Review Mass Effect Nitpick concludes @ Twenty-Sided

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Mass Effect

<a href="http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2073">Part 2 of the Mass Effect Nitpick</a> is up at Twenty Sided:
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<blockquote>The game is saddled with heartless, incessant, and tediously flow-breaking loading screens. Some are disguised as elevators. The game is just a jerk when it comes to squandering slices of time.
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Combat is mostly satisfying, but marred by the enthusiastic retardation of your teammates. They constantly stand in front of you during combat, forcing you to move. Or they’ll take all the cover and leave you to stand in the open like a target dummy. Or, if you do find a good bit of cover and they don’t, they will stand right beside you, in the open, and “catch” incoming rockets so you can enjoy the blast radius.
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[...]
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Given the copious and diverse loading screens, I thought I would return the favor and cover this issue twice. Noveria was particularly cruel when it came to elevators, sometimes requiring two or three elevator rides between each step. The initial section in Port Hanshan is a four-stop quest that requires seven elevator rides.
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The sections of the game where you drive the “Mako” - the all-terrain space-buggy - are by far the worst.
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The central problem with the game is the amount of time you must spend just getting to the gameplay. For every five minutes you spend in combat or in dialog, you’ll spend twice that walking, driving, loading, riding elevators, watching unskippable animations, and fussing around with the inventory. You spend more time getting to the fun than having fun.</blockquote>
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Sounds like fun.
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Spotted @ <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGwatch</a>

 

[Mister Arkham]

Bitch, bitch, bitch. Christ.

I'm hardly defending the game, god knows that it has its problems, but half of that article is dedicated to friggin' LOADING SCREENS. It's hardly an issue for anyone with an iota of patience.

Also, while I largely agree with his sentiment regarding the Mako, I had NONE of the problems with combat that he claims to have had in the several play throughs I gave the game. Once again, it seems to boil down to the writer having an intense need for instant gratification.

Hell, maybe I'm crazy, but if I'm going to put that much time into playing a game, I like to work a little to get my reward.

Can we put this game to bed now?

 

[burrie]

Apparantly not. There's going to be another post on that blog about the things the writer loved in Mass Effect, so I guess that will be a news item as well.

 

[Rhalle]

Mass Effect's inventory is an abomination.

And the linear (linear in the sense that every map is a really long hallway, either for the sake of the cover system or the driving sequences) is also an abomination.

It goes without saying that the achievement quests in which you must collect relics and similar shit are an abomination as well, and that whoever implemented them should be drawn and quartered at the next EA company barbecue.

 

[Seboss]

You spend more time getting to the fun than having fun.

The infamous Quest Compass and Fast Travel came to existence because of such comments.
Yet, I agree the insane amount of elevators and running around (especially on the Normandia) were a pain in the ass.
That's what happens when levels are designed for a console with 512MB of RAM.

 

[Forest Dweller]

The central problem with the game is the amount of time you must spend just getting to the gameplay. For every five minutes you spend in combat or in dialog, you’ll spend twice that walking, driving, loading, riding elevators, watching unskippable animations, and fussing around with the inventory. You spend more time getting to the fun than having fun.

Yeah sure, they slowed the game down so much that they made corpse looting automatic and instantly warped you back to the Normandy when a mission is done. Christ, I wonder what this guy thought of the Witcher.

watching unskippable animations

WAT

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

BTW, could anyone explain me why consoles are so low on RAM? RAM is dirt cheap these days, an extra GB shouldn't up the manufacture costs considerably.

 

[MaskedMan]

Christ, I wonder what this guy thought of the Witcher.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=25553

 

[Xerxos]

Well everyone who bitches about long elevator rides has probably played the console version - serves them right.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Well everyone who bitches about long elevator rides has probably played the console version - serves them right.

Huh? The length is the same, regardless of the version.

 

[Mister Arkham]

Christ, I wonder what this guy thought of the Witcher.

If I recall correctly, he refused to play past the first chapter because he didn't like Geralt as a character (which I can respect, but he didn't give the character time to develop) and because he thought that the game was too hard and graphically ugly.

That's right around the time I stopped reading his site independently. Also, every post he made ended up being about how World of Warcraft was "OMG HEAVAN!"

 

[aries202]

I thought Mass Effect was an (action) rpg, not a shooter. Sounds like this guy might have thought that Mass Effect were a shooter with (good) shooter combat, tactial squad-based combat that is.

In an RPG, I don't have any problem running around, walking, talking, watching cutsenes. Now, in a shooter like Call of Duty 4 or Gears of 4 this would be boring. Not so in Mass Effect which is an rpg - sort of...

 

[Seboss]

BTW, could anyone explain me why consoles are so low on RAM? RAM is dirt cheap these days, an extra GB shouldn't up the manufacture costs considerably.

I guess the cost of the extra GB is not the only issue.
Power consumption, heat and mere size may be problematic as well.

Besides, consoles are produced in the millions and that extra chip of RAM in every console might put too much strain on the providers, especially at launch when the console are cutting edge technology and supply chains are not exactly top-notch.

Anyway, a PC port from a console past the middle of its lifecycle is inevitably a recipe for disaster (see Deus Ex 2 and Thief III).