Mass Effect Preview

Mass Effect is due to materialise on the Xbox 360 in just over a week and to celebrate VideoGamer.com is bringing you a series of reviewer's diary updates in the lead up to our huge review. So for those of you anxiously awaiting news of that dispatched pre-order, sit back and enjoy as we chart our progress through the game every sci-fi fan's been craving for months - there's a lot of universe to get through.

Of all the high-profile games coming out this Christmas developer BioWare's Mass Effect was for me the most exciting. As a huge fan of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games, whenever new gameplay footage, trailers or interviews popped up on the Interweb I was there, frantically scavenging for new character, weapon and environment information. And then it popped through Pro-G towers' letterbox, almost innocently, as if it wasn't aware of the anticipation it has generated. With shaking hands I opened the green plastic case, released the disc from its shackles and slid it into the 360 tray. Five pulsating hours later I'm here to check in with my first impressions.

First things first, you won't find any spoilers in this reviewer's diary series. What you'll find is general impressions of what Mass Effect is like to play, or perhaps more appropriately, experience, in the early hours of the game. It will be detail light, yes, but hopefully you'll get a flavour of what Mass Effect is going to be like once you get the chance to play the game yourself.

Living in Blade Runner. That's what Mass Effect feels like. And one of the first things that gave it away was the music - all 80s sweeping sci-fi synthesizers. It's there during the game's stunning in-game opening, when you're simply ambling about exploring new areas and even when you die. And then there's the superb sound effects - simply bringing up menus, swapping out weapons and sniping oozes cool. It's the kind of feeling you had when you first heard a Lightsaber swing. We booted the game up in basic stereo and with barely 10 minutes of the game gone we decided it would be worth dragging out the Dolby 5.1 which has been in storage following a recent office move.

Then there's the looks. Mass Effect is clearly pushing the 360 as hard as it can go, and I've only seen a snippet of what's on show. But this brings with it some problems, which you might have heard about elsewhere. Perhaps Mass Effect is pushing the console too hard. So far I've seen regular occurrences where the game is waiting for the machine to catch up. But so far, and I say this tentatively, it's not putting me off, and I'm revelling in the sci-fi blockbuster cinematic feel. And I'm not only impressed by the scripted bits either, which I should be impressed by. I'm impressed by small, little things, like the cool orange hue around characters' arms, and the camera angles when you interact with people and terminals. Then there's the immediately obvious grain effect - a deliberate move to make the game look more like an epic sci-fi flick. We say "it's like watching a movie" a lot in this business. Perhaps now it's finally justified.

It's not just the game's graphics which makes it comparable to a film - it's the story and how it's told. The voice acting so far has been superb, albeit a little wooden at times when you're using the conversation system, and the plot is full of political intrigue, dodgy dealing and tough-talking aliens. Ahh the aliens. I'll save the details for the review, but rest assured I've already seen some alien races that I've absolutely fallen in love with, and one especially which I think will be cemented in the annals of video game excellence.

You probably know more than I do about Mass Effect's character creation, but since it's the first thing you'll do in the game, I'll touch on it here. You've got tonnes of options, both male and female, as well as background, class and facial identification options, as you'd expect from a BioWare RPG. I decided to create my own female character for the game's lead: Lieutenant Commander Shepard. This is something I've always done in games - not sure why. But in the case of Mass Effect I wasn't particularly enamoured with the game's default male super soldier, who we've all seen in the game's trailers. So green-eyed, blonde haired infiltrator with a ruthless background it is - and off I go into the black abyss of the universe.

So far, the best thing about the game is the opportunity it's giving me. The opportunity to be a complete hard-nosed bitch to everyone I encounter. The opportunity to dive into this futuristic world and stamp my authority on it, and feel like I'm having some kind of effect. It remains to be seen how the game and its characters will be shaped by my personality, but right now just taking part is thrilling. It's very much like KotOR, from the way you interact with the world to the way you get around it, and that's no bad thing. I could nitpick about a few things, but at this early stage I'm too entranced to let them get me down.

That's it for now. Check back same time tomorrow where I'll talk about my thoughts on character development, the combat and the much talked about conversation system. Until then, I'm burying myself in intergalactic skulduggery.

Part Two can be found here.