I complain bitterly about Mass Effect [spoilers]

The BBQ Pit
1

This could go in the Game Room, I suppose, except that I am about to savagely lambast the programming of Mass Effect and use words like cuntnozzle and assbitch. In fact, I just did. Ha! Can’t move it now, suckers.

Y’know, I wanted to like Mass Effect. It’s the first Bioware game in almsot forever which didn’t have a cheezy, blatantly obvious plot twist partway through. The only idiotic plot twist those dimwitted baboons flinging poo around ever made which “got me” was the one in Knights of the Old Republic (Oh, hadn’t heard and I just spoiled it? Fuck you.).

And even there I was surprised solely because everyone said Revan was dead as a doornail and I presumed that someone had actually seen his (or her) face at some point. In fact, I kind of figured there were Revan brand speederbikes for sale on every sctreetcorner, so it took me by surprise when there were maybe half a dozen people in the game who actually knew you, and somehow everyone of them had a deep, mystical reason to screw with your head.

Regardless, it was a stupid fucking plot twist, and I knew a plot twist was coming, and I thought they were going to make my character some relative of Revan’s like in the movies.

But Mass Effect doesn’t really have that. There’s a mystery, and a lot of stupid lines (Oh yes, despite a total absense of evidence, I’ve discovered that the horrible killer alien robots have done this multiple times. No, I don’t need to explain myself. Dumbass), but all in all, it’s a fun game.

Combat is much too random for my taste, since I sometimes just walk into a room and have about a half-second before the enemies turn and kill me, and I’ve been repeatedly one-shotted by the damn snipers who are occaisionally plopped down in pairs along with a bunch of other enemies and sometimes waste me long before I hit cover.

But okay, I can work through this.

The game is horribly optimized and it’s clear that the PC version, while superior, was not adequetely polished.

But OK, I’m not too worried about graphics and I can deal.

No, what pisses me off righteously is how damn prima-donna the game is. It’s not enough to crash. It has to shut down half the my computer into a way which I can’t even comprehend. If the game jsut crashed every few hours, no big deal. I could just re-start. But that’s too good for it.

It doesn’t just crash. It takes down me computer, turns off my video card and monitor, and locks everything down so hard even the keyboard ceases to function. And this has nothing to do with overloading the graphics card. It might do this when loading a new area. I might do this when you’re just standing there. it might do this before the game actually turns on, as in two seconds after I click the “Play” button and the actual new game/load screen hasn’t come up, much less the damn game engine. This necessitates a complete hard reboot.

I keep getting the idea that Bioware hates me and wants me to suffer. Fuck them.

2

I have Mass Effect for the PC and it never crashed once. Not so much as a hiccup.

And you know what? I still didn’t like it.

3

I enjoyed it. Even past the crashes I wasn’t enthralled, but there were some fun bits. That was it, however - the game isn’t incredible. Just good.

4

I have it for Xbox360 and really liked it. Much more than the KotOR games, mainly because of the combat and dialogue. I don’t get how you had trouble with the combat, were you not using your radar?

5

I mean that enemies frequently wasted me abut two seconds before combat began. Often before I had even counted how many there were.

6

This happened to me the first few times. Then my friend pointed out that when you bring the weapon or power wheel up, the game pauses but you can still look around, and it’ll target enemies. It’s the equivalent of pausing to issue orders in NWN or KotOR. Made things much simpler.

7

I found that they either appeared on radar or the radar would get jammed. When either of those things happened I’d start moving from cover to cover and looking for the enemy. I didn’t have any trouble getting attacked unexpectedly or before I was ready. Using the pause certainly helped, and using the team’s talents helped a lot too. The only thing I didn’t do was use pause so that I could aim, it felt cheap. I only have a few minor complaints about the game. It would’ve been nice if the systems were fleshed out more, i.e., more planets you could explore, and more imagination used in those explorable planets. I found that vehicle thing you get around in to be far too powerful, there was no challenge when driving it. The elevators got to be a drag but I understand why they’re there, and they’re probably begtter than having a generic loading screen.

8

You did tackle the thresher maws, right? On the whole those encounters were quite survivable, but accidentally get too close or drive near where the maw pops out of the ground, and you die immediately. Also massed assaults could drain your shields pretty quickly, and if you were stuck in the mountains it could be tough to get away before taking major structural damage.

9

I never had any problems with lockups and enjoyed it for the most part. My only gripe was the find-stuff side quests. They need something besides xp and money as a reward. By the time you finish most of them xp and money are moot.

10

Eh. Computer stuff is famously YMMV, but I’ve only had ME crash on me in normal game-crashy ways, and far less frequently than some games I’ve owned.
As for the combat, my only objection to it is that it’s far too easy once you’ve figured out how to do it (which mainly means, use the weapon bar to pause the game, structure your team right, and use their powers). You very quickly buff up to the point where few things will one-shot you apart from rocket launchers, armatures and snipers using Assassinate - all of which are supposed to be scary.

The mako is very tough, but halves the XP you get. Once I learned this, I made it a point of principle to never kill anything using the Mako, but get out and do it properly.
And if you have trouble damaging it when driving around, you’re not using the jets properly. Vehicular base-jumping! Wheeee!

The inventory in that game, on the other hand… :mad:

11

I saw the BSG ‘movie’ in a theatre and they had a long commercial for Mass Effect. To me, it played like a joke commercial. Like a SNL commercial for a video game.

They were interviewing Seth Green and I swear he must have been joking with his replies. Remembe in Bull Durham when Costner coaches Tim Robbins on how to reply to questions from the press? It was like that.

Then when ever the Voice Over bragged about how great a particular element would be, the example was completly underwhelming.

12

I had forgotten about that since it wasn’t really a complaint. Many games force some sort of inventory management, but it could definately have been handled better.

Something else that irked me. While people generally don’t expect a whole lot of realism in games, a certain amount of rationality is desirable.

Being able to pause in the middle of a battle, change out everyone’s armor, weapons, and mods for all of the above is a bit out there.

“Excuse me! Hang on a sec! Hold up for a moment while we bounce back up to the ship and change out all our gear. Back in a bit!”

13

Oh, yes. I make full use of it, of course, but it makes me giggle whenever I pause the game mid-fight to swap out anti-synthetic ammo for anti-organic, or vice versa.

14

Dude, what the fuck?! Fuck me because you didn’t like a game or saw something coming?! You two-bit shit for brains. Not, “oops, I guess I should have spoilered that,” but brazenly–and purposely–spoiling a plot element of a new game and being indignant about it? Not all of us play so incessantly we can tell a developer’s trademark twists --I don’t care if it’s minor or major or whatever, spoiling something and throwing it in the face of your readers is beyond shitty.

I hope Ms. PacMan gives you syphilis.

The above is wholeheartedly and apologetically retracted in case the above is not a true spoiler (e.g., lying cake) and I’ve been whooshed. I haven’t played the game yet, and stopped reading after that, so I don’t know if there was context.

15

Well, Knights of the Old Republic is 5 years old now, so it’s not really a new game anymore.

16

Did I miss the [spoilers] note in my first reading or were they added later? If I missed them, I’m sorry.

An unplayed five year old game that had a plot twist good enough to “get” him should still have had some warning.

17

Added later, so you’re good.

IMO, you put thing X in the thread title and spoil thing Y in the post, thing Y gets spoiler tags. Doesn’t matter how old it is.

18

Hell yes. I also feel guilty about such a cheesy exploit, but I do it anyhow. Ever played a game that didn’t pause when you dived into the inventory? I seem to recall that Deus Ex played like that, and you literally took your life in your hands every time you went looking for some AP ammo or whatever.

Relative to e.g. being able to tell assorted admirals etc. to DIAF and still retain your uber-leet spec ops status? And having to buy your own assault weapons in cold hard cash [earned by running errands while on duty] in order to carry out your missions?
My main beef with the inventory is that it’s just way to scrolly and disorganised for no good reason (other than needing to be console-friendly, I assume). Why not group stuff in columns by armor, ammo, weapons, upgrades, sort by level I-X, and group identical items with x2 x3 etc.? That alone would have saved about four hours of my life by now.

19

I played the 360 version, so PC might be different, but the console version only shows you the applicable inventory. It’s pre-sorted by armor, weapons, armor upgrades, weapon upgrades, and ammo upgrades. It’s also sorted by level within each. I would kill for stacked items, however.

What’s especially frustrating is the 150 item limit. Fully half of these items are weapon/armor/ammo upgrades, and the behavior of the inventory menus is such that when I go in to convert the lowest tier upgrades to omni-gel, I have to scroll alllllllll the way down to the bottom, convert one, then it sends me back to the top, forcing me to scroll allllllll the way down again. Sure, I could run to the req officer and sell them, but in the late game I need omni-gel more than I need cash.

20

Yeah, but it’s one long-ass list when you’re looking to buy/sell, and it would be so very nice to have separate groups for e.g. cryo ammo, AP ammo, shredder ammo, and weapon upgrades broken into accuracy+, damage+, heating-, special effects. You know, so you can find that exact item you need in a hurry and get back to dealing with the Krogan Battlemaster who’s poking you in the teeth with his shotgun.

It’s a pretty minor whine, really, but I like whining :slight_smile: