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Mass Effect Review Discussion Thread: Cry about ur almost-perfects in here

F

FrankT

Member
BastardSamurai said:
Che was referring to Greg Orlando, and I think Greg does the majority of his writing for Play.
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Yea, I see Jen's was posted to 1up. I'm surprised they did not have another review(er) for the site as well.
 
F

FrankT

Member
A

Apharmd Battler

Member
SnakeXs said:
Guys do everyone a favor and ignore him.

feedtrollfe16a.jpg
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LMAO!! That made me spit my drink here at the job. I didn't see that one coming! :lol

You've got to send me a link to that pic!! :lol :lol :lol :lol
 
D

_dd_

Member
Rowsdower said:
That's the shortest review i have ever seen. And i visited 1up at one point.
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Did you miss the other 15 pages?

**Edit** Entirety: (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139724-page,1-c,games/article.html)

An Old-School Adventure Masquerading as a Role-Playing Game
If Halo 3 was Microsoft's star performance, BioWare's Mass Effect is this holiday season's encore. Mass Effect is probably the most anticipated role-playing game of the year by anyone who dug the company's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and/or Jade Empire. In any case, I expect the Xbox 360 to take the silver in hardware sales (though by a relatively narrow margin over Sony) and the gold by a handsome margin in holiday software sales. Mass Effect--Platform: Xbox 360; Developer: BioWare; Publisher: Microsoft; ESRB Rating: Mature; PCW Score: 60. --Matt Peckham

The Fate of Everything Depends on . . . Your Chitchat Skills?
Stop me if you've heard this one. In another wild and wooly future-verse, you're a military up-and-comer on an experimental stealth ship and improbably catapulted into the role of intergalactic savior and crack squad leader. As stories go, Mass Effect's rates better than Halo 3's, but--just to keep us honest--it's still, at best, like the work of sci-fi writers M. John Harrison, Robert Charles Wilson, or Gene Wolfe on training wheels. That's too bad, because wandering and wondering (out loud) form the core of Mass Effect's overbearingly garrulous game play. Pared down to a handful of stats, talents, weapons, and upgrades, the game's role-playing components interplay more like background noise than meaningful story-shaping elements. It's as if BioWare is hoping to return gaming to the days when bounding between locales and talking signposts subbed in for thinking and doing, and threw in the character-development aspects only begrudgingly to appease fans of their older, better RPGs like Baldur's Gate II and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Released Too Soon?
Whether it's the stuttering frame rate or the awkward load-ins that unexpectedly (and frequently) halt the game entirely for several seconds, Mass Effect has some bizarre bugs. Occasional weirdness like different voice actors (or voice modulation effects) employed for the same characters during a single conversation draw attention to themselves, pulling you out of the moment. In one sequence, a timer bar for a self-destruct sequence remained obstructively onscreen until I stopped, saved, and reloaded the game. It's even possible to confound the narrative logistics by entering areas one way, say via mass transit, and then exiting by elevator before engaging the area's plot imperative. At this point, your teammates comment about events that haven't yet happened. Speaking of elevators, it's not a bug, but never before in a game have they moved so preposterously (and needlessly) slow. Whoever decided it was smart to make lifts move at the speed of an inebriated snail deserves to ride on one every day he or she goes to work.

Less Shoot-'Em-Up, More Interactive Cinema
Strip away the graphics and generally well-played voice acting, and Mass Effect still tells the second best sci-fi story you'll experience in a video game this year (BioShock is the first). If you have $60 and a couple dozen hours to kill, you might find Mass Effect curiously engaging--if only to compare its gritty austerity with the cartoony esotericism of Halo 3. On the other hand, save for the old "multiple-different-endings" shtick developers have been trotting out like a reward for enduring linear gameplay for decades, choosing different responses in Mass Effect merely unlocks alternative dialogue choices that shape the narrative tone but virtually none of the game mechanics. Play Mass Effect more than once and, while you can unlock tougher difficulty settings that make the abbreviated action sequences more punitive, you'll still have the same story experience, start to finish.

Just Imagine the Whiteboard Dialogue Trees
This summer at the big GCDC games conference in Leipzig, Germany, I attended a session where design vets Ken Ralston and Bob Bates talked storytelling in games. When Ralston said that he hated the way game stories tease deeper subtext, and then fail to pay off on all the choices, I wanted to stand up and cheer. This is a problem in Mass Effect, where talky sections unfold like dull, flat sine waves, punctuated by sawtooth-style segments of manic action. On the one hand, the system's been nicely refined to allow more natural pacing by letting you choose a conversational approach before someone else finishes speaking. But it's still like playing the weird descendent of an old choose-your-own-adventure book, with spurts of action inelegantly sandwiched between exhaustive dialogue trees that don't change the game to speak of. Smoothly paced or no, your conversations don't shape your experience in Mass Effect so much as shuffle you along like a weirdly glib FedEx operative.

Roam (and Jump) If You Want To
To paraphrase historian J.M. Roberts, Mass Effect's universe is like an interstellar desert swarming with superficialities. Yes, you can travel to dozens of systems with dozens more planets, but you can only effectively land on a handful, and only a fraction of those have meaningful locations to visit. The rest are populated with generic artifacts, outposts, dig sites, and debris. You'll explore these with the Mako, which looks like a six-wheeled rover with a cannon and turret on top and which can "hop" a couple meters straight up, using button-triggered jets. As you bump and shimmy over the repetitiously rugged terrain looking for stuff to salvage, you'll occasionally encounter wormy creatures that pop out of the ground and attack, leading to one of the game's sillier mechanics, where the Mako jumps like a certain infamous Italian plumber to avoid incoming projectiles.

The Character of Its Convictions
Nothing about Mass Effect gets second looks like its visual engine. But, while it does an acceptable job rendering cold, clinical interiors and light on the insides of spaceships or from alien stars with the sort of exotic lens flare that directors like John Carpenter celebrate in movies like "The Thing," its exteriors are often generic to the point of ugly. You can tell where the design team's gameplay emphasis was, when the character models are this highly developed, and it certainly makes sense when the camera spends most of its time zoomed on chatty heads. While not as brilliantly articulated and emotive as Andy Serkis's directorial work on Heavenly Sword for the PS3, the character models in Mass Effect are something to behold when motionless.

A Modicum of Class and Talent
Spend as much time as you like molding facial features at the outset, then shape your character by spending experience-driven "talent" points on your avatar, and eventually several squad mates. Like prior BioWare games, you build a posse after "unlocking" playable characters that you'll meet along the way. Choose two at a time to watch your back like an away team in a given area or mission. Six character classes fold three skill tracks (Combat, Tech, and Biotic talents) into either pure or hybrid multiclass options. The Combat track, as you might guess, is all about improving accuracy and damage with weapons like pistols, shotguns, rifles, augmenting armor, and eventually developing special abilities that increase health and skill potency. Tech lets you fiddle with stuff like the explosion radius of your mines, suppress enemy tech abilities, and override security systems, while Biotics are the game's "magic" powers, allowing you to lift or throw objects (or enemies off cliffs) and create anomalies that generate damage or absorb weapons fire.

AI Stands for Artificially Inept
Mass Effect's real-time combat system employs BioWare's "kill-everything-in-an-area, then downed-party-members-automatically-resuscitate" gimmick. Which means that whether you're issuing orders effectively using the game's well-designed tactics wheel (accessed with a simple button press that pauses combat) or letting the AI drive itself, you'll end up finishing combat by yourself most of the time, at which point your comrades goofily revive and rejoin you. The AI on both sides tends to be pretty bad at all difficulty levels, with enemies walking stupidly into the open and your own teammates stepping out of cover (or using it very poorly) and getting killed despite your best hands-on nursing.

Watered-Down Tactical Shooter?
When I call the combat "simplistic," don't mistake that for reference to what's often called "run-and-gun" in a game like Halo 3. Mass Effect's encounters derive more from Ubisoft's Rainbow Six: Vegas squad-driven aesthetic than Microsoft's gung-ho solo sci-fi epic. Still, Mass Effect plays like a kid sibling to Ubisoft's sophisticated tactical shooter, with simpler, clumsier moves and less interesting "move here" or "target there" tactical options. It employs Gears of War's clumsy "sticks-to" mechanism for staying in cover (contrast with Rainbow Six's brilliant "hold-a-button" option). Mass Effect also gives you teammates so incompetent that you're either ignoring the pleasures of lifting and flinging enemies with powers like "lift" and "throw" because you're too busy babysitting, or desperately fighting solo because your tragically ineffectual squad's temporarily "dead." Worse, it's actually possible in some areas to run in and out of load-in areas too slowly, and unrealistically whittle away at cadres of bad guys who are apparently too stupid (or developmentally hamstrung) to follow.

A Lexical Jungle
You'll spend a remarkable amount of time just reading journal and codex (think encyclopedia) entries about people, places, and creatures (like the one in this shot) as a kind of game-within-a-game reward for chatting up NPCs or clicking on random objects and computer stations. For all the lovely optional background detail, though, it's a great example of where Mass Effect violates its own grammar by telling instead of showing. Since when did reading flat scrolling text become its own gameplay mechanics? It's even more disappointing when you're scanning non-interactive planets that amount to little more than blocks of descriptive text. It all makes Mass Effect's universe feel more like something into which BioWare simply poured its design docs for a pencil and paper RPG, where the descriptions might have actually mattered.

Gracefully Cinematic
It's hard not to fall under Mass Effect's visual spell, with its grainy film effects and creepy original take on conventional sci-fi tropes (like this unfortunate fellow, the biological victim of one species' disturbing machinations). If you're not offended by the sloppy action sequences or brittle RPG elements, Mass Effect tells a perfectly decent adventure story with several filmic elements bolstered by an excellent sense for techniques like 180- and 30-degree continuity editing during dialogue or scene transitions that other developers simply ignore.

A Reasonable Range of Alien Antics
Different species employ unique tactics: Some effectively stick to cover; others simply attempt to maintain a ranged distance and pop snipe shots. Still, they all tend to suffer from the "too-stupid-to-live" syndrome, whether you're crafting advanced strategies involving your Biotic or Tech talents to flush out crouchers, or simply pointing a pistol and patiently head-popping.

Booty Clog Up
Instead of cursoring over dead bodies for loot, Mass Effect automatically tallies booty in your equipment screen. The problem with that is that it only lets you "take all" or elect to convert each item, one at a time, to a substance called "omni-gel" (used to repair the Mako or unlock containers). Where's the "leave" option? "Take this" object, but not that one? It's pretty ridiculous by the later stages of the game, where your 150 inventory maximum becomes a management time sink (not to mention the fact that you'll be so rich toward the end that having to deal with items in general becomes time wasted).

Evolution or Devolution?
Don't mistake Mass Effect for the next phase in the development of BioWare's trademark story-driven approach. It's not, and while it's certainly a visual sight to behold, Mass Effect doesn't mark the play-driven step in evolution over Knights of the Old Republic that BioWare said it would be. In an effort to simplify the gameplay and presumably engage a broader audience with an admittedly first-rate story, it trades tactical complexity for simplified real-time combat that's as dull as what the average blaster battle looks like in some B-movie equivalent. The action is endlessly interrupted. Scripted break-ins might as well be ripping the controller out of your hand, forcing you down this or that plot chute with nothing to do but react to your newfound circumstances. Even archetypically parallel developers like Square Enix know enough to include dozens of mini-games and superior tactical combat to break up the monotony of running and talking and relentless handholding.

Bottom Line: Overhyped
If you're easily swayed by visual beauty or still get a kick out of old-school conversation-driven adventure games, or you're simply nostalgic to the point of myopia, Mass Effect has maybe a dozen hours to offer of main story and a dozen more in side quests. But calling it a disappointingly overhyped encore to Microsoft's main holiday act, Halo 3, isn't much of a stretch after you've tallied time bouncing ceaselessly between glorified (albeit pretty) talking heads.


================================

On a sidenote, fuck PC World and their "4 sentences and lets view another page with an ad on it" x16

================================
 
C

Chris Remo

Member
I didn't write it, but I've been playing the game and I agree with our review by Nick Breckon.

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=681

But right from the opening scenes, Mass Effect quickly distinguishes itself as a wholly new experience. Simply put, a video game has never been this cinematically engaging. Just gazing at a simple grain-filtered shot of a planet--complete with lens-flared sunlight, Star Warsian framing, and a disparate synth-heavy sci-fi score by Richard Jacques--can be an exciting moment. Even the most insignificant environment or character is rendered and shot in a compelling light--or shadow, as the case may be. Rarely does the polish fade. From back to front, Mass Effect is one of the first games to truly approach an actual cinematic quality.
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Adopting a third person combat system in the vein of Gears of War seemed a logical place for BioWare to go at the outset. The cover system and radial menus work well enough in avoiding the slow, turn-based repetitiveness of typical RPG battles. In the end, it's a combination of poorly designed encounters, simplistic AI, and dull vehicular sections that make for an uneven, often frustrating element to this otherwise-groundbreaking game.
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While an action game like Gears of War is designed as a smooth, coherent combat experience, Mass Effect's battles vary from pointlessly simple to impossibly challenging, with hardly any warning prior to the latter. They play out like an action game, but have a decided RPG stiffness to them. Most enemies will require little effort to mow down--sniping stupid, unknowing soldiers through cracks in walls or stairways is a cheap, if silly way to get the job done. However, some will charge you at random, slaughtering your teammates in seconds and leaving you to fend your yourself. Other foes will suddenly knock you to the ground with an ability, rendering you defenseless for a critical number of seconds, unable to move as you are picked off by snipers or other devices. It's hard to describe how infuriating this can be.
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A

Acosta

Member
The game is going to have some really interesting reactions from people who would prefer to replay Baldur´s Gate 2 and the people who would like be playing Gears of Wars at the moment.

For me, the games simply work as a whole (competent and entertaining combat with some tactic deepneess, the mako is fun, the exploration is deep...) And it makes some really amazing even revolutionary stuff; speaking with NPC people is not going to be the same after this). So I am agree with the 9s.

I have published my review, but it´s in spanish and no one is going to care. Hope I have time to write some impressions here.
 
F

Flyguy

Member
/. Review 4/5. Zonk seemed to really like it.

Conclusion said:
Some of these frustrations I've mentioned may seem particularly bad, and perhaps for some players they'll be gamebreakers. For me - warts and all - this is the game experience I will remember best from 2007. Most of the time, in most situations, this game is flawless. When combat flows well, it's unlike any RPG you've ever played before. In conversation with NPCs, you'll consistently be amazed at how much you can affect the outcome. Exploring uncharted worlds, you'll have to stop yourself from grinning as you go flying off a mountaintop in your space buggy. What this game does well, it does without equal. It's important to realize that there are issues, that the game as a whole isn't perfect. If you come to Mass Effect looking for a great story and far-off places, you'll get exactly what you need - and more than once. As strange as it is to say, this dozen-plus hour RPG has high replay value; not only can you play through with a different moral compass, on a harder setting, or with a different class, but you can even play through it at a higher level. Once you play through the game, you can start over ... with the same gear, money, and level as your previous game-complete Shephard.

From the opening strains of the title music to the final wailing synth-song of the scrolling credits, this game encompasses what I love about gaming. Peter Molyneux nailed it at GDC this year, saying that it isn't so much the story that matters as the emotion it instills in you. Across its storyline Mass Effect will have you laughing, furious, and deeply saddened - in some cases all about the same character. Slick graphics and heated combat aside, this title proves out the power of words artfully spoken. In some cases, the right words can mean the difference between salvation and damnation, between triumph and defeat. If you're realistic in your expectations, if you come to the game ready for what it can offer, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more compelling reason to turn on your 360 this season.
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A

Arde5643

Member
The latest Penny Arcade comic also seems to share the same sentiments that reviewers have criticized ME for.

http://www.penny-arcade.com

It's like a delightfully smelling and looking cake that tastes like heaven, except for some reason the chef decided to lace some parts of the cake with horse shit and other nasty animal organs. :D
 
A

Acosta

Member
Arde5643 said:
The latest Penny Arcade comic also seems to share the same sentiments that reviewers have criticized ME for.

http://www.penny-arcade.com

It's like a delightfully smelling and looking cake that tastes like heaven, except for some reason the chef decided to lace some parts of the cake with horse shit and other nasty animal organs. :D
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Penny Arcade has been ACE with their Mass Effect comics (I think I have never laughed so much with a comic like I did with the second strip). However, I feel Mass Effect is quite straightforward compared with things like Ultima or even Elder Scrolls. Things like Gothic are much more confusing (and well, not as brilliantly produced and executed).

The nerd of me would love to have direct control of the Normandy and explore freely the universe (or, to be more clear, the nerd of me would love to play Star Control 2 with this engine).

I honestly can say that a new Star Control with this engine and a good free space "simulator" would make me go to a desert place and play that for the rest of my live.
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
I think it's safe to say Mass Effect is a AAA solid 90 game that would rate higher if there weren't frame rate dips during intense combat, and if there wasn't as much loading.
 
T

TheDuce22

Banned
XiaNaphryz said:
LOL, nice topic change. Will we see something similar for all the Uncharted bitching as well?
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Well to be fair all the psychotic behavior in that thread was totally justified. Uncharted is clearly the greatest game ever created, followed closely by Ratchet and Clank.
 
Z

zenbot

Member
Zzoram said:
I think it's safe to say Mass Effect is a AAA solid 90 game that would rate higher if there weren't frame rate dips during intense combat, and if there wasn't as much loading.
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And if there weren't issues with texture loading, and the inventory management was a million times better, and if the conversation system were as revolutionary as it was hyped to be, and if the game had a tutorial, and if the combat were better, and if there were more to do on the explorable planets...

I'm really enjoying the game so far (I'm only six or seven hours in): it does a heap more right than wrong and it is incredibly ambitious, but (like KOTOR) it has a few chips in its veneer; enough that they could turn somebody not partial to the genre, or particularly picky, of of fanboyish leanings, right off it.

It's an A game in my heart, no doubt, and most people are going to love it, but there are not a few obstacles detractors can throw in front of the hype train :lol.
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
zenbot said:
And if there weren't issues with texture loading, and the inventory management was a million times better, and if the conversation system were as revolutionary as it was hyped to be, and if the game had a tutorial, and if the combat were better, and if there were more to do on the explorable planets...

I'm really enjoying the game so far (I'm only six or seven hours in): it does a heap more right than wrong and it is incredibly ambitious, but (like KOTOR) it has a few chips in its veneer; enough that they could turn somebody not partial to the genre, or particularly picky, of of fanboyish leanings, right off it.

It's an A game in my heart, no doubt, and most people are going to love it, but there are not a few obstacles detractors can throw in front of the hype train :lol.
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KOTOR had pretty much all the same issues, and it was still an amazing experience.
 
E

elostyle

Never forget! I'm Dumb!
Zzoram said:
I think it's safe to say Mass Effect is a AAA solid 90 game that would rate higher if there weren't frame rate dips during intense combat, and if there wasn't as much loading.
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In this day and age, this can basically mean anything so I guess it's easy to agree on. I could do with less group think inducing though.
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
TheDuce22 said:
Well to be fair all the psychotic behavior in that thread was totally justified. Uncharted is clearly the greatest game ever created, followed closely by Ratchet and Clank.
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To be fairer, I'm pretty sure this was Mr. S' original title.
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
elostyle said:
In this day and age, this can basically mean anything so I guess it's easy to agree on. I could do with less group think inducing though.
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This game is going to be awesome, regardless of generic label.
 
E

elostyle

Never forget! I'm Dumb!
Zzoram said:
This game is going to be awesome, regardless of generic label.
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Sure thing, in its own right. I just don't think it's necessary to even try to find a label (before the game is out even!). There already has been a contradicting opinion in one of the reviews after all.
 
T

temp

posting on contract only
GameSpot Jade Empire review score = 8.4



MASS EFFECT >>> JADE EMPIRE, BIOWARE'S BACK, BABY!
 
D

D3MO

Banned
temp said:
GameSpot Jade Empire review score = 8.4



MASS EFFECT >>> JADE EMPIRE, BIOWARE'S BACK, BABY!
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Actually = Bioware = No progress....gamespot now rounds of to the nearest half...so Jade Empire would be an 8.5 as well :(
 
M

MCermak

Member
Zzoram said:
I didn't read it today. I've been busy with school all day, but I know for a fact I've read that review before. I'm really confused, I need an explanation.
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You were traveling through the galaxy on the Normandy and accidentally fired your Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device while traveling through the mass relay station, causing you to go forward in time. Obviously.
 
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