Mass Effect

by Microsoft

• Science-fiction RPG
• Explore uncharted worlds and uncover mystery
• Real-time, squad-based combat
• Character customization with a deep role-playing systems
• Credible digital actors

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000OLXX86
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches ; 3.2 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: November 20, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (601 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #752 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #23 in Video Games > Xbox 360 > Games > Action > Shooter

Product Description

Platform: Xbox 360

Amazon.com

A Spectacular New Vision of the Future

The galaxy is trapped in an endless cycle of extinction. Every 50,000 years, an ancient machine race invades the galaxy. With ruthless efficiency, the machines wipe out all advanced organic civilization. They leave behind only the scattered ruins of technology, destroying all evidence of their own existence.

Few believe this ancient legend. You, however, know it to be true. The fight to stop this extinction event has become the most important mission in the galaxy.

"You must act without remorse, without hesitation, and outside the limits of the law."

It is your mission. As Commander Shepard of the SS Normandy, you will take your elite recon squad across a galaxy in turmoil, in a desperate race to stop the return of an enemy without mercy. To stop this enemy, you must act without remorse, without hesitation, and outside the limits of the law. Your only imperative is to preserve the safety of civilized life in the galaxy - at any cost. You must become the tip of the spear of humanity, for you alone know the full extent of what is at stake if you should fail.

Science-fiction Role-playing: Perfected

Mass Effect allows you to create your own customizable version of Commander Shepard (or jump in and use the pre-created character) and plunge yourself into the center of an epic science-fiction story. Choose your squad-mates, your weapons, skills and abilities, and customize your vehicles, armor and appearance - you are in complete control over your experience.

In the course of your mission to stop the machine invasion, you may choose to follow the path of the soldier, the tech-specialist, or the biotics-specialist…each of which brings an arsenal of unique yet equally powerful abilities to use against the enemy. Wield a multitude of weapon types with precision accuracy…utilize your technical skill to turn enemy war machines against their creators…or unleash the full power of Dark Energy against your foe with devastating effects.

As you progress throughout the game you will improve your character's skills, abilities, and equipment (including weapons, armor, biotic implants and more) to ensure that you have the means to face the growing threat before you.

The role you choose to play in Mass Effect will have tremendous consequences on the galaxy around you. You will face moral dilemmas in which the decision you ultimately make will significantly alter the fate of civilized life in the galaxy.

The Vastness of Space Beckons

Your mission will take you into the deepest reaches of known space - and beyond. Aboard your ship, the Normandy, you will choose which planets to investigate, and where to take your team. In addition to the major worlds of the main story arc, you will have the freedom to visit a wide array of uncharted planets and other locations such as asteroids and abandoned space freighters adrift in space. On many worlds, take your team planet side in the MAKO in order to explore and find alien life, ancient artifacts and ruins, rogue trader colonies and a host of other amazing discoveries.

Lose Yourself in a Living Galaxy

Mass Effect combines astonishing photo-realistic graphics with innovative new dialog systems to create a cast of living characters to interact with. Engage these characters in real-time conversations that allow you to immerse yourself in dramatically charged situations.

Characters communicate with full voice-acting and amazing animation that displays their emotions right down to subtle nuances in their facial expressions. Every wrinkled brow and slight twist of the mouth is captured to infuse every interaction with a feeling of realism. Lead Your Squad in Intense, Real-Time Combat

Lead Your Squad in Intense, Real-Time Combat

The struggle to stop the return of the machines will ultimately be a violent one. You will assume responsibility for the lives of your squad as you lead them into often uncharted, hostile alien environments. Each decision you make could mean the difference between victory and disaster. Although combat will take place in real-time, you will have the ability to pause combat and issue commands to your squad which they will then execute with the precision of a highly trained elite force. Upgrading certain skills and abilities as you level up your character will also allow you to increase your ballistic skill - this can ultimately lead to easier aiming, more damaging use of weapons, and biotic effects with the power to turn the tide of battle in your favor.

Product Description

Microsoft M59-00073 Xbox360 Mass Effect GOTY (PH)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

298 of 323 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep story unfolds in early going, very immersive experience November 20, 2007

By Shann Yu

Platform for Display:Xbox 360

Fun: 5.0 out of 5 stars   

First off, I've been waiting for this game since the previews came out late last year (2006). So far, Bioware has done a great job of pimping out this game. And deliver it does...

STORY: A+
The 'cutscenes' are really not cutscenes at all. The conversations you have are pretty dynamic and integration of the choices of stuff to say is so seamless it seems almost natural. Early on, you get a sense of this when choices of stuff to do in the field enable you to remake your character as a mission-oriented commander or more of a compassionate search-for-survivors kind of guy, among some. The story picks up pretty much where the prequel book left off, and immerses you in the experience. You keep on wanting to learn more. You definitely feel like a part of this epic and that will keep you coming back.

Unlike Halo 3 and Gears of War which launch you into an ongoing war, this game sends you into a very deep, very complex world to explore. Imagine yourself as a hypothetical CIA agent before the war begins. Expect to see yourself running around the world, talking to people and gaining intel on people, and then having fight scenes from time to time. When you get sent on a mission to track someone down and there are lots of enemies between you and the destination, then you begin to see more of the combat-intensive aspects of the game.

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GAMEPLAY: A
Expect to see a third-person shooter with a heavy RPG influence. While out in the field, it's like a Gears of War experience with a basic tactical system. Run. Take cover. Take some guys down. Order your friendlies to flank the enemy or to fall back.... Outside of this, the RPG system comes into play when leveling up, when you get to choose abilities to level up, weapons to equip (ie, if you have 3 types of sniper rifles in inventory, which one will you equip?. I will cover this in more detail below). The controls were overall slightly different from control schemes used in comparable third-person shooters. It didn't take me long to get used to the system used here in Mass Effect. You can pretty much figure it all out in the first level.

I had the mistaken view that only snipers and pistols can be trained into an over-the-shoulder Gears of War camera angle when aiming (holding down the left trigger). Apparently, this is because I started off as an Infiltrator class. Different character classes can train different weapons. The soldier class can train all weapons. Sniping took some getting used to. When you first start off, Shepard is very shaky and thus it is very difficult to snipe. Adding points to level up your sniping ability seems to limit this shakiness greatly.

The tactical system is very very bare bones. You can order people to fall back, take on a specific target, regroup, or storm the area. Nothing much to it. Therefore, players can fight with their AI teammates as much of a unit (though I feel the AI tends to die a lot).

You also get to drive vehicles. Much of you have seen the trailers and saw that tank drop out from the Normandy. That tank handles like a Warthog from Halo 3, except with rocket boosters and a repair function. A heads up - repairing means you can't move or fire any of the tank's weapons. Therefore, make sure you're in cover when repairing. I love the rocket boosters as it gives you an extra method of dodging rockets and charged shots from the geth. The big disadvantage is that you have to drive and shoot at the same time. This makes for some very frustrating vehicle fight sequences.

I am a big fan of how the game feels thus far. Having RPG elements yields a lot of control over how your character plays on the field. The shooting system is pretty good, but not flawless. My biggest complaint early on was the many loading pauses you have to go through, but the deeper I went into the game, the less it affected gameplay. Loading pauses don't happen in the middle of the heat of battle, but it definitely wouldn't hurt to possibly fix this up in future patches.

Finally, a decent portion of the game involves going out and doing side missions. This means jumping in the tank and driving from the landing zone to various points on the map. I think driving around like this is the most painful experience of the game. There's almost always nothing but an occasionally frustrating 5-minute drive between the LZ and the destination, and once you get there, after doing a few of the side missions, you realize that the site layout is a recurring theme. Therefore, if anything else, the side missions are a great way to practice and to level up. There's some more of that RPG stuff working for you.

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RPG Elements: A
For weapons and armor, the feel is similar to something like Diablo II, where you pick up random equipment as you go along. Each equipment has a certain class: armor, assault rifles, pistols, sniper rifles, shotguns, etc (I haven't seen the other classes!). Depending on the character class you chose at the beginning, you have different combinations of these classes available to you. For example, my character class may allow me to equip an assault rifle and armor only. This means that I can equip only 1 assault rifle at a time and 1 armor. But since I pick up a lot of these in the field, I must choose which assault rifle I want to use and which armor to equip. The equipment select screen where you actually do this shows a lot of equipment data, ie damage of a weapon, 'clip size', so on.

Upgrades for each weapon can also be picked up and installed, including different rounds (ie, shredder rounds that add bonus damage when fighting organics, vs. armor piercing rounds against synthetics) and a wide range of add-ons (ie, heat sinks to decrease gun overheating).

Another big thing is that you gain experience out in the field as you fight more stuff. You earn points this way that you can spend upgrading, say, your ability to snipe or your armor's damage reduction settings. There are definitely a variety of choices to look through while you decide what to level up.

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CHARACTERS: A+
I enjoy interacting with the characters to see what's going on in their heads. The characters are all very multidimensional and very well thought up and implemented in the game. Voice acting and video synchronization was flawless.

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REPLAYABILITY: A
I have played through the story at least 3x by now, amassing more than 60 hours of gameplay. Having 6 character classes to pick from and 6 squad members to choose from, including the ability to choose whether to build your reputation as a ruthless military man or a compassionate and humane leader (or somewhere in between) definitely keeps you coming back to see how you can change the way things play. The different character classes really play differently so have fun with them.

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To sum up, some of you may be looking at this game and wondering whether or not it's worth the $60. And I say it is.

PROS: Deep and immersive storyline that captivates from the beginning, well-made characters, seamless incorporation of dynamic cutscenes, unique integration of 3PS with RPG. This game plays very differently from anything you've tried before. It's no Halo 3 nor Bioshock. It's a very well-made original game.

CONS: Minimap is not intuitive at first, plays too much like a movie at times, driving between points on a map in the Mako can be excruciatingly boring, a lot of recurring layouts with the sites of side missions.

FINAL VERDICT: A+. Very well-made game, well worth that whole wait from June till now. I've been anticipating this game for a while and it delivers an epic storyline of gigantic portions in a way that no others have done. This is definitely for people who want to experience being in an all-new sci-fi epic and building up an altogether new and unique hero. Read more ›

139 of 161 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Epic would be insignificant in comparison. November 26, 2007

By trashcanman VINE™ VOICE

Platform for Display:Xbox 360

Fun: 5.0 out of 5 stars   

"Mass Effect" is not a video game. Football is a game, checkers is a game, ping pong is a game, "Pac-man" is a game, and yes "Halo" is a game. But this is nothing less than pure, cinematic, interactive fiction containing all of the depth, detail, lore, discovery, and character of the greatest science fiction epics of all time. "Star Wars", "Star Trek", "Battlestar Galactica", "Blade Runner"; this is a story that nearly dwarfs them all in sheer size, scope, and enjoyment while paying homage to them along the way. "Mass Effect" is not an action-based game but a massive story that you help write as you go along based on your personal choices. Sure, there is plenty of very satisfying gunplay along the way, but it is mostly a means to an end rather than the primary focus.

The story of "Mass Effect" is quite possibly the most amazing ever written for a video game, recalling many of the best elements from some of the greatest works of the sci-fi genre and putting you in an almost "Oblivion"-like level of control over the world. You could spend dozens of hours simply exploring unknown worlds and building your fortune that way while shirking the main story altogether if you choose. But if you don't have all the time in the universe to enjoy this one, the main story is not too long. In fact, I honestly wish it were much longer, but that was the sacrifice made for the open-ended freedom of exploration the player is given. One will most likely spend upwards of 50 hours just exploring the galaxies and discovering all of the tiny stories within the story that really flesh this universe out. Plus, there are many different ways to play the game which will command you to replay it over again just to see all of the what-if's and enjoy mastering all of the various class skills.... "Mass Effect" also revels in making you face the tough decisions, forcing you to use you own personal morality to make choices that will effect the way characters in the game will look at you. And the many races of the intergalactic Council are watching you closely as a representative of humanity adn this will impact the game. What are the ethics behind genocide of a species that may, in time, become a real threat to civilized life? You decide. How about murder for revenge? Taking bribes? The safety of the intergalactic community against human lives? These are just a few of the issues you may face and have to think about before you press that button and possibly change the universe forever.

Gameplay could not be better. The combat is real-time and apes the realistic feel "Gears of War" while retaining the skill system used in Bioware's previous classic "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic". Speaking of KOTOR, this game plays very closely to that previously untouchable work. All of the familiar gameplay and story elements are present, but almost all are improved, especially the combat. The real time shooting is a little hectic at first, but as you and your character gain experience, you will soon have the skills and savvy to utilize the system and dominate rooms full of enemies. The superhuman abilities include biotics, which are sort of like The Force, and tech skills which can include hacking an enemy's AI to attack it's teammates or overheating an opponent's weapon or shields. The implementation of these skills can be key since many of the enemies are quite resourceful and strong. Shall you use biotics to lift a foe from behind his cover so you can ventilate him at your leisure or just create a vortex to suck them all up into one whirling shooting gallery? Maybe I'll just terrorize the lot of them with my one-shot-one-kill sniping skills while my teammates provide cover. The options are only as limited as your imagination. The only complaints from me is that your squadmates can't be controlled individually (you can't send your heavy gunner forward while keeping your tech expert behind cover; both respond to the same command) and the grenades (while awesome and upgradable) are kind of clunky to use. The characters of KOTOR and Bioware's last game "Jade Empire" also had a lot more charm and humor to them and a lot more to say in between missions, it seems. I guess that's the price to pay for a less linear game. But then again, there is a lot of random dialogue between all of the combinations of characters here that help make up for it. For example, while your party waits in an elevator they will often have brief but personal conversations with one another. The dialogue for cutscenes and missions also changes based on who you brought along. This is a very nice touch. Exploring planets in your Mako ATV is also a blast, reminiscent of driving a Warthog in "Halo" but with much rougher terrain and jet boosters that can send you flying. Awesome.

I could go on and on about the hundreds of things that make this "game" the greatest of it's kind. It's nearly as large but more accessible than "Oblivion", more action-packed than "Knights of the Old Republic", and has an even better story than "Halo" and stands on it's own not as a game but as a definitive sci-fi experience. In my book, that makes this the best next-gen single-player game there is and one of the greatest things I've ever played. The best part? It's the first of a trilogy. The mind boggles at the possibilities. Buy it. Now. Read more ›

80 of 93 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Massive November 20, 2007

By S. Rhodes TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Platform for Display:Xbox 360

Fun: 5.0 out of 5 stars   

Mass Effect comes from BioWare. The creators of Knights of the Old Republic. Because of that, it goes without saying that Mass Effect feels very similar in its RPG like approach. This is no clone of Knights of the Old Republic, though. Mass Effect is its own game and it's a very fantastic game at that. This review is pretty long. If need be, you can look to the bottom for a list of pros and cons.

You're John Shepard. The game takes place in the year 2183, and humanity has come to explore the Galaxy like never before. You'll discover a series of races throughout the galaxy and there's a sense of injustice afoot. Tensions between races are also high. You'll come across people who hardly trust a certain character because of their race. Just the same, a Turian (one of the many races in the game) named Saran has betrayed the Galactic council and its up to you to stop him and bring justice to the Galaxy. Mass Effect has a pretty intriguing storyline that grips you from the moment you begin. It's also well written with some fairly interesting characters.

The storyline is told through fantastic cut scenes and some fantastic voice acting. The quality of these scenes is movie like in its execution. The game also looks fantastic. Some of the character models look almost lifelike. In terms of eye candy, Mass Effect is sure to delight. It also sounds really good. There's a lot of great music here. Again, it sounds movie like. Hardly any game sounds better. The music always manages to fit the mood and situation at hand.

You begin by making a character. Much like Knights of the Old Republic, you're allowed to customize what he looks like and here you're also able to give your character a back story.... As the game goes on, you'll participate in several conversations. These conversations have a direct impact on the storyline as well as shaping your character. Most times they'll also have an effect on the outcome of certain situations. Not always, but often they do. There's also a light and dark attribute going on much like Knights of the Old Republic.

In terms of Gameplay, Mass Effect is a pretty complex game. It plays a lot like a third person Shooter, but at its core it is definitely an RPG. As you traverse the field you'll have a squad at your command. You control Shepard and can give orders to your troops. Either you can send them ahead to attack, rally them or tell them to keep their distance. You can give these kinds of commands any time you want. Just because it plays like a third person shooter, though doesn't mean you treat the game as such. Mass Effect is not a very easy game. It is important to add strategy to a situation rather than go in with guns blazing. Your enemies have some attacks that can take off a lot of health at any given time. The AI of your characters is sometimes questionable, though. For the most part, they help in battle, but sometimes you'll feel like a one man army.

Throughout the adventure you'll also gather Medi-gels and Omni-gels. Medi-gels heal you while Omni-gels are for using decryption or electronics on devices like locked doors or containers. Speaking of locked doors, you'll come across some of those too. As well as locked containers and other things you'll need to override. You'll do it by entering a series of button presses. This is actually a pretty annoying mini-game. Screw up even once and you lose your chance to override and you'll have to result to using Omni-gels.

There is also a lot of customization to take in. All characters have certain talents. Whenever you level up you can increase a characters rank in a talent. In time they'll be able to do things like open locked doors with ease or be able to better handle certain weapons easier. You can also customize weapons and armor or turn them into Omni-gels. If you turn a weapon into an Omni-gel, though, it's gone forever. For the most part, the game is pretty free in terms of what you can do.

Mass Effect has a couple of glaring problems when it comes to gameplay. As you traverse, for one thing, the game sometimes slows down. So it doesn't always run smoothly. While you have control over the camera, you can't automatically position it behind you. You always have to swivel it around. It's not a huge problem, but it is one that can get you killed when you're surrounded by several enemies at once. It also doesn't help that the camera doesn't swivel fast. Also, much like Knights of the Old Republic, there are a couple of bugs that hinder gameplay. At some points you'll even have to reload or something because of them. There was even an instance where the game froze entirely. In short, the game is good, but there are a lot of little nit-picky technical things that keep it from being as good as it could be. Technical glitches that shouldn't be in the game in the first place.

Mass Effect is a strong game. It's got all the qualities that really make a game good. It's just too bad that it has a few problems in the technical department that keep it from being an overall fantastic game.

Pros:

+Strong storyline
+Excellent voice acting and script
+Very interactive story
+Fantastic looking visuals
+Good strong soundtrack
+Simplistic, yet strategic combat
+Deep customization

Cons:

-A couple of camera issues
-Sometimes there's a slowdown in frame rate
-A few technical bugs and glitches; sometimes these will make you have to reload your game... very annoying Read more ›