Mass Effect

[Malc]

^ Ah, thankyou.

I haven't done almost any quests on the Citadel yet, I should get back there tonight and ransack the place for side-quests.

[Wild_Cat]

Well, this one is one of the few sidequests really worth doing: it ends on a rather weird moment.

As far as sidequests are concerned, it's also cool to do the ones related to the characters in your party, those related to your background and/or reputation (Mass Effect is one of the very few games that allow you to commit murder in cold blood), and the one about the rogue VI on the Moon. That last one ends on a sad note -- hint: the binary patterns are ASCII character codes.

[El Leone]

.That last one ends on a sad note -- hint: the binary patterns are ASCII character codes.

I saw this!

->Open Spoiler<-

H E L P

poor little A.I

[Malc]

^ He, I think I was too interested in me choosing a specialisation class at the time. Was it when those load of numbers come up consisting of 2 digits; 1&0?

[Wild_Cat]

Yeah. That's binary. When I saw that, I whipped out my dear friend the Python interpreter, and set out to translate them.

Reminded me of that time where I spent a couple hours or so in a similar fashion, translating the Gnomeregan punch cards in World of Warcraft.

[El Leone]

^ He, I think I was too interested in me choosing a specialisation class at the time. Was it when those load of numbers come up consisting of 2 digits; 1&0?

Yeah. I think there was another side quest where you when you destroyed all the Geth bases or something, you find out they're listening to (classical?) music or something.

[Riskbreaker]

Thanks for the binary translation, I wrote the numbers down and meant to get round to seeing what it said. Didn't think it'd be help

It's a shame there weren't more secrets hidden away in the same vein as the Prothean sphere. I was genuinely impressed when I found that, even more so when I realised it could be activated. There were plenty of pyramids kicking about, but I can't remember any of them doing anything.

Yeah. I think there was another side quest where you when you destroyed all the Geth bases or something, you find out they're listening to (classical?) music or something.

Yup, wasn't it meant to be Quarian classical music though?

[El Leone]

I knew it was music, but wasn't really sure about the precise details.

[Jebus]

Really really enjoying this. Got back into it recently after a complete halt due to the ridiculous amount of great games around the time it came out leading all the way up to Christmas.

Think I'm near the end and I just have to say I was SO wrong about this game. The main quest planets are marvelous, SO different to the side quest ones I was doing. Virmire was just SO damn good!

Doubt I'll go through it a second time though (too long and still too many games to finish off!) and in my opinion if you were to ignore the side quests this would be a rather short RPG, but there are some brilliant touches to the dialouge which really wow you. Different people say different things at different times. It really feels good.

Suffers from AWFUL texture pop in after loading and some frankly bizarre graphical glitches, some long loads too and it seems to be almost constantly reading from the disc, but all that aside, top top game.

[the klaxon]

I bought this about 2 weeks ago, I finally got round to playing it a few days ago, giddy with excitement, I'm about 6 hours into it and I totally love it and think about it constantly when I'm not playing it, I'm like some kind of love sick teenager.

It hasn't all been rosey though, the first hour or so I loved it, I could see the technical problems people were referring to but on the whole, I liked the characters so much and their side stories that I happily carried on but then I got the Mako and my affection quickly sank.

I just couldn't fathom how a vehicle could be so badly designed and implemented into a AAA game like this and it was a complete bitch to control.

I started going off Mass Effect quickly from that point and I felt I couldn't be bothered playing it again, I spent ages trying to get past some geth on that skyway bit and I nearly turned it in for good...luckily for me, I carried on because I am bang in love all over again.

Starting to explore some of the other galaxies and planets and in a weird way, I am enjoying the mako sections now. I guess it's just trial and error which sounds obvious I know but I was getting very frustrated to point where it just wasn't fun anymore.

I urge anyone who is thinking of stopping playing to stick with it, graphically it is fantastic and at the same time can look ropey. Very tough in places but ultimately rewarding and all set in space.

Very compelling gaming indeed.

[Mephistopheles]

I started going off Mass Effect quickly from that point and I felt I couldn't be bothered playing it again, I spent ages trying to get past some geth on that skyway bit and I nearly turned it in for good...luckily for me, I carried on because I am bang in love all over again.

The Mako definitely takes some getting used to. The controls seem a bit loose and it could use a boost function (not the jump boost, but a speed boost) for traversing long distances. However it really does become second nature (well, almost) once you get your head around it.

I think the texture pop in problems are more the fault of UE3 than Mass Effect, since Gears and UT3 had exactly the same issue.

[Rick]

I finished my first play through last night.
I am so proud that i actually avoided all the spoilers for this game, and it was so worth it.
It is one of the best games i've ever played, The story is brilliant, the characters have personality, the locales are great.
I even thought the combat was good, i really enjoyed mowing through all the Geth with a high powered character and the

->Open Spoiler<-

SPECTRE

Weapons.

The inventory system could use some work, it would be better if you could mark items you wanted converted to Omni Gel rather than one at a time.
The Game needs to use the HDD as well.

I started on my second playthrough straight afterwards as well. I was a bit annoyed that i inadvertantly set off the finale end game; without being able to do the side quests i had lined up for later.

Oh, the music is amazing as well. The ending song is great

I can't wait for the next one.

10/10 for me. Best game i've played since KOTOR

[Jebus]

The inventory system could use some work, it would be better if you could mark items you wanted converted to Omni Gel rather than one at a time.
The Game needs to use the HDD as well.

I (and I think many others) completely agree with that. I also didn't like the fact it suddenly tells you are exceeding or about to exceed the limit you can hold, just when you've picked up a good weapon that you can ONLY reduce to omni gel.

The whole omni gel thing is also rather wierd, I went the whole game never running out and being able to hack whatever I wanted the easy way.

[hudson]

I've grown bored of this for some reason I was into it and then it started to feel a bit repetitive and chore-ish to me.

[Jebus]

If you haven't already, try ignoring all the side quest stuff and go for the main storyline stuff, it's much more fun and varying.