Mass Effect 3 Gameplay Performance and IQ Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,627
Mass Effect 3 Gameplay Performance and IQ Review - The final installment in the Mass Effect saga has arrived to give gamers their sci-fi war and romance fixes. But does the game offer hardware enthusiasts anything? Does it have any cutting edge technology to make our high-dollar video cards worthwhile? Does it make us glad we spent our hard-earned dollars upgrading or rigs, or does it leave us flat?
 
i thought the controls were pretty cumbersome as well, good to know it wasn't just me! i've been talking to people who play it on a console so can't really compare.

i thought the biggest problem was that there was one button to bind for taking cover behind objects, jumping over them, hold it to run, and use it for performing various actions. it was just too much! half the time i ended up taking cover on the side of a barrier FACING the enemy instead of running past it like i wanted.

i also thought graphics weren't much better than ME2.

nice review though, great job as always.
 
It's a fun game but yeah, the controls are pretty infuriating. The whole one button cover thing is just dumb.
 
It seems that games these days are being divided into two categories: games with a good story and games with good graphics.

Games with good stories are talked about for being good but having not-so-groundbreaking graphics.

Games with good graphics are talked about for having great graphics...and no one else takes the time to write much else about them because they're too busy staring at shiny.

I'm oddly conflicted on the idea of games being designed for (old) consoles. On the one hand I'm happy that I can play them on a PC without having to worry about my hardware keeping up. On the other hand I'm still really annoyed by menus and controls designed with consoles in mind first, and PCs second.

Still, I read this review hoping to see the 680 in the mix. I'm in no way going to buy one so it's good to know that my 560Ti can still keep up, but I always enjoy watching the high-end slugfest.
 
Basically any GPU that is somewhat recent can run this game smoothly at 1080P/1200P with maxed setting (except for 8-32xAA).

And on the CPU side even dual core CPUs are plenty fast: http://www.techspot.com/review/507-mass-effect-3-performance-test/page5.html

I don't think anyone expected this game to have high system requirements or breathtaking graphics though. A game like this is all about the gameplay and storyline.
 
Devilpup said:
It seems that games these days are being divided into two categories: games with a good story and games with good graphics.

Games with good stories are talked about for being good but having not-so-groundbreaking graphics.

Games with good graphics are talked about for having great graphics...and no one else takes the time to write much else about them because they're too busy staring at shiny.

I'm oddly conflicted on the idea of games being designed for (old) consoles. On the one hand I'm happy that I can play them on a PC without having to worry about my hardware keeping up. On the other hand I'm still really annoyed by menus and controls designed with consoles in mind first, and PCs second.

Still, I read this review hoping to see the 680 in the mix. I'm in no way going to buy one so it's good to know that my 560Ti can still keep up, but I always enjoy watching the high-end slugfest.
Click to expand...

Have you never played The Witcher 2, Metro 2033, Batman AA/AC? Also, games like the CoD series have very little to talk about in the story or the graphics dept. I'm under the impression lots and lots of people like these type of games as well.
 
I remember a time when games had a good story and pushed the bleeding edge of PC abilities, utilizing what is there. It's a shame developers have dumbed down games for consoles, good story or not. PC's have the ability to take the experience so much farther.
 
trick_m0nkey said:
It's a fun game but yeah, the controls are pretty infuriating. The whole one button cover thing is just dumb.
Click to expand...

I didn't care so much about the one-button cover system but more the slow default mouse-turning speed that when you are 'zoomed in' (right mouse button held down). Enemies can move slightly faster than the max turn speed. Pretty silly till you adjust it.

That and the relatively low FOV make it feel like I had absolutely no peripherial vision. I guess that's ok for the 'cinematic' nature of the game -- but I'd have prefered they improved the FOV by default a bit. I haven't found a way to change it but didn't look that hard(IE didn't search widescreen gaming forums) or anywhere to standardly go for FOV fixes. The game only took me about 28 hours to complete with a 5.3k+ readiness score.
 
I'm going to buck the trend a bit here and say that I think Mass Effect 3's graphics are fine. Would a few extra touches be nice? Yes. But the art direction is fantastic and I think the universe and characters look and fit together very well.

I would prefer they spend the PC optimization time fixing/tweaking the UI and controls, adding a FOV slider, things like that.
 
Rizen said:
I'm going to buck the trend a bit here and say that I think Mass Effect 3's graphics are fine. Would a few extra touches be nice? Yes. But the art direction is fantastic and I think the universe and characters look and fit together very well.

I would prefer they spend the PC optimization time fixing/tweaking the UI and controls, adding a FOV slider, things like that.
Click to expand...

I would agree. I think that a game that's AAA in all aspects is pretty rare. There's only a few gems that i could list where the acting was AAA and the story line was as immersive as the ME series, while having AAA graphics and a pretty good soundtrack to boot. There's a couple here and there but Batman wouldn't be one of them. It looks great but the storyline and range of characters isn't anywhere near ME. It takes a lot of money to do any one of them well and there's only a handful of development houses that have the money to do it. Considering they get 3 (sound ...like this, story, and acting/dialogue) out of the 4 in the top notch category I can forgive a scraggly shadow here and there.

To me the graphics have to be good enough where what you are seeing is believable. By the time you're half way into ME you are bonding with the characters. Who lives and who dies will eventually matter to you. By the time you get to the end you really do care about the main character. That's why when it ends the way that it does some people were as pissed as they were (besides the action is moving so damn fast towards the end that I sure as hell didn't have time to look at shadows) . If Batman died a million times I really wouldn't have given two shits the wind. In ME I cared about every last character.
 
While I agree that it's 2012, and we should have something that has good eyecandy in terms of graphics, as well as a compelling storyline, I will be honest when I say graphics do not make or break a game for me. More specifically, it won't make or break a game for me, as long as it's not trying to be pawned off as a graphically demanding, or graphically marvelous game (like that joke called Crysis 2 with DX9 out of the box....) Any game that makes claims that it's graphically superb, runs DX11 native, pushes the high end vidcards to the max...yes, I do expect these claims to be met, as would anyone who wants to see what the big deal is.

A good storyline and great gameplay with replay value will always win me over versus amazing graphics. I really don't care for the Halo series as a game for example, but I am in love with the storyline, the universe and the characters within it. I cannot stand Call of Duty's gameplay style, but Modern Warfare's storyline made playing the game bearable enough for me to see it through, as well as Modern Warfare 2. I might rent MW3 just to see what happens next, storyline wise, even though I could care less about the game itself. Just don't ask me to do multiplayer on either franchise outside of co-op mode.

The same goes for Mass Effect for me. I love the gameplay, and I love the storyline and the whole Mass Effect universe. Supreme eyecandy or not, I've enjoyed both ME1 and ME2, and I expect to enjoy ME3 until I find out what the big deal is about the endings that's making headlines. Would it be nice to have some insane eyecandy graphics? Sure. But for me, the Mass Effect storyline has me hooked well enough that I don't need it, really, as long as the game is playable.

But in the end, yes, I do wish we could have it all in one package like we used to.
 
The thing about ME3's graphics, while technically dated, is that they work for the series. They are solid, with no graphical issues, and surprising little (if any) texture streaming issues that are usually hallmarks of UE3 games.

They may not be amazing, but you don't sit there and NOTICE them being bad while playing.

Unlike, IMHO, Diablo III.
 
WTH? This game sucks.

From the very beginning, chasing bad guys and...cut scene. Controls are non-existant...just go over here and let the lighted arrow take over your walking/climbing/jumping...etc...

I really do not like console games...can you tell?
 
There's a reason I haven't owned a game console since PS2- I hate playing dumbed-down, oversimplified games.

Bioware forces everyone with high-power hardware to play a game today using 7+ year old technology. Why? They are too busy working on quality stories? Evidently not...

Never mind- I just won't pay for any more of their titles. I'm tired of the loud steps down in respect (ripoff pricing for crap DLC) and general/lazy contempt for users.
 
mdlestat said:
Never mind- I just won't pay for any more of their titles. I'm tired of the loud steps down in respect (ripoff pricing for crap DLC) and general/lazy contempt for users.
Click to expand...

I won't go as far as to not buy their games, but I will be waiting till they are reasonably priced. $60 (or $70 for DLC version) is just way too much for what you get in the case of ME3. The multi-player adds some replay value, but I was already getting somewhat bored of it just from playing the demo (at least there WAS a demo though, unlike most games).

This goes for all developers though, not just Bioware. There are very few games worth $50-60+ IMO
 
Brent_Justice said:
I remember a time when games had a good story and pushed the bleeding edge of PC abilities, utilizing what is there. It's a shame developers have dumbed down games for consoles, good story or not. PC's have the ability to take the experience so much farther.
Click to expand...

preaching to the choir brother.

BBA said:
WTH? This game sucks.

From the very beginning, chasing bad guys and...cut scene. Controls are non-existant...just go over here and let the lighted arrow take over your walking/climbing/jumping...etc...

I really do not like console games...can you tell?
Click to expand...

it wasn't 'totally' shit but it certainly didn't deserve the high review scores. it's becoming difficult to find decent review sites that haven't lost all credibility by giving high marks for fairly average games (at least for the PC platform).

granted the ending was shit and even the illusion of choice was barely there tho the thing that killed it for me (as many, many PC gamers have already stated), is the shit UI. the UI is what you use throughout the game (cruddy 'space bar'). i can deal with a horrible ending as its only a very small part of the game. a shit interface is unforgivable. skyrim was the same tho at least that was mod'able.

mdlestat said:
There's a reason I haven't owned a game console since PS2- I hate playing dumbed-down, oversimplified games.

Bioware forces everyone with high-power hardware to play a game today using 7+ year old technology. Why? They are too busy working on quality stories? Evidently not...

Never mind- I just won't pay for any more of their titles. I'm tired of the loud steps down in respect (ripoff pricing for crap DLC) and general/lazy contempt for users.
Click to expand...

same here, last console i own was the old Nintendo, forgot the model, was the one with 'mario brothers' and 'duck hunt'. that retarded mario brother music is still stuck in my head after a decade. i recon that theme music must qualify as a form of 'cruel and unsual punishment'.

hope there is a secret ray of hope in the form the 'steam box'. perhaps it's naive to think this but it might resurrect PC gaming to some extent.
 
I found the comment about Bioware being known for their PC games to be a bit odd. Sure, a long time ago they were known for them, but I think they've been console-centric since KOTOR. Keep in mind many of their later games, KOTOR, Jade Empire, even the original Mass Effect, were all designed with consoles in mind (because Microsoft published them). Sure, Dragon Age was PC-centric, but that sat in development for years, and obviously the higher-ups weren't pleased with the results.

It was when they were bought by EA that we started seeing simultaneous platform releases since they no longer had or required those exclusivity deals.

It was also when they were bought by EA that we started seeing ridiculous cash grabs with sub-par DLC. Even Dragon Age had some dreadful DLC (and the same thing will probably happen with id and Bethesda).

As far as gripes about the engine go, Bioware stated in interviews that they were sticking with the same engine for continuity's sake, and to keep all the games playable within the same console generation. They didn't want to push graphical boundaries with these games. Am I completely happy with it? No. I just try to have realistic expectations about what I'm getting.
 
Once in awhile it's hard to get out of cover and the rolls take some getting used to but aside from that I never had issues with the controls.

Brent_Justice said:
I remember a time when games had a good story and pushed the bleeding edge of PC abilities, utilizing what is there. It's a shame developers have dumbed down games for consoles, good story or not. PC's have the ability to take the experience so much farther.
Click to expand...

I remember games pushing technology, but good stories? RARELY the case. The stories behind Doom, Quake, and most stuff from the 1990's was pretty bad. Far Cry? Bad. Crysis? Bad. The list goes on and on. There were exceptions of course, but as a general rule good stories weren't part of what made a lot of good games good. It was their game play and their graphics. Now if we are lucky we get good game play and a good story, but no one wants to really push the graphics envelope.
 
edit double post deleted: I did not actually double post, the forum said I had to wait xx seconds between posts and when I refreshed the previous page (in a separate tab) it had posted twice (without telling me it had even successfully posted once). FYI.
 
The game should have been on fucking PC only the first time. The console noobs ruined a game that should have been on PC in the first place. Microsoft bought them out to make it xbox only and then bioware tried to stuff there obviously PC RPG shooter onto the fucking xbox.

1 it looks like ass it don't even push the unreal engine by the 3rd game in the series.

2 PC would dominate the first game even crappy PC with ass GPUs would run ultra detail no problem and a bajillion FPS.


3 its a shooter RPG so it sucks balls already playing it on the console, mapping magic biotechs or what ever they to the contoler sucks balls, aiming sucks I tried out the console version for the lulz it was a horrible moment I never want to see again/ I kid you not mapping magic to the same button used for other menu functions so you have to fucking hold the button down to use that menu fucntion that is if you don't set off the spell already mapped to the fucking button already it is the most annoying thing since those fucking progrssive car tv ad things. The PC don't have this annoying issue at all.

4 the complexity of the RPG parts are dumbed down so RPG console NOOBs can play it like there fucking call of duty and halo console noob shooters. Hell I bet half the console noobs playing the game don't even know it is an action rpg.

5 you think it looks like ass on PC it looks 5 times worse on the xbox or ps3 try it when you are drunk it will soften the pain of playing it.
 
Last edited:
The important thing that's being pushed aside here: The game runs well on pretty much anything. Seriously. I remember having to do upgrades to play the latest Ultima title (ages ago) and everyone griped about it. Bioware releases a title that looks good and plays well on just about anything and... People gripe about it. :) It's fine for what it is. I've enjoyed what I've played so far.
 
What they need to work in is fixes for the freezes and bugs. I've been playing the Xbox 360 version since I'll be damned if I'm gonna have EA Origin anywhere near my gaming laptop. I've had the game freeze at least a half dozen times at the loading screen after dying (not all in one sitting, but over the course of gaming sessions), the horrible cover mechanic (how many times do I have to input to put Shepherd into cover?), getting stuck on invisible objects only to be killed because I'm stuck, once having the weapon selection wheel stuck on the screen after reloading from dying for about a minute, controls that don't seem responsive at times, etc. I haven't finished the game yet but I've heard enough about the ending to feel let down by Bioware. Multiplayer ("Horde") seems "Meh" at the moment, but could have potential with the right DLC for it (whatever that may be).
 
whiz187 said:
It's a 20 buck console port game that they want 60 bucks for, I think not.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't consider a really fun game (even with the crappy ending) that provides around 40 hours of gameplay not including multiplayer mode a $20 game. Yes it's a console port, but all of the Mass Effect series are console ports. And as far as that goes, they are better ports than most.
 
I'm almost 20 hours into this game and I wouldn't care if it was Atari 2600 graphics. This game is fucking EPIC! I cannot pull myself away from it and spend all day at work thinking about what I'm going to do as soon as I get home and start playing. I haven't had this much fun and haven't been this immersed, engrossed and addicted to a game since Doom. Yeah the graphics don't push the envelope and that's OK, I've got Metro for that. This game is fast approaching the #1 spot on my greatest games evar list.
 
After finishing ME1 & 2, maybe I'm just ME'd out... but from the poor port quality I've seen, I'm just waiting t'ill it's $15 or something...

In the meantime I've just picked up the complete Deus for less than $15...
 
There are some awfully angry people who have clearly never even played the game in this thread.
 
Rizen said:
I'm going to buck the trend a bit here and say that I think Mass Effect 3's graphics are fine. Would a few extra touches be nice? Yes. But the art direction is fantastic and I think the universe and characters look and fit together very well.

I would prefer they spend the PC optimization time fixing/tweaking the UI and controls, adding a FOV slider, things like that.
Click to expand...

Graphically I think Mass Effect 3 looks good. We aren't looking at BF3 either, but it isn't the same type of game. I think character models and weapon models are the game's strongest points visually. There is a lot of detail to the game armors, faces, heads, etc. Some of the game's levels look better than others. Tuchunka is one great example of the better visuals offered in the game world. The Salarian homeworld looks good, although we see little of it. I thought Vancouver looked really good as well. Weaker points like London and Manae are disappointing, but overall I think it looks decent.

But again it isn't BF3 or anything like that. Then again I expected it to look better than Mass Effect 2 did and it looks at least as good as ME2 did and better a lot of the time.
 
mdlestat said:
There's a reason I haven't owned a game console since PS2- I hate playing dumbed-down, oversimplified games.

Bioware forces everyone with high-power hardware to play a game today using 7+ year old technology. Why? They are too busy working on quality stories? Evidently not...

Never mind- I just won't pay for any more of their titles. I'm tired of the loud steps down in respect (ripoff pricing for crap DLC) and general/lazy contempt for users.
Click to expand...

They don't force anyone to do anything, they simply made a game and your free to play it or not but let's not go all drama queen because they didn't make the choices seem to feel they should have.


BlockheadBrown said:
The important thing that's being pushed aside here: The game runs well on pretty much anything. Seriously. I remember having to do upgrades to play the latest Ultima title (ages ago) and everyone griped about it. Bioware releases a title that looks good and plays well on just about anything and... People gripe about it. :) It's fine for what it is. I've enjoyed what I've played so far.
Click to expand...

Yeah, in general gamers are a whiney bunch, when games push the envelop for graphics they complain because only the top shelf systems will run it, and if they make it so most computers out there can run it gamers complain that they didn't push the graphics.


Rizen said:
There are some awfully angry people who have clearly never even played the game in this thread.
Click to expand...

Bullseye!

It seems more and more people go through life looking to be offended and then expect everyone to bend over the moment they find something to take offense to.

People in general just need to harden the fuck up.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Yeah, in general gamers are a whiney bunch, when games push the envelop for graphics they complain because only the top shelf systems will run it, and if they make it so most computers out there can run it gamers complain that they didn't push the graphics.
Click to expand...

It's not like it's a black and white issue, though. There is plenty of middle ground. For example, Skyrim seems to run alright on a wide variety of systems and still has good, modern graphics. Plus allowing the community to add higher-res textures and models goes a long way to alleviating the issue.

Basically, if the engine is flexible enough to run well on a large variety of hardware and still look top-notch on medium/high settings, it seems like a success. When gamers complain en masse it's generally because either the game looks great but runs like shit regardless of hardware, or the game looks like shit regardless.

That said, from what I've seen of ME3 I think the graphics are fine, though there definitely seem to be some low-res textures spread around.
 
Yea im gonna be that guy...

If anyone plays Multiplayer silver\gold runs. find me at Hippee921 -> Origin ID.
 
MavericK96 said:
It's not like it's a black and white issue, though. There is plenty of middle ground. For example, Skyrim seems to run alright on a wide variety of systems and still has good, modern graphics. Plus allowing the community to add higher-res textures and models goes a long way to alleviating the issue.

Basically, if the engine is flexible enough to run well on a large variety of hardware and still look top-notch on medium/high settings, it seems like a success. When gamers complain en masse it's generally because either the game looks great but runs like shit regardless of hardware, or the game looks like shit regardless.

That said, from what I've seen of ME3 I think the graphics are fine, though there definitely seem to be some low-res textures spread around.
Click to expand...

I agree, some high resolution textures would do wonders for this game; the graphics are fine otherwise, but those textures...

And why is it that we can't mod the textures? Is it something to do with the Unreal engine, or is it something Bioware did to prevent it (which would be odd since their other games can be modded so heavily)?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top