Space. The long -standing dream of mankind. Surely, in antiquity there would be people for whom heavenly luminaries were not only the object of contemplation, but also the object of their desires. Of people of the same type, the first science fiction writers were born to think about interplanetary flights. At first, their gaze was turned to the nearest space object – the moon, later their ambitions grew and now, the heroes of books flew to Mars and left the limits of the solar system. And what can only be found outside the native system can only be guessed, for everything that astronomy gives in this case is the names of stars and clusters in which the most unthinkable cosmic civilizations may be located. And if there were many in the literature, to a greater or lesser extent worked out, universes, then there are already fewer in the cinema, and in computer games, in addition to Star Wars, who came to us from movie screens, by and large there was nothing. There was no until the game appeared Mass Effect. Today it is unlikely that you can find a person who could not hear anything about the Mass Effect series, at least in the circles of those people who are at least somewhat interested in computer games. Therefore, today we will pay close attention to the quality of the game itself and the elements that allowed this series to gain a cult status.

Make your cosmos.

Developed this game, as many know, Bioware. And if you followed her creative way or simply by the will of fate played in Knight of the Old Republic, then you will immediately understand where the legs of the new universe grow from. Do not think, all borrowings from the Lucas saga, as well as such works as “Star Troops”, “Alien”, “Running Blade” or “Babylon-5” are creatively rethought and competently woven into the plot of the entire trilogy. But let’s, nevertheless, closer to the development itself. After the stunning success of Kotor, to cooperate with BioWare The company wished Microsoft. She needed a powerful exclusive to promote her gaming console – Xbox, and BioWare, Creating in 2005 a very successful Jade Empire, I wanted to continue to make games in my own universal, without looking back at the limitations of licenses. The cargo of the invention of the New Universe was put on Casey Hudson, as an ambitious developer who made interesting ideas into the plot of the company’s past space game. He coped with the task very successfully. Despite this, many interesting ideas were discarded due to a lack of means and deadlines for the development. One of these ideas was to be the race of rakhni as the main opponents, which the hetes were subsequently replaced. The lack of funds also affected the fact that we did not see in the first part of the opposite sexes of alien races, and the same -sex race Azari appeared precisely as a result of this fact, and not just the desires of the developers to create an ancient and wise race.

The game was released in 2007 for the new console Microsoft – Xbox 360 and made a splash. To the universal joy of the keyboard public, the game did not stay for a long time in the edges of exclusivity and after six months already flaunted on personal computers. At the time of exit in the game there was a very good graphics, especially for a role project, especially portained from the console. And the videos to this day are excellent.

The petal petals.
Bringing the conversation about the plot of the game, it will not be shameful to pay attention to previous events. After all, before us in all its glory appears the XXII century, not so far from our time, if you think. But what allowed mankind to develop to such an extent that they were able to fly on unimaginably long distances into another part of the galaxy? If you believe the scriptwriters, due to the fact that in 2148 the ruins of the ancient race of the Protean were discovered on Mars, humanity was able to discover the zero element, relayers and the mass effect proudly carried out in the title of the game.

Zero element – the basis of all technologies of reasonable races in the galaxy. By acting with an electric current, a physical process arises under the name-the effect of mass, which allows you to increase or lower the mass of a unit of space-time. Speaking is quite simple – allows you to give any thing any mass.
It is thanks to this effect that the ships reach hyper -light speed, effective energy shields appear, and weapons do not require tons of ammunition.
In 2149, humanity, thanks to decrypted protean data, reaches the first retranstlator – “Haron”, which allows you to begin colonization of planets outside the solar system.

An ordinary relay.
Retracials are monstrous structures connected with each other with energy corridors, in which the bodies do not have the mass at all, in fact, instantly moving spaceships from one point to another, close to the retrans.
In 2157, the first military clash of mankind with an alien race of Turians, which included in human historiography under the name "War of the First Contact". From a full -scale interstellar war, the Council of Citadel held two races – the Government of the Confederation of Galactic States that reached a huge space station – Citadel. It is thanks to the activities of this government and its special services – a special building of tactical intelligence and the world is supported in the territory of those systems recognizing the power of the Council.

Without going into the details of these events, in which, with a great desire, you can delve into the in-game code, finally we get into the eyeballs of those plot events where we are offered to take a personal part.
In the yard 2183, commander Shepard – our main protagonist – flies to fulfill the next task, as be the personnel military with great combat experience. The task of the commander of the landing group is not very difficult-to pick up an alien artifact from the colony to the identity and move it to the ship. But reality for the simplicity of things, as always, turns out to be his eyes and the colony is attacked by the Geta – the races of cars, of which for hundreds of years they have not seen in this part of the galaxy. There is a murder of one of the agents spectrum, the recommendation of which was supposed to approve Shepard’s candidacy for admission to the corps. The prospects of the world are very not rainbow, and the salvation of the situation is assigned to the shoulders of our hero.

Light in the atmosphere of distant planets.

Who is the hero?

The process of creating the own Savior of the Galaxy is responsible, with the same responsibility, let’s come up to the opportunities that the developers endowed us in creating a character.
The original option is three. You can take a ready -made character in the person of John Shepard with the appearance of the Dutchman Mark Vanderla, who was born on the ground, who survived in one of the battles and possessed a class of soldiers. And immediately go towards adventures. You can take a ready -made male or female character with all the same settings as John Shepard, but with the opportunity to change his name.
And the most pleasant and diverse option is to create your own character.
Initially, we are offered to choose the name and biography of Shepard before admitting to the service. We have three options: an earthling, a colonist and a monastery (why this is how they translated the word “Spacer” – I won’t know the mind, but this is so, small irritations of the author). The first of them means that the hero was born on Earth, was an orphan, spent his childhood on the streets and in gangster gangs. The second implies that Shepard was born on a human colony on a mental and miraculously escaped when the slave traders attacked the colony, also losing their parents. And if the player has chosen the biography of the wanderer, then we will find out that he was born in the family of the military personnel and followed in the footsteps of his parents – the only biography in which Shepard’s parents remain alive.
What, in fact, is affected by these biographies? By and large, there is little one – several lines in dialogs, and one unique quest for each option.
Next are psychological portraits: surviving, hero of war and ruthless. They only affect the attitude of some characters towards you, nothing too significant, but nevertheless. After these manipulations, the player will be allowed into the poor, but, in general, a toothy editor of the character in which you can pile a dream commander, or choose from a pair of blanks.

And perhaps the most interesting choice to the player will have to be at the end of the generation. Character class. It is offered to stop at one of the whole classes, but upon closer examination it turns out that there are not so many. We have three highly specialized classes: soldiers, adept and engineer, and three classes at the junction of these specialties: scout, guard and attack aircraft.

Soldier – A specialist in any type of weapon, the only class that has the opportunity to wear heavy armor.

Adept – Master of bioatics, controls the fields of the masses, therefore can raise, push and destroy the armor of enemies. Very spectacular and effective. From the possession of weapons, only a gun can be pumped.

Engineer – Technician to all fields: overheats the enemy’s weapons, destroys the shields, grabs the control of robots, while inflicting damage to enemies. Only a gun from weapons.

Scout – engineers, with the ability to effectively shoot a https://twinkywincasino.co.uk/ rifle and dress in medium armor.

Steamer – Biotic whose element is close to fight, a skilled user of shotgun and medium armor, in addition to the main biotic skills, of course.

Guardian – Perhaps the most interesting class in terms of game. Has both technical and biotic skills. Has no weapons skill at all. In theory, it should support the actions of partners, himself not particularly fitting into a fight.

Also, after reaching the level 20 and passing the relevant task, players will be able to choose an elite class from two proposed, which will further strengthen those abilities that are suitable for your play style.

The most pleasant thing that the armored car gives us is such bewitching views.
The class system goes and, in general, role. Everything is as simple as with elite classes in basic specialties. There is a set of skills characteristic only. Almost each of them has a passive and active parts. Active-allows you to use either some kind of weapon strengthening, or biotic ability, or technical skill, passive-improves this ability and opens access to improve the active. Each active skill has three levels. Sometimes the ability is blocked and in order to unlock it, you need to put several points in another ability that will open it. In related classes, they are respectively mixed and work in the same way. Among other class, each class has a unique class ability. Improving it, you increase efficiency, and, sometimes, strengthen other abilities. Upon receipt of an elite class, the ability changes the name to the class that you choose, while retaining all the invested points. Also, the ability to: “training of spectra”, “charm” and “intimidation” are also on the sidelines. Each hero will receive the first without exception at the time of admission to spectra. But the effectiveness of “charm” and “intimidation” depends not only on the invested skills of skills, but also on the points of the hero or apostate. At the same time, only one of these skills is worth pumping, so as not to waste precious pumping glasses that you, like every member of your detachment, receives with an increase in the level. And everyone, that means everyone, even those who sit and calibrate weapons on the ship, while you and two partners of the tops of an alien dust on the next unexplored planet.
The number of these glasses for Shepard: 3 at 1 – 5 levels, 2 to 6 – 35 and 1 on 36 – 60. Partners receive 2 points of abilities at 1 – 20 levels and 1 to 21 – 60. As you understand the maximum level in the game of the 60th, noo is not in the first passage, gentlemen. The first passage is the maximum level of the 50th. And it is the passage of the game for the first time that opens another 10 levels of pumping. For such feints with statistics, we should thank the system of achievements, which is sewn into the game and obtaining some of them directly affects such things as: the experience gained, the availability of elite equipment, the additional skill at the beginning of subsequent passages and the usual increase to stats, in the form of health regeneration, increase the maximum values ​​of the shields and health, and other accumulation of the rollback of skills.

Order and medals.
Despite the fact that the game was positioned as an RPG with an elements of a third -person shooter, and not vice versa, the dialogue system here is an extremely simple. We can say that it is practically identical to the one that was in Jade Empire, only collected in the wheel. And almost all options entail the receipt of glasses of a hero or apostate, except for median – which occasionally allow you to remain neutral. If you think about passing on high complexity, I do not recommend that you remain neutral because the fullness of the scale adds bonus statistics. Unlike past BioWare games, the scales of the hero and the apostate are filled separately, and are not a resulting between your bad and good deeds. So, by 75% the hero’s completed scale gives the player a 10% reduction in first aid recovery time, the maximum health points are increased by 10% and 5% of the reduction in restoration of skills. A 75% of the completed apostate scale gives 10% of the reduction in weapons skills, +1 health regeneration in a second and an increase in damage from weapons and abilities by 5%. When filling out one of the scales by 80%, they will communicate with you and awarded another task specific to each of the ways.

Listing all the abilities available to heroes is tedious, for a long time and is unlikely to be necessary. Therefore, I will limit myself to the remark that decryption and electronics should only develop one hero in your party and move on to the equipment. The hero and his partners always carry with them all four types of weapons: pistols, shotgun, machine guns and sniper rifles. In addition, you can use grenades. Also in the equipment there are bio-amplifiers that improve the abilities of heroes with biotic abilities and uni-tools for heroes with technical skills. And, of course, armor. Armor and weapon is an eternal contradictory topic of games from BioWare. Almost all weapons and armor, in addition to, of course, characteristics, differs in colors and this is very sad. Among other things, there is an opportunity to put two improvements and special ammunition for weapons with special effects. In analogy with ammunition, pomegranate amplifiers also work that change the effect of the explosion. Armor also could not do without amplifiers.

The personnel that they decide.

Finally we got to the main thing-partners. Farators are the best that developers did in all games, and Mass Effect was no exception. In total, 6 partners are available in the game, each with their own character, history and problems.

Ashley Williams – sergeant, woman and daughter of the general. An ordinary strong woman who, with due attention, will reveal your small secrets to you.

Kayden Alenko – Lieutenant, strong biotic and, judging by the class, is slightly saved in technology. It suffers from the fact that it has an old bio -utiliter that allows him to control his biotic force at a high level, but causing terrible migraines.

Liara T’Soni -Scientist Azari, very young, by the standards of her race, the girl (only 106 years old), an expert on the ancient race of the Protean.

Urnot Rex – Crogan, an entertaining lining alien. It has quite rare biotic abilities for this race and a specific sense of humor.

Garrus Wakarian – A Turian, an officer of the security service of the citadel, a well -aimed sniper and a decisive adherent, if necessary, then tough, actions.

Tali’zor Nar Rayia – Quarian, a magnificent technical specialist, many players conquered by his mystery due to the fact that he will never take off his helmet for the game.

Of these charming, to a greater or lesser extent, guys, two elected will always accompany us. With some – Kayden, Ashley and Liara can start a novel. Kayden is an option for a female character, Ashley – for male, Liara – for characters of both sexes.

In the waves of space.

In addition to the characters, do not forget about the technical means that many difficulties of our travels on planets have been drawn on themselves. This is our Normandy SR-1 spacecraft and M35 MAKO armored personnel carrier.

SSV Normandy SR-1 – Experimental frigate of the "Deep intelligence" class. Joint development of Turian and human scientists. Has a unique masking system, thanks to which enemy radars cannot be detected. In masking and simultaneous active movement, it can be valid for 2-3 hours. This became possible, thanks to the Tantala experimental motor system, in size exceeding standard engines for ships of this class by half. Despite the fact that the main task of the ship is “invisible intelligence”, its weapons and running qualities make it possible to compare in combat efficiency with heavy cruisers.

It is due to the fact that this magnificent ship is given to our command, we get the opportunity to travel to any star clusters, which we wish. In some, we are waiting for the tasks of the main plot (alas, such tasks of only 5, albeit very impressive in duration), in others, we will find unexplored planets or suspicious space stations with small, but, sometimes interesting tasks.

M-35 Mako – full -time combat all -terrain vehicle of alliance frigates. Its design and equipment allow you to land in it on planets from a great height, without requiring planting the frigate itself.

Maco will become our “workhorse” in moving through considerable planets. Unfortunately, in addition to points of interest, on planets you can rarely find anything entertaining and almost everyone can be called a desert, with rare exceptions. Other places that we offer to visit are not distinguished by the variety. The complexes on the planets are identical, underground bunkers are identical, space stations, you think, understand what.

Despite the poverty of the scenery, this at first fascinates, and perhaps it does not even tire, if you do not go through the whole game in one gulp. Which is very difficult, because the main plot is if it hooks you, it will drag you, without letting go.

Shards of the whole.

Not without small DLCs, which do not affect the gameplay as much as DLC to the next parts.

The first was called "death from heaven".
Adds an additional mission on asteroid, for about 1.5 hours of gameplay. For characters of biotic and technicians, you can get hold of good equipment, unless, of course, take up it at the beginning of the game.

The second is the "Verhina station".
Adds the station with the training complex and various arenas, as a reward for the full passage of the tests, Shepard receives a personal apartment, which has the opportunity to buy accidental equipment from smugglers.
Despite the fact that the gameplay in the Vershin station is 2-3 hours, the meaning of this addition is many times less than in the past, and if you do not try it, you will not lose anything at all.

Jack Wall worked on musical accompaniment. According to him, the inspiration for him was the music from the science fiction films of the 70-80s and, in particular, from the “Running Blade”. The soundtrack is designed in a cinematic style, which was supposed to emphasize the most emotional and epic moments of the game. The music copes with this task. And the song M4 Part II of the Canadian group Faunts perfectly emphasizes the final events of the game.

The first Mass Effect has become a landmark project for BioWare. He gave rise, perhaps, the most successful series in their portfolio. Interesting characters, an entertaining scientific and fiction story-those things on which the entire trilogy rests, and the first part including. Despite the simplicity of the role system, it is quite diverse to give different combat experience when playing other class classes. A series of important elections that the character makes, and the ability to transfer them to the next part only added livelings to the world and helped people believe in it. There were no problems in the form of empty incomplete spaces and the repetition of most premises, which are in the main plot. The game has managed to become a little old over the years, but it is definitely worth playing it, if you, at least at least, endure space setting and just like beautiful pathos stories in the world that makes you believe.