Gamertell Review: Mass Effect: Redemption #1 for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

Product: Mass Effect: Redemption #1
Price: $0.99
Rating: Two Thumbs Up, 95 of 100, A, * * * * 1/2
Pros: Fills in some Mass Effect 2 back story, decent artwork, writing is solid and reasonably affordable.
Cons: Some art panels feature characters with awkward smiles and the entire thing is presented panel by panel.
Overall: If you are interested in the Mass Effect mythos, Redemption is well worth a peak.

If there is one thing BioWare does right with its games, it’s make you want to consume the narrative anyway you can get it.

Be it playing through a 30- to 80-hour game, reading and digesting hundreds of codex entries like some ancient monk locked away in a remote convent or reading multiple, full-fledged novels (or maybe just Wikipedia) and even, in this instance, reading a comic book. Mass Effect Redemption is a four-part comic book that chronicles some back story for Mass Effect 2 and supposedly will tie-in to some future downloadable content.

Written by Mass Effect 2 lead writer Mac Walters, issue the first opens with the mysterious disappearance of Commander Shepard and follows Mass Effect Asari, possible, love interest, Liara T’soni as she tries to find uncover whether or not Shepard is dead. Through the 86 page story, Liara meets up with a Drell named, Feron, Miranda, the Illusive Man and there’s even a small surprise regarding Mass Effect’s mysterious information dealer, the Shadow Broker.

If none of that makes sense to you it’s because Mass Effect Redemption isn’t starting point for newcomers but for people who have already played through the original Mass Effect. If you haven’t played Mass Effect 2 but finished the first game, you can probably get away with reading Redemption and reasonably follow along. Though the preferred way to go about things is to finish Mass Effect 2 first.

I should clarify that the page count is more of a panel count. Each page is a actually a single illustration panel rather than the traditional comic book page. I bring this up because some people get turned off reading panels and might prefer the physical copy over the app.

The cover artwork (by Daryl Mandryk) looks amazing and the inside art (by Omar Francia), while not as amazing as the cover, illustrates the world nicely save for a few panels where characters are smiling at awkward moments. (Friendly reminder: viewing this on the iPad will produce fuzzy images. For clearly illustrations use an iPhone or iPod Touch) While I can’t judge the story as a whole through one issue, the writing in these pages is really good thanks to the tone of the characters. Batarians are still violent and greedy, Miranda sounds like, well, Miranda, etc.

The entire comic will take about fifteen minutes to read and merely serves to set up the rest of the series, so there’s not a whole lot going on save for the small surprise. But if you are interested if what Liara is up to during Mass Effect 2 and don’t mind spending $0.99, Redemption issue 1 is definitely worth a peak.

Site [Mass Effect: Redemption #1 @ Dark Horse]