Anyone else out there picked up Mass Effect yet?

What an utterly amazing game - I love the style and tone of it beyond belief; it seems to be culled from all the science-fiction I truly love: Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Alien, the better elements of the Star Trek franchises, John Carpenter, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey - all of those influences are ingrained throughout the ME galaxy.

On a slightly disparaging note, the squad AI isn't as good as Gears of War (which it shares an engine with), side-missions are concluded with text boxes rather than short cutscenes, out of keeping with the cinematic feel of the rest of the game and despite there being nominally a whole galaxy to explore, the lifespan doesn't look like it's going to match Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. That said the roleplaying elements work well and the character generator actually gives good results, unlike Oblivion's 'sliding scales of freakishness' (which I suspect only the game developers/ hardcore roleplayers could get the best out of).

Any thoughts?

I loved it, everyminite of it. I just wish I could have explored mor planets. I loved milling about solarsystems
just scaning random planets and such. I also which I could land on or explore aseroids and asteroidfields.
cutscenes to depict the results of the surveys would have been nice too. I would have loved to engaged in ship
to ship combat with the normandy as well. that would have kick so much bum. I hope we get a bigger ship in
ME2. I loved exploring the normandy. I'd also wish they would original maps for each planet. it was anoying to
go into the same map that represented a underground outpost or mine or some such. more varied and
imersive sidemissions would have been fun too. like a mission to recue a ship from pirates by giving orders to
your crew via the dialog wheel. Awesome game but plenty room for improvement.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/v...ion-Mass-Effect

had to lol at this

I just started playing yesterday. My god this is an amazing game!

My created profile though makes me look like Gary Sinese though. I got my eyes, nose and jaw right but the rest seems off. still its Awesome!

I'm back, folks. Christmas is over, so now I have access to computers again.


I only got images, no sound. Still made me laugh, though.


Yeah. I actually finished it (in 23 hours, so not Oblivion-lengthed then) - just remember, unlike Oblivion, once you finish the main plot, that's it: no after-credits carrying on whatsoever, which is disappointing. Do everything you want to do before finishing the plot.


Agreed. could be better.

I'm stuck with two unfinished sidequests now.

first: Feron, the meat hunt. Apparently I killed one of the Theron infectee's and its having an impact on the sidequest.

second: Salarian War journal. missing ONE medal. Sucks too because I've got all the other races studied with them.