Hello, after reading the article about it here on Bit-Tech, I was really looking forward to "Mass Effect" for PC. So: Mass Effect: A first time player experience. First game on my clean install: Mass Effect. I set up the graphics to max at 1280x1024, lets see whats still in the old x1800xt, maybe I'll need to tune them down a bit. Turned off motion blur and the soft filter though. Toying with the character creation takes a bit of time, but hey, it's the face i'm going to look at a lot. Graphics look good at first. Facial movement is very good, but Mouths have this strange lighted-from-within effect many, many games suffer from. Appearently very difficult to get rid of. The game uses a depth of field effect (in the cutscenes), so while for instance the speaker is clear, the background is…extremely pixely? Hmmm, maybe it's my turning off the soft filter causing this. The game starts with a lot of dialogue and some very brief instructions (how to use WASD..wow) By rolling the mouse wheel I accidentally select a weapon. Very nice touch: all the weapons are carried and visible all the time, switching them is shown in full takes some time. And I can't get rid of it. So much for the tutorial. It's a classic case of, go to setup menu and write down all buttons by hand *sigh* About every tenth or so dialogue from the main character hangs, 2 secs load time, then the game continues when the dialogue is over, good thing I read the answer before. Is my computer too slow? The NPC dialogues are fine...strange. Some more dialogue follows, seems I'm a great, experienced earth warrior. When picking up the assault rifle however, i cannot aim, as I'm told I've got no experience on this weapon. *sigh again* By this time I've found the tutorial, it's completely text only, and when i find a year to spend, I'll read it all, I promise! Off to some action! The action is…errr…consoly? Auto-hide-behind-rocks (even if you don't want to, ducking back instead of shooting) and auto-aim (poorly, due to the earth veteran barely knowing which end of his gun goes pop) make life very hard. Two of your guns don't aim at all (due to the veteran…well you know it) You need WASD, your mouse (obviously) AND the arrow keys to navigate your team (if you want them to survive that is). Remembering that a console controller has two axes, and no mouse, this makes sense…on the PC…meh, I'll get used to it. Played for about an hour, first conclusion: I need to read more of the tutorial. I can open the team setup and assign weapons and open the leveling menu, but don't really know wht to do in them. Glad to see there is some learning curve. I cant wait to continue this evening! Xir
use a pad and play on xbox, tbh. it's a console game, works great in the living room schlumped on sofa.
Remember this is an RPG as well, not a shooter, you're not supposed to be able to aim perfectly with every weapon, even if you're a veteran soldier. If I were playing a fantasy RPG, I would not expect to be able to be a master swordsman from the start, likewise in a sci-fi RPG I wouldn't expect to be able to land every shot with pinpoint accuracy. After the tutorial area you will be in the "worst" section of the game, you go to the citadel and it can be quite slow if you decide to explore and to all the side quests, but it gets better once you are free to explore in your ship.
True...but if the plot tells you that you start as a master swordsman, and then you cannot handle a pen knife...it's just a plot mistake. Thats why most games you start out as a rookie. Thx for the encouragement...nearly time to go and play ;-)
Depending on your class, you cannot even train to use some weapons. The character I chose for example could only use the sniper rifle and pistol properly, the other weapons I was untrained in and while I could still shoot with them I wouldn't have been able to hit toffee (Cheesecake) with them. So look to your class type and what weapons you would like to use before settling in.
I don't think the game ever told you that your character was a master soldier at the start though, better than most sure, but you can still shoot pretty well as a soldier (try playing a bionic class, they're awful with guns). The lack of precision is partly down to the hardware and partly down to not being good enough to be pinpoint accurate across the room while firing on full auto. A good soldier is not necessarily one who can shoot amazingly well, and someone who can shoot amazingly well is not necessarily a good soldier. Bah I have to go play Mass Effect again now damn you Can't wait for the sequel Although I love the first one, it's one of my favourite games, it does fall down in a few places, the inventory on the xbox version is just plain awful and world exploration can be a bit samey and boring. I really enjoyed my first play through but not enjoying the other ones quite so much, but that's usual.
You don't need the arrow keys at all to control the other players. For me their AI is good enough to leave them alone, pressing and holding space to get the action menu up when I want to issue direct orders. There's a difference between first impressions and barely giving it a chance, you know That said, I do wish there was a switch so you could turn off ally Biotic and Tech use. As for consoleness - yeah, it's a console port. A good one, but it was still designed as a console game. That's the way the industry is going though, we just have to live with it.
Lucky a port even happened. It was originally going to be an Xbox 360 exclusive until EA bought out Bioware.
Yeah I would have like a bit more control on that, it was essentially, they don't use any biotics or they go nuts with them, and it was annoying to change as you had to go through the menus.
Yes of course, that's why I said i just played two hours, these were just the first things to be noticed. Continuation: Played another two hours yesterday, welll, half of that was spent reading "the Codex" and subsequently rearranging my inventory, skills and armament. As predicted above I've spent the rst of the time running auound this Space station, and it looks like I'll be running for some time to come Lots of little side quests (well, frankly I don't know whats a side quest and whats the main, but I'll find out) This part of the game is more rpg/adventure like. Nice, i'm slowly getting in to it. Annoying (Maybe I'm doing something wrong though): Shopping - you can shop, either onboard your ship or with traders you meet. eventually they show you their goods. But the object description ins somehow missing, instead I get a nice text telling me the background of the manufacturing company. Strange (Bugs?) Haven't had the sound-glitch again*, this time in the middle of the game my mousecursor appeared, and i couldn't get back into the game controls. Weird. Lighting This focussed lighting is really strange, I called it depth of field in the first post. Mainly applies to lighting I've noticed. Incredibly pixelly lights when their not exactly in your focus. The story is slowly starting, I'll definately continue! *Reinstalled my sound drivers, IDE drivers and MoBo BIOS. It was a fresh windows install and I also have some trouble with windows not shutting down properly.
You're getting confused with the whole "war hero veteran" thing. IIRC, you can choose two variables in the character creation: class and background. The background, of which veteran is one, is used solely for narrative progression. It changes how people talk to you, and which side plots you have open. It's got bugger all to do with your abilities in the game. That's decided by your class, i.e. Soldier, Biotech, Infiltrator etc. etc. By the sounds of it, you chose a class that isn't designed to use rifles (e.g. infiltrator, which was my class of choice). If you're not one for sniping/tech abilities, I'd restart the game and read the descriptions more carefully this time. Personally, I think it's an awesome game and I really, really enjoyed playing through it. Just remember to take off Movie Grain, it just makes everything look ****. Oh, and enjoy the sex scenes too. Alien lesbians for the win!
Very true. Infiltrator here too. It's also worth pointing out that you can further specilise your character by having him choose a specialty later in the game to open up further skills of your choice. Background is solely for story basis - it changes a few dialogs, opens some missions and changes how the council behave towards you. If you want to have a more combat, warrior based experience then you want to be a Soldier, and not bother looking at Biotic or Tech abilities. You can have your team compensate there automatically. Personally, I go as Infiltrator and use the pistol mainly, with the sniper for the harder enemies. And I like it with the film grain on.
I understand that the background is there just to base your story on. Still if it doesn't fit to your abilities, the background should have been written different. uhhhmmm, the classes are called different in the German version... The class I chose is "Frontfighter"* which uses weapons and biotics. (Last one in the list) Played another two hours yesterday, still running about the station, and according to my list of things to do, I'll be running around for at least another evening. ;-) Got to a point where some quests cannot be finished with the normal dialogue options, the Flattern / Intimidate options are needed. Oh well, guess I'll learn Intimidate ;-) *who thinks of these names?
You know, I thought that as I wrote it. The simple fact is that the film grain effect has grown on me over time. After chatting to Bioware, I can see how and why they wanted to present the story that way.
I thought it was good game, some annoying bits, but at the end of the day its just a KOTOR wannabe with shiney bits.....
Well I managad to get out of the space station, now it's off into the blue yond...errrr, to boldly go where...errr, abandon all hope..errr well you now what I mean! ;-)
