2007 Video Game Holiday Buyer's Guide - Page 3

3: Mass Effect
Release Date: November 20
Developer: BioWare
Platform(s): Xbox 360

For almost ten years, BioWare Corp. has been churning out critically and commercially successful products. The Canadian-based company has gained a reputation for developing high-quality role-playing titles (such as Baldur’s Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) that boast some of the best writing both inside and outside of the gaming world. Basically, in the land of role-playing games, BioWare is tops.

In their latest project, Mass Effect, players assume the role of Captain Shepard – commanding officer aboard the S.S. Normandy. The intergalactic government has tasked Shepard with finding a way to stop an ancient machine race that is rumored to invade the galaxy every 50,000 years. Myth has it that when the machines attack, they methodically eradicate everything in their path, leaving mere scraps of once advanced cultures in their wake. Acting outside of the law, the player must sort fact from fiction in a race against time to save all civilized life in the galaxy.

The best word to describe Mass Effect is epic. Aboard the S.S. Normandy, players will be given an entire galaxy to explore and no rules of chronology to limit them. BioWare has promised a story and a universe that bends to the will of the player. The planets that litter the vast universe of Mass Effect (charted or not) can (supposedly) be visited in any order, and, once on their surfaces, they can be explored however the player sees fit - think Grand Theft Auto on a galactic level.

Mass Effect looks primed to further cement BioWare’s status as one of the most critically acclaimed RPG developers of the past thirty years. With photo-realistic graphics, a new real-time dialogue system, and squad-based combat designed around an addictive leveling system, Mass Effect easily finds it way to number three on the list.

2: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Release Date: December 3
Developer: Nintendo
Platform(s): Nintendo Wii

Pixilated bliss at 200 miles per hour, Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series has been the answer to every ADHD gamer’s prayers since the first installment came out for the Nintendo 64 back in 1999.

More than a mere fighting series, Smash Bros. has acted as the glorious stage for video game all-stars to lay their own unique brands of smack down upon each other. From Link to Pikachu, Mario to Samus, Nintendo has thrown everything in its repertoire into the Smash Bros. series, but with Brawl, they’re upping the ante in every possible way.

Article Author: Ben Wood

Ben is a junior at the University of Oklahoma. He is majoring in Journalism with a minor in Film and Video Studies, but that's probably not what it's going to say on his degree certificate when he graduates.

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