cronicler
Lurksalot
First of all, don't make the mistake of thinking this game has any Good-Evil choices. We spoiled dinosaurs are used to being able to play in different styles like; An intelligent Paladin, A robinhood, A Never be damned enough bastard smuggler, a drifter, a barely controlled psycho... Think of the 9 aligment boxes of D&D; we are used to be able to play the whole thousand faces in there.
The Mass Effect on the other hand gives you 2 choices: You can be a goody good (no not paladin, a paladin has to think and has to be evil to achieve good now and then) toy soldier and a self serving, card carrying KKK anti-alien variant member, good guy. Your responses to main story dialogues do not effect the outcome. they only define what kind of good guy you are.
The combat was actually not bad (aside from having to tell your sidekicks go and take cover there; don't you there moving from behind that cover you idiot, every 5 meters or so). The tactical interface/pause thingie (when hotkeyed to ctrl) was handy and easy to use.
The gear sucked. Your +1 dmg rifle at the start, your +339 dmg rifle at the end. Same for the generic weapon upgrade idiot thingies. This is a regular item you can put 1 attachment (+bullet variant) to it; this is a rare item you can put 2 thingies (+bullet variant) to it... I don't know what happened to regular M-4s with "lightened stock", "high capacity box magazine", "reflex sight", "flash suppressor" and "underbarrel tactical flashlight" modifications...
Skills... to solve some quests in optimal way you need X persuasion or Y electronics now and then. Other than that (and since i was playing an infiltrator, a.k.a. rogue (pistol/sniper/electronics/Decryption) i could get anything i wanted out of boxes etc.) the noncombat skills were largely irrelevant.
The npcs: Their skills were generic and Ai was a bit dumb fire-magnet. However every character was unique and delivered a unique look to the game-world you were in. Personally I used Ashley with either Kira or Wrex. Ash+Wrex was pure fun with a grimly funny comment from one after a grimly funny comment from the other. It was nice to hear their comments.
As it was noted before the background music you heard faintly now and then was a huge mood builder.
The elevators or more precisely the news reports were nice. i just wished they had used plain old loading screens. That way it would have been much more faster on Pc. As it stands you have to wait for the random quote / conversation to end before continuing.
The weapon seller on mormandy: If they had said, Commandant Shepard we can only get you xx class basic gear from the official channels, but we can grant you faster / easier access to private arms dealers and get them to open up their cutting edge/experimental designs. This is your basic budget. And if the supply officer gave the illusion that he was actually getting the guns from suppliers by using tooth-nail combo; it would have been great. As it is in the game; bleh....
Mako: or how not to make filler content this boring. The filler content is where you will spend at least 60 percent of your time if you want to get all the non-idiot/non-jrpg side quests done. Horrible vehicle controls, planets with worse designs than... This is frightening I am having hard time finding/remembering worse designed maps than these...
Sadly the main story planets coupled with the side quests on the galactic resort hotel... i mean on the Citadel and the Moon mission nets you 100% on game envirolments and things to do. Everything else in the game is a repeat of the things you have seen. including the outpost designs and colour of the goddamn shipping containers.... (Edit: Sorry i forgot that you need to play a space vessel boarding mission to see every thing on top of these)
Each background has a specific quest tailored with links to it. This could have been a nice sub-story but like all the other potential good story hooks this was not used except for 1 colourless quest.
The game has a ton of reading material. If you like learning about the world you are in you will probably poke your nose into everything you see to get a few more entries to your journal. (Still sometimes i was on the verge of; Wtb a public library to read about the word ffs! why the hell do i have to speak with someone about elder "in tutorial" to trigger its entry? i am hunting after elder race relics and being mind-raped by the said relics the whole game.)
The Planets:
The Human Colony (Reinforce the defenders/save colonists/run after bad guy and foil his plans)
The Citadel (Sidequests and Interlude 1)
Therum (The hunt for Scientist's daughter / save the daughter in question from harm)
Noveria (Face the mad scientist / make her see her mistakes and suicide)
Virmire (T.E.H Moral Choice! / T.E.H. other moral choice / The definite proof that there was a good writer with a decent story somewhere in there before the story was dumbed down with nerf-bats)
Citadel (Interlude)
Ilos (When everything fails the mega Indy+Mcgyver man will rise to save the day)
Citadel (OMG Story twist that you weren't guessing from the first time you heard Kaiden comment about citadel mini mass relay statues)
Despite my post reading like a pure "bashy! bashy!" post, the game's main story, as i said in the beginning, is entertaining and you can loose yourself in the world now and then. Despite the cliche-cliche-cliche chain, the game manages to deliver it somewhat (microwave heated) fresh and acceptable experience. A nice 6-8 hour game with 10-12 hours of more gameplay to get a 100% character.
Edit: On the oh so important sex scenes: you get to see (I'm not sure if that species is hermaphrodite or sexless...)
a) Your character kiss a blue face, then their arms together rising with a suggestive "ahh"
b1) Ashley's unclothed bottom, from behind for about 3 seconds. Again with a suggestive "ohh" afterward.
b2) Liara's unclothed blue bottom, from behind for about 3 seconds. Again with a suggestive "uhh" afterward.
This whole episode reminded me the first time there was an implied sex scene in a comic book. In the shot before the last you see Nick Furry with his beloved in a 60's chaste but close embrace. In the last box you see Fury's shoulder holster hung on the dinner chairs back. I don't know about you but personally i feel such an implied expression is both satisfying and enough. If one wants to see any real or computerized/simulated action there are tons of movies and 3-D games to satisfy those needs.
The Mass Effect on the other hand gives you 2 choices: You can be a goody good (no not paladin, a paladin has to think and has to be evil to achieve good now and then) toy soldier and a self serving, card carrying KKK anti-alien variant member, good guy. Your responses to main story dialogues do not effect the outcome. they only define what kind of good guy you are.
The combat was actually not bad (aside from having to tell your sidekicks go and take cover there; don't you there moving from behind that cover you idiot, every 5 meters or so). The tactical interface/pause thingie (when hotkeyed to ctrl) was handy and easy to use.
The gear sucked. Your +1 dmg rifle at the start, your +339 dmg rifle at the end. Same for the generic weapon upgrade idiot thingies. This is a regular item you can put 1 attachment (+bullet variant) to it; this is a rare item you can put 2 thingies (+bullet variant) to it... I don't know what happened to regular M-4s with "lightened stock", "high capacity box magazine", "reflex sight", "flash suppressor" and "underbarrel tactical flashlight" modifications...
Skills... to solve some quests in optimal way you need X persuasion or Y electronics now and then. Other than that (and since i was playing an infiltrator, a.k.a. rogue (pistol/sniper/electronics/Decryption) i could get anything i wanted out of boxes etc.) the noncombat skills were largely irrelevant.
The npcs: Their skills were generic and Ai was a bit dumb fire-magnet. However every character was unique and delivered a unique look to the game-world you were in. Personally I used Ashley with either Kira or Wrex. Ash+Wrex was pure fun with a grimly funny comment from one after a grimly funny comment from the other. It was nice to hear their comments.
As it was noted before the background music you heard faintly now and then was a huge mood builder.
The elevators or more precisely the news reports were nice. i just wished they had used plain old loading screens. That way it would have been much more faster on Pc. As it stands you have to wait for the random quote / conversation to end before continuing.
The weapon seller on mormandy: If they had said, Commandant Shepard we can only get you xx class basic gear from the official channels, but we can grant you faster / easier access to private arms dealers and get them to open up their cutting edge/experimental designs. This is your basic budget. And if the supply officer gave the illusion that he was actually getting the guns from suppliers by using tooth-nail combo; it would have been great. As it is in the game; bleh....
Mako: or how not to make filler content this boring. The filler content is where you will spend at least 60 percent of your time if you want to get all the non-idiot/non-jrpg side quests done. Horrible vehicle controls, planets with worse designs than... This is frightening I am having hard time finding/remembering worse designed maps than these...
Sadly the main story planets coupled with the side quests on the galactic resort hotel... i mean on the Citadel and the Moon mission nets you 100% on game envirolments and things to do. Everything else in the game is a repeat of the things you have seen. including the outpost designs and colour of the goddamn shipping containers.... (Edit: Sorry i forgot that you need to play a space vessel boarding mission to see every thing on top of these)
Each background has a specific quest tailored with links to it. This could have been a nice sub-story but like all the other potential good story hooks this was not used except for 1 colourless quest.
The game has a ton of reading material. If you like learning about the world you are in you will probably poke your nose into everything you see to get a few more entries to your journal. (Still sometimes i was on the verge of; Wtb a public library to read about the word ffs! why the hell do i have to speak with someone about elder "in tutorial" to trigger its entry? i am hunting after elder race relics and being mind-raped by the said relics the whole game.)
The Planets:
The Human Colony (Reinforce the defenders/save colonists/run after bad guy and foil his plans)
The Citadel (Sidequests and Interlude 1)
Therum (The hunt for Scientist's daughter / save the daughter in question from harm)
Noveria (Face the mad scientist / make her see her mistakes and suicide)
Virmire (T.E.H Moral Choice! / T.E.H. other moral choice / The definite proof that there was a good writer with a decent story somewhere in there before the story was dumbed down with nerf-bats)
Citadel (Interlude)
Ilos (When everything fails the mega Indy+Mcgyver man will rise to save the day)
Citadel (OMG Story twist that you weren't guessing from the first time you heard Kaiden comment about citadel mini mass relay statues)
Despite my post reading like a pure "bashy! bashy!" post, the game's main story, as i said in the beginning, is entertaining and you can loose yourself in the world now and then. Despite the cliche-cliche-cliche chain, the game manages to deliver it somewhat (microwave heated) fresh and acceptable experience. A nice 6-8 hour game with 10-12 hours of more gameplay to get a 100% character.
Edit: On the oh so important sex scenes: you get to see (I'm not sure if that species is hermaphrodite or sexless...)
a) Your character kiss a blue face, then their arms together rising with a suggestive "ahh"
b1) Ashley's unclothed bottom, from behind for about 3 seconds. Again with a suggestive "ohh" afterward.
b2) Liara's unclothed blue bottom, from behind for about 3 seconds. Again with a suggestive "uhh" afterward.
This whole episode reminded me the first time there was an implied sex scene in a comic book. In the shot before the last you see Nick Furry with his beloved in a 60's chaste but close embrace. In the last box you see Fury's shoulder holster hung on the dinner chairs back. I don't know about you but personally i feel such an implied expression is both satisfying and enough. If one wants to see any real or computerized/simulated action there are tons of movies and 3-D games to satisfy those needs.