At least ME doesn't force you to clear ten empty planets as part of the main quest.. I think clearing all those gates might actually be the most boring quest I've ever done as part of the main storyline of a game.
At least ME doesn't force you to clear ten empty planets as part of the main quest.. I think clearing all those gates might actually be the most boring quest I've ever done as part of the main storyline of a game.
Main story: from 85% (early parts) to 95% (later parts). Couldn't put the game down during the last quarter even though it was well past my bed time. Thrilling experience!
Side stories on distant planets: 60%. Intriguing enough for one or two planets, otherwise abysmal. I found the assignments themselves good enough to pique my interest, but the actual planets were repetitive, barren and just plain awful.
Side stories in main story areas including the Citadel: 80%. Short, but fun. Had the advantage of being in actually interesting or crowded areas. I'd count them to the main story though.
In a nutshell: 90% if you skip the assignment planets. 75% at best if you for some masochistic reason decide to do the long distance assignments.
Things that worked
Conversation system (technical aspect). That's one feature typical for consoles that I found quite nice, i.e. the travel distance of your mouse pointer is minimized. Conversations did flow naturally - I think that was what it was supposed to do - and I was never bored during dialogue. However, conversations themselves also felt very linear with scarcely any direct choices available. The only thing that could affect the outcome of conversations were talents made specifically for that reason (paragon / renegade), but even those were absolutely interchangeable.
Star map. I liked browsing, this seemed like a bit taken from 4X games at first. I even read all the planets descriptions - until I found out how boring they were on the surface most of the time. The star map should be fleshed out more. I don't know how, but I'm sure it can be improved.
Things that didn't work
Assignments on distant planets. Already mentioned this. Horrible. Either make planets more interesting and diverse, not a square area in a rock desert with one or two buildings that look the same whichever planet you visit. Or remove them altogether.
Too many skill points and too many levels. Talent system looked promising at first, but it wasn't grainy enough. This is where I'll have to cite Deus Ex and VtM:Bloodlines again. In those you could only spend ~5 points in each talent, and each point made a difference. And there were lots of talents so you had to make decisions. In Mass Effect, one point didn't do much. And having to unlock talents by wasting them in another talent (that you may not want to use) wasn't fun either.
Item scaling. I liked that there were many different kinds. What I didn't like was that *everything* simply scaled by level. Main reason for that was probably that there were too many levels in the first place. Anyway, this made all items totally generic. In itself that's not a bad thing, but when a guy in the main story tells me he's got this totally awesome weapon mod that he wants to give me and it turns out to be just another "weapon mod #3", I can only scratch my head. Where are the uniques?
What's worse than myriads of crates that you have to destroy in order to get some generic stuff? Myriads of crates that you have to hack in order to get some generic stuff. 'nuff said.
To be fair, those thoughts probably come from the assignment planets. I actually liked those mini games. It's just when you have to do them over and over again while the turnout isn't very good that it feels like the crate syndrome.
