[XBOX360] Mass Effect

I'm currently playing Mass Effect. Here are my thoughts.

The game has(had) a lot of potential, but in my opinion it just isn't up to par. I've put about 25 hours into it so far, and it's just incredibly repetitive. Here's pretty much how I could sum up what the game is. Take Halo and KOTOR, stick them in a blender with a few piles of poo, and blend them all together and you get Mass Effect.

One of the biggest problems with the game, in my opinion, is the complexness. Not really the fact that it's complex, but that it's complex and offers little-to-no explanation or tutorial of any sort.

Strangely, although the game is complex, it's also incredibly simple, repetitive, and boring. You can get 4 different types of weapons: pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle. They are all pretty unique weapon types, with different accuracies and rates of fire, but they all look the same. There's a pistol weapon model, shotgun weapon model, assault rifle weapon model, and sniper rifle weapon model. When you get a new pistol, it looks exactly the same as your old one, except for the color. This is the same for EVERY WEAPON IN THE GAME.

The graphics are also pretty shitty compared to other Xbox360 titles. And while the base graphics to the game are shitty, the creators decided they wanted to make them even shittier. By default, there's a video option to make the game look fuzzy and blurry. What the fuck? I thought something was wrong with my TV at first. Luckily, once you figure this out, you can pretty easily turn it off. Even then, though, the graphics are really lacking. Shadows look really blocky, lots of things look really blocky. It doesn't look "smooth" like other 360 games.

The gameplay itself is pretty repetitive, too. What I've been doing for the past ~10 hours of gameplay is this:

1. Look at journal to see what quest I need to do.
2. Go to the planet that the quest is done at.
3. Save X base from alien invasion/check on X base for survivors/etc.
4. Check my map for other "anomolies" to investigate.
5. Repeat.

And it wouldn't be so bad if there were some sort of uniqueness to the quests or the planets, but all of the planets are basically the same thing, some have more mountains and some are hot or cold or green or blue, but they're all the same thing. All of the quests are "our base has lost signal and we need you to investigate" or "our base has put out a distress signal and we need you to investigate" etc.

To go right along with the repetition, there's the same exact interface for every single action you do aside from combat. Want to decrypt a message? You get a screen with A, B, X, and Y, and they light up in a certain order and you have to press them in that order before the time runs out. Want to survey a mineral node? Same thing. Want to open a locked locker? Same thing. Want to salvage some parts from a crashed probe? Same thing. You get my drift.

Overall, the game is a big letdown. As far as I know, it's gotten really good reviews, and lots of people have told me it's a great game, but I'm incredibly disappointed with it. It feels like a prototype game or something, like it isn't finished. It could have been so much better than it is, but it falls way short of it's potential. The only reason I'm still playing it is in hopes that it gets better somehow.