The Mass Effect Thread

[Kuciwalker]

XP. And I've been doing lots of sidequests.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Something I found interesting: the film grain effect looked really good on the TV at home (30-something inch, CRT, 1080i), but absolutely horrible on my TV at school (42", LCD, 1080p).

Unlock Prestige Class: Reach level 34

Jesus Christ, I'm level 34 already? I haven't even finished the first set of three parallel missions, and I just became a Commando...

Reading further, it looks like all you have to do is the Luna quest.

You get XP by doing quests, by killing mobs, by talking with people, by decrypting things, etc. Almost everything but walking around gives XP.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Asher
More info:

Character Benefit Unlockables

You have to attain certain achievements to gain benefits on future plays through the game. Simply do the achievement to gain it.

+10% Experience Bonus: Complete 75% of Game
+10% Hardening Bonus: Complete 75% of Game with Ashley in Squad
+10% Health Bonus: Kill 150 Organic Beings
+10% Shield Bonus: Kill 250 Synthetics
+25% Marksman Cooldown Bonus: Attain 150 Kills with Pistol
Assault Rifle Skill for New Characters: Attain 150 Kills with Assault Rifle
Decryption Skill for New Characters: Use Sabotage 75 Times
Electronics Skill for New Characters: Use Overload 75 Times
Shielding Skill for New Characters: Use Dampening 75 Times
Shotgun Skill for New Characters: Attain 150 Kills with Shotgun
Sniper Rifle Skill for New Characters: Attain 150 Kills with Sniper Rifle
Spectre Grade Weapons for Purchase: Attain 1,000,000 Credits in your Wallet.

Hardcore Mode: Complete the game once
Increased Level Cap (51 - 60): Complete the game once
Insane Difficulty: Beat the game on the Hardcore difficulty without changing the difficulty
New Game +: Start a New Game, then select to use existing Career. You'll be playing with your older character (with all items and skills intact)
Unlock Prestige Class: Reach level 34

Cool - not only does the campaign seem lengthy and engaging, but lots of replay value through the increased difficulties (and I guess through different classes). Sounds like a truly next gen game.

Roll on Friday.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Asher
Reading further, it looks like all you have to do is the Luna quest.

I assumed the Level 34 thing meant that you didn't get said quest before then.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at this planet description (no spoilers);

Junthor is a large terrestrial planet with a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and chlorine. The surface is mainly composed of aluminum with deposits of nickel.

Surveyors found the ruins of a technical civilization near the equator - evidently the colony of an ancient spacefaring race. The ruins had subsided to almost nothing - merely wind-hollowed husks of arcologies and other megastructures. In the center of the ruins was a single column whose inspections defied translation for several centuries.

When asari linguists finally managed a translation, the elaborate relief carvings said merely, "Walk among these works, and know our greatness." The crude scratches on the base of the reverse side said, "Monsters from the id."

Cute.

[korn469]

So I had last week off because of the holiday, and I picked up Mass Effect as a present for my brother. I ended up playing it for about 35 hours or so over a three day period that I was at my brother's house. We beat the main mission on normal difficulty playing as a renegade. Then we went back on vet difficulty and made suer we did all of the side mission (the first run through we only did a handful of side quests). As we beat the main quest the first time and watched all the way through the credits (I loved the music, it reminded of the duran duran song in A view to a kill) I felt like I had just watched a twenty hour long movie. An awesome, well written, highly immersive, entertaining 20 hour long movie.

All I can say is it is the best rpg I have ever played. It comes closer to being what I imagine the ideal rpg to be. Fun combat, great character interaction, awesome 1980's scifi action background music (like in the original Terminator and John Carpenter's The Thing) just all around goodness. I knew it was a different game when I was able to end up killing Fist during the dialouge. It never seemed to let up. The ending battle was dramatic, and I really am looking forward to the sequal.

Sure this game is quite similar to KotOR. It also has bad parts like the horrible inventory system, somewhat clunky play when using lots of biotic powers, battles in the mako that can be challenging but still have lots of cheese when you're jumping over those slow moving rockets, the AI is dumb as dirt, there are far too many side quests which send you to the other side of the galaxy to do a generic mako driving mission until you find the secret base that has the EXACT same layout as all of the other secret bases. Yet despite the flaws, this is one of the best games ever. I think it just set a new standard for rpgs.

[Kuciwalker]

Yeah, this is better GOTY material than Bioshock IMO.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Why? This is the best time ever to have one.

consoles are useless. They originally said kotor was going to be xbox only, but it went to pc. So I assume this one will.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Dis


consoles are useless. They originally said kotor was going to be xbox only, but it went to pc. So I assume this one will.

He's right, and they might even bother to fix the inventory or do some minor changes...

[Dis]

So far (crosses fingers) they have not made a game I want to play that is only available on consoles. And seeing as I use a computer for internet surfing, why not have the computer do both? Yes you could argue that building a gaming computer is more expensive than consoles, but the fact is that while consoles do not have games I want to play that PC's don't, PC's do have games I want to play that consoles don't have. More adult geared games, not kiddie fighting and FPS games. And I might want to play another MMO over the internet some day.

Although there is the possibility this game bucks that trend and does not go PC. I hope not. . The game does look pretty good.

[Heraclitus]

Currently it seems consoles are becoming more like the PC (except perhaps the Wii). So eventually we'll come to a point where the distinction will be pointless, since gaming PC will be very-consol like and consoles will be modifiable.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
So eventually we'll come to a point where the distinction will be pointless, since gaming PC will be very-consol like and consoles will be modifiable.

I don't know... I kinda doubt that the consoles will become anywhere near as modifiable as PCs. Basically the whole point of a console is that the programmers don't need to worry about different hardware configurations. While gizmos like different controllers are fairly easy to integrate, I really doubt the consoles will become *much* more moddable than the 360 is now.

[flash9286]

Originally posted by korn469


All I can say is it is the best rpg I have ever played. It comes closer to being what I imagine the ideal rpg to be. Fun combat, great character interaction, awesome 1980's scifi action background music (like in the original Terminator and John Carpenter's The Thing) just all around goodness. I knew it was a different game when I was able to end up killing Fist during the dialouge. It never seemed to let up. The ending battle was dramatic, and I really am looking forward to the sequal.

The music at the last parts of the game is awesome.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by flash9286


The music at the last parts of the game is awesome.

Many people underestimate the power of music in games, it can make or break an experience, that is why it is always safer to allow custom soundtracks on computers.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Dis


consoles are useless. They originally said kotor was going to be xbox only, but it went to pc. So I assume this one will.

Another pretty silly argument - you might just as well argue PCs are useless.

[Dis]

not when PC's have games such as civ4 that consoles do not. I won't even go into MMO's...

[DrSpike]

Ok I see - and I'm a fan too. For me though having both is the best of both worlds as I have my computer in the study, and my Xbox in my lounge with a nice screen and sofa. They both serve different gaming needs.

[Dis]

I admit, I'm tempted to get a xbox 365 or whatever . Money is a concern right now. And even if I was working, I can be a very cheap man.

[DrSpike]

I just heard the thud of a parcel arriving..........

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dis
not when PC's have games such as civ4 that consoles do not.

I heard they're making a console playable "Civ for Retards" now.

[Asher]

The first step was to hire Blake to do the AI.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Asher
The first step was to hire Blake to do the AI.

[Asher]

You laugh now, but wait until you see the self-immolating Phalanx units.

[DrSpike]

About 5 hours in - and it's great so far.

[vovan]

What do you like best about it, Spikie.

[Kuciwalker]

The Sims minigame.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by vovan
What do you like best about it, Spikie.

The game is set in an amazingly detailed (and interesting) world. I don't usually pay much attention to this in most games as it's rarely worth the effort - but they've managed to pull it off.

And the combat is quite satisfying for an RPG.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Asher
More info:

Character Benefit Unlockables

You have to attain certain achievements to gain benefits on future plays through the game. Simply do the achievement to gain it.

+10% Experience Bonus: Complete 75% of Game
+10% Hardening Bonus: Complete 75% of Game with Ashley in Squad
+10% Health Bonus: Kill 150 Organic Beings
+10% Shield Bonus: Kill 250 Synthetics
+25% Marksman Cooldown Bonus: Attain 150 Kills with Pistol
Assault Rifle Skill for New Characters: Attain 150 Kills with Assault Rifle
Decryption Skill for New Characters: Use Sabotage 75 Times
Electronics Skill for New Characters: Use Overload 75 Times
Shielding Skill for New Characters: Use Dampening 75 Times
Shotgun Skill for New Characters: Attain 150 Kills with Shotgun
Sniper Rifle Skill for New Characters: Attain 150 Kills with Sniper Rifle
Spectre Grade Weapons for Purchase: Attain 1,000,000 Credits in your Wallet.

Hardcore Mode: Complete the game once
Increased Level Cap (51 - 60): Complete the game once
Insane Difficulty: Beat the game on the Hardcore difficulty without changing the difficulty
New Game +: Start a New Game, then select to use existing Career. You'll be playing with your older character (with all items and skills intact)
Unlock Prestige Class: Reach level 34

I don't really understand the replay options - I've seen people talking about replaying on higher difficulties with their levelled character, and also some talking about starting a new career on a higher difficulty. Does the game scale the level of enemies if you restart with your old character?

[Asher]

Yes

[Solver]

Reading about Mass Effect makes me wish, for the first time, that I had a console.