts of the game. I grew tired of the combat and exploration and was waiting for the game to really throw me a curveball gameplay-wise.

Blemishes aside, BioShock is still the most mature, sophisticated and atmospheric shooter you'll find on the Xbox 360. It's also one of the only real valid contenders for Game of the Year.

Mass Effect
I had been waiting for this game since day one. This game was my Halo 3, the game that I would call in sick from work for, the game that would dominate my mindshare for several days on end. Mass Effect promised so much and in many ways fell short on most of those promises. The open-world galaxy exploration turned out to be quite shallow and repetitive. The combat system was solid, but tactical control over your squad mates was trimmed down and simplified. The dialog system was superb, but the much-hyped ability to interrupt the flow of conversation with a conversation choice never made the cut to the final version. The graphics were gorgeous, but came at the price of load times, inconsistent frame rates and texture pop-in.

The game is essentially dotted with dozens of tiny imperfections and bizarre design choices, yet the beauty of the game shines through despite all of that. The story and plotting is classic space opera fare, but expertly written and brought to life by full spoken dialog performed by professional actors. The RPG system may have lacked depth, but it never got in the way of what you wanted to do in the game. And I must admit it was so refreshing to see a Gears of War style of combat and done so competently in a role-playing game. They really did pull of the real-time combat very well.

Finally, Mass Effect deserves accolades merely by having a proper climax and end sequence. Too many games skimp on their endings these days, with even A-list titles like BioShock dishing out some miserable payoffs for your efforts in completing the entire game. Mass Effect bucks this trend with a vengeance by providing players a satisfying and cinematic, if not the most challenging, conclusion.

And that wraps up my review of my first year with the Xbox 360. There were certainly honourable mentions that I failed to, err, mention, but time and space is limited. What I'd like to post up next are my top stinkers of the past year. These are the games and experiences that I would have preferred not to have but they became a part of my gaming life anyway, for better or worse.

Stay tuned for that next time, hopefully before 2008 rolls around...

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2007 Fall Update: What I Want for Christmas

Dear XBOX Santa,

I'm writing to you to let you know what a good boy I've been this year. I know you're a little late with the Fall update and that's okay. I was just maybe hoping to ask you for something special this year.

I've heard about the Xbox Originals program and the new features to browse the friends of my friends and I don't have a problem with you bringing these goodies to all the kids for Christmas this year. I mean, I probably have no more reason to download old Xbox games now that I've already bought Ninja Gaiden and Splinter Cell: Double Agent. I can see how other gamers may have missed out on some older titles and now they can get a chance to play them without going to the store to buy the disc version. I mean, our 20GB hard drives have so much empty space waiting to be filled up, this is the perfect way to do it. Good on you, Santa, for being so smart!

I also would never have thought of the idea to add MySpace and Facebook features to the Xbox Live community. Even though I barely game with, let alone speak with, more than 10 or so people on my friends list, I would love the ability to randomly add their friends to my list and would look forward to not speaking to or gaming with them in the near future.

Besides letting you know how great I think these improvements are for the Fall Update, what I really wanted to ask for Christmas is entirely different. It's almost too small and basic a thing to ask for, I almost feel like I'm insulting you to even bring it up, but I've been really wanting this done for Xbox Live for a very long time. So if you'll just hear me out, I'll go ahead and ask you:

Can you please fix the fucking Xbox Live guide?

Honestly, Santa, what is up with the guide menus? If I get nothing else this Christmas, could you puh-lease recode the Xbox Live guide so that its responsiveness is not directly tied to network performance? When the network is busy or running at less than optimal levels, why does the mere act of opening or closing the guide have to be so torturous? Why in the name of all that is beautiful and pristine must my guide menu freeze in place for several seconds, or even minutes, as it struggles to populate my friends list, or send a message or delete a friend or any number of simple, mundane tasks? Is it too much to ask, oh dear Santa, to maybe code the guide actions separately from the actual function of pulling the data off the network? Xbox Live as a whole is already a fairly impressive feat of software engineering, so do you think you and your tech-minded elves up in the North Pole might be able to implement this very simple improvement?

Oh, Santa, I know I'm sounding like a whiney bitch right now, but I just don't understand what I've done to deserve this. Like I've said, I've been really good boy this year. I bought a lot of your A-list titles, I didn't get my Xbox modded and I dished out my $50 for the privilege of playing online games against immature, foul-mouthed hellions. Against my better judgment, I even bought crap like Perfect Dark Zero and the Vision camera.

I've been a good boy, Santa. Please fix the guide this Christmas. Please don't ever let me see another hanging, empty guide screen that forces me to restart my Xbox. PLEASE.

UPDATE:
The fall update has dropped and I am a satisfied, if not a happy, camper. The dashboard guide is much more responsive now to the point where I'd describe it as zippy. It can still take some time to refresh information on the screen, however, they seem to have largely eliminated the hanging, blank guide screens I've become so familiar with these last few months. Good job, Santa, you done me good this Christmas.

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Mass Effect: Emotional Robots

I'm roughly 27 hours into Mass Effect and I only just picked up Liara and ventured out into Feros to investigate those mysterious Geth attacks. Side-questing has been incredibly rewarding despite the generic layout of the space dungeons, as I've been able to grind up my character levels high enough to the point where I'm now literally just brushing past enemies found in the main storyline quests. Is it just me thinking this, or is it far to easy to max out those skills?

Through out the routine of space-faring and combat, I have come across some moments that really underlined the quality of the writing found in this game. The writing, best displayed in the dialog encounters with NPCs, is top-notch. It strikes this perfect balance between hifalutin pretentiousness and space opera cheese. There are the usual mundane exchanges between filler characters and merchants to be found here, but once in while there come moments when I come away from an encounter in disbelief that I just experienced this in a mere video game.

There was a prime example of this on one of my return trips to the Citadel, the first "town" that is available to you at the start of the game. I was going about my errands when I received a distress call from some security guards who were attempting to talk down some sort of escaped lab rab out of committing suicide. When I arrived on the scene, I was handed a tranquilizer dart and told to subdue the esapee, an armed and distressed young woman hiding out behind a crate on the space dock.

What followed was an affecting and very entertaining bit of verbal combat. For all the stiffness in the facial animations, the voice acting is still excellent. I was really taken in by the lab escapee's tragic story of torture and madness. I eventually managed to get close enough to stick her with the tranquilizer, ignoring her dementia-fueled protests and ramblings.

After I turned her over to the authorities, I couldn't help but wonder of her fate. I caught myself still thinking some of the things she had said and the pain in her voice. That's when I realized just how marvelous the writing was in Mass Effect and how so very few games have even approached this level of emotional involvement.

This RPG is so much more than just shooting robots and picking up sweet loot. It's so much more.

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