Xbox 360 - Turok

Turok by Touchstone

A long time ago, well not really that long, but for technology it's a long time... I played Turok on N64. That game was superb (at the time). Note, I'd write a review on it here, but it's kind of not relevent. I digress. Anyway, I was anxious to see a new Turok for the Xbox 360 and preordered it. I picked it up the day it was released, but I hadn't had time to sit down and actually review it until now. Better late...

Style: First person shooter
Online Capabilities: Untested

Story

Turok (and company) are stranded on a planet with Dinosaurs (and bad guys). So, it's pretty obvious what you need to do. The subtext is that you get stranded there because the ship crashes. So, you must look for survivors and things from the crash while avoiding the dinosaurs and bad guys. There's plenty of in-game cinematics to explain what's going on. The gaming problem, though, is that it just seems to take forever to get from point A to point B (lots of subchapters to get there). The story, overall, was contrived, trite and already been done before. You really didn't care about the characters and the bosses were just thrown in, not as a story element that actually makes any sense, but because they could. The game was overly hard, but without any real reason to be.

Graphics

The one thing I will say about this game is that the graphics are amazing. They are equally as amazing as Halo 3 or Uncharted (PS3). But, as with many games, sometimes the fluid and excellent high res graphics are about the extent of it. Not so much in Turok.

The environments are lush, the jungles are teaming with plants (probably too many actually). The interiors are as equally well done. Turok's animated movements are quite well done as well. The only real problem is the skin tone, skin surface maps and skin colorings. They seem a bit too video gamey. I would have prefered a more realistic approach to the skin textures. However, I can overlook this if the gameplay works well.

Gameplay

The Gameplay in Turok is reasonably well done, but... (and there's always a but), the controls sometimes lack. Switching between weapons has a lag time that's entirely unbearable. So, if you're in a crunch and you need your knife now, you end up fumbling trying to get to it. So, Turok ends up dying and you restart the level. Picking up weapons is equally annoying. When you walk over a weapon that you want, it pops up a graphic asking which slot you want the weapon in (using the X or Y button). This means you need to remember which weapon is in which slot or you have to review your weapon slots first. I guess they were trying to be flexible, but again, in a crunch you really can't worry about what's what.

Checkpoints

Unfortunately, the game creators chose to use checkpoints as saving places. The problem, however, isn't that it has checkpoints, it that the game doesn't have nearly enough of them. So, you end up restarting levels over and over and over. This is extremely frustrating. I've been trying to get through this game as a result, but I just have to keep putting it down because it's so frustrating I want to throw the controller (not a good thing).

Weapon Fumbling

The other issue I have with the weapons is that you'll see an icon that tells you to press the right trigger. You press it and nothing happens. This is what I mean by sluggish. Like, for example, when you get close enough to a dinosaur, this icon will appear and, if the game accepts your input, you'll do a fatality move on the dinosaur. Unfortunately, when this icon appears, it's hit or miss (mostly miss). So, you press the right trigger and you don't do the move and the dinosaur hammers you and Turok falls down or, worse, dies.

No HUD

The lack of a scanner or some kind of enemy heads up display is extremely frustrating. So, you have no idea what direction a dinosaur or bad guy might come. There are times later into the game that I know the game generates one or more dinosaurs immediately behind you for the purpose of making the game hard. Assuming, however, they were living in a time where they had a craft capable of space travel, then they would damn well have life sign scanners.

Life display

The game designers chose not to give a life meter. Instead, you get this red halo around the screen which turns blurry. Well, unfortunately, while it might be a cool little effect, it's rather unrealistic. If you were simply knocked down, your eyes wouldn't turn blurry with a red halo. You might pass out or get the wind knocked out, but your eyes wouldn't be blurry in that way. The blur only serves to make the game even harder. Worse, when the blur appears, the game won't allow you to focus on or aim at the creatures around you. So, it just ends up a field day for them. Basically, Turok is going to die unless you can manage to get far enough away to get Turok's health back. Turok regenerates health over time, but it takes a few seconds to start. As with most other FPS games, I'd much rather have to go search for health packs than deal with this Turok system. Unfortunately, there are no health pickups or anything you can carry with you. You just have to wait it out for Turok's health to regenerate.

Weapons

As Turok progresses, he can get more and more types of weapons to use. I have personally found that the most effective weapon against the dinosaurs (when it works) is the knife. It can kill them with one move versus the guns that eat up much ammo. For the bad guys, the guns are really the only way unless you can sneak up on them. The sniper rifle is especially handy for long distance shots. It works well on dinosaurs too, but they move around too much and it's hard to take aim.

Audio

The audio and music of this game are well done. The musical themes are very cinematic and were very much in keeping with the mood being presented. I just found that the music was a bit repetitive in places. They could have varied the scores a bit more to keep it from repeating too much.

Game Design

The designers were not thinking of the gamer when they designed this game. Because of the checkpoint system and the lack of save points, you are forever starting over levels. Basically, this is the style of game where you progress a little at a time, but the main character dies over and over until you finally figure out the trick to the level.

Note to game designers, you should use Turok as the prime example of what not to do when creating a game. The when Turok dies, it takes up to 15-30 seconds for the level to reload. This is absolutely ridiculous. The level is already in memory, so they should just need rewind and restart it. This should take about 3 seconds at most. Taking 30 seconds or so is just a time waster. It interrupts the playing and it interrupts your train of strategy.

Also note that as the game progresses, the absurdity of the level difficulty increases. For example, in order to blow the generator (trite story element, BTW), you have avoid being spit acid on by flying bugs. I mean, come on. Why would there be flying bugs right at this moment in time? Also, these bugs have absolutely perfect aim. There is just no way that these stupid flying dinosaurish bugs have this perfect of acid spray aim. This is the absurdity that makes this game not anything like Turok on the N64. The N64 had room puzzles combined with dinosaur hunting. There was more to it than just being hunted continuously.

Overall

I enjoyed playing this game for the story (to a point), but it was nowhere near as fun as the N64 version. I wish they had attempted to recapture the fun of the N64 version with an updated play style, but with more puzzles. This game didn't capture that element and the lack of checkpoints made the game far too frustrating. If you like games containing few checkpoints (you find that challenging), then you might want to check out Turok. Otherwise, skip it. There are far better first person shooters available.

Score

• Graphics: 9/10 (only because nothing is perfect)
  
• Sound: 9/10
  
• Controls: 5/10 (sluggish, difficult to change weapons)
• Bang-2-Buck: 7/10 (it'll keep you playing for a while, but frustrating because of lack of checkpoints)
• Replay value: 1/10 (Definitely won't play it again)
• Overall: 6/10 (good, but could be better, loading times unbearable, not enough checkpoints)
  

Xbox 360 - Assassin's Creed Game Review

Assassin's Creed by Ubisoft

At first impression, you might think Assassin's Creed isn't a game that you'd really want to play. In fact, I didn't buy this game immediately when it was released. I only later bought it on a whim. Occasionally, you find sleeper hits and this is definitely a sleeper.

When I began playing the game, it was obvious that Ubisoft had a winner in this game. A winner not so much in the gameplay (we'll get to that), but the overall storyline. The mixing of old world and high tech works quite well to bring the story across and compel you to play the game just to see how it unfolds. For the same reason that the Half Life story was so compelling, Assassin's Creed is even more compelling. In Assassin's Creed, you play two characters at the same time. In the present, you play Desmond Miles. Desmond has been captured and held prisoner by the biotech company Abstergo in hopes of using a mind viewing device to view genetic memories and determine the location of a device from the past.

The genetic memory amplifier allows both you and the room participants to watch. It also pulls memories from past ancestors and lets you relive their lives through the amplifier. The only problem is that you must become an Assassin in order to fully integrate into the memories.

In the past, you play as Altair who is an Assassin who follows the assassin's creed. Unfortunately, Altair has fallen from grace and must regain his assassin's privileges. That's where the player comes in. You must help Altair regain his honor, privileges and equipment.

Gameplay

The game starts in the lab, but very quickly gets you into the amplifier and begins reconstructing the genetic memories. Each level unlocks a specific set of genetic memories getting you closer to unlocking the target memory.

For most of the game, you'll spend playing as Altair in the past doing assassin missions. This portion of the game is the meat of the game. You can exit out of the past at any time and get back to the present. But, you'll quickly find out there's very little to do in the present. So, in order to progress, you need to complete the past missions.

Playing as Altair

Missions

There are basically four types of mini main missions for each level: Eavesdropping, Pickpocketing, Intimidation and timed assassinations or sometimes flag recovery. These 'mini' missions unlock the final boss assassination mission. You must complete a certain number of mini missions before you can do the final boss mission on each level. There are additional unrelated missions in the cities as well such as rescuing citizens, climbing towers to open up your map (views), capturing city flags and assassination of Templar Knights.

Cities

The Cities are divided into usually three or four areas. As you complete the game, these sections open up on later missions. So, you might have to visit the same city several times, but in a different section for different missions.

Traveling

For the first portions of the game, you'll need to get a horse and ride to each of the cities. Once you have visited each of the cities once, you can 'fast travel' to cities and avoid traveling by horse (unless you really want to). Note that there are really no main missions on the roads when traveling between the cities. There are, however, side unrelated missions (flags, climbing towers and templar knights).

Playing as Desmond

When you're in the lab and not on the table, you can wander around and do a small amount of detective work. As you progress through the game, you'll want to talk to Lucy as much as you can. She reveals a lot of information about Desmond, about the company and about what's really going on. But, even as much information as you can gather, it only gives you background information. It is not intrinsic to finishing the game, which is unfortunate. But, if you want to get all of the challenge points on the Xbox 360, then you'll need to do everything in the lab.

Graphics

Assassin's Creed is another game with stunning 3D visuals. Altair's wardrobe (and that of the other assassins) is top knotch graphic design. The robes flow pretty well, but can be a bit stiff at times. However, there is simulated wind against the fabric which is quite convincing. The most realistic is Altair's climbing abilities. This is where this game excels. The amount of time they put into Altair's jumping and climbing is amazing. When he climbs a tower, it looks like you would expect someone to climb. Obviously, Altair is quite adept at climbing and can obviously do so without slipping or falling no matter what he's climbing.

Sound

The audio effects and soundtrack work quite well to move and pace the scenes. There are few cut scenes, but there are some in the games (specifically at the beginning of each level). You can't skip them, so if you're playing through a second time, you have to wait them out.

Criticisms

Assassin's Creed is a bit repetitive. After you have done a few of the four types of missions (listed above), it's pretty well been done. What you do doesn't change, you just do more and more of it. The only refreshing change is the timed assassin missions or flag capturing missions. These are really the only challenge missions in the game. They do change, but again get repetitive. Even above the repetitive nature of the game, the story is still compelling.

The present day lab feels a bit like Half Life. I wish that there had been more to do in present day. In fact, the story would have been even more compelling had there been an equal number of things to do between the past and present to move the story along. But, that didn't happen.

According to a website that I found, there will be three games in total (a trilogy of games). But, I've also read that there were to be a trilogy of books, but were canceled because of some issues to do with some of the material they based the game on. I'm concerned that this may limit, change or even cancel the final two games in this series. It is clear that the end of Assassin's Creed is a cliffhanger. It's also clear that there are planned to be more games. let's just hope they happen.

Ubisoft set up an incredibly detailed and well thought out world. The problem is, they didn't put that much thought into the missions within this world. The missions are too structured, rigid and limited. So, they end up repetitive and banal after a while. If Ubisoft wanted to take this to the next step, this could easily turn into an RPG.

Score

• Graphics: 9/10
• Sound: 8/10
• Gameplay: 6.7/10 (a bit too repetitive)
• Bang-for-the-buck: 8.5/10
• Replay Value: 2/10 (not enough to do after game is finished & too short)
  
• Overall: 7.5/10 (again, due to its repetitive nature)
  

Xbox 360 & PS3 - The Darkness

The Darkness by 2K games

The Darkness is one of those games that seems like it should be a taboo subject. In reality, if you can ignore the semi-demonic aspects of the main character and what you have to do, the story is really pretty decent. However, this is a first person shooter through-and-through.

Graphics

The graphics in this game were always fluid and functional (unlike Mass Effect). The Darkness gives you everything you want to see in a first person shooter. You have a first person view, you have special powers, you can pick up weapons from just about everywhere. So, there's no lack of weapons in this game.

Sound

The sound quality of this game, while not a masterpiece, certainly fits the mood properly. The key story moments offer more compelling soundtrack themes while the background music is kept to a minimum. This leads to a good balance of music to gameplay. The music also works quite well to enhance the gameplay.

Story Line

The Darkness is effectively about an orphaned kid who was taken in by a fictitious mafioso-type family. Then, this family turns on him later and effectively wants him (your character) dead. In that light, we come to find out that this character also has the power of 'The Darkness' (when he turned 18) which is a demonic creature that gives certain powers to the inhabitant. These powers give you the ability to kill much more efficiently than with a gun alone. As you progress through the game, these Darkness powers grow and expand giving much more powerful Darkness powers.

The way the game unravels is well done. The romantic encounter is a bit stilted because there was little setup. But, it kind of worked in an awkward kind of way.

Gameplay

Overall, the character is easy to control and the darkness powers are easy to switch between. The hardest part of this game was knowing when you can and can't use the darkness powers. For example, if you're standing directly under a bright street lamp, you can't use them for long. By the same token, you can either shoot out the lamp or use a darkness power to break it. Once it's dark enough, your darkness powers regenerate and can be used. Also, so long as it remains dark, you can regenerate the powers continually.

The guns in the game are reasonably decent. Mostly small handgun varieties and a few semi-automatic and automatic weapons. They're reasonably efficient to use. But, the real benefit is in the darkness powers. This is really what the game wants you to use.

Quests

The Darkness is kind of like Grand Theft Auto (review coming soon) in that you get assigned quests by specific individuals you meet. So, you have to roam the game in order to find these people in order to complete their quests. Some of the quests are intrinsic to moving the story forward and others are side quests that you do just to get extras. The game doesn't force you to move in a linear progression specifically. If you choose to wander around and do all side quests, you can leave your main quest activity hanging until you're done. So, in this way, it is kind of like an RPG style questing system.

Multiplayer

This game does offer an Xbox Live multiplayer component. So, if you're looking to get all Challenge Points, you will have to play the multiplayer portions. Note, though, that you are required to basically set up your own server in order to host games. Most times, people aren't hosting games on Xbox Live, so you're likely the one who will have to host them.

Overall

The game was lengthy enough to be well worth the money. The Darkness powers work well to get you through the game. The 3D performance is stellar when compared to some other recent games. The 3D detail is reasonably decent, but not nearly as detailed as some more recent games.

Overall, I'd recommend this game if you like this type of genre. If you're not into the demonic aspects and the killing of the game, then you might want to skip it. Note, the replay value of this game is low because if you've done nearly everything, then going through it a second time less than thrilling as there's not much else to do (other than look for more bonus things).

Score:

• Graphics: 8/10
• Sound: 9/10
• Gameplay: 8/10
• Story: 9.5/10
• Overall: 8.5/10
• Replay Value: 4/10

Xbox 360 - Lost Odyssey

Lost Odyssey by Microsoft Studios

Even though Lost Odyssey is 3 discs long, this review is short and sweet. If you like Final Fantasy VII, get Lost Odyssey. It is, for all intents and purposes, a clone of Final Fantasy VII.. not quite as well done, of course. If you didn't like Final Fantasy VII or are not a fan of turn-based games, skip Lost Odyssey.

This game claims to be an RPG, but Mass Effect and Oblivion are more an RPG than this is. This game is basically turn based random encounters to level up. This game has much more in common with Pokemon than it does Oblivion. There's really very little in the way of questing. So, expect mostly random encounters, like Pokemon.

The controls work reasonably well and the fighting system works well enough if you happen to like turn-based Final Fantasy style gaming. Note, if you want a more detailed review, leave a comment letting me know and I will review this game in excruciating detail.

Score

• Gameplay: 6/10 (too repetitive)
• Sound/Music: 8/10
• Controls: 9/10
• Story: 4/10 (mostly encounters, little story)
• Bang for the Buck: 8/10 (length, if you like this sort of game)
  
• Overall: 4/10 (mostly for being unoriginal)

Xbox 360 - Mass Effect

Mass Effect by Bioware

While I want to love this as an RPG, I just can't. Unfortunately, Mass Effect has so many problems that it really ends up a mediocre RPG in among this genre of game. Frankly, with the poor level of graphics performance of this game, I'm surprised it was released at all.

Graphics Engine

Let's start with the graphics. Clearly, the 3D imagery is highly detailed with every attempt to make the characters seem lifelike in this world. On the one hand, this is one of the most visually detailed games I've seen to date. On the other hand, BioWare obviously worked so hard on the stunningly realistic visuals that they let too many other things slide. This makes for a rather overall disappointing game. Even as detailed and stunning as this game is visually, there are major performance problems that really hinder the game experience.

The 3D movement and performance is herky-jerky. The game pauses every time it has to load information from the media (which is extremely frequent). The game's graphics rendering has severe issues including screen breakup (striping as the entire screen moves), lagging, slowness and overall performance issues. These 3D issues are completely unacceptable in this day and age on a console. If the console doesn't have enough game power to display the game properly, the game should never have made it past the concept phase. Alternatively, they should have redesigned the graphics to give smooth 3D gameplay experience most of the time. To actually let Mass Effect get all the way into production with these major graphics performance issues is just incredibly stupid.

Granted, the performance issues don't prevent you from playing the game, but it does become a continual inconvenience as you progress through the game. Yes, it is even an inconvenience that really almost makes you want to stop playing, it's that bad. I, however, am continuing to play Mass Effect because I've started it and want to see the conclusion. Consider that Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR was BioWare's previous RPG) had none of these graphics performance issues on the Xbox.

RPG Aspects

Having played recent RPGs including completing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (and KOTOR), this game really doesn't much advance the RPG format in any substantial way. In fact, it takes a step back from Oblivion in several ways. It even takes a step back from some aspects of KOTOR. As examples of things missing:

• KOTOR would let you swap team members and use a specific team member's skill to do a certain thing. Like, one of the team might be skilled at security, so you use that member to unlock doors or cabinets. Another might be skilled in the Force, so you let them use their Force powers.
  
• With Mass Effect, you cannot swap your team and you cannot ask your team to do things like open locks. Your main 'Shepard' character must do everything.
• In Oblivion, quests are stored in a journal as is Mass Effect's quests. But, Oblivion takes it one step further by letting you locate where you need to be directly from the Journal entry.
  
• In Mass Effect, you are left to fend for yourself to find out where you need to be. While the Journal might tell you where you need to go, you have to back out of a ton of screens to get to the map and find the location. This makes finding where you need to be next a chore.
  
• There are many many people wandering around on the levels, but you can only talk to a handful of specific people. In Oblivion, every wandering person was a potential new quest. In Mass Effect, other characters are completely ignored.
• The Citadel is sprawling... and while it is huge, there's really very little to do in it. There're few people to talk to and even fewer things to actually do. While it's impressive to see the world they built, it really goes to waste.
• Oblivion's objectives were always clearly documented in the quest journal. So, you knew exactly what to do next.
  
• The Journal in Mass Effect is a bit on the confusing side. Yes, it's off the main menu, but then once you get into it, each quest expands and collapses. It also puts check marks beside the portion of the quest completed. But, it fails to really show you exactly what you need to be doing or where you need to go next.
  
• With Oblivion, each quest objective was clearly marked on the map.
  
• With Mass Effect, nothing is marked on the map. If you want it marked, you have to get out of the journal, open the map and then mark it yourself. So, you have to write down or remember what the current quest objective to know what you want to mark. Not impossible, but a hassle. Worse, if the objective is not on your present level, you can't get to that map to mark it.

Leveling Up

It's not very clear what levels you up and what doesn't. But, frankly, there aren't enough quests or battles per level to really help you level up. I found that the quests and battles were far too sparse and the dialog scenes were far too abundant. Ditch the dialog and add more action. Or, at least balance the dialog with action.

Because of this, leveling up is difficult. But, at the same time, it also looks like Bioware was aware of this issue and, thus, gives a LOT of experience points for completing even the tiniest little quest event. If there had been more quests and more action, then the game's RPG portions would have been more complete.

Character Creation

While I understand that Bioware kept the formula from KOTOR for this game (giving you a specific character with a specific history) and then letting you customize the look (to a degree), this really isn't an RPG. Yes, you can pick the 'class' your main character is, but unless you pick the combat class, you can't make it through the game. The other classes are so weak, you can't even make it through the first quest. So, this is a HUGE weakness for this game.

Even with Oblivion, there were weak classes, but you could make up for that weakness in other ways. In Mass Effect, there is no way to make up for those weaknesses. Maybe you call it making the game more challenging, I call it a defect.

Inventory

The inventory system is limited to 150 items. This limitation isn't a problem until you pick up item 151. Then, it forces you into a screen that you can't get out of. You must convert one or more items into Omni-Gel (an all-purpose substance). This screen is extremely annoying. The inventory system works much like KOTOR's system, but with obvious differences.

Game Saves

While I applaud BioWare for giving a 'save anywhere' system, the limitations of this system are abundant:

• You can only have a limited number of saves (15-20, I think). After you have used them up, you have to overwrite previous saves. Not smart if you want to be able to go back to a critical point and rework what you did.
• When you die and the game 'resumes' it assumes you want the last Autosave rather than the last actual save. Because it autosaves so infrequently, you're likely loading an extremely old save point. So then, you have to waste time loading another save.
• This goes with the previous point. The Autosave system saves too infrequently. The resume functionality assumes you want to use the last Autosave rather than using the most recent save. You can end up playing through an entire level before it Autosaves again. Bioware should have dumped the Autosave feature altogether and required only manual saves.
  
• The system prevents you from saving while enemies are present. I don't get this one. Oblivion would let you save anytime, even during battle. I guess Bioware didn't want to have to deal with programming a save system that would save a battle sequence in action.
  

Audio / Soundtrack

While I wanted to like the audio, the backing tracks while you are roaming the levels are too repetitive and annoying. It's not soothing, it's not calming, it's just there and annoying. The backing tracks repeat far too frequently to not be completely repetitive. Oblivion's soundtracks got old after while too, but the rotation of the soundtracks and the length/differences were often enough that it kept from becoming completely boring. Even as I play Oblivion today, I've heard them all, but I can still listen to them without being annoyed.

Music should ALWAYS be under the volume control for Music. In the Hotel on one of the planets, the background music is considered a sound effect. This is wrong. Music should never be a sound effect. The music in the hotel is very annoying. I also wanted to play my own music from the XBox 360. But, because it is a sound effect, it mixed in with talking and other effect noises. There's no way to turn the music down as a result (or at least, no way without affecting dialog and other sound effects). Bioware needs to fix this issue.

Combat System

The combat system is downright horrible. For one thing, each 'enemy' gets completely blocked visually by this HUGE red triangle. So, instead of aiming at a character, you just see the triangle. This means, most of the time you don't really even know what you're shooting at visually. You have to rely on the identification text. It's also very difficult to determine exactly when someone has shot you. The character's response to being shot is not responsive. In Oblivion, the health meter was plainly visible and you knew how much health you had left. With Mass Effect, it's extremely hard to gauge the health.

Team Effort

While Mass Effect let's you build a team up, it really doesn't give you much to do with the team once you have it. With KOTOR, you could at least rotate among the characters and use the skills they offered. With Mass Effect, there is no such rotation. You can't choose to use any characters in your team for anything other than combat. Even then, they do what they want and the best you can do is tell them to move to a specific position. More often than not, your team members get in the way. They stand or crouch exactly where you want to be.

In fact, there was one battle where they were so stupid, they just stood and took fire until they died. It wasn't a particularly hard gun battle, it's just that their AI wasn't sophisticated enough to deal with the situation. I ended up waiting until they 'died' and I finished the battle myself so I didn't have to compete with their stupid AI.

Gameplay

The gameplay is fair. Not great, not excellent, but fair. You wander the levels hoping to find things, but you find relatively little to do. Shepard runs very slowly, so it takes an age to go from one side of a level to another.

Renegade vs Paragon

As with KOTOR, you can choose to be 'bad' or 'good'. In Mass Effect, you can be both at the same time. The problem is that there is no clearcut distinction in the dialog which specific dialog leads to which outcome. Sure, you can sometimes tell based on a smart mouthed comment, but in other cases it's not that clearcut. So, you're constantly trying to find which leads to paragon and which leads to renegade. I guess it doesn't really matter much unless you're trying to get 100% paragon or 100% renegade. It's still frustrating.

Dialog

Here's where Bioware dropped the ball. While there are many choices of dialog, the words in the menu almost never match the outcome dialog. This is extremely frustrating. So, while the menu says one thing, Shepard ends up saying something completely different. The menu dialog should have matched the actual dialog word for word.. another Bioware failure.

Character movement

The character moves reasonably well, but about as well as can be expected from this kind of game. I would have preferred an eye level view so I don't have to watch the character from the back all the time. As I said above, he runs rather slowly.

Story Line / Ending

The storyline is not horrible, but not the best I've seen either. Because this is an RPG, there really should be many stories here. Not just one main one. However, because this game is mostly linear, the side stories don't mean much. The side stories are also just offshoots of the main story. On completion of the game, the entire game ends. You can't complete any uncompleted quests, you're just tossed into the credits and given the heave-ho. If you're a true RPG, the ending of the main quest shouldn't end the game. The Darkness (review coming soon) also followed this ending and I also didn't like that ending either. Again, I go back to Oblivion. Oblivion got all of the pieces right in terms of the RPG aspects of the game. Even the way to handle the ending of the main quest story line.

Xbox Live

There is no live component to Mass Effect. This is a single player game.

Overall

While I would like to give this game an 8 or a 9 rating on a 10 point scale, I can't. The flaws are graphical performance issues are too numerous and problems too abundant for this style of RPG. The lack of side and free quests make this game more or less linear. These issues really preclude Mass Effect from being a full out RPG. Yes, it does have some RPG aspects, but overall it lacks in too many ways to really be what Oblivion was.

If Bioware wants to make a real RPG, they need to sit down in a room and play Oblivion. Then, from that game craft a new better game from the same things that made Oblivion work.

Ratings

• Graphics: 6/10 (9/10 for details, 2/10 for gfx performance)
• Music: 6/10 (too repetitive, not inspired, out of context)
• Sound Effects: 9/10
• Control: 9/10
• Gameplay: 6/10
  
• Combat: 5/10 (combat system really bad, lack of proper team commands)
• RPG: 7/10 (works, but not outstanding)
• Replay Value: 3/10 (little replay value unless you want to pick up game challenge points)
  
• Overall: 5/10 (needs work)