Who plays Mass Effect?

[Brutalis]

I played the 2nd one for 15 mins and it froze up, so I don't know what to think about it.

ME3 looks pretty cool though. And I love RPG games, and am a fan of alien futuristic stuff like this.

I am a n00b to ME3 though and wondered if it would be worth it to even pick up this game? And how much of a true RPG is it really??

[Hooks]

Mass effect is one of the best rpgs EVER I liked part one much better though, but me 2 is supposed to be a filler. In part one you could get different armors, guns, custom ammo, and attatchments on your gun. You Could also pick up armor/guns ammo types off of dead enemies. In part 2 you can only choOse like one armor and gun you can't pick stuff up from enemies.
Part 2 is still a great game though.

ME3 is supposed to return to the way part one was with the customization.


The story line is one of the best ever I love it.

You should definitely play me 1 first it won't disappoint, it should be pretty cheap. Also the decisions you make in part 1 carry over to me 2 if you import the character same as part 3.

All three are worth every penny, I think ME3 will win GOTY.

[vander]

ME1 >> ME2

for the usual reasons that sequels are almost always worse than originals. simplification, streamlining, appealing to the lowest common denominator, loss of creativity and uniqueness etc.

but yeah. Mass Effect one of the few reasons I haven't lost all hope in the gaming industry

[MannyIsGod]

It would be stupid not to go back and play the previous titles and just jump into 3.

[DJ Mbenga]

loved 2. dont really feel the need to carry over my save progress since everyone died in my final mission. the black guy urged me to upgrade the ship but i didnt listen. cant wait for part 3. im gonna go on all evil run.

[Brutalis]

Yeah but how deep is the actual RPG? Skyrim like? Enlighten me.

[mingus]

no its not skyrim. dialogue, character build and pretty much everything is streamlined so that you don't have to sit in fron of a t.v. like a vegetable to get the most out of the game like skyrim.

[Kai]

Nothing is like the Elder Scrolls, you should just count them as a genre on their own. Mass Effect was great, Mass Effect 2 was good. It went from an RPG with 3rd person shooter elements to a 3rd person shooter with RPG elements.

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

Speaking strictly of my experience with ME2, as mingus said, streamlined would be a good word for it. The character building process is limited to picking a class from a list of maybe five or six(?) which correspond to various styles of play (tank, sniper, stealth, etc) that will determine which skills and weapons you're able to use from the start. Physical stats like health, speed, and those kind of things are also determined by this. They'll increase as you level up but the class choice matters towards which will be emphasized more. You don't get to put points towards making your character faster or more accurate specifically, rather one of the four skills available to put your build points into is usually some sort percentage increase to your health and damage while the other three are active combat skills which can be upgraded as well. With the exception of a couple of specialized weapons you can get late in the game weapon improvements are made across the board for classes of weapons. So if you find a new assault rifle all of your party members that can use rifles can select if from their weapon loadout at the start of the mission. If your improve your pistol's accuracy everyone's pistol gets more accuratte. There's no inventory to speak of except for the healing items, each character can carry only one of whatever kind of weapons they can use (which are fixed. One character might only be able to use pistols and shotguns, while another uses a sniper rifle and SMG.) YMMV depending on your love of minutiae. Some people find the system limiting, others figure they would have to specialize their team along those lines anyways. Not all skills are created equal, but the system makes it hard to fuck up any character ireparably. Later in the I think you even get the option to reassign skill points for a price.

Likewise there's not much of a free roaming aspect to it, no sandbox sort of experience. The game's very clear in where you need to go next to keep the story moving, occasionally even forcing your hand on a few plot central missions. During the missions it pays to search every nook and cranny for upgrades and side missions but for the most part they are fairly linear and impossible to get lost on. You can dig through every system in the galaxy (and the mining stuff gets tiresome pretty quick) to find a few hidden missions here and there but for the most part the whole thing progresses in a straight forward fashion.

The dialogue stuff can be a little frustrating. In almost every conversation you'll have paragon (nice guy) and renegade (tough guy) responses as well as various instances where you can interupt certain conversations with similar choices. The most natural way to go for most players would be a blend of the two because your team and all the people that you run across cover a wide array of personalities. You'll likely be sympathetic to some and want to tell others to fuck off. But from a practical standpoint it makes more sense to lean on one side of the other the whole way through because at certain points having a high enough ranking in either opens up an extra option in some key moments.

[Brutalis]

Speaking strictly of my experience with ME2, as mingus said, streamlined would be a good word for it. The character building process is limited to picking a class from a list of maybe five or six(?) which correspond to various styles of play (tank, sniper, stealth, etc) that will determine which skills and weapons you're able to use from the start. Physical stats like health, speed, and those kind of things are also determined by this. They'll increase as you level up but the class choice matters towards which will be emphasized more. You don't get to put points towards making your character faster or more accurate specifically, rather one of the four skills available to put your build points into is usually some sort percentage increase to your health and damage while the other three are active combat skills which can be upgraded as well. With the exception of a couple of specialized weapons you can get late in the game weapon improvements are made across the board for classes of weapons. So if you find a new assault rifle all of your party members that can use rifles can select if from their weapon loadout at the start of the mission. If your improve your pistol's accuracy everyone's pistol gets more accuratte. There's no inventory to speak of except for the healing items, each character can carry only one of whatever kind of weapons they can use (which are fixed. One character might only be able to use pistols and shotguns, while another uses a sniper rifle and SMG.) YMMV depending on your love of minutiae. Some people find the system limiting, others figure they would have to specialize their team along those lines anyways. Not all skills are created equal, but the system makes it hard to fuck up any character ireparably. Later in the I think you even get the option to reassign skill points for a price.

Likewise there's not much of a free roaming aspect to it, no sandbox sort of experience. The game's very clear in where you need to go next to keep the story moving, occasionally even forcing your hand on a few plot central missions. During the missions it pays to search every nook and cranny for upgrades and side missions but for the most part they are fairly linear and impossible to get lost on. You can dig through every system in the galaxy (and the mining stuff gets tiresome pretty quick) to find a few hidden missions here and there but for the most part the whole thing progresses in a straight forward fashion.

The dialogue stuff can be a little frustrating. In almost every conversation you'll have paragon (nice guy) and renegade (tough guy) responses as well as various instances where you can interupt certain conversations with similar choices. The most natural way to go for most players would be a blend of the two because your team and all the people that you run across cover a wide array of personalities. You'll likely be sympathetic to some and want to tell others to fuck off. But from a practical standpoint it makes more sense to lean on one side of the other the whole way through because at certain points having a high enough ranking in either opens up an extra option in some key moments.

Yeah I cannot stand those kind of games. I like Halo because I know the story behind the games, but as far as the "go here and do this, now go here, do this, repeat" gets old very fast.

The reason why I am inquiring about ME3 is because I am missing a shooter action type game yet don't want to go the boring rinse and repeat MW3/BF3 route. To each his own but those games were fun when I was a kid, not so much now.

The part that has me very interested is obviously the futuristic weapons and experience. I love the sci-fi stuff, IE Halo. But even I can admit I loved the books 10x more than playing the Halo games.

Anyways I think I'll give this game a chance. I need to find the storyline somewhere on the net, cause I'm not spending money on older games to catch myself up when I'll be dumping $60 into it in a couple months.

[Brutalis]

It would be stupid not to go back and play the previous titles and just jump into 3.

Developer videos say the opposite. Of course they want to sell this game but still, from what I gather the storyline isn't as deep as one would imagine it seems. Of course I'm basing that off a few people at work who have played them both.

[z0sa]

D

[z0sa]

ME1 had the skeleton of the greatest game series ever made. ME2 broke that skeletons legs and arms but finished the rest of the body off pretty nicely.

To me, these games could have been incredible sandbox games with sooo much to do, instead, they made them semi-linear. Particularly ME2 - scanning planets? really? No more rover, no destroying mechs and turrets and all that good junk?

ME3 will be great, just like ME1 and ME2, but it won't be as good as could have been. TES 4 and 5 prove that a living, breathing open universe will always be much better for RPGs of epic scope and caliber, rather than "go here, do this, land here because now you can" and did I mention the most boring gameplay element since solving the light puzzles in SwordQuest?

[z0sa]

BTW, there are two newish epic-scope games where the classic RPG formula stays strong, and that is Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. Two of the most difficult games you can ever play, but very well done.

[resistanze]

ME1 had the skeleton of the greatest game series ever made. ME2 broke that skeletons legs and arms but finished the rest of the body off pretty nicely.
Well said. No storyline from a game had ever amazed like ME1. Unfortunately, perhaps it was due to the hype around ME2, the game took a somewhat wild departure from the story arc one would've assumed the game would take. However, the self-contained stories within ME2 are told excellently; but the game as a whole did not contribute anything at all to the overall series (from a storyline perspective).

Brutalis, I would highly suggest you investing in the previous ME games. They can be had on sale for $10.

[vander]

playing through ME1 again, this time on a modern system, and damn I can't get enough of it, it's just enthralling, despite it's many flaws.

even the parts that I remembered less that fondly from the first time through were pretty darn fun this time, perhaps even more fun now that I kinda know what to expect and how to handle it, and I'm leveling up my guys much more usefully this time around too.

also, I found this space monkey that gives you seemingly infinite Paragon :lol WTF?