Mass Effect

[Nachimir]

I spent about 40 hours doing as many side missions as I could find, and there were still skills I hadn't got all the way up. I had a pretty badass set by the end of the game though.

[n0wak]

From my experience, the only side mission really worth doing -- most are fairly skippable, unless you want to accumulate crap to sell and money and EXP -- is the one

on the Moon

. It rewards you with new abilities.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I have to say, I was also a bit disappointed with how some of the Mass Effect side-missions were "half finished". I've only got to the point where you leave the Citadel for the first time (went to the icey place), but still.

In KOTOR, if you worked hard enough, you could reveal the history of the Sandpeople. I went around the Citadel, looking for all of those little robot thingies that no-one knows what they do, expecting to learn some cool backstory that would add flavour to the game... but all I got was a lame "thanks mister" from the guy who asked me to do it. Bah.

[miffy495]

That's because they actually factor into the endgame story in quite a cool way. Don't worry about them, they'll be revealed in time.

EDIT: Also, good to know that that's all you get. I was only missing one and was kinda wondering.

[ThunderPeel2001]

There's some subsequent thing about two friends blackmailing each other over the information they found or something. I think. It really wasn't interesting. Good to know that it might not have been for naught...

[toblix]

Well, that's Noveria over with. Why in the Hell can't I return to Noveria after I've completed the main quest? I still haven't done everything there! There should be a law against this kind of stuff. Now I'll have that quest in my journal for the rest of the game, teasing me.

Are there any more places where I have to know in advance which order to do the quests in?

[toblix]

Okay, so I didn't realise I was still docked there, and could just go back in. So I did all the quests, and it was awesome, although I think I encountered some sort of bug:

Spoiler for the corruption evidence side-quest on Noveria:

I took the lift down into the Synthetic Insights (or whatever they're called) offices, and we were greeted by the bad guys. We talked some, and I ended up threatening to kill them. And she was all "Okay, just pretend you didn't see us, and we'll pretende we didn't see you". And then the dialogue ended and they attacked.

Anyway, I found a generic planet and landed on it, drove around a bit. I found some space thing lying on the ground, but didn't have enough electronics to do anything with it. Should I make a note of all these things and go back later, or are they just generic containers of uninteresting stuff? Am I missing quests and shit if I just ignore these things?

[Nachimir]

Most of them have things like weapon upgrades in them.

I think they scale with your characters - so as your skills and inventory get to higher levels, the upgrades you find anywhere also get beefier. Capsules you couldn't open before should have much better kit in them later than if you opened them earlier.

Weapon and armor upgrades are worth having, but I did all the crash sites I could find and ended up with far too much stuff though. Much of it I just sold, not because I needed the money, but because I needed the inventory menus to be less cluttered.

There are some very expensive weapons to buy at various points in the game (At some point an exclusive "Shadows" weapon shop opens), but if you wait a quest or two you can almost always find better kit to pick up off the floor.

[toblix]

That's what I thought. Since I'm a competionist I still keep a detailed list of locations to return to later.

Also, the inventory UI really starts to suck when you get a lot of stuff.

[toblix]

aarathy, it runs well on your Vista 64bit machine? That's good to hear. Tell me more about Age of Conan.

[DanJW]

I finished Mass Effect this weekend while cat-sitting. I loved the story towards the end and the way the citadel factored into it.

Gameplay wise I chose Soldier, and I'm pretty glad I did. (Later on I got the hang of combat and choosing weapons and upgrades and skills, which probably made it easier. Man the pulse rifle is awesome).

The powers don't really seem that exciting, and I think they're for the most part still a hangover from Bioware's D&D fantasy history.

Benzier was by far the hardest fight in the game - those Asari commandos are bitches. So was I! I played a nazi goth renegade bitch and had great fun. Failed to woo Liana though No Fox News Porn for me.

Overall the plot was over much sooner than I expected. Noveria and Feros are the first two post-citadel missions you get and after those you are nearly half way through. I only did about half the side-quests, since as everyone has mentioned they are just cookie-cutter half-assed jobs. By far the worst job Bioware have done on side-quests for a long time.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Noveria and Feros are the first two post-citadel missions you get and after those you are nearly half way through.

Really?! Geez, I had no idea I'd made it so far.

[DanJW]

Yeah, the game is estimated at 15 hours, which is about 10% of, say, Baldur's Gate II. Frankly that's a good thing. Howvere the third act in Mass Effect did feel a tad rushed. Still awesome though.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Cool, I'll get back to it. How many hours is the game rated, do you know, if you bother with all the side-quests? Anyone tried the 360 expansion pack?

[toblix]

Just finished this, and it was incredible. I feel like I've watched a great film or read a great book.Here comes an unordered list:

The story wasn't boring. Often in "epic" games like these I end up skipping dialogue because there's so much exposition and shit going on I stop caring. In Mass Effect I always knew what was going on. Even though the main plot is really simple, everything took place on this thick, lush tapestry of background story, characters and races, which made everything feel real and consistent.

This must be the best looking game I have ever played. You'd think I'd look back at the billion million vegetationless height maps with generic debris ten minute drives apart, and anomalies and five different kinds of building with a bad taste in my mouth, but oh my god it's so beautiful! The weather and lighting effects, the various flares and glows and blooms, and the wooshing sound of the winds. It was like a movie, but in a good way. And that's just the generic planets. The story environments, too. Everything felt huge and real, and driving through the endless corridors of Ilos was sort of touching, I thought.

Some of the dialogue sequences were totally awesome. While they were all mostly great, some stood out to me as special. The standoff with Wrex comes to mind. I'm no expert, but I think the dialogue in this game is probably the best I've heard.

The ending wasn't frustratingly hard and stretched out, but satisfying. YAY DESIGNER POWER!

There were too few subquests. They were too short and too uninteresting, and the system for keeping track of them wasnt good enough. Usually I'd just land on a planet and kill everyone and then find out I did some quest I don't even remember taking. Obviously they couldn't've made more and longer subquests, so I'd rather they dropped these altogether and made more story-specific stuff.

...and

:tdown:There were too few story-specific locations. Although they were so beautiful they brought tears to my eyes, they should've dropped all the non-story planets and made some more story stuff.

The music was awesome. I must get the soundtrack.

It's awesome that they actually did interesting stuff with all the characters, and not just let each of them have some generic little quest line. I love how there are lots of sections where the characters you chose to take with you comment on things. Obviously it's just a matter of switching out pieces of the cut-scenes and triggers, but it never felt like that. It always felt like the story I was playing was the story.

It sucks that I discovered that the charm/intimidate skills were always available at the same places in dialogue. To me it felt like they were just two equal choices with different sound files, both leading to the same outcome.

The inventory system was pretty bad. I can't even imagine how terrible it must've been on the Xbox if the PC version is greatly improved. Just having to scroll these huge lists and not being able to quickly determine what the best choices are is ridiculous. And those huge fucking images of every item in the store! Who thought of that?!

Subquests were very inconsistent with whether you'd have to return to someone after doing stuff, resulting in lots of loose ends in my quest log. I'd basically done the quest, but since I've killed everyone I can't tell the guy I've done it, so no points for me!

The combat was very meh. The cover system was usually okay, but lots of times it'd be unable to decide whether I was covering or just standing there, and especially when the guys charged and ran past my cover, the camera just freaked out and went everywhere. Sniping was fun, but close combat was horrible. I never had any idea of what my squadmates were doing. I never used their skills since I didn't really understand the interface for them, and after a while I found out I'd just concentrate on my own survival. Sometimes a guy would float up and I could take him out easily, but for the most part I felt like a solo fighter with some incredibly useless sidekicks. Also, if they didn't have combat, there could be lots of awesome story and stuff.

The unlocking minigame became annoying. At least they could've mixed it up a little, or improved it somehow. PERHAPS BY NOT HAVING ONE!

Mass Effect is fucking awesome.

[DanJW]

Yup, I think I agree with all of that.

[Nachimir]

And those huge fucking images of every item in the store! Who thought of that?!

I especially like that some of those items are represented by motherfucking crates

It's almost satire.

[DanJW]

One thing I have to say about the excellent dialogue, is that it is the first RPG where taking the nasty bastard route made sense. Even in KotOR the dark-side path felt a bit contrived, and so in all RPGs I gravitate towards playing 'light side'. But being a renegade in Mass Effect felt totally logical - you're not evil, you just take the point of view that the end justifies the means... and when the end is saving the entire galaxy then you can justify a hell of a lot along the way.

My Shepherd wasn't malicious, she just had very little patience for messing about, and would cut through anyone in her way if they were holding up the mission. Sure there are opportunities for dirty dealings, but even then it's more like "playing the system" rather than the typical "I want to play a chaotic-evil such-and-such who murders everyone I possibly can because I'm bad-ass". The fact that the background is much more real-world in its lack of good-vs-evil helped too (there's just politics and survival). Well done to Bioware for finally getting the 'not a goody-goody path' right for the first time.

[toblix]

I completely agree. I make it a point of playing evil in Bioware's games, since I think they do it so well. But in Mass Effect, I never felt evil. Okay, maybe when I executed people left and right, but it was less "it's fun to kill people" and more "if I kill you I'll save thousands of lives", etc.

I wonder how much they'll actually carry over from my save games in ME2.

Casey Hudson, Project Director for BioWare, has said that players should keep their Mass Effect save-files, because decisions made by the player in the first game will continue to have influences on their character in the sequel.Players who have not played the first Mass Effect will start a new character in Mass Effect 2, and will be brought up to speed on the story elements that have taken place thus far in the series.

I guess this is this is like the destructible environments in Red Faction, and the adaptive physiology in Spore; in the end it gets too difficult to take every little thing into account, and the feature is reduced or eliminated. If the game takes place a million years later the backstory can reflect what you've done, what character you played, etc., but if it's a direct sequel it's not like they can consider every single combination of events.

Or, they can. That would be awesome. I'm just thinking how I'd get shivers down my crooked spine if I played Mass Effect 2 and I meet Shepard, and he looks and talks exactly the way he did in ME1.

They should have the ability to upload save games, though. The sequel won't be out for years, meaning most people'll have deleted theirs. At the end of the game, you should get the option of uploading it to their server or something.

[twmac]

They did it to great effect in 'The Suffering: The Ties that Bind'. Sure, it was a little simpler. Depending on the outcome of the player in the first game (good, neutral, Evil) certain returning characters changed their attitude to you.

It could totally work in the sequel of Mass Effect given enough consideration. I mean calculating somthing like Shepard's personality, then their reaction to the player character's actions/personality varying according to their paragon/renegade staus. Imagine, even, if Shepard could become a teammate and their stats being based on the original player's progress? Happened in the Hunter: The reckoning series...

[toblix]

Man, I keep coming back to this game in my mind. Last night I played Vigil from the Mass Effect soundtrack. It's the one from the main menu. There is something truly magnificent about this game.

[ThunderPeel2001]

One thing I have to say about the excellent dialogue, is that it is the first RPG where taking the nasty bastard route made sense. Even in KotOR the dark-side path felt a bit contrived, and so in all RPGs I gravitate towards playing 'light side'. But being a renegade in Mass Effect felt totally logical - you're not evil, you just take the point of view that the end justifies the means... and when the end is saving the entire galaxy then you can justify a hell of a lot along the way.

That sounds really cool. I just wish they'd lose the whole "evil-o-meter" and let our decisions be nothing more than our decisions. Who is to say that you're "evil" by not returning a body to a grieving family member, if that body might help save thousands of other families from that same grief...? (I really wish I hadn't returned it now.)

Bah, it just all goes back to that blog post I made ages ago... A call to all RPG makers: Lose the "evil-o-meters" - let our decisions have realistic repercussions within the gaming world, not just represented by a statistic or changes to our avatar.

Re: KOTOR - I have to say that, considering the Star Wars universe makes zero attempt at making you feel anything other than hate for the evil Empire. (I mean we all just know: Sith = Evil. Darth Vader = Bad. Zero gray area.) I felt that BioWare did a damn good job trying to persuade the player to go down the "evil" route. It was a bit contrived, sure, but it was the first time I'd ever seen why someone might go "I'll join the baddies!"

Man, all this talk of Mass Effect is making me itchy to get back into it. I just had a similar experience with Metal Gear Solid from another thread, and that turned out brilliantly (I'm now a total MGS convert). Good stuff

[toblix]

Fucking fux. Now The Sky is Falling is out, and I don't know what to do. It's like having finished a great, no awesome, book, and then suddenly you get a pamphlet, brochure, whatever called Here's Some Other Cool Shit That Happened. I don't know how to do this. Is it a continuation of the game (I doubt that very much) or is it just a new planet or something?

I consider myself done with the game, having actually finished it. Do I launch it separately or something? What the fuck?

[elmuerte]

Finished the game this afternoon and I really like it. One of the best games I've played in the last few years.

Of course a little while after I finished it they released the downloadable content. Luckily I had a savegame prior ilos. (You need galaxy map access) The new content is not really worth much. It's a new "planet", like those standard hightmaps with some buildings where you have to kill a bunch of people. So, it's like one of the longer side missions where you have to clean 4 buildings. A not really like one of those story missions. The 90 minutes of content is about 30 minutes for traveling, 30 minutes of dialog and 30 minutes of shooting things.

[toblix]

That sucks, and cheapens the experience for me a little. I'd rather they linearised the game more and just stopped with the DLC altogether, instead concentrating on the awesome sequel. For me it's more an epic story about my guy doing the stuff he did, and this makes it feel like they're considering the game more like a sandbox or something. Especially lame that they're adding more of arguably* the worst part of the game, the genericish height map quests.

*I don't know how to use that word.