Refugees from other social media platforms, talking about games and geekery.
You Got Me -- Trying Mass Effect Again
I had to track down which library had it, but I did reinstall ME last night. It doesn't play all that well with modern PCs...I had to futz around with the resolution for a while because when changing it the screen would vanish and I'd have to CAD the app and re-start.
I really appreciate the drama of the game. ME might have been BioWare's storytelling high-point, but there are already certain things about the game that I'd forgotten and wish had stayed forgotten. Like Shepard's wooden block line delivery. He sounds like really early attempts at voice recognition, or -- if you're old enough to remember -- how you'd interact with NPCs in Ultima:
NPC: "Hello, Shepard. Nice day, isn't it?" Shepard: "Job" NPC: "I'm sorry?" Shepard: "Health" NPC: "Are you OK, Shepard?" Shepard: "Join" NPC: "OK...you...have a good day..I guess." Shepard: "Bye"
I haven't even gotten to the abysmal MAKO part yet. I am not looking forward to that.
Bioware also seems to have never gotten the knack for producing good looking models. I know this is an older game, but once I realized that Shepard's jaw wasn't connected to his lips in any way, I couldn't un-see it XD I think I like the models in SWTOR more than in ME, or even in DA:Inquisition.
My goal is to plow through the plot, though. I think I've missed my "play it for the breadth of the experience" window, back when it was released. This is kind of a time-limited thing, since I would still need to get through 2 and eventually (buy and play) 3 before 4 arrives. I know there's some limited connections there, but since the ME series IS held in such high regard, I'd feel remiss if I didn't give it the old College Try.




Yeah! That's the spirit! :)
The first Mass Effect is there for the story and setting up the world, not the gameplay anyway. I agree the Mako is a bit of a pain. But bonus: it's coming back in Andromeda!
A lot of the Mako content is optional and really only for completionist types (same with the planet mining in ME2). You should be able to get along fine without spending too much time navigating the Mako around.
In playing through last night I remembered that a big part of the game is forming the relationships with your crew, so how much of that is "necessary" to get through the story? I don't care about alien sex or anything like that...I just want to say that I finished the damn thing XD
Building up friendships unlocks side missions, conversation options and stuff like that. It's all optional. There will never be a point where you have to have X level of friendship with someone to advance in the game.
Some will say that the building of friendships and side missions are what make the ME games so great. You might feel different.
I don't care about alien sex or anything like that
You are DEAD TO ME!
(j/k of course)
You beat me to this response!!
Since you don't care about relationships, play as an asshat and report the results. I've never been able to bring myself to do that!
That makes no sense, but hopefully it will eventually. If I make it that far.
Though I suppose it bears saying that it's not that I don't care about the relationships per se...it's always been fun to work on that aspect of characters, but I know the first time I tried playing through ME, I was totally going down the full road, which lead to me getting horribly "bogged down", which is one reason why I think I didn't finish the game.
While I'd like to work on those relationships, I'd also like to actually finish the game this time. And the second. And possibly the third. Before the fourth is released. Maybe XD
Personally I enjoyed how they evolved the Garrus relationship over the three games even though my Shepard ended up having reptile relations.
I don't know why the phrase "reptile relations" makes me laugh so hard, but it does. XD
ME 2 is free on PC: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2017/01/05/the-pc-version-of-mass-effect-2-is-free-right-now.aspx