Mass Effect gets more extreme!

[Jaime Lannister]

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/mas ... ed;title;1

At any rate, the confrontation came to a head, and Sheppard had to make a decision between all six options, some of them quite extreme.

Also, Mako? Sounds like FFVII. Talent wheel? Sounds like PS:T/NWN1. They even mentioned that the third-person shooting aspect was taken from gears of war. Sounds like they don't have much original stuff besides dialogue.

 

[Zomg]

Mako like a shark.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

At any rate, the confrontation came to a head, and Sheppard had to make a decision between all six options, some of them quite extreme. (Again, unfortunately, BioWare wants certain plot points to remain secret for now.)

Knowing Bioware there are probably only two or three unique options while all the others are slight variations.

You can make the Mako, the armored vehicle you control, jump around like the vehicles in Jak III.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

I don't know what happened with Mass Effect, it just seemed so much better a half-year ago. So many asinine announcements that will probably detract from the game.

-Enemies don't drop inventory, you only get money and "med-gels" supposedly. No reward for killing a feared assassin who has a snazzy Magnum or something. Also screams of consolization.

-Vehicular sequences that seem forced....because everybody loves minigames! At least the tank thing looks sort of fun. But it will mot likely get boring fast.

-Shitty level design. Instead of making planets seem vast and open, we'll just make them as linear and dungeon-like as possible. At least try a design like Ratchet and Clank.

-Forced party members. Apparently you can never willingly go lone wolf, as you always have two party members with you. Guess what this means? There will be at least two characters you can't ditch and joinable NPCs will be immortal...again.

-Level scaling....why choose good design and balancing when you can just scale things to the player's level?

-Rather boring looking party members. Two humans, one of each gender, two male aliens with a lot of testosterone, and two alien women both playing the nerdy girl role. Not to mention Blue Woman Group, Liara or something, is apparently a shy, bookish archaeologist who doesn't know much about people and social interaction...but watch out....after an hour with Shepard she'll be fury unleashed with her biotics, taking down tons of Geth...while still suffering from a severe lack of self-confidence. Aerie syndrome much?

-Pretty crappy background system. Instead of having interesting ones like Arcanum, they just see to be munchkin stat boosts with no ill effects. This could turn out alright....but I doubt it.

-The combat. I've heard some wild rumours that stats may have been displaced a lot in combat. Hopefully this isn't true, as it would pretty much make Mass Effect Shadows of Amn lite plus System Shock 2 lite. Even still, the combat really doesn't look amazing, at least not enough to carry the game upon.

Ah well. Mass Effect at least looks sort of fun, and worth the money if only for th laughs I'll probably get from the EXTREME dialogue. Not to mention I can get it at a very nice discount......

 

[Elhoim]

Only a dozen? - EXTREME RESPONSE!

 

[obediah]

I was reading feedback from one of the cons, and it was very very meh. They were bitching that the animations and voice acting were bad, and that the FPS combat looked lame and generic. These complaints were from the console kiddies that Bioware is trying to sell out too. I'm not sure if this signifies an end of the console gaming press honeymoon with Bioware or if they'll kiss and make up before reviews come out.

My guess is the press hyped too much too early and got sick of delays. Now with Bioshock hitting it big, and Halo 3 and other bigs games coming out soon, Mass Effect is going to have to put up with much less coverage than if they had made spring or summer. Although after the completely unwarranted super-sloppy press blowjob they got with Jade Empire, there's no where but down to go.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Mako like a shark.

You can make the Mako, the armored vehicle you control, jump around like the vehicles in Jak III.

So you jump the shark, eh? How appropriate.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

I'm not sure if this signifies an end of the console gaming press honeymoon with Bioware or if they'll kiss and make up before reviews come out.

My guess is the press hyped too much too early and got sick of delays. Now with Bioshock hitting it big, and Halo 3 and other bigs games coming out soon, Mass Effect is going to have to put up with much less coverage than if they had made spring or summer. Although after the completely unwarranted super-sloppy press blowjob they got with Jade Empire, there's no where but down to go.

Bioware, and Mass Effect, is about to become the gaming journalism whipping boy so they can justify all the love for Fallout 3. Because let's face it, they have to keep some semblance of appearance and can't just give everything "9.5/10 BEST GAEM EVAH!!!" like they have been doing in the past 6 months. And honestly....Mass Effect looks like it's poised to take the fall. What exactly does it offer that any game in the spotlight in a year or so hasn't done better? The shooter elements will undoubtedly be compared to BioShock, which trounces it, and it's too light on RPG elements to carry it through. And it just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as well. Halo 3, Brawl, Metroid Prime 3, and a few other large budget games are coming out around the same time, and they will all get very high scores and have a ton of hype already.

To sum it up...they're about to be the one guy who gets pulled over by the cops for speeding among the twenty other cars doing it.

Hopefully I'm wrong. Bioware really doesn't deserve it, they've been pretty honest about Mass Effect as opposed to the lying snakes Bethesda and their ilk are.

 

[Zomg]

I have a funny feeling Bioware will shell out for whatever sycophant party it takes to turn that hype bus back on course.

 

[MetalCraze]

Is it me or do all dialogue options in Mass Effect consist of 3 words? oooh... Shepard you're so intellectual.

and don't forget that unique console auto-targeting when shooting!

 

[tardtastic]

My response to Skyway's post is one of the following 3 x-treme replies:

1: Yes, that's it!
2: You nailed it!
3: I do agree.

but i chose it while he was still talking, thus interrupting him. IMMERSION

 

[obediah]

My response to Skyway's post is one of the following 3 x-treme replies:

1: Yes, that's it!
2: You nailed it!
3: I do agree.

but i chose it while he was still talking, thus interrupting him. IMMERSION

There does always seem to be at least one option that assumes you've just stumbled upon the game running in an alley somewhere:

"huh?", "What are you saying?", etc

Oblivion had more meaningful dialog options.

 

[Zomg]

If there's someone who knows about computer graphics, what is making that screenshot look so shitty to me? Is it just the art design or is there some shader or something that's making me vaguely disgusted by it?

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

1: What the hell?
2: Yes, now gimme your money!
3: THAT'S COMMANDER SHEPARD! [grabs collar]

Shepardized.

Is it just the art design or is there some shader or something that's making me vaguely disgusted by it?

Probably the art design. The face looks kind of fucked up, and the armor is just ridiculous looking anime trash.

 

[tardtastic]

Who needs style, design, or other obsoleted features like "art education" when you've got FACEGEN SLIDERS?

answer:

1: Rabid CRPG-fanboys. (You tell 'em, Emil!)
2: NMA's splenetic myrmidons.
3: Mudcrabs. Vile creatures.


If Blizzard had its heart in the right place (which it doesn't and won't ever), they could mop the floor with all these jokers and wrap-up the CRPG market just as they've done with MMORPGs and, at times, RTS's.

 

[Dmitron]

Only a dozen? - EXTREME RESPONSE!

I'd be wearing a suit like that too if it disguised the bolts in the sides of my fucking neck.

 

[Texas Red]

"Hopefully I'm wrong. Bioware really doesn't deserve it, they've been pretty honest about Mass Effect as opposed to the lying snakes Bethesda and their ilk are."

Oh yeah, the bigest fucking whore in the industry doesnt deserve it . Biowhore is THE worst sellout.

Did you also forget the Sonic RPG, perchance?

 

[tardtastic]

i don't understand how a sonic rpg is supposed to work. if you don't put all your statpoints into "speed" (or dex or agi or whatever) then wtf kind of sonic game is it going to end up being?

 

[MetalCraze]

i don't understand how a sonic rpg is supposed to work. if you don't put all your statpoints into "speed" (or dex or agi or whatever) then wtf kind of sonic game is it going to end up being?

What? didn't you played Jade Empire(tm) ?!
Teh progreszs man! And now Biowhore will let you have only 1 stat - SPEED - instead of whole 3 which is hardcore!
And you will be able to fuck the whole gameworld - unlike only 2 bitches like it was in hardcore JE!

Rejoyce!

 

[tardtastic]

i tried to play jade empire, but then it occured to me that "double dragon" is a much better game and i went and MAMEd that instead.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Maybe if Mass Effect fails horribly Bioware will return to making good RPGs like they used to.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Maybe if Mass Effect fails horribly Bioware will return to making good RPGs like they used to.

That's not likely. Unfortunately Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR both sold quite a few units, probably more than Shadows of Amn, unfortunately.

 

[Texas Red]

Maybe if Mass Effect fails horribly Bioware will return to making good RPGs like they used to.

That's not likely. Unfortunately Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR both sold quite a few units, probably more than Shadows of Amn, unfortunately.

I dont think so. The last time I checked the most sold games BG 2 was quite up there in the tops.

I dont expect Mass Effect to get anything below from 9 from the journalist whores. I doubt you have much of a choise when some CEO orders you to write a positive review because he got a "gift" from Bioware and doesnt want his relationship with them ruined(read: not profitable).

 

[sabishii]

Well they're still making Dragon Age and for some reason I have faith in that. Maybe because it hasn't been ridiculously hyped yet.

 

[fastpunk]

Someone said this game looked better half-a-year ago. I'm beginning to agree. The voice acting is bad: stiff, devoid of emotion. Also, I'm willing to bet that the game is going to get pretty repetitive after a while (you pick a destination, use your vehicle to dispatch some enemies, then go inside some base and kill everything you see and then do some talking) if they don't add any puzzles or things like that. Previous BioWare games had a lot of nice puzzles (like those from the tombs in Korriban from KotOR) which served to break up the action nicely and gave the game a nice pacing.