Mass Effect

[Largo]

Really enjoying it so far, im glad its not highly addictive either as i worried it might be, but yeah its moving on at a nice pace and the story is great, combat is a bit choppy but what with everything going on its no problem.

Have a few mysteries tho, first, i can train my team in first aid tallets...yet it doesnt appear in the abilities bar, so how the hell do i get them to use it? That would be a great help.
Also whats it mean when your HP bar changes from red to green, am i poisoned? It seems to happen every now and then...not in the manual etc

Any info would be welcome, thanks !

[Malavon]

there is no 'quick fire' for skills (that I can see?)

When you have the skill menu up (by holding RB) select the skill and hotkey it with x - then when you tap RB, instead of holding it, it uses that skill. It does only work for the one skill but even so, it's still useful.

One question tho - have got the first aid skill with one of my party members, but it doesn't appear on the skill list and afaik you can't control other party members... so how do I use it?

Just about to check controller options, see what you can change. Will update if theres anything worth mentioning.

Edit: No, there aren't really any useful controller options available though I did increase sensitivity slightly.

Have a few mysteries tho, first, i can train my team in first aid tallets...yet it doesnt appear in the abilities bar, so how the hell do i get them to use it? That would be a great help.

Nice to know I'm not the only one with that problem

[Spatial]

I've just spent the whole evening (almost four hours) exploring the Citadel and think I still missed a whole bunch of things.

The dialogue is brilliant, although Shepard does seem to be very much in the vein of "Tell me more about..." and "What do you know about..." but at least those are just methods to draw out the exposition on various things and, when he needs to, he can sound like he really means stuff

A lovely moment this evening with some witty banter between my squad mates whilst gazing out at the sprawling neon vista of the Citadel. It was entirely dependant on who was in my party too, so I've no doubt that it could have played out entirely different had I not been accompanied by two humans and a Turian and a Krogan instead.

This game's also got the best use of facial expressions I've seen since HL2. Earlier today I commented to Ashley about how well she'd done and she actually looked genuinely pleased and went slightly coy.

And then just as I'm thinking I'm going to stop playing, something else happens which makes me want to see a bit more. Next thing I know I'm getting sass off my team mates for

->Open Spoiler<-

running over some space Monkeys in the Mako

Oh and I've now solved the timeline issue from earlier. It's set 20 years after the prequel.

[Kotatsu Neko]

The only part of this I'm not liking is the combat, which just feels sloppy and unsatisfying. The guns make a lot of noise but not much else, and I'm struggling to work out why an RPG has had a shooter shoe horned into it. (other than to try and mislead shooter fans into buying the game) If only it had been turn based and with full control over the whole team.

The rest of the game is utterly brilliant though. I love the alien design, particularly the Star War bar man guy as mentioned earlier in this thread. He's amazingly well modelled and his facial animation is superb. It also helps that the dialogue is so good and well acted.

Definitely a game of the year contender I think. It would be between this, Bioshock, Assassin's, and Mario.

[weresheep]

For the most part I am liking it but a couple things have annoyed me so far.

The first was the utterly pointless timed section near the end of the opening level. I mean, what the hell is a timed level doing in an RPG? Strikes me as a cheap, lazy and generally crappy way of forcing some tension into the moment. Thats what the storey is for FFS!

Second and more annoying is that I've just lost an hours play time cos my character go stuck against a wall and couldn't move. NextGen collision detection in action. Too pissed off to play more tonight but will pick it up again tomorrow.

I had hoped we'd gotten past the stage of having to manually save into multiple slots at regular intervals, but I guess not.

-weresheep

[Bassman]

Mine arrived this morning from GAME (limited edition). Up to about 8 hours play and enjoying it, story and gameplay. Took a while to get used to the controls. Took a while to realize that with the revive option (Spectre) your "dead" squad mates revive when you are in the clear (or the area has cleared).

Fortunately it didn't take too long to realize you have to click on absolutely everyone and everything.

I am sure there are still bits of the Citadel I need to see. I am currently wandering around Feros. I admittedly had to reduce the difficulty as I was struggling with the latter part of the open air section in the Mako to the Exigen (or whatever) building. Having left it on "Casual " since that, it seems to still be difficult in places.

So far I have found the Sniper Rifle to be useless as I can't seem to keep it still.

I seem to only recall bad slowdown about once so far, though it does have a tendency to freeze for up to a few seconds when entering some areas.

Decided to have a female lead for a change. Went for the Infiltrator option and have no regrets on that so far. Up to about Level 12 with the Spectre line filled up fairly well.

[Largo]

Some of the chat reply options are classic bioware genius, i cant wait to go thro the game on a 2nd playthro with my total asshole character

[venom743]

Loving this game at the moment, but the frame-rate is pretty inconsistent.
Has anyone tried clearing the cache on the HDD?

[PeteJ]

When you have the skill menu up (by holding RB) select the skill and hotkey it with x - then when you tap RB, instead of holding it, it uses that skill. It does only work for the one skill but even so, it's still useful.

Nice one, thanks

I have to say, they certainly just drop you in the game with very little help! Quite refreshing in a way I suppose.

I spent about an hour just reading\listening to the codex files yesterday. SO much depth has been put into the universe, it is an incredible piece of work really.

I agree the combat is sloppy but it has already slightly improved over the start of the game. Even though you 'hit' a target it still may not register due to the maths working behind the scenes. I don't think the full action approach has worked particularly well but it's probably the best attempt at an action RPG yet. I'm glad it isn't turnbased but they should have slowed it down like in the earlier videos.

[englishbob]

Loving this game at the moment, but the frame-rate is pretty inconsistent.
Has anyone tried clearing the cache on the HDD?

Makes no difference

[Spatial]

Yep, sadly no difference as Bioware have said the game doesn't actually use the cache.

I totally agree with the comments on the combat and how it feels shoe horned in. It's a brave attempt but they just don't seem to have got it right. I don't know whether turn based would have worked but, as Pete said, a slower pace which didn't try to ape and all out action game would have been much better.

It's almost like they got ashamed of it's RPG'ness and tried to make it more appealing to the action only kiddies.

That said, I think it's sheer testament to the depth of universe, settings, characters and atmosphere they've created that besides the flaws most people seem to be enjoying this.

[Swallow]

When you say depth, Spatial, what do you mean? I know there's different strokes etc. but my friends who've played it say the story is clunky and characters are nothing more than caricatures. I'm not expecting Tolstoy levels of meaning and integrations, but it still sounds disappointing.

[Spatial]

Almost everything has a back story.

The characters all come with a past (even Sheppard's past which you select at the beginning but it isn't just forgotten after that, it's reference quite a few times) and for me they're actually intriguing. I could go in to various characters but I won't because it's been half the fun and wouldn't spoil it for anyone else.

Of course not everyone you meet will have their life story availiable for research because they're just bit parts, but those you can are actually interesting.

The conversation arcs are varied (sometimes depending on your influence / skill level) but obviously they remain relevant to the missions in hand.

There's also the customisation of weapons and armour and skill enhancement which adds an extra layer.

The Codex is chock full of information about planets, alien races, their customs, weaponry, galactic history, etc. Pete used the example earlier, you can literally get lost in the amount of information it contains.

Some of it could be seen as sci-fi clich, but since we don't get many sci-fi `RPG's` it's really doing it for me.

[Swallow]

Hmm, thanks for that Spatial - I guess it all comes down to the mileage you can get from said cliches (as an owner of every SW EU book I may be okay...) then...

[capcom_suicide]

Hmm, thanks for that Spatial - I guess it all comes down to the mileage you can get from said cliches (as an owner of every SW EU book I may be okay...) then...

It sounds like it's going to storming for fans of sci fi fiction. None of the tech issues sound game breaking either, which is a relief!

Shame about the combat though. Still, a good solid 7 or 8 game is always welcome, as I'm one of those sci fi nuts and this will no doubt hit all the right buttons for me personally!