Shepard gets more extreme - summary executions!

[Brother None]

That's true. Anyone knows who created those talking heads?

Scott Rodenhizer and Eddie Rainwater. Boyarsky sculpted one head, the Overseer's.

Chris Borders did the voices.

 

[Gwendo]

I can't see how Half-life 2's facial expressions are better. But let's wait until ME is released, and then compare. So far, characters have a realistic look. Not a perfect one, as we don't have that kind of technology yet, but very impressive.

And it's funny you mention half-life 2, which is only a FPS, no choices, no alternative paths. It's far easier to script a game like that than a game witch the scope of ME. The difference in the amount of voiced dialogues between the games must be staggering.

The way the NPC's move, for example, seem more realistic in ME than in HL2 and Vampire: Bloodlines. The character models too. The voice acting... Vampire was very good, but I have yet to play ME to make a concluding comparison.

 

[RK47]

He doesn't sound convincing when he said he killed 50.

 

[Gwendo]

He doesn't sound convincing when he said he killed 50.

He's a cold blooded soldier, a veteran commander. It's aceptable a more rigid posture and attitude. Should he have said that line with a deep voice (like in hollywood movie trailers), with more temper (like an excited and look-how-i'm-cool attitude teenager)?

Personally I think the scene is fine as it is. Dangerous silent types are usually scarier than those verborreic bullies.

 

[Jedi_Learner]

What is your agenda Gwendo?

 

[RK47]

I just stepped on 50 piles of shit on my way here, guess who's the 51st and the 52nd?

 

[doctor_kaz]

This dialog is so bad that it reminds me of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. They are trying to be edgy, dark, and badass, and it just falls flat. It doesn't work. It might just be that having the main character voice the lines that you supposedly choose just isn't right. It worked in Deus Ex, but I think that's because the voice actor was completely emotionless so the performance fit in perfectly. But I hate Shepard's dialog. I think that I would prefer the silent protagonist in this case.

I do think that the facial expressions look incredible though. And I'm really impressed by how well the face generation function works. Combat looks better than I thought it would end up too. And the role-playing system actually looks decent. Jade Empire's was such crap.

 

[Mayday]

None of that crap was EXTREME...this is EXTREME:

The single sex scene is brief and undetailed, although there is breast nudity in one version of the scene. The sex scene is triggered by the player making a series of choices about becoming more than friends with a colleague. If playing as a male character the scene can take place between him and a human woman or a humanoid female alien. If playing as a female character the scene can take place between her and a male human or a female humanoid alien.

So in the world of Mass Effect, all males are straight stoic hero-types but females are prepared to carpet-munch entirely different species of the same gender? Hell - sign me up!

 

[MetalCraze]

I love the way it's cut. The love interest goes "Shooting people isn't always the answer!" and then it cuts into a scene of the three shooting people. Grand.

That's why we love bioware.

Oh come on. ME won't be a nice game. It probably won't reach even the level of Jade Empire. Game mechanics suck. Why to make an action part of the game to look like shooter if you will add auto-targeting to it? it's retarded.
And about the role-playing part. I simply can't believe that Commander Shepard is such a badass. Judging by the way he speaks with people he is just another stereotypical armed forces superhero who acts like he got a huge cojones. But who knows what else xbox kids would want.
and killed 50 people to got there? extreme.

 

[Elhoim]

What I would like to know is the full sentence of the "Only a dozen?" option that appeared in a screenshot a while ago.

Now, focusing a little in the dialogue wheel, did you notice that some options where different colored? IIRC, there were white, blue and red. Red seems to be intimidate, and blue diplomacy. I guess that skills get into account in those ones.

 

[aries202]

Commander Jane or John Shepard can be played as charming personality or a very intimadating character. Just follow the blue or the red lines...

 

[JoeDirt]

They should cut out the dialog options and simply use colors, like red = intimidation, blue = diplomacy, etc.

 

[kingcomrade]

RED MEANS ANGRY

 

[Volourn]

"Why to make an action part of the game to look like shooter"

Because ME wasn't a shooter, It's an Action RPG.

 

[Mamon]

This game is just like FO3, a shooter with stats tacked on.

I liked KOTOR but this game looks very lame.

 

[OccupatedVoid]

It will be better than Fallblivion

 

[spacemoose]

They should cut out the dialog options and simply use colors, like red = intimidation, blue = diplomacy, etc.

that's not a bad idea

I'd go with:

BLUE: try to reason with them
GREEN: lie or deceive
ORANGE: threaten them
RED: physically threaten them (collar grabbin', pistol whippin')

 

[Elhoim]

They should cut out the dialog options and simply use colors, like red = intimidation, blue = diplomacy, etc.

that's not a bad idea

I'd go with:

BLUE: try to reason with them
GREEN: lie or deceive
ORANGE: threaten them
RED: physically threaten them (collar grabbin', pistol whippin')

Yep, it would be much better, and more cinematic and fluid, as that is what they are trying to achieve.

 

[Annonchinil]

Ummm it didn't sound like an actual conversation between real people. It was as though they are only allowed to converse in one-liners making it seem disjoined and as much Bioware praises the physical aspect of a conversation the player created "akward pauses" automatically take me out of the 'movie'

The quest desing seems very Biowarish as you attack a heavily guarded compound to get to its single leader and then you talk to him before and/or after a fight. You also get the option to avoid an easy fight after lots of previous ones.

All the moral choices are lame it seems like you can either kill people or let them live (like the Witcher) my most memorable choice in a game was choosing whether to tell Diohnerra the truth about our love. Not including the execution sceen was also a joke, in MGS3 you actually got to pull the trigger, at least know we know the Japanese have more balls than Canadians.

I also hate the way Bioware presents this as the best game evar, with the best story that is so amazing that it will blow your mind. I also don't much care for the Halo series either but Bungie has not proclaimed #3 to be the next coming of christ. Bioware has yet to release an interesting story trailer like some games have done and so far it appears that you go around the galaxy capturing artifacts.

 

[Volourn]

"This game is just like FO3, a shooter with stats tacked on."

Nope. Not true. It's an Action RPG. Basically, it's a BIO style RPG with real time combat thrown in. It's not a shooter; but ti does have some shooter elements *shrug* so it's an Action RPG with shooter crap thrown in.


"I liked KOTOR but this game looks very lame."

This game looks to be 1 million times better than KOTOR in every meaningful way.

 

[MetalCraze]

This game looks to be 1 million times better than KOTOR in every meaningful way.

Yes. KOTOR wasn't extreme enough.

and while in KOTOR you have a choice to play a nice hippie or a dumb nazi in ME your choice is the last option only. And at least when bad guys pointed a gun at your face they meant to shoot. And look here. Bad guys point a gun at Shepard's face, while he does nothing - a slight pull of trigger and Shepard's brains will be flying around the room with a nice motion blur next-gen effect. But no - Shepard tells them that he got big cojones. And bad guys run away.

 

[sabishii]

Eh, could be good, could be bad. Will wait for player reviews.

The dialogue isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Well, it didn't seem bad at all. The voice acting didn't match the words, though. Flat-pitch voice does not meld with the verbose threats.

 

[Micmu]

Will it have floating XP/power-up balls to pick up, like fable and JE?
I heard this arcady stuff is hit in "RPGs" nowadays.

 

[NiM82]

There's probably Chuck Norris bobbleheads dotted about the place, that make you more extreme.

Could Sheps voice be any more wooden? given the budget you'd think they would get someone who could actually put some character into it :/

 

[RK47]

I think as game programmers Bioware studio judgement on voice acting may be a little different from movie goers.