Mass Effect

isn't it technically a 3rd person shooter a la advent rising or something?

they call it an RPG becuase you gain levels, pick different classes, have a party, etc. but yeah, it looks amazing

but oblivion was an RPG that looked like an FPS

True, it is third-person, not first-.

Oblivion is either first-person or third- (depending on your chosen camera angle), but so much of the game seems traditionally RPG: walking around, exploring castles, accumulating stuff, selling it to merchants ... is it just that the lines between genres are becoming more fluid?

Mass Effect looks more like a KOTOR or Rogue Galaxy space opera RPG, exploring different planets and such. RPG doesn't have to mean D&D/LOTR/Conan swords and sorcery stuff.

I guess I always assumed that RPGs were exclusively turn-based. My ignorance here due mostly to my hatred for turn-based RPGs, I guess.

Ahhh, no I think this is technically an action RPG. Anything goes, there.

I think in Mass Effect you have the choice - you can play through the combat sections as a straight-up shooter, or semi-turn based, where you select what you and your team does on some kind of pause screen, and then they go do it...

So far it seems to be all action. You can instruct your team to do the work for you and lag behind, but you're either shooting in real time or hiding in real time.

just bought it. too many games to buy.

I've heard a bit more about the combat, and why it sucks/doesn't suck, depending on who you ask.

It's a well-masked RPG system. You aim through the sight of your sniper rifle, but if you pull the trigger while the crosshairs aren't over the enemy, it doesn't mean you'll miss, or vice versa. It realizes who you're shooting at and rolls the dice, with your sniper skill vs. their not-get-hit-by-bullet skill, or whatnot. This pisses off al the non-KoTOR fans who got bamboozled into buying it, but it will just be a nicer look for those who already loved KoTOR.

Anyway, I get paid Thursday... be picking it up then. And I have, finally, an incredibly SLOW weekend coming up... no parties, and friends out of town for Thxgiving. I am gonna play the shit outta this. (if I can keep Orange Box and CoD4 out of the machine long enough, that is... maybe I can beat episode 1 and 2 of HL2 in two days? oh dear)

yeah plenty of gaming for this weekend!

My enthusiasm for this game has cooled a little, but I'm not exactly sure why. I think it's a little like you guys say - there's just so many games to play right now - I feel very occupied and satisfied with by a 3-way rotation between Super Mario Galaxy, Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty 4 - and can't really see adding another long game into that mix (for the time being). I also got some old games I'm thinking of getting back into this weekend if I can find the time. I definitely still want to eventually pick up Mass Effect, but I do feel like I can wait for a while - maybe till next year? Anyhow, I'm looking forward to reading the impressions of those of you here who have picked it up (so please post 'em).

Mass Effect just seems like a rental to me. I'm not convinced I would still want to play it after hour 20 or so.

How many rentals will it take you to get past hour 20?

coming tomorrow. cannot wait.

i just picked this up tonight. Excited! So far, have not made it past the character generator. I am paralyzed by choice. Do I want to be angry universe saving bad-ass, nebbish universe saving scientist, sultry universe saving woman? Decisions!

pick the fucking default character and get going

how's the narrative?

My girlfriend was a little stoned watching me play this and the character creation thing BLEW HER MIND (she's not a video game person). "So you just MADE that man... And now he's in the GAME?"

i just picked this up tonight. Excited! So far, have not made it past the character generator. I am paralyzed by choice. Do I want to be angry universe saving bad-ass, nebbish universe saving scientist, sultry universe saving woman? Decisions!

Badass, nebbish woman saving the galaxy with science is the only choice here. Sort of like a female Lex Luthor or something. Do it!!!

I am getting this in 24 hours. Just found out I have company up for the weekend. Not evne MY friends... the gf's friends. AAAAAAAAAARGHHHHH.......

ups guy come soon pls/girlfriend's parents who are staying at my house for holiday go to bed early pls thanks

gf dad came in as i was happily playing cod4, shooting marines in the head etc and told me it was "depressing," all the killing and death. it gave me pause

That's probably the first time three consecutive posts have mentioned girlfriends in the history of gaming messageboards.

bioware obv attracts a more well-kempt breed of gaming nerd

Ok, I got a few hours into this last night. So far it's fantastic.
Having a main character who isn't a mute cipher is a nice change of pace in a CRPG - you have lots of spoken dialogue, history, NPCs you come across will recognize you and reference events from your past and things you've done so far in the game world, etc. The massive amount of recorded dialogue also makes the game very immersive - I havn't felt the urge to turn on the subtitles and fast-forward through any conversations yet. This is furthered by the slick, minimalistic interface and elegant menus. Visually the game is absolutely gorgeous, and it has a great Blade Runner - esque synth and ambient soundtrack that's a nice change of pace from blaring, cinematic, epic horns and clashing.

Combat is very fast for an RPG and definitely gives the illusion of an FPS battle - cover is very important since once your shields drop you take damage very fast, you can hug it and pop out for shots, use "biotics" (aka mind powers) to move enemy cover out of the way, etc. The weapons don't seem to do vastly different amounts of damage so much as they're useful for different situations - pistols for accuracy, shotgun for point-blank ranges, assault rifle for mid - long range, sniper rifle for long range, etc. The party AI seems pretty good so far, and they're very responsive to your commands to seek cover, engage specific targets, etc.

My only complaint so far is a lack of documentation / info re: the mechanics behind combat, how stats affect it, etc, but I'll figure it out as I go along.

the soundtrack is amazing. i only got to play like 1.5hrs last night but god damn

That's exactly what I thought after playing it for an ohur or two was DAMN, this is the first video game where I seriosly considered getting the soundtrack to listen to while not playng the game.

The above is a lie; I have listened to many vg soundtracks :( but... this one is different.

Speaking of gf, I tried to get her to put her fine arts skills to use to help me make a main character who looked like me. I trusted her fully. The end result is so UGLY that I'm considering starting the game over. Seriously, she made my character look like his parents were cousins. And also, both cows. Cow cousins.

What class are you guys playing? I picked adept, but I, uh, haven't figured out how to use spells yet. So I am running around shooting things w/ pistol. Also, what backgrounds? I took sole survivor earthborn.

Sole Survivor Spacer, Vanguard. Use your biotics with the right bumper -you can map a single power to activate when you tap the bumper, or you can hold it for a radial menu with all your powers, e.g Throw, Warp, Barrier, whatever (and other abilities) in it - the game will pause, you select your power, line it up, and fire.

Is throw any good? I accidentally auto-levelled Karsh or whatever his name is in this game (lol KoTOR voice actor coming back) and it gave him a bunch of... throw.

Apparently everyone in every podcast i listen to went the vanguard route. which makes sense because it is somewhat badass-seeming. i went adept just to not be like them (seriously, it was like 9 vanguards, one guy did infiltrator)

you listened to 10 separate mass effect podcasts?

just three or four different video game podcasts with 2-4 people each

Anyway, I am at the point in the game where it really opens up and you can run around exploring the galaxy. It is so fun. It really feels almost like Master of Orion 2, with the wonder of flying around looking at random planets and learning about their old dead cultures, but isnstead of not actually being able to explore thme ,you get this KoTOR-style closeness to the planets. It is really, really fun exploration-y stuff, and THEN on top of that... there's the actual storyline. Also, you can totally do dumb things, like fight guys you're not yet strong enough to fight, which I miss in video games. Too much railroading in games... they should let you get into trouble sometimes.

I really like this game.

i just bought this and the clerk said "good man!" which makes me want to kill myself.

ha ha!

What I'm curious about is how much of the game is conversation? And if the conversation parts hold up to be actually interesting, or is it just a bunch of pseudo-sf jibber-jabber that you wish you could skip through?

A huge amount of it is conversation. I really dig it; the world is actually interesting and rich enough that I want to learn more about it. I turned off subtitles after a while, because just listening to it is a lot more immersive. I find the conversation very interesting, but I can't really explain why. I even like flying to the uncharted worlds and surveying for thorium deposits or whatever. I am just very into this game. Once my speakers and etc are set up again (we been painting) I am going ot wear headphones to play, though, because I keep getting interrupted by gf/blenders/cat/other shit that makes me not hear things. It's probably a good thing that I don't live alone though, because I would jsut boot this game up and... not stop playing.

i think the conversation is in no way annoying. the characters and voices are all thoroughly interesting! need to log some more hours, though...

Ok, I finished it a while ago, and despite its shortcomings, this game was really, really awesome.

PC version is out in May with possibly some improvements... according to the press release...

* Optimized controls designed specifically for the PC.
* High resolution visuals - Mass Effect for the PC features highly detailed textures, characters and environments.
* Fully customizable controls - PC gamers can re-map the control scheme any way they like.
* Run & Gun Control - Players can assign biotic powers or skills to 'hot keys' allowing them to play Mass Effect with a heavier focus on action.
* New decryption mini-game.
* New inventory screen GUI and functionality - The enhanced inventory system makes it easier for players to equip and modify their weapons and armor.

May!? I was hoping it'd be much sooner than that.

Is this game anything at all like Battlestar Galactica?

I'd say that it's more like Star Trek or Babylon 5 in terms of the back story (a federation of different races, each with their own strengths), and more like Star Wars in the sense that you have powers that are Jedi-like. It has the cool, austere feel of BSG, and with a soundtrack that's reminiscent of Vangelis's work for Blade Runner.

There isn't any (user controlled) space combat, and you don't use the lunar lander's attack capabilities very much.

I bought this last night. I hope I don't regret it. Haven't opened it; waiting to finish Bioshock, which should happen whenever I have time to actually play it again.

i used the car thing's attacks all the time. especially the cannon.

i used the car thing's attacks all the time. especially the cannon.

Did you ever struggle to dispatch anyone with it? I really liked the feel of driving around in the lander, but it just seems like that aspect of the game was very underdeveloped.

yes, the driving part is terrible.

I agree the driving is a bit lame, but apart from that i think it's totally awesome.

I found the game became a lot easier after getting decent a sniper rifle and decent sniper skills

more like ass effect

You guys hear about that ridiculous DRM they're putting in the PC version? Like, it's bad enough so many of these new games put SecuROM on it (as a freakin' WIndows service that's hard to remove) but now if you pay $50 for the privilege of owning this game, it'll check every 10 days over the internet if your key is legit. If your internet is down, too bad, you wasted your money on a single player game.

The sad thing I was actually considering buying this, but like Bioshock, I guess I'll spend my money elsewhere.

more like ass effect

Kotaku is hiring!

oh god s1ocki please get a kotaku job, that would be super hilarious awesome

until the moment i killed myself

this game is the best conversation with aliens simulator ever

i bet it's not as good as star control 2

Is anything as good as Star Control 2?

i need to play this fucking star control 2 game

Wow, they actually backpedaled on the 10-day phone home thing got a huge backlash. Surprising. Still, at least they listened.

The 3-times only hardware profile activation thing is still obnoxious (say goodbye to your resale rights or lending out the disc to a friend) and one-time online activation is kind of reasonable, if lame for an offline single player game, but I guess this is the point we're at when it comes to lame PC copy protection.

I'm not shocked they pulled that. It completely changes the context of the fact that these games are still using the utterly deplorable SecuROM. ad they simply said "we're using SecuROM" people would be like "fuck this shit." Once they said "We are using SecuROM+++" and people said "fuck this" and they said "just kidding secuROM" people were like "oh ok i will buy this then."

I'm still seriously considering not buying Spore because seriously, SecuROM is so broken it's excruciating. I won't lie; I've pirated a lot of PC games. I haven't for a while, though, but one of the last games I bought for my PC was Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (I pertty much stopped playing PC games after this). The SecuROM on that game was so excruciating that I almost pirated it just to avoid that shit. I ended up just playing the game WAY less than I wanted to. I fucking HATE that shit. Would'nt recognize my DVD drive half of the time. ARGH.

ugh is there a way to automatically make this less FPSy

My girlfriend was a little stoned watching me play this and the character creation thing BLEW HER MIND (she's not a video game person). "So you just MADE that man... And now he's in the GAME?"

It also blew my mind, but then I'm used to that slight difference between what's clearly you-controlled and everything else.

I mean, all the subtle tells in other games that I've gotten used to over time actually make me appreciate it more - like (to switch genres wildly) I like the way that in the Lego games you know when to stop beating the crap out of the background when it doesn't look like it's made of Lego any more.

the benefit of waiting a year is this now costs pennies

yeah I'm still intrigued by this too

i played this for two hours and didn't understand it at all. it seemed so disjointed.

I started to enjoy it about four hours in. It's a total slog before that, and although it does get better, I don't know if it makes up for those first few hours. And damn, do I really want to take 30 hours to play through an episode of Babylon 5, a show I could never stand for more than a few seconds?

By the end of the game, when you have a variety of special powers that are maxed out and awesome, it's totally worth it.

Playing this now, since my upgraded mobo/system finally is stable enough to not constantly crash during play.

Am in very early parts of came, on the Citadel, and it strikes me that you could very easily use this engine/game to make a Doctor Who title. You already have a hero running around corridors on a space station or various class-M planets, accompanied by one or two companions, hacking into computers, badgering alien races for information, etc.

even though my character was all special powers - i found them all really upsetting and the controls for choosing them sucked.
never beat the game. the main highlight for me this whole game was trying to max my relationship potential with whats her name (the human girl).

Kinda wish there were more voice-actor accents in this than just bog-standard midwestern American.

dope

How far in are you?

only about an hour and a half in, just starting out

the voice acting is pretty great and the story is startlingly undull

It gets a LOT better.

dope indeed. can't wait for the sequel

I think i was reading that ur character's traits and shit are carried over into the sequel?

Yep. Can't remember what traits I had though.

New character video for ME 2

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/27/mass-effect-2s-subject-zero-looks-awfully-unfriendly/

Looks kinda ridiculous. THIS CHICK IS TO THE EXTREME.

On sale on Steam for a mere $10. I'd grab it but my video card is officially below spec :(

dope
― cozwn, Tuesday, June 16, 2009 4:30 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

now's as good a time as any for a bump. fuckin hate this game

Sorry homes

i haven't played it in forever but i only remember hating it. the long walks, the long talks, the long drives, the sub-par action/gameplay, and if you cared about maximizing points from dialog choices you had to reload and retry. also, games that claim to have lots of choices rarely do. there's like 3 choices in any given scenario that contribute to either paragon or renegade or nothing

but obviously some people like this - it is ranked #1 in a top 25 list of 360 games on ign.com. dragon age wasn't even ranked and i think that one is much better (albeit similar in many ways). i've always leaned towards fantasy rather than sci-fi though

Nah, it's a good story, in a lovely environment, with a great atmosphere, fantastic music, and a fairly interesting combat system. The driving bits were undeniably shit, but I'll be amazed if they've failed to fix that for the sequel. It's just on that Heavy Rain side of the continuum, you know? The story is central, the gameplay is often secondary. Which is fine by me. Can't wait for number 2.

it is basically two or three eps of babylon 5 stitched together, w/a janky framerate, horrible texture pop-in and streaming, tearing up the wazoo, terrible controls, physics and character movement, horrible repetitive environments that are also really dull... and it doesn't even look that great anyway; certainly not as good as heavy rain

the only good thing about it is the sound design, the music and the VA is top notch

and anyone who likes it is basically a hyrax w/tiny balls

the levelling/XP system is unrewarding, dialogue trees give the illusion of choice but often there's none, ur asked to do sidequests while simultaneously told to save the universe immediately, the economy is trashed, the inventory is shit, team inventory management is poorly implemented, vendors are useless, and the sub-quests are embarrassingly bad

terrible game and I h8 u

never played mass effect but can I just say "asked to do sidequests while simultaneously told to save the universe immediately" always bothers me too. It's going on in Spirit Tracks right now and it kinda stresses me out, like why should I cart your sorry ass from place to place when the world is gonna end if I don't get back to the main quest?

i haven't played this game but i have a question : i get the impression that when you fire your gun there is some sort of dice roll to determine whether you hit the target or not. is this true? also lol cozen.

(well, ok i played it for an hour or so round someones house.)

coz shut up you make me cry.

Zappi, yeah, that's basically right. I guess it's a weird choice, to make a game which looks and acts like it's an FPS when in truth it's still basically following turn-based RPG rules, and I can see why it annoyed some people. But it's got that bioware pause-then-choose-your-attack thing that means you can basically play it as turn based anyway, and then it seems a lot more natural to have the dice rolling.

see that just pisses me off more because I was as terrible at this game as I am at real FPSs and I was really hoping that there was an aiming accuracy/reflex component that I had just missed in all of the copy about how it was a turn-based dice-rolling game

yeh just seems really odd to me. might try it again some time if you can switch it to a more turnbased setup tho.

everything negative about the 1st seemed very fixable so I am psyched for the 2nd. cozn - go back to tea-bagging and slinging racial slurs at 14 yr olds in cod.

http://specialedandme.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/babylon-5.jpg
l-r: jimd, bnw, jimd & bnw's pals

more like ass effect

― s1ocki, Wednesday, May 7, 2008 6:07 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

jk Im down with this game. Looking forward to the sequel next week. What bnw said is true. It seems like they tried to make the shooting parts more legit, got rid of overheating in weapons and replaced it with ammo, etc. Im just curious to see how it segways from the last one and whether it takes any of your decisions into account. Probably not..

so used to "the bad guy has gone this way! quick, run after him now or the world will end!" followed by "o hai i have lost my fishing rod, perhaps you can trudge through this village and retrieve it for me in exchange for 30 coins and some useless information" that I will lose badly at and despise any game that actually means the first part, tbh

haha i just realized that i have been baffled by the appeal of this game and slandering it for the last 6 months because my brain doesnt work right and i had confused it with KOTOR which i ragequit after hitting some dumb repetitive bullshit spot. i am stoopid - and on review despite owning it i think that i have put less than 30 minutes into this game due to being distracted by uh who knows some other shiny game that was part of the same used game binge.

sorry mass effect.

you know Mass Effect is basically KOTOR with different characters, right

oh boo

never played mass effect but can I just say "asked to do sidequests while simultaneously told to save the universe immediately" always bothers me too. It's going on in Spirit Tracks right now and it kinda stresses me out, like why should I cart your sorry ass from place to place when the world is gonna end if I don't get back to the main quest?

^^^this! playing assassin's creed 2 and it's like, i just saw my family murdered, the guards are looking for me, why would i go beat up your cheating husband? maybe he's a decent guy and your marriage has been dead for years?

also you realize your problem with KOTOR might have been that you fail at RPGs since that game was like mind-meltingly easy until the last battle, right

tbh KOTOR just bored the shit out of me - too much of the fucking talk to everyone that moves while nothing ever happens snoozefest for me, so if mass effect is like that well shit

^^^

yeah, you only had to do that if you really wanted to

so my point re: failing at RPGs still stands! ^_^

oh look a droid i wonder if he has anything interesting to say OH FUCK THIS xpost

ok i retract my retraction dan has convinced me that this is a boring bag of shit

yeah, it stressed me out because i felt like i should be talking to everyone so as to not miss anything, and i did not enjoy doing so. it probably would have been the best game ever when i was 14, but now, who has the time?

ok quick someone ruin another game and tell me that dragon age is all about talking to farmers about their crop yield and bartenders about rumors around town in the hopes of finding a nest of goblins in the old higgins place so i can never play that as well

Dragon Age is about submitting yourself to the taint, so it should be (ahem) right up your alley.

do i spend any time getting sent around the town square from person to person to bartender to woodcutter until finally the brothel keeper tells me to talk to old man terwilligers because he knows more about the history of the town than anyone, which of course means he knows where the woodelves are keeping their magic amethyst shinguards?

I don't know, I went back to playing WoW shortly after submitting myself to the taint.

KOTOR is awesome and you people are crazy.
Not a fan of ME tho'.

The innovation with mass effect 2 seems to be if you tire of old man terwilligers story you can throw him out the window, so it has that going for it

Looks like you can import your character from the last game in this one:

"I think we can actually extend that quite effectively to [Mass Effect 3], the key thing being that that save game concept will work in 3 as well where we can take the save games from one to two, two to three," Zeschuk said in response to a Kotaku Talk Radio caller.

"Even to the point where some of the decisions you made in 1 you'll see the result in 3," he continued. "It's actually interestingly impactful in that folks who have stuck with the franchise the entire time, there will be stuff that you will feel is yours that you've created in that third iteration."

As for the soon to be released Mass Effect 2, "it's definitely bigger than [the first Mass Effect], probably about one and a half times [the length], maybe a little more" Zeschuk said. In addition to being Emotionally Engaging, "There's a lot more you can do, a lot more you should do."

Assuming my save is still on my janky xbox, my last go through was with a crazy bitch character I made named Cruella who ended up killing everyone in the end. Hmmm.

ok playing this right now, oh early 360 graphics, u were real real shitty

never played mass effect but can I just say "asked to do sidequests while simultaneously told to save the universe immediately" always bothers me too. It's going on in Spirit Tracks right now and it kinda stresses me out, like why should I cart your sorry ass from place to place when the world is gonna end if I don't get back to the main quest?

my 2¢ - this conundrum has been around since the early day of rpgs. it never bothered me because as a scavenger player and sidequest do-er, i always prolonged the meat of a game to either level up my character and get better items or just get the most out of the game by going everywhere and doing everything. in final fantasy games for instance, i made sure i was prepared for boss battles by essentially prolonging them.

rarely is a sidequest so awful that it actually gets to me. the spirit tracks transport quests didn't get to me because i didn't want that game to end.. i have beat every sidequest and now i guess i should beat the game (i haven't played it in over a week even though i'm right at the ending). i guess i could say that there is a sense of accomplishment in doing all the extra stuff (and it kinda feels good)

but yes, i remember running my ass around some stupid places in mass effect and the lack of action was troubling. and even though there may be a good story and a somewhat original/highly-detailed universe, much of the dialog was boring and i couldn't care less. the worst parts of mass effect was when my dude was talking to everyone at each city and running back and forth there.. or just talking with my crew got old

in other news, I don't think I have ever finished a 'sandbox' game even though I've played the hell out of them

l-r: jimd, bnw, jimd & bnw's pals

irl lolz

you know Mass Effect is basically KOTOR with different characters, right

YES, AND HOW IS THIS A BAD THING?

It isn't! I loved KOTOR

a) mass effect rules
b) kotor rules
c) every1 h8ing itt can just fuck off and play mw2 u spermguzzling aids monkeys

only contracted aids after playing ME ;_;

i really like this game depsite kinda agreeing w/ u tbh - mb helps never replaying after my 1st time thru

U ALL HATE MASS EFFECT COS YOUR IMAGINATIONS DIED AND YOU KNOW IT!
i for one liked reading about the hydrogen-helium giants and trying to do kickflips w/ the tank on alien planet mountains and no i am not being sarcastic.

i'm starting to seriously come to grips with the fact that i am a simple, simple man
the new one looks too new fangled and WHERE'S ANYTHING FROM THE LAST GAME BTW?

important information for potential thieves!!!

http://paste2.org/p/631303

copy-paste these links into your browser and confirm them but probably best to do it sooner rather than later. for some reason microsoft have accidentally put up all the pre-order bonuses/DLC for free, so if you want them, they're yours.

i played mass effect for like ten hours and there was rlly not one interesting thing, plotwise. then i got a sex scene with an alien hooker as a subquest reward and went 'seriously' and stopped playing

i sort of liked the combat though

Bah, cozen's codes are already not working.

Can't believe they paid for a minute of commercial time at the two minute warning of the Vikings/Saints game for ME2. Must've cost a ton.

i've been revisiting KOTOR lately (because i'm really broke atm) in anticipation of ME2 and i would sort of agree with some of cozen's criticism if it was about that. still like both games though, even if i prefer to be able to pause the fights in KOTOR

Eurogamer 10/10
Gametrailers 9.7/10
Gamesradar 10/10
Gamespy 5/5
Destructoid 10/10
Gamepro 4.5/5
Team Xbox 10/10
1Up: A-

christ.

psyched

I was so excited abt this that i had a 2nd playthrough as a purely evil biotic character last week. Now i don't know which save to use.

Ah come on, you know you'll play ME2 more than once, so you'll get to try both.

yeah I have to buy this today even though I am still not through assassin's creed 2 ARGH

So this game basically starts out just like KOTR2

ass effect
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i298/drbo/Unff.png

no one playing this then or are you all too busy playing to post and if so how is it

Got this today and it's v good.

its pretty great. main criticism: classes/abilities too similar.

I played up to the first save point, I think. My friend beat it within three days of buying it, but he still has to play through it several more times before he will loan it to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQCf4303lKo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00YwSI2nF0k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwzoedQ_ZQ8

I got the scientist character to sing gilbert and sullivan last night, so I got that going for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj0iJtgHOCI

Ah yes here it is

okay, maybe i need to retry the first one.

kind of want to put Miranda on the ws of shame thread purely because of Yvonne Strahovski

I bought Mass Effect Part One the other day. Really digging it despite the shortcomings. One major gripe: I was forced to kill off one of the best characters in my team cuz my Charm and Intimidate skills were too low. Kinda makes me not want to import my character/storyline into the new one.

I am starting my second game of this =(

Upping the difficulty tho. Regular difficulty was a goddamn cakewalk.

kind of want to put Miranda on the ws of shame thread purely because of Yvonne Strahovski
― PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! (HI DERE), Monday, February 1, 2010 5:49 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i298/drbo/Unff.png

I just mentioned this over on the xbox thread but I'll say it again here because it's so fucking annoying - the tiny text! I'm seriously sitting about 3 feet away from the TV screen and I still can't read it! I don't have a HDTVUltraLtdClariView TV or anything like that, but it's a pretty big screen and I've never had problems reading any text in a game before on it. Weird.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/bioware-unable-to-address-me2-text-issue

(as it happen I bought myself a new telly this week, otherwise this would've been making me really angry too)

Yeah, just saw this too:

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/02/mass-effect-2-and-the-curse-of-the-tiny-text/

sigh.

http://i45.tinypic.com/1z65dgo.jpg

It's a little bit harder for me to read than this screenshot, but it's a pretty good example:

yeah, this is a big problem (RARE even patched in a big-text mode to banjo kazooie following complaints iirc); no fix for it other than jumping on the HD bandwagon : /

nitpicks: need more random/small encounters, I have found like 2 planets out of 50ish that have them. why does Bioware hate wandering monsters :( also would like more random objects/npcs thrown around in general.

I have an HDTV and still have a hard time reading it because my xbox is ONLY on component and doesn't have an HDMI port. Fucking tiny ass text!

Also I am not a fan of a lot of things in this game (more or less spoiler-less, but if you're really a stickler you might wanna skip it):

1. I liked the Mako, I will admit it. Getting rid of it I guess makes sense for all the whiners who hated it.), but replacing it with that mining shit? FUCK YOU BIOWARE. Seriously. You took a timesink that nonetheless brought me a little joy and replaced it with something that fills me with sorrow. Gone is that sense of isolation and wonder and floaty, lonely magic that was driving around on an insane future planet-- instead there is nothing now except a shitty animated Make Your Own Joy Division Album Cover mini"game".

2. I have to admit, even though the last game had a pretty terrible inventory system, I do miss actually getting new weapons and armor all of the time and trying them on and putting different armor on each of my dudes. Customizing my armor to look like Master Chief colors and have 1-2 outfits per teammate? Not my cup of tea. Where's my Heavy Armor - Turian, etc?

3. Why is it that the choices I don't actually give a SHIT about from the first game are the ones that are apparently the ones that do the most in the game, versus the "big" choices? Where's my Asari love child? Actually the whole romance subplot from the last game is pretty absent in any but the most superficial ways (so far as I can see, one awkward peck upon remeeting, and a tiny photo in the cabin of the ship). I guess I shouldn't care considering how stupid the romance subplot was in the last game anyway, but still. The whole choice-consequence thing feels almost as empty as it did in FABLE II, for fuck's sake (my least favourite game of this console generation).

4. Can we just call this game Star Ocean's Eleven? I don't know how I feel about this "make a crack team" as a central plot point thing. I think that building a team in any game is the part that's most awkward and irritating and appreciated that in the first game you had basically your WHOLE TEAM by the time you left the Citadel (one of the worst missions was the one where you got Liara). WELL NOW I GET THE LIARA MISSION TEN TIMES! TIMES TWO IF YOU COUNT THE "HELP" MISSIONS! I mean, shit.

5. I shouldn't have played an adept again.

Gonna stop now before this gets too "I just played Mass Effect 2 for over an HOUR" and earn my own best-of thread.

I didn't play the first Mass Effect, so although I'm annoyed by tiny text (although I've sorta adapted to it by sitting 2 inches away from the screen and losing my mind), I'm reaaaaally enjoying this on the whole. Particularly enjoyed the Omega/Afterlife missions, with the nice Bladerunner vibes.

agree with will m's critiques but still dig the game. glad I didn't play an adept again either, because the abilities could really use more creativity and diversity to them. Also if you could script your npc partners like dragon age and if their abilities worked especially well in combination

ZS - sympathy for your issue but having a 360 and no hd tv is almost pointless.

agree with x's critiques but still dig the game.

u people r basically why a.hitler happened

and why empire state of mind won pazz and jop

Pretty sure Modern Warfare 2 is why A. Hitler happened.

hes just venting b/c this is the only place he can talk to people over 14 years old U_U

I agree w/ur critiques but I still dig myself

http://imgur.com/krp7L.jpg
"conezy and I pwned bitchez for 4 hours saturday night! then my stupid mom made me go to bed"

Anyone still playing this like I am? It's the only game I own, so I'm drawing it out as long as possible by doing all the "loyalty" team member missions, even though Miranda and Thane are pretty much my default crew.

Overall I'm having a good time, although I wish it was a little heavier on the RPG side. Or, if it was a little more fun on the action side, if that's the emphasis. But good lord, hands down the worst thing is the mining. I don't want to think about how much time I've spent moving the little reticule around the planets, waiting for the controller to buzz. Worst of all was the tease that came with the mining enhancement upgrade. When I saw it, I figured that it would add some sort of radar so you could move straight toward the minerals (similar to the radar that's used when there's a detected anomaly), or at least that the reticule would move more quickly. Turns out that it makes the reticule move more quickly when you're NOT SCANNING for minerals. So...it's totally useless, since the seemingly random distribution of minerals makes it necessary to tediously scan everywhere anyway. uuuuuuuuugh...

I have considered putting out a Craig's List ad to pay some little kid to do the mining stuff for me while I read the paper, but I figured "Will pay $10/hr for someone to help me out with probes" would be crepey

I am liking it v. much. Quite happy with a lot of the rpg stripping down, the level of inventory management was v. much overblown in the 1st one where i'd end up with 30 different types of ammo that were pretty much the same. Not so happy with the stripping down of character customisation wrt to powers but a lot of the biotic and tech stuff in ME1 was pretty useless and nothing at all seems useless in this.

The mining is absolutely dreadful. The Mako exploration in ME1 was awful too, spend ten minutes exploring a planet to pick up some random medal or something and only abt 1 in 15 planets had an actual sidequest. Suppose the mining aspect is to do away with all the mindless exploration, now every planet you can land on has an actual sidequest but don't know why they thought a better alternative was to spend five minutes running yr cursor over a planet (don't know about xbox version but in the pc version you have to hover yr mouse ultra slow or you can miss the rich deposits which adds to the frustartion) and hitting a button just to upgrade yr equipment.

Putting together a crack team is a pretty poor storyline compared to ME1 as an overarching plot but i still think the story is better written and some of the characters are v. good, loving mordins hypersped, hyperaware conversational style and Jack / Subject 0 isn't half as bad a Joss Whedon badass Faith ripoff as i thought she'd be.

Also the squad based shooting is far superior to ME1.

It moves faster when you're not scanning. Once I got the upgrade I found the mining a lot less painful, combined with the 60 probes. Just push the reticule all the way to the right, on the equator, and push both sticks right. Get all the way around the equator, do the same thing around the tropic of cancer and tropic of capricorn, get a buttload of stuff, hit the next planet. Aside from eezo (check it out I am hip with the in-game jargon) I was able to get pretty much whatever I needed for whatever upgrades I needed in under 20 minutes.

It moves faster when you're not scanning.

heh, that's the thing - it's useless because you always need to scan! I definitely do the reticule on the right/both sticks to the right speed up trick, but it's just painfully slow. <20 minutes for whatever upgrades you need, sure, but you'll need to do it several times throughout the game because there's always new stuff opening up, and before you know it you've spent 4+ hours scanning planets.

bnw u can call me pwnezy

really want to play this btw ;_; I want to believe

cozen....I see you...

I see you.

i finished a few days ago :( my char didn't die (not even sure where that decision was made). after the final battle there is a scene where cozen puts on his robe and wizard hat, if you know what i mean.

Hmm...last thing I'll say about mining, but gamefaqs had a useful tip:

To speed up mining, I highly recommend buying the Advanced Mineral Scanner
as soon as possible. You can unlock this upgrade by speaking to Miranda
after recruiting Mordin. This will allow the scanning reticle to move over
the surface of the planet much faster. However, it's still slow when holding
the left trigger to scan. How can we get around this problem? Simply TAP the
left trigger very quickly as you move the scanning reticle, this will allow
you to detect resources while moving the reticle quickly.

Haven't tried it yet, but hopefully it'll speed up things.

I have an HDTV and still have a hard time reading it because my xbox is ONLY on component and doesn't have an HDMI port. Fucking tiny ass text!

you have an HDTV but your xbox is going on SD?!?!

You don't need HDMI to get HD output.

actually, component should be rendering HDMI so i dont know what the problem is here? are you using COMPOSITE maybe?

No no, component is full HD but it's analog HD, so it's a slightly woolier than HDMI, which is digital HD. Haven't picked up my ME2 yet, but the text would have to be VERY tiny for that to make a difference? Hoping it isn't, cos my 360 is a non-HDMI one too.

you can still get 720p/1080p over component, you just need to flick the HD switch on the back of the xbox and enable the right settings on the dashboard

you can also connect via VGA on non-HDMI xboxen

Yeah, connecting audio becomes a bit of a pain in the arse if you're using a VGA cable though - it's only got an optical out, so if you're connecting to a TV with no digital inputs you're stuffed.

surround sound bitches

ive been playing ME1... this game sux

negatives:
1. crappy gameplay
2. bland, generic sci-fi setting
3. the vehicle stuff is awful
4. every alien world is exactly the same
5. scavenger hunt missions are dumb, irritating

positives:
1. great music
2. the conventional RPG stuff on the citadel was good, just running around talking to pps

actually, component should be rendering HDMI so i dont know what the problem is here? are you using COMPOSITE maybe?

― snoocki (s1ocki), Saturday, February 13, 2010 12:32 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i meant rendering HD

Made a start yesterday, this text is fine over component.

cankles otm

i hate ME so much that it literally makes me sick to think about playing it some more

this might be the first game i will just never finish (and i finished State of Emergency man)

loving kotr and hating ME does not compute

ass effect

kotr had a range of interesting environments, memorable characters, decent skill system, fun combat (if a little too easy), didnt make you play a shitty minigame any time you wanted to open a fucking broom closet, didnt make a sizable portion of the gameplay boil down to you driving across identical alien landscapes in a dunebuggy that bounces around like a goddamn superball... little things, i guess

cozen otm itt

so i finished it

it grew on me a little bit by the end

downloading ME2 now lmbo

i gotta say, i really hate the GOOD/EVIL meter that's in every fuckin bioware game. it's a gay idea made even gayer in mass effect cuz its literally like hotkeyed to "GOOD RESPONSE" "EVIL RESPONSE"

what lazy ass shit

iunno, have applied GOOD/EVIL decision trees to my own own life and it's working out ok for me so far

anyway keen to hear ur impressions on ME2, everything I've read suggests it's a mile better than AE

yeah that's what i've heard too, it sounds like they got rid of a lot of the shit that drove me nuts abt the original

will report back~~

mass affect

lolz at cankles embracing the pain

I'm playing the first one right now, and while I've mostly made my peace with the weird combat (it took a long time to stop thinking of it as an action game and bringing up the pause menus to use abilities), Therus can blow me. Yes, let's drop a tank and a half-dozen enemies on me while I'm busy watching a cutscene, that sounds delightful!

OK, never mind, second attempt was easy peasy. Turns out it was the little hoppy guys with sniper rifles that were killing my guys while I went for the other enemies. Killed them first and the rest was a cakewalk.

finished ME2

it was ok, much better than ME1

worse music tho

didnt really see the big deal

its always hilarious when videogame characters get their bone on

with all the improvements they still fumbled gameplay. there were signs in dragon age that they were getting it down better, so hopefully ME3 will build off that.

I was getting into this game, learning the ropes, starting to notice the hours flying by...and now I notice it's just the same thing over and over again. Walk around the ship, land on a planet, hide behind some crates, shoot some enemies, talk to someone, open a door, hack a computer, hide behind some crates, shoot some enemies, talk to someone, open a door, collect credits, walk up stairs, hide behind a low wall and shoot enemies downward, witness the sudden appearance of the boss, take out the heavy weapon, kill the boss, go back to the ship...

FUCK YOU, The Thorian.

FUCK.

YOU.

Also fuck you Tali for getting puked on and dying constantly.

most games are the same thing over and over. it's a pretty good thing you do over, in mass effect 2.

Just finished ME2 for the first time tonight. Great experience, and really welcome after the total disappointment of Dragon's Age.

Also, except for one or two sequences, I found the game fairly ez-mode throughout on Veteran difficulty. May play again (I have a second ME1 character to maybe play through) on Insanity for the achievement. Tho it feels really daunting to play through that whole freaking game again. nb did all the loyalty missions and i think every side quest in the game.

it seems like the bulk of the game consisted of loyalty/recruitment missions

Not a fan of the constant 'Thane wants to speak to you commander' messages from my assistant just as I'm about to open up the galaxy map and finally go somewhere. Also not a fan of the 'mining' timesink to get more resources to afford more upgrades etc etc.

All the characters look and act like robots and there is zero levity or humor in the entire game.

yup.

i got it into my head somehow that i could justify shelling out 200 bucks for a 360 mostly just to play ME2. reading through this thread i just wanted to see one or two posts where someone was like, hot damn this is awesome, to push myself over the edge, but there isn't one. so, is this the flat-out phenomenal game that the reviews make it sound like, or is it just okay? fyi i love rpgs, i really dug DAO, and i like space and corny sci-fi shit.

Hot damn, this game was awesome. Seriously.

I've been trying to figure out exactly what I think of this. In some ways it was a huge disappointment and yet it's still a fine, fun game that I've been enjoying playing. It's just not really an RPG any more. They've stripped away so much of the fun customisation of the first game that what's left is something weird - a sort of bog standard (but atmospheric) FPS, coupled with a heavy rain style conversation simulator. Or something. Dunno, it's kind of...enjoyable but unsatisfying. Which is a big step down from ME1. But it's still worth playing.

OH I DON'T KNOW I CAN'T DECIDE.

I mean, this isn't worth buying a 360 for. But buying a 360 is worth it anyway, so you may as well go ahead.

In terms of story, I never experienced anything quite like importing my ME1 character into ME2 and experiencing the ramifications of her choices/actions in the first game in the second. It was really thrilling and personal. I recommend getting a 360 for ME2, but only if you play through ME1 on it first so you can export your char, and save your char from ME2 for ME3. It's a really great epic.

Yeah, my problem with those bits was that it's so long since I played ME1 that I can't remember most of the choices I made anyway. So characters keep showing up saying "hey, nice/nasty to see you! My life's so much better/worse since you did that thing in that place!" and I'm always just like "uh sorry do I know you?".

There's a lot of minor stuff, but the major choices you made (saving the Arachni or exterminating them, or saving Wrex) come back in cool ways.

thanks for the info dudes. i won't say it has made my mind up but it has definitely helped.

OH FUCK YOU TALI.

been playing this today, not overly wowed but this usually happens with me and i could pick it up again and probly love it.

but i can't seem to find some guy i'm supposed to talk to and i've been walking around and going up and down lifts for about 2 hours. so far i'm just bored of it.

Levity is in this game. Mordin's dialogue, plus his musical bit. You get to feed fish, or clean them out. Hell, they even have Baldur's Gate II refs.

picked this up again last night, still can't find the guy i'm supposed to talk to. And fed up of loooooooooong loading times in lifts now.

gave up with the first one, got the sequel instead. Combat far far better. Only played briefly today, because yet again got stuck on very simple moment - having to use some other guys skills but no idea how to. Then it crashed.

(other than that, pretty impressed with it so far)

Mass Effect 2 is way better aside from the horrible end mission. Seriously pissed off when I finished it and realised that was the whole game.

it's very pretty. Does it 'open up' more after I've built up more of a squad (got medic alien last night), feels a bit on rails right now disguised as 'you can travel to any system - but really only the ones for your next mission'. and what's the scanning and pod surveying of planets all about? (sorry i'm so new)

Scanning and surveying mostly just stacks up minerals, which you need to buy weapon/ship/armour upgrades. But occasionally you'll find a planet with a distress signal or some other kind of beacon, which means you can do an extra mini mission there (these sometimes lead on to other mini missions elsewhere too). Prob worth making the most of those if you're wanting the game to feel open, because yeah, beyond that you're very much on rails - you can decide what order you want to do the main missions in, but they pretty much all need to be done in the end anyway (unless you're happy ploughing into then failing the final mission, which is totally possible...although that wouldn't leave you with a useable save file when you get around to starting ME3).

thanks, although that is a little disappointing to hear.

Still, I played it a lot yesterday and enjoyed myself. I am starting to become a bit tired of the same-old mission format tho.

But feels like I'll stick it out to the end, which is rare.

Scanning planets is boring as hell, but still beats that bastard buggy from the first one.

i finally shelled out for a graphics card that wasn't old enough to vote mostly just to play these games. pretty far into the first one and no regrets at all, really good. there hasn't been a time that i have put it on without noticing something new that is a bit broken or crappy about it, but i literally haven't cared once cos i really like what they have done with the concept and the good stuff is great. excited for ME2. tempted to wait for the PS3 release in the new year (fuckin sad business playing on PC at my desk when big TV and comfy beanbag just sitting there) but i am enough of a nerd to want to have the character continuity.

Really hate that you can't use an xbox 360 controller on ME2 on the pc. Apparently the pc was 'optimised' fr mouse+keyboard but it's a real fucker when i have a nice tv i can plug the pc into but really need to use a controller with due to logistics.

Character continuity makes about zero diff. to the game as far as options / decision making etc. go but it does add a lot of nice little flourishes in the world that almost certainly would make it wortwhile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZGFjBmD41Q

If there are playable earth-based mission in this I'm going to LOVE it.

Played the last few ME2 DLC packs over the last couple of weeks. Overlord is pretty good, Shadow Broker is great, Arrival is SHIT.

Seconded. I just finished Arrival, and it isn't just halfassed as I'd expected, it's actively insulting and railroads your character into committing a war crime no matter what choices you make.

Clint Mansell's scoring ME3. Any other game, I'd think that was a great thing. But I already love the ME music (which is mostly by this guy) so I kinda don't want it to change.

so mass effect 2 kinda sucks huh? bad combat, boring quests, paragon/renegade qtes, think the bioware binary morality thing has run its course.

Can't really argue with any of that but still loved it, I guess just cos I dig the style and presentation and design and universe.

that's what i liked in the first one, the vangelis synths and fake camera zooming and film grain etc, and i'm all for broadening console gaming's aesthetic base (from star wars to blade runner, i guess) but with all that stripped away it's a janky third person shooter with extremely limited customization and sadly-good-for-gaming writing.

it may be the writing that gets to me most, these dudes want so badly to be taken seriously as storytellers. video game stories are destined to be bad as they should serve the game. making the game part less interesting in order to tell a Big Huge SF Story that ultimately is sub-david weber middle school lunch table fantasizing is completely ridiculous but apparently desirable right now as console gaming is in its prog rock phase.

so another one of these things, eh?

until they stop selling, yes

It's cool that this one has Kinect-enabled menus, and multiplayer.

http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-wDXQbxt/0/L/i-wDXQbxt-XL.jpg

i love deer status bar, can't help it

until they stop selling, yes

they planned it as a trilogy from the first game iirc, which is why they've been able to do such cool things with decisions in the beginning reverberating through the series

oh cmon man, i know the IP was intended as a trilogy, but you know there's gonna be a prequel or some other such dumb shit as long as they can milk it
did game dev story teach you NOTHING?

It's cool that this one has Kinect-enabled menus, and multiplayer.

― polyphonic, Wednesday, February 1, 2012 1:45 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

srs? guarantees it will be total shit imo.

some of these screenshots are pretty nice tho.
http://www.facepunch.com/threads/1052033-Mass-Effect-2-High-Resolution-Texture-Mod

I will play the hell out of this.

guess who got an early peek at the demmmmoooooooo

If someone asked whether I was excited about this game I guess I'd say yes, but I tried downloading the demo and there wasn't room for it on my hard drive and I couldn't even be arsed to spend 30 seconds clearing some space for it. In fairness though that's maybe because a) I don't want to play the single player demo anyway because spoliers and b) I'm far from convinced I'll ever bother with multiplayer anyway.

sadly-good-for-gaming writing

this is at the base of why i can't bring myself to care about 90% of the games i feel like i'd like

I think the objective quality writing isn't the point with *most* games - just as poetry isn't the point with *most* pop music (I mean, no-one says or cares whether "Umbrella features sadly-good-for-pop lyrics but unfortunately falls well short of TS Eliot" )

what is it with people lately with t.s. eliot

all this dude's youtube videos bring serious lols for me

http://youtu.be/biZr1z5DQIg

http://i.imgur.com/w76uU.png

console gaming is in its prog rock phase

lol @ this

a tarkus game would be way better than this crap

adam's post up there is booming though

i watched my pal play the end of mass effect 2 the other day, and man was it hard to sit through. So many cut scenes, and so painful!

so i'm wrapping up ME1 and it's enjoyable enough to pick up ME2, then we'll see about ME3.

i almost gave up on the entire game when i had to fight matriarch benezia and i was severely underpowered: 10 seconds of fighting, getting killed, waiting for the save to reload, X through the stupid dialogue, repeat. it probably took me about 30 tries over the course of two days

I had the same issue at that point. I just knocked down the difficulty for the fight and beat it the very next time.

Xpost, cutscenes are awesome.

It probably helps to play through the game and get invested in the characters.

That said, I am a notorious cut scene skipper.

The Benezia fight is such bullshit- I had the same problem.

ME2 is weird in that the story is noticeably worse- there are plot holes you could drive a decent-sized bus through, and seemingly half the supporting cast are raging assholes- but it's way more fun to actually play. It's like they handed off the combat to a completely separate dev team that had actually played an action game at some point in their lives.

I am staying up until ME3 unlocks at midnight, in order to get in a few rounds of multiplayer, and oh god that is the most pathetic thing :(

http://i42.tinypic.com/2e1hpmv.jpg

not only did they already beat it BUT they already found plagiarism AND took the time to photoshop a snide meme
the internet, damn

i love the idea that someone searched for "winter space"

This is good so far, better than the demo led me to believe. I like all the mechanics to roll around and move from cover to cover.

so if I was to play this damn thing and i already own ME1, should I buy ME2 and just play top to bottom? Anybody want to argue that you should just jump into this in the middle?

Apparently if you play through 2 you start 3 with all of your stuff and at the same level?

I'd play each game in order. At least at some point even if you start with 3.

1 suffers from RPG inventory glut, copy/paste dungeons and endless vehicle roving.
2 suffers from awful planet scanning for minerals/upgrades.

I played through both (years ago) but have no save files due to severe virus eradication efforts a year ago. My plan is to playthrough ME2 again using a savefile from a completed ME2 save from Mass Effect Saves. Replaying a completed ME2 game gives "200,000 credits, 50,000 of each resource; Renegade and Paragon points reset to neutral; and your weapons and armor (but no upgrades) from first playthrough".

There are pointers for importing PC saves on XBox360 at the site, but none for PS3.

spoilery image - http://i.imgur.com/fCcd3.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/viq2Z.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zP9p9.png
http://i.imgur.com/l1lHa.gif

^ ass effect

should i activate the cerberus network in ME2? i'm wary of signing up for EA stuff with all the haxx0ring going on with xbox live

Oh come on, man, this came out TWO DAYS ago! Giant fucking spoiler in that post :(

sorry, I honestly didn't think anyone would care. or that anyone didn't know. mods?/?

I can only delete a post, I can't edit text.

pc version of this keeps locking up on me at the first loading screen. bioware's forums are completely silent and a few dozen ppl having the same prob. this suxxx

That sucks. Start chopping down the graphics settings.

I'm waiting for a bit on this one.

I am about 2 hours in. Pretty fun.

whats the spoiler, that you see ass?

Naw, we all know that the ass is coming. The ass rules the character design.

The spoiler involves a plot relevation happening deep in the running-time to one of the characters whose ass has received quite the amount of online attention and one could say abuse from Rule34- and DeviantArt-types.

The point of the graphic is just to show another "lol Bioware used stock photo assets" thing, but the explanatory text is unnecessarily spoilery.

The electronics section of the local Fred Meyer has a trailer for this playing on the display screens. They put Jessica Chobot in this game?!

I just wandered around the citidal for an hour and half tonight. I want to live there.

How are the overheard combos/side distractions there? I enjoyed the previous outings where you got glimpses into deeper-than-average NPC lives, or hearing your own voice used in shop adverts whenever you wandered into or by a place.

I like them, adds to the game even if you don't get a side mission out of it.

12 hours in, still good. Although there is still a severe lack of Liara sleeping with me.

What's this about faces from old save games not importing properly? Anyone having that happen? Got this but only about 2 days from finishing skyrim so holding off starting it for now, though I'm pretty attached to the big old spud head that is my shepherd, so if I need to wait for a patch to get him in it I guess I will.

I got it, but I just recreated my face. There are workarounds out there.

can someone plz explain the huge spoiler to me

actually i just want someone to concisely summarise the plot so i never have to think about playing this, maybe with screenshots of anything actually visually interesting

I will give you the summary of what I have experienced so far in me3. I didn't play the first two games, fwiw, even though I did start this thread. lol

SPOILERS!

There is an uneasy coalition of several civilizations of different kinds of aliens. They have their own tensions and political infighting, but largely all of these civilizations are good in their own way. Some are more warlike, some are more logical. So, Star Trek, basically.

They are all facing attack from an ancient alien threat called the Reapers, who arrive every 50,000 years to wipe out all organic life in the universe or something. And winter is coming! But everyone is so busy arguing and dealing with their own problems that they won't help Earth, where the Reapers are currently focusing their attacks. They are scary aliens, basically.

But there is also another evil force called Cerberus, who are led by a dude called the Illusive Man (Martin Sheen), and they do all kinds of fucked up things. I guess they seem like a mix of war profiteers and genetic engineers? It seems like their idea is to fuse reaper DNA with other DNAs to create super soldiers or something.

Anyway, you are trying to unite the world to fight against these two threats.

Also there are these bug monsters called rachni that are gross and will kill you but not evil per se.

Very sad after the Tuchanka missions...

haha wow that is the dullest thing i can imagine for them to do with cerberus

Cerberus is a human-survivalist paramilitary group led by the enigmatic Illusive Man. Cerberus' core belief is that humans deserve a greater role in the galactic community, and that the Systems Alliance is too hamstrung by law and public opinion to stand up effectively to the Citadel races. Any methods of advancing humanity's ascension are justified, including illegal or dangerous experimentation, terrorist activities, sabotage and assassination. Cerberus operatives accept that these methods are brutal, but believe history will vindicate them. Nevertheless, both the Systems Alliance and the Citadel Council have declared Cerberus to be a terrorist organization and will prosecute identified Cerberus agents accordingly.

okay

does mass effect demonstrate anything interesting about the narrative potential of videogames or

lots of ppl seem unhappy with the ending because there's no real divergence, which seems like it's the case with ... everything else, too

basically the plot continues in much the same way whatever you do but your choices are:

i.a. whether shepard is a prig or an asshole
i.b. whether some people die or more people than that die

which are basically choices about the mode in which you enjoy your heroic narratives to exist, rather than choices about what happens

and

ii. who shepard sleeps with

which, oy.

People's expectations are too high.

Gamers are some of the most entitled consumers of pop culture ever, except for certain indie types or ILM posters

i.b. whether some people die or more people than that die

If the people have names and matter to you then it has more narrative consequence. I've made a few decisions so far that have resulted in the deaths of fairly major characters, and I'm pretty sure they'd be alive if I'd done things differently. There aren't a lot of games that even offer that much choice.

And also, there are characters in this game that wouldn't even be in this game if you let them die in 2. That's pretty crazy to me.

there are characters in this game that wouldn't even be in this game if you let them die in 2

or 1!

^ im still pissed that i let ashley die instead of alenko

does mass effect demonstrate anything interesting about the narrative potential of videogames or

in terms of writing and storytelling, i'd say definitely no
but i think the use of the radial menu for dialogue choices feels very natural with the xbox controller and i think holds a lot of potential in the future of 'interactive storytelling' in games

I think having a radically different endgame would be pretty hard to program in at launch when there are so many things that need to be done just to make sure the game actually WORKS and shit, but I'm surprised more developers haven't tried creating new story paths as add-ons instead of just making entirely new side stories. But I guess it's harder to do that with a big budget title because maybe there aren't many people who would spend $10 to unlock something they can't even access unless they've reached that far in the game, or I guess there's also the risk of fucking up save data or ... ? Whereas with a conventional add-on you can just start it right away.

But the iOS model of constant updates and improvements to existing titles is so fun, and I wish that would happen for bigger games.

I let Ashley die too. Because she shot Wrex. Pissed me off so she dies.

Some game reviews sites have been spurting massively over The Witcher 2 last year just because there's a decision you can make about halfway through, and you get completely different second halves based on that decision.

Which in my view is kind of why freedom and interesting stories are only ever going to be so compatible until we create story-generation technology that isn't completely terrible.

is the witcher 2 a good game apart from the "choices" one makes that define the story? b/c mass effect 1/2 are boring as fuck as far as being a game that is fun to play rather than being The Science Fiction Epic of Our Time is concerned.

whereas the impression i'm getting about ME3 is that it's the most fun, but i won't care because i didn't spend 80 hours playing 1 & 2?

I liked a lot of things about Mass Effect 1, looking forward to playing 2 when I get around to it, but it's firmly in the "Guns and Conversations" genre - you run around sorting out shit for people, sometimes involving a fight, sometimes talking people out of it - a lot like the KOTOR games unsurprisingly. If you consider it boring, you could always... fuck off to Gears of War?

first parallel that struck me was actually ocarina of time

jordan 2 is meant to be the big leap i think? the combat in 1 is amazingly boring, it's like jrpg combat meets a cover system and they glare at each other for ever and ever

i found a lot of the conversation dull because i'm pedantic about conversation trees, & a lot of them are fleshed out in a fairly lazy way - there's a lot of shephard saying "tell me about _THING" - and i think the way the game positions itself w/r/t finding about the 'lore' and the 'world' is ... bad on a very elementary level. imagine if fallout dropped the intro cinematic and you spent the first hour going 'we live in a vault? what's a vault?' or if planescape: torment had, say, a magical library in which you could read on and on about the different planes you visited.

this isn't the same thing as finding conversation as a mechanic dull, or finding the world dull.

haven't played the witcher but apparently it makes sword fighting quite fun. also i get the impression the story choices come closer to my definition of 'making meaningful decisions', though probably not that much closer

Which in my view is kind of why freedom and interesting stories are only ever going to be so compatible until we create story-generation technology that isn't completely terrible.

one of the things i find interesting is that meta-game decisions (reload save + consciously explore how to make someone not die / get the good ending / whatever) are absolutely central to how people get through the narrative experience now? i'm sure someone's made some interactive fiction about this already though.

mass effect 1/2 are boring as fuck as far as being a game that is fun to play

Can't speak for those games but I am finding the game part of ME3 really fun so far. The story part is good but I would've stopped playing by now if I wasn't enjoying the process of killing lots of baddies.

imagine if fallout dropped the intro cinematic and you spent the first hour going 'we live in a vault? what's a vault?' or if planescape: torment had, say, a magical library in which you could read on and on about the different planes you visited.

Fallout seems like it is meant to be ABOUT having a lack of information, though. Sorting your way through the wreckage.

I don't know Planetscape.

man the degree to which people will strain credulity to imagine that this ending is ~actually~ ~if you catch all the hints~ ~really mind-blowing~ is depressing

reminds me of message board chatter after the 2nd matrix movie came out when people were like 'no, see, the 'real world' is actually totally another matrix"

not sure what you're trying to say? i've been reading a hell of a lot about the indoctrination theories and have come to genuinely believe them, such as fact that i very much see bioware releasing epilogue dlc by next month

rumors brewing about that as well

still have to add 2cents that the ending was fucking devastating, in the worst way

i mean

i just don't buy the theories man

**spoilers**spoilers**spoilers****spoilers**spoilers**spoilers**

that a company would spend millions to put out a game with an ostensibly fake ending for the sake of ~really driving their narrative point home~ just strikes me as completely implausible, and it seems considerably more likely to me that they just wrote an ending that lots of people were unsatisfied by. i think it's a fine ending as it is! and the fact that so many are so dissatisfied by it that they're seeking evidence that it's ~not the real ending~ might say more about divergence of taste than it does about the likelihood of bioware fooling their customers. can you imagine the outrage if, after all the hubbub over DLC lately, they released the ~real ending~ as DLC?? total fucking shitstorm.

those are the least spoiler spoilers i ever saw

this game's ending is the ending to a game, hot diggity

Ha I mean better safe

i mean

i just don't buy the theories man

**spoilers**spoilers**spoilers****spoilers**spoilers**spoilers**

that a company would spend millions to put out a game with an ostensibly fake ending for the sake of ~really driving their narrative point home~ just strikes me as completely implausible, and it seems considerably more likely to me that they just wrote an ending that lots of people were unsatisfied by. i think it's a fine ending as it is! and the fact that so many are so dissatisfied by it that they're seeking evidence that it's ~not the real ending~ might say more about divergence of taste than it does about the likelihood of bioware fooling their customers. can you imagine the outrage if, after all the hubbub over DLC lately, they released the ~real ending~ as DLC?? total fucking shitstorm.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 16 March 2012 04:28 (Yesterday) Permalink

All this I agree with, but it's not an alternative ending I think possible, it's an epilogue - a follow-through, or at least some sort of "reality check" sans the fringe supernatural shit that occurred near the end. I think the largest factor of my convincing was the fact that, towards the end, the Illusive Man's "path" was lighted as blue and destroying the reapers red - driving home sense that the reapers were tricking you, the player, into thinking you were making some sort of right decision by following this color-code that has dictated how much of the series plays out.

I could never imagine Bioware apologizing and issuing forth an alternative re-written ending - it would set the possibility that gamers could do this in the future: Bitch enough and things will change. Plus, rewriting or remaking one's own "artistic vision" at the request of unhappy customers is just not something I could see Bioware do...that's just not something people will do. When the lot of BSN posters have tossed their hands up following the wake of the Final Hours "documentary" and in regards of Hudson & Co. clearly stating this is the ending they wanted to see happen and thus disowning all indoctrination theories, I think their missing the point that these theories are integral to how the ending played out in the first place. I'll scrounge up some more evidence if you're not convinced, but numerous twitter feeds from staff have hinted to an announcement in the ready that they only want to be made when they feel a proper amount of people have actually finished ME3 (as if the spoilers were unavoidable in this mass internet tirade: My game was spoiled, on accident, long before I finished it).

Also, DLC promotes purchases of original copies and thus I see DLC being likely - the merger with EA kinda posits the acquisition of a franchise as big as this as a step toward combating the likes of GameStop and other retailers that reap 100% of used-purchase profits. You can still buy a complete game used - but if you want the "full experience" do you have to buy an original copy. It's bullshit, I know, but I really think this is an opportunity EA couldn't bear to pass up - it's not often that DLC is regarded as "essential".

- it's not often that DLC is regarded as "essential".

― kelpolaris, Saturday, March 17, 2012 4:20 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm just saying that the very idea of DLC as essential is both problematic as to the nature of the game released

well no other half of that "nature of the game" come to think

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zRRpGlmtws8

wait

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=zRRpGlmtws8

okay here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRRpGlmtws8

I have been playing a bunch of the multiplayer and it's pretty enjoyable. I happen to prefer co-op multiplayer vs. computer opponents over getting shot in the face over and over again by 12-year olds so there's that.

i want to know if ur allowed to roleplay a homophobe

lol

this kid should be shot. what a fucking crybaby.

http://kotaku.com/5894278/mass-effect-3-fan-complains-to-the-feds-over-the-games-ending

it's pathetic, but i'm rather glad there are people willing to go to such lengths. it kinda channels my rage for how much i absolutely hate casey hudson/marc walters since fucking with the minds of so many loyal and devoted fans. mass effect 3 was the first game i've pre-ordered since....shit, i think it was doom 3 in 2004.

and now i make them both sound like royal geniuses, for having the ability to exhibit so much control. what i meant to say is that they're both cunts who committed reputation suicide for thinking such a shit ending was a great idea.

it's been a week since i beat the game - i'm just a little pizzed that it has no incentive for replayability. the first couple games i gave a good 2 runs a piece. too fun, being able to see all the outcomes of your actions.

but i'm rather glad there are people willing to go to such lengths.

they should expend that kind of energy for something other than a goddamn video game. it's really first-world problem bullshit.

picked up ME3 this weekend, really annoying how i have to sit through "Checking Downloadable Content...", "Checking Save...", "Checking Downloadable Content..." before i can load my game. this is even after i disabled automatically logging into EA servers

but i'm rather glad there are people willing to go to such lengths.

they should expend that kind of energy for something other than a goddamn video game. it's really first-world problem bullshit.

― Conmetheus (latebloomer), Sunday, March 18, 2012 9:25 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know. I'd want to slap the dude as a reality check if I ever knew him and he proposed such a plan. But videogames cost a lot, they required a lot of time investments - it's hard not to find yourself attached to it more so than any other project in another medium you've been disappointed by. You don't have to spend 30hrs with each Matrix sequel. You don't have to die, repeat, die, repeat a dozen times with the latest Radiohead groaner. I think it's absolutely silly to invest so much of your life in a fantasy world that you're willing to forward into legal action in order to maintain some sense of symbiosis with how much you care for this world and how much and where you ultimately want to see it proceed, BUT the investments nonetheless have been made on a $60/person admission fee and by the large majority of anyone who considers themselves a "gamer". I like the guy in that article for reason that I like somebody willing to risk dejection in order to throw a tomato at at deceitful politician - it sorta shows there's a more than vocal number of people who are don't want to take it up the ass any longer and simply content themselves with the fact that you've provided something for them to do.

But at the same time I can't believe I've typed such lengths to defend such a whiney little loser. The whole scenario, for me, has just been like watching a movie I've paid for - say, a police thriller - and having those "auteurs" at the helm blast Earth with comets, killing the whole cast in an ultimate attempt for commentary that nothing matters in the end. Fuck the Bioware writers.

/angrynerd

i'm officially done attacking this game. it's a waste of time.

instead i'll let this dude do it for me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6M0Cf864P7E#!

annoying narration, but the guy is up there in redlettermedia-esque terms into truly delving into what's beyond nerd-raging and why this is just juevenile stuff bioware writers decided would be "memorable"

that video, man

<I>You don't have to spend 30hrs with each Matrix sequel. You don't have to die, repeat, die, repeat a dozen times with the latest Radiohead groaner. </I>

Right, but the gameplay is not actually affected by the story.* If you are enjoying the shooting and magic enough to get through 30 hours, that's the game you paid for. If you're not getting enough out of the gameplay but are still interested in the story - dude that's what the Easy mode is there for.

* I haven't played the game yet, but I'm assuming that the twist isn't that you have to play through the entire game again at half speed.

does this game have the most noticable metacritic disparity ever? (91/3.7)

I haven't beat this yet, but I can't wait to see the ending. Especially since it pissed so many annoying gamers off.

i haven't actually played any of these games but i think what's pissing people off isn't a disappointing ending to the story but that a lot of big but specific promises were unfulfilled re: how much the different things players did over the course of three games would affect or even be involved in the ending. which is a sore spot because BRANCHING PLOTLINES! MORAL CHOICE! is something games have been promising fitfully at least since the beginning of the CD-ROM era; and hardly anybody gets it right, because doing only a little branching looks like a gimmick and doing a lot of branching is hard to implement. but i know from the advertising/coverage for this series that part of its brand is its ambition when it comes to player choice, character customization-by-playing, emotional connection, the impression of a unique experience, etc. -- it's hyped often enough that it's practically a technical boast, like when a game like CRYSIS makes a big deal about its graphics. plus it has this thing where your character from the first game can be carried all the way to the third, i guess, which is cool because it feels both high-tech and like a throwback to the portable-character feature in old ultima games ("journey onward"). anyway the strength of the plot, not just as a plot but as a magic recombining toy, is a big part of what the game is selling.

i watched that video: holy wow that guy's a redlettermedia fan, and also seems to think this deception is a capital crime -- plus some of the complaints are like THE PROTAGONIST WOULD NEVER DO THAT, which may of course be true but which only really add up to "this video game wasn't written as satisfactorily as we'd hoped", which is what these complaints probably all look like from the outside -- but it looks from the video like there really is a borderline-insulting lack of correspondence between the array of stuff people could do throughout three games and the stuff that happened to them at the end, after the designers spent all this time telling people there was going to be a big technical achievement in exactly this department. also apparently -- and this is either programming of a radiantly insulting sloppiness, or hilarious -- sometimes the game blithely announces your much-developed love interest is fucking another guy.

suing them is still pretty absurd i guess. they should have sued peter molyneaux over his long criminal career.

Different people live and die and entire species may be eradicated based in your decisions. So what if the ending isn't divergent enough, it's more about the value of all the hours I've put into it leading up to it.

Of course I haven't beat it yet. So maybe I'll be pissed off and make my own angry video.

Had such an epic game of multiplayer last night. Beat the reapers on Silver, full extraction. Whee.

Note that the metacritic disparity is due to a combo of people hating the ending and people hating THE GAY or somesuch

i'm enjoying some of the SRSLY EPIC missions in ME3

*spoiler* like in the genophage cure mission, the part where the mother thresher maw takes down the reaper was so bad ass *spoiler*

is there anywhere that concisely and clearly summarizes the ME3 ending controversy?

Recommend the video posted above by kelpolaris.

Its still a good game for those who've played the first two installments as gameplay is fine and it ties up a lot of loose ends. But you can quit after the foot race to the London conduit at the end, the finale does ruin a bunch of themes of the trilogy.

huh tried watching some of that but i need something with more context, i've never played any of these games.

https://twitter.com/#!/DamonLindelof/status/182263625082355712

Also (avert your eyes, spoiler averse!):

http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/gnosblax/yodawgme.jpg

It is pretty hard to not be spoiled by that huge image, I'm just saying.

http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/gnosblax/yodawgme.jpg

It is pretty hard to not be spoiled by that huge image, I'm just saying.

not really a spoiler if you at least played just half of ME1

http://pastebin.com/i2cNVDp4

not really a spoiler if you at least played just half of ME1

when you say spoilers below I don't check to see what it is if I am worried about spoilers, generally speaking.

Digging multiplayer.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/19/whats-right-with-mass-effect-3s-ending/#more-99917

I die a lot on multiplayer and jerk faces don't revive me.

I think if you play on silver then people are more likely to understand that they will die if you die. On bronze people have zero incentive to save you because they just might finish the level with or without you.

I've almost got to 100% galactic readiness and I can be done with multiplayer.

I went from 50-100% readiness in 6 (or so) hours of multiplayer last night and today (25% xp bonus weekend). Fell in with some good players for most of the evening. Revived most of the time even on bronze. Probably would have been better if I had a headset.

Biggest faults: Aside from the reactor and Tuchanka map, they're all on the small side. I spent 100s of thousands in credits for random packages and never got a lightweight assault rifle (M-15 or M-96) suitable for an Adept. Stuck pling-plinging away with a Locust SMG.

I've got this pistol, I forget the name but it shoots projectiles that stick to the enemy then explode. It's been pretty sweet.

this is circulating
http://i39.tinypic.com/1gnlw2.jpg

altho it's pretty lame how this "laid off so secrets of the universe revealed" phenom has been such a continual occurrence. i'm partial to this one as well, mostly considering a) dragon age 2 was far past an "alpha stage b) the volus antag thing sounds like some serious trolling.

Are there spoilers in that link?

heres a cool read http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/23/mass-effect-3-ending-what-do-game-writers-think/

that pastebin i posted up above is by a bioware writer who posted it on the pennyarcade forums, he admits that the ending was written by one guy with autism and wasnt reviewed by any of the other writers which is completely against hte norm for any of their mission writing

i enjoy your gloss on it

otm

hilarious, heated "debate" in the comments thread over whether the asari in mass effect count as biologically female or not:

http://io9.com/5890426/why-did-bioware-add-a-gay-option-to-mass-effect-3?tag=space-opera

kinda cool article about the gear used to make the music of ME3 http://toksin.tumblr.com/post/17925900472/the-music-of-mass-effect-3-synthtopia

ending was shite

Beat this last night finally. Didn't mind the ending, actually sort of hilarious. I thought it mimicked real life in that you really only had the illusion of free will throughout the game. Everything will almost always turn out the same anyway. With different color explosions.

i wasn't so left with a feeling of being mugged as by the illusion of choice (just a half-assed move by bioware, there) than the closing scene involving joker and edi ready to get jiggy with it on a private island resort planet. and then those smarmy fucking credits: "Project Director: Casey Hudson" with the boogie-down music was the point in which blood started flowing to my head and i couldn't fucking believe they could ruin a series in a matter of minutes.

you really only had the illusion of free will throughout the game. Everything will almost always turn out the same anyway. With different color explosions.

― Jeff, Tuesday, April 3, 2012 11:53 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

SRSLY

to think that in ME2, when deciding whether save the genophage cure data, i actually went to length of putting down the controller and thinking it through whilst taking a piss, coming to the painful decision to save the data as i shook out the last driblets of urine

bioware, you dicks

Spoilers. Saving the genophage data does allow Eve (the fertile Krogan shaman) to live in ME3, and its pretty clear that the Krogan are doomed to more apocalyptic expansionist and/or intraclan warfare post Reapers without the females having a stronger voice.

BioWare Announces Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut

Wow.

http://www.joystiq.com/screenshots/the-gallery-of-questionable-shepards/#/0

So I just played all three games for the first time over the past month or so.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I couldn't figure out why people hated the ending, save the oddness that the Normandy was flying through a Mass Relay and the kind of quick "that's it!" but I also didn't mind. It felt like the game was all about sacrifice and inevitable doom anyway, and I really loved some of the character stuff (basically Liara and Shepherd as bros was really pretty moving tbh). 3 had a great, epic feel to it, and even if the ending wasn't some amazing thing (though I had no issues with the god child thing), it didn't do a disservice to those quality Garrus moments, or the Mordin death scene. I chose to kill the Quarians, but that's because somehow I made a stupid decision and Tali died in 2 despite me having ~~romanced~~ her. It's all a bit RTD-era Who, though, in that the build up to the finale is fantastic and the actual finale is inevitably a let down. Had a great time, and as I don't play video games very often, I was quite surprised how taken I was with the universe and some of the characters.

Mordin :~(

that gallery is great

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2012/04/shep4-1334155217.jpg
http://www.joystiq.com/screenshots/the-gallery-of-questionable-shepards/#/10

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2012/04/ugshep3.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox?ie=UTF8&ref_=pe_26410_20202130#

29.99 today only

thanks for the heads up. purchased.

am i crazy or is that a sign that it's about to be a much cheaper game to get?

not necessarily

Decide app says Buy now

It's the third highest selling game this week, so it would maybe be a little early to make it a platinum hit.

Prices will rise or hold steady with 83% Confidence

Amazon often does these one-day, half-off deals. I don't think it's indicative of a price-drop.

if you miss it check out walmart, they also knocked it down to 30 for a spell, it is definitely going back up to 60 after though, according to people who work there? some thing i saw on reddit, anyway.

http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/2012/04/23/laser-time-special-the-end-of-mass-effect/

neat little podcast covering the series

Anyone downloaded the new ending?

i haven't even gotten past the 5 or 6th mission in the full game. i met up w/ jack, met that arachni queen that i saved in game one, said hello to krogan friends and then stopped logging in.

I'm still playing the multiplayer despite having quit the single player halfway through.

New ending was more story, which was needed. Still the same endings though, which I'm ok with.

I'm still slowly slugging through this, just up to the bit with the quarians and the geth. Bloody bored of it though, the combat was never hugely fun anyway but I think I've hobbled it for myself even more by switching to the engineer class this time round - fights come down to "chuck in gun turret, chuck in combat drone, wait 2 mins for everyone to die, continue". So I'm only playing for the story at this point. Got the new endings downloaded, which means I'll never even get to see the original ones.

The multiplayer is really fun. I was not expecting it to be good at all. However once you play it the combat in single player is zzzzzzz - at least until the very end when it's somewhat challenging.

The free expansions are what really has helped keep it fresh. For a guy like me who doesn't really like shooting that much, all the different biotic power options are great. Co-op against computer enemies is my favorite kind of multiplayer. Wish they'd come up with something more mission based and less pure horde.

Bought this cheap on Sunday, blew my American Labor Day playing it. I enjoy it, but some of the combat is kinda bleah. Am playing as FemShep with the default character model as I like Jennifer Hale's voice better and I enjoy the idea of a galaxy-saving Commander as this cute green-eyed freckled redhead.

Kinda want to throttle who wrote the dialog as the expository stuff is so clunky and horrid while the more character-revealing interactions are far, far better. Was surprised that even a secondary character like Primarch Victus had a great performance.

Other things: nice that they still got the ass shot of Miranda in her brief appearances, and the Allers/Jessica Chobot character model has something deeply wrong with the construction of her face. This weird bulging cheeks/dead eye combo that makes her look like a Chucky doll.

Laughed at the fact that your initial dude sidekick is a full-on tatted-up fauxhawked MMA-type bro.

The Krogans are fun and I like their voice-work.

Glad that they brought Mordin back, as I think he's the best auxiliary character who has the highest contrast with the rest of the crew.

As buying the deluxe digital pack, you get a little robot dog mech that wanders around the hanger. It's name is "Kei-9", naturally.

The emotional vibe is so jarring to start the game and quickly slam into this intergalactic war. The characters sound so shell-shocked and war-weary that fast that my reaction was, "Dude, what are you talking about? Ive only been playing this game for two hours."

Download the mod that adds film grain; it's a nice touch that they took out for who knows why.

What branch of the military are these guys supposed to be, anyway? Can we assume in the post-solar Terran combined military that all branches combined into one thing, with mixed up titles? You're obviously in a navy with Admirals and are the "master & commander" of your ship, but "marine" and "soldier" are tossed around a lot.

These are the kinda things I somehow think about whilst gaming and drinking a good amount of beer.

i bought ME3 as it was on sale.
I now have all three volumes for 360
i have yet to play this at all. Maybe this holiday

You'll have a bit of a clunky start, as ME1 famously has some bits it took until the 2nd release to lock down.

also, at some point, the characters in the game are so great that it's like you only play missions just to increment the story so you can come back and talk to the characters again.

Anyone for multiplayer?

I still play the multiplayer some, but fyi I don't use headsets. polyphonique

lol remember when people got really mad over this game's ending

and then insane nerds crashed a poll of worst companies ever and got EA to beat out bank of america

in the middle of Mass Effect I now, as I continue playing all the games I bought on holiday sales a long time ago. This game seems great! I think we're gonna make it with an alien, (s)he's got a hot voice. about 15 hours in now, the combat is getting easy & rote, but there are surprises still: the thresher maw on some planet we explored, the geth colossus.

probably my fave game of the generation. (will confirm in like 2020 when we finally get to the x360/ps3/etc poll)

even tho it doesn't always deliver the film grain synthed out vibe is enough to make me love this game

The combat crackles and the worlds are lush, but mediocre writing and tepid quests add up to what is probably BioWare's worst RPG yet.

per eurogamer. not surprised at all. the bioware rpg model has imo aged v poorly esp since they abandoned isometric dnd RPGs which for me, even more than KOTORs, are the high mark of the company. speaking of which, has anyone tried the new Torment? it looks like it got decent reviews. i never finished pillars of eternity but now there's a sequel coming out for that too...

i played the trial, it's ok. the writing is indeed bad but no worse than the other games in the series. it's just running errands for aliens. if you are looking for a reasonably pleasant way to pass the time until death gathers you in her warm embrace then this will do

surely there are better ways to wait for death than yet another on-the-rails generic sci-fi rpg from bioware?

i admit i do prefer the bioware generic sci-fi series to their generic fantasy series. not like that's saying much for either.

i didn't say it was the best way, just an acceptable one

surely there are better ways to wait for death than yet another on-the-rails generic sci-fi rpg from bioware?

name one

witcher dlc?

okay name two

wait there's a new Torment game????

yeah kickstarted - https://torment.inxile-entertainment.com/

i'd much rather be on rails in space than left to my own devices surrounded by bombed-out americana. love, the guy who pans every bethesda game ever

(well, just the fallout and elder ones)

I really hope the critical success of Witcher 3 leads the other AAA RPG producers to consider writing for adults.

...and consider having a good voice director and completed dialogue before hiring voice talent. It's audible from playthroughs that each character's dialog in single conversations was recorded over multiple sessions, suggesting a lot of rewrites.

...and if Frostbite is that difficult to script facial animations for, perhaps Bioware should return to something they can work with.

witcher 3 is so anomalous in terms of its writing (and uniqueness of setting) that i imagine some of it is having rich source material to work from. i find that mass effect (or, ugh even worse, dragon age) are far more generic than even bethesda's fallout or elder scrolls games - esp if you expand the parameters to include Morrowind (which the studio deserves credit for) or Fallout 1 & 2 (which they do not). mass effect does relationships better, and the actual prose is probably better (tho this might just be cleaner prose i'm not sure that any of it is actually memorable or effective). none of them are comparable to witcher 3 and honestly it really exposed to me how bad AAA contemporary western RPGs are (esp these very open-world models, i think deus ex: mankind divided was - despite coasting on the mythos of the franchise - remarkably tight in terms of plotting and writing maybe bc of how short and somewhat on the rails it was, but we will discuss it more in coint + plick i'm sure).

Nothing prevents a game developer from licencing. There are comparable, "less generic" fantasy and science fiction worlds that would make great IPs. For example, Morecock's Brecht-inspired Elric saga (and Chaosium's tabletop RPG Stormbringer). Iain Bank's Culture series, etc.

The bigger issue is that there's only a handful of VG companies that can afford the entry fee into the AAA RPG domain. So Bioware has its generic fantasy and space opera series, as does Bethesda (Starfield will be the original sci-fi IP). Perhaps the hope resides in nations with lower development costs. Hey CD Project Red, you've heard of Stanislaw Lem, haven't you?

the important thing is that they've heard of cyberpunk 2020

the problem with shadowrun (which I've played and gm'd irl and find the same problems there) is that it's basically a generic fantasy game grafted onto a low quality Gibson urban setting. Consequently I've found all the recent vg releases to be pretty lackluster. Also the underlying mechanical system is totally broken and unbalanced.

Didn't (think to) find this thread till now, anyway, I'd been thinking that I made a mistake starting off as an Infiltrator since the sniper rifle is so hard to use... and then I maxed out sniping, and now it doesn't drift anymore! Nice! But I'm still not sure how useful it's going to be in typical combat situations (taking out Geth Destroyers when I'm surface-rambling).

The series has its faults, but balance between combat classes isn't one of them. Thinning the ranks from a distance works fine, you just won't need Garrus anymore. It's a good class for a more strategic player, who is willing to trade time for better odds. For fun, though, choices other than Vanguard are suboptimal.

It's a good class for a more strategic player

lol this is not me! I don't think I've actually used Garrus after I recruited him (it's been Tali/Liara partytime as much as possible for me).

Also the PS3 port's graphics are total butt compared to what I've seen of the XBox version.

the multiplayer in ME:3(?) was fun as hell. I didn't think it had any right to be, but it was.

Just found out that Thresher Maws are easier to kill on foot than in the Mako! Game-changer!

Oh man, so I made a BIG DECISION on one mission, and let's just say I can safely sell all my human heavy armor now. ;_;

the vibe and soundtrack in the first one are all-time, it's a shame they went down the orchestral bombast route in the other games.

gameplay aside, the film grain and synth jams were like all i had ever wanted out of a game when it first came out.

the vibe and soundtrack in the first one are all-time, it's a shame they went down the orchestral bombast route in the other games.

That's too bad, soundtrack is awesome.

I beat the game this weekend, and I did not expect to get so wrapped up in it! Obviously the parts where you decide who lives (RIP Council). Now to free up space on my HD to be able to download ME2.

Started playing and when I saw Tali on the first real mission I was like YAY getting the team back together! But then noooo, she wouldn't come with and then my entire team from the first game is scattered across the stars, and even though I only ever used T and L, the remoteness made me sad.

Am I right in thinking that Miranda is an indispensable if not OP member to have on your team? And that teaming her with Jack covers most enemy types?

And am I also right in thinking that "Mass" stands for "Miranda's ass"?

Am I right in thinking that Miranda is an indispensable if not OP member to have on your team?

None of them are indispensable in terms of gameplay, I think. Your choices really only affect the story.

Did the Shadow Broker missions last night, excepting for how long they were, hella fun, probably because I've gotten a hang of the combat mechanics now.

In the mission where you recruit Kelly, there's a room with a damaged Geth crawling on the ground -- I punched it dead right away, but then I thought it looked like a Quarian and I was really bothered by the possibility that I killed it.

Two ME games in, and there's yet to be a vehicle-confined mission/assignment that isn't painful. (Well OK, the Shadow Broker chase isn't too bad, since I don't have to shoot anything.)

I beat ME2 yesterday! But two of my squad died (because I didn't get the sub-team assignments right, everything else is set up for an "Everybody lives!" ending), so thankfully there's an autosave where I can restart the entire mission (I overwrote the one save file I have).

Like, what was I thinking putting a tank-born krogan in charge of a squad?

It might be rudimentary, but I really liked how the ME2 ending lets you choose different team members to lead different squads or perform a specialized task to create the sense of teamwork (beyond having your two AI squaddies shooting enemies). Hearing my tech specialist tell me that it's getting hot in the pipes definitely immersed me further.

Started into ME3, I finished the Priority: Tuchanka mission, and omg, Mordin! Right in the heart!

This installment feels like the most fully inhabited in that I actually enjoy the conversations with the characters. The dialogue is generally sharper (even if a lot of Shep's dialogue branches still have that bad habit of paraphrasing the preceding statement) and the characters have more concrete personalities.

Gameplay-wise, I don't enjoy the combat as much as I ended up liking ME2 (of course, that may just be the learning curve), but one thing for certain is that my left hand hurts from holding the L1 button down so much.

The War Asset mechanic thing seems promising in that decisions seem to be a little more consequential, specifically that some decisions invariably involve tradeoffs no matter your paragon/renegade level -- I'm thinking of the Salarian who wanted me to sabotage the genophage cure.

Oh noes I missed the Thane cameo permanently. :(

Which was better, ME1 or 2?

ME2 easily. The writing is generally better (ME1 has too much extraneous detail that made it easy to lose track of what was going on), your squadmates are better developed, and obviously the gameplay is better.

Finished the game yesterday! I kind of stopped following the details of the main plot by the middle of ME1, so the plotholes don't bother me so much; the ending(s) don't seem horrible (aside from the possibility that Tali gets stranded on an alien planet after just helping to reclaim Rannoch, that is some cold Exodus-style blue balling) and in fact had some great pathos IMO.

So: loved the character interactions (in other RPGs I have little patience for running around my ship to see if ally dialogue is unlocked, but in ME3 it was a highlight of the game), gameplay not so much (the last level that spams Banshees == no thanks (I finally cheesed it by using tactical cloak to get to the goal)).

I'm envious of the fact you've been able to play these back to back, odd thing about playing them as they got released meant that through ME3 I was bumping into minor NPCs who were telling me about the outcomes of choices I'd made 5 years earlier, and I had no memory of the characters or of anything they were talking about.

lol I don't know about that, I finished a bunch of ME3-specific side quests where Shepard sez "Here's this thing you said you needed" to some NPC and I have no idea when I picked it up or even talked to the NPC.

Apparently the Citadel DLC is the exact sort of fanservice that I want but $15??? I paid $30 for the whole trilogy!

Are there ever any DLC sales?

Found a copy of the "Legendary" edition for $10. I will get around to it in ... 2024.

https://kotaku.com/playstation-plus-mass-effect-legendary-biomutant-leaks-1847556405

You're welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC2ib_efdRs

https://kotaku.com/mass-effect-teaser-n7-day-andromeda-1850999958

Gonna have to play the original trilogy (for the first time) this winter.

Looking forward to you finding out that the people fueling the ME3 ending controversy were screaming babies.

I played ME3 not having played any previous entries so my response to the ending was entirely "???".

I thought the whole deal with the series is that each one builds on the previous, and your decisions matter? Funny you started with ME3.

Don't know anything about a controversial ME3 ending, except that people don't like "Andromeda."

The non spoiler summary of the controversy is that you get presented with the same set of choices at the end no matter what character and story routes you took in all the preceding gameplay, and supposedly contradicted the "choices matter" ethos of the series. As someone who doesn't believe in free will, I didn't much mind.

An illusion of choice is an apt summation of countless video games. It's an aspect of their novelty, that they can produce compelling gameplay even when the typical conclusion (survival! victory!) is preordained.

probably my fave game of the generation. (will confirm in like 2020 when we finally get to the x360/ps3/etc poll)

― yellow despackling power (Will M.), Thursday, April 21, 2016 6:57 PM

maybe i'll start thinking about starting that 360 era poll sometime soon. (which will probably be the last one! imo those were the last discreet consoles, everything from x1/ps4/etc on has kind of become One Platform)

anyway main reason i am posting here again is that i have played thru 2.5 of these games again since the holidays (in that legendary edition) and they really are a remarkable accomplishment. yeah the writing is up and down but the worldbuilding is second to none as far as sci-fi game things go? at least that i can think of? across media i'd only put star trek in front of it. i complained about the "choices matter" in ME2 but i think ME3 is really satisfying from that aspect (even if it's just "if you 100%ed the previous games, you get the best possible outcomes at all times" -- it feels nice to be rewarded!).

i have no memory of the ending so we'll see how i feel when i get there again.

also something that feels completely insane to consider is that the third game came out less than 5 YEARS after the first game. how on earth did they make two of these in 5 years?! (i know the answer to this question is "barely" and "shipped incomplete" and "by grinding the souls of their employees with overwhelming crunch" -- my roommate back around ME3 was working 80+ h/w for something like 6 months to ship it.)

i guess i'll roll thru andromeda after this, haven't played it since it came out and i basically mainlined the whole thing during a particularly difficult period of my life so i remember nothing. mass effect is great! i look forward to the new one in 2029 or whenever it comes out