I was wandering through Best Buy earlier today when I noticed the video game Mass Effect. Since I am a SciFi nut, the game interested me. What I want to know is who has played it and what do you think of it? Does it require a monthly fee to play? Would you recomend buying it? What are your impressions of it? Thanks in advance!
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Having borrowed the game from a friend and played it through a bit, my opinion is that it's a well-made Sci-Fi RPG that runs a bit like a shooter. The combat is shoot-'em-up, but their are enough character-and-stat building elements that it belongs in the RPG camp. The game world is a pretty well done generic sci-fi setting, lots of aliens, ancient technology, killer robots. It has Bioware's signature dialogue options and theres a whole lot of time that can be spent just talking to everyone. In this manner it's remarkably similar to the KotOR games with a different combat system. The combat sections themselves aren't necessarily stellar, but their fun to play through and don't qualify as a real down point - they're just average. There's a fair amount of customization both mechanically and visually for your character, as well as socially in which NPC's you befriend or irritate. Probably worth more than one playthrough just to try and see everything in the games peripheral story (which is a lot). Generally a good solid title, and I'd buy it if of course I hadn't played it already.
Hope that helped,
TWB
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It's only the best RPG out there right now. Bioware's take on sci-fi, and since it's an original property, they get to go crazy. It can get a bit of 'the same thing again' later, as many of the exploration bits are similar, but never truly boring. Combat can range from too easy, all the way to 'we barely got out of it alive'. Death happens, especially if you take rockets to the face, but it isn't a constant thing. Every power in every class feels awesome, and each is fun to use. If you want a bit more whoa factor, play a class with access to biotics.
Bottom line: Buy it, and love it.
I've only played the X-box version, and I hear it plays slightly differently on PC, if that's a choice. That being said:
While it might be considered slightly generic, the sci-fi feel is great! I love the details and the game world they have created - it is very creative in sliding between science facts and fiction in their development. There's certainly a great storyline there, and after awhile you can really get into the events taking place. While it might be intended to be epic in nature, I think it keeps it fairly straightforward.
There's enough RPG quality to keep it from being a straight shooter. The way you can customize the character by their equipment, abilities, and even alignment certainly allows for variation and different styles.
As far as dislikes, that would partially depend on your experience with Bioware games. They make great games, especially RPGs, but you may experience some deja-vu in the game's style and storyline if you played Bioware games before. Comparison with Knights of the Old Republic may be the obvious one; but many of their other games have similar thematic ideas and characters as in Mass Effect. So, that may disappoint.
Also, despite it being an interesting feature, I really didn't care much for the overland transport on planets bit. It's a necessary feature to at least practice for later plot development, but it seems kind of a frustrating bit of the game to me. Finally, like many Bioware games, how much background details of the game world you want to learn depends on how much you dig into side quests/missions and random materials found throughout the world.
Overall, go for it! If you love a sci-fi storyline wrapped with a distinct RPG feel and developed in a unique game world it should be fun. I'm honestly hoping Bioware will create additional "episodes" to add onto the game.