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Mass Effect |OT| Alien love in an elevator

Apocryphon

Member
I <3 the art direction in Mass Effect:

6kzwnjr.gif


6kz06ds.gif
 

temp

posting on contract only
Lostconfused said:
congratulations on a spiffy new avatar, also the Fry one was pretty good.
Yeah, I liked the Fry one. I should bring it back for Bender's Big Score.
 

Lebron

Member
Zzoram said:
What TV is that? What resolution are you set to output, and using what cables?
well it's a Viewsonic, and it looks more like a monitor to me, so maybe he's using an VGA cable(which does look better than component).

edit: actually, that's exactly what he's using
 

Witchfinder General

punched Wheelchair Mike
Bought the game yesterday (EB Australia got it early it seems) and I am now a
Spectre
. How far in the game am I? I'm level 9 with about 8.5 hours of game time and I still haven't left the
Citadel
.
 

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
I just completed the game with 28 hrs I believe (watching credits roll right now to see if there's anything after).

I completed the majority of the game (achievement included) so its safe to assume that I accomplished most of all the side-quests (I only had one active before the end game sequences besides the collecting of items).

GOTY for me, my review will be going up on Monday at a few publications (separate reviews). Working hard on it tomorrow.

GOD I LOVE THIS GAME!
 

Rowsdower

Member
Regarding game length, found this post on the SA forums:

I was totally obsessive, and I did every side quest and collected everything I could. By 3/4 through the game I was maxing out at 9,999,999 credits after missions, because I was finding everything and selling things I don't need. I got about half of the achievements on my first run. I went Renegade, got all the weapon achievements, finished a romance. I think I got quite a fulfilling Renegade playthrough. Now to go back and not be a jerk. It's so drat hard not to just cap everyone I get the chance to, because it's so amusing to have this woman just put a couple in people's heads even if they were just sympathizers.

Oh and it took 45 hours, and 27 minutes to find and do everything that I could, and I was quite obsessive about it, so I bet I found most everything. But seriously, going Paragon is so hard after the awesomeness of Renegade.

Also, I love all the bonuses you get for the achievements. That's a really nice addition.
 

Sectus

Member
DrBo42 said:
Is the 1up show criticism valid? Do the side missions suck?
NO!

I can't comprehend what the hell that guy was babbling about. I can easily say the side quests are the highlight of the game. I think those are even better than the main storyline as they have a very good mix of roleplaying stuff (exploration and talking) and action, and usually feature radically different ways you can complete the quests. (while the main quests are long sections of combat, with some roleplaying stuff and less choice than sidequests with to deal with the situation)

There's definitely things you can nitpick in the game though. The difficulty doesn't seem very balanced, things will usually be a bit hard in the beginning of the game as you have few powers and weapons, while later in the game you can easily become an unstoppable killing machine if you get good weapons and utilize good powers. (unless you play as a Sentinel, then you're fucked whatever you do) On the other hand, most RPGs suffer from these balance problems anyway.

There's some other annoying things like awful inventory management, horrible framerate, some cliches in the story they should have avoided, and there's virtually no use for all the money you'll get in the game.

But the only thing in the game which I literally hate is the planet exploration (while using the rover), that's something they should have removed from the game as it isn't fun at all. (for the love of god, don't bother to do any of the collection quests, there's no reason whatsoever to complete them and you'll bore yourself to death trying to complete them)

With those negatives out of the way, it's still definitely a great game. It has a pretty good storyline with really great characters. It's fun to see how earlier choices will sometimes lurk up on you and show consequences later in the game. The voice acting is great (although not due to the celebrities they managed to get hold of... the highlights are lesser known voice actors which do the voices for female Shepard and Garrus). The combat is lightyears ahead of almost all other RPGs. It has a good deal of content (if you take your time, the game should last 20-30 hours, perhaps even more) which also encourages replays.

So... erm... yeah, that's my response regarding whether or not side missions suck :p
 

Salazar

Member
The game is good to play in between bouts of Conan slashing. There's some kind of neurochemically pleasurable switch going on and off as I go between them.
 

Rowsdower

Member
It also appears that a good bunch of the achievements unlock stuff.

Mild spoilers about achievements and unlocks
I'm fucking thrilled, like 3/4ths of the achievemnts seem to have a game effect. Rich gives you access to awesome gear. Tactician gives you a permanent shield boost. Krogan Ally boosts your health regen. Quarian Ally reduces cooldown on tech skills. They aren't just meaningless points, achievements are finally worth a damn.

Awesome.
 

Sectus

Member
Do you pretend the games ties into eachother as well?

Admiral Hackett: Shepard, we've got bad news but you're not the right person for this mission. It's too dangerous and there's too many topless women on the planet's surface. We'll be sending in Conan alone to complete the assignment. Fifth fleet out.
 

Manager

Member
I wouldn't say that the side missions suck, but some of them are really simple, specially in the beginning. You sometimes only have to go to person X and talk, and then to person Y, and it's finished.

An example that doesn't spoiler the story at all, and is from the first big planet - around 4 hours in:
I go to a bar and meet with a girl. She's worried because her sister is working undercover for C-sec, Alliance force. I offer myself to talk to her. I walk for 1 minute to the other bar where she works at, but she refuse and won't leave C-sec. During my way out of the bar I bump into somebody, who tells me to go to C-Sec if I want to know more about the sister.
I go there, and he's angry and tells me that I could blow her cover. I use charm and tells him that this isn't the way it should be. He agrees and offer me to do the job instead. But he asks me to not make any fuss during the exchange. So I go there to buy the weapons, and then I have the option to scream "You're under arrest!" where probably a firefight would erupt, but I take it easy and give him the money and take the weapons. I go up to C-Sec, give the guy the weapon, and as a reward I get an upgrade from the weapons box that he didn't need.

This was one of the longer side missions. Another one I did was litterally going between two guys who are 30 seconds away from each other and talk to them two times each, and then the mission's over.

I've found the side missions very interesting, as they give you not only exp and rewards, but also interesting info about the planet you're at, or the universe itself. There's one kick-ass long side mission at the first planet, which includes walking around a lot, involving the police, doing research and talking to a lot of people.

The side missions aren't there to be the MAIN GAME, that's silly. If you don't like walking around and talking to people, that's not the side missions fault but mainly the interest in the game from the person saying it. Some people will rush though it and just do the main story (as in Oblivion), while other's are doing side missions too. I loved KOTOR and did the side missions, and I think they are much better here.
 
surprised this is quite short for an rpg....it still seems a good length, just not the monster that was ffxii....still, I feel I would probably spend more time on it than most, just exploring etc

that gif with spaceship coming in is fantastic
 

Manager

Member
btw, initial impressions after around 10 hours:
I love it without the filter, make the game looks so clean and so like a next-gen KOTOR.
I have no problem at all with framerate. I'm no wh*re, so don't take my word more than the other impressions, but I don't see the big deal. Sure, it stutters sometime, but I really don't care as it's nothing á la sports games, where you have to wait like 3 seconds for the slowdown to go away.
The loading times are strange. When I ran around between different sections during my first play in a city, there were 0.3 seconds loading times when going to new sections. During my second play, it would take 2-3 seconds. for the same areas. Don't get why... should check cache or something I guess.

I spent two hours creating my character. First I did some white guy with rather long hair, that looked ok in the menu, but not so much in-game. Then I gave up that and just choosed John, but I didn't like his eyes. And after spending 45 min with my next guy, I found something that I was pretty satisfied with.

I was a big KOTOR fan, and this game is awesome, really awesome. Great graphics. One thing I was worried about were the complains with shadows, and I saw it the first minutes on one character, but I haven't seen it now. Don't know if it's because I don't think about it, or if it's because they're actually not there later on.
 

bendak

Member
I just completed the game with 28 hrs I believe (watching credits roll right now to see if there's anything after).

I completed the majority of the game (achievement included) so its safe to assume that I accomplished most of all the side-quests (I only had one active before the end game sequences besides the collecting of items).

GOTY for me, my review will be going up on Monday at a few publications (separate reviews). Working hard on it tomorrow.

GOD I LOVE THIS GAME!

Nice. 28 hours is pretty awesome for a first playthrough. This game isn't meant to be powered through like some of the reviewers are. Some people have unreasonable expectations though and expect the game to be like 100 hours, without having any comprehension of the work that goes into it.

Is the 1up show criticism valid? Do the side missions suck?

I think I've begun to basically ignore anything 1up says after they gave Creed a 7.0, then I played it for myself and wondered WTF those clowns were smoking.
 

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
bendak said:
Nice. 28 hours is pretty awesome for a first playthrough. This game isn't meant to be powered through like some of the reviewers are. Some people have unreasonable expectations though and expect the game to be like 100 hours, without having any comprehension of the work that goes into it.

Yeah, I felt like I possibly left 2-3 hours of side-quests unfinished; I am not 100% positive due to that I only had 1 open mission left and the collecting items distractions.

Not sure if the game keep track, but I did die about 10 times throughout the game and had to replay a good portion of some levels so add in another 2 hrs or so of retrying a particular boss, going through a gauntlet of enemies or what not, I'd say the game is easily 30 hrs to complete the majority of the game.

When I went back this morning to see the time, it said 27 hrs. I was 1 hour off from my estimation. I'll be playing through as a girl and renegade the next time around (unless I feel like I can't romance the character I want to).

Here are things that will be in my review that they need to work on in the sequel
#1 - Give the Mako a speed boost or something.
#2 - Have a run button (jogging everywhere sucks, storming in combat doesn't count)
#3 - Allow for more planets to be visited that can be ported and aren't just uncharted worlds that the Mako is dropped on.
#4 - Allow for Earth to be visited -- I mean, c'mon!

There's more but now I have to go X-Mas shopping.
 

FrankT

Member
Jeez those shots are sick. Mass Effect is my GOTY. I cannot recall another month of gaming in so long that had so much win.
 
_dementia said:
Odd. Are these stretched to 16:10 from an 16:9 image? It looks so.
The radar is most telling; its an oval instead of a circle.

Its not that noticeable. But on another note, wheres the damn fall update with 16:10 support huh?
 

Iama

Member
Caspel said:
I just completed the game with 28 hrs I believe (watching credits roll right now to see if there's anything after).

I completed the majority of the game (achievement included) so its safe to assume that I accomplished most of all the side-quests (I only had one active before the end game sequences besides the collecting of items).

GOTY for me, my review will be going up on Monday at a few publications (separate reviews). Working hard on it tomorrow.

GOD I LOVE THIS GAME!

Good to hear that.

I am a very slow player, I usually explore all that I can, read everything that is possible to read (for example Oblivion's books).

Are there storical books or documents that explain the background inside tha game?

If so, I suppose that I will play ME for about 50-60h. I've finished Oblivion in 150h
 
Lefty42o said:
its comming dec 2nd. remebr fall is not over till dec 21st :D

i don't mind waiting as long as there will be 16:10 support. People on gaf clamor for it, but i just dont know if microsoft cares enough. I mean they should, but i just dont know.
 

traveler

Not Wario
People have talked about how weak the Sentinel is; what about the Adept and Engineer? Are they underpowered as well or are they actually viable classes? (I'm thinking of either going Adept or Infiltrator)
 

karasu

Member
bendak said:
Some people have unreasonable expectations though and expect the game to be like 100 hours, without having any comprehension of the work that goes into it.

Maybe it was all of that talk about no one on the staff ever completing everything there was to do in the game?
 

GavinGT

Banned
karasu said:
Maybe it was all of that talk about no one on the staff ever completing everything there was to do in the game?

It was more like nobody had yet seen every possible plot branch. Which was a very plausible thing 6 months ago, when the game wasn't even close to finished.
 

Dalauz

Member
I just completed the game with 28 hrs I believe (watching credits roll right now to see if there's anything after).

I completed the majority of the game (achievement included) so its safe to assume that I accomplished most of all the side-quests (I only had one active before the end game sequences besides the collecting of items).

25:32 and i did 41 of 62 sidequest (by my journal) 20/45 achievements (500 points). The game doesnt count retrys.. so maybe was 27 or 28hs?

One of the greatest game of all time, simple. My only "serious" complaint is performance wise. btw Dell 2007 WFP (via vga) and the game didnt look like those screen above.

edit: caspel complaints are right on the spot but let me add: checkpoints after cinemactics

Is the 1up show criticism valid? Do the side missions suck?
No! alot of "handwork" done in each side mission. doesnt feel like some result of some random map/mission editor in others games.
 

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
Iama said:
Good to hear that.

I am a very slow player, I usually explore all that I can, read everything that is possible to read (for example Oblivion's books).

Are there storical books or documents that explain the background inside tha game?

If so, I suppose that I will play ME for about 50-60h. I've finished Oblivion in 150h

There's the codex which has a voice-actor reading aloud everything along with the text. The codex has over 60-70 entries to read probably (just a rough estimation). I loved the codex and it fills in the history of all the races, wars, technology, race, fighting tactics, planets and everything you can imagine. I loved it.

People have talked about how weak the Sentinel is; what about the Adept and Engineer? Are they underpowered as well or are they actually viable classes? (I'm thinking of either going Adept or Infiltrator)

I was an Adept for my play-through. Being a biotech user through the game, it was easy since I was able to take down the opposition with a few abilities and didn't have to worry about a big group, but was able to concentrate on a few that seemed threatening. What i mean was I was able to send one into stasis (stops them in their tracks and can't do anything nor can you attack them), was able to lift up two enemies (which makes them not able to attack and prone to all gunfire), throw an enemy off the level, and use singularity to pull enemies into a cluster and then send a warp to make it easier to kill them with my marksmen ability which amped up the damage.

That's a tactic I used often and it a breeze up until huge gauntlets of Geth Primes and Geth Rocket Troopers that had their rockets get through my barriers.

As for other complaints about the game...

#5 - I wish it didn't have the Gears of War texture loading fault, sometimes my characters looked like they were from a tech demo.
#6 - Give me more of the Quarians and Salarians... they were interesting but their races only had a few shining moments in the game.
#7 - Just give me MORE! I didn't want this game to end and, well, it did :(.
#8 - More decisions that affect the outcome of the game; I am quite sure that I could count all the big decisions I had to make in under two hands (there were probably 2-5 major ones that affects the team).
#9 - The checkpoints after cinematics are a pain too, but so is the elevator on the Normandy and the elevator at C-Sec on the Citadel.

Well that's it for now, time for lunch.
 

Dalauz

Member
i kinda liked the elevator thing, some cool simple and well-written interaction between characters going on (the Normandy ones sucks hard)
 

SSM25

Member
so is this like 50% shooter 50% RPG?.........or is it a pure shooter?

anyways, I like shooters and I like RPGs, so is win win situation!!

day 1 for me!!
 
After watching the launch trailer and reading the EGM reviews I can't decide between picking up Mass Effect or getting in on the Guitar Hero 2 Black Friday deal...Ahhh!
 

FFChris

Member
SSM25 said:
so is this like 50% shooter 50% RPG?.........or is it a pure shooter?

anyways, I like shooters and I like RPGs, so is win win situation!!

day 1 for me!!

From the sound of it, it isn't pure shooter at all. Complicated story, lots of dialogue, general RPG type item making and leveling up. It's much more 50/50 than it is pure shooter.
 

duk

Banned
SSM25 said:
so is this like 50% shooter 50% RPG?.........or is it a pure shooter?

anyways, I like shooters and I like RPGs, so is win win situation!!

day 1 for me!!

it's a crossover game, one of the first with many more to come
 

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
Dalauz said:
i kinda liked the elevator thing, some cool simple and well-written interaction between characters going on (the Normandy ones sucks hard)

Well, sure.. I enjoyed the dialogue and updates from the elevator announcer but with trying to waiting almost a minute on C-Sec, it became tiring... especially with having to go back to report to specific individuals. The Normandy one was the most ridiculous elevator for sure.
 

KLoNe

Banned
Ok, so I got Galaxy on Saturday and it blew me away. I haven't felt so good playing a game in about a decade, it was perfection.

...So I picked up Mass Effect on Sunday.... I think it might be better. Holy shit. Ecstasy.
 
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