Mass Effect

The free expansions are what really has helped keep it fresh. For a guy like me who doesn't really like shooting that much, all the different biotic power options are great. Co-op against computer enemies is my favorite kind of multiplayer. Wish they'd come up with something more mission based and less pure horde.

Bought this cheap on Sunday, blew my American Labor Day playing it. I enjoy it, but some of the combat is kinda bleah. Am playing as FemShep with the default character model as I like Jennifer Hale's voice better and I enjoy the idea of a galaxy-saving Commander as this cute green-eyed freckled redhead.

Kinda want to throttle who wrote the dialog as the expository stuff is so clunky and horrid while the more character-revealing interactions are far, far better. Was surprised that even a secondary character like Primarch Victus had a great performance.

Other things: nice that they still got the ass shot of Miranda in her brief appearances, and the Allers/Jessica Chobot character model has something deeply wrong with the construction of her face. This weird bulging cheeks/dead eye combo that makes her look like a Chucky doll.

Laughed at the fact that your initial dude sidekick is a full-on tatted-up fauxhawked MMA-type bro.

The Krogans are fun and I like their voice-work.

Glad that they brought Mordin back, as I think he's the best auxiliary character who has the highest contrast with the rest of the crew.

As buying the deluxe digital pack, you get a little robot dog mech that wanders around the hanger. It's name is "Kei-9", naturally.

The emotional vibe is so jarring to start the game and quickly slam into this intergalactic war. The characters sound so shell-shocked and war-weary that fast that my reaction was, "Dude, what are you talking about? Ive only been playing this game for two hours."

Download the mod that adds film grain; it's a nice touch that they took out for who knows why.

What branch of the military are these guys supposed to be, anyway? Can we assume in the post-solar Terran combined military that all branches combined into one thing, with mixed up titles? You're obviously in a navy with Admirals and are the "master & commander" of your ship, but "marine" and "soldier" are tossed around a lot.

These are the kinda things I somehow think about whilst gaming and drinking a good amount of beer.

i bought ME3 as it was on sale.
I now have all three volumes for 360
i have yet to play this at all. Maybe this holiday

You'll have a bit of a clunky start, as ME1 famously has some bits it took until the 2nd release to lock down.

also, at some point, the characters in the game are so great that it's like you only play missions just to increment the story so you can come back and talk to the characters again.

Anyone for multiplayer?

I still play the multiplayer some, but fyi I don't use headsets. polyphonique

lol remember when people got really mad over this game's ending

and then insane nerds crashed a poll of worst companies ever and got EA to beat out bank of america

in the middle of Mass Effect I now, as I continue playing all the games I bought on holiday sales a long time ago. This game seems great! I think we're gonna make it with an alien, (s)he's got a hot voice. about 15 hours in now, the combat is getting easy & rote, but there are surprises still: the thresher maw on some planet we explored, the geth colossus.

probably my fave game of the generation. (will confirm in like 2020 when we finally get to the x360/ps3/etc poll)

even tho it doesn't always deliver the film grain synthed out vibe is enough to make me love this game

The combat crackles and the worlds are lush, but mediocre writing and tepid quests add up to what is probably BioWare's worst RPG yet.

per eurogamer. not surprised at all. the bioware rpg model has imo aged v poorly esp since they abandoned isometric dnd RPGs which for me, even more than KOTORs, are the high mark of the company. speaking of which, has anyone tried the new Torment? it looks like it got decent reviews. i never finished pillars of eternity but now there's a sequel coming out for that too...

i played the trial, it's ok. the writing is indeed bad but no worse than the other games in the series. it's just running errands for aliens. if you are looking for a reasonably pleasant way to pass the time until death gathers you in her warm embrace then this will do

surely there are better ways to wait for death than yet another on-the-rails generic sci-fi rpg from bioware?

i admit i do prefer the bioware generic sci-fi series to their generic fantasy series. not like that's saying much for either.

i didn't say it was the best way, just an acceptable one

surely there are better ways to wait for death than yet another on-the-rails generic sci-fi rpg from bioware?

name one

witcher dlc?

okay name two

wait there's a new Torment game????

yeah kickstarted - https://torment.inxile-entertainment.com/

i'd much rather be on rails in space than left to my own devices surrounded by bombed-out americana. love, the guy who pans every bethesda game ever

(well, just the fallout and elder ones)

I really hope the critical success of Witcher 3 leads the other AAA RPG producers to consider writing for adults.

...and consider having a good voice director and completed dialogue before hiring voice talent. It's audible from playthroughs that each character's dialog in single conversations was recorded over multiple sessions, suggesting a lot of rewrites.

...and if Frostbite is that difficult to script facial animations for, perhaps Bioware should return to something they can work with.

witcher 3 is so anomalous in terms of its writing (and uniqueness of setting) that i imagine some of it is having rich source material to work from. i find that mass effect (or, ugh even worse, dragon age) are far more generic than even bethesda's fallout or elder scrolls games - esp if you expand the parameters to include Morrowind (which the studio deserves credit for) or Fallout 1 & 2 (which they do not). mass effect does relationships better, and the actual prose is probably better (tho this might just be cleaner prose i'm not sure that any of it is actually memorable or effective). none of them are comparable to witcher 3 and honestly it really exposed to me how bad AAA contemporary western RPGs are (esp these very open-world models, i think deus ex: mankind divided was - despite coasting on the mythos of the franchise - remarkably tight in terms of plotting and writing maybe bc of how short and somewhat on the rails it was, but we will discuss it more in coint + plick i'm sure).

Nothing prevents a game developer from licencing. There are comparable, "less generic" fantasy and science fiction worlds that would make great IPs. For example, Morecock's Brecht-inspired Elric saga (and Chaosium's tabletop RPG Stormbringer). Iain Bank's Culture series, etc.

The bigger issue is that there's only a handful of VG companies that can afford the entry fee into the AAA RPG domain. So Bioware has its generic fantasy and space opera series, as does Bethesda (Starfield will be the original sci-fi IP). Perhaps the hope resides in nations with lower development costs. Hey CD Project Red, you've heard of Stanislaw Lem, haven't you?

the important thing is that they've heard of cyberpunk 2020

the problem with shadowrun (which I've played and gm'd irl and find the same problems there) is that it's basically a generic fantasy game grafted onto a low quality Gibson urban setting. Consequently I've found all the recent vg releases to be pretty lackluster. Also the underlying mechanical system is totally broken and unbalanced.

Didn't (think to) find this thread till now, anyway, I'd been thinking that I made a mistake starting off as an Infiltrator since the sniper rifle is so hard to use... and then I maxed out sniping, and now it doesn't drift anymore! Nice! But I'm still not sure how useful it's going to be in typical combat situations (taking out Geth Destroyers when I'm surface-rambling).

The series has its faults, but balance between combat classes isn't one of them. Thinning the ranks from a distance works fine, you just won't need Garrus anymore. It's a good class for a more strategic player, who is willing to trade time for better odds. For fun, though, choices other than Vanguard are suboptimal.

It's a good class for a more strategic player

lol this is not me! I don't think I've actually used Garrus after I recruited him (it's been Tali/Liara partytime as much as possible for me).

Also the PS3 port's graphics are total butt compared to what I've seen of the XBox version.

the multiplayer in ME:3(?) was fun as hell. I didn't think it had any right to be, but it was.

Just found out that Thresher Maws are easier to kill on foot than in the Mako! Game-changer!

Oh man, so I made a BIG DECISION on one mission, and let's just say I can safely sell all my human heavy armor now. ;_;

the vibe and soundtrack in the first one are all-time, it's a shame they went down the orchestral bombast route in the other games.

gameplay aside, the film grain and synth jams were like all i had ever wanted out of a game when it first came out.

the vibe and soundtrack in the first one are all-time, it's a shame they went down the orchestral bombast route in the other games.

That's too bad, soundtrack is awesome.

I beat the game this weekend, and I did not expect to get so wrapped up in it! Obviously the parts where you decide who lives (RIP Council). Now to free up space on my HD to be able to download ME2.

Started playing and when I saw Tali on the first real mission I was like YAY getting the team back together! But then noooo, she wouldn't come with and then my entire team from the first game is scattered across the stars, and even though I only ever used T and L, the remoteness made me sad.

Am I right in thinking that Miranda is an indispensable if not OP member to have on your team? And that teaming her with Jack covers most enemy types?

And am I also right in thinking that "Mass" stands for "Miranda's ass"?

Am I right in thinking that Miranda is an indispensable if not OP member to have on your team?

None of them are indispensable in terms of gameplay, I think. Your choices really only affect the story.

Did the Shadow Broker missions last night, excepting for how long they were, hella fun, probably because I've gotten a hang of the combat mechanics now.

In the mission where you recruit Kelly, there's a room with a damaged Geth crawling on the ground -- I punched it dead right away, but then I thought it looked like a Quarian and I was really bothered by the possibility that I killed it.

Two ME games in, and there's yet to be a vehicle-confined mission/assignment that isn't painful. (Well OK, the Shadow Broker chase isn't too bad, since I don't have to shoot anything.)

I beat ME2 yesterday! But two of my squad died (because I didn't get the sub-team assignments right, everything else is set up for an "Everybody lives!" ending), so thankfully there's an autosave where I can restart the entire mission (I overwrote the one save file I have).

Like, what was I thinking putting a tank-born krogan in charge of a squad?

It might be rudimentary, but I really liked how the ME2 ending lets you choose different team members to lead different squads or perform a specialized task to create the sense of teamwork (beyond having your two AI squaddies shooting enemies). Hearing my tech specialist tell me that it's getting hot in the pipes definitely immersed me further.

Started into ME3, I finished the Priority: Tuchanka mission, and omg, Mordin! Right in the heart!

This installment feels like the most fully inhabited in that I actually enjoy the conversations with the characters. The dialogue is generally sharper (even if a lot of Shep's dialogue branches still have that bad habit of paraphrasing the preceding statement) and the characters have more concrete personalities.

Gameplay-wise, I don't enjoy the combat as much as I ended up liking ME2 (of course, that may just be the learning curve), but one thing for certain is that my left hand hurts from holding the L1 button down so much.

The War Asset mechanic thing seems promising in that decisions seem to be a little more consequential, specifically that some decisions invariably involve tradeoffs no matter your paragon/renegade level -- I'm thinking of the Salarian who wanted me to sabotage the genophage cure.

Oh noes I missed the Thane cameo permanently. :(