So I finally got around to playing Mass Effect for the PC. I finished it. It was amazing, simply amazing. I can't explain how amazing it was. I was torn between hope and despair for hours on end before the nerve-shattering final showdown. And what a showdown it was!

Now I have contracted a severe case of Awesomitis. Symptoms include restlessness, eye dehydration following incapability to blink, hyperventilation, balance and coordination problems as well as a tendency to jump up and down in one spot while explaining to your (mostly) indifferent relatives how awesome this game is.

I'll wait for responses a while before collapsing on my bed. Hopefully I will have regained the ability to stand up come morning.

I really liked the writing, animations, art direction and camera angels; they all created a most entertaining cinematic gaming experience.

Yeah, Mass Effect was an incredible game, pretty much the reason I got an Xbox 360. Can't wait for the sequel! And I know where you're coming from, man - I described the story to my mom, and she just nodded and was like "that's nice", heheh

Really? I thought it was really, really bland. There was a lot of back story and effort put into the universe, which I liked, but nothing could make up for emotionless characters and samey worlds. Glad you liked it though.

Yeah, the last hour or two of Mass Effect is probably one of the best climaxes in video game history.

The other thing that REALLY impressed me with Mass Effect was how well they handled explaining how their universe worked. They didn't give bullshit explanations like, "well the Starships jump through space after sucking up a power called Black Hole residue". They actually had some real scientific understanding when they explained their universe which, being an engineer, drew me into their universe greatly. I've often been turned off by certain movies and such because they will blatantly ignore the laws of physics.

I completely and totally agree with the thread creator and I experianced the exact same emotions when I finished the game.

Now I am thinking of playing it through again (it would be the fifth time for me).

I loved it.

Some criticisms, though...

All the driving? Really goddamn boring. Really just a way to take a few short fights and make them take half an hour.

The enemy AI is awful. All they do is stand still or rush you.

-- Alex

Yeah, cool game.

They could have made that little space battle at the end better though. Whatever happened to those awesome space combat manoeuvres and weapons I read about in the codex? Each ship looked like they were flinging flaming garbage at each other from catapults or something.

Mass Effect is one of the few games that has been able to hold my attention for multiple consecutive playthroughs-- I played that game all the way through three times, and loved each one.

i got to the citadel agian after all the stuff starts going down and then my 360 screws up i still havent finished it and am realy pissed

I actually hated Mass Effect until I read the book Mass Effect: Revelations. Having a bit more back story to really start me off gave me a reason to explore every bit of Mass Effect, started to find the combat pretty impressive for an rpg (far from a good shooter). Played up til 1000 points and plan to do it again (started a new profile to consolidate my gaming). My only real beef was with sidequests and enviroments that are not main story. Repetitive and aside a few details mostly are bland and dull. Wish more had the content or intensity of Wrex and Garrus' side quests.

Loved it. I'm just sad Wrex had to die *I was unable to save him and I was forced to kill him*.

I have to say though, I did feel that the Biotics were a little over powered... did anyone ell's notice this?

Usige Beatha:
I have to say though, I did feel that the Biotics were a little over powered... did anyone ell's notice this?

I think they're poorly balanced but not necessarily overpowered. Sometimes biotics end a fight immediately. Sometimes, due to range or slow recharge or whatever, they're worthless.

I think the biggest mistake was including all that junk that totally immobilizes you (like, err, Singularity?). It's not very tactical. A much heavier focus on counters and limited disruption (like the weapon-overheating ability) would've made the gameplay itself a lot more fun, in my opinion.

-- Alex

No question that Mass Effect was pretty hardcore. (Although some people had a hard time getting a hang of the combat system - there was a little learning curve there.) I played the X-Box 360 version, I'll probably shell out for the PC version if I have the cash.

The really encouraging thing about Mass Effect is knowing they plan to make a trilogy out of it. Two more games coming down the pipe in which you can import your character from the start, along with consequences of their actions from previous installments.

Necromancist:
Now I have contracted a severe case of Awesomitis. Symptoms include restlessness, eye dehydration following incapability to blink, hyperventilation, balance and coordination problems as well as a tendency to jump up and down in one spot while explaining to your (mostly) indifferent relatives how awesome this game is.

I went through the exact same thing with Bioshock. Not even after playing it, I was like that before it even came out.

Rehabilitation was long and painful.

My first time playing Mass Effect, I loved it too. The whole thing with the Rachni has to be one of the hardest choices I've made in gaming.

Then I realized that there weren't enough biotic and tech powers, that it was hard to gauge how getting new armour and weapons altered gameplay, that I had gotten through a significant chunk of the game without using any upgrades, that my allies were retarded, that buying new equipment was too expensive and that every shopkeeper in the game is too cheap to give you a decent price for your equipment, that unskippable cutscenes are never, ever a good idea...

Ah well. It was fun while it lasted.

Mass Effect was an incredible game, but for some reason it didn't agree with my rig. I got a bug every 10 minutes that either glitched the sound or prevented a gun to cool down once it overheated. After googling fixes for my problem, I found I was just one of many who was getting crap like that. Very disappointing to say the least.

Looking past the bugs, the only glaring gameplay flaws I found was that the game forced me into a relationship I didn't want. And the love sidequests feel awkward at best. Especially when you realize that you're hitting on someone in front of the whole crew, which any military officer in real life can tell you is huge no-no. :)

Well, that and the fact that I must have stormed the same exact base 30 times, each time on a different planet in my play through. :)

Is Bringing Down The Sky out for the pc version by now? As well as a patch to fix the perma overheat? The final boss is realy hard if you can only pistol whip him.(soldier shepard, ashly and wrex with all points in weapon skill)

The main thing i liked about mass effect were the costumizable weapons. Sniper rifle + high cal barrel + sploding ammo = rocket launcher.

Biotics are rather overpowered indeed but so is the infinite ammo assault rifle(spectre gun and heat reduction upgrades)

Also, any planet other then the main plot ones were extremely boring.

sammyfreak:
I really liked the writing, animations, art direction and camera angels; they all created a most entertaining cinematic gaming experience.

I want a camera angel to make my gaming experience a most entertaining and cinematic one.

Its a great game for the reason that its developers actually put effort into it. Some of the plot parts are about as see through as glass but its a great game nether the less. The amount of background info they put into it is a good sign that there are actually game developers out there that give a shit.

I enjoyed the game, the story was epic, but the sidequests felt a little repetitive (mostly the planets themselves) ans the AI was sometimes helpful, and sometimes my allies repeatedly shot me in the back while my opponent rushed me.

I think the next game will be better if the use the same basic formula and use more time to fine tune the world and the AI

Copter400:

Necromancist:
Now I have contracted a severe case of Awesomitis. Symptoms include restlessness, eye dehydration following incapability to blink, hyperventilation, balance and coordination problems as well as a tendency to jump up and down in one spot while explaining to your (mostly) indifferent relatives how awesome this game is.

I went through the exact same thing with Bioshock. Not even after playing it, I was like that before it even came out.

Rehabilitation was long and painful.

My first time playing Mass Effect, I loved it too. The whole thing with the Rachni has to be one of the hardest choices I've made in gaming.

Don't remind me. I tried to be evil there. I had to force myself to try and kill it. Amount of times saved: 3 Amount killed: 1 sad time.

Yeah, I had that with Bioshock as well. Damn it, make sequels already!

PurpleRain:
Don't remind me. I tried to be evil there. I had to force myself to try and kill it. Amount of times saved: 3 Amount killed: 1 sad time.

I accidently let the Rachni live on my evil character. I was annoyed I had to fight Benezia again for my renegade points.

Was I the only one who didn't save Ashely on the first play through? I wanted see what happens to the story depending on who you save and I figured I could just ask my friends what happens.

I liked the game alot, but Mass Effect isnt for everyone. My roommate didnt like it at all. Not everyone is into games with alot of dialogue and story.

Is there a sequel coming out? I hope K.O.T.O.R 3 comes out, that was a good series.

Alright, seen some good responses here.

Yes, the perma-overheating bug is a bitch, but if you really know what you're doing and don't panic, overheating shouldn't be a concern. (No offense)

I don't understand the criticism about the sidequests though... sure, the driving there is pretty boring (and the Mako... nevermind, the Mako is fun as hell to drive) but when I actually got to the locations themselves I noticed that the sidequests are some of the best I've ever seen in a game, siding with Oblivion and Neverwinter Nights (the original and the expansions).

It was good, but could have been better.

Necromancist:
Alright, seen some good responses here.

Yes, the perma-overheating bug is a bitch, but if you really know what you're doing and don't panic, overheating shouldn't be a concern. (No offense)

I don't understand the criticism about the sidequests though... sure, the driving there is pretty boring (and the Mako... nevermind, the Mako is fun as hell to drive) but when I actually got to the locations themselves I noticed that the sidequests are some of the best I've ever seen in a game, siding with Oblivion and Neverwinter Nights (the original and the expansions).

On overheating, not sure what difficulty you played on, but some NPCs can tech overheat you, and it's unavoidable. And if you're playing a class with limited weapon specializations, you really only have a couple decent weapons at your disposal. It's the craps when your in the middle of a battle and can't save and reload. I don't think it's entirely the players fault in some cases.

Some mako parts are fun, though the steering is terrible. The 'WASD' controls of the PC make it a little more tolerable. The first time out in the mako was a disaster until I learned how to zoom. Then the thing was unstoppable.

I also don't understand the criticism of the side quests. I thought they were all engaging and interesting, if not too few.

Overall, Mass Effect is an awesome game. And felt much more like an RPG to me than, say, Bioshock. It's sort of up there with Oblivion for one of the better action RPGs to date. Not that I'm a huge fan of that genre. Give me a JRPG any day.

mitsoxfan:
On overheating, not sure what difficulty you played on, but some NPCs can tech overheat you, and it's unavoidable. And if you're playing a class with limited weapon specializations, you really only have a couple decent weapons at your disposal. It's the craps when your in the middle of a battle and can't save and reload. I don't think it's entirely the players fault in some cases.

I (and probably the others too) refer to a bug which causes the heat bar to stick at the top and not fall when a weapon gets overheated. This has happened several times when I was testing weapon accuracy out of combat. It's not so common as to ruin the game though, IMHO.

You can fix that by changing weapons.

That glitch happens everytime I fight with Saren, I spent half an hour running around waiting for it to go down thinking that it was some sort of ability the guy has.

I haven't played Mass Effect since about a month after release, but during that month I completed it twice; that's how much I enjoyed the story.

The main villain (Saren, not the big reveal creature) was believable and at times made you think you were possibly on the wrong side. For the most part your companions were well rounded and contributed to the overall story (although I could have done without the blue Deanna Troi wannabe) and your character had an authentic reason for character progression.

On the flip side though, you could argue that the Geth were repetitive and displayed none of the hive intelligence they were supposed to have, not enough of the supporting characters had supporting quests, there were moments where choices made had no effect on the story development, and on the technical side there were some bad frame-rate and texture loading issues considering the modest size of most of the locations and the lack of any environment specific physics.

To finish on a plus though; I can't wait for the next two. What I would like to see is one sequel and one prequel, as I would love to see the story of the emergence of the Geth, with the back story being about the political subjugation of the human race.

Exterminatus:

They could have made that little space battle at the end better though.

Hand in your human card.

Fire Daemon:
You can fix that by changing weapons.

Tried that, along with switching to another weapon of the same type in my inventory. Neither of them worked. As far as I know, the only cure for this is either to reload a save or (not tested, but possible) going back to the Normandy.

Catman, I can agree with you about the Geth being a little repetetive, but I think that it's a side effect of them being your main adversary. And I've seen some hive mind intelligence from them too. A single Geth isn't even a threat, I can stand in one spot and laugh at it before my teammates gun it down. A group of about 5 sometimes take cover. Any group of more than 10 Geth I've seen all take cover, use their abilities in unison and other tactics. For instance, once a Hopper sabotaged our weapons, while another sniped one of my teammates while an Armature had the two of us left pinned behind cover, allowing a couple of Destroyers to flank us and shotgun our collective asses into planetary orbit.

Necromancist:

Fire Daemon:
You can fix that by changing weapons.

Tried that, along with switching to another weapon of the same type in my inventory. Neither of them worked. As far as I know, the only cure for this is either to reload a save or (not tested, but possible) going back to the Normandy.

Catman, I can agree with you about the Geth being a little repetetive, but I think that it's a side effect of them being your main adversary. And I've seen some hive mind intelligence from them too. A single Geth isn't even a threat, I can stand in one spot and laugh at it before my teammates gun it down. A group of about 5 sometimes take cover. Any group of more than 10 Geth I've seen all take cover, use their abilities in unison and other tactics. For instance, once a Hopper sabotaged our weapons, while another sniped one of my teammates while an Armature had the two of us left pinned behind cover, allowing a couple of Destroyers to flank us and shotgun our collective asses into planetary orbit.

We must be playing a different game. I never saw the geth use any tactic other than 'zerg rush'

Decoy Doctorpus:
We must be playing a different game. I never saw the geth use any tactic other than 'zerg rush'

Sometimes they also use the "stand still right next to (but not actually in) cover" tactic.

-- Alex

Necromancist:
I don't understand the criticism about the sidequests though... sure, the driving there is pretty boring (and the Mako... nevermind, the Mako is fun as hell to drive) but when I actually got to the locations themselves I noticed that the sidequests are some of the best I've ever seen in a game, siding with Oblivion and Neverwinter Nights (the original and the expansions).

You do a lot of driving to get from place to place. Most locations on the map are usually nothing more than one of those little hacking minigames. When they are a base you can enter, that's basically one big one-room fight.

Fighting stuff in the Mako is absolutely trivial. Everything that can seriously damage you moves at a snail's pace so all you have to do is wiggle back and forth to avoid it. The hardest part is occasionally having to figure out how to angle the gun to hit something that's below its line of fire. The only time you're in danger is against Thresher Maws.

There's a total of, like, four interior sets for all the side quests (underground complex, underground mine, little prefab colony house, space freighter). All of these are basically just one big room to fight in, and then little side sections that contain mostly loot or some kind of goal.

Most of the quest storylines are about the same two or three themes. How many "conspiratorial science gone wrong" side-stories does one game really need?

There are a few really good exceptions here. Like that one part where you have to help the marines fight off Rachni. The first Thresher Maw you encounter is definitely a breath of fresh air, too. But, for the most part... highly repetitive.

-- Alex

I agree that the sidequests are quite repetitive. Whenever it comes down to "sidequest time" I crank up some music and grind my way through them as quickly as possible.