Mass Effect

[Breaker]

I just picked this up today for the xbox 360. I'm only a few hours into it, but so far it's a pretty awesome game. It's an RPG with a neat mix of FPS from the creators of Knights of the Republic. It's supposed to be the first in a trilogy of games. Check it out if you haven't already.

http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/718/718963.html

[Prrkitty]

I bought it for Paul for Christmas and am looking forward to playing it with him.

[Warlock]

I really love this game. My only complants:

-Graphics are horrible. Not the actual graphics, but the fact that textures pop up so slowly and almost every time there is a scene change you get this very blurry, ugly low-res texture for about 15 seconds before the real ones load. I hear this is a problem with the Unreal 3 engine (in other words, I totally understand Silicon Knight's lawsuit here :P)
-Game is fairly buggy in terms of movement. I've gotten stuck in terrain a number of times - once I even managed to get stuck on that big platform where the galaxy map is (FYI, galaxy map is totally solid and you can walk on it.. haha).. Only way I got out was by talking to the navigator guy which auto-placed me next to him (thank god).
-Combat can be somewhat boring at times. You're usually fighting a lot of the same enemies, and every battle tends to go down much the same way (hide behind stuff, shoot, fire off some singularities, etc).
-There is a big lack of variety in the side missions. Not the missions themselves - those are for the most part great - but the planets and interior areas. There are about 4 interior areas in the whole game - caves, stronghold, and research, and ship. Then they just move the boxes around so it "looks different." Then all the planets are the same barren landscape with tons of mountains - visually they are very distinct which is good, but I mean, they should have added some trees or water or something. They are all very boring looking.
-Inventory system is a mess. Max 150 items, which you autoloot. And once you get 150, you must destroy any new items you pick up - you don't get the option to destroy existing items you have (which are probably worse). And of course, when you are looting items, it doesn't let you see any stats so you don't know if it's even worth taking (generally you do "Take All" and sort it out later). On top of that, the inventory menu is long and annoying.


But despite that, it's still an awesome game. I'm loving it. I do hope they fix those issues in the sequel though.

[Grasshopper]

I really love this game. My only complants:

-Graphics are horrible. Not the actual graphics, but the fact that textures pop up so slowly and almost every time there is a scene change you get this very blurry, ugly low-res texture for about 15 seconds before the real ones load. I hear this is a problem with the Unreal 3 engine (in other words, I totally understand Silicon Knight's lawsuit here :P)

Yeah, that bugged me about Bioshock and Unreal Tournament 3

[Breaker]

I've read about problems with the graphics, but I haven't seen any. I also own Bioshock and haven't had a problem with that either. Which system do you guys own? I have a 360 elite, so maybe it runs differently on the other versions.

Edit: Also, I have a cooling device that I bought specifically for the 360. It's drastically reduced the amount it heats up. I don't even feel it getting hot anymore, where as before it would heat up after an hour.

[AlexMax]

This is a great game so far. I've only just got to where I can choose one of three places to search for Saren, but the atmosphere and dialog in this game makes up for the 'meh' combat.

Also Wrex is awesome.

http://xs222.xs.to/xs222/07512/froggay.png.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs222&d=07512&f=froggay.png)

(by the way, the witcher is an awesome RPG too, pick it up if you have the chance)

[Warlock]

I've read about problems with the graphics, but I haven't seen any. I also own Bioshock and haven't had a problem with that either. Which system do you guys own? I have a 360 elite, so maybe it runs differently on the other versions.

Edit: Also, I have a cooling device that I bought specifically for the 360. It's drastically reduced the amount it heats up. I don't even feel it getting hot anymore, where as before it would heat up after an hour.

It's not the system. Trust me, you will see them soon enough. I have an Elite too. It's a problem with the engine - it loads in low-res textures first then takes forever to load in the high res textures.

Anyways, beat the game last night. Holy crap. Probably one of the most satisfying endings I've seen in a video game in a LONG time. Probably one of the few times in the game I really really enjoyed the combat too.. I felt like damn Bruce Willis.

[MottZilla]

Warlock, it's possible the DVD drive in your 360 isn't reading the disc as it should. If your drive is having trouble reading the disc or isn't running at 16X that might explain why it takes so long. Also if you have your system vertical you might try changing it to horizontal. Wether you have an Elite, Core, Arcade, or Pro doesn't matter. Any can have any model or drive or any type of defect.

[Warlock]

Warlock, it's possible the DVD drive in your 360 isn't reading the disc as it should. If your drive is having trouble reading the disc or isn't running at 16X that might explain why it takes so long. Also if you have your system vertical you might try changing it to horizontal. Wether you have an Elite, Core, Arcade, or Pro doesn't matter. Any can have any model or drive or any type of defect.

No, trust me. This is a universal issue with every copy of the game. Go to any Mass Effect message board and you will hear people complaining about it. In fact, a BioWare dev even admits it (http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=604899&forum=124&highlight=texture pop).

Edit: Some examples:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qD0ZPwpPGgg
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PTkbvZpsOfA

Not *as* easy to see here since the quality is crappy, but on a 50" HDTV it's really noticable, especially when it happens on characters. And especially when it happens during conversations and during cutscenes.

P.S. - Apparently also from what I've read, running this at normal SD resolutions it doesn't occur as much. I assume it's loading smaller textures so it goes faster. That could be why you are not seeing it. (it seriously sometimes looks like it's going from a upscaled N64 title to 360 quality, minus model detail of course.. that's how bad the low-res textures are)

[Breaker]

I have a 50" plasma TV, running at 1080i. I haven't seen any texture distortions, and I'm extremely picky about stuff like that. I read the message boards too before purchasing the game, which is one of the main reasons why I waited so long before buying it. I was really surprised to find that there weren't any, on my copy atleast.

Edit: Also, my console just returned from being repaired. I got the three red rings last month.

[Warlock]

I have a 50" plasma TV, running at 1080i. I haven't seen any texture distortions, and I'm extremely picky about stuff like that. I read the message boards too before purchasing the game, which is one of the main reasons why I waited so long before buying it. I was really surprised to find that there weren't any, on my copy atleast.

Edit: Also, my console just returned from being repaired. I got the three red rings last month.

I dunno then - maybe you're just not far enough in the game to notice? Where are you at?

[Grasshopper]

I believe its the engine as well. I don't even own a 360, and still see it occur in my PC versions of Bioshock and UT3.

[Breaker]

I dunno then - maybe you're just not far enough in the game to notice? Where are you at?

I'm 10 hours into the game. Sometimes the textures take a second or two to load, but it's hardly enough to notice or complain about. I watched the youtube videos and I haven't seen anything like that. On some games though, before I purchased the cooling device, I would notice graphics going bonkers when the console heated up. I think that might be the problem for a lot of people.