Mass Effect Reviewed

So....does this maybe have the Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines sort of thing going on where the combat and action are pretty lousy, but the characters, story, and possibility abilities and items keep you coming back for more? (for those who played bloodlines and liked it, at least?)

I'm sort of on the fence about this one. I'm not real into RPG's, but I do like some of the American-style ones like Bloodlines and Elder Scrolls.

This is better than the elders scrolls

I'm about 4-5 hours into it, and I really don't find the combat that bad. Sure it's nothing spectacular, but it's playable.

That said, this is pretty much the first game I've ever played that's come close to making me feel like I'm in a movie.

repoman0 said:

I'm about 4-5 hours into it, and I really don't find the combat that bad. Sure it's nothing spectacular, but it's playable.

That said, this is pretty much the first game I've ever played that's come close to making me feel like I'm in a movie.

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Wait til you get to other planets chasing saren down. You havent seen nothin yet as far as battles. Or when you level up your squad and unlock some killer abilities.

You know what would be awesome?

Multiplayer in Mass Effect, that would be the coolest thing ever. Too bad there isnt enough combat in Mass Effect to actually make this a reality.

**Edit** Multiplayer Co-op is what I mean**Edit**

multiplayer for me and my roomates consited of me letting them suggest my dialogue responses, and sometimes even following their advice

Furystrike said:

multiplayer for me and my roomates consited of me letting them suggest my dialogue responses, and sometimes even following their advice

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lol - I love how the bottom right corner is always the "ownage" responses.

clevarias said:

You know what would be awesome?

Multiplayer in Mass Effect, that would be the coolest thing ever. Too bad there isnt enough combat in Mass Effect to actually make this a reality.

**Edit** Multiplayer Co-op is what I mean**Edit**

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Dear god, thank you for editing your post.

I'm about 20 hours into this game at level 40 as a spacer, war hero, infiltrator.

I'm a huge fan of JRPGs and ARPGs (Action RPG, is there another name for these style of rpgs?), and I have to say this is far and away the best ARPG I've ever played. The story is amazing, the characters are well developed, the settings are incredible, the level of control is so deep you could play several times without probing it all, and the combat is a welcome break from magic:black:blizzaga.

I personally really like the combat in this game. Being able to pause to select the abilities of you and your squad is amazing. You can run into a firefight, hit the right bumper and then rip the enemy defenses apart (lower their shields, stun them, overheat their weapons, turn on marksman, etc.). The combat in ESIV was really fun, but the combat in ME is on a whole other level. I personally love sitting on a hillside on the side quests from about a mile away and sniping the enemy 1 shot killing them. I would go so far as to say this is the best 360 I've played. period.

Anyone considering buying this game needs to pony up the cash and get it. Trust me you won't regret it.

Edit:

I just beat this game last night. Wow. The last 2 hours of this game are incredible. The final fight sequence, the story, the cinema style ending. This game is fantastic; it really makes me wish Bungie would have hired these guys to write the halo story line.

Hummm it is actually close to bloodlines as far as what is happening and how you go about questing and whatnot. Interesting that you mention it I loved bloodlines for that.

BUT....

the combat in this game is far better than bloodlines. My only problem is the marksman badguys.

Ashtaka said:

I think a lot of people don't take this into consideration when it comes to the duration of the game... especially when it comes to RPG's...

They use Final Fantasy as their paradigm.The series is chalk full of grinding combat. You could avoid a lot of it in 12, but in ten, if you wanted to explore an area, you'd have random combat every few steps. So, you're grinding out levels. Want ultimate weapons? You're grinding out more stuff (damn you, Lulu's ultimate weapon and the lightning dodging...). There's very little in the way of actual side quests though, so if you want to get from begining to end, there's a lot to go through. I don't even want to think of how many hours it took to remove the curse from the cursed shield in FF3. Then, making Celes, Locke, and Shadow learn Ultima...

Mass Effect is focused much more on actual "role playing" than combat. I'm 15 hours into my first play through and only use pistols. It took me 15 hours to get the 150 pistol kills achievement. I made it to the Citadel after a over an hour (the Citadel being the first city) and did not leave until the 9 hour mark, when I wanted to do stuff besides tear into the Citadel Underground.

I'd rather have the 25 hour roleplaying experience where I want to play again as a different class, with different party members. It just means I'll actually beat the game instead of growing extremely bored of one drawn out aspect of the game.

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This pretty much sealed the deal for me. Most of the RPG games I have played tend to keep me from playing them again because I have to go through so much repetitive combat just to get the character development that I want. I want to replay the game to see how I can build a different character, not fight 30000 more of the same battles. This is an RPG, I can get better fighting action from other genres. If a little longevity is sacrificed by removing unnecessary amounts of battles then I think I will actually get more out of the game since I will play it more than 1 time through.