I was in Best Buy when I noticed the game Mass Effect. Who here has played it and can you give me a lowdown on it? Is it a game that requires a monthly fee or anything like that? What else can you tell me about it from the gamers perspective? Thanks in advance!
I've heard that it will suck your will to play other games away.
It's a solid hit. Lots of shooting, combat varies from mild to how-did-I-survive-that? A variety of abilities that are regularly useful, beautiful to watch, plenty of NPCs to interact with and lots of sidequests. Towards the end I'm told (didn't play that far) it gets a little repetitious, but overall a great game.
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Mass Effect can essentially be described as "Baldur's Gate the 3rd person small squad shooter. In Space."
NPC interactions, including romance opportunities like the Baldur's Gate series. Combat is you and two others, selected before each mission from your squad that eventually totals 6, 2 humans and 4 members of different alien species. 3rd-person shooter, complicated inventory system (on PC - I don't know what the 360 version was like, but I do know it was different) with pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, and sniper rifle, in 10 different quality levels and from a dozen or so manufacturers, with upgrade modules and different ammo types. Going from world to world trying to fight an alien invasion from beyond the galaxy.
Very cool game, but honestly, after I finished it in 25 hours or so, I was bored with it. There are definitely different dialog paths (Paragon AKA NG/LG and Renegade AKA CN/CE) but half the time you just want to skip past it since the damned game is SO chatty.
But worth buying, all in all. Assuming you can run it - it takes a fairly powerful system to keep up with it.
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Mass Effect is one of last year's best games. It is one of the few examples of "video games as art." The story line is excellent, with deep, believable characters and plenty of plot twists. If you liked Bioware's other RPGs (Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire), you'll like Mass Effect.
The controls are smooth, and once you get a little practice, activating powers becomes very easy. Most of the characters have deep back stories that you discover through dialog. The whole game is voice acted, no reading through pages of dialog. The main story line is fast paced, the 6 missions take about 20 hours to complete. However, there are a ton of side missions. I'm on my fourth play through.
The side missions get very repetitive, especially if you are an Achivement Whore. The voice acting is spotty in some places (Ashley, Liara, and Tali are the worst example). The inventory system really pisses me off sometimes.
Their is a bit of PG-13 sex toward the end, but only if you go through all of the dialog with a character. Might not be suitable to play in front of little ones.
Well worth the 60 bucks for the X-Box 360 version. Haven't played the PC version.