Mass Effect Reviews

[theslug]

Yeah on the run equipping weapons or just general interface is slightly absurd at times becuase the interface uses the joy stick. Straight right on it picks one thing, right and slightly down picks something else, and then right but farther down picks another, then straight down is another. It can be real tricky trying to pick a weapon or tab in one of the northeast/southeast/visa versa becuase its like so temperamental, you move even a millimeter and your half way to blowing your brains out in real life becuse it takes like 5 minutes. thats why they have this nifty little thing for weapons built straight into the controls. Basically you can choose (not quite sure how i did it) what two weapons you want fast access to. You hit right trigger your weapon comes out, say a shotgun, you blow a few close range enemies and some guys from down the corridor are shooting at you. You hit the left bumper and your guy puts his shotgun away and busts out his assault rifle in like one smooth fast motion (or w/e you have prechoosen) and you kill dudes with little problems.

 

Now something like picking skills, I have my overkill mapped to X but other than that I'm at a complete loss past just shooting people. Then again combat has made up about 15% of my game so far so I haven't learned much at all. I've been doing way more story/quests than fighting.

[Pop]

I actually think the dialogue system is sort of a step down. At times it's an outright con job. Since the game lacks consistent autosaving and I sometimes forget to save manually, on those occassions when I stumble into combat and get hit with a rocket I usually have to retrace my steps back through some dialogue, and I try and mix it up a little. What I've found is that in a lot of the dialogues there are really only 1 or 2 options, when there isn't a charm / intimidate opportunity. On those occassions when there are 2 given options (right and left) they are exactly the same. So you've got angry and conciliatory. The top two options on the right are conciliatory, and the bottom is the angry one.

 

I'm no Codexian, but I was still disappointed with the whole "consequences" thing. There are situations in which it seems like your choices might actually have ramifications down the road for the game, particularly the choice given after tracking down the Asari matriarch, but aside from what the Council says to you immediately afterward there's no real effect on the game at all. It's pretty anticlimactic given how important every ****in' NPC makes it sound. There is one choice that has ramifications for your group and one situation that requires a high dialogue skill to keep one of your teammates from turning on you, but they're more or less part of the endgame. When I beat the game it seemed as though the 4 different endings were entirely dependent upon 2 dialogues you get before the end.

 

So, all in all, Bioware remains where it was before. I hope the second iteration in the series varies the gameplay a bit along with the inevitable engine optimization, but that's all I can do, is hope. I never really bought the hype, so this game wasn't as big of a letdown as it was for other kids.

Edited November 22, 2007 by Pop

[Pop]

By the by, I beat the game last night as a Vanguard heavily weighted towards shotgun use, with about 20 hours clocked in all told. It would've been at least 32, but I unwittingly initiated the mission that kicks the endgame into action (hint - It's the one the council gives you after completing one of the initial 3) and as a result there were at least 12 sidequests that I never went through. I'm going through again as a Sentinel.

 

The game as a whole seems to be a continuation of the Jade Empire design philosophy. That is to say, Bioware's focus seems to be on making gameplay more "visceral" and immediate, which I think is a mistake, but I digress. They've worked hard on a (relatively functional) real time combat system and built the game primarily around that. It's more complex and more satisfying than JE, but it still feels off. Dialogue and characterization were typical Bioware, which is to say, above average, but there isn't a lot of progress, all things considered.

 

I had a lot of trouble with texture pop-in (damnable UE3) and dialogue that took place outside of the interface (elevator banter, triggered remarks, etc.) were nearly inaudible, although it may just be something with my surround setup. Other than that, technical presentation was highly agreeable.

Edited November 22, 2007 by Pop

[Wombat]

Scelous seems to have expected the amount of content somewhere near to BG2 with modern graphics but...it must be near impossible to make even a single believable city and vast wilderness with modern graphic standard. Assassin's Creed seems to have done a good job with graphics but some people complaining of Oblivion syndrome: limited NPC voice recording. Even for a huge company like Bioware, I thought space opera was not a wise choice. Considering the number of NPCs and the explorable area, I thought Aliens were a wiser choice even if artistic graphic demands may be even higher.

 

Here is Matt Peckman's comprehensive review on Mass Effect. This time around, the writing is much better although the score is not even the level of just being biased. However, it may be a good read when someone thinking of the streamlining RPG essences. For Peckman is doing a good job in picking up and describe every single clumsiness he found in the game with his idiosyncratic enthusiasm while the majority would describe these minor nuisances simply as "glitches", "sloppy interfaces" or "pace-down." Of course, I don't agree with Peckman and, personally, I don't like RPGs to trade role-playing content such as story brunches and NPC interactions for other demands. There should be some points for blending the essences in a more stream-lined way.

 

You can see where they come from respectively: Scelous is an old-school Bioware RPG fan while Peckman is a non-stop action game fan but they are "typical" gamers in a traditional sense. After reading the reviews above, I checked some of reviews including Gamespot users' and find Mass Effect is doing well. Thinking about it, consoles are usually played on TV. Even it is hard to realize space opera and/or epic fantasy world, these content are mainly shared by families. So, I don't think using the interactive movies is not necessarily a bad thing. I wonder how much of it is intentional but while the player enjoy game-play, his/her family can enjoy "the movie." The game industry used to be dominated by single males but I think Bioware has its strength here since it is a company known for female members. I guess Hollywood and Disney meet game industry is not a bad business formula even when Matt Peckman may not happy with it. I think Mass Effect would make a nice Christmases present, being more family-friendly compared with the big FPS titles. American game industry seems to be getting family-friendly combined with its older family-friendly entertainments, where there are probably room for story-focused RPGs.

 

Alien IP belongs to the world where single males are dominant. The series still have cult fans but it is not so family friendly movie except more action intense recent productions. Personally, I'd like Obsidian to keep the original feel for a change but hmmm...let's see.

[Volourn]

Some of the situations in ME don't really lend itself to the 'Family Friendliness', though.

[legion]

KotOR style inventory? Do they even read their own forums? The inventory was one of the worst things with KotOR.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind the inventory system at all if it had one simple addition: a damn sort button. Sort by name, sort by type, sort by anything. Wading through an unsorted list of equipment when trying to decide what to sell is a massive pain in the ass.

 

I wonder what the chances of getting inventory sorting patch are. Probably not good, but here's hoping, since it's my biggest complaint in an otherwise awesome game.

[Llyranor]

How's the writing/story/characters compared to previous Bioware attempts, anyway?

[thepixiesrock]

Yeah, I'm really having trouble getting into this game. I've gotten to the part where I control my own ship, but then I've stopped playing, and haven't gone back to play for like, three days. Either I'm not interested enough in the game right now, or Poke-fever has hit big, but really, I should be able to play Pokemon and this game, so yeah.

[Hurlshort]

I'm extremely into the game. I find pretty much everything fascinating. I'm also terrible in a firefight, I chose and engineer and I just hide and let my minions do the dirty work.

 

Exploring and surveying is awesome.

[Volourn]

Don't forget that your tech abilities are useful in battle too as they can effect weaponry of the enemies. It took me awhile to really start using my talents in battle. Makes things much more doable. I'm a Infiltrator, btw, so I'm a mix of soldier and engineer. Electronics, and decryption being really useful engineer talents in battle.

 

P.S. I love this game.

 

 

ME > KOTOR

Edited November 25, 2007 by Volourn

[Leferd]

I've had pretty high expectations for this game and I'm pretty satisfied with my experience so far. It's a fun game. Even the mini-games are cool.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Don't forget that your tech abilities are useful in battle too as they can effect weaponry of the enemies. It took me awhile to really start using my talents in battle. Makes things much more doable. I'm a Infiltrator, btw, so I'm a mix of soldier and engineer. Electronics, and decryption being really useful engineer talents in battle.

 

P.S. I love this game.

 

 

ME > KOTOR

 

Weren't you the one complaining about how it was the most "meh" Bio title ever and how it would be like all other Bio RPGs?

 

Or am I mixing up two people?

[Pop]

How's the writing/story/characters compared to previous Bioware attempts, anyway?

There are things I'm unhappy with. They've got a few old tricks that they couldn't bear to get rid of that don't really fit into the game at all and stick out like a sore thumb. Most of them are thrown in at the beginning. There's the eager young party member who dies right away, but that fits better than the "doomsayer". Basically, you come across these scientists who are hiding, and one of them is crazy, so naturally he spews these cryptic statements that are, naturally, foreshadowing things to come. See, that's really lazy, even in a fantasy game. ME does its best to be straight sci-fi with everything from telekinesis to faster-than-light travel being explained away, and **** like prophecy has no place in it.

 

The story is okay. The twists are pretty much inconsequential, adding in a new villain that the players have no connection to. Even less connection than to Saren, anyway. BG2 had the advantage of keeping Irenicus not terribly far away from the game experience most of the time, through dreams and encounters outside of the very end of the game and just having him interested in you. Saren's just kind of out there, focused on his objectives, and you chase him and fight Geth. It would've been nice just to give Saren remarkable agents (more remarkable than the Geth, anyway) who go after you, like in KOTOR.

 

Characters are pretty good, IMO. They don't test very well on the Gromnir gauge, though. They're pretty easy to explain. One hopes they'll carry on into the second game so they can continue filling them out.

[Volourn]

"Or am I mixing up two people?"

 

Mixing up people. I have always thought ME would be better than KOTOR. And, it is. It's basically a suped up KOTOR. Not that it doens't have faults as it does.

 

 

"There are things I'm unhappy with. They've got a few old tricks that they couldn't bear to get rid of that don't really fit into the game at all and stick out like a sore thumb. Most of them are thrown in at the beginning. There's the eager young party member who dies right away, but that fits better than the "doomsayer". Basically, you come across these scientists who are hiding, and one of them is crazy, so naturally he spews these cryptic statements that are, naturally, foreshadowing things to come. See, that's really lazy, even in a fantasy game. ME does its best to be straight sci-fi with everything from telekinesis to faster-than-light travel being explained away, and **** like prophecy has no place in it."

 

I like ME's story, and writing; but these are excellent points.

Edited November 26, 2007 by Volourn

[theslug]

Some of the writing you encounter is truly quite good but sometimes its also pretty bad. There was one side mission I went on and I killed this chick and it was like "You check her body and hold her up, she looks at you with a wry smile of respect and tries to speak but only blood comes out." or something but it read really sweet at the time.

 

There are mainly 2 things that are really frustrating me at this point in time. Driving the mako and inventory. Just driving around the barren landscapes is boring and monotonous enough, why does it also handle crappy and everything has to be so rocky and annoying to navigate.

 

Storage itself doesn't bother me much since it's divided into your weapon categories however theres no organized compiled list of all your items but what gets me the most is the 150 item limit especially when all they do is throw items at you until you are packed down. I've been on like 3 major selling sprees and already almost have my one million creds achievement and I've barely even started the main quest, not to mention I've omni-gelled countless items that i could of sold for cash.

 

Besides those I have few other qualms with the game. Texture loading, elevator times, loading screens, haven't been big issues but they do weigh down the experience.

 

I enjoy the combat quite a bit. It's short enough that you don't feel bogged down with doing a bunch of crazyness but it's not so short that you don't have to focus and actually try.

 

Story thus far has been moderately average but you can definitely see they have put an insane amount of time in how much writing they've done for all the journal, codex, dialogue, and planet descriptions. A lot of the situations you are put in make you think, it sounds cheesy and you have probably heard it before but there are times when I've stopped and stared at the text wondering if I was in that situation what I would actually do. Even though I'm still only in the very begining of the story (I have 20 hours logged in on side quests) the small amount of character development I've seen I like immensely.

 

I'd say what works in the game overshadows anything bad by a large enough margin that it's really just an after thought at the end of the day. Game is executed beautifully and is huge amounts of win. I'd give it a 94/100. A conservative 94.

[Meshugger]

I was bored, so i bought the game last friday. So far, I have done the

prologue, Citadel and Zhu's Hope-missions

. Last i remember, my play time was at approximately 9 hours, and here are my impressions so far with my "Kirk Shepard"-character, a smooth talker not afraid to pull the trigger when necessary:

 

The good things

 

- The overall presentation, this has to be one Bioware's greatest strengths.

- The graphics are self-explanatory.

- The music is above average.

- The Codex is a good read, since i like mundane and trivial information about people, places and different races.

- It is (or seems) less linear than KotOR and Jade Empire.

 

The "ok" things

 

- The combat-system seems like it wants to be Halo or Gears of War with stats. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

- Character creation, it is a step above Jade Empire, with more options and classes to choose from. But it is expected, nothing incredible found here.

- Role-playing so far. I haven't seen any substantial differences on how you deal with certain situations. It seems missions are done and mostly accepted, whether you are eXXXtreeme or not. But at least it has a nice flavor to it.

 

The bad things

 

- Characters: This and story are the most important factors for me to enjoy a game. Apparently, Bioware has gone the "realistic" route this time, which means that your companions behave and talk like normal people do. Thus, just like real life, they are incredibly boring and almost one-dimensional.

- You can only talk to your characters on the Normandy. I can understand this design-choice when being in the middle of the battle, but in a non-combat area? It turns to the point of being downright awkward.

- The story seems out of place and it hasn't even gotten my attention that much. With the atmosphere and tone heavily emphasizing on science and being realistic, and suddenly including prophecies and gods seems very unlikely step to take.

- You can't directly control your team-members in battle, there is no excuse for this.

- The dialogue-system makes my character say things that aren't intended at times. I have already, by accident, killed someone and doing pickup lines with a fellow NPC. Maybe i am new to this, but i fail to see on why this is better than in previous Bioware titles.

- The inventory, yuck. It's KotOR all over again.

 

However, the complaints about texture-popouts, framerate and slow elevator time seems to be unfounded. They haven't decreased my game-experience at least, and no freeze has occurred either.

 

Finally, i have a really hard time to continue this game, since the most important factors for a great RPG, namely story and characters (IMO) haven't delivered at all this time.

[mkreku]

However, the complaints about texture-popouts, framerate and slow elevator time seems to be unfounded. They haven't decreased my game-experience at least, and no freeze has occurred either.

Agreed, the texture issues are amazingly bad. Was talking to some woman for a while and suddenly her eyebrows appeared, it scared the hell out of me, thought she was being attacked by face eating caterpillars

You've obviously not been subjected to the face eating caterpillars!

[Meshugger]

However, the complaints about texture-popouts, framerate and slow elevator time seems to be unfounded. They haven't decreased my game-experience at least, and no freeze has occurred either.

Agreed, the texture issues are amazingly bad. Was talking to some woman for a while and suddenly her eyebrows appeared, it scared the hell out of me, thought she was being attacked by face eating caterpillars

You've obviously not been subjected to the face eating caterpillars!

 

Nope, i have seen some issues in the terrain, but nothing similar on the NPC's. But i have only played 9 hours, so maybe it's more down the line

[Pop]

Joker spontaneously grows beards in my presence.

[Rhomal]

P.S. I love this game.

 

 

ME > KOTOR

 

you love anything with Bioware stamped on it!

 

For the record can I call it or can I call it... IGN's UT3 review:

 

9.0 Presentation

Weak single player story. Outstanding feature set for match setup online or offline, though some may take issue with the menu system's appearance.

9.5 Graphics

Absolutely beautiful. Top-notch texture work, stunning animations and effects, and some really impressive maps.

9.0 Sound

Weapon effects make the sci-fi guns sound real. Ambient tracks fit the mood. And of course, "Rampage!"

9.0 Gameplay

Deathmatch feels really familiar at this point, but the added depth of warfare will keep you hooked. Still some of the best shooter controls out there.

9.0 Lasting Appeal

Lots of maps split across its six modes will keep you busy for some time, though your deathmatch experience may wear thin rather quickly.

 

9.0 Outstanding OVERALL

[Volourn]

"you love anything with Bioware stamped on it!"

 

While this is true for the most part, it's a confusing stastement to make in this situation when I post ME > KOTOR since both of thsoe are BIO games.

 

@ meshugger about npcs: Some of them are one dimensional but I say Ashley, and Garrus have some great depth to them, and Wrex is pretty good too. the other thre, yeah not so much to date. I'll explain why later when i finsih. I do agree, not being allowed to speak with them while exploring is silly though they do comment on things that happen and what they see as well as interject conversations. I love their retorts if you click on them in combat though. Heh.

[Musopticon?]

I think the NPCs are pretty good after the horde of goons that was Jade Empire. Calm, military and scientist types abound, some with very downtone biowarian complexes. Someone might miss the archetypal soppy romance interest(ugh, Dawn Star), who seeks attention after every trifle-disturbing combaty venture, however. There doesn't seem to be any inane gimmick characters like Kang the Mad or HK 47 either. Rather, the npcs are quite down to earth, which I find very fitting in light of the setting. Actual science fiction for once! Though it seems to be interspered with space opera at parts. Fortunately, it's the Absolution Gap type space opera rather than New Jedi Order type space opera.

Edited November 26, 2007 by Musopticon?

[Meshugger]

"you love anything with Bioware stamped on it!"

 

While this is true for the most part, it's a confusing stastement to make in this situation when I post ME > KOTOR since both of thsoe are BIO games.

 

@ meshugger about npcs: Some of them are one dimensional but I say Ashley, and Garrus have some great depth to them, and Wrex is pretty good too. the other thre, yeah not so much to date. I'll explain why later when i finsih. I do agree, not being allowed to speak with them while exploring is silly though they do comment on things that happen and what they see as well as interject conversations. I love their retorts if you click on them in combat though. Heh.

 

Maybe i need to speak with them again after i've done some of the main-quests. I did a couple of side-quests today, but they didn't seem to have anything to say about it.

Edited November 26, 2007 by Meshugger

[Volourn]

After each main quest, they will talk to you a bit.