Halo 3’s MP is familiar but its just the most polished multiplayer at this current moment in time… I think I’ll probably play Halo 3 a year from now. I can’t say that for any other game I’ll buy… That’s where its the game of the year is defined to me.  New blood is always welcome, hence why Bioschock is a fresh face rather that sequels like Mario for its billionth incarnation or Halo with its three sequels in 5 year, Mario fundamentally hasn’t changed since Mario 64, which was made 10 years ago.  I felt the same way when I played the wii Zelda, annoyed that essentially I was playing Ocarina in Time, that neither was much of a leap in graphics, little in gameplay and none in audio. I was severely disappointed as I felt like I was playing a N64 game, with early GameCube graphics with a crappy controller.  Mario gets more upgrade tho’ than Zelda, but it has less evolution over a span of time than Halo has in its 5 years.

Mario these days seems to be a homage to itself, constantly self referencing by rehashing. Where Mario succeeds is that its a legacy factor, that they can tap into the clunky retro days for warm and fuzzy childhood memories. Any other series, wouldn’t be so well received for such hijinks. It also helps Nintendo on the official Mario games (not the Mario spin offs) waits a number of years between a release. Alas the familiarity of Mario probably is at root for its success. Its fun and I don’t hate Mario in the least bit, but I just can’t get behind calling Galaxy the best game ever, or even game of the year. I just hope I’m not playing Halo 3, the remake 10 years from now either.

Back to Mass Effect.

I beat the game, completed every mission I was ever assigned aside from finding the glyphs, minerals and artifacts. I think I may have missed a few missions that pop up from the UNSC if you randomly enter the systems in a cluster as I’d only visit clusters related to missions, and I may have missed a few random event ones. All and in all, it took me 30 hours of gameplay but it doesn’t include the Disk read errors that’d happen every so often nor the times I had to redo parts. So I think I invested 35 hours into the game and did nearly everything. 

I don’t think you can hit level 60 in a single play through. I hit only level 48 or 49. I turned my AI buddies later in the game to auto-ability casting once I learned I could that. Honestly, micromanagement is not something I get off on at all. Its what drove away from RTSes.  When you get the Spectre 1,000,000 credits gear, its like the magic win button. All you do is pair it with a heat suppressor and the magic biohazard ammo that has no penalties and even bosses get slapped harder than Whitney Houston does by Bobby Brown. Combat gets dull near the end.  Also finding good armor is like a fucking ordeal. I never found better than a level 3 armor for the Tali chick.  The character who had the best armor hands down was Gareth since I found, I shit you not, twice as many turian armors than human.

The cool parts of the game are all story moments. There’s a few times you’ll be like, “Holy shit, I am so glad I maxed my Charm ability”, one in particular that’ll land you a full blown achievement.  The game really tries to drive home that you’ll be “Making hard decisions”. I was actually surprised how unpleasant they make a certain one. The story doesn’t have any huge surprises or twists however, like Jade Empire, which had the really clever story element about your fighting style.  They do pack a lot of extra story in the Codex which I did take the time to read most of. The actual plot progression doesn’t nearly tantalize as much as when you encounter an individual, whom was a survivor of the same colony you were on (if you so chose that as your background) and talk her off a ledge, or when you conduct a TV interview tactfully and to have others comment on your composure in it later.  Those moments make the game.

I think Greg said it right.

What game are you going to still be playing a year, two years from now? Halo 3. And Bungie is great with the online community and DLC.

Mass Effect or Bioshock or Mario? No way.

Zack - 01 December 2007 08:22 PM

I think Greg said it right.

What game are you going to still be playing a year, two years from now? Halo 3. And Bungie is great with the online community and DLC.

Mass Effect or Bioshock or Mario? No way.

It’s all up to person. I have barely touched halo 3 since I beat the SP… Mass Effect I’m already about 10 levels into a new character. And even if I did play Halo 3 MP like mad, Mass Effect would still be the game that delivered the best “WOW!” feelings of any game this year. It’s hands down the best gaming experience I’ve had in a long time and longevity has nothing to do with that. If the game I’ve played the most and will play the most in the future would automatically be my “game of the year”, it would be The Burning Crusade…. but Mass Effect is so much better no matter how long I will keep on playing WoW.

Mass Effect just has too many flaws for me to overlook. Its not nearly as polished as Bioshock or Halo 3. My feeling generally was, “Ah man, do I really have to engage in more combat?”

If we’re talking sheer experience, Portals was the best 3 hours of gaming I had all year as I was nothing short of elated through the entire duration of the game. It was the best 3 hours of gaming I’ve played in years.

I’m abut 5 hours into Mass Effect so far, and I am really enjoying it. Initially I was put off by the weak combat, and somewhat tiresome amount of dialog and text to deal with, but now that I’ve finally gotten into the raw space exploration I’m starting to warm up to it. I do feel that there could have been a little less back story: I get kind of OCD about reading all the info they give me, because you can’t really tell what is and isn’t important to the story, but there’s just so much. Sometimes it feels like I’m “playing” a tolkien encyclopedia or something.

Would I like Mass Effect if I absolutely hated KotOR? I’m debating whether it or Assassin’s Creed will be my next purchase after the Gold Box.

and RE:GOTY - Halo 3 has my vote so far, but then again I haven’t tried many of the other candidates yet. Halo 3 was mostly more of the same, though the new weapons and vehicles added some variety. More of the same isn’t a criticism, though, when the first Halo was basically the FPS perfected. My only complaint with it was that the story was pretty mediocre and any interesting setups from the prequels were largely ignored. The Arbiter basically shuts up after the introduction and doesn’t say anything until the end, for example.

Bioshock was the only other big title I’ve played, and while it sets new standards for writing and voice-acting in videogames, the actual gameplay was pretty stale. I found it got repetitive by around Arcadia, and the initially incredible story takes a huge dive after Fontaine shows up.

GOTY contenders and great games in general aren’t solely based on the ‘I can play this two years later’ critique ... and back on topic, I thought this was laugh worthy.

Fartz - 02 December 2007 03:23 AM

Would I like Mass Effect if I absolutely hated KotOR? I’m debating whether it or Assassin’s Creed will be my next purchase after the Gold Box.

I hope you mean “Orange Box”. And no: if you hated Kotor, you probably won’t like Mass Effect.

yellow#5 - 02 December 2007 06:36 AM

Fartz - 02 December 2007 03:23 AM

Would I like Mass Effect if I absolutely hated KotOR? I’m debating whether it or Assassin’s Creed will be my next purchase after the Gold Box.

I hope you mean “Orange Box”. And no: if you hated Kotor, you probably won’t like Mass Effect.

Well if it was the combat of KotOR you didn’t like you should see if you could try the combat of mass effect somewhere, because I don’t think they’re anything alike. I personally love the Mass Effect combat and even while I liked KotOR’s combat as well it’s not even close to this.

yellow#5 - 02 December 2007 06:36 AM

Fartz - 02 December 2007 03:23 AM

Would I like Mass Effect if I absolutely hated KotOR? I’m debating whether it or Assassin’s Creed will be my next purchase after the Gold Box.

I hope you mean “Orange Box”. And no: if you hated Kotor, you probably won’t like Mass Effect.

Err, yeah. Oops. And it was mostly the combat that put me off Kotor, but I didn’t care for the story either. All of the supposed tough moral decisions usually came down to choosing whether to act like Hitler or Mother Theresa, but I hear that’s been changed in Mass Effect.

Fartz - 02 December 2007 05:07 PM

yellow#5 - 02 December 2007 06:36 AM

Fartz - 02 December 2007 03:23 AM

Would I like Mass Effect if I absolutely hated KotOR? I’m debating whether it or Assassin’s Creed will be my next purchase after the Gold Box.

I hope you mean “Orange Box”. And no: if you hated Kotor, you probably won’t like Mass Effect.

Err, yeah. Oops. And it was mostly the combat that put me off Kotor, but I didn’t care for the story either. All of the supposed tough moral decisions usually came down to choosing whether to act like Hitler or Mother Theresa, but I hear that’s been changed in Mass Effect.

It’s changed pretty much.

You can’t really be downright evil in the parts of Mass Effect I’ve played so far. You can be a raw model superhero or a hard-ass asshole, but you still act with the best of the galaxy in mind all the way.

Whaleman - 01 December 2007 08:32 PM

Zack - 01 December 2007 08:22 PM

I think Greg said it right.

What game are you going to still be playing a year, two years from now? Halo 3. And Bungie is great with the online community and DLC.

Mass Effect or Bioshock or Mario? No way.

It’s all up to person. I have barely touched halo 3 since I beat the SP… Mass Effect I’m already about 10 levels into a new character. And even if I did play Halo 3 MP like mad, Mass Effect would still be the game that delivered the best “WOW!” feelings of any game this year. It’s hands down the best gaming experience I’ve had in a long time and longevity has nothing to do with that. If the game I’ve played the most and will play the most in the future would automatically be my “game of the year”, it would be The Burning Crusade…. but Mass Effect is so much better no matter how long I will keep on playing WoW.

My game of the year is a game of 2 years ago, Battlefield 2. Been playing it since June and by far the PC version still feels more fun and interesting than any other first person shooter. CoD 4 is disappointing past its single player, the multiplayer is more of the same. For a game that is 2 years old now, BF2 on the PC feels like what I’d expect it to be like: Modern Combat. The 64-person play, squads, unlockable weapons, medals and badges, realistic vehicles (including jets and helicopters), ranked servers, variety of classes, actual command structure organization in the gameplay make it unlike any other shooter I’ve played before. BF2:MC on the 360 is an embarrassment to the PC version because it doesn’t offer any of the things to make it stand out. BF2 on PC and BF2:MC on 360 are two different games in my opinion.

And even though I have played WoW again recently, I’ve really got to disagree with Johan. While The Burning Crusade has many merits to find enjoyable, it was a disappointment at least with the overall theme it was supposed to convey to its players. Illidan is supposed to be the ultimate badass in the whole expansion and yet he does nothing but sit in his black temple which hardly anyone seems to care about. The hardcore 1% as usual will be the only ones having any interaction with him. At least they are finally starting to wise up and realize they can’t keep dumping huge amounts of effort into content that only few will ever see especially that which ties into the lore. I like the fact they understand they need to make their players feel and interact with Arthas’ every step in the next expansion. From his devout worship of the Light and eventually to his slow and twisted corruption into a Lich King a la WC3. Arthas has always been seen as a character more people could probably relate to and at the same time feel sorry for.

I’m with Jim, BF2 is pretty rad. It’s one of the only games I venture out into the non-Borker multiplayer wilderness in, and it still manages to be a lot of fun. Now if I could just manage to track Jim down in-game more often…

Fartz - 02 December 2007 05:07 PM

Err, yeah. Oops. And it was mostly the combat that put me off Kotor, but I didn’t care for the story either. All of the supposed tough moral decisions usually came down to choosing whether to act like Hitler or Mother Theresa, but I hear that’s been changed in Mass Effect.

I hated the KOTOR series as I found the action sooooo boring that I couldn’t get past two hours of gameplay. I have no idea if I’d of cared about the story but being Star Wars, it already puts the game at a disadvantage.

I liked Mass Effect.  I don’t know if that helps,

I just beat Mass Effect, and I had a lot of fun with it.  My main qualm were all the pointless sidequests.  I feel like I would have had a lot more fun in the game if I hadn’t collected all those badges or whatever and surveyed all those rocks.  That was mindnumblingly boring.  Even the “help us kill the rouge (insert military unit)!” really detracted from the overall gameplay.  Combat sucked too, I guess.  It was nice getting the Master Spectre weapons at the end of the game, they basically amounted to a “skip combat” button.