This game was developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts running on the Frostbite 3 game engine. It was released in March 2017 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. It is an action Role playing game with the setup of sci-fi space. If you are a Star Wars fan, Star Trek, Babylon 5 etc you essentially get those vibes here. Its the fourth latest installment after the Mass Effect trilogy.
To be honest I wanted to cover this game after doing the other 3 previous Mass Effect games prior to this one because I was already playing them however they recently released the Mass Effect Legendary edition which is a total revamp of the old games. So I thought It wouldn't be nice for you to see the old trilogy but rather I restart and get the Legendary edition as the difference with it and the old games is day and night. In the meantime I thought let me do this for you guys then I will backtrack hopefully soon. So lets get to it.
I had never played Mass Effect games before and I remember friends of mine 10 years ago who had this game series were ecstatic at how incredible this series was. I never secured one for myself. So my experience with the games is actually very recent and turns out I truly had a great time. My first impressions of this game were actually satisfactory in an instant as the very first aspect of visuals was absolutely fulfilled to my taste. This game hasn't yet received a recent fps patch like its predecessors (Legendary edition has resolution and frame boost update & its important to note the Xbox version is the best version) but I presume it might come in the near future.
I want to state something of critical importance: when you have a PlayStation 5 and an Xbox Series X/S, when playing old games you are essentially running the old game code and not native code of the current gen console so results will vary. For example when playing God of war you are running PlayStation 4 patched code, yes patched to 60fps (the 2018 God of war). So its still the same game but with a slight touch and its absolutely not using the current gen console features.
Bear in mind last gen consoles couldn't do 60fps even with a frame unlock. In essence its like PlayStation 5 is emulating what PlayStation 4 does but better. Remember Xbox back compart is a bit more expansive and worthwhile as you can play almost if not all old Xbox games on your new Xbox. With PlayStation its sort of more or less the same but not entirely liberal as the Microsoft approach because with PlayStation its select titles although there may be in the thousands you still cant just put in your PS3 CD into your PS5 expecting it to run.
There is also the fps boost feature on Xbox. With this be very careful. When you toggle this option you are bound to lose resolution in most instances I have seen. So for example if the old game on Xbox One was 900p 30fps If the fps boost permits it to 60fps you might drop into the 800p or even 7 hundred and something. Remember the golden formula: the higher the frames the less the resolution and vice versa, having a balance of the two takes a good GPU and really good development optimization. To clarify further both SX and PS5 GPU's are premium but old game code cant be enhanced by these machines alone to take advantage of the hardware benefits but its needful for the developer or back compart teams to go back and make some tweaks. So don't expect a game to look vastly different on your new console as limitations lay within the game code.
Now back to this game, to have you to understand this game is a combination of cover based shooting, dialogue driven and general open world aspects having a mix of Gears of war and Dragon age vibes. Although Gears of War is my favorite Xbox title I found this game to be better. Apart from the great visuals and character models I fell in love with the character movement, Its very smooth realistic and just flexible in every way unlike Gears which is very rigid. To some extent you will feel that kind of Red Dead Redemption 2 feel in terms of character movement with an even more ease of movement. The camera is 3rd person which is great and it doesn't feel restrictive at all.
The gameplay is just bar none amazing. You will enjoy every combat encounter and you have a party of two extra characters (just like gears of war) that you can give instructions to when needful but generally the AI is very good and takes care of business for you. You can even switch between party members for different missions allowing for versatility. Swapping guns and using my bio tech abilities and combat armor was just fantastic.
There is absolutely a tone of things to do in the game. First of all the story is very long and deep. You have to love dialogue driven games and paying attention. The second aspect is the gear upgrade and weapon system. This is where things get serious. You don't just loot and upgrade gear. Per planet you have to examine (scan), loot, put the resources into research and have them developed into usable gear. Ignoring this will make the combat engagements unbearable. Here's the thing In this game and the trilogy essentially you are the boss of everything both in the battlefield and general management of you mother bases (the nexus, the Tempest etc.). Things get seriously mentally cumbersome as you have to pay attention to every little detail.
The character upgrade system is propelled by more battle engagements and is generally straightforward. Let me just list some of the things you need to do: mining, lots of long side quests, releasing relevant people from the pods, managing relationships, finding lost ships, scanning for resources and tech on each planet, mining for resources etc. So if you have a dream of becoming a manager I think start with this game (lol). The downside regarding this game is the feeling of a lack of direction. You can easily lose track of what you need to do and ought to have done. Remember like any other RPG game you have to be on point for a satisfactory ending. There is barely solid guidance as to what you need to do next, its very partial and you can easily forget stuff to do.
This is a very rich dialogue driven game. Its a massive in-depth story filled with so much to do. The visuals are sublime and combined with a fluid gameplay its just good for a 3rd person perspective gamer. Going forward I wish they give a solid direction for missions, reduce overwhelming and confusing side stories and gear upgrade resources narrowing it down to more of purpose rather than quantity. Also the character expressions need a little tweak to show better emotional expressions during dialogue. Overall a game worth playing indeed. If you enjoy the reviews please contribute by sharing your views too.
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