- Jun 30, 2003
- 31,537
- 9,891
- 136
Overall, I was very happy with Mass Effect. Easily worth the $20 it costs if you haven't played it already.
Play Time: About 16 hours on "normal" , ignoring most/all side quests.
Mass Effect plays more as an action RPG than the typical D&D style. My biggest gripe with the entire game is that the equivalent of a pause button only pauses as long as you hold the key in. In NWN and Baldur's Gate, pressing the space bar once pauses the game until you press the space bar again. In Mass Effect, you have to *hold* the space bar. WTF Bioware? That's just retarded. Yes, it's little, but why make pausing harder than it needs to be? I understand the game is more action than RPG, but if you're going to implement a pause function, do it the right way.
Now, for the non-ranty stuff:
Plot - The storyline is solid. Interesting, good driving force and motivation to make you want to play the game, and even explore what party members have to say. There are plenty of opportunities to shift your alignment between good and evil ("Paragon" and "Renegade"). I think they may have spelled the plot out a little too much towards the end, but I don't think it really hurt the intrigue at all.
Party - Party members are interesting and useful. I actually cared about them once I had my leet party setup. Me, a badass guy named Wrex, and Tali. We kicked major ass. I usually chatted up my teammates during the "action" parts of the game, as opposed to when you are free to roam about on the ship (which is where the meat of party interaction occurs). Next time, I'll definitely talk to them more, because that's how you get party member side quests.
Combat - fast, furious, and fun. I played an "adept", the Mass Effect equivalent of a spellcaster. It was tons of fun leading a charge into enemy lines, and my guy was pretty badass at the end, despite the fact that he merely had a pistol (spell buffs made me tougher than normal). Every once in a while though, I would get totally clocked by a melee-oriented monster. Usually ended up with a good laugh seeing my body fly
Coordinating party members, I thought, was generally worthless. I found it best to leave them on "rally" and let the AI take care of making party members fight. I had a tough time making them do precisely what I wanted, so rather than get frustrated trying to be anal retentive, I just let the AI handle it. Overall, the AI does a good job of attacking, defending, and moving about. There were only a few cases where my party got stuck, which happens for all party-based RPG's.
Skills - the skill system was initially not intuitive, but once I figured it out with the "ahhhhh, so *that's* how it works!" moment of zen, everything made sense. You need X ranks in some skills to unlock secondary skills. For example, I might need 5 points in the "barrier" spell before I could unlock the "stasis" spell. It's not that the skill system doesn't make sense - it's just that the layout can be initially confusing.
Skills are incredibly useful, and I can't say there were any pointless ones. You can't get them all (this isn't Pokemon), so you do need to spend points wisely (or make the character you want, anyway).
Upgrades/Loot - there are a crapload of them. Make no mistake, some are worth keeping, but you will have so many you won't know what to do with them. Sell items frequently, otherwise your inventory will become overloaded (150 items max). Weapon and armor upgrades are incredibly useful and often made the difference between a dead (or close to it) party and one that chewed through enemies left and right. There are a lot of interesting upgrades with pros/cons to each, so it's worth mixing them up and testing them all out.
Just as a note for weapons, there can be both "weapon" and "ammo" upgrade slots. "Weapon" and "ammo" upgrades are separate, so if you're wondering why you don't see certain mods listed, it's probably because they're in a different list.
Cliffs for the lazy:
------The implementation of pause is retarded.
-----Good plot - kept me interested and had plenty of choice.
------Combat is fast and fun, but you can pause if you need to think for a second.
------Party members are interesting and worthwhile. You may just end up caring about them!
------Skill system works well, though its setup doesn't quite make sense at first. Easily overcome, though.
------Plenty of items and upgrades to beef up your characters.
Overall score: 85-90/100. Not a perfect game, but for the RPG lover, Mass Effect is an excellent addition to your library. FPS players looking for something a little different may also want to check the game out because it's so action-oriented and not the standard D&D game.
Mass Effect gets a Fenixgoon stamp of approval :thumbsup:
Play Time: About 16 hours on "normal" , ignoring most/all side quests.
Mass Effect plays more as an action RPG than the typical D&D style. My biggest gripe with the entire game is that the equivalent of a pause button only pauses as long as you hold the key in. In NWN and Baldur's Gate, pressing the space bar once pauses the game until you press the space bar again. In Mass Effect, you have to *hold* the space bar. WTF Bioware? That's just retarded. Yes, it's little, but why make pausing harder than it needs to be? I understand the game is more action than RPG, but if you're going to implement a pause function, do it the right way.
Now, for the non-ranty stuff:
Plot - The storyline is solid. Interesting, good driving force and motivation to make you want to play the game, and even explore what party members have to say. There are plenty of opportunities to shift your alignment between good and evil ("Paragon" and "Renegade"). I think they may have spelled the plot out a little too much towards the end, but I don't think it really hurt the intrigue at all.
Party - Party members are interesting and useful. I actually cared about them once I had my leet party setup. Me, a badass guy named Wrex, and Tali. We kicked major ass. I usually chatted up my teammates during the "action" parts of the game, as opposed to when you are free to roam about on the ship (which is where the meat of party interaction occurs). Next time, I'll definitely talk to them more, because that's how you get party member side quests.
Combat - fast, furious, and fun. I played an "adept", the Mass Effect equivalent of a spellcaster. It was tons of fun leading a charge into enemy lines, and my guy was pretty badass at the end, despite the fact that he merely had a pistol (spell buffs made me tougher than normal). Every once in a while though, I would get totally clocked by a melee-oriented monster. Usually ended up with a good laugh seeing my body fly
Coordinating party members, I thought, was generally worthless. I found it best to leave them on "rally" and let the AI take care of making party members fight. I had a tough time making them do precisely what I wanted, so rather than get frustrated trying to be anal retentive, I just let the AI handle it. Overall, the AI does a good job of attacking, defending, and moving about. There were only a few cases where my party got stuck, which happens for all party-based RPG's.
Skills - the skill system was initially not intuitive, but once I figured it out with the "ahhhhh, so *that's* how it works!" moment of zen, everything made sense. You need X ranks in some skills to unlock secondary skills. For example, I might need 5 points in the "barrier" spell before I could unlock the "stasis" spell. It's not that the skill system doesn't make sense - it's just that the layout can be initially confusing.
Skills are incredibly useful, and I can't say there were any pointless ones. You can't get them all (this isn't Pokemon), so you do need to spend points wisely (or make the character you want, anyway).
Upgrades/Loot - there are a crapload of them. Make no mistake, some are worth keeping, but you will have so many you won't know what to do with them. Sell items frequently, otherwise your inventory will become overloaded (150 items max). Weapon and armor upgrades are incredibly useful and often made the difference between a dead (or close to it) party and one that chewed through enemies left and right. There are a lot of interesting upgrades with pros/cons to each, so it's worth mixing them up and testing them all out.
Just as a note for weapons, there can be both "weapon" and "ammo" upgrade slots. "Weapon" and "ammo" upgrades are separate, so if you're wondering why you don't see certain mods listed, it's probably because they're in a different list.
Cliffs for the lazy:
------The implementation of pause is retarded.
-----Good plot - kept me interested and had plenty of choice.
------Combat is fast and fun, but you can pause if you need to think for a second.
------Party members are interesting and worthwhile. You may just end up caring about them!
------Skill system works well, though its setup doesn't quite make sense at first. Easily overcome, though.
------Plenty of items and upgrades to beef up your characters.
Overall score: 85-90/100. Not a perfect game, but for the RPG lover, Mass Effect is an excellent addition to your library. FPS players looking for something a little different may also want to check the game out because it's so action-oriented and not the standard D&D game.
Mass Effect gets a Fenixgoon stamp of approval :thumbsup:
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