You do know that you can pause the game, and then assign a task for each of your squad members. You can tell Wrex? to go to a certain place, then pause the game and tell the Asari girl to take cover, then pause the game, and tell Wrex to shoot or sneak or use stealth etc. And they will do it
You can, of course, also, if you so wish
do the combat in realtime mode which is why Greg (or Ray?) played the combat in during the gamespot feature of Mass Effect. Eh - video game characters aka digital actors don't have memories so it is actually a good thing
that Wrex? has been trying to join 3 or 4 times before. He can't remember the message you first game him, telling him to sod off...
As for the roleplaying aspect of it, I once saw a video (on youtube , I think?) in which Shepard took a very threathening stance against the bartender. (meaning not grabbin his coillar) but rather threathening him with closing his bar down or something like that. As for the combat in the video, I think it is pretty clear that Bioware wanted to show off the more glitzy fancy parts aka the different ways of doing the combat in Mass Effect.
As for the dialogue, I watched it and thought, - wow- this looks great, but am i watching a movie or playing a game here
: I was really confused whether this was an interactive movie or a cinematic game
: As for the dialogue system, I a bit disappointed as to how it is working. It just seems that your character, Shepard, says something, when you pick a topic, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the sentiment, you've picked. It feels like the writers just wrote all the dialogue for the game, and then were told, 'no, this is not a shooter, you will need to make it so that people at least 2-4 dialogue options. Also, speech skills? don't seem to influence whether or not you're successfull in communicating with other humans or even other species.
And while we're on that subject. Who is to say that the Asari has the same expressions on their face when they are happy, sad, or mellow than humans do? Even withhin earth culture, people have different expressions on their faces when they are happy, sad, mad, etc. etc. And people often interpret different culture's body language wrong and so we have the conflicts... If you have read the background story of the Krogans on the Mass Effect website, you'll understand why Wrex? is saying that 'my people were once a proud species'. So that not so annoying to me, anyway
- what irritates me is that Bioware again is using clichees, like the old tired warrior, and the young dashing handsome Shepard, saving the Galaxy.
And while the dialogue options may boil down to yes, no and maybe options, don't expect the topical dialoque or what Shepard is sayying to be the same everytime. This dialogue system is supposed to mimick (if that's the correct word?) a natural fluent conversation people (and aliens
) have with each other each day. (in tech term, of course, not in dialogue topics or subjects
).So you can (or at least ought to?) in theory at least, break off a conversation with someone, then go off, then come back and continue the conversation with said person. I just don't understand why they want to make some sort og SIM game in which the conversation pans out in real time and IS, and will be, just like in real life.
I have hard time surviving the real time conversations, thank you very much. I don't need Mass Effect (or other games) to be like real life. I play games as an escape from real life, not as means of immersion myself in a second life type thing or to coin a phrase 'to live another life'.
I have plenty do in my first life
