After playing Mass Effect for a few days, I must say it is a very enjoyable RPG. For those who haven't been following the game, it is very different from your Final Fantasy JRPG.
The game is mainly based on two areas of game play, combat and dialogue. Mass Effect makes pretty big changes in these areas from other RPGs. Combat is almost like a squad-based shooter. Your weapons range from assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, and sniper rifles. You move your character in real-time like you would in any third-person shooter. You can zoom in a scope for better aim and hide behind barriers and peak around. Alongside conventional weapons, you have special abilities called biotics--though these are used more strategically as they have long cooldowns. You do not control your other squad members directly, but give them commands like in squad based shooters. This makes RPG combat quite exciting, though its not quite at the level of a shooter like Call of Duty 4.
The dialogue is pretty comprehensive. You can make a number of responses to NPCs. The type of responses you make give you paragon and renegade points. I'm not quite sure up to this point what earning paragon and renegade points really means as unlike Bioware's KOTOR, you don't gain evil powers for being evil. The game has quite a lot of background lore, which is interesting to get you involved in the history of the Mass Effect universe...something that you go in blind with compared to a Star Wars RPG.
My main complaints are with the load times. They are very long. The most egregious are the elevators in the game. The game fills the time with small talk between your characters, but there are a lot of elevators in the game and it is a lot of waiting. Not being able to skip cut scenes is another problem when there is a combat sequence following a cut scene. So if you die and reload, you will have to watch the cut scene over and over again. The driving controls (yes you can drive vehicles) are a bit buggy as well.
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The game is mainly based on two areas of game play, combat and dialogue. Mass Effect makes pretty big changes in these areas from other RPGs. Combat is almost like a squad-based shooter. Your weapons range from assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, and sniper rifles. You move your character in real-time like you would in any third-person shooter. You can zoom in a scope for better aim and hide behind barriers and peak around. Alongside conventional weapons, you have special abilities called biotics--though these are used more strategically as they have long cooldowns. You do not control your other squad members directly, but give them commands like in squad based shooters. This makes RPG combat quite exciting, though its not quite at the level of a shooter like Call of Duty 4.
The dialogue is pretty comprehensive. You can make a number of responses to NPCs. The type of responses you make give you paragon and renegade points. I'm not quite sure up to this point what earning paragon and renegade points really means as unlike Bioware's KOTOR, you don't gain evil powers for being evil. The game has quite a lot of background lore, which is interesting to get you involved in the history of the Mass Effect universe...something that you go in blind with compared to a Star Wars RPG.
My main complaints are with the load times. They are very long. The most egregious are the elevators in the game. The game fills the time with small talk between your characters, but there are a lot of elevators in the game and it is a lot of waiting. Not being able to skip cut scenes is another problem when there is a combat sequence following a cut scene. So if you die and reload, you will have to watch the cut scene over and over again. The driving controls (yes you can drive vehicles) are a bit buggy as well.
How are others enjoying the game?