Mass Effect Review

Alright, I've finally finished my first play through of Mass Effect, and I must say it was an amazing experience. Although this was a very, very good game, it does have its flaws. Firstly, the frame rate wasn't the greatest, and characters would occasionally pop in and out. The teammate AI could have used a little tweaking, and the fact that your teammates occasionally get stuck, or just plain wont move at all can get a bit frustrating. Also, the main storyline was well written, but it seemed just a tad short. I know, this is the first of the (supposed) trilogy, and I shouldn't really expect too much, I'm just saying I felt it could have been maybe a little longer. By no means am I saying this is a short game either. If you complete all the side quests and whatnot, this game should take anywhere from 20-40+ hours. Having rushed through the story, and not completing many side quests I completed it in about 15 hours (on the normal difficulty). Lastly, I found that the number of planets you could actually land on was disappointingly small. Now that the cons of the game our out of the way, I can sing its praises. This game is, simply amazing. Yes I know I said it earlier, but it's true. This is definitely a must have game if you own a X360, and I think it deserves Game of the Year. The storyline is very well written, and at times is so emotionally gripping, that I actually cared whether certain characters lived or died. For the most part, the voice acting in the game was good, though at times Shepard's words came out somewhat awkward. One complaint i've read on many boards is that the game is slow and boring, with hardly any action, well to answer these complaints, THIS IS A BIOWARE GAME! Bioware is known for their dialogue driven games. If you want action go play Call of Duty 4 (a great game by the way). Overall, Mass Effect is definitely worth the $60, and I Highly recommend it, provided you don't have the attention span of a Squirrel.

Overall: 9/10

Story : 9/10
Graphics : 9/10
Sound : 7/10
Fun Factor : 10/10

Assassins Creed Review

I recently bought Assassins Creed and its a great game with big twists, one at the very begining which i wont spoil for those who dont already know. It also has some problems, one which really halts the gameplay. Assassins Creed is about an assassin named Altair who works for an Assassins guild. The game starts off slow as your bombarded with dialogue, but it picks up shortly after. You can travel to 4 different cities, and gives you open ended exploration. In these towns you have to climb view points to get sight of the where your objectives are on the map. Once you do this the points appear on your map. You then complete these objectives to gain information about your hit, so you get the approval of the owner of the assassins bureau in each town. The missions are the same for each town and each hit, Informant-speak to a fellow brother and do something for him to get info from him (silently killing his enemies, or collecting flags). Eavesdrop-sit on a bench and listen to a persons conversation. Interrogation- beat the hell out of someone for info, then kill em. Pickpocket- i dont have to explain that one. Save the Citizen- this one isnt mandatory to do, but u get people to distract guards for you if you ever get in trouble. This leads to the biggest problem in the game, it gets extremely repetitive. It will dampen the experience for you, and makes the game get old too fast. And it glitches, not frequently, but enough to be a problem. If you are able to ignore this major downfall, then you will love this game and its a game for you. To summarize this game is very good, but has hitches that can possible kill the experience for you. I give Assassins Creed for the Xbox 360 a 3.5/5.
-Ryan Falla