Mass Effect
Posted 07/16/08 at 07:23:06 PM by Norman Chan
Fans of Star Wars and Star Trek finally have a role-playing game that’s worthy of their love. Mass Effect takes the most compelling themes and ideas of both franchises and mind-melds them into one of the best science fiction games we’ve ever played.

Character feats like Lift and Warp let you throw enemies off-guard. Just don't call them Force powers
After fleshing out our digital avatar with the robust character customization engine (we created a bad-ass female war hero), we dived into an engaging story that put the fate of the galaxy in our hands.
The primary quest charged us with investigating the reemergence of a long-lost race of machines that wiped out an entire species of advanced aliens 50,000 years ago. Through the 20-hour campaign, we explored numerous planets, resolved alien conspiracies, and forged relationships with a believable cast of NPC allies.
Mass Effect’s rich selection of side quests helps flesh out the main story, and we loved the innovative conversation system. Dialogue trees are presented in an intuitive radial selection circle that lets us steer conversations in a plethora of directions depending on the tone of our language—all the characters are amazingly voice-acted as well.
When talking couldn’t get the job done, we turned to the fast-paced combat system, which actually requires some skill. Aiming with a mouse helped us survive firefights, and the newly designed PC combat interface is much better than the Xbox 360 version’s. It’s too bad the inventory system hasn’t been improved—rifling through hundreds of weapon upgrades in the equipment menu is a drag.
But we forgot about the game’s little annoyances after being immersed in the gorgeous high-resolution graphics—Mass Effect runs smoothly at 2560x1600 resolution (though turning off the “film grain” option is recommended).
Mass Effect’s epic story is both moving and fulfilling; the game’s universe is rich with details and feels infused with life. We can’t wait for the inevitable sequel. –norman chan
Engrossing campaign, great dialog system, visually striking environments and alien designs.
Messy inventory system, some pointless locations, only one ending.
Kick-Ass
Submitted by maniacm0nk3y on Sun, 03/15/2009 - 6:39pm
This game deserves kick ass. I originally bought it on the X360, but have sold it. I still love Mass Effect, and am going to buy it sooner or later. It's just huge, and looking at the galaxy makes me wish we had technology to go through our own.
BTW....Bioware talked about it, and said when they believe they can't squeeze any more cash from the game they will release a patch to disable the DRM.
This is why I love Sci Fi PC games but
Submitted by joeyjr on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 5:06pm
joeyjr
I just got the game Mass Effect, more than a year after the release date, and I just love the game and so far have had very few issues. I did register the game and installed the updates Bring Down the Sky and patches. Even with playing it on my very old hardware. I am talking 3.4 P4 Prescott CPU, 2G Corsair DDR PC3200, on a ASUS 865 MOBO, using a PCI Promise Fasttrak SATA HD controler, AGP ATI X1950 Pro, X-FI Extrem Music sound card, two WD 74G SATA HD (0 RAID) running Windows Media Center at 1280 x 960, one Maxtor 250G HD for games (off the motherbord), two more 250G HD for recording HDTV (0 RAID), and a Mitsubishi 2070SB CRT. These parts were mostly the Best of the Best at the time, but the system is configured into a Media/Gamer PC It even records TV when I play. While playing I was emersed into the game like no other I have played. I did feel limited moving around and wish it was more like Half Life 2 and wish I could jump and climb around with Mass Effects story line. One day!!! RPG/Sci Fi shoters!!! Hey baby, bring em!!! If you only play this game in 20 hours your missing out. I think you should take your time and enjoy the payoff. Enjoy!!!
BEST GAME EVER!!!
Submitted by kamman on Thu, 07/17/2008 - 8:43pm
best RPG iv ever played!!!!
on second playthrough lv47!!!
out of intrest what are you sqaud members of choice? (mine are kiaden and garrus)
For the love of God please
Submitted by Pyrophorics on Thu, 07/17/2008 - 7:41am
For the love of God please check their forums first.
While Bioware is "looking into" a patch, there are so many bugs it’s unbelievable! Most of which render the game completely unplayable. Between myself and 4 other friends who own the game only one of us can actually play it completely through.
Even more interesting, there is a lot of speculation as to where or not there security features are causing 90% of the problems. Most users who have are having problems and have posted on the Bioware forums are reporting that downloading a crack fixes their problems. Keep in mind these are people who have actually purchased a retail copy and you have to register your game to be able to post on their forum.
I myself found resolution in a crack...
Edit: Yeah there are two endings.
Only One Ending?
Submitted by bathtbgin on Thu, 07/17/2008 - 6:44am
Last I checked there were two endings to mass effect, the Paragon ending and the Renegade ending, which game were you playing?
Spot on with your pros and
Submitted by JonyCrash on Wed, 07/16/2008 - 8:44pm
Spot on with your pros and cons. Really fun game.
LOL, wth were they thinking with that default grainy film effect? At first I thought I had a graphics bug, till I found that option in the settings and promptly turned it off.
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