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It will be a pleasure having you over in the ME2 thread soon!

AndreaDraco wrote:A question for Maia: have you romanced Kaidan in your playthrough? If so, how's his romance story? Is it worth exploring?

I personally thought the romance was worth exploring, but it depends on what kind of male characters appeal to you.

Initially, I just liked the fact that (unlike most of the other male characters in Bioware RPGs up to that point) he didn't tell you either that he didn't trust you (kind of annoying) and/or you reminded him of his dead wife (kind of weird). Other than that, I liked that he was a good guy who seemed to have values that matched my character overall. The conversations played out more naturally and realistically than the romances in earlier games. I tend to like the "nice guy" types, though, so that was part of the appeal.

He's not as roguish as Zevran, I'm afraid.

I finished Mass Effect. Finally, I may add, since it took me three months to surpass my original resistance to the game and see the end credits roll. Anyway, here are my thoughts.

Story
While the overarching story - Saren, Sovereign, the Reapers - is certainly well thought-out and nicely polished, it wasn't groundbreaking or mind-blowingly fantastic, nor it really surprised me in any way, despite many attempts at shocking moments and developments. It's a good starting point for a series, that's for sure, but even if it is nothing exception, what is really great about it is the huge amount of detail behind the actual plot, the incredibly vivid background that sustains the entire setting. Thanks to this thorough background, the galaxy feels real and alive and every race unique and interesting (my personal favorites? Quarians and Turians). The political system - the Council, the embassies, the delicate balance between dominant and client races - is perhaps the jewel crown of this setting and without a doubt that thing that intrigued me the most about it: believable and deep, it added a great profundity to the whole plot, maybe because I'm a sucker for political intrigues or maybe just because it was really well written in a way that reminded me of some political coucils that predate World War II (the same listlessness, the same obstinacy to ignore the threat, the same asphyxiating bureaucracy).

Characters
This is the weakest aspect of the game, at least in my opinion. I may be spoiled by Dragon Age, where every character, even the ones that seemed more stereotypical at first slowly but steadily revealed a believable, well-rounded personality, but I found many companions flat or a tad uninspired. I'm thinking of Wrex, for example, who's pretty streamlined, or - despite my fondness of her - Tali herself, who's little more than a plot device, at least at the beginning. I liked Ashley, mainly because she had a surprising twist to her (by the way: wonderful choice of poems. Kudos!), and Garrus, who is the only character who undergoes a serious development during the course of the game. I guess that they were the poster-characters for a reason, no? After Dragon Age, the relationship between Shepard and the characters (and between the characters themselves) seemed to me a bit stiff and plain, and I certainly missed not only the party banter but also the long, meaningful dialogues the player character could have with them at any given time, while here the progress is articulated pretty rigidly by the plot developments (new conversations after every planet; dull repetitions everywhere in between). As a side note, it may be because of Seth Green's wonderful voice work, but, aside from the companions, Joked is undoubtedly my favorite character!

Gameplay
Even if I'm still not particularly fond of the actiony approach to the gameplay - I certainly prefer Dragon Age tactical system -, I came to like it and to find it really fun, in a frantic way. I learned to rely less on the active pause and to enjoy the tight pace of the combat itself. As for the quests, I obviously liked the main ones (especially Noveria and Ilos), but I even enjoyed the side assignments and - apart from the surveying missions (find n metals, find n asari writings, find n prothean artifacts), which I found boring and quite dreadful - the exploration of different planets with the Mako was pleasingly relaxing after the more tense main quests.

All in all, I'd rate Mass Effect something like 8/10, maybe 8.5/10, and it currently sits at the bottom of my personal BioWare rank (1. Dragon Age, 2. Knights of the Old Republic, 3. Jade Empire. I can't talk about NWN since I'm still - and slowly - playing it).

PS: Hey! I'm a Village Elder! Nice

AndreaDraco wrote:PS: Hey! I'm a Village Elder! Nice

I guess that you beat DPX to it.

AndreaDraco wrote: I finished Mass Effect.

Congrats! Now you can import him into Mass Effect 2.

AndreaDraco wrote: Story
While the overarching story - Saren, Sovereign, the Reapers - is certainly well thought-out and nicely polished. What is really great about it is the huge amount of detail behind the actual plot, the incredibly vivid background that sustains the entire setting. Thanks to this thorough background, the galaxy feels real and alive and every race unique and interesting (my personal favorites? Quarians and Turians).

Same favorites - Quarians and Turians. Tali and Garrus have a lot to do with that. Although Wrex really made me like the Krogans also - in a way that made me at least understand the Krogans.

AndreaDraco wrote: The political system - the Council, the embassies, the delicate balance between dominant and client races - is perhaps the jewel crown of this setting and without a doubt that thing that intrigued me the most about it: believable and deep, it added a great profundity to the whole plot, maybe because I'm a sucker for political intrigues or maybe just because it was really well written in a way that reminded me of some political coucils that predate World War II (the same listlessness, the same obstinacy to ignore the threat, the same asphyxiating bureaucracy).

I am normally not one for politics - but every time it's in a Bioware game, I swallow it up like it's the sweetest chocolate in the world.

AndreaDraco wrote: Characters
This is the weakest aspect of the game, at least in my opinion. I may be spoiled by Dragon Age, where every character, even the ones that seemed more stereotypical at first slowly but steadily revealed a believable, well-rounded personality, but I found many companions flat or a tad uninspired. I'm thinking of Wrex, for example, who's pretty streamlined, or - despite my fondness of her - Tali herself, who's little more than a plot device, at least at the beginning.

Wait until Mass Effect 2. You will learn much more about the Krogans and Quarians... Trust me on this one. I haven't led you astray so far with Bioware Games!

AndreaDraco wrote: I certainly missed not only the party banter

Surprisingly, and very much to my disappointment, considering how many characters you can pick up in Mass Effect 2, this was excluded from the game. It's very disappointing, because the party banter I thought it was made the characters so alive in Dragon Age - more so than my own conversations with them - because you could see as you were traveling how they felt about one another (not just you) or their given situations.

AndreaDraco wrote: apart from the surveying missions (find n metals, find n asari writings, find n prothean artifacts), which I found boring and quite dreadful - the exploration of different planets with the Mako was pleasingly relaxing after the more tense main quests.

You are probably alone in the enjoyment of the MAKO. It is removed in ME2. There's a new means (Planet Scanning) which takes place - much easier, but just as time consuming.

Tawmis wrote:Wait until Mass Effect 2. You will learn much more about the Krogans and Quarians... Trust me on this one. I haven't led you astray so far with Bioware Games!

I trust you

ME2 should arrive next week, but I also have my third playthrough of Dragon Age (a Human Noble Warrior in preparation for Awakening) to complete... But I'm really curious to see the outcome of my decisions, so I'll propbably try ME2 as soon as I got it.

Playing Mass Effect now and at first my game was really chugging. In battles I'd get framerates so poor it'd resemble a slideshow. I looked on the BioWare boards and someone had a fix for this. Apparently ME relies on the CPU more than the GPU. The fix changes that and now my framerate is a lot better.

I have to admit that the graphics are somewhat lackluster in their appearance. There's a complete lack of anti-aliasing and images tend to appear "blurry" at first and then clear up. The latter happens a lot when loading a game or accessing a character's inventory screen.

I also dislike that I have to bring teammates along with me in order to distribute talent points. I didn't have to do this in DA.

I wish my teammates had more personality and better AI. Compared to DA, the characters seem almost lifeless. Plus, the AI is retarded. More often than not, my teammates will stand around doing nothing and when they do act, it's usually doing something stupid like shooting at rocks.

I don't think having your character actually speak is that important. Maybe that's because Shepard seems awfully abrupt (bordering on rude, actually) and the male voice actor is nowhere near as talented as the female one.

I do like ME's method of travel and unlimited inventory space and in those respects, I believe ME is better than DA. Managing your inventory in DA was a real pain in the ass.

You might wonder, "Why is he playing this game if it annoys him that much?" Well, I've heard it has a good story and it's a departure from the typical fantasy setting. Truth be told, I am getting used to ME and it's slowly growing on me.

I think my complaints are due to playing DA first. It's obvious that DA is superior in almost every way to ME. To be fair, ME was released before DA so I can't expect the same level of quality or refinement.

DeadPoolX wrote:Maybe that's because Shepard seems awfully abrupt (bordering on rude, actually) and the male voice actor is nowhere near as talented as the female one.

Actually, I've seen him live, and the guy is probably one of the most talented people in the universe. He just isn't put to the best use in ME. I had a chance to hear his original audition reel a couple months back at a convention - he could've voiced the entire game with his range. They just happened to pick his most boring and generic voice for the role.

I remember DA had the option of modifying your character's voice (for field purposes, anyway.) That would be such an awesome step-up if they made it so that you could change your character's voice for the whole game. An even bigger step-up would be if they found a way to model the main character's appearance and voice after you.

Mass Effect has crashed on me at least five times (probably more). The weird thing is it's ALWAYS during a conversation. It's better than it used to be (I originally crashed while talking on the Normandy before completing Eden Prime), but it's completely random and very frustrating. It's not a game breaker, but it definitely stops me from playing for a little while.

What's really annoying about this is I can't save during a conversation and sometimes you only get ONE shot to learn information. That means I can't exit the conversation, save and come back to it.

To be fair, I haven't crashed that often considering the amount of game time I've logged. I've completed nearly every side mission (there are still some left, but I haven't triggered the right events for them to appear) and I'm just now attempting Noveria. I haven't even gotten to Feros yet.

As you can see, I decided the best course of action was to gain as much experience as possible before going to the story-based missions. I wanted better weapons and higher level talents. I'm currently level 33 and closing in on 34. That means I'm more than halfway to the level cap. I doubt I'll reach level 60, but I bet I'll get to the mid-40s. Maybe higher, depending on my actions.

Oh... Later... it gets pretty easy to start getting XP for kills... Trust me.

GREAT NEWS!

Well, for me it is.

The whole time I've been playing ME, the frame rate has stunk. I'd regularly get 15fps outside of battle and within it, the game was sometimes damn near unplayable. I actually got two-to-five frames per second during large battles.

All of this really pissed me off since my system exceeded the recommended requirements for ME. Oddly enough, DA ran really well even though I didn't meet the requirements by having a single core CPU.

Anyway... I read online that if you change "MassEffect.exe" to "UT3.exe" it'll give you a performance boost. I decided to try it even though the idea didn't make any sense, but guess what? It worked!

I'm now getting around 25fps during combat! I realize that may sound bad to some of you (and in most cases I'd agree), but it's a dramatic improvement over what I had before. I can actually fight in real time, instead of hitting the spacebar whenever I want to turn and fire.

I can think of one possible reason. Was UT3.exe the name of the executable for Unreal Tournament 3? If there has been any kind of application compatibility fix applied for one but not the other, renaming it could fool it into treating it like UT3.exe.

If you don't have Mass Effect (1 and/or 2) - EA is now having an excellent sale on Mass Effect 1 and 2!

Mass Effect 1 - $13.37
Mass Effect 2 - $13.37

(I imagine this is their sense of humor that they're spelling "leet" with the cost).