OK, after having bought Mass Effect back in May for the PC, I beat it for the first time through as a level 48 Soldier a few days ago. I have already started up another play through as a Vanguard. Normally I start games this like this out as the good guy because I wanted to experience everything I could and feel good about it. Going back through a second time already I’m already finding it hard to be a dick choosing the “fuck you go away” option in the dialog tree.

I browsed through all the posts in the thread to recap what people thought about it back in December. I tend to agree with most of what everyone else said here, but myself being a sci-fi geek, I tend to be a bit more biased. That said, I absolutely loved this game. It’s been a long time since I’ve played a decent (sort of original) sci-fi action/RPG.

Really my only complaint also (mentioned already) was the lack of detail in most of the planets you could land on that were not part of the main story. Sadly the whole unexplored universe shouldn’t be that lacking of flora and fauna. There was some, but you can definitely tell it was an after-thought. No trees, no real interesting ancient structures, no major bodies of water (or other liquid), most of the bunkers were the same cookie-cutter design. Hell, a downed CCCP probe on the moon, but no American flag…. I would’ve been happy to have much of that thrown out if it meant adding another 2-3 missions to the main story. I always talked to every squad member on the Normandy and various characters at the Citadel after each mission just to advance their personal story arcs or plot points as well. (I’ve heard the personal outcome you have with each them based on how much you interact with them changes what happens to them as well, so I’m curious to see what happens differently during a second or third run through.)

I did enjoy most of the side missions for what they were and the people involved in them. Typical mobsters, religious nut-jobs, syndicate crimelords, crazy robots, freaky insane people on derelict vessels, and the like. All good and fun there. Kudos to the morality factor, the hard decisions you were presented with so much so that I actually started to care and think about any long term consequences it may have on my character as if I was him.

Now, I have to say, prior to the PC release I did play a little bit of the 360 version back in March. That said, the PC version is definitely better overall but still shows remnants of being ported from console. I started out playing back in May on Windows XP, but half way through I backed up my save files. I traded my old 12” Powerbook (which I don’t use much anymore having a MBP) for a full 64-bit copy of Windows Vista to put on my Mac Pro. (Vista is a pain in the ass to start off with, but once you’ve spent a few hours taming it and disabling the annoying features, it’s not quite as bad. Anyways, I wasn’t going to buy Vista just to have a Windows that recognizes all of my RAM that XP couldn’t, but had no problem making a trade for it.) Vista with DirectX 10 does show quite an amazing improvement over XP in the visual quality (definitely better than the 360 and its weird flickery shadows). Playing this game at 1680x1050 with maxed settings and some tweaks to the nVidia control panel, it was a far more enjoyable experience down to the motion blur on elevators.

Even more so, they (of course) changed the combat UI and control scheme to better suit play on a PC. For starters, faster load times when not in an elevator. The MAKO has better handling and steering then using the XBox controller. You can drag your special abilities to a standard hotbar at the top of the screen which are triggered by the number key you press on the keyboard. The combat UI is redesigned, triggered by pressing spacebar. The biggest difference between PC and 360 here is the individual path setting you can assign for each of your squad members. I can equip a weapon, cast an ability, move/attack/etc, for each of them and myself individually with just 1 or 2 clicks. Mouse tracking and shooting will always best the console controllers anyday. However, the one problem with the PC version coming from a console, was the individual path finding occasionally tended to get 1 squad member stuck someplace leaving me to backtrack or wait until they instantly appeared once I hopped into an elevator. The button-press decryption action was replaced with a layered circular puzzle having both moving and non-moving blocks inside the layers. You had to guide the cursor with the mouse or arrow keys from the outside into the center without hitting any of the blocks before the timer ran out. Most of the easy decryptions had less or slow moving blocks but hard decryptions later on had more blocks moving fast. Sadly by that point I had so much omni-gel that it didn’t really matter.

Anyways, I really do love Mass Effect, one of the best games I’ve played in a long time. I bought one of the grey Onyx armor-like N7 logo T-Shirts because it looks cool and I’m a big geek. Definitely playing it through another 1-2 times at least.

Your gripes kinda remind me of my own.

Mass Effect reminds me of Oblivion, its probably A LOT better on the PC. I think I’d been VERY appreciative of the shorter load times as it often made me wonder, “Do I really want to go back to the station?” despite constantly going back to say howdy, grab some swag and see if anything else has happened.  I really loved the conversation treeing and the fact it felt like it mattered. I’m rather taken by games with a novel-esq appeal.

Anyhow, I loved the story and idea of the universe even if it was defacto Sci-fi (it was really well explained in the codex tho’)  but the actual gameplay was weak. I felt like the combat was a little dragging and the micromanagement of weapon mods was annoying at best as you could tweak your gun for any situation if you were willing to commit. Also it felt a lacking in comparison to other duck-n-gun shooters like Rainbow Six or Gears.

My opinion was the game was really good, so good it was on the verge of greatness but had they stuck in some flora/fauna and a few different styles of missions and worked out the gameplay it’d be at the top of my favorite games.

Jim, King of Awesome - 02 August 2008 04:46 AM

However, the one problem with the PC version coming from a console, was the individual path finding occasionally tended to get 1 squad member stuck someplace leaving me to backtrack or wait until they instantly appeared once I hopped into an elevator.

...errhhh!? What the heck does that have with “coming from a console”? I’ve had that happen in computer games from like the first day you had people following you. BioWare has been exceptionally bad with it in all tehir games… even in Baldur’s gate you could have to retrace your own steps to get your own character lose. NWN could be horrible at it with henchmen and WoW’s path finding is a pure joke. Not to speak of bots in UT games running in tight circles and NPCs in Deus Ex getting stuck in walls.

I agree that it’s a horrible issue in Mass Effect as well, but I disagree to blame it on consoles, that’s just silly of you Jim Go blame the inventory interface or something instead on the console origin

Whaleman - 04 August 2008 01:58 PM

Jim, King of Awesome - 02 August 2008 04:46 AM

However, the one problem with the PC version coming from a console, was the individual path finding occasionally tended to get 1 squad member stuck someplace leaving me to backtrack or wait until they instantly appeared once I hopped into an elevator.

...errhhh!? What the heck does that have with “coming from a console”? I’ve had that happen in computer games from like the first day you had people following you. BioWare has been exceptionally bad with it in all tehir games… even in Baldur’s gate you could have to retrace your own steps to get your own character lose. NWN could be horrible at it with henchmen and WoW’s path finding is a pure joke. Not to speak of bots in UT games running in tight circles and NPCs in Deus Ex getting stuck in walls.

I agree that it’s a horrible issue in Mass Effect as well, but I disagree to blame it on consoles, that’s just silly of you Jim Go blame the inventory interface or something instead on the console origin

Well, I usually don’t play that many console games for long periods of time (since I own none), or even more so many single player PC games.

The 360 commands were limited with respect to controlling your teammates (you give a command to move, both members go), and it didn’t affect you much in the console’s version of the gameplay. If they hadn’t changed this in the PC version, it probably wouldn’t be much to complain about, but they did. The PC version gives you the ability for precise placement of them individually (PC overlay vs. 360 overlay I can order one member to point A and another to point B), expanding on the tactical advantages in combat. And as such, I’m just blaming it on the fact that it started out on a console and the mechanics conform to its limited controller.

Perhaps I should have said not so much a problem with pathfinding as it is with adding in control features to the gameplay for a platform that clearly has an advantage with controls (keyboard/mouse), in my opinion of course. Except not tightening up some of the little nuances in the mechanics that are tied to the controls. Really this whole problem was only apparent in smaller corridors with crates or other objects used for cover where having the ability to move either squad member individually should have worked better. In larger, more open areas it was OK. As I said, clearly they did make the MAKO much better to control with arrow keys and mouse look.

You’re sort of comparing NPCs like in WoW which you really have no control over whatsoever, it’s all scripted mostly. And yes it’s terrible.

I don’t know… chock it up to me just being a little picky or inexperienced with games featuring squad-, NPC-based (non-human player) combat.

I get what you’re shooting at now Not sure I’d blame it on consoles still though… any game where you don’t have a good overview from above makes it hard to even specify the point you want the character to move to. One option would be to be able to switch to a top down camera to arrange your squad members… or to pull out a tactical map like in ghost recon… that wouldn’t stop the pathfinding from sucking but at least it’d suck when you point them to the right place instead of the wrong place.

The talk about Mass Effect since the PC release sort of has me wanting to replay it on the xbox. The further I get from it, the more fondly I remember playing it. It had so many rough edges, but in the end I really enjoyed the characters and worlds.