Cool, I' ve got to try that but I guess it' s better with those things turned on.

Good, I want to turn off the film grain. I was worried it was a bad design choice or something. It looks like ass on my screen.

Thank God it was possible to turn the film grain off. It looks much, much better now. Makes me question why they used it in the first place.

Is it just me or does Kaidan have the same voice as Carth?

Shit the death of someone had prevented me from diggin further into another sidequest...dammit...

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!!!!

I' m almost 20 hours in and still only on the 3rd " main" mission, so far its going up there on my list of best games ever made.

ORIGINAL: emofag

I' m almost 20 hours in and still only on the 3rd " main" mission, so far its going up there on my list of best games ever made.

I' m on my second playthrough now. My first character was mostly based off me, and ended up with mostly paragon with a tad of renegade. This time around I' m ensuring my character is a badass who despises everything. I laughed really hard at the TV interview part, where at the end I cracked the interviewer a nice one to the head. That' ll teach that bitch to question my loyalty.

Shit the death of someone had prevented me from diggin further into another sidequest...dammit...

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!!!!

Replayability ftw

Damn right. IM gonna replay the fuck out of this game and make it the slut it deserves to be. A high class slut as well.

Is it just me or does Kaidan have the same voice as Carth?

Possibly. But the real story behind voice acting? MOTHERFUCKING KEITH DAVID. Mediocre actor, but great voice actor. Oh, and Seth Green is there too, but he sounds outta place.

Now that so many are playing Mass Effect, what do you think would happen if I walked into a videogame store packed with guys in the age of 14-18 and said loudly " Excuse me commander Shepard" .
Don' t you think lots of them would react as if I was saying their real names?

I have had some time off of work, and I was able to get some good time in with Mass Effect since Friday when I got it.

First things first. The story, voice acting, and music are so far ahead of what we have seen in western RPG' s thus far. The story, while it is a " been there done that" type of story, is in fact quite epic. You get the feeling that you really are in an epic Sci-Fi movie, where it is up to YOU to save the galaxy, and I for one love when a game can capture me in that way.

Graphically, the game is gorgeous in some areas while in others it can honestly look quite horrible. Most of the character models are fantastic, but there have been some female NPC' s I have talked to that just look plastic. There is absolutely no facial description on some of these female NPC' s at all, and it ends up leaving them look like a plastic fact with 2 eyes a nose and a mouth slapped on. Commander Sheppard on the other hand, along with Wrex and Garus both look incredible. The texture pop in doesn' t bother me too much as we had to deal with this in Gear of War, but the frame rate issues, screen tearing, and loading of some areas while you are running can get a little bothersome at times, but its nothing that takes anything away from the whole gameplay experience. Oh, and what is up with some of the shadows cast on the faces? They seem to be a little sketchy, which I was hoping was going to be a lot smoother.

The conversation system, for me, is the wow factor. The conversation system further gives you the feeling that you are the Star in this epic Sci-Fi movie, and really makes me feel as though I am part of the overall story and game, and not just a player behind a controller reading through thousands of lines of text. In this day and age, there is no reason for any RPG to come out that does not use full use of voice acting. Anyway, I enjoy how the conversation system allows you the choice of either being the " good spectre, or bad spectre" . I have gone the route of choosing to be each depending on the situation.

Combat in this game, for me, was fairly easy to pick up. The combat wheel, and weapon wheel, are an ease to use, and they really do an excellent job in reminding you during combat that this is in fact an RPG. I mean, you still get to choose the attack you want to pull off, the " magic" that you want to use, and it also gives you the opportunity to change your weapon on the fly, it' s just that this is now done all in real time. Good on you Bioware.

I am literally still at the beginning of the game, as I am just now fighting to kill the Thorean and get out alive. Bioware have delivered, so far, the game that I was expecting them to deliver. Story, gameplay, and the ability to make me feel as though, once again, I am the Star of this epic Sci-Fi movie are all pluses for me. (Have I said " Star of this epic Sci-Fi movie" enough yet?)

In closing I would just like to say that I really hope that Bioware on at work in releasing a patch to fix some of the framerate issues and screen tearing (if that' s possible), because that would really put this game over the top for me.

ATTENTION SPOILERS, READ THIS ONLY IF YOU FINISHED THE GAME:






I seriously don' t know what the hell has Happened, i beat the game in 14 hours, where is the 20 hours everybody is talking about in the main quest, i didn' t do any side quest because i thought i would leave free roaming a little bit before the end of the game, say around 17 hours, i was very surprised when the game finished, i felt the end when i ended up in the citadel semi destroyed but i was like it can' t be i' m only in 13 hours.

for me the game as an rpg built up very fast to the end, i really thought something bigger than this wil happen, the final boss actualy felt like a regular boss even if the fight was extremly tough for me, may be because my level was low, but as i said if i knew that the final boss was near i wouldn' t go to that final mission (islo) and rather do some sidequests... i' m very disapointed and now i' m thinking about playing the game again with different class although i have some other good games to play.

in all rpg' s i played, they warn you that if you go to that mission you won' t come back , a hint that says if you wanna do some sidequests before finishing the game, this was not present in mass effect at all and as i said i expected 20 hours not 14 .

The final boss battle is plain stupid, i played as Combat/bio and i really suffered as my armors are not solid and with all the bugs around; slowdowns when the boss fired those explosives, the rocks that are scattered block your way and sometimes your character stick to them taking cover, hell even if they are tiny your character can' t pass , i' m talking about rocks with few centimeters in height, also your teammates are dumb) , i always despise developers that make their bosses hard by simply raising to the extrem their attack and specialy their deffense which is the case here, there should be a smart way to beat him, once you find the clue he' ll become a regular ennemy) i hate repeating the same tactic over and over again for more than 20 minutes to beat a boss.

Apart from that the game is absolutely fantastic, one of the best games i played these recent years, i already gave my impressions about other aspects of the game.. now bring on mass effect 2...

question , what is the best class In your opinion ?

I haven' t quite finished the game, but i was at my brothers over the weekend and was there when he completed it so i know what happens.

I think he clocked about 16 hours before completing it, whereas i' m back on the Citadel before going to Ilos and have been playing for over 18 hours. I' ve done a couple of uncharted worlds and a handful of side quests, but nothing major. Heh, i figured the game was ending on Virmire what with everything that happens near the end of the level, ...i was like, oh ok, here comes the cliffhanger.... but it didn' t.

Games in general seem to have become shorter and shorter, but i' m happy with Mass Effects length. Gears is too short. Call of Duty 4 is too short. Halo 3 is too short. Mass Effect is about right, especially given that we' re talking 14 - 16 hours for the main quest alone and the sheer amount of other things you can do would easily take you into the 40+ range.

At least it' s a trilogy.

Anyway, i chose to play as a Soldier the first playthrough, and it served me well for the first 10 hours, ...then i became partially dependent on Liara' s biotic abilities.

Most people i know have been playing as a Vanguard, to get the best of both classes, but they' ve been stuck with the pistol and shotgun for effectiveness in combat. Soldiers can train to use the assault rifles, which once upgraded kick serious ass. I' ve barely used the pistol and the shotgun, the assault rifle and sniper rifle have been all i' ve needed.

For most missions i' ve taken Ashley (who reminds me of Alyx Vance) because she' s good for combat, and either Kaiden or Liara, depending on whether i needed tech or biotics, ...but mostly Liara.

The game is amazing.

but 14 hours for an rpg that' s waaaay too short how come you think it' s normal ?? Gears of war is not short , it' s about right 8 hours that' s fine for a shooter game , call of duty 4 is not that short but may be i' m forgiving becuse i' m not paying that 60 bucks, but mass effect is a real disapointement in this area, after writing my above post on kikizo i went to read some user reviews and there are many flaws that i couldn' t experience since i was focusing on the main story, many of them say that side missions don' t contribute a dime to the main story , in addition, planets are empty and many of them look the same with color differences, Pro reviews mentioned that as well saying that most of side missions are not interesting at all. People are also complaining a lot about the texture pop in, do that means it' s not my dvd, i think that' s the biggest issue in graphics.

Many users agree that the game is too short and damn right it is. it was absoluuuuutly not in my agenda to finish the game today.

Gears, GRAW/2 and CoD4 are about 6 hours. That' s short no matter how you look at it.

I' m not sure what you expected from Mass Effect. It' s as long as RE4 and it' s more 3rd person shooter come RPG than traditional RPG. It has amazing production values, a great story and tons of replay value. I don' t see the problem. It' s may not be as long as Oblivion or KOTOR, but it' s as long as BioShock and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

I haven' t come far but I love the game. There are a couple of gaming experiences in life that work like some kind of benchmark. Ever since Resident Evil 4 I' ve been waiting for a new game to be a new one and Mass Effect became it.
But right now I' m haivng some frequent freezes, crashes and " can' t read the disc" issues so I' m not very happy

ORIGINAL: Abasoufiane

but 14 hours for an rpg that' s waaaay too short how come you think it' s normal ?? Gears of war is not short , it' s about right 8 hours that' s fine for a shooter game , call of duty 4 is not that short but may be i' m forgiving becuse i' m not paying that 60 bucks, but mass effect is a real disapointement in this area, after writing my above post on kikizo i went to read some user reviews and there are many flaws that i couldn' t experience since i was focusing on the main story, many of them say that side missions don' t contribute a dime to the main story , in addition, planets are empty and many of them look the same with color differences, Pro reviews mentioned that as well saying that most of side missions are not interesting at all. People are also complaining a lot about the texture pop in, do that means it' s not my dvd, i think that' s the biggest issue in graphics.

Many users agree that the game is too short and damn right it is. it was absoluuuuutly not in my agenda to finish the game today.

You need to enjoy the game for what it is, rather than focusing on all the negatives.

I enjoy being a Vanguard. I get to blast Geth Destroyers/ Juggernauts to bits with
my CARNAGE ripper.

I usually take Liara/Ashley, cos I made a female, and we' re the three b!tches.

We also look hot, even though Liara' s blue, she can still hang with us, we aren' t
racist us humans.

Ashley Williams is a firm believer in God, Kaidan had to go.... Sorry.

Aba is as obviously retarded,you can finish Oblivions main quest at 14 hours too,or even shorter.

ME is around 15 hours if you do what your supposed to do and read the dialogs,with sidequest its another 15-20 hours.

Is that short?
Its the same kind of lenght as Jade empire,btw you even get a reward for finishing FF9 in less then 12 hours,the thing is ME is more about choices and characters,to many choices,its not a FF were everything is linear.

I had 2 main characters die in ME because I didnt pay attention,I managed to save them this time tough.

And you cant even remeber that your character is a vanguard aba?
You dumb or something?

Btw the finale boss is easy,not only can you make him shoot himself throuh charm in the first stage,but at the 2nd you can throw lift at him all the time and take him down with ease.

guys i really enjoyed mass effect A LOT, one of thebest games i ever played that says a lot considering the tons of games i play, however i have a very poor experience in western rpg' s so i' m not picky in that area and i have almost no benchmark except Jade empire which is a 7/10 game to me. However regardless of my experience there is still room of improvement in many areas and some game desisgn decisions are not good. In fact, Mass effect manages to be awesome even with its flaws this shows that the other pros are nothing short of amazing.

Ok i think now i' ll move to the other big name , assassins creed. and i' l replay mass effect in late DEc, early january because at that time , there is nothing to play.