Sometimes Games Do That

Let's go back in time to about this time last year. Two of the biggest and most talked-about games were Bioshock and Mass Effect, both of which won numerous awards and a handful of "Game of the Year" tags from various media outlets. Back then I had just gotten my PS3 and hadn't even been thinking about getting a 360. What baffled me was that Mass Effect was highly regarded as the RPG of the year...yet it was a third-person shooter? That didn't quite compute. As any astute reader of this blog will know, its one of my pet peeves when people refer to games as RPGs when they only have an element or two of the genre spread around the game (here's looking at you GTA4).

The last few days I've actually been playing the game and was drawn into the very thematic style of game play and the narrative very quickly. "Okay," I thought, "There have been shooters in the past that suck me in really quick but when it comes down to it, I just can't get into the game because of its genre." I didn't get my hopes up.

After the first couple hours of game play, my mindset started to change. The story was something like you'd see in a big-budget Hollywood sci-fi film - it was involving and threw curves at you right from the get go. And, to top it all off, your character can alter much of the dialog and reactions to events people have just by making a simple decision of how to talk to people.

I'm still unsure of the shooter parts of the game - I haven't yet been into any truly heavy action - but if things continue in the way they have the first few hours, I think I might actually enjoy this game through and through.

Note to self: Install it to the hard drive because there are some major texture loading issues during cut scenes.

I'll be back with a review after I've played more of the game.