PC game similar to Mass Effect

[dmoney1980]

Hello programs!

I just finished Dead Space, and I'm looking for something a little different. I loved the Mass Effect games, anything you could recommend? I never played Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, and I see it's $10 on Steam. I know it's an older game so let me know if you have a recommendation for something newer. I never played Dragons Age either

 

[mmntech]

I highly recommend picking up Knights of the Old Republic. When people say it's the best Star Wars game, they're not kidding. KotOR 2 is a little under appreciated but I found it very enjoyable. It's more character driven than the first.

If you're in the mood of action RPGs, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are worth it.

 

[dmoney1980]

I highly recommend picking up Knights of the Old Republic. When people say it's the best Star Wars game, they're not kidding. KotOR 2 is a little under appreciated but I found it very enjoyable. It's more character driven than the first.

If you're in the mood of action RPGs, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are worth it.

I will give it a shot! I don't see the sequel on Steam though

 

[NoSoup4You]

Both Dragon Age and more recently Dragon Age 2 draw heavily from Mass Effect for their story-telling elements. DA2 especially with the fully voiced main character.

You might also enjoy Resident Evil 5 or Assassins Creed 2. Both are 3rd person games with plenty of action, AC2 has a strong story while RE5 has a fantastic levelling up system (weapons...etc.).

 

[uli2000]

I enjoyed Jade Empire. It was a Bioware game made for Xbox 1 and the port was meh, but decent story.

 

[dmoney1980]

thanks for the info! I plan on getting the KotoR and Dragon Age

 

[DaveSimmons]

KotOR I and II are both excellent, but be aware that the combat is not skill-based shooting like in ME 1-2 or Fallout New Vegas.

It's based on the Dungeons and Dragons rule set, where the character stats, equipment plus luck (dice rolled by the computer) determine whether an attack succeeds and how much damage it does.

You just sit back and watch the combat, pausing to give orders to use powers or special attacks.

 

[GundamW]

The Witcher, Deus Ex, Oblivion, Borderlands, Bioshock.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

from the games i've played, deus ex was prolly the closest to mass effect.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Any Bioware, Black Isle Studios, Troika (former Fallout team from Black Isle) or Obsidian Entertainment (Black Isle Reborn) will give you an RPG that is highly enjoyable. To give you a hint, Mass Effect, while awesome, was one of the more mediocre games by Bioware standards ;-)

 

[frozentundra123456]

KOTOR 1 especially, and KOTOR 2 (somewhat incomplete ending) for sure are good choices.

If EA really wants to support PC gaming, they should make KOTOR 3 to finish up the story though. Too bad they turned the franchise into an MMO.

Borderlands was also a lot of fun, and had co-op and online play. It is less "serious" than KOTOR or Mass Effect though. Not so much character development, just over the top shooter type action with roleplaying elements.

 

[Gheris]

Another vote for KOTOR 1 and 2. KOTOR 1 was fantastic, and 2 was good as well. The only issue I had with 2 was the WTF ending.

 

[dmoney1980]

I picked up KOTOR1 and Dragon Age yesterday off Steam. I'm having serious issues w/ KOTOR crashing and mouse / KB problems - my character gets stuck in place after every battle! No matter what I click he just stands in place, I can move the camera around but thats it, tried WASD same thing. I saved, logged off and back in and was able to move. Then I get into the escape pod at the begining of the game and the whole thing crashes. I gave up on it last night, started playing DA, awesome game so far.

I will look around for KOTOR fixes this week though since I liked the gameplay

thanks again for the feedback

 

[Keeper]

I enjoyed Jade Empire. It was a Bioware game made for Xbox 1 and the port was meh, but decent story.

Hmmm.... I loved KOTOR 1. Like KOTOR 2 Got TIRED in Dragon Age and LOVED Mass Effect 1. Liked the Witcher.. Never finished it.

I bought Jade Empire. You are making me think I missed something.
(And you have made me want to replay Witcher)
I didnt see ANY "likeness" to Kotor 1/2 and ME1.

If I rememebr correctly was there an INSANE LONG tutorial?
I havent touched a PC game since Dragon Age and I miss PC gaming (i got an Xbox and enjoying that totally).

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'm having serious issues w/ KOTOR crashing and mouse / KB problems - my character gets stuck in place after every battle! No matter what I click he just stands in place,

I've had the freeze-after-combat problem with KOTOR under XP and Vista, with both nvidia and ATI/AMD graphics cards. Sometimes waiting a few seconds, going to the inventory screen or switching weapons fixed it. If there's a real fix out there I'd love to hear about it.

It's usually enough to just save and re-load, without exiting the game.

Also watch out when leveling up that you get the right amount of skill points to spend: sometimes, especially after playing for awhile, the level up screen shows all stats as the default 8 and doesn't give you your bonus. For that, save, exit game, restart, reload.

 

[dmoney1980]

I've had the freeze-after-combat problem with KOTOR under XP and Vista, with both nvidia and ATI/AMD graphics cards. Sometimes waiting a few seconds, going to the inventory screen or switching weapons fixed it. If there's a real fix out there I'd love to hear about it.

It's usually enough to just save and re-load, without exiting the game.

Also watch out when leveling up that you get the right amount of skill points to spend: sometimes, especially after playing for awhile, the level up screen shows all stats as the default 8 and doesn't give you your bonus. For that, save, exit game, restart, reload.

Sounds like a big PIA just to play the game. What's crazy is that the game's been out for years now and it's still buggy out of the box! I purchased the game through Steam which distributes the latest and greatest ver with all patches. I'm really suprised that it's this buggy

 

[DaveSimmons]

It's still worth it. Also, it doesn't freeze after every combat: it does that in bursts, then will go for long stretches with no freezes.

Each character will only gain 18-20 levels during the game so that bug won't affect much gameplay.

Meanwhile, you get good visuals, decent voice acting, fun combat and a great story. Dealing with the bugs is just the price you pay for playing one of the top 5 western RPGs.


Edit: d'oh, now I'm tempted to reinstall it again. I really wish the new KOTOR wasn't an MMO, or was out now even as an MMO. Hunger for lightsaber . . . rising!

 

[Red Hawk]

If you enjoy the extensive dialogue and control over the main character's actions, I would recommend Alpha Protocol. It eclipses Mass Effect in terms of how many choices you can make and how they affect the game. Be warned, though -- being an Obsidian Entertainment game, there are a number of technical issues. Also, it's a bit more on the hardcore RPG side than Mass Effect 1 was, while still being a real-time third person shooter. (Inventory management is FAR better than Mass Effect 1's was, I must say)

 

[GundamW]

.... I'm having serious issues w/ KOTOR crashing and mouse / KB problems - my character gets stuck in place after every battle! No matter what I click he just stands in place, I can move the camera around but thats it, tried WASD same thing. I saved, logged off and back in and was able to move. Then I get into the escape pod at the begining of the game and the whole thing crashes....

That's strange.
I don't remember having these issues when I was playing it a year or two ago.
Granted it was a retail copy and I was on a AMD Opteron 165, NVidia 6800GT, XP.

Since it's a pretty old game, I wonder if multi-core CPU is causing the problem.

What's your spec look like?

 

[dmoney1980]

That's strange.
I don't remember having these issues when I was playing it a year or two ago.
Granted it was a retail copy and I was on a AMD Opteron 165, NVidia 6800GT, XP.

Since it's a pretty old game, I wonder if multi-core CPU is causing the problem.

What's your spec look like?

I'm on Win7 x64, with a core i7 920, Radeon 4830, 6 GB RAM. All drivers updated, no OC's. The combat thing is weird, everything works fine, I get into a battle, I kill the enemies and then I'm stuck in place. Game isn't frozen, the character can rotate along with the camera but I cannot move with the WASD keys or the mouse

 

[DaveSimmons]

What happens is the game fails to leave combat mode -- in combat mode the game moves the characters instead of you, you can only issue orders for targeting, powers and item use.

It's supposed to leave combat mode a few seconds after the last enemy is gone, but it has always failed to do that for me sometimes, on several systems. I'm fairly certain it's a bug in the game code and not something caused by the OS, graphics driver, etc.

 

[dmoney1980]

It's still worth it. Also, it doesn't freeze after every combat: it does that in bursts, then will go for long stretches with no freezes.

Each character will only gain 18-20 levels during the game so that bug won't affect much gameplay.

Meanwhile, you get good visuals, decent voice acting, fun combat and a great story. Dealing with the bugs is just the price you pay for playing one of the top 5 western RPGs.


Edit: d'oh, now I'm tempted to reinstall it again. I really wish the new KOTOR wasn't an MMO, or was out now even as an MMO. Hunger for lightsaber . . . rising!

I definitely want to play the game but I need to get these issues worked out. A lot of people here mention it as an all time great and possibly the best SW franchise game ever. Plus I paid only 10 bucks for it so what's there to lose!

 

[dmoney1980]

What happens is the game fails to leave combat mode -- in combat mode the game moves the characters instead of you, you can only issue orders for targeting, powers and item use.

It's supposed to leave combat mode a few seconds after the last enemy is gone, but it has always failed to do that for me sometimes, on several systems. I'm fairly certain it's a bug in the game code and not something caused by the OS, graphics driver, etc.

no keystroke override to get out of combat mode ?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Nope. You make me fire up google though, and I found this suggestion:

> "I solved my problem with the freezing after combat by checking "v-sync". Think it's in the graphic options. For some reason, it always worked on my games, and every time it was unchecked, I had the freezing issue. "

 

[dmoney1980]

Nope. You make me fire up google though, and I found this suggestion:

> "I solved my problem with the freezing after combat by checking "v-sync". Think it's in the graphic options. For some reason, it always worked on my games, and every time it was unchecked, I had the freezing issue. "

Interesting, thanks for the heads up. I will try that tonight