Does Mass Effect Live Up To The Hype? By foolman on Dec 16, 2007 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

Ever since Mass Effect's initial announcement, gamers have been waiting relentlessly for it's release. Is Bioware able to deliver on their promise of endless content and an epic storyline?

As far as presentation is concerned, Mass Effect is one of the most beautiful looking games on the system... once everything has completed loaded. In order to reduce loading times, textures are missing after an area has loaded. The textures take around 5-10 seconds to finish loading, which makes this game look beautiful. However, 5-10 seconds is a long time for a cutscene to have no textures. It ruins the cinematic look that the game strives so hard to achieve. The game also stutters in crowded areas. It is obvious that the 360 is having trouble handling everything that the game is throwing at it.

Bioware boasted an epic storyline and there is no doubt that they delivered. Mass Effect is the first of a trilogy, and even though that has always been planned, Mass Effect feels like a game of it's own. Gamers will be excited for the next game, but they won't be on the edge of their seats with a huge cliffhanger.

Techincally, the genre of Mass Effect is an RPG, but this RPG has tons of third person shooting elements. This might scare off hardcore RPG gamers and hardcore shooter gamers, as this game chooses a middle ground.

Overall, Mass Effect is a brilliant game with a lot of technical problems. If Bioware is able to smooth out the framerate and make the textures pop in much faster, the sequel will be one of the best games on this generation.