Mass Effect – Xbox 360 English Review

        Even if we consider ourselves to be immune to all the PR talk, when a producer like BioWare announces that it’s working on a new title, our indifference cannot persist. Especially if we are declared fans of the RPG genre. Clearly, if we play mostly on PC, the news that the new game of the Canadian Studious will be an Xbox 360 exclusive will get us cursing between clenched teeth (or out loud, depending on the temperament), but soon enough, we will still be asking ourselves, "When will they launch it on PC?". Or, for the more weak of heart (like the undersigned), “How much is an Xbox 360 nowadays?”
        But when it was announced, Mass Effect (ME) was a surprise in several regards. First of all, instead of starting to work on the long-awaited Knights of the Old Republic III, BioWare preferred developing an internal licence. Licence for which, it seems, the producers have great plans: Mass Effect is the first game of a trilogy. Secondly, because it used the Unreal 3 engine and a new dialogues system, ME promised to take the notion of cinematic experience to a new level. But maybe the most surprising thing was that the battles were to be fought in real-time, very much like in an authentic 3rd person shooter.
        And as further proof of the producer’s confidence, a few months before the game’s launch, the fans were treated with Revelation, a book written by Drew Karpyshyn, which acted as prequel, as the story of the novel takes place some 20 years before the events in the game. And unlike other SF universes, in Mass effect the future of the human race is brighter than one would expect.

        In 2148, humanity discovers on Mars a bunker of alien origin containing information and technologies that belonged to the Protheans, a race mysteriously gone extinct some 50.000 years ago. This discovery leads to a remarkable technological progress, the formation of a new planetary government – The Systems Alliance – and the exploration of the solar system. One year later the first Mass Relay is discovered, a galactic gate that allows instantaneous travel across huge distances. Encouraged by this amazing technology, humanity began colonizing other planets while discovering more and more relays. But in 2157, without knowing it, the Alliance crosses the border of the Turian Empire. The result was known as the First Contact War.
        Luckily for us, the immediate deployment of the Turian fleets catches the attention of the Galactic Council which intervenes before humanity is sent back to the Stone Age. Human kind thus learns that the Turians are part of a larger and more numerous galactic community, ruled by the above mentioned Council. Its capital is the Citadel, an immense space station that apparently was also built by the Protheans, just like the relays. Free from a bleak future of a war with the Turians, humanity continues its development unhindered, and after only eight years it manages to have an embassy on the Citadel, an honour that few races can boast.
        One of the interesting aspects of the ME universe, that is as obvious in Revelation as in the game itself, is that politics has a very important role and every action of every race affects the galactic community. That is why, even though human kind has made remarkable progress in every field, they are looked at with envy, suspicion and even fear by the other races who think humanity is not ready yet for its ever more important role in the galactic community. This hostile attitude will be more than obvious in some of the dialogues along the game.