Mass Effect

[BinoAl]

Just bought Mass Effect 1 and 2 for 10$ total on steam. I've heard of the game before, but never played it. I'm playing 1, and I've got to say, I'm pretty impressed. Anyone else play the Mass Effect series at all?

[Miss_Kat]

I've played about 2 hours worth of the first one... I can't seem to force myself to go any farther, though I've been meaning to try, especially since I got the second one for christmas some time ago and haven't even opened it.

[Flesh_Engine]

Honestly, i had my friends go on and on and on about it while they were playing it on their Xbox i'm pretty much fed up with it and won't bother.

Although i am slightly curious what all the fuss is about since it didn't seem all that special...

[MoRmEnGiL]

They are both masterpieces. I'm gonna get them too today.

I'm really worried for ME 3 though..

[Horizon]

I personally don't care for them. I'm not a fan of cover based combat. I'm okay with having to use the terrain to block bullets, but no cover mechanics. No regenerating health, either. Or "realism". I play games to get away from the real world, dammit!

[PatrickSJ]

Love the games. Replaying it yet again.

[Sajuuk]

I bought them. Got a good offer on steam. I like the world and the look and I do especially like Bioware.

However, as an old school pc gamer I find the porting leaves me feeling like I'm getting sloppy seconds. I never finished the first one, thus didn't get into the second one. I plan to, some day, but for now the rules and mechanics of the game left me feeling apart from it.

I really want to like it more. I just can't get over that hump.

[Tsugumi Henduluin]

Mass Effect is great as far as story, characters and setting is concerned... but as games, they leave quite a bit to be desired. (Goes for a lot of Bioware games these days, unfortunately)

I understand Bioware is trying to appeal to the whole FPS mob that dominates gaming these days, but I personally would've liked to see a bit more finesse to the games. ME1 wasn't that bad, but 2 is just one big chain of "hide behind wall, shoot everything that moves, move to next wall". Gets boring quite fast, and don't even get me started on the scanning mini-game... If it wasn't for the story, I probably wouldn't even have bothered.
Unfortunately, from what I've heard, ME3 is going to seriously disappoint in that regard as well. I haven't read any actual spoilers yet, but I've seen/read people's reactions to said spoilers, and they weren't pretty.

Still, the story alone warrants a playthrough if you ask me, especially for these discounted prices. I just wish they didn't release so many side-material/DLC stories, since I don't want to shell out 20% of the price of a full game for only 1% of actual content.

[Hisco]

Yeah, I gotta agree with the above post. At first its fun and all but after a while the gameplay just becomes far too redundent. The setting is good and the overall story is great, but I think what they need is a bit more variance in the gameplay.

[Urian]

Got them, love them, have finished both three times :)

I agree that the combat in ME2 was kinda meh but BW has at least said that ME3 will have less focus on combat and especially on cover based combat.

[Dirdle]

Got them, love them, have finished both three times :)

I agree that the combat in ME2 was kinda meh but BW has at least said that ME3 will have less focus on combat and especially on cover based combat.

Pretty much this. I liked the "sprinting out of cover firing all the weapons all the time" in ME1 and missed it in 2. Especially during the

Spoiler

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attack on the Collectors' base. The writing perfectly persuades me to launch an immediate effort to get my crew back, and I'll be damned if I wait one second- oh okay guess I'll sit behind this wall for a minute.

High hopes, low expectations for 3.

[shifty]

Mass Effect 1 was amazing but Mass Effect 2 was bad in comparison to the point where they have ruined the trilogy. By bad I mean in terms of story which was the strongest point of the first game, I don't know what happened when they were making the second but whoever wrote it was an idiot. Play them both and you'll find that the second game is almost entirely irrelevant.

[PatrickSJ]

Sending down probes to get resources in ME2 was a complete waste of time. At least ME1 exploration felt like I wasn't wasting time. I preferred ME1's method of exploring planets and running across other things to do while also getting ores because I encountered Thresher Maws, Pirates, Geth, and Lore/Artifacts.

I prefer ME2 combat to ME1 for squad combat. Teammates were much better than ME1 and the automatic cover system was nice. However I disliked the armor/shields/barrier defense in ME2 and preferred ME1 defenses. Mechanics-wise I get the ME2 talents, but I believe that being able to customize weapons in ME1 was a better design that ME2's limited weapon selection augmented with abilities. I'm glad ME3 is bringing back customization.

Story in ME1 flowed better than in ME2. The collector's weren't much a ever-present threat in ME2 because the bulk of the missions focused on building your team. After collector's attack the urgency and rush to the Omega Relay felt great, but since that is end-game... The ME1 story-missions felt much longer than the ME2 story missions, but that could just be me. The longer missions however played put better than ME2's shorter missions. Total mission gametime might be higher in ME2, but the sense of satisfaction after beating a mission was missing in ME2.

The tl;dr version: ME1 feels like a novel, ME2 feels like a collection of short stories that bridge ME1 and ME3.