Mass Effect for PC is...

eh...if it's anything like KOTOR, that goes to the top of my DO NOT PLAY list...unfortunate, I was looking forward to it too for a sci-fi fix.
 
fedaykin said:
What angers me most is the fucking dialogues. Cosmetic and meaningless choices galore. It's like they were actually trying to create the illusion of choice, hoping the console kiddies wouldn't notice when two or three seemingly different choices lead to one simple "yes/no" reply. The given choices are usually different from what the character actually says when you click them. Sometimes you end up really surprised when your character says something completely different from what the line you chose seemed to imply. How much more retarded can it get???
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Worst part about the game for me. Not only do you not know what you're going to say, but the intonation of each phrase is often a bit ambiguous. I'm also bothered by the mercantile and inventory menus, as well as the fact that (unless I'm mistaken) you can't jump from, say, inventory to stats page with one click; you have to close one to then open the other. The pathfinding and cover systems for the NPCs also sucks. For all the good cover does, you NPCs just don't seem very interested in it, even if you direct them to be practically inside of a wall.

I really enjoy it, though. It's a good looking game (with a few hiccups, such as the ugly shadows, though that can be turned off easily), the dialog is decent (especially when your character says what you want him to say :eyeroll:), and the gameplay generally comes together as a very fun third person action rpg. (Thus far, about four and a half hours in.)
 
Ah, and then there's this little bit of hand-holding: your party members are immortal. If they "die" in a battle, they stay dead for the duration of that battle (possibly you can revive them during battle by using some skill, dunno, never tried :P). But after the battle they just get up like nothing happened. You don't even have to do anything to revive them. So you never form an attachment to the NPCs. You just don't care if they get killed, because you know they're going to wake up from their little nap after the battle. There are no penalties whatsoever for not protecting your squad members.
 
But after the battle they just get up like nothing happened. You don't even have to do anything to revive them.
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JRPG at its best!
And people wonder why every reviews mentions that Dogmeat can die and not revive in Fallout 3.
It's because players don't know any better!

I do however doubt that Dogmeat will actually be so... umm.. mortal in the final version. We wouldn't want to hurt the poor little players by having their dog die on them, do we?
 
fedaykin said:
Ah, and then there's this little bit of hand-holding: your party members are immortal. If they "die" in a battle, they stay dead for the duration of that battle (possibly you can revive them during battle by using some skill, dunno, never tried :P). But after the battle they just get up like nothing happened. You don't even have to do anything to revive them. So you never form an attachment to the NPCs. You just don't care if they get killed, because you know they're going to wake up from their little nap after the battle. There are no penalties whatsoever for not protecting your squad members.
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That is one of the most important experiences to be had in Fallout. I can't recall how many times I've gotten that terrible feeling in my stomach of "Oh my God, Dogmeat/Cassidy/et cetera just died". It's a great, terrible feeling. Something substantial has happened, the game world is different now. I don't think I'm ever going to get that feeling in this game.
 
I think someone mentioned in one of the newspost comments that Dogmeat is suprisingly resistant to enemy fire, but it could have been for demo purposes. I would not be surprised, though, if it's going to be like that in the final game.
 
conflictingideas said:
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
I'm currently juggling ash/liara and wondering if there is going to be a human vs alien bitch-deathmatch sometime in the future.
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you only get to bag one of them before the end :|
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Actually I've heard that you can on both via a careful selection of responses to their dialogs... Buuuut, I always went for Ash since I am a romantic at heart... How could you live the rest of your life with Liara if she would outlive you 10 fold?

Now the Qurrian on the other hand... Once you got past killing her due to your evil germ covered body... You might have a decent few moments together -Then move onto the others...

Did I just say that?
 
I like it. I can put up with a bit of the shortcomings, because I know it's going to rule in a short time.

I like story driven games and it's quite a bit grittier than Beyond Good and Evil (the previous game which didn't grab my attention). The combat is pretty reminiscent of the first Deus Ex with all the auto target crap.

Graphics are great even on my aging GPU, had to manually futz with the cfg to eliminate the distance effects, was ruining the far off lights and shadows pretty severely. Looked like I was playing Doom again...

Sounds and voiceovers are very well done, character creation fucking rocks.

The inventory is the worst part of the game, but when you compare it to what else could be wrong, inventory layout is pretty low on the list of important things to me.

Also Liara smashing the shit out of the Geth disabled by Tali is the funnest thing in the world.
 
fedaykin said:
Ah, and then there's this little bit of hand-holding: your party members are immortal. If they "die" in a battle, they stay dead for the duration of that battle (possibly you can revive them during battle by using some skill, dunno, never tried :P). But after the battle they just get up like nothing happened. You don't even have to do anything to revive them.
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They can be revived by 'Unity', a skill which you get about an hour and a half in.

fed said:
So you never form an attachment to the NPCs. You just don't care if they get killed, because you know they're going to wake up from their little nap after the battle. There are no penalties whatsoever for not protecting your squad members.
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I really don't see how this translates into whether or not you care about the NPCs. Adding a penalty for squad deaths with this level of AI would be ridiculous, and add absolutely nothing to gameplay. Just another artificial hurdle that you'd have to jump before you could have fun.

Oh, and don't worry, if you're actually playing the game.. you'll get to make a big decision sooner or later. Which affects exactly what you think it does.




Sidenote: KOTOR did NPCs exactly the same; and you're saying you didn't like any of them? :wtf:
 
Please clarify this:
Adding a penalty for squad deaths with this level of AI would be ridiculous, and add absolutely nothing to gameplay. Just another artificial hurdle that you'd have to jump before you could have fun.
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Fallout's AI wasn't that intelligent either...So NPC deaths in Fallout were "just another artificial hurdle ... before you could have fun"? Sounds like you simply don't like difficult games.

I don't think ME should have permanent deaths, because friendly AI is indeed a little too dumb. Just some kind of penalty. I don't see why you think this does not translate to whether the player cares about the NPCs. The possibility of losing (temporarily or permanently) an NPC is a large part of forming an attachment with those characters. And it's not like ME's NPCs have anything particularly interesting to tell, except maybe the flirting with the two females, which also might not be of interest to every player. There's not much reason for keeping them around. Personally, I would have liked to tackle every mission on my own.

I tried KOTOR once a long time ago. I uninstalled it within hours, because I didn't like being railroaded so much. Other than that, not a very memorable game.

By the way, has anyone tried the dialog option for refusing an NPC permission to join the party in ME? Does it actually work or is it just another illusion?
 
It's not only that the NPCs are dumb, but the game is often too hard for them, I feel. You're often put in a situation where you have little cover and are swarmed by enemy, and your guys just seem to look blankly, and it would seem that they are meant to die so that the game is harder for you.

Fedaykin, I've not tried denying an NPC into my party, but I'll try to remember to quicksave before I meet Liara. Iirc, it was completely possible in KoTOR (though this may actually only prove true for Juhani.)
 
fedaykin said:
By the way, has anyone tried the dialog option for refusing an NPC permission to join the party in ME? Does it actually work or is it just another illusion?
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Nope, you can try but they wind up using the whole "You won't save the universe without me" argument and you begrudgingly accept it.
 
fedaykin said:
Fallout's AI wasn't that intelligent either...So NPC deaths in Fallout were "just another artificial hurdle ... before you could have fun"? Sounds like you simply don't like difficult games.
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*yawn*

Please read my previous posts in this thread before posting crap that makes you look like a tool.


Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
- Too easy. This is my first playthrough (Veteran/Shock Trooper), and it really isn't challenging. Sure Spectres are supposed to be badass, but you can run headlong into pretty much every enemy and demolish them without taking a scratch... and for the ones you can't (colossus/armature), you can just circle-strafe and again kill them effortlessly. This takes me out of the experience.
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Your comparison is terrible as well. In Fallout you aren't forced to babysit the NPCs, bringing them is completely optional. If you think that tacking on a penalty every time some stupid-fucking meatbag AI who never obeys the "HOLD" command runs out of cover to give a husk an electric hug is a good idea and adds to the immersion, I pray you never get a job in the industry.

fed said:
I don't think ME should have permanent deaths, because friendly AI is indeed a little too dumb. Just some kind of penalty. I don't see why you think this does not translate to whether the player cares about the NPCs. The possibility of losing (temporarily or permanently) an NPC is a large part of forming an attachment with those characters. And it's not like ME's NPCs have anything particularly interesting to tell, except maybe the flirting with the two females, which also might not be of interest to every player. There's not much reason for keeping them around. Personally, I would have liked to tackle every mission on my own.
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You're sending a rather confused message here. Let me see if I understand this correctly...

You don't give a shit how good the voice acting/animation/personalities on the NPCs are conveyed... as long as they can die? I'd hate to have that quirk, since pretty much every RPG has unkillable characters there to flesh out the story.


I'm starting to doubt that you've played this game at all (Possibly a 5 minute session at a friend's house?). All of the information you've provided (much of it inaccurate) seems to be from outdated 360 reviews.
 
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
I'm starting to doubt that you've played this game at all (Possibly a 5 minute session at a friend's house?). All of the information you've provided (much of it inaccurate) seems to be from outdated 360 reviews.
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What? I'm close to finishing the PC version. Please point out what bits of information that I've provided are inaccurate.

I would've liked a bit more challenge from the game. AND better AI. I'm surprised you think it's too easy, yet you attempt to rationalize some of the hand-holding that's causing this. I think, though, that immortal NPCs are among the less important issues in ME.

As for the voice acting, animation, art of the characters - these are, obviously, important. But they are a part of it. Another part is what they actually have to say and what their role is. And another part is their mortality. I've found the latter two aspects somewhat lacking. The only reason I've been talking to them regularly is to see if they have any quests to give.

Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
In Fallout you aren't forced to babysit the NPCs, bringing them is completely optional.
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Indeed. And I would like it also to be optional in ME. Instead, we have this bit of lulz:
generalissimofurioso said:
fedaykin said:
By the way, has anyone tried the dialog option for refusing an NPC permission to join the party in ME? Does it actually work or is it just another illusion?
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Nope, you can try but they wind up using the whole "You won't save the universe without me" argument and you begrudgingly accept it.
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All of that said, I did point out in my first post in this thread that I think it's decent as a third person shooter. Some of the RPG elements have holes in them, however.
 
THIS IS AN IMPORTANT MASS EFFECT TIP:

When the reporter approaches you in the citadel, choose the dialog option "Time for you to shut up!" Shit had me dying.
 
Agrees that NPC need to die. In this game, you'd be alone pretty early in the game if that was the case but it would be way more engaging, at least for me. Making immortal NPC's makes no damn sense anyway.

Keep battles more tactical and have some sort of Gears of War type revival ability with the time limit and such.
 
maximaz said:
Keep battles more tactical and have some sort of Gears of War type revival ability with the time limit and such.
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I think the problem is that the battles aren't tactical in the slightest. Taking cover is never necessary (even on hardcore, can't speak for insane yet), and the assault rifle is hands-down the best weapon for every situation. The only time you actually need the NPCs is when you're getting rushed by krogans, and need another Lift/Singularity to juggle them.

As for the resurrection: There was a time limit in Gears of War for resurrecting someone?

I've played through it on coop twice (hardcore & insane) never noticed a time limit showing up when the other player was incapacitated. I was under the impression that as long as they weren't gibbed, you could revive them.
 
got this and started it a few days ago.

cons:
• combat is decent but could have been a whole lot better
• too many weapons and just normal increments - i would have loved fewer weapons with trade-off strengths and weaknesses.
• enemies lack a certain menace (prolly because of autolevelling)

pros:
• good story and apparently surprisingly good side quests
• great presentation
• proper sci-fi
• nice NPC stories so far - hope they'll flesh out till the end.
• the return of text narration (especially with side quests - there are some instances where everything is written which is nice)
• pretty and well designed enviroments


i like it :) quite a lot - its not a proper RPG but it was a nice surprise
 
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