Mass Effect
 

I just downloaded the demo walkthrough for Mass Effect off Live, and I've gotta say that the game looks good! I couldn't really get into Jade Empire, probably due to lingering disappointment that Bioware abandoned the Star Wars franchise after 1 game, but this shit is set in SPACE, so I can pretend it's Star Wars.

The graphics are hot as hell, and it really looks like a living world inside the game. They seem to have made the conversations a lot more interesting than ones in KOTOR and Jade Empire were also, with the main character actually saying things and properly reacting.

I've gotta be honest, this game has jumped to the top of my 360 list of games to get (Although Dead Rising is still hot, hot, HOT on my mind. I want that fucking game out NOW.). Anybody else feel that this kicks Gears Of War's ass?

Yeah, I really look forward to this. It's one of the reasons I might actually consider getting an xbox 360 (along with Gears of War).

Graphics, like you said, are shit-hot, but to me the combat looks a little simplistic. I don't think it will end up being much of an action game, although that may not be what it's going for. Regardless, the story, characters, and interactivity are what I'll be looking forward to.

Yeah, the game looks great. I'm looking forward to the conversations, but again: The battles looks... bleh. They can make all that, but can't create a battle system that looks interesting. Hell, I'm playing Gangs of London on my PSP, and if we look away from the Dark matter emitions, the battlesystems are pretty much the same...

But if this game gives me a slice of KotOR goodness on 360, I'm sooo there.

Yeah that video on the marketplace looks very KOTORish, but that doesnt matter. We already know this game is great because it is Bioware, and me oogles over the conversations as well.

This game is exactly what i was expecting from next-gen.
Incredible graphics,design with live worlds and realistic characters.

The only next-gen jump needed, is to make human interactions more HUMAN and organic,apparently this game is achieving it.

However gameplay is not revolutionary.
For me,over all graphics are much better than anything on PS3 and even MGS4.

I'm definitely drooling over this game. This along with a few others are reasons for me to pick up a 360. The idea of realistically done dialog sounds very pleasing. Especially since it shouldn't be stilted, and you can even interupt the other person to rush them either indimidating them or making them angry or some other emotion. Very nice.

This game just screams for a PC release. Hopefully we will see one at some point. I've not yet decided to get an Xbox 360, but when games such as these keep coming out for it, the urge to get one gets mighty big...

The walkthrough had my jaw dropped on the floor, especially with the views of the space station, ships arriving and the animations of the characters were enough to shake my head in disbelief. And the action looks pretty standard but I'm sure we've not yet witnessed 1 % of the whole combat aspect. And those conversations are brilliantly done. Even if the story's half as good as in KOTOR, it'll still be worth playing through.

I'm keeping an eye on it, definitely !!

Ah, yes..one of the reasons I'm getting a 360. I loved Jade Empire, so I'm hoping this will be better. Ohh, the chills.

I love Bioware, so that's why I want it. I mean, besides the fact that the game looks pretty sweet. I'm a huge fan of their style of gameplay.

Have to save up for a 360, though. Among other things...

I don't know anything at all about this game, but if the dialogue is anywhere NEAR as good as it was in Knights of the Old Republic I'd buy a Pac-Man game. I'm waiting until the 360 premium drops to 299, when it does I'll make sure I put this on my list.

*edit* I just got finished watching the E3 trailer at IGN and HOOOLY shit, this game is BOUGHT! I'm going to have to meditate to prevent myself from buying an Xbox 360 before a price drop. This game looks rediculously hot. As was said above the combat doesn't seem groundbreaking or revolutionary. In fact it looks quite tame, but it seems to do a magnificent job of building atmosphere. And again if the dialoge is even 70% of what KOTOR was I'll buy it just for that... AWESOME!

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1325/1169579755.jpg

Okay. Can't believe that's the best that they could come up with.

This game looks well made, but I'm not to big on the whole action+RPG thing they've got going. I hope the focus will be on the roleplaying side, because it's just awful when you have a so called RPG game, but you feel it doesn't give you the chance to really, well... roleplay.

Keeping my eye on it though.

One of the most outstanding things about KOTOR is that it gives you more of a chance to actually role play than pretty much every other console "rpg" ever made. In the overwhelming majority of console rpgs, your characters are shoe-horned into certain roles and there's generally a right and wrong way to do things and certainly a best way to play. I've played through both KOTOR games several times and you can be nice or nasty, develop a force user, a combat specialist or a sneaky fuck and still complete the game. I'm fairly confident that Bioware will play to their strengths in that respect in Mass Effect and make it a proper free choice rpg as opposed to say, Oblivion, which fucks you over if you don't have a basic level of several of the available skills.

Hmm, looks like there hasn't been any activity in here for a good spell. A few more screenshots just popped up for Mass Effect, and I must say, this game is stunning. I already love the premise and the kind of game it's shaping up to be so the aesthetic pop is just icing on this cake.

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1...1173209605.jpg

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1...1173209607.jpg

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1...1173209606.jpg

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1...1173209604.jpg

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1...1173209608.jpg

If it can pull off visuals like that, and still maintain the scale it's promising then I'm gonna be pleasantly surprised.

The game looks amazing as hell, but I think it's going to suffer from the Star Ocean 3 effect. Rogue Galaxy also suffered from it. "Hey guys, you'll get to explore the galaxy" and then they give you like, a couple of planets to play with and the game ends in around 40 hours or so if you skip the extra content.

Still going to buy it, but I'm expecting the above... and bugs. KOTOR and Baldur's Gate come to mind. Heh. If anything though, the dialogue will be incredibly awesome. I have yet to play a Bioware game that didn't have awesome dialogue.

It's not the visuals I'm worried about it's the animation. It'd be a shame if someone as gorgeous as this animates horribly or kind of awkwardish. It's been Bioware's only fault IMO.

It's one of the games I'm most excited about, but like others, I'm also scared that it's going to turn out to be how Parn described it. I really hate when games claim that you have all this area/planet/galaaxy to explore then when you get the game, you're limited to 10 "planets" which are nothing more than a small area of the planet that you can explore and nothing else. No, I'm not expecting to explore the whole of each planet, but I don't want a 2 square mile area being called a planet either. It's misleading and leads to disappointment.

That said though, I'm really looking forward to this game and it looks amazing. I just hope it's more expansive than I think it will be.

Hopefully with graphics like that, the framerate doesn't drop too often.. The gameplay videos I watched looked a bit skippy in some sequences.

I thought Gears of War looked good but this absolutely wipes the floor with it; my God it looks gorgeous.

The new E3 Trailer has really got me hooked and waiting.

YouTube Video

I'd hope so. Bioware's console games tend to come out for PC. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking KOTOR, MDK2, and Jade Empire. KOTOR came to PC six months after XBOX release and Jade Empire took around a year, I believe. MDK2, I can't remember.

Now that I think about, those are the only games that Bioware has made for consoles insofar.

However, I think I might need a new graphics card. Jade Empire had some slowdown and low frame rates. I'm excited though.

Looks like somebody jumped in a bit early with a review 9.75 (Game Informer)

But it is uncomprehensive at best.

http://www.n4g.com/M/8/Images//74000/74437.jpg

Jesus, this review is so full of superlatives I can't take it seriously. I get that the author is enthusiastic, but I'm skeptical that Mass Effect is the destiny of media everywhere. The messiah of the new medium, to guide us all into a new golden age of interactive story telling! And so forth.

I'm planning on getting the game, but I'm pretty sure they promised huge things with Jade Empire too, specifically broader choices, and a more complex morality system. I also believe what we received was KOTOR set in China. I think that's kind of where I've set my expectations for Mass Effect.

Personally, ever hearing the E3 trailer I've been looking forward to the soundtrack. There aren't enough electronic-based soundtracks out today. Everything is going orchestra or big beat, to achieve that "huge" sound.

But as for game, yep, still hyped as hell.
Now that 360s have holiday bundles out that include Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance, I'm seriously thinking about making an Elite my Christmas present, and then just banking the money I end up getting.

Thoughts? Should I wait for better holiday deals, or go for the bundle?

I was able to nab this early from a nearby K-Mart and I've been playing it for the past few days. The game is really good overall, but I need to whine here.

The god damn framerates. What the hell were they thinking releasing the game in this state? Not only does the framerate hit well below 20FPS in a lot of battles making them detracting as hell but the game has massive load stuttering issues in cities, in battle and even in cutscenes where both the framerate and sound will stutter and cut out. It's a complete immersion breaker and it depresses me such a good game wasn't handled better in the technical department by the developers.

Canada gets in on the Mass Effect LCE fun [update] - Xbox 360 Fanboy

Canada actually gets LE, world explodes, etc.

You win this round Canada... THIS round. Is the limited edition worth a shit? Gonna have to read up on it admittedly, but yeah, trend of LE not really being worth a shit yadda yadda.

We tie this round, actually. Initially we weren't gonna get it at all, and then all the sudden it's like "hey you actually get it now". The only round we ever won was in the Forza 2 CE thing, since we got it, and Europe got it, but yankees missed out.

Why now? I'm not sure. Bioware bugged the publisher? Fan outcry? Misprint or mistake made originally? Fuck if I know.

Also LEs are rarely worth it if you don't get a hard on for extraneous bullshit. The extras here are a small "handbook" (for lack of a better word) that gives you a bit of detail on various species and other universe info. Think Oblivion's Guide to Tamriel included with that CE. There's a small artbook which is probably just like the one for Call of Duty and Gears of War, being tiny and although nice, too small and short to be of any redeeming value, and a bonus DVD with making of, trailer shit, some themes/gamerpics, and assorted bullshit of that nature.

Also comes in a much nicer box.

SOLD! -- I MEAN, WAIT!

In a lot of these games with fleshed out games, I really don't see the necessity at times for "guidebooks", especially when half the time the information on the world is staring you right in the fucking face.

I don't mean, like a guide or walkthrough or something, but a little bit of extra reading material about the history of a race, or it's place in the universe's lore. Stuff that's not often explained implicitly in the game proper. That's what I expect this handbook to be like, although I obviously can't confirm.

The guide book itself actually comes in two flavours. An LE, and a regular one. What the LE's got in it besides a hardcover is not something I know, though. Probably posters/interviews/maybe yet another art book ala the Gears of War guide or some other bonus like the Zelda TP hardcover books.

Also don't knock that. I bought FF12's LE because the tin was sexy. That's really it. I'm kinda weird though, so...

That's a healthy interest, young man. Don't be ashamed. Don't tell anyone either, but don't be ashamed!

Oh, and I had meant world reference materials. Sometimes if the world is massive I can understand having information on the world on hand, especially if you're just a fan and have a desire for it as you already pointed out. But sometimes its just superfluous stuff that really doesn't grant much insight beyond what you already know. I remember seeing the Mech Assault bonus material from a friend and just thinking how lame that "Developer" interview was. It was just a vague masturbation about how they like Battletech and it influenced Mech Assault.

So I bought it. Amazing stuff.

Only gripe would be the overall "grainy" effect of the whole thing. Do you need like HDMI of this game or something so that it looks a bit more "clearly"?

Cutscenes I don't horribly mind, really.

You can turn off the film grain in the graphics options. it's only an effect.

Some people say it helps the frame rate a bit if you disable the filters too. I don't really notice a huge difference with them on or off, though.

The only time I've had framerate problems really was when blowing up canisters/gasbags on Eden Prime, which caused the Husk robot things to explode too. Too much exploding at the same time.

My only complaint is that loading wasn't handled very gracefully in this game. Although it's minor, it's somewhat annoying to be running and freeze for the game to load the next area or something. I haven't tested if it is better when you turn off the music, though.

Been playing it for 6 hours and loving it, though I suck at the combat cause I fail at aiming and shooting...

I play a female Shepherd, and realised recently that she's voiced by Jennifer Hale. I love her work in this game and like to request an audio rip of her dialouge if possible.

Played roughly an hour and a half last night before going back to CoD4.

They're not really zombies. They're Husks, which are cybernetic creatures created by the Geth, in the shell of human bodies.

The moan. They shamble towards you. And they're reanimated humans.

Zombies.

I'm playing it right now, and I'm not sure Bioware RPG "Now with more: Like a Movie!" was worth my 60 bucks. I like the combat, though I'm admittedly not a huge fan of Bioware's stuff.

Their gameplay animations have always got on my nerves. And this is no acception. You watch beautiful cutscenes, and then when you go to snap to cover which is a pretty big part of the game he just slides up against it. They're nowhere near bad, just unbalanced.

The performance of the game however DOES bother me. Stuttering and textures popping in everywhere. Especially when starting a cinematic.

The game is great, but more variety in side quests and a bit more time under the polisher and this game could have been something that trancended time. Oh well, I'mm off to save the galaxy.

This game is very much more of the same from Bioware. I'm sure (as I've seen already), this isn't a bad thing to most players. I was expecting something of a different play structure as far as dialogue and quests go, but it's using the same Bioware template and I'm wondering when the KotoR esque PLOT TWIST is going to kick in. I will say that (barring the graphical glitches themselves), this is a beautiful looking game. Turn off the Film Filter and it kind of hurts the texture of the character model skin, making them look more like dolls. More importantly, this game demands an HDTV to be played on.

It's a lot more intricate though, with a lot of animation in the dialogue... like intimidating people by actually grabbing them or holding guns to their head. Very impressive. I'll admit it's just a refined KOTOR system, but uh.... hello? Most games do this same thing by just refining a engine they already created.

I'm not going to be overly critical on them for it. And at least they TRIED to make a new interesting battle system -- even if some of it is unbalanced and poorly done. It's still reasonably fun and isn't truly the focus of the game anyway.

If I didn't have issue with Bioware's RPGs, I wouldn't point out how it is more of the same with negative connotations behind it. And before I even go into this, how people feel about video games and "objectivity" are like oil and water. They don't mix, yet we try so hard. Watch me now.

The writing and, in turn, dialogue and story still suffer from bland exposition. It has come a long way in Mass Effect, but there are still old flaws in the wood work. And the fact things are more animated in this respect are just cosmetic enhancements that are layed over the wrinkled and tired old face of Bioware's writing.

Just because I can see Shepard pull a gun on someone during a threat, doesn't mean I wasn't applying imagination to the other games where I've threatened people in a dialogue tree. It isn't that I feel it shouldn't be there, it's that I feel it masks things that haven't changed that probably should have. Again, the writing and character development structure. We're still playing Good and Evil with "Neutral" jerking off in the background of blandness. I hate alignment in Bioware RPGs.

I hate their quests and I hate the fact that every time I do want to be "evil" or "not goody two shoes", the writing makes the player character come off as a little bitch or just an ass. Still, it isn't by any means a horrible game. I'm just not inclined to say it's that great either. I hate the fact that I can still say two things that contradict themselves and move along with people as if nothing happened.

See, that's the thing. I love the new combat system... and I have to spend a great chunk of time devoted to shitty quests that are similar to previous games like Jade Empire and Knights of the Old Republic. Not every quest is enjoyable, sometimes you're just running around fetching shit. Making the tedious "more animated" isn't exactly what I'd call a triumph of video game design.

I will preface this post by letting you all know that I am a gigantic fan of Knights of the Old Republic. Absolutely love it. So it should be no surprise what I am going to say next.

Mass Effect. Game of the year.

Now that I have that out of the way, I really enjoyed the combat system. I just completed a playthrough using the Soldier class, so I can say that on normal difficulty, shotgun is mad overpowered. I basically used an armor that gave a huge boost to Shield, and used modifications on my armor that further boosted shield, so once I figured that part out, I had no worries with running straight into combat and laying down the law with the shotty {or a well placed elbow when they got too close}. It also helped a great deal that I had a party of Soldier {pure combat}, a pure tech character, and a pure biotics character. I would sometimes try to run into the middle of things only to have three or four enemies AND random crates just go flying into the air because my biotics person would be using skills. Walk up towards an enemy filled platform and watch them all just sort of start floating around. It's hard for them to hurt you when they are flying through the air.

Now I'm going to have to do a playthrough with a different character class; maybe see how overpowered a biotic can be in the wrong hands.

I picked this game up along with my 360 so I'm having a blast so far. I even made a decent looking custom character which I'll start playing on my second run through.

Minor complaint: The game doesn't explain the controls clearly enough, and I had to actually look in the manual in order to find out how to do something or other.

Still an awesome game though.

Anyone else running into glitches where NPCs aren't showing up? I would like to speak to Major Kyle, but apparently the Biotics and myself are just imagining him.

((Edit: Nevermind, he exists, I just ended up having to choose violence over negotiation to get him to appear in the bunker.))

At first I LOVED this game. However, 30something hours in I'm starting to get annoyed. The texture loading is ridiculous and I'm encountering huge stuttering in almost every battle now.

Am I just not paying attention, or does the music not play too often unless you're in battle?

As for the alignment system... ugh. It's the same as KOTOR, just with Paragon and Renegade insteadd of Light Side and Dark Side. The writing could also use some work...

I am enjoying the game, despite any complaints I may have. I just don't think that it deserves the 9/10's it's been getting everywhere.

So, russ, care to give a more detailed explanation as to why this is game of the year for you?

I'm a little bit disappointed by this game. Graphical glitches & hiccups aside, it just pretty bland. Don't get me wrong, I'm 10 hours in, and it's fun. But the mixture of RPG and Shooter isn't executed well. The Shooter side is poor and the RPG side to seems a little too simplistic.

I think it would work a little better if you only had 2 side characters in the whole game instead of five. It's dumb now, because I was end up take the same to characters because 1 has full decryption and the other has full electronics, and you need those skills to open have the boxes and stuff in the game. The rest of the characters just fall to the waste side, and none of them seem to much of an impact in combat anyway.

And the uncharted worlds are all the same boring worlds that you just drive around on looking for resources, and all the buildings on them seem to have very simplistic and often times identical layouts.

The quests are fun to do, but they are were just as fun on previous Bioware games.

I think the game is fun, but mediocre.

With KOTOR I believe some of the problems you mention stemmed from having a silent protagonist. It didn't bother me, particularly, but not hearing a voice or the inflection with it can really hurt a character for the audience.

I only played an hour or two of Mass Effect at a friend's house, but I was struck by how much better I felt playing a strong lead.

The dialogue is still divided, yes, but I think it is closer to what you might expect someone in real life to say. And I think that is in part because they're using an original universe, instead of falling back on "light" and "dark." You can act as the mediator, or the "renegade," or the neutral guy who just wants to get to the point, but all of them clearly have motivations that go beyond the black and white of past games.

I'm going to assume when you say more of the same, you mean dialogue trees. It's disingenuous to say so, though. The exposition sticks to dialogue trees because that's how they can best design a game with predictable results. What you're ultimately asking for is a virtual world, which, until technology catches up with us, is kind of silly to expect from any developer. Much less Bioware. Making them the standard for failure in story interaction is kind of shortsighted.

How to Tell a Hard Landing, with Mass Effect (Magical Wasteland)

this articles shots down all the problems i had with game.

Graphics problems aside, planets were empty, with same enemy types, they should have different flora and fauna as promised.
Conversation system is nowhere near what was shown in trailers.

Tough decisions are few.
Game is short for RPG, did evrything in 16hrs.
Main story line only has 5 planets, wtf?

Not much creativity in planets either.
One is grass, one is lava, one is snow, its so old settings for game , since sonic games.
I mean look at ratchet on PS3.

Still i like it alot 8.5/10 , though not upto my expectations.

When you mix and match neutral statements with your alignment, I find that the statements are much more palatable. No, I'm not a fan of dialogue trees, but I would like to be clear that that's not my issue. Nor was the fact that dialogue was not spoken in previous Bioware efforts. To be honest, not much has changed if you choose to respond with entirely Paragon or entirely Renegade choices.

I do not like a majority of Bioware's main character dialogue, though I do admit that there is a level of improvement seen in Mass Effect.

I'm not asking for realism, so much as... here, let me use this as an example. Wrex's responses as a Renegade style character are great. Endearing, even. One of the most enjoyable characters in the game. Going into a straight Renegade path with the protagonist makes you sound like a gigantic asshole in contrast. This, of course, is solved by meshing neutral responses with Renegade responses to achieve the desired effect. However, there are still times where you run into painfully vanilla dialogue based on "Good" or "Evil."

This doesn't ruin the game, but story is a big part of the experience in Mass Effect and a lot of it is more of the same from Bioware. Which I'm just not fond of. A personal issue to be certain. If we're going to have polarized responses, I just wish they weren't so painful to deliver. I'm saying I find a bulk of the dialogue to be horrible.

I won't nitpick anything here but nobody did "everything" in 16 hours. Maybe by "everything", you mean "skipped the majority of side-quests" because otherwise, unless you chose to SKIP EVERY DIALOG WITH X, there is no way in hell you did that, since some of the conversations alone take up 10~15 minutes of your time.

It IS short though, as I did everything (55 sidequests I believe is the max, which i had when i counted my journal) and I beat the game in 37 or so hours; which is pretty short when you consider I did *everything*. The game was still fantastic, though. The ending events especially. I haven't actually LIKED the ending to a game in a long time, but I actually was quite fond of Mass Effect's.

No you didn't. Granted, you make up dumb shit all the time, so this isn't uncommon for you.

But I'll give you that it's painfully short. When you can accomplish a majority of it when you're TAKING YOUR TIME and walking around and getting almost everything done in 28 hours, there's a painful shortage of stuff for this kind of game.

My complaints about this title are numerous, but I feel like venting them would make me seem like I do not enjoy it, when in fact I do. It's just that there's so many problems with it even after all this time in the cooker, that you wonder if Bioware would EVER shape up and stop making the same mistakes every FUCKING TIME they make a game.

I enjoy playing the game, but the story seems a bit weak. They need to go a little more in depth. Also, as well as the fact that its a short game. It was very enjoyable to play. I want more...Bioware has made a habit of doing this for me, thanks assholes.

There is already 12 hr walkthorugh online, find it if you can for your own good.

I did the mainstory in 13hrs+3hrs for side missions.
In citadel you can use transit system to quick jump to areas, it kills the time alot.
I played as soldier, he is so badass that only few hits are needed for kills.
Saren was piece of cake too.
I used 4 medigels in whole game, maybe i am too good at thsi game.
Use wrex and liara, beef them up and it wont be trouble to complete it in 16 hrs.

There is no way you completed all of the side missions in 3 hours. That's just impossible.

Wait till speed demos will hit online.

I'm sure there will be tons of speed runs doing all the pointless sidequests and full planet exploration. [/sarcasm]

Just do everyone a favor and stop being a lying cunt.

Who cares about getting it done in less then 20 hours or whatever.
I'm going to leisurely finish at my own pace. Kinda takes the fun out of a new game to finish it so fast. Now if it was a much older game that was well-known, then I could see the appeal, but the game JUST came out. Sheesh.

Can someone please remove sexninja from the thread for being painfully stupid and purposefully disseminating false information. You can't finish all of the side quests in 3 hours, you spend more than three hours just waiting for the textures to pop in {:rimshot:}.

Yes, there are some problems with the game, such as the texture pops, and the buggy music that will randomly stop sometimes when you pause the game, and the cookie-cutter non-main quest locations {there is one layout for the underground base, one for the above ground base, one for the mineshaft, and one for the derelict ship, the only differences within each is the layout of the crates that are inside}. Yes, there are only seven story locations


But the gameplay is very fun. The voice acting, on average, is pretty good. I like the dialog trees, and I like the fact that you can handle any situation however you see fit. Go to rescue a diplomat held hostage? Talk the hostage taker down or kill everyone. You don't really seem to get a bonus for being 100% Paragon or 100% Renegade, so just handle each situation however you feel at the time, if you are so inclined {the only tangible things you get for going one way or the other is that once you reach 75% either way, you unlock ONE additional quest and an achievement}.

I love the visual style, when it is actually textured. I really like the overall universe that they have constructed. The music is amazingly good. I like all of the options I am given for weapon and armor modifications; I can optimize my equipment based on my style of play and character class. I liked the story and the various story locations.


I don't expect to use words to make someone who didn't like the game magically start liking it; my point is that for me, they did enough right that I really enjoyed the experience. I think my first playthrough was something like 32 or 35 hours, and I unlocked the Completionist achievement, so I did complete at least 75% of the game; to me that is a perfectly acceptable game length, not much shorter than Kotor I don't think. I just feel like the nitpicky flaws are just that: nitpicky; not game breaking. The closest to game breaking is the texture popping, which I wish that they would have required the hard drive, so they could have used some better caching to help remedy that problem.

Django! pointed out a positive quality about the side quests I feel worth noting. It was interesting how occasionally they chose to let the player attempt to piece things together. We both agreed, after he pointed it out, that the Rogue VI quest was surprisingly eerie at the end. The scene itself was haunting and left a lot to the imagination.

Bioware can do great characters and great quests, so it isn't like there isn't anything to enjoy in their games. sexninja seems to have a misconception about what exactly it is anyone can enjoy from a roleplaying game. I assure you, length might come into the equation, but it isn't a sole factor.

Wonder what the DLC they will include if at all, since they do have that option within the extras.

Just wondering what direction it will take since EA got their hands on Bioware.

Given that they planned this as a Trilogy from the start, EA's classic executive meddling will probably only be seen in the finalé.

Then again, hopefully EA will treat BioWare like they did for Maxis and leave it alone to do its own thing. HOPEFULLY.

Half of Bioware has been pulled off of their current projects and put on the DS version of the next Madden game.

Yea. But then again even without EA, I still see people complain about things within the game. Everyone can't be pleased unfortunately. :erm:

I think the partnership with EA would likely help Bioware out a bit, giving them some extra funding and maybe a little extra manpower to iron out the wrinkles that have plagued their otherwise great previous efforts.

EA isn't as bad a company as a lot of people make them out to be. Sure, they shovel out some garbage games (but who doesn't?) They also have quite a few AAA titles though. Someone mentioned Maxis. The Sims is still a great game, even despite all the expansions (don't the expansions just make The Sims better anyway?). I can't imagine EA would have BioWare rush their titles or make them any worse, at least.

Price fixing DLC content isn't just an EA issue either. Hell, look at Namco.

Dream DLC includes a new sidequest planet layout! NOW WITH LESS STUPID MOUNTAINS. Also, I would love to download a new pirate base layout. One that isn't identical to all the rest. Ah, that'd be nice.

Get on it boys, you can even charge for both seperately. I'll still buy it. Git, git.

One of the really motivating factors for me, honestly. The side quests usually range from simple back story for your character and blatant opportunities to gain a few XP, but occasionally they'll toss in some profound experiences. I understand that the entire game can't be emotionally significant, and I don't expect it to be. But simply knowing that I'll come across one on occassion keeps me going.

Examples:

Revenge.



VI Mission Part 2? Credit stealers.



SPACE.... MADNESS...

I'd like to add another to that list.

Rear Admiral Kohoku

Is it possible to switch the lead character like in KOTOR? When I try to unlock some safes and stuff, the game tells me that my skills are too low. One of my other characters has higher stats in that area, but I haven't figured out how to switch players.

Nope. But actually you use the highest skilled person when you do that anyway, since Shepard uses Tali's/Kaiden's/Garrus's/etc's skills when doing this. Especially obvious if you are a soldier and have no lock picking/hacking abilities whatsoever.

That's what I do, if I'm on some planet, standing next to a probe and its all "SKILLZ 2 LOW, YO", I just head back up to the ship and switch crewmembers, making sure to grab the guy / girl with all the tech stuff. "I HACK THIS BITCH LIKE THAT"

Anyone make a custom character yet? I'd like to see how good / bad the character creator can get. I'll post some screenshots later of mine if others are interested.

Mass Effect 2?
 

Has anyone else heard about a sequel to Mass Effect? I saw something on it and am not sure if it's a rumor or not... can anyone here help confirm anything on this for me?

Mass Effect is suppose to be a trilogy so yes there will be a mass effect 2 but we just don't know when or if bioware already started working on it...

Indeed, and this doesn't deserve it's own thread, so merged with the regular one.

I'm pretty sure Bioware's already stated that Mass Effect 2 is in the works. I'm more curious to see if they'll have Mass Effect 3 out before the 360's successor is announced/released (I'd say they will if they get Mass Effect 2 out before the end of 2009).

And then there's also that bit of info from a few weeks back about Bioware mulling over a Mass Effect DS.

I hope that ME2 or 3 is far enough away that Bioware learns how to actually, y'know, use the UE3 engine. Because this last outing was a fucking disaster.

Maybe they'll actually put in all the features they showed off in the pre-release videos for the first game this time too. Multiple conversation threads, being able to interupt people during lines, influence over your crew, full voice acting for almost everyone in the galaxy, switching between characters, using tactics to order about the AI and decent graphics throughout. It was all there in the trailers so they must have at least made a start on all those features, even though they were universally dropped from the finished game in a display of feature-lying that Lionhead Studios would be proud of.