[360] Mass Effect

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Colonel Skills

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Forsety

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.

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.

Quote:

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.

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.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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.))

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Originally Posted by Skexis

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.

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.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

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.

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