Mass Effect Comments by Kristan Reed

smoothn00dle: hummm, who are the "dudes" then, apart from EG, if everyone else is biased or a winnie-sucker ?

Not as good as Uncharted then? Shame. :)

Okay, before I say what I'm about to say, let's get this out of the way: I understand reviews are subjective and the opinion of the editor in question.

That said: An 8/10 for DYNASTY WARRIORS GUNDAM and a 7/10 for AC and 8/10 for Mass Effect?

I am done with reviews, period. I'll make up my own damn mind.

edit: To the above poster about reviewers with deadlines: I think that's dead-on. Gabe at Penny Arcade said a similar thing regarding Assassin's Creed and it really made me realize something: Reviewers are simply trying to finish the game so they can write the review and move on. This inherently skews their perception of games, I think, and with games as expansive as Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect, I think it is showing right now - reviews (at least, the scores) are worthless.

@Xerx3s - OI! And I wasn't slagging the review! Besides, it will be coming to the PC, it's just a matter of time.

I wasn't talking about you. They also specifically mentioned that they have no plans for a pc version of it. Considering that MGS owns the IP and they have traded their soul to shineys, I seriously doubt that we will see a PC version. Or a real bioware game ever again for that matter.

Do these reviews still have scores? Has no one realised they're there only for comedy value yet? I haven't paid attention to a EG score for years. These nice reviewer gents are much better at getting their point across through, what was it, 2,500 words than one number.

Apart from the Bioshock review, from which I can only assume they played an entirely different game from me, that I one day hope to enjoy. Or it could be like Oblivion, and I only learn to see the game they have until a year or so later.

Anyway, RPG or not, do we think Bioware'll do a Jade Empire with it? Because you can't trust 'em not to.

Hmm. The score doesn't really concern me, given given that I have a dozen other places to go if I really wanted to have a number reassure me about the most certain purchase of the last ten years... what I didn't like was the review. Kind of seemed like the author didn't WANT to enjoy the experience. I guess as someone mentioned above me, he was playing to a deadline and just didn't have the time [or inclination?] to take it at the pace that most Bioware games require.

@Xerx3s
MGS... you mean EA, yeah?

gnarl, completly agree with you EG shouldn't print scores, it's too mathematical (it should have a bigger granularity) because I think it's very, very difficult to make this kinda judgment when thehy must rush through the games in order to meet dead lines. Games like this or Oblivion (or to some extent) even Halo can't be evaluated by playing it through a weekend.
Should be: bad/mediocre/average/good/excelent, can't pin-point these games like this. I bet some reviwers after playing it "proprely" regret some scores.

I am done with reviews, period. I'll make up my own damn mind.

Good for you and welcome to the club. I only read reviews for the humour in them. For the rest, they have no weight at all for me. Talking to the people on forums and RL mates is what forms my opinion.

>I am done with reviews, period. I'll make up my own damn mind.

If you read the WORDS of reviews (as opposed to just looking at the scores) and read from a variety of sites/publications.. then you get a good idea of whether a game is worth buying or not.

From this review, i'd say Mass Effect almost definately IS worth buying.

I dont get why people get so uppity?

@miiiguel

I am confused. what do u mean? Dudes?

do u really want to play a "Talking" game? I want action! Final Fantasy 2 did implement talking system but wasn't well received. It never appears on any other FF games since.

Dating or Law games would be good to have this system but RPG/action game? Hell no.... I am the shoot first, ask question later kinda guy. For me the worst part of RPG is talking to NPC, hit the conversation again and again to understand them. You know those NPC act/talk so fake.

smoothn00dle: I meant, what review publications are worth ?

"do u really want to play a "Talking" game?"
yes..., I still like text adventures..., I'm not shiting you. I do.

smoothn00dle:

It really sounds like you just don't like RPG's much then, conversations and character development are among the best things about them and few true RPG's are of the 'shoot first ask questions later' variety, or at least they don't force you to play that way.

Man this guy's an idiot... the stuff he is talking about is his preference. If you like these kinds of games like KOTOR and what not then it will be fantastic.... This website is WAY too judge-mental of video games, I hate the reviews, they are crap, when was the last time there was a good European game? huh?

Sirs,

I wish to register my utmost disappointment with the disgraceful review score awarded to this game, which I have not personally played.

The score contradicts my personal expectations and beliefs, and so is obviously incorrect, as well as being a personal affront to me. I find it shocking that a website of your calibre should let me down so badly.

Yours,
Disgusted (Tunbridge Wells)

Cool, nice little knock of the 360 dropped in there, to compliment the "wonder if it could be done on 360" comment from the other day (which having played that demo was definitely rubbish).

good old eurogamer, anything to boost hits :-)

shame though as it ruins good reviews really though this was a pretty negative one from the off that seemed to hate the style of game.

If you are on this forum to whine about a review score you should accept the fact that you will never, ever kiss a girl.

If the game's so great then fuck off and play it.

Apparently Bladestorm is a brilliant game on EuroG!

@evilboo : too busy kissing women personally.

@miiiguel

Nobody is perfect in my view but Eurogamer and Gamespot, are two site I use as guideline. I followed reviewer not the site. Greg Kasavin, ex-gamespot chief editor, he was pretty good. The DMC3, Okami and Gradius5 review he did, we were in the same brain wave.

Kristan Reed, he is good. I think he give GearWar a 7. A good call. I guess this review was hammered after he did Uncharted review. Guess once you see a game looks that good, it's hard to go back that shows in this review.

@smoothn00dle:

If you don't like "talking" games, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you should maybe stay away from the RPG genre. You may also want to avoid books, film, theatre, and general social interaction with human beings, as all of these also involve a great deal of "talking".

@R-Digi

This is a review website. The *purpose* of it is to pass judgement on the quality of games. Am I to understand you'd like some kind of non-judgemental review system? That's either incredibly stupid or unbelievably Zen.

Anyway I just watched the gametrailers review and I feel like I know infinitely more about the game than anybody could have divined from this review here. Looking forward to friday, but with Assassin's Creed *and* Mario Galaxy taking up my time, I may have to strap the TV to my head and just walk around playing these all day just to get through them all.

at trebell - mom and aunties don't count.

"when was the last time there was a good European game? huh?"

He's right. What did the europeans ever do for us?

@xerx3s - Erm, Dragon Age?

I've been looking forward to Mass Effect for what seems like years, and an 8 is disappointing, I was expecting it to be in the Oblivion (10/10) class *sigh*

"I think it is showing right now - reviews (at least, the scores) are worthless."

All it shows is that you are a whining baby who can't accept the fact that opinions differ. Grow up FFS.

smoothn00dle, yes..., and Bioshock... . Anyway, reviews have little impact on sales, I guess. I mean..., the most successull (financialy) game of 2006 - Cars.

Uncharted... is selling less than WWF.

@PameBoy

That was harsh and uncall for. I finished FF12, clocked 249hr playtime. I don't have problem with reading. I just don't find talking to NPC interesting like talking to a real human. most of time due to bad design, they can confused u. It is like they pretend to be human but they know we know they are not. *v* We are still years away from a computer that can carry out a deep conversation with human. Reed is right, this game is just too ambitious.

Back to gaming, I think stick to gun is safe bet.

"Reed is right, this game is just too ambitious."

You haven't even played the bloody thing how can you affirm Kristian's statement?

I have to say that I disagree with your contention that Mass Effect is first and foremost a shooter. (And I do think that matters because you clearly reviewed it in that light.)

In fact you say it yourself in several places:
“My goodness, does Mass Effect love to talk - or at least it certainly does in the first few hours…”

“…and with so many characters to interact with, you may feasibly only have spent about 15 minutes of the first few hours of the game firing a gun in anger.”

“With a bit more prodding from the game to move things along, it would have definitely helped draw more people into what it's really about, rather than just leaving you to your own devices, trudging around a space city chatting”

What I get out of Mass Effect is an RPG that has tried to make the combat livelier by appropriating the FPS model, not the other way around.

Reading your review I cannot help but feel that you “missed the point” just as if I tried to take Halo 3 to task for all the action getting in the way of the narration and plot development. In Halo 3 the action is, largely, the point and the story is a hook to give it context and some depth. In Mass Effect the character interaction is the point and the combat is used to frame it. At least that is what I get out of it, your mileage may (and clearly does) vary.

too ambitious to be judged in 17.58 hours, I agree.

Generic comment.

@smoothn00dle

I'm sorry if you were offended but it really wasn't intended as an insult or anything. I just found it a rather odd thing to say in a thread about an RPG. Like the story about the guy who took FF7 back to the shop because he "didn't know there was going to be reading in it".

The game isn't really *supposed* to be some kind of AI conversation-simulator. It has fictional characters in it, who are programmed to say certain things in much the same way as an actor in a film is given a script with specific dialogue to recite. The actor is supposed to deliver the set dialogue convincingly, but no-one's trying to fool you into thinking that the character being portrayed is a *real person*.

I suppose it's an interesting topic for discussion about the subtleties in characterisation in in-game storytelling. I do think the facial animations on the characters in Mass Effect are deeply lacking, from what I've seen. Bioware never has been particularly good at facial expressions, and they do still look pretty wooden and lifeless, which is big marks off for a story-driven game in my opinion.

Can live with the graphical oddities here and there, hasn't bothered me with anything I've seen it in previously and I'm not the sort of person that goes foamy mouthed with the blood vessels straining in the temples if the FPS drops under 30 at any stage.

Mass Effect was and still is on the to buy list, really looking forward to it, though I am having a spot of trouble tracking a collectors edition down. Still, no big deal if I have to settle for the standard version, the game's the same.

This is yet another review from Eurogamer that I find completely useless at best, confusing at worst (Halo 3 was the other one,) because it seems to be written entirely from a perspective that is completely alien to my own. I've played every single Bioware game since Baldur's Gate. I do not expect the combat mechanics to be the main talking point of the game. I'm not one of these number-cruncher purists who believe every RPG should have a turn-based combat system that you could replicate with a few funny-shaped dice and some lead miniatures (or some badly pre-painted, randomly-assorted plastic ones. See, I can move with the times.) I'd love to see an incredibly deep RPG with gameplay to rival cutting edge action titles. That would be lovely.

On the other hand, I come into a Bioware review expecting to see the story, the characters, the choices you have within the game to be given centre stage. I don't expect the reviewer to be treating them as something to be endured between the shooty bits. As a few have already pointed out, stats and combat do not an RPG make. It's the story, characters and how you interact with them that make it an RPG.

While I don't believe every review should be written by a sycophantic fanboy who is going to give it a great score to satisfy his fellow mindless fanatics, I do believe that they should be written by someone who has similar expectations to the people who are going to be interested in the game. In this case, that means Bioware/RPG fans. As it is, it seems to be firmly aimed at the Gears of War/Halo run and gun crowd.

I'm sure the game is good... no need to worry. Not a 10??? big deal, 10's mean nothing to me..., Halo 3 got 10/10 and i think that game is nothing special... anyway Mass Effect is not my type of game...

BigJonno +1

8?????? i bet you´re sony fanboys. you gave uncharted a 9 for god´s sake!

9/10 for the PC version then?

PC version ? when ?, I could "office-desk" this game...

I still don't want it, then again even if it had 10/10 across the board, I still wouldn't have bothered, games with big ole RPG elements aren't my thing.
But like has been said many times, there's nowt wrong with an 8/10, if any movie I'm looking forward to seeing gets a 4/5-8/10, then I'll definitely be going to see at the cinema, same should go for the folks who've been looking forward to this for Donkey's years.
Ohh and for the record if any big PS3 release got an 8/10 I wouldn't take the mick, but then again most of the PS3's biggies get 6's or 7's, don't they? :)

well said bigjonno. As if the fact that the shooting mechanics are not up there with the best the action genre has to offer matters. But like I said in an earlier post, Eurogamer routinely marks down overhyped games which is almost worse than marking things up for the same reason.

And I'm sick of reviewers going on about v-synch issues and frame rate drops. Yeah of course its nice when games run silky smooth but when you don't play a million games a year these things don't really register on the average gamer's radar.

All I care about in games like this is immersion and a sense of wonder. It looks like it has that in spades. I only really read reviews anymore to check they are not total crap as I find that my criteria are wildly different from most games reviewers.

@captainfanboy - no...

Firstly, I think the review justifies the score, and I think that Eurogamer is one of the best review sites around, it made me cancel my PCGamer subscription. Also, the reviewer has come onto the comments thread and justified further his views.

Secondly, is anyone truly surprised the combat isn't up to scratch having viewed the trailers in the last few months? I think the big disappointment for me is that they've made the combat such a large focus of the game, and let themselves down. After all, in rpgs your equipment gathering and levelling are all geared towards use in combat.

If Kristan is still reading this, one thing I'm not clear on is the separation between the talky bits and the combat bits - are they truly disparate, with no middle ground, for example talking or errands in the same areas where the combat takes place? If its true then I'm disappointed further.

That said, looking around the games scene this xmas, I'm still going to get this as I can't see much else doing any better. Its seems in most cases that November / December releases are the titles most likely to have needed a few extra months polish but have been rushed out to meet our supposed holiday purchasing madness.

Edit - One more question I forgot - does Mass Effect have a relative levelling system like Oblivion or must you level up properly before being able to complete the game? I hope its the latter...

I got no problems with the review. But I don't get how the praising the review text gives makes it sound likes its tried to push the barriers of gaming a little more than most others (such as the dialogue) but doesn't give enough credit. Still a good review.

I bet in two years time you will rate Mass Effect as a 9 and Halo 3 as a 9!

Something tells me Mass Effect could be a timeless classic just like KOTOR was.

Deadlines?

The official release date is 23/11/07 so its not they were pressed for time (its not out until Friday), unless Eurogamer stop being a EUROPEAN gaming site and now caters for the yanks (Australians already got the game) since its out tomorrow for then (officially at least) or its a grab to get the first review out for those clicks.

Also on the subject of the reviewer not liking RPgs ... let me put this way, if I was a reviewer and someone given me a racing game it would get a 5/10 since I do not like then ... the issue with any review is the audience is taking the reviewer word for it, not the site but the reviewer so caution should be exercised on assignments.

Also Gears of War got a 9/10 and have the texture pop up issue (no wonder, same engine) ... funny on how THAT was not mentioned in the Gears of War review.

"An 8, then, but a very good one..."

Can't you institute the fraction system for these types of scores? So now this game will go down as an 8 - a "better than usual" 8, but still an 8.

Makes no sense. Rate it a 9 then!

Deadlines? read as "many hits".

And it's funny, Gamespot which is a much more mainstream site decided to delay reviews of games like Oblivion; Mass Effect, etc., because they said in an editorial, they needed time to proprely review these, EG is taking the short road. It's part of the growing process, I guess.

8/10 is still a good, even great game depending on the player.

Knock a couple of points off for graphical glitches and dodgy AI.

Job's a good 'un.

fair play though, this game is shit. i downloaded it last week off usenet around the same time as assassins creed and call of duty 4 - this one wont be played a lot, guess its worth £1.50 for the dual-layer verb but definitely no more.

only sad saps would pay full price for this.


Why dont you fuck of you cunt.