Opinions of Mass Effect?

I am a little curious about how this game is recieved by the members of the watch.

Reading some reviews, going from 7-9 and 10,

Seeing Meta Critic having at 92/100 and users on that site 8.8 out of 10.

I really wonder what you feel when playing this game.

---
My personal view of this game, being played for approx 8 hours, in game time 5h.
I found this game pretty mediocre.

AI, is non existent. Not for your partymember or enemys. *shrug*. I think this is one of the worst i have seen in years. (Being a tripple A game).

I feel i am wrestling with the controls, trying to find out where i should be (i hate being lost in games, so too much freedom is a minus by me).

The graphics reminds very much of Kotor in every aspects. After playing The Witcher using the Aurora engine, i though i would be in for a treat. Not this "bland" environment.

The frame rate is incredibly choppy.

Most of the times youre in some sort of conversation, like 80 % when your not lost Its great conversation, but i think i am getting sleepy hearing the same old same stuff in a different view and voice. Where a game should excel is in the game departement. Making me think. Doing stuff. But the battles. I do not know how they think, the creators of this game. The battles, considering the poor AI and the stupid easy one kill deaths. (After like cutscenes...)....

Neh, my view on this game is a dialouge driven game, where the XBOX controller excel in being an excellent tool for manipulating the conversations. But in the games mini games. (i mean, the battle part must be mini games since they seems to be an after thoughts to the game designs... driving the Mako just makes me frustrated... )

Well. I am no Bioware fan, and since Kotor i lost faith in their directions. And Seeing Mass effect is more a follow up on kotor than anything, both graphical, gameplayish, and design, i should have passed. (But i can't let a sci fi based game pass me by wihout trying it...).

---

You that do have played it through. Is it picking up speed? Or is the start an indication on what i will have to suffer if i should choose to play through...

People loving Kotor must love this game... Soo, i guess there is different opinions.
And i do like to hear them!

I pretty much agree with you about everything, bioware has made one game I enjoyed = Jade Empire

I am glad you guys are posting about this makes it a little easier for the wait.
I missed all the hype that was JE and I hope this gets the game out to PC quicker but I doubt it due the contracts and crap.

I am afraid and sad they may never return to depth of their first games, maybe it's just not possible for them anymore, it's certainly not due to lack of talent.
Maybe it's just company focus with the m$'s bandwagon of console wars with sony, guess you can't really blame them, that's where the money is, but I guess our last hope is DA.

It has to be the development criteria m$ sets for them, I am certainly no expert but when you make small less detailed textures like necessary for consoles this means (iirc) they have to be remade to make the larger and more detailed to convert to PC unless you just ship out really bland textures.
However when doing large more detailed PC textures, they are scalable and don't have to be redone with nearly as much work if much at all.
When you have larger more detailed textures it's basically how you scale them on different resolutions on your PC and why most games look really detailed at 16 x 12, yet blurry at 8 x 6.
So if I am remembering this correctly it must be m$'s ego and marketing forcing this style of lazy development, they would never sell consoles if everyone knew the games looked better on PC.

Oh and it's probable we taxpayers at least here in the US are getting stuck with the bill on m$ bullshit 10s of billions of dollars. Surely they are writing off these losses and who the hell will notice an extra 10 or 20 billion when we have an idiot, indebiting the US by borrowing 8 to 10 trillion dollars, he is putting off on the US taxpayers which will take the next 20 years to pay this crap off, bastards all!

I am a little surprised that nobody has anything to say about this, except you two. Thought it would be debated... But i guess, everybody saw through the marketting guys for what this game was...

but me!

Basically, Mass Effect is a third person shooter with some rpg stats and a decent main story. The marketing guys at Bioware just marketed Mass Effect as an Action RPG for reasons best known to themselves.

I just wish that Bioware and their market folks had the guts to say *sorry kids, Mass Effect is going to be an 3rd person shooter with tactical combat like in Gears of War with a decent main story - just like there are in all of Bioware's games*.

Of course, there would be a lot of screaming an anger...but in the long run, I think this marketing strategy actually would have been better for Bioware. They could just have said *look, we wanted to see if we could make a good shooter game with a decent story*. The problem I see with Mass Effect is that its rpg aspects are too weak to satisfy the RPG fans while the shooter fans complains about the text, the dialogue and the text. I don't know the English expression or proverb for doing something that makes you sit right between two choices, but in Danish we would that Bioware has seated themselves between two chairs. (meaning of course that Mass Effect's gameplay won't satisfy neither RPG fans nor shooter fans).

For what it's worth, I watched a friend playing the last part of the game. The game plays like KoTOR minus the combat. Unlike KoTOR you have to pause a lot during the combat sequences to make use of your special abilities and your teammates didn't seem to be particularly useful. Character models are nicely done but the enviroments don't look good. No particular character striked me as being memorable. The ending was cliche and uninspiring and my guess is that it only serves as a vehicle for the sequels, this would also explain the game's linearity. Some of the cutscenes were atmospheric. Overall I got the impression of a much worse KoTOR and I wouldn't be in a particular hurry to play this even if it was for the PC. But remember this is not first-hand impressions and I don't own a console, someone actually playing the game might have more fun than me watching it.

[edit] I forgot to say, performance was horrible at times too.

No X360, hence no personal input to make.

Dont own xbox360 but Im sure Ill buy the game for PC one day.

I liked it a lot.

Finished it in 30 hours.

4.5/5 - GOTY.

Still, KoTOR is significantly better overall. Especially in terms of the character system and loot system, as those are horribly bland and a huge step back in ME, which is basically streamlined to the extreme.

The combat system is more action-based, but executed rather clumsily. It goes from really cool and exciting, to very frustrating and silly on a consistent basis. The vehicle thingy is over-used and the controls are bad, but the idea of having a vehicle that you can freely explore with is pretty cool in itself. The side missions are very similar and become dull quite fast, but at least there is a unique little story to each of them, and they typically have a few characters with their own well-done voice acting.

The strong parts, however, are VERY strong. The whole feeling of space opera is extremely well done, and the story - both in terms of background and dialogue is of the highest quality. Every race or character in the game is fleshed out, and it's never the case of silly or whimsical ideas. There are plausible explanations for everything in this game.

Overall, it's just one hell of an interactive movie with rather average gameplay.

KoTOR was one hell of a game, with a great story and great characters, but it didn't really feel like a movie - not even at the time of release.

So, it depends how much game you want.

I personally prefer games, when I play games.

I just finished it last night. Took me close to 50 hours and I played through as a Paragon (i.e. "Light Side" for the KoTOR audience) Soldier, arguably the most "boring" class of the lot due to the lack of enemy affecting abilities.

Yes, there are several sequences with choppy framerates. No, it doesn't look pretty when doing a transition and it takes up to 5 seconds before all textures have been applied to the different surfaces on screen. BUT ...

As DArtagnan said: the story, the setting, the characters, the hostory, the details, the dialogue and the voice acting (mmmm ... Jennifer Hale ... aaarrrrrrrrrrrr ) is just top notch in typical Bioware style.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing it and have already started a new playthrough, this time trying to go for the Renegade path (if I can stomach it in the long run). I'm really looking forward to finding out what the next installments will bring because the basis for a world full of opportunities for further adventures have been solid laid out in Mass Effect. Bravo Bioware, well done indeed.

I think somone commented that mass effect is almost more like a great interactive movie than an actual game. Which is not bad per se - its just an observation.

DArtagnan said:

Still, KoTOR is significantly better overall. Especially in terms of the character system and loot system, as those are horribly bland and a huge step back in ME, which is basically streamlined to the extreme.
.

Click to expand...

This was all I needed to hear.

If Mass Effect isn't even as good as KoTOR, which was incredibly overrated to begin with, then I have no interest whatsoever.

I used to love Bioware for "reintroducing" RPG's with Baldur's Gate. I've been a fan of theirs all the way through KotOR. I even bought an XBox to play Jade Empire though I was really disappointed that they started developing for XBox first. Now that they have pretty much made XBox their exclusive platform, I'm even more disillusioned. I am not going to buy a 360 simply to play Mass Effect.

I am not a console gamer. There have been some good games that have come out for consoles like Psychonauts and Jade Empire, but my problem was that being an old man, I can't finish 'em. Psychonauts had a jumping exercise at the end that I did so many times that I just got frustrated and quit. I developed a fighting "style" I was comfortable with in Jade Empire that unfortunately would not allow me to defeat the evil McGuffin at the end.

Mass Effect sounds too much like KotOR without the Star Wars atmosphere. The characters in that game were very well developed, so much so I couldn't finish the Dark Side when it came to having to kill some of them. It doesn't sound like the player will have that kind of immersion in Mass Effect. It's too bad, Bioware itself sounds like it has gone over to the Dark Side and has killed its relationship with computer gamers.

Mwa-hahahahaha!

Currently my irritation is with the xbox 360 more then ever. Producing dirty disc messages every now and then. Escpecially on mass effect. But thats not mass effects fault. Recently i got an error booting up my 360 and i thought "good, now i can throw it out of the building". I think i will never ever repair my 360 if it broke, hence i will never buy anymore game until i can trust it. It has been an dissapointing experience from day one - i am NOT a console gamer.

It does not have anything todo with mass effect. But when you was wrestling the Mako, having to save some colonists from som "strange" effect (suddenly) require you to play through the poorly action ai system just to be meet with a dirty disc message... i thought - Witcher - let the patch come soon!

I do not like this game at all. I disslike it even more now then when i started this thread. Oh. I feel so bad saying this out loud!

However. The voice acting is extremly good, the movies is extremly well done, and its a very finished and polished game - My only problem is with the required action parts.

They do not work.

And that is for me enough for disslike this game.

Everyone run, it's a Darksider!

Acleacius said:

Everyone run, it's a Darksider!

Click to expand...

Dick Cheney?

Eliaures said:

Dick Cheney?

Click to expand...

No, not the Dark Lord himself, PatrickWeekes is just regular Bioware evil