Mass Effect

do i spend any time getting sent around the town square from person to person to bartender to woodcutter until finally the brothel keeper tells me to talk to old man terwilligers because he knows more about the history of the town than anyone, which of course means he knows where the woodelves are keeping their magic amethyst shinguards?

I don't know, I went back to playing WoW shortly after submitting myself to the taint.

KOTOR is awesome and you people are crazy.
Not a fan of ME tho'.

The innovation with mass effect 2 seems to be if you tire of old man terwilligers story you can throw him out the window, so it has that going for it

Looks like you can import your character from the last game in this one:

"I think we can actually extend that quite effectively to [Mass Effect 3], the key thing being that that save game concept will work in 3 as well where we can take the save games from one to two, two to three," Zeschuk said in response to a Kotaku Talk Radio caller.

"Even to the point where some of the decisions you made in 1 you'll see the result in 3," he continued. "It's actually interestingly impactful in that folks who have stuck with the franchise the entire time, there will be stuff that you will feel is yours that you've created in that third iteration."

As for the soon to be released Mass Effect 2, "it's definitely bigger than [the first Mass Effect], probably about one and a half times [the length], maybe a little more" Zeschuk said. In addition to being Emotionally Engaging, "There's a lot more you can do, a lot more you should do."

Assuming my save is still on my janky xbox, my last go through was with a crazy bitch character I made named Cruella who ended up killing everyone in the end. Hmmm.

ok playing this right now, oh early 360 graphics, u were real real shitty

never played mass effect but can I just say "asked to do sidequests while simultaneously told to save the universe immediately" always bothers me too. It's going on in Spirit Tracks right now and it kinda stresses me out, like why should I cart your sorry ass from place to place when the world is gonna end if I don't get back to the main quest?

my 2¢ - this conundrum has been around since the early day of rpgs. it never bothered me because as a scavenger player and sidequest do-er, i always prolonged the meat of a game to either level up my character and get better items or just get the most out of the game by going everywhere and doing everything. in final fantasy games for instance, i made sure i was prepared for boss battles by essentially prolonging them.

rarely is a sidequest so awful that it actually gets to me. the spirit tracks transport quests didn't get to me because i didn't want that game to end.. i have beat every sidequest and now i guess i should beat the game (i haven't played it in over a week even though i'm right at the ending). i guess i could say that there is a sense of accomplishment in doing all the extra stuff (and it kinda feels good)

but yes, i remember running my ass around some stupid places in mass effect and the lack of action was troubling. and even though there may be a good story and a somewhat original/highly-detailed universe, much of the dialog was boring and i couldn't care less. the worst parts of mass effect was when my dude was talking to everyone at each city and running back and forth there.. or just talking with my crew got old

in other news, I don't think I have ever finished a 'sandbox' game even though I've played the hell out of them

l-r: jimd, bnw, jimd & bnw's pals

irl lolz

you know Mass Effect is basically KOTOR with different characters, right

YES, AND HOW IS THIS A BAD THING?

It isn't! I loved KOTOR

a) mass effect rules
b) kotor rules
c) every1 h8ing itt can just fuck off and play mw2 u spermguzzling aids monkeys

only contracted aids after playing ME ;_;

i really like this game depsite kinda agreeing w/ u tbh - mb helps never replaying after my 1st time thru

U ALL HATE MASS EFFECT COS YOUR IMAGINATIONS DIED AND YOU KNOW IT!
i for one liked reading about the hydrogen-helium giants and trying to do kickflips w/ the tank on alien planet mountains and no i am not being sarcastic.

i'm starting to seriously come to grips with the fact that i am a simple, simple man
the new one looks too new fangled and WHERE'S ANYTHING FROM THE LAST GAME BTW?

important information for potential thieves!!!

http://paste2.org/p/631303

copy-paste these links into your browser and confirm them but probably best to do it sooner rather than later. for some reason microsoft have accidentally put up all the pre-order bonuses/DLC for free, so if you want them, they're yours.

i played mass effect for like ten hours and there was rlly not one interesting thing, plotwise. then i got a sex scene with an alien hooker as a subquest reward and went 'seriously' and stopped playing

i sort of liked the combat though

Bah, cozen's codes are already not working.

Can't believe they paid for a minute of commercial time at the two minute warning of the Vikings/Saints game for ME2. Must've cost a ton.

i've been revisiting KOTOR lately (because i'm really broke atm) in anticipation of ME2 and i would sort of agree with some of cozen's criticism if it was about that. still like both games though, even if i prefer to be able to pause the fights in KOTOR

Eurogamer 10/10
Gametrailers 9.7/10
Gamesradar 10/10
Gamespy 5/5
Destructoid 10/10
Gamepro 4.5/5
Team Xbox 10/10
1Up: A-

christ.

psyched

I was so excited abt this that i had a 2nd playthrough as a purely evil biotic character last week. Now i don't know which save to use.

Ah come on, you know you'll play ME2 more than once, so you'll get to try both.

yeah I have to buy this today even though I am still not through assassin's creed 2 ARGH

So this game basically starts out just like KOTR2

ass effect
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i298/drbo/Unff.png

no one playing this then or are you all too busy playing to post and if so how is it

Got this today and it's v good.

its pretty great. main criticism: classes/abilities too similar.

I played up to the first save point, I think. My friend beat it within three days of buying it, but he still has to play through it several more times before he will loan it to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQCf4303lKo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00YwSI2nF0k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwzoedQ_ZQ8

I got the scientist character to sing gilbert and sullivan last night, so I got that going for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj0iJtgHOCI

Ah yes here it is

okay, maybe i need to retry the first one.

kind of want to put Miranda on the ws of shame thread purely because of Yvonne Strahovski

I bought Mass Effect Part One the other day. Really digging it despite the shortcomings. One major gripe: I was forced to kill off one of the best characters in my team cuz my Charm and Intimidate skills were too low. Kinda makes me not want to import my character/storyline into the new one.

I am starting my second game of this =(

Upping the difficulty tho. Regular difficulty was a goddamn cakewalk.

kind of want to put Miranda on the ws of shame thread purely because of Yvonne Strahovski
― PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! (HI DERE), Monday, February 1, 2010 5:49 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i298/drbo/Unff.png

I just mentioned this over on the xbox thread but I'll say it again here because it's so fucking annoying - the tiny text! I'm seriously sitting about 3 feet away from the TV screen and I still can't read it! I don't have a HDTVUltraLtdClariView TV or anything like that, but it's a pretty big screen and I've never had problems reading any text in a game before on it. Weird.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/bioware-unable-to-address-me2-text-issue

(as it happen I bought myself a new telly this week, otherwise this would've been making me really angry too)

Yeah, just saw this too:

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/02/mass-effect-2-and-the-curse-of-the-tiny-text/

sigh.

http://i45.tinypic.com/1z65dgo.jpg

It's a little bit harder for me to read than this screenshot, but it's a pretty good example:

yeah, this is a big problem (RARE even patched in a big-text mode to banjo kazooie following complaints iirc); no fix for it other than jumping on the HD bandwagon : /

nitpicks: need more random/small encounters, I have found like 2 planets out of 50ish that have them. why does Bioware hate wandering monsters :( also would like more random objects/npcs thrown around in general.

I have an HDTV and still have a hard time reading it because my xbox is ONLY on component and doesn't have an HDMI port. Fucking tiny ass text!

Also I am not a fan of a lot of things in this game (more or less spoiler-less, but if you're really a stickler you might wanna skip it):

1. I liked the Mako, I will admit it. Getting rid of it I guess makes sense for all the whiners who hated it.), but replacing it with that mining shit? FUCK YOU BIOWARE. Seriously. You took a timesink that nonetheless brought me a little joy and replaced it with something that fills me with sorrow. Gone is that sense of isolation and wonder and floaty, lonely magic that was driving around on an insane future planet-- instead there is nothing now except a shitty animated Make Your Own Joy Division Album Cover mini"game".

2. I have to admit, even though the last game had a pretty terrible inventory system, I do miss actually getting new weapons and armor all of the time and trying them on and putting different armor on each of my dudes. Customizing my armor to look like Master Chief colors and have 1-2 outfits per teammate? Not my cup of tea. Where's my Heavy Armor - Turian, etc?

3. Why is it that the choices I don't actually give a SHIT about from the first game are the ones that are apparently the ones that do the most in the game, versus the "big" choices? Where's my Asari love child? Actually the whole romance subplot from the last game is pretty absent in any but the most superficial ways (so far as I can see, one awkward peck upon remeeting, and a tiny photo in the cabin of the ship). I guess I shouldn't care considering how stupid the romance subplot was in the last game anyway, but still. The whole choice-consequence thing feels almost as empty as it did in FABLE II, for fuck's sake (my least favourite game of this console generation).

4. Can we just call this game Star Ocean's Eleven? I don't know how I feel about this "make a crack team" as a central plot point thing. I think that building a team in any game is the part that's most awkward and irritating and appreciated that in the first game you had basically your WHOLE TEAM by the time you left the Citadel (one of the worst missions was the one where you got Liara). WELL NOW I GET THE LIARA MISSION TEN TIMES! TIMES TWO IF YOU COUNT THE "HELP" MISSIONS! I mean, shit.

5. I shouldn't have played an adept again.

Gonna stop now before this gets too "I just played Mass Effect 2 for over an HOUR" and earn my own best-of thread.

I didn't play the first Mass Effect, so although I'm annoyed by tiny text (although I've sorta adapted to it by sitting 2 inches away from the screen and losing my mind), I'm reaaaaally enjoying this on the whole. Particularly enjoyed the Omega/Afterlife missions, with the nice Bladerunner vibes.