Topic: Mass Effect

[Smash_Brother]

Playing through it. It's pretty decent, and can keep a room full of folks entertained, which is hard to do for an RPG.

Anyone else playing it?

[GoldenPhoenix]

I have it, but haven't played it yet, though I plan on playing it this weekend so I can have a taste of ALL the big games that came out this Year so I can do a game of the year feature.

[Shift Key]

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Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix
I have it, but haven't played it yet, though I plan on playing it this weekend so I can have a taste of ALL the big games that came out this Year so I can do a game of the year feature.

#1 will be a 360 game.
Everyone will mock you.
Then regular transmission will continue.

Is that really worth the effort?

[Maverick]

Pretty decent?  This is the freakin' game of the year right here.

I'm in love with it.  I've beaten it on "light side" and am now going through on "Dark Side".  Although since you're not actually a Sith this time the "Renegade" points seem to mean more like "Dickhead" than evil.  :-P

Any game that lets you pull a Captain Kirk and score with an alien hottie is A+ in my book.

[NWR_pap64]

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Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
Playing through it. It's pretty decent, and can keep a room full of folks entertained, which is hard to do for an RPG.

Anyone else playing it?

How are the gunplay and action elements? Are they pretty frequent or is it a whole RPG experience (as in, slow grinding gameplay)?

[Dirk Temporo]

Quote
Originally posted by: pap64

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
Playing through it. It's pretty decent, and can keep a room full of folks entertained, which is hard to do for an RPG.

Anyone else playing it?

How are the gunplay and action elements? Are they pretty frequent or is it a whole RPG experience (as in, slow grinding gameplay)?

ITT we confuse the term "RPG" with "JRPG."

PROTIP: JRPGs aren't RPGs at all.

[Sister Mary LeFever]

Quote
Originally posted by: Dirk Temporo
ITT we confuse the term "RPG" with "JRPG."

PROTIP: JRPGs aren't RPGs at all.

FINALLY! Someone who agrees with me!

[GoldenPhoenix]

Actually anything is an RPG, because every game you play a role!

[Kairon]

Watched a dormmate play it, and it made me think a lot of what NWN would play like as a third-person shooter.

[Magik]

Mass Effect is a fantastic game.  I'm loving this game and can't wait to play through the game again.  It's no 10/10, but it's still an amazing game.

The dialogue, character development, and voice acting are phenomenal.  

The voice acting I would say is the best voice acting I have ever heard in a game.  There is no game that comes close to it at all.

The game does involve a 'dark side/good side' path similar to KOTOR, but it's more of a 'good cop/bad cop' scenario.  The story will finish the same regardless of the choices you make, but how you get to that final point is totally up to you.  You can be Mr. Nice Guy and help everybody or you can be Mr. Dick and treat everyone like crap.

My only dislike with the game so far is the inventory system has to be the worse inventory system I've had to deal with in years.  It's typical BioWare fashion.  God, what were they thinking.

Mass Effect = RPG of the Year.

[Magik]

Quote
Originally posted by: pap64

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
Playing through it. It's pretty decent, and can keep a room full of folks entertained, which is hard to do for an RPG.

Anyone else playing it?

How are the gunplay and action elements? Are they pretty frequent or is it a whole RPG experience (as in, slow grinding gameplay)?

The amount of gunplay/action elements really depend on your choices.  If you tend to be Mr. Nice Guy, you end up resolving situations by talking where as if you're Mr. Dick, most situations ends up with a gunfight.

As for the RPG experience, it's really not a grind at all, which is great, because you gain experience from everything you do from going through specific dialogue sequences, decrypting locked items, completing side quests.  It's not like JRPG's where you have to kill enemies over and over.  

[Maverick]

In addition to being totally awesome and letting me bang alien chicks, this game also improved my vocabulary.  Now I know what "Paragon" means.

[Caliban]

I played the first few lines of this game, so I can't really say how good it is. I did manage to make my character look like a buffed up version of me which is pretty cool, now I can finally bang alien chicks...virtually.

[IceCold]

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The voice acting I would say is the best voice acting I have ever heard in a game. There is no game that comes close to it at all.

Better than Eternal Darkness?

Huh, I just realised that they're both made in Canada.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: IceCold

Quote
The voice acting I would say is the best voice acting I have ever heard in a game. There is no game that comes close to it at all.

Better than Eternal Darkness?

Huh, I just realised that they're both made in Canada.

After reading that, I think I like Eternal Darkness less!

[blackfootsteps]

I'm enjoying the game but it definitely doesn't feel as polished as it should be. For example sometimes I look at a team mate and press A to talk and... nothing. The frame rate issues (almost universal) and the game locking up occasionally (in the midst of massive firefights) are annoyances.

I also don't think the renegade v paragon idea is as fleshed out as it could be. Sure it's cool to hear random people talk about your character's personal history and some of the decisions that you have to make are pretty significant but you don't gain any powers intrinsic to one side or the other which limits its applicability I think. Also some missions don't seem to have a Dark side conclusion, you either do the mission and get paragon points or you reject the mission and miss the experience (or is it just that my intimidate stat is too low - which seems strange because I've done two planets and have 7 points in that stat). I kinda miss the force persuade type options from KotOR, where you could make people do some crazy stuff.

That being said the game continues to draw me back in, the story is very interesting so far and it's amazing just to talk to people and see where  conversations will go. The polish that is missing from the game engine oozes out in interactions and little details in the world, reminding me of a Retro game. The voice acting is brilliant and the codex also has extensive voicing which is quite amazing. The alien races are varied (although some are very similar to those from KotOR) which creates some reveals some interesting insights between party members.  

[Dirk Temporo]

Quote
Originally posted by: Maverick
In addition to being totally awesome and letting me bang alien chicks, this game also improved my vocabulary.  Now I know what "Paragon" means.

You... Didn't before? >.>

[Flames_of_chaos]

Since Mass Effect is a triology and Bioware/Pandemic was bought by EA (which means EA also owns Mass Effect) I wonder how the publishing is going to work, theres a rumor that the other 2 will be published by Microsoft,  Bioware and EA are going to be listed as developers.  

[GoldenPhoenix]

Well I played the game for a couple of hours and it is a good game, though I wish it didn't feel so similar to KOTOR. The game is far from being revolutionary in any shape or form, heck it isn't even that polished with clunky inventory management and other "glitches". Beyond that though it is a very GOOD game that is quite deep if you take the time to master it, heck I've barely scratched the top of it.

[Darc Requiem]

Quote
Originally posted by: blackfootsteps
I'm enjoying the game but it definitely doesn't feel as polished as it should be. For example sometimes I look at a team mate and press A to talk and... nothing. The frame rate issues (almost universal) and the game locking up occasionally (in the midst of massive firefights) are annoyances.

I also don't think the renegade v paragon idea is as fleshed out as it could be. Sure it's cool to hear random people talk about your character's personal history and some of the decisions that you have to make are pretty significant but you don't gain any powers intrinsic to one side or the other which limits its applicability I think. Also some missions don't seem to have a Dark side conclusion, you either do the mission and get paragon points or you reject the mission and miss the experience (or is it just that my intimidate stat is too low - which seems strange because I've done two planets and have 7 points in that stat). I kinda miss the force persuade type options from KotOR, where you could make people do some crazy stuff.

That being said the game continues to draw me back in, the story is very interesting so far and it's amazing just to talk to people and see where  conversations will go. The polish that is missing from the game engine oozes out in interactions and little details in the world, reminding me of a Retro game. The voice acting is brilliant and the codex also has extensive voicing which is quite amazing. The alien races are varied (although some are very similar to those from KotOR) which creates some reveals some interesting insights between party members.

The renegade v. paragon system is fleshed out. In Mass Effect you are a "good guy/girl" that is the way the story is written. The paragon/renegade system determines how you reach the conclusion. You can either be considerate and look for the least violent means possible or you can be an any means necessary sort of soldier. I was a paragon on my first play through and did everything possible to limit the collateral damage. My second play through I was a renegade and it was a total different game. Sure I ended up doing the same task most of the time, but he way I achieved it was total different. I can see myself finishing this game at least a half a dozen times if not more. If it weren't for the fact that I have Fire Emblem and SMG to finish I'd probably be on my 4 or 5 the play through instead of my third.

[Bill Aurion]

Finally played and finished the game after some three days of playing (I did almost nothing but play the bloody addicting game this week...)  My thoughts...

Pros
- Solid combat with decent enough enemy AI
- Squad gameplay that isn't all **** for once?  I'll take it...
- I adore choice-based gameplay, so here's an extra point for pure bias!
- Incredible amount of information...Almost too much...I think I spent more time reading and listening than actually playing...
- But that's okay, because the story was actually interesting, which is saying something coming from someone who doesn't really like sci-fi all that much...
- Amazing character development...I actually looked forward to finding new info on the different alien species
- I love turians...

Cons
- First let's get all the technical issues out of the way...The screen-tearing, the framerate, the texture-loading...It's all pretty bad...Bioware clearly didn't take all the time needed to polish the game up...
- And there are some really annoying bugs...Like where enemies fall through the floor...Or this one where an enemy tank boobytrap will spring, but the game won't recognize it as an enemy and it won't shoot at you (yes, I'm picky, I don't care...)
- Then there's this really, REALLY annoying one...If anyone can recall the mission to take out the Geth foothold in the Armstrong Nebula, my last world to take out was the furthest right one...I climbed to the top of the mountain, killed the snipers, and then the Geth Colossus dropped down...When I killed it, the cutscene talking about the main base popped up, but shot me up in the air somewhere, so I couldn't do anything...I couldn't even return to the Normandy, so I had to reload and waste another twenty minutes...The only way I could avoid the bug was to bring the tank down to its last hit, then get out of the Mako and shoot it 'til it collapsed...That's just plain silly...
- Some of the "Charm" choices (the blue ones) are hilariously powerful...Too powerful...I mean at one moment someone is on a murderous rampage, and a little sweet talk turns him into a harmless kitten?  Again I'm being picky, but eh...
- The ending didn't bring enough closure for me...They spent the entire game building up all this character development between you and your crew, and they don't close it up?  Why couldn't there be an additional scene that shows what everyone does, say, a month or so after the Reapers have been brought down?  Like showing Garrus back at his job at C-Sec, Tali returning home, Sheperd visiting the grave of whatever crewmate died?  It left me feeling kind of empty, and it made the relationship/love affair bit feel really shallow and "just there to be there" in the end because of it...


But overall a fun and addicting game...I'd probably give it an 8.5...

(Just for fun, I was a Vanguard, and used NO ONE but Ashley and Garrus the entire game through, except of course for the one bit of the game that Ashley waits with the nuke...I just really, really liked them, and their abilities rounded out my team really nicely...)

[Kairon]

Bill, are there Lolis in space?

[Bill Aurion]

Not in this game they sure aren't!

[S-U-P-E-R]

I just finished it. Parts of it a really frickin' great and other parts are terrible, terrible stupid design.

Creating your own character and specializing their talents and personality rule. And your character still gets to be fully voice acted and everything! Mine was a pretty girl :3

But the item/inventory micromanagement is the most retarded thing I've ever seen. The game allows you to automatically place your talent points, which is relatively easy and something you'd want to be hands off with, but you can't automatically equip weapons/armor and the one or two customization slots on EACH OF THOSE ITEMS ARRGGHHFFF and then you die and go back to your save point before you spent a retarded amount of time dicking around with your items because the game's auto save option is terrible and useless. Gee, you'd think you'd like to go back to where you were when you died. Arrgghff. Either way, you end up manually saving constantly which is also kind of a hassle.

I hear a lot of people didn't like the Mako parts but I thought they were pretty neat. Except the shield regen was retarded. it was like playing Halo but instead of waiting five seconds for your shields, you waited like five minutes. Damn.

This game is okay, but would have been much better if it had the 'Optimal' menu option from FF6. lol.  

[Bill Aurion]

Quote
Originally posted by: S-U-P-E-R
I hear a lot of people didn't like the Mako parts but I thought they were pretty neat.

Laugho, except for the planets with nothing but giant cliff faces all over the place...Not fun to traverse that stuff...