Done Playing: Mass Effect (Xbox 360)
Put a bow on it...
As is often the case, just after my last post on Mass Effect I wound up finishing the game and putting off the final recap until I’d forgotten most of what I’d done. Trying not to give away super specific stuff I’ll just say that by the end I wound up taking the high road — the Paragon, goody-goody route — until it came to dealing with that damned Council that was always dogging me. I conveniently chose to “sacrifice them for the better good of civilized kind” but really I was glad to see them go. That’s… probably had an effect on my standings in Mass Effect 2 but it somehow made humans look like the hardasses of the universe and got us in charge of The Council 2.0. Happy coincidence, that.
Having played Mass Effect 2 by the time of this writing I will say that if you have any interest in experiencing the original, do it first! Mass Effect has a massively effective bucketload of glitches, hitches, and rough edges that make it look like a PlayStation 2 game from 2001 in comparison. I’d like to go back for a few Achievements but having watched Katy play through it as I’m playing the sequel I don’t think I could stomach it for even the 14 hours it takes to speed run the main story.
My final play time was somewhere around 27 hours and I’d definitely had my fill of Bioware’s expansive galaxy by then. The framerates go to hell by the second half and the hard-to-differentiate gear makes inventory “management” a painful misnomer. Still, there’s a great sci-fi universe to explore in Mass Effect and as much backstory as the sequel offers there’s nothing like experiencing it first hand, even if you run through it being a jerk to everyone.
