Blue Tattoo

One of the most hyped games of the fall was my biggest reason for taking the 360 plunge last month. Predictably, I’ve fallen victim to its siren song, and would gladly pursue the Geth to any number of backwater worlds for hours on end. Since Bioware is behind some of my favorite games (KOTOR and Baldur’s Gate 2 for example), I had high expectations for their first next gen effort. And while they seemed to have pulled a Molyneux on some really cool features, (dynamic interruptible dilogue, full control over party- err, squad-members) overall the finished product is gleaming, and may be the best storytelling, if not story, I’ve ever seen in a game.

Biggest change from previous Bioware titles: fully voiced protagonist. This makes a huge difference in how you perceive the game. First off, you spend a lot of time staring at your characters face, which makes it much more sensible to go with the default, most highly polished visage for your avatar. If the voice acting sucked, this feature would be worse than useless, but this is not so, luckily. In fact, as many reviews have stated, I find myself slogging through combat just to get to the next dialog tree. The elegant wheel of choices gives you just enough information about your next lines to make a semi-informed choice, but keeps it simple enough to be useful, as well as interesting to listen to.

While the galaxy’s worlds may be a little empty at times, it is way more expansive than the five-planet choice of KOTOR. Not to mention that driving around in the rover is eff you enn fun.