Mass Effect worth buying?

[flashbacck]

Here are some comments I made in the ME thread in the console forum a few months ago. Some of these (like framerate) might've been fixed in the PC version, but I think my gameplay complaints are still valid. Basically, I agree completely with everything Liet said earlier.

Now that I've finished the game, I'm glad I didn't buy it. To be blunt, I can't see myself buying ME2 unless it does my laundry and gives me happy endings.

I just borrowed ME from a friend and wanted to put my $0.02 in. Rather than make YAMET, I'm bumping this 5 months old one

Anyway, I've played about 15 hrs and I've been doing as many of the side quests as possible, so I don't think I'm that far in the main quest (been to novaris, looking for Liara). While, I think this whole universe they've created is great and the main story sounds good, I have some gameplay gripes. A few of these have been mentioned throughout the thread and none of them are major, but taken together they leave me very disappointed with this game.

First of all, it seems like no one bothered to play test the game. Because seriously, after an hour with the game how can you not come to the conclusion that the inventory system SUCKS. Especially when you're buying and selling, they just throw everything into an unorganized list! Given that you can pick up a pretty significant amount of items along the way, I spend like half an hour at merchants trying to figure out what to unload and what to keep.

While we're on the topic of inventory, when you're on the Normandy and you want to access crew inventory you have to access their lockers individually?! Give me a break! Why can't I flick through them with the right and left triggers? Come on, one play through the game and every tester should've suggested changes to the inventory system.

The frame rate is occasionally terrible. I think this is self explanatory.

Level design sucks. Except for a few spots, such as in the citadel, most places seems pretty bland. To be fair of course, I haven't played the whole game, so maybe things will get better. Oh, except for the layout of the mercenary camps on the minor planets and the terrain on the minor planets, I'm pretty sure I know EXACTLY what they all look like. And, whoever thought 30 second elevator rides was a good idea should die.

They also need to find new animators for Shepard and a new voice actor for him. Because as it is now, he's a freak'n robot. His voice is completely monotone, and the only different facial expression he has is the raising of his eyebrow.

Clicking through dialog is f'd up. I, obviously, read way faster than the voice dialog so in cases of unimportant dialog, I like reading the subtitles and clicking through with the x button. Except, the x button ALSO happens to work to select dialog options, and the dialog options doesn't wait for the voice to finish before appearing. So what happens is, while I'm clicking x, the options will pop up and I'll inadvertently click some dialog option. It's probably just me, but I find this annoying as hell.

Like I said, none of the gripes individually are big, but taken together it's like being poked with a thousand needles. I'll still play through the game and all the side quests because I'm a sucker for interesting stories, but I'll be suffering the entire way through it :/

Someone mentioned in an earlier post that ME could pass as Kotor 1.5. I completely agree. IMO, KOTOR ~= Jade Empire ~= ME. The only thing different about these games is the combat system. Otherwise they're all exactly the same. You gather a party, travel in some vehivle from area to area. In between areas you talk to your party, learn their backstory and romance one or two of them. It's not a bad gameplay mechanic, but it just seems like bioware should try something different. As it is, I'm expecting Dragon Age to be KOTOR 1.51. I'm just saying...

 

[Canai]

Mass Effect was more of an interactive movie than a game for me. I loved it, but it does have the activation limit. I still have the original install because I don't want to mess with the activations and I'm waiting for more DLC to come out.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: flashbacck
Here are some comments I made in the ME thread in the console forum a few months ago. Some of these (like framerate) might've been fixed in the PC version, but I think my gameplay complaints are still valid. Basically, I agree completely with everything Liet said earlier.

Now that I've finished the game, I'm glad I didn't buy it. To be blunt, I can't see myself buying ME2 unless it does my laundry and gives me happy endings.

First of all, it seems like no one bothered to play test the game. Because seriously, after an hour with the game how can you not come to the conclusion that the inventory system SUCKS. Especially when you're buying and selling, they just throw everything into an unorganized list! Given that you can pick up a pretty significant amount of items along the way, I spend like half an hour at merchants trying to figure out what to unload and what to keep.
...
The frame rate is occasionally terrible. I think this is self explanatory.

Level design sucks. Except for a few spots, such as in the citadel, most places seems pretty bland. To be fair of course, I haven't played the whole game, so maybe things will get better. Oh, except for the layout of the mercenary camps on the minor planets and the terrain on the minor planets, I'm pretty sure I know EXACTLY what they all look like. And, whoever thought 30 second elevator rides was a good idea should die.
...
Clicking through dialog is f'd up. I, obviously, read way faster than the voice dialog so in cases of unimportant dialog, I like reading the subtitles and clicking through with the x button. Except, the x button ALSO happens to work to select dialog options, and the dialog options doesn't wait for the voice to finish before appearing. So what happens is, while I'm clicking x, the options will pop up and I'll inadvertently click some dialog option. It's probably just me, but I find this annoying as hell.

Inventory was improved for PC, but still not great.
No frame rate problems for me.
Yeah, repetitive merc bases etc. gets brought up a bit, does seem they could have spent a couple extra days making a some more layouts.
I did run into that problem a few times when clicking through dialog as well, but not too often.
Oh, and the elevator rides were there in the place of loading screens.

 

[BudAshes]

I loved mass effect but the fact that it had almost no replayability sucked. The visuals were absolutely fantastic though. And exploring the planets and the descriptions for each one was entertaining.

 

[flashbacck]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

...
Oh, and the elevator rides were there in the place of loading screens.

Yeah I figured. But there are sections of the game where it says "Loading" and sections where it doesn't. The elevator ride to the vehicle bay of the normandy is an example where it doesn't say it's loading. If the normandy elevator ride really is a loading issue, then that just boggles my mind even more. I just can't imagine that the Xbox 360 can't handle loading the entire normandy ship into memory. Does the PC version have a long normandy elevator ride?

 

[CP5670]

It only spends a small proportion of that time actually loading. The PC version has the boring elevator rides, but they can be made a lot less tedious using the slomo command as I described earlier.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog


Be that as it may, I'm certain anyone that finished ME in 8-12 hours most certainly did rush through it.

I read every line of dialog in Torment, I assure you, I read all dialogue in ME during both my playthroughs. The only quests I didn't bother with were the collection quests. There wasn't any point in roaming around the vacant planet landscapes. Although there were some truly fantastic looking views on those planets, nearly every one of them was barren.

My first round was probably close to 10 or 12 hours, my second was closer to 8 because I already knew what needed to be done.

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: MustangSVT
I dunno whats missing but none of the RPGs I play have the "hook" that Baldur's gate series had.

I can't seem to get into mass effect at all.

did you know Mother 3 has been translated? I should play that

Baldurs Gate is my favorite series, and its mostly because of the awesome story coupled with excellent gameplay.
If you had played Knights of the Old Republic you would have found that to be a good transition game before going to Mass Effect.


I didnt like the gameplay too much. The shooting action is like a bad version of HALO, and HALO is one of the worst damn shooters ever made.
Its like they took KOTOR, stripped it down to barebones and made it into a real time shooter instead of a turn based RPG.
The running around, trying to talk to people & completing quests portion is kind of slow and annoying, the side quests are incredibly lame and time-consuming.
HOWEVER, if you can get past all that you will find an excellent story with the scope and awe of Baldurs Gate 1 & 2.

If you find the actual gameplay tedious I recommend cheating. Set yourself to level 30 right from the start and rush through the combat. Dont do any side quests. They waste time and arent nearly as interesing as the main quest. Make sure you really pay attention to the story because its epic and complicated. If you miss something in the middle then the rest will seem like a giant can of "WTF?".

You wont find the longevity of BG because the side quests are generic and not worth the time. The main quest is relatively short if thats all you do.
Get the latest patch and quicksave often.

Mass Effect is an awesome experience but not much of a game. The first time you run through it you will be amazed.
The 2nd time you start a game you probably wont finish it.

 

[Liet]

Few random thoughts:
-Gameplay could be so annoying that just thinking about it months later annoys me.
-Sovereign's voice was absolutely 100% super amazing awesome. This dialogue scene was probably the best part of the game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv5A6LnIXz4
-Imaginative and very cool graphic design. Reapers looked gorgeous. The race Saren belonged to looked cool.

Overall I don't regret the $50 spent on the story. Pity the gameplay will keep me from ever going through it again.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Liet
Sorry if I wasn't clear enough - I REALLY liked the idea of a path that wasn't full-on evil, just had a different motivation. Unfortunately, instead of a character whose motivations you can understand, Mass Effect just gave us someone who was an asshole, and there was no motivation behind it. The dialogue choices were nonsensical and showed they had no clue what they wanted to do with the Renegade path.

Considering my only play through ME, I played the renegade alignment, I'm going to have to agree to disagree here . I loved the choices, they were more of a "Listen, this is the right answer, I'm sorry I won't cry over all your fucking problems but there is more going on here then you realize so get the hell out of my way before I put a round in your skull"

I loved hanging up on the council and dishing out my own brand of justice.

 

[Davegod]

I played it on my 360, found it very enjoyable and easy to recommend. Initially combat is a bit weak but as the stats go up it gets fun.

I did have a bit of a list of nuisances, but the info released about changes to the PC version hit almost all of them, I was very impressed that they'd picked up on almost everything. IIRC the negatives still left are:
- the multitude of highly repetitive planet visits. The side quests are OK, but on top of those you can search a lot of systems and find other planets. This is optional but very boring, just roam around looking for minerals to survey and occasional bit of combat. Cookie-cutter to the point that I can remember only 3 different small and basic buildings out of, say, 15? Though occasionally they'd seal a room off for variety.
- the vast quantity of gear. This should to be significantly improved with the PC GUI but there must still be the huge quantity (I found myself constantly having to re-equip my guys and sell off a lot of junk, I even made lists of the stuff to keep).

But then EA put in their ridiculous DRM...

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: Liet
Sorry if I wasn't clear enough - I REALLY liked the idea of a path that wasn't full-on evil, just had a different motivation. Unfortunately, instead of a character whose motivations you can understand, Mass Effect just gave us someone who was an asshole, and there was no motivation behind it. The dialogue choices were nonsensical and showed they had no clue what they wanted to do with the Renegade path.

Considering my only play through ME, I played the renegade alignment, I'm going to have to agree to disagree here . I loved the choices, they were more of a "Listen, this is the right answer, I'm sorry I won't cry over all your fucking problems but there is more going on here then you realize so get the hell out of my way before I put a round in your skull"

I loved hanging up on the council and dishing out my own brand of justice.

This would have been much more effective if the dialog options actually matched what Shepard said. Hell, there were quite a few that were different on the wheel, but Shepard said exactly the same for each option. Then there were others that were the same on the wheel, but Shepard said different things for each.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: Powernick50
I've been trying to find a cheap copy of mass effect used but I'm just thinking of paying full price (39.99) for the PC version.

$22 at amazon. If you still haven't played it I highly recommend you grab it.

http://www.amazon.com/Mass-Eff...&qid=1229098429&sr=1-1

 

[Sureshot324]

I tried to like this game but just couldn't get into it. It felt more like an interactive movie to me rather then a game. The combat was a mix of a watered down FPS and a watered down RPG. The story was reasonably well done but I'm tired of all the military themed stories stories that are in so many sci fi games. I guess that's why I liked fallout 3 so much. I prefer being a lone wasteland explorer rather then a soldier just taking orders.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Excellent game, your loss for not playing it. I frankly can't think of what you expect out of your games that would make this not worth it .

 

[BladeVenom]

If you like Star Control, get Galactic Civilizations 2 or maybe Sins of a Solar Empire.

 

[Kromis]

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: Powernick50
I've been trying to find a cheap copy of mass effect used but I'm just thinking of paying full price (39.99) for the PC version.

$22 at amazon. If you still haven't played it I highly recommend you grab it.

http://www.amazon.com/Mass-Eff...&qid=1229098429&sr=1-1

Holy shit. Damn, that was fast!

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Beev
12 hours? I beg to differ. I took my time, and even skipped a few things, and the game took me 30 hours.

+1.

12 hours if you do nothing but the main quest and skip everything that is optional.

 

[Eeezee]

Well, since it has a limited number of activations, I'd suggest it's not worth buying and you should just get the 360 version. But that's just me.

 

[ggnl]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
If you like Star Control, get Galactic Civilizations 2 or maybe Sins of a Solar Empire.

Never played Galactic Civilizations, but Sins of a Solar Empire has virtually nothing in common with Star Control except that they're both set in space. Star Control had a very entertaining and engrossing story. SoSE doesn't even have a campaign (my biggest gripe with an otherwise excellent game).

As for Mass Effect, I loved it. It took me waaay longer than 12 hours to beat the first time and had a lot of replayability for me. It was worth another couple playthroughs just to try out different character types.

 

[BladeVenom]

I guess I'm thinking of the first Star Control, it didn't have much of a story.

 

[Nik]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
The combat in Mass Effect is very first person shooter like, in fact, its identical. You have stats that improve, but ultimately, its your skill with the mouse that determines the combat outcome.

The storyline in ME is decent, though its nothing we haven't seen before, being ripped from several other major fantasy franchises.. Party interaction is nonexistent and the game is incredibly short. With all the side quests and taking your time, you'll beat the game in less than 12 hours. 8 if you rush through things.

On the positive side, the production values are very high, the voice acting is excellent, the visuals are excellent, etc. You'll enjoy the game for the weekend it takes you to beat it, but not much after that.

ME's DRM scheme, though a PITA, is almost irrelevent, because the game has next to no replayability.

<edit> I bought and played the shit out of the 360 version </edit>

You are smoking crack.

It took me a weekend + several days to beat, the first time, and that was balls-to-the-wall Shock Trooper shoot, blow up, and stomp the smoldering guts out of anything left alive with my boot sort of action. If you play with other classes, the game will take longer and require more strategy.

Party interaction non existant? Uh... what the fuck? You have 2 others that you control on a rudimentary level... like telling them to hold a position while you flank or vice versa. Or telling them to hide behind a rock on a hill top and use the sniper rifle while you sneak down into the camp. Or telling them to go guns-blazing into the fray with assault rifles. Plus there's different choices on who to take with you in your group, which gives you very different gameplay based on that choice. Do you take a biotic with you for support? Do you take a heavy weapons monster with you because you ARE the biotic? Your choice.

The game is slightly different with each possible choice of your own class and again different depending on who you take with you in your party. There are so many combinations it's crazy and you'd have to play the game for months or something before you exhaust them all.

Plus there are achievements on the 360 for sub-plot completion, like stoking a certain starting-party-member's fire for you and getting laid if you do it right :laugh:

There are many different classes of character to play. Many missions have several ways to complete them, based on your class and party choice. The storyline may be pieced together from other sci-fi movies or games or books or something, but I don't recognize any of it so it's all new to me. I guess you'll have to be a hardcore sci-fi junky to recognize them.

The story is woven together very well. It's refreshing. Voices are awesome. Graphics are boner-inducing. Driving up to top speed on a mountain ridge and then racing off the edge and hitting the jump-jets provides quite a bit of juvenile entertainment

There only thing missing is ship combat. The in-game "wiki" provides TONS of information and background, including VERY well thought out ship combat, explained in detail at great lengths, but it's not implimented in any way. That kind of sucks, but the rest of the game makes up for it.

Combat doesn't come around as often as I expected it would. You're not storming Normandy (again :roll but there is still quite a bit of it. There are parts of the game where you're running fast-paced vehicle combat, have to exit the vehicle and go into first person combat, then back into the vehicle so you're not staring down the same damn iron sights the whole time you play. That's really nice.

Mass Effect is an epic game.

 

[lifeobry]

Originally posted by: Nik

Mass Effect is an epic game.

Truth. One of the finest RPGs ever made, period.

 

[martensite]

Mass Effect is an awesome game. One of the best storylines of any game I've played in recent times. The combat could have been better; I am not a great fan of over-the-shoulder view combat, but it works reasonably well in ME. The option to choose teammates according to your own character strenghts/weaknesses was implemented really well IMO. I played as a pure shoot 'em up soldier class and chose a biotic and a tech as my teammates. Worked perfectly!

Whatever its flaws (the key assignment for non-WASD players comes to mind), I had a blast playing ME.

I am partway through a second replay, but I've dropped it temporarily until I finish FarCry2 and Fallout 3.

 

[CP5670]

Party interaction non existant? Uh... what the fuck? You have 2 others that you control on a rudimentary level... like telling them to hold a position while you flank or vice versa. Or telling them to hide behind a rock on a hill top and use the sniper rifle while you sneak down into the camp. Or telling them to go guns-blazing into the fray with assault rifles. Plus there's different choices on who to take with you in your group, which gives you very different gameplay based on that choice. Do you take a biotic with you for support? Do you take a heavy weapons monster with you because you ARE the biotic? Your choice.

Did anyone actually bother with that? The teammates were almost completely useless in fights, even though I kept upgrading their equipment. They didn't fire often enough, rarely hit anything even when they did, and always seemed to choose the wrong moments to take cover or run forward. The only real purpose they served was to distract enemies and draw fire.

In theory, you could choose your team to make up for your own weakness, but in practice it didn't matter. Most of the combat sequences you faced were so easy that you could take on all the enemies by yourself.