Mass Effect propaganda - sidequests?

[Xard]

choice without consequences = meh

[GhostofAnakin]

And what sort of consequences were you looking for exactly? Many decisions you made in the game had consequences.

 

Such as

having to choose whether to sacrifice Ashley or Kaidan, whether to kill Wrex or not {I don't know if you can if you get his armour, though}, whether to let the Rachni queen live or kill her and commit genocide. You think such actions wouldn't have any repercussions?

 

Your treatment of the situations on Noveria and Feros was also something to debate. Simple but bloody, or calculatingly civil? Or what about the wife's body of that Indian guy on the Citadel? Did you let them do their research or get the body returned?

 

 

The consequences of actions don't need to be shoved in our faces for them to be effective.

 

Out of curiosity, apart from the ones dealing with your party members (as the consequence was they weren't around any longer) what consequence on gameplay did choosing differently affect?

 

 

Novaria and Feros had choices, but were there really consequences (impactful to the story) for those choices? If you slaughtered the colonists on Feros, how did the rest of the game differ from if you saved them? As far as I know, once you left Feros, it didn't. Ditto for the Rachni queen. If you let her live, you never bump into her again, so it's not like letting her live helped/hurt you down the line.

 

 

Thus, that's why I'm hoping that in ME2, your choices you made in ME1 have some kind of long-term effect. Maybe in ME2, if you

let the Rachni queen live, then one of the missions you undertake, she convinces a group of rachni who survived to let you pass without incident. Whereas if you killed her, you have to fight your way through a colony of rachni.

That kind of thing.

 

That's why I have to question when people say there were consequences to a lot of the choices you made. Sure, there were a lot of choices, but were there all that many actual consequences?

[Sand]

We will probably see the consequences of those actions in ME2.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

We will probably see the consequences of those actions in ME2.

 

Knowing Bioware, I expect the consequences to be minimal and completely superficial.

Edited July 15, 2008 by WILL THE ALMIGHTY

[Sand]

Perhaps, but we can only wait and see for now.

[GhostofAnakin]

Call me naive, but I actually think BioWare *intends* to make the choices meaningful in the next game. My main skepticism comes from how feasible it'll be.

 

I mean, there were a lot of choices in the first game that could, theoretically, vastly alter the second game if they're touched upon. How easy/hard will it be for BioWare to create a game that accounts for those choices?

[Wrath of Dagon]

Perhaps, but we can only wait and see for now.

Looking at the first game, I'm not inclined to give them a lot of benefit of the doubt.

[Volourn]

The first game was awesome. It was no FO in terms if C&C; but it was still pretty damn good.

[LostStraw]

Most of the consequences will probably be rather minimal in nature. The third game also has to be taken into account. Branching the storyline in too many ways from the choices made in the first game and then again in the second game -- by the time the third game is made it starts to become a serious problem of how much development time and money is put into story-arcs and cinematic sequences that most players may never see.

[GhostofAnakin]

Here's something I've been curious about, if in fact ME2 scans and copies over your save game file from ME1 to import your character, what save point does it use? As far as I recall, you couldn't save the game after the final confrontation or cut scenes. The last save you can make is basically

when you exit the elevators on the top level of the council chambers, before the final fight with Saren.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I think they use their own save file for that, it's the one they use if you restart the game with an existing character.

[Calax]

Here's something I've been curious about, if in fact ME2 scans and copies over your save game file from ME1 to import your character, what save point does it use? As far as I recall, you couldn't save the game after the final confrontation or cut scenes. The last save you can make is basically

when you exit the elevators on the top level of the council chambers, before the final fight with Saren.

after you finish a game, your character details are saved for replay (when you choose a new game theres a selection to pick a previous playthrough.)

[wesley2]

I think they use their own save file for that, it's the one they use if you restart the game with an existing character.

Yeah, I have to imagine they are going to let you carry on the life of your personal Shepard in the next one. Plus isn't

this supposed to be a "trilogy of space opera" or whatever the language IGN used?

Not sure if that's spoiler worthy, but what the hey...err on the side of caution. I'm looking forward to actually beating this game...I was stuck for a while and the next time I came back to play my console and crapped out. i'm currently waiting for a repaired/refurbished console to be mailed back from Texas...

[SteveThaiBinh]

Bring Down The Sky is out for PC.

[Rosbjerg]

downloading now!

 

edit: the update messed up my sounds really bad.. now all the background noices are really loud and all the dialouge and weapon sounds are extremely hard to hear..

if anyone else is having the same problem there are some tips here apparantly it's mostly realtek HD that suffers from this.. but I have a Sounblaster Live card, so it's not exclusive to that.

[Llyranor]

What the crap, man? Where the freak is Pluto, Bioware? I'm going to bloody slit your collective throat.

[Sand]

What the crap, man? Where the freak is Pluto, Bioware? I'm going to bloody slit your collective throat.

 

Eh? They only listed planets. Pluto is no longer classified as a planet. Get with the times, man.

[Llyranor]

YOU get with the times, Bioware apologist.

[Sand]

I am with the Times already. Best newspaper on the planet. REALLY!

[Llyranor]

Mid-game spoiler-tagged.

 

Okay, so I've done

Feros and Noveria and that planet where you get the smurf alien

. So far, the game hasn't been bad. I've done a few sidequests. They're not *bad* per say - just completely unmemorable except for the occasional few (

the guy who stole the nuke one was nice enough, or the VI gone corrupt on the moon, for example, though the actual quest design was just as bland as the rest of them

. I'm not sure they were worth the time spent just to do them, and I certainly wouldn't touch them if I ever decide to play it again, aside from maybe the party members quests. Not much story exposition and so on.

 

The main story has been pretty standard for the most part so far. The first mission worked well to introduce the game and combat mechanics. The

Citadel

was a decent hub for quests; nothing special compared to anything else Bioware has done. The main story quest here wasn't bad, and did a decent job introducing the new characters.

 

As for the other planets, the one where you recruit the last party member was completely pointless aside from the actual recruiting of said character. It was pretty forgettable.

Feros

was fairly good in the portrayal of colonists vs invasion, and the story aspect of it was nice enough. The sidequests that you gained during the exploration of this planet to send you to other planets (

shipments being sent, etc

) were nice in concept, but trivial in execution.

 

 

Noveria

was pretty nice. The atmosphere was well-done (non-regulated colony), and the story part was also pretty good. This might have been my favorite planet so far. Bioware did a valiant effort here in terms of 'non-linear' gameplay, whether or not the execution worked. As opposed to the 4 star maps or the 4 Jedi (or the 3 planets) where there's little reason to choose one or the other (aside from preferring Tattooine to Dantooine or whatever instead of an actual story reason), the game (briefly) pitted me in a contest of prioritization. There was a certain (if small) sense of urgency as I was going through the

lab, first exploring the safe parts of it, knowing that I was ultimately going to go down to fight the Rachni. As I'm doing some sidequest in the quarantine zone and get attacked by Geth, suddenly it becomes a 'dilemma' whether to tackle the Geth or the Rachni. That feeling was pretty cool. It didn't last long (the hot labs actually ended being a very very short section, and the Matriarch was actually not down there),

but the suspension of disbelief was held there. Doesn't happen often.

Freeing the Rachni mother as 'forgiveness'

is easily my favorite part of the game so far.

Benezia actually talking was a low-point. Geez, just shut up. This was Bioware's answer to the drow.

 

 

The lore of the ME universe is actually pretty good. The codex for the most part is a good read, especially aspects which have nothing to do with the game itself (spacecraft/weapon technology, various aspects of the species, etc). Being 'immersed' in the lore made the

Rachni appearance that much more cool

.

 

The party members are nothing special. The 3 romance options are easily the worst. Most bland, more forgettable. The 3 other aliens aren't bad, though they're lacking a bit in depth. They do a decent job, though, and there's a certain element of camaraderie. Lack of intra-party interaction is pathetic (aside from the obvious two romance options nagging - urg).

 

Overall, the writing is still pretty much what's expected of Bioware. I'm not a huge fan of Bioware's writing overall, but it's still top-tier in the industry, and the mainstream appeal here is done well, I would say. The main cutscenes are for the most part good, while some are just awkward. The dialogue system itself is basically just the old Bioware approach of clumping different dialogue options to get the same response - at least, that was the impression more often than not. The dialogue wheel works well as an interface design decision for the gamepad, though.

 

The combat is hilariously pathetic. While some of the biotics/techs are fun (mostly the physics-related ones), the actual shooter mechanics are mediocre at the very best. I would have been a lot - a LOT - more tolerant of the sidequests if the shooting involved in them (barring actual better quest design or story implementation within) was enjoyable. Heck, people complain shooters are repetitive. But hey, if the shooting's fun... Not so here. Challenging shooter games can be loads of fun, but they live or die by their shooting mechanics, which ME utterly fails. The game itself also lacks the tactical depth that would have compensated for this, so it just falls flat from a shooter perspective and as a RPG combat perspective. As someone who enjoys shooters and tactical games, I was disappointed on both fronts.

 

The interface isn't anywhere near good, and sometimes requires a good amount of patience, but ultimately, it's serviceable.

 

Music is too ambient or inexistent more often than not, but it does have some good parts.

 

The game also looks nice. The art direction sometimes is pretty awesome, while at other times it may just be bland or sterile. Mixed feelings.

 

The loading/texture pop-ups haven't bothered me. Whiners. The framerate is fine.

 

Overall, *so far*, it seems a solid effort by Bioware, on par with their better previous titles. We'll see how that changes as I finish the game. ME2 has lots of potential, and it could a whole lot better than ME1 if they just improve some things.

Edited August 5, 2008 by Llyranor

[Bokishi]

Kotor 1 > Mass Effect

[jaguars4ever]

Unfortunately, while Bio's games continues to get more and more polished, they seem to have become successively more linear since BG1.

 

And yeah, even though their writing is solid enough to have that mainstream appeal, I prefer the subtlety and amorality approaches of Witcher, Bloodlines, PS:T and the Fallouts. Less ham-fisted and cheesy. Ham & Cheese (especially when stale) wrecks havoc on the stomach ans psyche both.

[Sand]

In ME2 the side quests, at least according to head Biowarians, are going to be more like the BDtS DLC than the run of the mill crap they stuffed in the first game. One of the reasons why I am very much looking forward to ME2.

 

Also, ME1 > KotOR 1 and 2. Deal with it Bokman!

[Volourn]

"Kotor 1 > Mass Effect"

 

ME > KOTOR

[Llyranor]

How's the DLC? Worth 5 bucks? (360 lol)

 

How's the story/length/gameplay/design/structure? Short review, please, thanks.