Mass Effect

I've been having another crack at Mass Effect. This is mainly because my three main activities at the moment are:

1) Packing
2) Agonising about whether job interviews went well.
3) Agonising about whether I'm going to be able to get any more job interviews.

And pretty much anything is better than any of those three activities. I say pretty much anything. They're still better than Resident Evil 5.

Anyhoo, it is better than I remember it.

Last time I tried to play it through, I got stuck on the first level. It wasn't too difficult or anything, it's just that I would always get to the bit where you have to disarm the bombs and I'd completely lose interest. As far as first levels go, I think it's actually worse than the one from KOTOR 2, which had my previous WORST LEVEL EVARRR award.

So anyway, I zipped through the opening level whilst chatting to my girlfriend, and actually found myself having fun running around in the citadel... Things only improved when I got to Novera - the level with the giant ant creatures. The combat was more fun than I remembered and the Biotic powers were turning out to be useful - although no-where near as useful as force lightning.

Then I got to Feros - the level where the plant creature takes over all the civilians and I remembered why I really didn't like this game the first time round.

Some of the levels are pretty good. A lot of them are *total* shit. The plant creature planet is all rubbish, as is the level where you're blowing up the Krogan Geophage factory thing.

What saddens me slightly is Bioware have clearly spent a lot of time placing hidden events in the game for the more dedicated players to find. I really, really wish, though, they'd made the main levels - the ones everyone was going to play - actually fun.

But the characters are well realised - much better and more likable than the ones in KOTOR 1, Jade Empire or Fallout 3 (which I know wasn't developed by Bioware but it's the only other RPG that came out recently that I can think of) the plot is... okay and there are a lot of things to do with yourself.

I just hope the sequel follows through on the strengths and hones the gameplay.