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Mass Effect
It was not my intention to get this until it reached a reasonable £££ level, but a friend bought it for me, so whatever.
It's also a pretty bad time for me to get it as I have work I need to finish, so I've played some and will leave it be for now.
Anyway, first impressions as somebody who knows next to nothing about the game (I picked up a bit of ZOMG MASS EFFECT then realised it was an, at the time, XBOX exclusive so ignored it).
Nice. Feels very KOTOR-ey to me, what little I've played the story seems fairly tight. Not being a Star Wars game is both a plus and a minus for me, I confess to liking Star Wars games but it's good to not be bound by lucas.
It's pretty, and runs very well on my modest hardware although from what I've read it's really quite buggy. Depth of Field doesn't work for me, and this seems to be the case for a lot of ATI users, I had to hard disable it. I've had no other graphical errors or crashes although I did have an elevator go weird on me and basically force me to reload.
Combat is weird, it can be clunky and doesn't feel like it has had much thought put in to shifting to the PC, but it is also really, really growing on me and getting used to its nuances has left me feeling like there's an element of tactical control going on, which is not something you often get in an RPG, whether it's 'live' action or not.
The inventory system is absolutely horrible. The way you can either look at what you're trying to equip or every ****ing thing in a long list is dire. As is the way in which you don't seem to be able to view non-equippables you've bought (like shop licenses). Similar ****-ness can be transferred to the shops. The compare button is good but it would be infinitely better if there were a simple dialogue to compare something to anyone's gear, irregardless of whether they're in your party or not, particularly when you have racial specific armours and stuff.
The vehicle sections are OK. The specific locations are acceptable and the actual planets are pretty ****ing drab, what with all being essentially the same. Exploration is dull, and although I'm compelled to investigate ore deposits I'm not sure why because I'm totally unenthused by the COLLECT X NUMBER OF X quests I seem to have gathered half a dozen plus of from nobody in particular. Especially as if the keeper quest is anything to go by you just get a bit of an XP / cash boost for finishing and that's all. They just clutter the journal really.
The dialogue system is pretty good. It feels like real progression over the various KOTOR clones (II, Jade Empire). That doesn't mean the dialogue itself is necessarily always enthusing, but it does at least seem pretty well acted and by a reasonable variety of actors.
So yeah. Those are my random opinions so far. It's far from totally awesome, but what is? Despite what it may seem here I'm enjoying it so far and will be looking forward to going back to it. What do you think of it?
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I would be tempted to buy it but it just looks like KOTOR to me.
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Wow! Got my lovely PC copy in the post today and been playing a few hours already. Loving it so far with all the good stuff of KOTOR but better combat.
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