Unofficial Mass Effect Thread, Someone had to do it Options

[Zarrexaij]

I'm sure many of you have heard of Mass Effect, a hybrid action RPG by Bioware. It obviously also has many science fiction aspects, taking place in the future and space. You take on the role as Commander Shepard, and can costumize your character's appearance, gender, and class. On your missions you can have two people with you, and your squad eventually grows to be about six people max. It has recieved an overhwelmingly large amount of positive reviews, many close to near-perfect. In my opinion, it has one of the best storylines of any game to date, and an original one to boot. I'll be damned if it doesn't end up with oodles of awards.

I rented this and I'm hoping to get it for Christmas. It's one of my favorite games, below Half-life and Half-life 2 (and the various episodes). Its dialogue is amazing, and it's a damned pretty game.

If we're going to discuss Mass Effect, I'll ask anyone to post in this thread to follow a rule or two:

1. If you're going to post a spoiler, please mark it well.
2. This thread isn't here to discuss the infamous sex scenes inappropriately (you know "LULZ THAT SECKS SCENE WUZ AWSUM!") I know you're all most mature than that, but from what I've seen in other forums this needs to be posted.

That's pretty much it for now. If I think of new rules or this thread requires more, I'll add some.

[Lopov]

I played the 1st and the 2nd game, the third one had upon release a glitch that wouldn't allow you to import the main character from ME2. The issue was resolved fairly quickly but somehow I was already losing interested in between and so never finished the trilogy.

It's a good game with lots of dialogues and the story is interesting, characters as well. I liked the fact that you could choose accompanying characters for missions. Some choices that you make, are already significant in the 1st game, some in the 2nd but the majority of them should impact the events in ME3 if I understood correctly.

The dialogues in this game are really rich but also very long. I spent lots of real-life days in that first big city where you travel after the tutorial, I forgot the name already. But I was really awed by the sheer amount of dialogues.

[Renee]

The dialogues in this game are really rich but also very long. I spent lots of real-life days in that first big city where you travel after the tutorial, I forgot the name already. But I was really awed by the sheer amount of dialogues.

Yes, you've touched on something I've definitely noticed. There's a LOT of dialog and a LOT of little moments when it seems a choice is being made, even as Shep speaks to the very first people on the spaceship. 🚀

Comparing to Bethesda games, and looking back to those folks who'd say "Bioware does it better" I'd have to say that they certainly do offer more dialog, and more choices. But that's all. With Elder Scrolls and Fallout games there's always this feeling I get whenever I'm with someone new. Like I'm mostly getting to know my new character. And this happens through the choices which are made by which gear they pick up (A bow instead of a sword in OB's tutorial dungeon, for instance). Do they pick up the mortar & pestle, do they make that first stealth shot towards the goblin who's standing unaware, and so on.

But there's also a factor that isn't given by Bethesda themselves, which is imagination. As I'm spending time with whomever I'm with, I'm getting to know them, wondering why they've been imprisoned, wondering what their future goals are, and so on. None of that is given to us by the devs.

Even in Arena with those crude graphics and first-person-only perspective I get these feelings. I get the sense that I can do whatever my latest character wants in Beth games. Most of them ignore the main story, for instance. Never even touch it.

I get none of this from Mass Effect. I don't feel like I'm connecting with Amanda Sheppard at all, so far. She's more like a character in an interactive movie.

And I'm NOT saying this is a BAD thing. It's just the way Bioware rolls, apparently. Lots of dialog, lots of choices, the focus is on the story (and nothing else). More like Tomb Raider, actually. But see, that's why I'm playing ME. It's cool to play something different.