Mass Effect PC (Spoilers in boxes please)

[Ben]

Is way better than I thought it would be. Though I am a huge Bioware and even bigger KOTOR fan the macho marketing and Xbox exclusive kind of turned me off and made me think they were trying their hand at a Halo RPG for twitch gamers. (The rumors swirling around the sexual content of course did not assuage my impression this was the crowd they were pandering to.) I am so glad I was wrong. It's storylicious! Though it is annoying as hell that a) you can't save during fights and b) dialog is unskippable, which often combine to create a vortex of frustration from which there is seemingly no escape. But other than that I am loving this game.

I also like how the Paragon and Renegade points affect your conversation skills. And I feel kind of bad for saying this, but I'm glad they didn't retain influence from KOTOR 2. It was irritating, and the fact that it was point-based made me feel bad every time I lost it. This way (where I can only assume the game is recording SOMETHING about my NPC interactions but I don't know what) is much more natural and less nerve-wracking.

(And yes, I know Bioware didn't develop KOTOR 2, but it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable to think they liked the idea of influence at the time if they let it be integrated into one of their top franchises.)

As the topic notes I haven't finished the main game yet, so spoilers in boxes please.

[Charlie]

Its a great game, but the combat didn't seem to transfer all that well over to the mouse and keyboard. Its generally less fluid to me. The cover system doesn't respond that well compared to the good old 360 controller. Which has resulted in numerous times where my lady-Sheppard just sort of stands there at the edge of a corner resulting in every local Geth to run up and greet her with the butts of their weapons. Something I didn't have any problems with when I rented Mass Effect back when it was first released, and doubly strange since its pretty hard to screw up the keyboard and mouse for a shooter.

Also I never realized the stairs in the game where 2d until I was able to play the game on my computer with max settings. I'm surprised I missed that my first go around.

[Anyone00]

Great Game; I've already played through it twice.

Now I can't wait for Dragon Age so the console boys and girls will have to wait their turn for that one:p

[Ben]

Its a great game, but the combat didn't seem to transfer all that well over to the mouse and keyboard. Its generally less fluid to me. The cover system doesn't respond that well compared to the good old 360 controller. Which has resulted in numerous times where my lady-Sheppard just sort of stands there at the edge of a corner resulting in every local Geth to run up and greet her with the butts of their weapons. Something I didn't have any problems with when I rented Mass Effect back when it was first released, and doubly strange since its pretty hard to screw up the keyboard and mouse for a shooter.

Well of course it's only "sorta" a shooter. But yes I find cover more of an annoyance and I usually just pop back and forth from behind things manually instead of waiting for Wren (my PC) to leisurely lean out and take a single potshot at something. I can see how the snap-targeting and pausable combat are adaptations to the console format, but I find console controllers so impossibly irritating to aim with that even a completely incompetent mouse/keyboard setup is still better. And Mass Effect does a decent job.


Also I never realized the stairs in the game where 2d until I was able to play the game on my computer with max settings. I'm surprised I missed that my first go around.

My computer is a year old and ran at max settings at maybe 4 frames per second in combat, generously. But it's still very pretty.

I'm playing as an Infiltrator (tech sniper) and I have to say it is almost frighteningly satisfying to strip someone of their shields and weapons and take them out with a finely placed Assassination shot before they even know what hit them. Great fun.

I just finished the mission with the Thorian (playing as a Paragon) and did anyone else completely fail to notice the crate of grenades halfway through Zhu's Hope? I just leave all crates to the end of combat usually, so I ran out and got killed by colonists over and over and over again before I finally figured it out. AAAA! No one to blame but myself though.

Also on the Newton system side quest Shepard seems to take the revelation that Akuze was a setup by scientists who have been torturing one of her fellow marines with astonishing calm. I mean jeez, it's ok to get riled up every once in a while!

[Ben]

OK, I've finished it, and I was overall pretty satisfied with where they took things. (And of course looking forward to the sequel.) But I was a little disappointed with no denouement on the relationship aspect. After all that time they spent on the mating rituals of the Asari I wanted to see what my blue alien babies looked like. :p

[Daxdiv]

OK, I've finished it, and I was overall pretty satisfied with where they took things. (And of course looking forward to the sequel.) But I was a little disappointed with no denouement on the relationship aspect. After all that time they spent on the mating rituals of the Asari I wanted to see what my blue alien babies looked like. :p

Did you let the Council live or die?

[Ben]

I saved them. Might as well. I could understand their perspective for the entire game and thought my character (even as a Paragon) was kind of a jerk, actually. :P But now I'm playing through as a Renegade and reveling in my jerkdom.

[Daxdiv]

I saved them. Might as well. I could understand their perspective for the entire game and thought my character (even as a Paragon) was kind of a jerk, actually. :P But now I'm playing through as a Renegade and reveling in my jerkdom.

Well in my first playthrough, I just let them live, since it was basically the turian one that I hated. The Salarian, and the Asari one were cool, I just wished I could save them and let him live, and no I don't hate the turians, Garrus is actually my favorite ally, next to Wrex that is. It was the Turian that tempted me to disconnect from my conversation with the council. To me this is messed up and for safety, this is going to be posted in spoiler box.

In the Mission to finding Benzia on Noveria, if you choose to let the Rachni live, the turian question you for allowing a race that slaughter people to live. But if you kill her, he look down on you for committing genocide. Make up your mind dude, you hate humans I get it, but don't flip-flop

[Ben]

In the Mission to finding Benzia on Noveria, if you choose to let the Rachni live, the turian question you for allowing a race that slaughter people to live. But if you kill her, he look down on you for committing genocide. Make up your mind dude, you hate humans I get it, but don't flip-flop

Seriously? I saved the queen under my Renegade character and got massive Paragon points for it, which kind of pissed me off because it seems like a pretty Renegade thing to do. So I haven't seen what happens if you kill her. But yeah, that's stupid. Cutting off the council is fun. "Whoops!" "Aaaand we're out." I laughed uncontrollably when I heard that.

Then I had to hear it again because the game crashed and dialog is unskippable.

In case I haven't mentioned it: Bugs that make game crash every 20 minutes + unskippable dialog = EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING.

[Daxdiv]

Seriously? I saved the queen under my Renegade character and got massive Paragon points for it, which kind of pissed me off because it seems like a pretty Renegade thing to do. So I haven't seen what happens if you kill her. But yeah, that's stupid. Cutting off the council is fun. "Whoops!" "Aaaand we're out." I laughed uncontrollably when I heard that...

It makes more sense for a Paragon to save a life than to Kill one, and a Renegade to kill one than to save. That's why to me the choice in "Bring Down the Sky" mission was tough.

[Junkion]

PC Gamer gave the game a 91%, stating that its main flaws were its horrible inventory system and the fact that it only has on ending.

I hope that information is false. One of the main reasons I was interested in the game was the fact that the choices you make during gameplay determines what ending you would get.

[Ben]

It makes more sense for a Paragon to save a life than to Kill one, and a Renegade to kill one than to save. That's why to me the choice in "Bring Down the Sky" mission was tough.

But the rachni nearly destroyed the Council races. I suppose I was disappointed there wasn't a "Eff the council! I'm letting the rachni out!" option.

Re: multiple endings, there may be only one ending vis-a-vis "the bad guy dies," but there are certainly variations.

[Daxdiv]

But the rachni queen promised that she wouldn't wage war, teach her kind about the kindness that was bestowed upon them by Shepard, and I think she might have understood why the council had to commit genocide on their race, that last part I am not to sure about.

For the three final ending there are two for letting them die

Letting them die and Udina and Anderson discussing starting up a new council. The two choices are basically, an all-human council since the Alliance was the only one to survive and that for the Renegade parth. The other is rebuilding the council with other races, but the Alliance still getting the well deserved seat, since I think it would have been worthless if Humanity didn't get a spot after being strong defenders of the Citadel.

[Ben]

But the rachni queen promised that she wouldn't wage war, teach her kind about the kindness that was bestowed upon them by Shepard, and I think she might have understood why the council had to commit genocide on their race, that last part I am not to sure about.

She could have been lying to save her own life. If someone is about to kill you because your race almost destroyed the galaxy, wouldn't you say, "No, I'm different!" even if you really weren't?

[Daxdiv]

She could have been lying to save her own life. If someone is about to kill you because your race almost destroyed the galaxy, wouldn't you say, "No, I'm different!" even if you really weren't?

Well we'll see about that in the sequel or the additional DLC. After all believe in what you want to believe, that and I had allies that convinced me that I couldn't go through with it. All I needed to know was if the rachni was going to serve Saren after unleashing them, luckily she didn't. After all with geth, and krogan already serving him, rachni would have been the trifecta of trouble.

[Gokou Ruri]

I hope that information is false. One of the main reasons I was interested in the game was the fact that the choices you make during gameplay determines what ending you would get. The choices you make DO affect the ending, it's just there's no "good" or "evil" ending like other games. You'll end up saving the Galaxy either way, but whether you do it strictly by-the-book or Jack Bauer-esque is up to you.

There's still choices that affect the ending, like letting certain people die and what not.

[Junkion]

Jack Bauer-esque is up to you.I am so going to go Jack Bauer on them aliens.

Good, I'll get the game.