Mass Effect Galaxy, from EA Mobile, seems totally unfit for the iPhone/iPod Touch controls, but it surprises with its quality and fun gameplay. The game itself is a secondary story, which follows Jacob Taylor, a resent retiree from the Alliance Military, and Miranda, a mysterious female who’s story is not well known. The kicker is that both characters play an integral part of the upcoming AAA title, Mass Effect 2 from EA’s Bioware development studio. Galaxy, has a much smaller scale, but still brings varying dialogue trees, fun tilt controls and a good story.
During the one or two hours of gameplay, you control Jacob through about 5 different environments. Each of these environments
has between 3-5 “combat situations,” in which you navigate the level shooting dudes and aliens. You must kill all the enemies in each level to move onto the next. Within each of these killing fields called levels, there are a plethora of power-ups that make the game surprisingly easy. The complexity that the developers have thrown in is through the controls, but more about that later. As you blow your way through each level, there are one or two conversations in between that fill in the “why” or “how” of each environment. You can either be nice, an ass or a normal person, all of which are chosen via touch controls. The UI for this is the same as advanced power selection, which can be clunky sometimes. The strangest part of the whole situation is that only the first line of text is voiced, I assume this was to keep the size of the download small. I believe that they should have just left that out and then I would not have felt like it should have been fully voiced.
Keeping with the moral choice aspect of the original Mass Effect, the developers have included this also in Galaxy, which allows Jacob to talk his way out of combat situations (that is it). Although I was a nice guy the whole time, I was really only able to 
avoid one battle. I don’t believe that any game changing choices are in this title and there is no real need for those choices if they don’t actually do anything. But, overall, the writing is good and still has the sarcastic flare that was in the original. Players of that original game will see and hear clues that prove this is a Mass Effect game, but the art style is drastically different. With a cartoony or even cel-shaded are style, the differences are obviously there, but you still feel like it is in the Mass Effect universe.
The biggest part of the game that a perspective buyer should be worried about is the controls. As long as you aren’t riding down the bumpiest road in the world and can tilt your iPod or iPhone, then you will be fine. The hardest part is trying to tilt and see which power-up you are trying to select and there is really no vibration feedback, which would have been nice. This same lack of feedback can make you feel like you are button mashing, but it doesn’t take too much away from the actual experience. Overall, it is easy to control and does not, in any way, hamper the gameplay.
If you own an iPhone or an iPod Touch and a fan of the Mass Effect series, then you have already downloaded this game. At five dollars, you get an hour long experience that fills in a bunch of information about two of the characters in Mass Effect 2. Although this may seem like a short experience, you can play in short bursts, and make it last much, much longer. I can see a tv show coming out of this type of story or experience. If you are not a fan of the series then you may be a tad bit confused of who you are battling, but it is still a great sci-fi game. The hidden plus that this game brings is the inclusion of a special Mass Effect 2 item that can be unlocked by purchasing this game. If you plan on picking up the next game, then why not download this, learn more about the universe and get that extra add-on along with it (I have no idea what it is, but you will need a EA login).
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