Mass Effect Galaxy Review

Mass Effect Galaxy is the i-pod touch/i-phone game by BioWare that gives you a small taste of what to expect in Mass Effect 2, coming soon to consoles near you. You will be playing the role of Jacob, and with the help of Miranda you will set out to pre-determined locations to find out what is going down in the galaxy that could destroy the Council. As an ex-soldier you have the training and none of the red tape.

Graphically the battle screens are simple, but get the job done. I do wish that I could have seen a bit more detail with the enemies, but as the game was top down you're not going to see much. The galaxy map looked like a simplified version of the one found in the first Mass Effect, though I would have loved the ability to at least view the planet I was going to after selecting the galaxy. The conversation scenes were down just like Mass Effects, you had multiple options for conversation, and if you use the correct combination you could get a different result than you anticipated. The cut scenes, with their comic style looked good and I was really drawn into the story.

The voices did bothered me in this game. You would always just hear the first line said, and then it would be silent as you conversed back and forth. The cut scenes have dialog going on in them, and I really wish that they had subtitles so that if I didn't have my earphones in I wouldn't miss something.

The controls were really easy to understand. Finally a game that involved shooting, and felt smooth. As mention before this game was top down, which allowed for the use of just tapping the screen to select a target, and then tilting the device in the direction you wanted your character to move. You could also tap on the special abilities on the side to execute them.

So you are Jacob, and you're helping out trying to figure out what is going on in the universe. You will have the lovely Miranda to help you through the game. The action sequences will be you controlling your character, trying not to die as you take out all the enemies in your way. There will be power ups to help ease some of the difficulty of getting through sections of the game. The really amazing thing about this game is that during any load screen, or when you paused the game, once you entered combat the game had re-calibrated the device, and it would respond to your tilts just the same as if you were laying down on a table.

Do I wish that there was a little bit more to this game, yes. Do I wish that I could have explored a little bit in this game instead of following a very linear path, yes. Did this game make me hunger for more and assure that I'd be picking up Mass Effect 2 when it hit stores, yes. Get this game, have fun with it. Help yourself get ready for some Mass Effect 2. This game gets a 9.3 out of 10.