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Mass Effect 1 starts off slowly. You play as Captain Shepard (first name and gender are flexible), assigned to a top-secret vessel in the Alliance Navy, and are quickly launched into a galaxy-spanning tale of backstabbing, giant robotic monstrosities, sacrifice, redemption, and lots of sci-fi cliches. Humans are notably low in the political food chain of the galaxy, but you have the pleasure of being the first human assigned to the Spectres (basically, Jedi Knight/secret agent hybrids of a sort) to perform duly impressive missions for the Galactic Council. This being a Bioware title, much of your time is absorbed by sitting around chatting with your fully voiced teammates, most of whom are extraterrestrials.
The game's strong points are superb acting (although one major character's voice will be uncannily familiar if you've played Bioware's earlier title Knights of the Old Republic), ridiculously deep backstory, and very meaningful story decisions (more on this later).
Weak points include miserably repetitive and floaty vehicle-based surface exploration of planets, which is far duller than you might think - none of the planets have vegetation or actual terrain formations beyond different height elevations of the same two or three textures of ground. Regular squad combat is better, although still a bit shaky, due to nearly all weapons being slightly better versions of the same sniper rifle-assault rifle-shotgun-pistol set. Extensive inventory management is a must, but you won't see particularly dramatic results from your fiddling.
Rating: 8/10
Superb, genuinely emotional story (with blue alien romance!), slightly hampered by funky combat. Still worth playing, particularly for reasons you'll see below.
Mass Effect 2's story kicks in a couple of years after the events of Mass Effect 1, and your character has quite literally come back from the dead. Your lovely team is disbanded, and you've been resurrected by people you didn't particularly like in the first game. Combat in ME2 is even more like a cover-based shooter (augmented by visually impressive biotic and tech powers) than ME1's gunfights, and most inventory management is gone along with the obnoxious vehicle sections. The story is better than ever, though, due in no small part to the fact that you can (and definitely should) import your Mass Effect 1 character in their entirety into the game. Besides preserving their appearance (and attitude), virtually every sidequest and plot choice influence the events of Mass Effect 2, some more dramatically than others. The capacity for alien romance is a bit ludicrous in some ways, but character development is absolutely wonderful to experience, especially since most missions are focused on acquiring or helping a teammate. The suicide mission endgame is nerve-wracking, as any member of your crew (even your romantic partner or a friend from the first game) can easily meet their demise in the final hour of gameplay. There's no guarantee that even you will make it out alive, even if you do complete the mission successfully, so the tension is quite genuine.
Rating: 9.5/10
Glorious. Easily the best examples of meaningful role-playing I've seen, supported by fun gunfights and a vicious set of powers to experiment with. Bioware is at its finest with this title.
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More importantly (for you lovely readers) I'm back into Minecraft, and our multiplayer server is about to be reincarnated, which will mean more features from yours truly!
Next: More Minecraft, I hope.
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