Just bought the Mass Effect trilogy

Finally us PS3 gamers can enjoy this awesome series from beginning to end. The trilogy arrived in NA yesterday. I made my commander Shepard an Infiltrator and it's funny how noob I look trying to aim with the sniper. Looks great so far.

i must be one of the few people that didnt like mass effect, its not a bad game but to me it's just a crappy shooter with a good story.

RantFromRant wrote:i must be one of the few people that didnt like mass effect, its not a bad game but to me it's just a crappy shooter with a good story.

As with most games, I enjoyed the story of the original. After that it got too complicated, too convoluted, and too distracted by meaningless nonsense for the sake of "depth".
I thought the combat was decently fun, or at least the weapons, sounds, and effects were pretty neat.
The first Mass Effect had a really cool sci fi feel to it. It had a mystery that made you want to explore. After the first game though, it just felt like any action movie type game. Maybe that was because I was already familiar with the universe? I don't know, hard to place exactly, but I never finished the third.

RantFromRant wrote:i must be one of the few people that didnt like mass effect, its not a bad game but to me it's just a crappy shooter with a good story.

It is all about the story after all. But nowadays you can't sell a story based game anymore without adding some action. I thought the action was decently fun, however it became cheaper in every sequal.

Just bought the trilogy the other day too. I'm about 5/6 hours into the first one now, and I'm really pleasantly surprised. I wasn't sure what to expect when I'd heard it was like Bioware's other RPG's but with guns, but I'm finding it really works well for the most part, and I'm told the systems get better and better in the sequels. My only real criticisms right now are with the cover system, which seems to only work sporadically with your teammates, the fact that you can't directly control your teammates, and the unbelievably slow elevators. You'd think that far into the future humanity would have figured out how to manufacture faster moving elevators.

PlasticandRage wrote:You'd think that far into the future humanity would have figured out how to manufacture faster moving elevators.

I have felt that pain.

It took me like 4 days to get through the first visit to the Citadel, because I literally fell asleep almost every time I got on an elevator.

All in all it's been a very positive experience so far though. I'm not trying to sound like I'm complaining about everything. As with most Bioware RPGs, the world is extremely immersive, and that's something I really enjoy in these kinds of games. I'm hoping they add some deeper character interactions in the later games. I was looking forward to some Dragon Age level character conversations in this game, and it seems like they just weren't there yet when they made this.

I think Wrex is my favorite character so far. He's kind of making me wish I hadn't made myself a Vanguard, because he's basically one too, and I like to keep my party more balanced than that.

Wrex is awesome. The sequels get worse with story but very good in gameplay. You'll love ME2 weakness system.

The general consensus seems to be that 2 is the best one. Can you start controlling your other characters? Or are you always stuck as Shepard?

Yeah you are always Shepard however the teammates AIs gets smarter. I liked the squad orders of ME1 more than those of the sequels because I had more control over my squad.

I'd be happier with it if I could give individual orders, and if my teammates actually took cover from the direction of the people firing machine guns at them when they get to where I send them.

The squad directions of ME3 seemed glitched so I didn't bother. Sometimes Tali was running all over the place with the shotgun so the most I used was the down button for rounding up. However they take cover more smartly than ME1.

It seems like because you can only issue an order to both of them at once, one of them will take the good cover, and the other will just stand near them, completely in the opened. Which is balls because it seems like it usually works out so that my physically stronger character will be in the right cover while either Tali or Kaidan will stand and take fire.

I'm really enjoying Tali also. I think I'm going to try to romance her if I can. I guess it'd be either her or Ashley though, because I don't think I have any other females. At least not yet.

Edit: I just got to cruise around in the buggy for the first time, which incidentally is really fun, and it seems like I got lit up really fast. Should I be bringing a tech specialist like Tali on all these missions for their repair bonus?

You can't be with Tali in ME1 . Now that I remember the squad directions change in that you can point each squadmate to a position, so you can actually have more control of who goes there and such. So disregard what I said earlier lol. You'll like it.

If it's anything like 1 I'm sure I will. I'm exploring space for the first time now, and really enjoying it. Even though you can only survey most of the planets, I still like having such a big game world to check out. I really hope they go back in this direction for DA3. 2 was such an unbelievable disappointment. I was really looking forward to it too.

It's too bad they ditched the MAKO for the sequels. I would have liked smaller maps cause the ones in ME1 are too huge for me.

Yeah, the one I'm on now is pretty big and full of nothing. It's a great idea though. Especially for rpg exploration, which can sometimes become a little stale if poorly executed. In fact, there really hasn't been a time so far that I haven't been enjoying myself. I could live with a little more combat, but I'm still pretty early in the game.

I was unhappy to see Nylus go so early too. I really thought he was going to end up in my party.

Don't worry you'll get Garrus which is more badass.

Yeah, I've got him. I like him too. He hasn't said a whole lot yet though, so I'm still stuck with a relatively negative perspective of the Turians. Wrex certainly thinks they're a bunch of richards. I don't blame him.

I think I've only got one more character to get. There's only one darkened character left on my party creation screen anyway.

I am commander shepard and this is my favorite post on the forum

Personally I loved the mass effect trilogy, tali was my favorite character, and the vangaurd (the one with biotic charge, love that ability) was my favotire class. I recommend trying out multiple classes as you go along, it will really expand your experience, as they can have vastly different playstyles (played as infiltrator at first, then tried again as vangaurd)

Yeah, I like Tali too. Wrex is still my favorite though. The Turians are coming off as being pretty snooty to me, and the way Wrex is constantly really bluntly telling Garris that he's an idiot is consistently cracking me up. I'm kind of wishing I'd gone with the soldier class to start with for a few different reasons. I'm finding that because the systems are new to me, and the shotguns require close range, that I'm taking more fire than I'd like, so heavy armor wouldn't have been a bad thing. Plus I'd like to try out the other weapons, and I'm finding that once combat starts I'm having trouble remembering that I have spells to be using. I use throw a lot, but that's been about it so far. Well and Unity, but that's not exactly a combat spell.

I also am finding myself just wanting to get through the first one more and more. The ally AI can be so bad, that I'm finding myself alone in combat more often than not, and from the sound of it the second one really changes the whole aspect of squad combat. In a lot of ways their systems are making it seem like the squad combat in the first one is just for show, like the fact that you can only use Shepard, and that once he goes down it's game over. That's pretty dumb, and it's not even that Bioware had just not gotten there yet in their development of battle systems in these games. In both Dragon Age, and Knights of the Old Republic, the latter coming out long before Mass Effect, you control whoever you want, and once your main character goes down you just use somebody else until the battle is over, and then everyone whose down revives. It doesn't make much sense to me why they did it the way they did it in ME1