Mass Effect review
Clicken thee unto this link, and inhale the soothing vapors of Eurogamer’s Mass Effect PC review. Mass Effect is an excellent game, and this review does a good job of investigating why that is.
Sometimes it’s difficult to unentangle an emotional response to a game and specify the hoary threads of reason that evoke that reponse, but that’s exactly what’s necessary when writing a review. You have to not only communicate what you felt when playing it but what made you feel that way. This review does that (not a surprise, since it’s written by Kieron Gillen, who consistently impresses like some kind of methodical criticism robot) Mass Effect bear-hugged me with pleasure the first time I played through it (and the second, and the third), and even though it was a long time ago that I finished the game I’m still coming to grips with why I was so emotionally invested in it, and why these types of gaming experience always manage to hook me like some sort of geek-fish that never learns its lesson.
I would also like to associate myself with Gillen’s remarks about why Mass Effect is a “ballsy” game. It really is. It takes on so many things, some of them not particularly splendidly, but it all works together. I think that people who couldn’t get past the combat or some aspect of the story are missing the forest for the trees.