A few days ago, my three year old said it best. “Daddy, are you playing the elevator game again?”
That’s what he had picked up on–Elevators. There are a lot of elevators in this game. Why do I not see any reviews mentioning this? It seems like a prominent feature of gameplay.
Mostly what I’m wondering is why I’m not seeing reviews of the game that call it boring. Because I loved NWN and KOTOR, and Mass Effect seems like a natural for someone who liked those games. But for some reason I can’t experience this game as anything other than boring, and I’m having a hard time putting my finger on why. (Other than the elevators.)
Well, you know, maybe it’s me. I did love NWN and KOTOR, but I kind of didn’t care so much about the plot, and that’s what most people seemed to like about them. I was more into the character development mechanics and the battle tactics. But then, ME seems to deliver on these two aspects as well.
So I’m puzzled by my reaction. Am I the only person in the world who likes this kind of game who doesn’t really like ME itself?
Never much cared for NWN, loved KotOR and enjoyed KotOR II, loved ME. Bored the fuck out of my mind by the elevators (especially when you have to ride them multiple times in order to try to hear tidbits on the PA system that send you new quests), but loved the game.
I liked Mass Effect, but don’t really think it’s quite worth all the praise it got. A lot of it was really unpolished, especially planet exploration. If you’re more looking for gameplay than for plot, I think you’re right to be disappointed.
It is possible to avoid most of the elevators by using the hovertaxis you can find all over the Citadel. You would miss out on the intra-party dialogue, but the various assignments all have multiple triggers, so you can still get them elsewhere.
The uncharted worlds were rather boring to explore, I can only hope that a proper modding tool is released for the series so that we can see some more interesting planets.
Honestly? The crowd swoons over it, but the game was… good. Not great. Decent, like most Bioware products, but they often fall short of true greatness, so it’s no surprise. I was further pissed because, after buying the improved PC version (I didn’t want to buy an XBOX), I hit a blatant, game-stopping bug along with who-knows-how many other people. And apparently they do not intend to release a patch.
The elevators hide the loading screens. There are lots.
As far as boredom goes I think the game is boring only if you waste time donig the pointless side missions. They are all identical. Go to small planet. Get in tank. Drive. Ambushed. Pick up people/object. Get back on ship. They didn’t really add to the story too much. The stories leading up to the side missions and the stories after added, but the actual exectuion of the side missions was boring as hell.
I thought the story was really well told, though not original.
Their “patch” fixed two tiny bugs which are not even close to helping me. My computer will run for everywhere from 10 minutes to two hours, then the screen goes totally blank. Nothing has fixed this. It is not actually related to whatever the game seems to be doing, as it will sometimes but not always trigger when loading areas.
What video card are you using? I was experiencing a variety of crashes and freezes, but updating to the 175.19 drivers for my 7600GT fixed them completely.
I have everything I need and my system is perfectly updated to the latest everything, which I did just before installing Mass Effect. There was no and remains no help for my problem, and not a single solution ahs been offered by anyone, including the developers themselves, for anyone who had this problem on the Mass Effect boards.
I enjoyed Mass Effect tremendously, though I myself am the sort of person who read all the planetological data just because I was so thrilled that they bothered. Your mileage may vary. Also, the animation on the alien faces was wonderful. Since it’s one of the games designed around the principle of giving you the same level of challenge at all times, there is little reward in grinding for XP – you’ll have adequate cash and gear by the end no matter what you do, which inevitably leaves you feeling like you haven’t earned it.
Whoopie, every path through the game is the optimal path. No highs or lows, just creamy middles. I can see the reason for it – who wouldn’t rather be tearing down the straightaway than riding some kind of roller coaster? A lot of people, as it turns out. These games don’t take you off the rails, they just lay down tracks right in front of you. Let me try another metaphor – the game is pre-chewed. Even the effort (and possible thrill of discovery) of looting corpses has been automated. The critical path is generated ad hoc, so the thrill of discovery has been replaced with the safer, nerf version of the same experience.
Maybe that’s why you’re bored. Still, I had fun with the game. I’ll buy the sequel the minute it hits the street.
The elevators are a pain, but I’m enjoying the hell out of the game as a whole. They’re less of a problem once you stop needing to go back to the Citadel for every little thing.
Mainly I really like the setting. I saw a review that said they tried and failed for something as unique as Star Wars, but I thought they did a damn good job. For a roleplay setting, it’s very good.
I like the gameplay, too, although I admit the sidequests are getting a little tiresome, with nearly all of them using the same two interior maps with different furnishings. The planetary segments are enjoyable, although traversing mountains, again, is getting a little tiresome.
…Anyone else starting to see a pattern? I think Cubsfan has it; the game is awesome IF you stick to the main plot.
The game reminds me a lot of Tabula Rasa, which is a similarly fun game that feels unpolished. It’s making me consider putting Windows back on my gaming desktop so I can play TR again.
I did not get bored with the side-quests, although with the auto-scaling they were not really as rewarding as they would have been if you needed the XP. But other people report that they did, so caveat ludor. Other people were bored to tears by the mounds of dialogue. I didn’t mind that either. I was put off by the fact that there were no really meaningful choices in dialogue.
What do you mean by that? People live in die by your dialogue choices. You can talk your way into and out of fights. Heck even A big boss fight can be bypassed. And in the end Depending on how you treated the council the fate of the entire universe revolves around what you said I guess it was a little limited in that it was almost impossible to totally screw yourself out of a quest by insulting the quest giver or be a psycho and murder random civilians.
I played through at first as a Paragon. When I played through the second time as a Renegade, not only did I get almost the exact same responses, with the exception that some grouchy responses deny you access to quests, but I nearly pinned on Paragon points even picking the asshole response as much as I could. I’ve also been playing through as the Neutral avenger. The world reacts the same way. There are some big junctures where you do genuinely steer the plot, especially right at the end, but there’s mostly very little sense that anyone cares what you say or do.
I really, really, really enjoyed Mass Effect, mostly for its story and the depth of the universe. The gameplay was merely the vehicle for that in my eyes, and while that element was flawed in some ways it still held up well enough to tell the story. I’ve played through three times and will probably go for one more as soon as I unpack my 360 from the move.
I really enjoyed ME too. I think the amount of work that was put in to create a totally new universe is amazing. In the star wars universe there was a certain degree of adaptability that they could capitalize on but in this istance, it’s all Bioware creating things from their head. I think that definitely deserves recognition.
In addition to that, the diolgue trees are both deep and well acted enough to actually pull you in to the story and make you care about characters that you’re playing with and as.
