Mass Effect

[Patters]

I did not understand that stuff at all at E3. Spoiler: In my playtrough it did look like he might have been smashed, but he walked away from it. Then he chose which of the two dudes to be in charge or whatever... Did i miss some after credits scene or something or was it just my playtrough?

The Mass effect 2 trailers.

[Tobli]

The Mass effect 2 trailers.

Ahh, i was in media blackout since it is my second most anticipated game.

I listened to the ME2 interview with dr. Gregg, and it really made me want to go trough the good side of mass effect. Unfortunately i am in the middle of the superb Lost Odyssey.

[ThunderPeel2001]

But I thought SHEPHERD WAS DEAD!=!=!

That better not be a spoiler

[mikemariano]

I just bought Mass Effect (because it was insanely cheap). I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out my equipment and combat, but the most off-putting thing about the game is Shepard him/herself.

Chris Remo called the version of Shepard in the Subject Zero trailer "Douchebag Shepard", but I have trouble seeing how any version of Shepard isn't a douchebag.

Every word out of my "Jane" Shepard's mouth is either inappropriately hostile, self-righteous, or completely disinterested. Remo called the Paragon/Renegade split more interesting than Good/Evil, but neither makes for a Shepard that's fun to be around.

PS: I walked into Flux's and immediately laughed, recognizing it as the home of SoulChicken's space disco douchebag Shepard.

[lobotomy42]

I just bought Mass Effect (because it was insanely cheap). I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out my equipment and combat, but the most off-putting thing about the game is Shepard him/herself.

Chris Remo called the version of Shepard in the Subject Zero trailer "Douchebag Shepard", but I have trouble seeing how any version of Shepard isn't a douchebag.

Every word out of my "Jane" Shepard's mouth is either inappropriately hostile, self-righteous, or completely disinterested. Remo called the Paragon/Renegade split more interesting than Good/Evil, but neither makes for a Shepard that's fun to be around.

PS: I walked into Flux's and immediately laughed, recognizing it as the home of SoulChicken's space disco douchebag Shepard.

One of the most frustrating things for me about Mass Effect was the limited options for character development the magic dialogue wheel provides. Paragon/Renegade is indistinguishable to me from a Good/Evil axis, except that Paragon/Renegade seems to lack any sense of subtlety. Where was my "reluctant protagonist" option? Or "sarcastically indifferent?" Most of the options you're presented with fall into Priest-With-A-Gun, Deranged Sociopath, and Apathetic Robot.

Frankly, moral choices have always been a sore spot for Bioware. For that reason, I'm more looking forward to Alpha Protocol from Bioware's distant cousin Obsidian. They've had (IMO) a slightly better track record with writing morally ambiguous situations, and the spy genre will (hopefully) lend itself to that as well.

[DanJW]

Paragon/Renegade is less about the big moral decisions and more about methods. Your ends remain the same but the means are up to you.

I think Shepherd is meant to be more of a predefined character. We are used to RPGs, especially Bioware RPGs, allowing you to mould your own personality, your own identity. This has a cost, in that such characters often inhabit a kind of void in the story, a tabula rasa blank spot.

Shepherd has voice acting for his/her dialogue, and that alone will shape his/her personality more concretely than, for instance, the Dragon Age protagonist. Shepherd already has an identity before you take control, you just decide how she goes about the job before her.

(yes, I still favour a female renegade Shepherd).

[SoulChicken]

I just finished the game last night and the final acts of the game, from Virmire onwards, were absolutely fantastic. I was engaged by my character in a way I wasn't in Dragon Age. Dragon Age's immersion was not worse, just different, I felt attached to my cohorts in a more organic way than I was in Mass Effect. However I wasn't really attached to my wizard as a character in the story.

I totally agree DanJW, the voice acting made a huge difference, particulary for FemShep. The actress who voiced her was fantastic, didn't miss a beat. I made a clear decision in my dialogue options and the FemShep perfectly conveyed my intention, so it became real in the game world. This never happened with DragonAge wizard.

Up until Virmire, the story was alright but as soon as I rolled up to the camp there, things kicked off and I was sold. I remember Nick complaining the game was called Mass Effect but it was only really important to the inital text that came up at the beginning, saying humans found out about Mass Effect and then hung out with Aliens. But it turns out the whole plot is about that!

About the last decision you make in the game:

So you basically get to choose whether you save the council or not, if you do maaayyybee you might miss your opportunity to destroy sovereign.

If you do, you end with humans wanting to fill the power vacuum... I was kind of shocker, I didn't want that at all! WHAT HAVE I DONE! The same thing happened in Dragon Age at the end. I am really pleased a game can make me feel that and obviously Bioware have purposefully nailed that. A complex emotional response that essentially takes an entire game to build up to. I felt so uncomfortable with my choice, I reloaded and did the final battles again so I could save the Council. Then even that ending was pretty disturbing and it was all linked to me having the power to make a big decision. In Dragon Age it was being Kingmaker and quite similarly in Mass Effect.

I was a renegade femshep and I loved it every step of the way! I went back and started a male paragon but just wasn't feeling it. Firstly the voice acting was no way near as good but also it felt like I was being a total pussy most of the time. I'm a bloody spectre!

Great game, before Virmire I would have said it was a pretty good game and I am looking forward to Mass Effect 2 now.

[Murdoc]

Yeah, that paragon/renegade system was a bit odd. Like you didn't turn evil or anything, but I would have liked there to be a little more from it, because at the end of the the day the results are pretty much the same, so the choice was if you want to be a dick about it.

I was kind of hoping that the more renegade I'd get the more of a problem for the human space marines I'd be. Your a spectre and can do anything you want, but you were still "reporting" to the human military, I cut them off, didn't tell them stuff, but that all kind of lead to nowhere. It would have been cool if it opened up different quests and the military would generally be extremely annoyed with me; essentially you become a renegade.

They had that parellel between you and Saren; so honestly it would have been cool tosee the renegade path go down the road of pre-indoctrinated Saren; and really that's how my game played out, just no one bothered to take notice or point that out, like the game didn't really react to it.

Personally I liked the male voice acting, I should really check out the female to see what that's about, but the dude sold me on that character being likeable.

[SoulChicken]

I don't know... right at the end you totally get called out on it, it kind of gets put center stage, it wouldn't matter if there wasn't a sequel but I think it sets things up for your choice of path to affect something in Mass Effect 2. I felt a little bad about the "judgement" I got but honestly I looked at how I had acted and they were pretty much spot on. Of course basing an entire galaxies perception on humans on my actions as a spectre is pretty ridiculous.

Other than that it was only reflected in the extra dialogue options and that one mission you get when you get full paragon or renegade (not very interesting mission). The side missions where all shite though, which is a pretty big chunk of this game (where they werent in Dragon Age) and definitely the game's big flaw for me.

[mikemariano]

Oh, Mass Effect. Why are you so hard to love?

As lone survivor Jane Shepard, here are my three post-Citadel engagements so far:

Engagement One

• Searching for somebody's daughter, I ended up on a hazardous planet with pirates!
  
• Thinking they might have the daughter, I drove around the pirate base and ran them all over!
  
• I walked inside and got my entire team slaughtered, over and over, before we could even get in the doorway.
  
• I gave up and left. I sure hope the daughter wasn't in there.
  

Engagement Two

• Searching for somebody's daughter, I ended up on a lava planet!
  
• The bad guys from the first part of the game showed up, so hey, this was probably a main-plot-related mission.
  
• I ran them over!
  
• I had to get out of my car. I sniped people!
  
• I crouched and ducked behind rocks on my way up a hill to a building.
  
• A cutscene started, introducing wall-climbing guys!
  
• The cutscene ended, and I was immediately shot four times and died. I could not get up from the crouch and reach a nearby crate for cover in time.
  
• Restarting from my last save twenty minutes earlier, and knowing that this cutscene was coming, I walked up the hill without crouching. I made it past this moment and eventually rescued whoever I was supposed to rescue. Yay!
  

Engagement Three

• I found a ship that I could board!
  
• I took a team on board and saw red dots on my radar. Hmmm, even though the game didn't say anything, I guess this ship has bad guys.
  
• I walked into a room and people began shooting! The game said I had 3 minutes to rescue the hostage! What hostage?
  
• With 2:58 left, I was knocked to the ground by a biotic power and shot to death before I could stand up again. I repeated over ten times with slightly longer survival times, but the same results.
  

I am at level 14 with all points assigned with decent (I think) guns and ammo. My Shepard can use a pistol and sniper rifle and some biotic powers. Yet I die almost immediately in every non-Geth battle.

I know I suck at games. I just wish Mass Effect gave me a better idea what I was getting into. I feel foolish attacking a pirate base or boarding a ship of biotic kidnappers and then just walking away.

[SoulChicken]

the two biotic missions are the hard hard ones when you are under 20. I left them until a lot later. Also you have experienced the setup of most every sidequest. I did the first two planets that weren't Noveria (hard), then I did a bunch of side missions.

Also on the base approach, I always used the mako cannon from afar to take down the defences. With the turrets and big robot things, you're going to have to. Sounds like you aren't having a problem with the dudes outside though.

Upping your armour and health early on helps a lot, leave off the sniper rifle talents for a few levels to funnel them into that. Otherwise you are a complete squishy. Don't be taking Liara with you either until you can hold your own, she is another squishy. Wrex and Garrus are great in this period, Ashley too. You can use Tali instead of Garrus for the electronics, she might look squishy but she gets mad good shields quickly if you use her talents correctly. Then load her up with a shotgun and boom.

Seems like that sniper rifle is always involved somehow in people struggling.

[mikemariano]

Thanks for the advice, SoulChicken. I'm leaning heavily on the Ashley/Wrex combination and it's going OK. Ashley is almost nothing but shields, medium armor, and health regeneration and she still goes down way too quickly.

I beat that biotic mission by running back all the way back to the beginning of the ship and leaving Wrex in the hallway (Ashley didn't last five seconds). Previously, holding position let one biotic incapacitate me while three others fired away. Increasing the distance they had to travel forced them to attack one at a time, making it easier for me.

Oh, and I've developed a major cheating strategy by holding down the "biotic menu" button almost continuously throughout combat. Holding RB pauses the action, but lets me re-aim my weapon, even if I am not using a biotic power.

It's just like VATS!

[SoulChicken]

Thanks for the advice, SoulChicken. I'm leaning heavily on the Ashley/Wrex combination and it's going OK. Ashley is almost nothing but shields, medium armor, and health regeneration and she still goes down way too quickly.

I beat that biotic mission by running back all the way back to the beginning of the ship and leaving Wrex in the hallway (Ashley didn't last five seconds). Previously, holding position let one biotic incapacitate me while three others fired away. Increasing the distance they had to travel forced them to attack one at a time, making it easier for me.

Oh, and I've developed a major cheating strategy by holding down the "biotic menu" button almost continuously throughout combat. Holding RB pauses the action, but lets me re-aim my weapon, even if I am not using a biotic power.

It's just like VATS!

NOT CHEATING! I played this a lot like Dragon Age when I was heavy bioticing (a lot of pausing). Then after Virmire, my pistol was maxed out and I was a biotic with a gun, I was mainly shooting then firing off LIFT and SINGULARITY, playing it largely realtime. Apart from when I'm checking on the kids shield recharges are kicked off when they should be. It was awesome. The pistol is awesome. I am in some awe.

[JonCole]

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I must have watched this trailer 5 times already. I'm salivating.

(Mild spoilers, I guess, if you're really sensitive to that stuff. But I mean c'mon, there's so much more to the story than "this character exists")

[toblix]

I wonder why they made this. As far as I know they didn't do anything with better-than-the-actual-game visual quality for the first game.

Ten years ago this kind of trailer and cut-scene had the same freedom as box art -- everyone knew graphics couldn't be that good, so the creators were "allowed" to use these opportunities to show what the game was supposed to be. Now that real-time graphics are so good, though, it's always a disappointment to watch, because at first I assume it's game graphics, then moments later I realise that it's pre rendered, and then I'm sad because the game will be like that, only a bit more crappy. The faces will be a little more corpse-like, the movement will be a little more stiff, the camera-work will be a little more stilted, the combat a little less exciting and so on.

Is this Blur video thing normal, or have I just not been paying attention? I really thought they stopped doing this with the latest generation of consoles.

[JonCole]

Oh, I wasn't really salivating due to the graphics or representation of gameplay or anything like that, I was really just more excited about the fiction. I'm a self-diagnosed sci-fi whore, so I got a lot out of the story (and more importantly the universe) of the first Mass Effect.

[toblix]

Oh, I wasn't really salivating due to the graphics or representation of gameplay or anything like that

I didn't think you were. Sorry for making it sound like I did. It was just the first thing that hit me -- "man, that face looks really good, did they really improve the engine that mu-- oh, never mind".

[eljay]

I had exactly the same reaction toblix. Oddly it seems to be a newish thing Bioware are doing, they also did it for the upcoming Old Republic MMO and Dragon Age. In all three cases I failed to see the point of creating them, they dulled my interest in a weird way.

[Murdoc]

I wonder why they made this.

Anyway, just could be my opinion, but Bioware marketing has been really shit since the EA deal (I'm not anti EA, just could be a timing thing)

They seem to literally carpet bomb news sites with any peice of information, put together crappy videos (at least they went out and paid a million to Blur for a good one* this time rather then license an inappropriate song)

But yeah I'm a hater of rendered cinematics because there doesn't seem to be a point; but the reason I'm posting is to say Biowares marketing is pretty crappy lately so that could just be the answer as to why they would do this.

*Media black out, I haven't seen the video, but it's Blur, so I'm sure its cool. Also there could be an inappropriate song on this, I don't know and won't know until post release.

***

I'm in Montreal this year and you know what? No 7/11s so my plan to go try to get mass effect early is totally ruined to that weird fact. I may have to go to Futureshop and get a part time job a week in advanced and smuggle out a copy(I'll still pay for it).

[twmac]

Another visitor to Montreal? We are becoming quite a bunch.

Whereabouts in Montreal are you? The safest bets for a pre-release copy are either Game Buzz or this video rental place in Verdun. Ingratiate yourself with the guys who run it and they might be able to help you out.

[lobotomy42]

This isn't *that* new - there's a pre-rendered trailer for the original Mass Effect, as well - it plays when you boot up Mass Effect and leave the menu open for a period of time.

There was definitely a pre-rendered trailer for Jade Empire, as well. Not sure about KotOR but it's not like this is something out of the blue.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I checked out Mass Effect on my PC last night very quickly... I was expecting it to look SO much better than my 360 and run SO much quicker. Sad to say that it looked about the same... and was quite jerky, too. I had no idea it was such a demanding game.

[eljay]

This isn't *that* new - there's a pre-rendered trailer for the original Mass Effect, as well - it plays when you boot up Mass Effect and leave the menu open for a period of time.

There was definitely a pre-rendered trailer for Jade Empire, as well. Not sure about KotOR but it's not like this is something out of the blue.

Fair enough, I guess I didn't see the ones for their earlier games and the relatively close release of these three new ones made my brain play tricks on me.

I still don't like them

[Murdoc]

Well, my media black out unintentionally came to an end when I was going to watch something on gametrailers and saw the gamestop advertisement for ME2.

I don't know if this came from EA, Bioware, or Gamestop, but jesus christ I just want to burst into tears, I may need to take a personal day for this.

I know it's just an advertisement, but fucking come on, toliet humor?

[Sleepdance]

@Soulchiken: My opinion on the last choice is that it would leave much biger impact if consecuenses would be swiched.

You would feel punished for not saving the Senat because of new one, which could be unexpirienced, corrupted or blamed you for all that happened.

On the other hand, if you would save the Senat, you would feel like a hero, they would think of you as a hero and this would bring to the power you would have because of the ''favors'' you made to the leaders of the galaxy.