Finished it an hour ago, and you can choose to start a new playthrough with your current character and current stats (which I did, since I want to get to level 50). Your Paragon/Renegade score gets reset, but you keep everything else, including your inventory. You also get the "hardcore" difficulty unlocked, which so far, doesn't seem all that difficult.
[360] Mass Effect
- Thread starter Duck Dodgers
- Start date
Just finished the game and WOW. I cannot adequately describe my praise for this game in words. Excellent story accompanies excellent gameplay. And I was very happy with the satisfying ending. When I heard this game was going to be a trilogy I feared they were going to leave the story hanging.
Last edited by a moderator:
scooby_dooby
Legend
Also, another cool thing about starting over is that if you create a new character, all the stores still stock the weaponry they did at the end of the game, so there's actually something to strive for.
For example, right off the bat tyhe alliance requisition officer stocks the Spectre Pistols and Armors for 320,000 credits, of course I can't afford it yet, but I should be able to get it much earlier than I did on the first playthrough.
That's due to you getting the "Rich" achievement. Your bonuses from achievements carry through to all your other characters.
If you start over with the same character, you get all the equipment you had previously, including what your squad had. I started the game over with 169 items, and around 10 million credits. I had to convert a bunch of things to omnigel.
only 10K experience and I'm at level 50.
Best side mission experience for me so far.
Is it me or are the side missions totally generic in structure but the dialogue and cutscene system make some of them a really enjoyable experience.
The "Dead Scientists" mission that has do with Azure, which is the planet that revolves around you being the sole survivor (I guess this is dependent on whether you pick this option at the beginning of the game.)
When you reach the last room of the underground bunker you see a soldier holding a gun at a scientist's head. The soldier recognizes you and turns out to be one of your squad mates who was supposely wiped out. Supposely he was captured by the scientists and has undergone torture for a number of years.
The first time I encountered the mission, I told him he should shoot the scientist. He does and goes on to say (paraphrased), "They said you were the sole survivor of Azure, might as well make it true" then turn around and puts the gun to his head and commits suicide.
I was like WTF and found myself totally regretting my dialogue choice I made so I reloaded the mission from the beginning and using my charm dialogue to convince him not to shot the scientist, while the whole time I am hoping that he still doesn't shoot his self again. In the end, he doesn't and the scientist is arrested and your squadmate is placed into therapy.
When you reach the last room of the underground bunker you see a soldier holding a gun at a scientist's head. The soldier recognizes you and turns out to be one of your squad mates who was supposely wiped out. Supposely he was captured by the scientists and has undergone torture for a number of years.
The first time I encountered the mission, I told him he should shoot the scientist. He does and goes on to say (paraphrased), "They said you were the sole survivor of Azure, might as well make it true" then turn around and puts the gun to his head and commits suicide.
I was like WTF and found myself totally regretting my dialogue choice I made so I reloaded the mission from the beginning and using my charm dialogue to convince him not to shot the scientist, while the whole time I am hoping that he still doesn't shoot his self again. In the end, he doesn't and the scientist is arrested and your squadmate is placed into therapy.
Is it me or are the side missions totally generic in structure but the dialogue and cutscene system make some of them a really enjoyable experience.
Mass Effect is a good game, but its not great. It's no KOTOR, not even close. The characters are not as good, there is very little humor, the uncharted worlds are boring, and the core worlds are too short. It feels like it needed another 6 solid months of content creation. Each of the core plot planets can be finished in a couple of hours, loot and character development are simplified. No cities at all beside the Citadel (ok Noveria maybe but its still too small), and the game often recycles the same generic rooms and corridors on many of the random pointless planets. KOTOR had so much more core content, every major planet had a city/base, the game took at least 30-40hrs to finish and none of it was generic or boring or repetitive. If you skip the UCWs in Mass Effect (which you probably will once you see how boring they are or you get insta-killed when the giant worm spawns right under the mako) it can be finished in less than 10hrs. The control scheme baffles me, you have 2 buttons to draw/holster gun but only one spell hotkey, sprint is the same as use (this will drive you crazy), first aid takes up a face button when it could easily be on the wheel, and grenade is the damn back button. No option to change the binds, I would like to have a chat with the person who thought up this scheme. Motion blur activates even when you are barely moving the camera at all (to cover up the often terrible framerate no doubt) making everything a fuzzy mess and giving me a headache, good think you can disable it or I would have taken the game right back to the store.
However the story is pretty good and I really love the combat system. Powerful yet simple, and a blast to play with Vanguard. That's probably why I started a new game on Hardcore as soon as I finished my first run (veteran is too easy), just cant get enough of the combat (singularity vanguard is a beast) and I want to see the alternate endings. I cant help but wish for KOTOR with this combat system, but I am optimistic for the sequel (less style more substance please).
However the story is pretty good and I really love the combat system. Powerful yet simple, and a blast to play with Vanguard. That's probably why I started a new game on Hardcore as soon as I finished my first run (veteran is too easy), just cant get enough of the combat (singularity vanguard is a beast) and I want to see the alternate endings. I cant help but wish for KOTOR with this combat system, but I am optimistic for the sequel (less style more substance please).
Last edited by a moderator:
JacksBleedingEyes
Regular
ME has great graphics. The worlds it creates are beautiful and the cut scenes are worth watching.
However this game is one of many that goes to show that optical media is dead.
The texture popping is horrendous. There is not any one scene where it doesn't occur and it really breaks immersion at times.
Every time you enter a dialog scene is there. When speaking to the council every time the camera changes you get it.
If I had one pet peeve with ME, this would be it.
However this game is one of many that goes to show that optical media is dead.
The texture popping is horrendous. There is not any one scene where it doesn't occur and it really breaks immersion at times.
Every time you enter a dialog scene is there. When speaking to the council every time the camera changes you get it.
If I had one pet peeve with ME, this would be it.
It's not necessarily dead for storage or transport but running a game real-time from the DVD is just crazy. For some reason Bioware decided not the use the hard-drive for caching (they have admitted this on their forum) and the result is a mess where textures pop in in the middle of a scene and often the conversation is over before they are finished loading. I got a 360 for this game knowing it was loud, but I had no idea how loud. The DVD is going full speed without slowing down at all the whole time while playing, it's almost as loud as a coffee grinder. I play on my PC desk w/vga cable so if you have a tv w/5.1 it might not be so bad buy I pretty much have to use headphones.
The Spectre Elite rifle = spray and pray
Best way to make money and keep the inventory clean.
Equip your team with the best equipment. Then goto the rec officer and sell everything else. Once you level up enough, get the Spectre Elite equipment and dump the rest.
From were can you buy the Spectre equipment? I can't seem to find any... Is it sidequest related?
After you raised to 1 000 000 Crédits and got "the capitalist", go to SCC or Normandy intendance.
I completely agree with shiznit post. I have been waiting for Mass Effect a long time, considering how good KOTOR was. However, the game doesn't live up to my expectations. The main story, while good is very, very short. There is only one city, the citadel, and that city is small. Only 4 interesting planet missions (with actual content) before the end missions kick in. All the other planet explorations are just filler content with basically three maps, the spaceship map, the underground building map and the underground mine map. Just boring.
I've also been disappointed by the dialogs which is clearly not as dynamic as I expected. I didn't manage to interrupt anybody yet. And the choices you make don't seem to have much consequences apart from giving you paragon/renegade points. The dialog presentation is above everything else though, you can't get much involved than that.
The face customization is also nice, it's very satisfying to see the guy/girl you designed interact with other people.
Anyway the game do feel a little rushed to me. The game do have an 'OMG fabulous' end though.
I've also been disappointed by the dialogs which is clearly not as dynamic as I expected. I didn't manage to interrupt anybody yet. And the choices you make don't seem to have much consequences apart from giving you paragon/renegade points. The dialog presentation is above everything else though, you can't get much involved than that.
The face customization is also nice, it's very satisfying to see the guy/girl you designed interact with other people.
Anyway the game do feel a little rushed to me. The game do have an 'OMG fabulous' end though.
scooby_dooby
Legend
1) You can interrupt anyone, at any time. After you've selected what you want to say, press X to interrupt them.
2) The decisions do impact some things, such as who you keep in your party, whether
Wrex dies, whether Ashley or Kaiden dies, whether you have to fight Saren at the end
Scooby, you better put those comments in a spoiler tag. Not everyone has already finished the game..
Last edited by a moderator:
Not played the game myself but, as regards the storyline:
I've hidden my thoughts in a spoiler just in case anybody has read the books I think the main concept of the storyline, erm, 'borrows' from! :smile:
From the precis of the storyline, it sounds as though somebody at Bioware has been reading the Revelation Space books by Alastair Reynolds...
I've hidden my thoughts in a spoiler just in case anybody has read the books I think the main concept of the storyline, erm, 'borrows' from! :smile:
I'd agree with that (playing through ME at the moment). Seems a fairly similar idea - but then I guess there are probably other books with similar themes as well, it's a fairly common scenario.
Kent Brockman: I, for one, welcome our new ant overlords!
I'm up to what I think is the end, where I just lost one of my crew members and have "escaped" the citadel. It really broke me up having to choose, since I'd been playing with a human/human/human team for the whole game. I can't see how you'd say your choices don't matter in this game
After reading about that book series it does bear a very striking similarity. This is disappointing my enthusiasm for ME has died down a bit. But on the bright side I now have a very interesting book series to look forward to reading.
Really? I thought it was pretty original sci-fi. I was impressed of the quality of the story in a videogame. This isn't just a passing similarity it's very similar. It's a let down that ME swiped the story.
Last edited by a moderator:
