There were quite a few announcements at E3 that caused the most excitement within me. Being a fan of Mass Effect, I enjoyed every minute of the Mass Effect 2 previews along with the news of an Iphone game being made that will tie in with a couple of characters found in Mass Effect 2. Sadly, I find it barely lives up to its expectations.

Story/Presentation

The story in Mass Effect Galaxy takes place before Mass Effect and features the Batarians(barbarians?) as the evil terrorists out to enact revenge on the Citadel. First, however, they must attack a cruise ship. I suppose this was the only way in order for Jacob Taylor, a character that will be in Mass Effect 2, to be thrown into the story. Once you complete the introductory cruise-ship-level you will arrive at the Citadel and be forced to leave for the terminus system in order to find out exactly what the Batarians are up to by traveling to four locations.

Later on you will meet up with Miranda Lawson, another character who will be in Mass Effect 2 and who I believe strongly probably works for Cerberus, and together you will learn what the evil-doers are up to.

The dialog is actually on par in some aspects with Mass Effect as you do have a few choices on what you wish to say. Disappointingly, however, those choices don’t exactly change the outcome that much when compared to Mass Effect.

Another bummer is the voice acting. In some parts you’ll hear their voice for the beginning of a dialog session, but then it’ll revert to text. It would have been a nice feature to have total voice overs like Galaxy’s older brother.

The animated scenes though are voice acted, but are animated in a comic-book still-captured style where their mouths and body do not move. These scenes, along with the dialog sessions, are far better than the entirety of the gameplay; the major flaw of this game.

Game play

The game is set up as a top down shooter with your movement being directed by how you tilt your Iphone/Ipod Touch. Along with this, the game automatically will shoot the enemies that you lock-on to. In my experiences with the game this led to many frustrating battles as you’ll have to change which enemy you have locked-on to as they come running towards Jacob.

You’ll also have one biotic ability that will freeze the enemy you are locked-on to, a tech ability that will destroy the enemy’s shields, and a grenade launcher. All these can be upgraded, but only after completing certain missions.

Sadly, the leveling aspect of Mass Effect is non-existent along with the ability to apply skills to your character. The only way you become stronger is by completing missions that will improve one of the three of Jacob’s abilities.

I also encountered several slow downs and a couple of bugs that resulted in several of my deaths. They have said there will be an update to address this, but I doubt, highly doubt, that I will go through this game again.

Overall

I was quite disappointed with Mass Effect Galaxy. While the story is decent, the gameplay feels like a painful chore in order to get to the story. I also feel like I didn’t learn anything worthwhile about Jacob or Miranda, other than that they have a connection with the Alliance military. I did, however, find it interesting to be able to see another episode of the plights of the Batarians. But on the other hand, I feel as if this is just a prologue to the Mass Effect Downloadable Content Bring Down the Sky.

Pros/Cons

Pros

-Decent Story
-Interesting Animation

Cons
-Weak game play
-Low re-playability
-Slowdowns

The Save Factor (explanation)

I would actually suggest to avoid this game unless by some chance it is marked down to Free.
I picked it up for $2.99, as it originally was released at $4.99, and I still do not find it was worth the price.

Josh T. Games, Handheld, Review, iPhone/iTouch