Comments on: Mass Effect

By: Morgan

Morgan — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 05:14:00 +0000

The thing that I most enjoyed about Mass Effect was its cinematic presentation. I liked the cutscenes, dialogue and NPC interactions. In fact, because of the immersive, cinematic flow of narrative I really didn’t pay much attention to the engine. It was sufficient to shoot some bugs and baddies but, on the whole, was secondary to the narrative.

This is what is special about Mass Effect. I appriciated a game which placed story and character above action. Having said that, I didn’t notice any of the gameplay problems that others seem to…

By: jimbostyx

jimbostyx — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:53:45 +0000

I bought the game, partially because of your comments Morgan. Unfortunately, Bioware seems to be bogged down by it’s Dungeons and Dragons origins. I was disappointed that they kept the same old levels, xp, hit points, etc. model. Also the physics environment was pretty klunky. While playing this game, I kept wishing that they had taken a bit of inspiration from the Bioshock design team.

What I was expecting from this game, and what hopefully another design company will achieve with a game in the future, is the following.

– No loading times or levels
– No cut scenes
– No funny skips (e.g. in and out of the ATV)
– No character management screens
– Way less equipment and more value placed on individual pieces (you could go through all of Bioshock with the original spanner!)
– NPCs who make their own decisions about equipment and tactics

Basically, I think that all that traditional RPG stuff gets in the way of a good game experience these days. RPG and FPS is blending, to the advantage of both genres.

By: An R18+ rating for games in Australia « Wonderbread

An R18+ rating for games in Australia « Wonderbread — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:43:18 +0000

[...] may have gathered from my review of Mass Effect that I’m one of those irritating people who thinks that there may be more to Video Games than [...]

By: filmbunnies

filmbunnies — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:41:57 +0000

What strange universal chemistry is at play, Mr Bread! On a recent trip to Wales with my partner (whom is a lecturer in computer games) on a grant he had to “research” with a collegue at an art/design school there, i became a Mass Effect widow – 30 hours I sat through! They were also besotted with it, and I believe are writing an academic paper on it as we speak… you are totally totally not alone in your feeling that this game is something different, although that may just mean its only the three of you now :)

keep writing! lovely lovely blog!