xkcd

by **thecommabandit** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:46 pm UTC

A few days ago I got sent an e-mail newsletter by Bioware (huh? I didn't sign up for this crap!) and discovered Mass Effect. No words to express how jaw-droppingly fantastical this thing is. A sci-fi RPG is a rare enough sight nowadays, but an epic military sci-fi with cool folding weapons, cool armour, fairly free-roaming exploration of a galaxy, lots of interesting aliens, almost totally customisable character (and story if what they are saying is correct) just blows my mind. I NEED this game. Is anyone else as blown away by it as I am? It looks set to be almost as caketastic as Portal (a difficult feat).

But alas, I do not have an Xbox 360. And I don't fancie paying a few hundred odd quid that I don't have for a console I only want to use one or two games on. I don't suppose it's possible (or that there are third-party programs that make it possible) to play a 360 game on XP, is it? That would truly be a godsend if there was some way. If not I just suppose I'll have to dream ...

(or maybe hijack a friend's if they'll let me)

by **Ketzerei** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 5:36 pm UTC

As far as I'm aware, it's quite impossible to play Xbox 360 games on the PC; for now, at least.

I agree, though, that it looks utterly fantastic. Hopefully they put the PC port of this on the KotOR schedule (4[?] months) rather than the Jade Empire one (a year).

by **Shabooty** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 6:13 pm UTC

Actually, Bioware said it most likely won't be coming to PC.

by **SoapyHobo** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 6:21 pm UTC

Since when has that meant they won't do it eventually anyway?

by **Ketzerei** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 7:42 pm UTC

Considering that every game Bioware has ever made - including those which were called "Xbox exclusives" at launch - has come to the PC, I'm not too doubtful about Mass Effect.

by **thecommabandit** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 9:16 pm UTC

Well that certainly alleviates my concerns somewhat. Not sure what you're talking about with KotOR though, wasn't that released for both at similar times? I heard some rumours about the alleged KotOR 3 being Xbox-only but no-one actually knows whether a third is being worked on, let alone what format it will (would) be on.

by **EdgarJPublius** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 9:27 pm UTC

thecommabandit wrote:A few days ago I got sent an e-mail newsletter by Bioware (huh? I didn't sign up for this crap!) and discovered Mass Effect. No words to express how jaw-droppingly fantastical this thing is. A sci-fi RPG is a rare enough sight nowadays, but an epic military sci-fi with cool folding weapons, cool armour, fairly free-roaming exploration of a galaxy, lots of interesting aliens, almost totally customisable character (and story if what they are saying is correct) just blows my mind. I NEED this game. Is anyone else as blown away by it as I am? It looks set to be almost as caketastic as Portal (a difficult feat).

But alas, I do not have an Xbox 360. And I don't fancie paying a few hundred odd quid that I don't have for a console I only want to use one or two games on. I don't suppose it's possible (or that there are third-party programs that make it possible) to play a 360 game on XP, is it? That would truly be a godsend if there was some way. If not I just suppose I'll have to dream ...

(or maybe hijack a friend's if they'll let me)

What rock have you been hiding under? Mass Effect has been hailed as the second coming for a very long time.

While it's not currently possible to play it on PC, You can join me in waiting out the PC version that is no doubt already in the works.

by **Amnesiasoft** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:32 am UTC

Shabooty wrote:Actually, Bioware said it most likely won't be coming to PC.

Like how Epic said Gears of War would not come to the PC?

by **Ghandi 2** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:51 am UTC

Bioware said that there were no plans for a PC version, but if there were one, it wouldn't be for a while (longer than it took for their other games). Which makes sense, since it'd probably be more work.

Yeah, it looks great. I'm excited. It's shorter than Bioware is claiming, but it's still a solid 25+ hours with all the side-quests.

by **Akula** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 7:07 am UTC

Is freaking awesome.

Basically, it's got the great role playing of previous BioWare titles like KoTOR and Jade Empire; this is combined with shooter game play very similar to Gears of War. Throw in a dash of open-endedness provided by a ton of side missions... sort of Elder Scrolls-ish. Also, the game looks absolutely amazing.

by **Akula** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:21 am UTC

Anyway, just beat it...

Spoiler:

by **thecommabandit** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:22 pm UTC

Not many people here seem interested in this game for some batshit-insane reason. I made a thread about it a week or so ago and only got a few replies. I don't actually have it myself (since I lack a 360 and the funds to buy one) but I still think it looks awesome.

by **Garm** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:51 pm UTC

This game is super sweet. I have yet to beat it as I continue to get distracted by CoD and my girlfriend.

I've really been enjoying it and am looking forward to playing through it as a different class on a harder difficulty mode.

Spoiler:

by **Larson** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 12:15 pm UTC

I picked it up last week, and it's fantastic. It has contributed to my social delinquency as of late.

by **dyzzy** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:05 pm UTC

I love it. It's nearly everything I wanted in an rpg. <3 Bioware

It's not without its handful of annoyances, though. It's fairly obvious they tried really hard to cram it all onto one disc, and the way that manifests in gameplay can be annoying. Your ship is cutting-edge technology developed through a joint-species effort and yet the elevator to the cargo hold is so slow you'd think they had some midget with a crank making it go.

Also, exploring planets get dull, and in a couple of instances, extremely frustrating. At one point I disembarked from the Mako, fell into a crater and promptly discovered there was no way out, save a gentle inflection which Sheperd couldn't climb. Hooray for loading the auto-save!

And words cannot express my hatred of the inventory system. Congratulations! You've just hacked into this locker/autolooted some baddies/opened a box! Look at these fabulous new items you got! Oh, wait. You've gone over the inventory limit. Well, we did sort of warn you, didn't we? And you were too busy "fighting evil robot armies" to go through everything and reduce things into useless goop? Too bad. You can't take these items, EVER! Converted into gel faster than you can say "butcan'tIjustswapoutsomeofmyreallyoldcrap?"

All that aside, it's fun! Can't wait to unlock the harder difficulties.

by **Ghandi 2** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 9:30 am UTC

You forgot Baldur's Gate 2.

It's amazing, and I love it despite its flaws. If ME2 is as big of a jump as BG to BG2, I might die.

by **grythyttan** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 1:01 pm UTC

It's a great game, and yes some things are annoying. (like the elevator). I really like that the dialogue doesn't make you twitch from bad acting or somehting. I mean it's not great, but it's defenitely ok.

The things that sort of upset me most is the stealing, borrowing, copying, drawing insiration from or whatever.

Spoiler:

It's not that annoying, it just makes me wonder what else has been copied from somewhere else.

by **Ghandi 2** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:15 pm UTC

The Protheans could be seen as an amalgam of the Ancients from Stargate SG-1 and the Forerunner from Halo; the Forerunner and Prothean architecture even bear some resemblences.

I haven't beaten the game yet, so I probably shouldn't have read that spoiler about the Rachni, but anyway: the things you mentioned are faily standard sci-fi concepts, and if they changed the plot/universe it would only have been comparable to something else. The world of sci-fi has been so explored that it's impossible to make something that is 100% original. This is true for any other genre, but even more so for sci-fi, which requires certain concepts as a definition or else it would not be sci-fi. It has to take place in the future, and there are really only a few possible futures: techno-paradise, dystopian techno-paradise, apacalyptic wasteland, some tech but not all that much has changed, or some combination of the four. It's what you do within those frameworks that make it great.

The general idea of the Geth was not new to BSG, either--robots rising up against their masters is as old as the idea of robots themselves (or any other of mankind's creations). But anything that has ever been done has its roots in an old concept, and you can either enjoy the interesting things they do with it or compare it to things in the past.

by **Shabooty** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:53 pm UTC

Wrex has so many good one-liners.

by **william** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:12 am UTC

Ghandi 2 wrote:It has to take place in the future

Um, you mentioned Stargate SG-1 in your post.

by **Elijah** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:17 am UTC

As soon as a PC version comes out (here's to hoping!), I'll be all over it. I'm not a big console person myself, and this seems like something I would much rather play with a keyboard and mouse.

by **Ghandi 2** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 9:06 am UTC

william wrote:
Ghandi 2 wrote:It has to take place in the future

Um, you mentioned Stargate SG-1 in your post.

Fine, pretty much. The point still remains, though.

by **Phentos** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 7:14 pm UTC

Definitely a premier game; my only complaint is how all the glitches I've encountered were complete game-killers.

1) Parked the mako, went inside a compound, kicked some ass; came out, mako launches into air and lands on top of the compound.. which cannot be reached. Load auto-save thirty minutes earlier, gained a valuable lesson - park in the ass end of the lot.

2) Got into an elevator, saved, quit. Loaded save, and found the elevator sealed off, not moving. Hit the activate elevator button to enter a loading screen that never ends. Load auto-save one minute ealier, discovered myself in exactly the same situation. Nine point five hours lost in a pair of elevator oblivions; gained a valuable lesson - don't save in elevators, suicide a more direct solution.

I hope I'm not alone in enjoying the thrills that follows having a "Thresher Worm" (giant underground Dune-like things on explorable planets?) either: A, eat oneself whilst nonchalantly proceeding along or B, launch oneself along a minimally sensical path into the atmosphere in a warthog-from-halo-esque manner?

by **CorporalClegg** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 8:08 pm UTC

I just beat it the other day... twice...
It's definitely a lot like KOTOR, in gameplay and it's ability to suck your soul out for a week straight until you finally beat it.

Also, stupidest gaming moment for me ever: I didn't realize the Mako had a cannon until I had beat the game. I just thought the vehicle parts of the game were ridiculously hard...

by **Endless Mike** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 8:12 pm UTC

CorporalClegg wrote:Also, stupidest gaming moment for me ever: I didn't realize the Mako had a cannon until I had beat the game. I just thought the vehicle parts of the game were ridiculously hard...

Haha, really? Some of my biggest "duh" moments so far have been me trying to fight some dudes, only to remember I can just run them over with my truck and shoot them with the big cannon.

To be fair, the game just kind of drops you in the middle of things and says "have fun."

by **dyzzy** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 8:17 pm UTC

CorporalClegg wrote:Also, stupidest gaming moment for me ever: I didn't realize the Mako had a cannon until I had beat the game. I just thought the vehicle parts of the game were ridiculously hard...

I feel so sorry for you... what difficulty were you playing on? Did you have fun fighting Geth Colossi?

Also, the Geth clearly have no clue how to defend against enemies that attempt to run into you. Can't count how many times I've killed armatures/colossi by just hitting them and blasting them to pieces as they got up. And the troopers are a joke.

by **grythyttan** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 8:25 pm UTC

CorporalClegg wrote:Also, stupidest gaming moment for me ever: I didn't realize the Mako had a cannon until I had beat the game. I just thought the vehicle parts of the game were ridiculously hard...

I had almost the same problem, only that I didn't find the tech/biotic stuff until I was on feros. Don't really know how I could have missed that button though.

by **CorporalClegg** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:41 am UTC

dyzzy wrote:
CorporalClegg wrote:Also, stupidest gaming moment for me ever: I didn't realize the Mako had a cannon until I had beat the game. I just thought the vehicle parts of the game were ridiculously hard...

I feel so sorry for you... what difficulty were you playing on? Did you have fun fighting Geth Colossi?

It was my first playthrough, so it was on normal I think. I was scared enough of the armatures, so the first time I had to fight a Colossus I nearly crapped myself and just ran away.

They could have included more of a tutorial I think, 'cus I didn't understand a lot of the game until I was half done with it. Still effing brilliant though.

by **TemperedMartensite** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:07 am UTC

Soooo good. I loved this game. I mean, really, Bioware - who are actually only a 5 minute drive from my house - make amazing games. While the game did have a few technical issues, these never became a real issue for me. I mean, the texture pop-in was annoying, but other than that the game was just so beautiful with such a surreal sound experience that I know I will be playing it again as soon as finals are over!

Spoiler:

by **dyzzy** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:32 pm UTC

Yeah, I think a fully fleshed out tutorial would have helped immensely. It doesn't help that they give you a couple of pointers in the beginning, and basically leave you on your own once you hit the Citadel. I think the last hint I got was on how to use the Mass Transit system. Gee, thanks. Now, how about some tips on the galaxy map? Or the Mako? My first playthrough, I completely missed the fact that you could find asteroids in the belts of clusters that had them.

by **Phentos** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:41 pm UTC

dyzzy wrote:My first playthrough, I completely missed the fact that you could find asteroids in the belts of clusters that had them.

WHAT? AHH

by **Endless Mike** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:51 pm UTC

Yeah, I found that one out completely on accident. I was moving the cursor from one planet to another and a box popped up. I was like wtf.

by **Phentos** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:58 pm UTC

Endless Mike wrote:Yeah, I found that one out completely on accident. I was moving the cursor from one planet to another and a box popped up. I was like wtf.

It blew my mind to discover orbiting moons could be selected.

by **Endless Mike** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:38 pm UTC

Phentos wrote:
Endless Mike wrote:Yeah, I found that one out completely on accident. I was moving the cursor from one planet to another and a box popped up. I was like wtf.

It blew my mind to discover orbiting moons could be selected.

Going to Earth's moon to blow up robots and seeing the Earth in the sky is one of my favorite moments of the game so far.

by **segmentation fault** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:15 pm UTC

thecommabandit wrote:Not many people here seem interested in this game for some batshit-insane reason. I made a thread about it a week or so ago and only got a few replies. I don't actually have it myself (since I lack a 360 and the funds to buy one) but I still think it looks awesome.

well the thing is that people would rather do some mindless combat than actually role play. so while the game is all "hey you can shoot things", everyone who likes that sort of stuff is all "Gee Willikers wtf role playing?"

by **Endless Mike** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:29 pm UTC

Well, the thing is, it kind of fails to appeal to both groups. Most Bioware fans I've talked to haven't liked the combat system, and just want the "click things and watch things happen" KOTOR system that I couldn't stand. Shooter fans just want to shoot things, not spend an hour running around talking to people every so often, and as a shooter, it's not *that* great. Me, I like it, since command-based RPGs have REALLY started to bore me to death, and I'm just not much of a straight 3D shooter fan.

by **Garm** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 11:04 pm UTC

That's some interesting criticism Endless Mike. I hadn't read any thing like that but I can totally see what you're saying. I dunno tho'. I <3 Mass Effect. It's awesome. I just beat it last night and am looking forward to playing through again. I enjoyed the shooting and I enjoyed the roleplaying aspect. I can't wait to play through as a renegade. Apparently I took the renegade ending tho' so I think I need to play through to get the paragon one. Le sigh.

Spoiler:

by **Umlaut** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 12:18 am UTC

I'm playing through a second time now, and this game is awesome.

Must... run... GURPS... Space... ADVENTURE!

by **Amnesiasoft** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 3:22 am UTC

Ghandi 2 wrote:It's shorter than Bioware is claiming

That's true of every single game I've ever played.

by **Akula** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:58 am UTC

Umlaut wrote:I'm playing through a second time now, and this game is awesome.

Must... run... GURPS... Space... ADVENTURE!

I don't know about you, but I've developed a sincere hatred for those scythe claw fuckers.

Either way... exploring is still fun, because the Mako is probably one of the funnest vehicles you will ever drive in a game.

Mmm minerals... gotta survey 'em all!

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