I couldn't see any threads on this (oddly) so here's a new one! I just bought this game yesterday and it's really really really really really good By the same people who gave us Knights Of The Old Republic I and II you pretty much know what to expect if you've played either of those games. Epic galaxy-straddling action with a great storyline and good characters and scripts. The combat in Mass effect is arguably a big step up from KOTOR because instead of queuing actions and having that slightly odd strategy feel this game is more like an FPS. Instead of normal FPS games though the character development does actually matter and you can really sculpt your main character to be whatever sort of player you feel like being. I chose to be a sniper because i'm cheap that way but you could be a soldier, a technician, engineer or even a biotic. Biotics are the other somewhat unique addition to this game, basically like force users from the star wars universe they can manipulate the world around them through some scientific jargon briefly explained at the start. the end result is they're basically magic users, but damn do they have some funky powers! I'm still not that far through the game but so far i've been extremely impressed. Anybody else played it through? Any opinions? What's the replay value like out of interest?
My mate (BuzzingB) has it and said it's amazing. He completed it and does want to go through it again with more of the side stories, he just went through most of the main story. I'm borrowing it off him in the summer holidays so I can abuse my way through that in probably a week
aside from one or two instances of slowdown (right after loading and not in combat) i haven't experienced any glitches yet maybe its an issue thats more common towards the end of the game, hopefully not though.
My friend hasn't said anything about any glitches at all and he has done a full play-through, although only once. Can you shed any light as to what these are?
I've played through twice and didn't see a single glitch. To be honest, I thought the dialogue was fairly sub-adequate, the story-line was predictable (not in the good way), and the voice acting was mediocre. It was better than Oblivion in many ways (although that doesn't take much given how crap Oblivion was), but could have had a more open feel like Oblivion (it felt most of the time like the levels were afterthoughts and didn't represent the planets very well). The amount of backstory was good, although like many games, poorly worked in. I believe Yahtzee sums up the game fairly well.
ah yahtzee, the guy is a bit of a legend. I think i was one of the nerds he was talking about who enjoyed the game for a lot of the reasons he disliked it though I'm not claiming Mass Effect as a rival for shakespeare or anything here but i do think that the storyline and dialogue were pretty good. Having played through the whole of the game now i agree that a lot of the side missions on the various random planets were a bit repetitive and dull, but they were side missions so when i found myself getting bored i just decided to ignore them and go complete the main game. The game being too linear wasn't a big issue for me, it was very story driven so there were relatively few times i felt the need to go off and randomly wander around. There was a degree of flexibility in side missions anyway in terms of which you chose to do and in what order, and even to an extent in the main missions. There was also a degree of choice in how you played the game through character selection and which allies you chose to complete missions with (or even which you allow to live!).
As far as im concerned, this game was simply stunning. Its looks nice, the story branches are really good and there are some great twists! My only and i mean ONLY complaint would be that the building layouts on random worlds are the same nearly everytime and there for really easy to beat the guys inside. (once you figure out how to use the terrain to your advantage ) I have yet to finish it, as i start on halo 3 online again so that has taken up some time ha ha.....oh and my 360 died . (still watiing for my good damn migration cable!) But yeah i digress......THIS GAME RULES!!!!!
I had hope. Upon playing through it, I lost almost all of that hope. I'm hoping that the second game will provide a better experience, with characters that are less one-dimensional. The only interesting characters were Wrex and Saren, the rest showed so little individuality it wasn't even funny. I'm reminded of one scene towards the end of the game, when they are trying to land, and everyone spouts a clichéd panic line. "We're not gonna make it!", "We're all gonna die!" etc. etc. Me and my housemates were laughing at the absurdly childish writing for this scene. The rest of the game was not the same, but it was, despite appearing to be a game for a mature audience, certainly not very well written dialogue. The people simply say too much. I have no issue with a linear, story-driven game. I have an issue with games that are hyped up to give you a freedom of choice in terms of your responses, but fail to give you any real consequences to those actions. With the exception of a handful of choices, most of them made no difference, and most of the ones that did required high skill in persuade or intimidate, and so nullified the point of choice when you have to be paragon or renegade by default to get anything interesting to happen. And in the long-term, these decisions had very little impact. I must have missed those.
I'll concede this bit was quite cheesy, but even you admit it was the exception rather than the norm. I got this game only recently so i missed out on a lot of that release hype, i guess that might be why i didn't see the linear issue as such a problem. Again i agree with you about the lack of an impact in terms of choosing paragon or renegade, thinking about it it's a bit odd considering even the KOTOR games at least altered how your character appeared and was received by other people in the game according to your personality. I guess i can see why you were disappointed but i think we went into this game with different expectations, i enjoyed it and that probably was because it hadn't been hyped up that much for me.
I guess I will get to make my own decisions now, as in the next couple of weeks I should be starting to play it Any tips for a first starter?
The pistols rock, as do the shotguns. They're basically the only weapons I used on hard and then the difficulty you unlock after completion (it's been a while since I played, I forget the name).
I lost motivation when I went off to the other planets. They seamed like they were there just to add a bullet point to a box heres the bullet point Interplanetory exploration of an epic proportion
I thought it was very good, but not a patch on Star Wars: KOTOR. For all the hype, it had nowhere near as much freedom as was suggested prior to release. Even worse, the game is 24hrs of play maximum (KOTOR was at least 40, even on 5th playthrough, giving different experiences every time) and had little to shout about on replaying, save for the achievements on the Xbox360 version. All in all, a good game, but I hope the 2 sequels expand on this storyline (and cut out the cheesy lines!), as opposed to failing to capitalise on the early promise. Time will tell, I guess...
