Volournian Early ME Impressions

[J.E. Sawyer]

ME's mini-game is pretty nonsensical, but it's really low-impact on the player. The mini-games take maybe 8 seconds and they all follow the same format. No attempt is made to integrate it into the world (as with Bioshock), but I have to say I appreciate ME's mini-game more than Bioshock's. I'm still involved actively in the resolution of the action, but the involvement is very short and reasonably easy to circumvent at a cost.

[Leferd]

ME's mini-game is pretty nonsensical, but it's really low-impact on the player. The mini-games take maybe 8 seconds and they all follow the same format. No attempt is made to integrate it into the world (as with Bioshock), but I have to say I appreciate ME's mini-game more than Bioshock's. I'm still involved actively in the resolution of the action, but the involvement is very short and reasonably easy to circumvent at a cost.

 

What are your views on the combat Josh?

[J.E. Sawyer]

I think the ideas behind the combat design are pretty solid (other than impact feedback and early weapon feel, which I think starts just north of Bloodlines territory), but I think it falls apart when you try to use allies tactically. They have a lot of problems pathing/using cover properly and they also botch the use of their abilities a lot. You can plow through battles pretty easily by min-maxing the advancement and equipment systems on your main dude, but the allies wind up being tag-alongs that sort of take a few solid shots here and there. Sometimes they help a lot, but their contributions are pretty... haphazard.

[Musopticon?]

Spoilers follow.

 

Basically, you're supposed to think it's Saren who's behind all this Geth carnage or whatnot, but it turns out that the Geth worship his flagship as a God, and they follow Saren because Saren follows the ship. The ship is "Sovereign", and it is a Reaper, one of the ancient supermachines, the only one in the galaxy. It isn't fully explained, but the Sovereign has the power to slowly gain control of any organic being within proximity to it. So while Saren initially fights out of a hatred for humans, at some point he becomes a slave to the ship. Some of the several twists (none of which are particularly relevatory) is that the Protheans weren't the first intergalactic species, but the last of many, and that they didn't actually build the Citadel or any of the Relay stations, but the Reapers did, and they've been handed down to all the species they eventually wiped out. The final twist is that the citadel is in reality a huge mass relay that, when activated, warps in the entire Reaper fleet who have been idling in the void outside the galaxy. The Reapers set it up so that the Citadel would eventually be the political, tactical and scientific hub of every civilization that found it. That way, when the Reapers warp in, they are essentially granted total victory within the span of an hour. Your task is thus to prevent Sovereign from warping in his fellows.

That's so Alastair Reynolds that it's not even funny. It's not like the Reapers-thing hasn't been done before him, but to even use the same kind of baiting method to summon them, ughh... I call a rip-off.

[MLMarkland]

I've only played a few hours into the game, but the Reynolds vibe was evident from the beginning. That's not to say anything negative about borrowing liberally in the process of creating an entertainment product, it is pretty much sop. X borrows from Y who borrowed from Z who borrowed from Shakespeare who borrowed from some crusty merovingian who borrowed from Gilgamesh.

 

The parallels to Reynolds are pretty striking though.

[Volourn]

Never heard of the guy. Either way the game is entertaining. Of course, it does have wekaness.

 

Let's say it together: I N V E N T O R Y ! ! ! What does that spell!?! CRAP!!!

 

I just landed on the second plot planet. I've played for 23 hours or so, and am level 23. Just got a special class as well. And, i rejected the advances of a wannabe lover. HA!

Edited November 27, 2007 by Volourn

[MLMarkland]

Alastair Reynolds

[Volourn]

Meh. can't say I'v heard/read his stuff. Sounds typically sci fi. BIO did mention that did lots of research, and were heavily influenced by classic sci fi (as I'm sure this guy was). Them 'ripping' him off isn't the end of the world (espicially since he was probably influenced by previous sci fi writers as well).

 

As for the party members, and people saying they're lacking what previous BIo efforts had. I'm sorry that's wrong. Most of the companions have more depth. Ashley is a prime exmaple of that. WOW! I alternate respetcing her, and wanting to push her into space. I'm also have a subtle but good infleunce over Garrus. Impressive. And, they talk a reaosnable amount, imo.

 

26 hours in, level 30, and just finished Noveria. A decent destination though it lacked as many side quests as I'd have liked. The main part (including its conclusion) was pretty awesome, though. WOWSERS!

 

ME > KOTOR

[MLMarkland]

Like I said, drawing plotlines and story elements from previously successful endeavors is not particularly surprising or worthy of condemnation in the entertainment field. Lord of the Rings and Star Wars both draw substantially from previous works of art.

[Musopticon?]

ME > KOTOR

Definitely. Bioware almost made it, again.

Edited November 28, 2007 by Musopticon?

[Volourn]

Finished the game earlier today. A very good game. I'd rate it around 88-90. Inventory is horrible. C&C is not FOish; but still pretty good. Dialogue is awesome, and ME - for the most part - is a very mature game and not because of alien sex or naked skin.

 

The combat is awesome. The story is solid. My biggest beef with the story is SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER. The characters stand up to the best of BIO's past npcs.

 

I think side quests are undderrated (this is different than disucssing repetitive terrain/buildings, btw).

 

c00L10 BEAN1O INDEE10 !!!

 

 

P.S. ME > KOTOR

Edited December 11, 2007 by Volourn

[Meshugger]

I finished it this weekend as well, clocking in at 31 hours. I would give it something in the vein of 75-80 on my scale. The inventory is indeed very crappy, and the C&C is pretty much so-so. While the dialogue flows well for the setting Bioware created, but since i didn't like the setting very much, it didn't matter for me. The combat is somewhat similar to Bloodlines, The Witcher and Oblivion (Direct control of the characters actions) so it was pretty good, except for that i couldn't directly control my party-members in battle, boo!

 

The story, pacing and characters didn't do much for me. Everything was dry and almost to the point of being sterile. "We-are-super-serious-soldiers-in-space" didn't work for me. Little to no sarcasm, no wacky or even remotely funny characters or places. Sometimes it felt like it was "CSI: Citadel Station!". And again, i could guess the story how the story would go after the very first meeting with the council. Overall, this was all done with an above average soundtrack and excellent production values and presentation. Too bad there were too many shortcomings for me to enjoy though. Still better than Jade Empire though.

 

Oh, and KotOR >>>>> ME

Edited December 11, 2007 by Meshugger

[Sand]

I wish there was more diverse item crafting and modding in the game.

[Leferd]

Mass Effect sells 1 million units in three weeks. Great for Bioware. Good news for EA and Microsoft.

[Leferd]

Non Spoiler mini review.

 

Time of Final Save: 46hrs 26 min.

 

Good: Fun, involving story. A few mutually exclusive big game choices to make. Some of the

[SteveThaiBinh]

Okay, I need to find a way to play this game. It must be good if Aimo's doing fan art...

[Sand]

I like the psychotic Shepard.

[Volourn]

l0l That comic illustrates ME's greatest strength role-playing wise. ME may not be the best game at C&C; but determinibg how your character reacts to situations and personality, it's awesome.

[taks]

they had a special on the sci-fi channel last night: Sci vs. Fi: ME.

 

talk about hype. they had interviews with many of the bioware folks. it was interesting to put faces to the names in some instances. they also included several game journalists and even a couple comedians. a half-hour long advert, IMO, but it was interesting to see some of the game aspects. of course, everyone that was on the show raved about the game (hardly a surprise). one guy, however, did mention a quirk in the flow - i don't recall exactly what he was referring to, but he put it in the context of "all computer games suffer from this."

 

taks

[jaguars4ever]

Objectively, the inventory is teh crapz0r...BUT given that I played ME after The Witcher, the inventory management seemed liked the best thing since sliced bread.

 

*rocks up and down in pre-natal position*

 

Can't sleep, Witcher herbs will fill my sack and eat me. Can't sleep, herbs will eat me.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

How disfunctional is the inventory exactly? Why is it so bad anyway?

Edited December 16, 2007 by WILL THE ALMIGHTY

[Sand]

It pretty much puts everything in one big disorganized pile.

[angshuman]

In addition,

• There's a 150-item limit. Say you're at 145 items, and you open a crate with 10 items in it. You MUST destroy 5 items out of the 10 that you just picked up. You cannot pick 5 and leave the others in the crate. You can't even cancel the whole process, return to your inventory, get rid of some useless items and then open the crate again. Once you open a crate, you're screwed.
  
• When you're equipping your characters, the items are categorized, so it works fine. But when you're at a store, for example, you need to scroll through the entire randomly organized list of items to find what you want to sell.
  
• The scroll speed is agonizingly slow.
  
• If you switch from the Sell to the Buy tab and back, the pointer jumps back to the top of the list. Exploited properly, this is sometimes helpful, but most of the time it's plain irritating.
  

Eventually, you get used to it though. It's just an annoyance, just like other moderate annoyances like the lack of full control over the squad, the sometimes stupid party AI, the long elevator rides, the texture popups, and the occasional glitch. My only real gripe against the game is the lack of good sidequests, and the uninteresting unchartered worlds (although

Luna was awesome

).

[Pop]

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xe6na6

[jaguars4ever]

How disfunctional is the inventory exactly? Why is it so bad anyway?

It pretty much puts everything in one big disorganized pile.

 

We're still taking about Witcher, right?

 

'Cause our sole reprieve in ME is that we cant turn our sh1t into omni-goo! Everything's better with omni-goo! Don't have sex without it.