[Liberator]

Just finished this really rather well done game, which BTW is much better on PC.  The end is kinda predictable, but on the whole very enjoyable.

So what did you guys think of it?

[Fury]

Great game. Didn't like the side-missions which were all pretty much identical. There's a new PC patch coming up soonish (hopefully this month), patch notes are not know yet (at least last time I checked).

[Ransom]

It was interesting the way BioWare used the characters in this game. They're effectively tools for developing Shepard's personality as much as they are characters in their own right. That said, I enjoyed Garrus. I liked that you had a direct influence on his development over the course of the story.

Story was the usual galactic cycle affair, but convention's nothing surprising coming from BioWare. They do it well.

[Vidmaster]

awesome game. Very very very cinematic.
Like it a lot, one of my favorits.

Every time I play a Bioware RPG, I learn lots of things about myself since in my first run, I always play like I would act if I were that character now, making my decisions quick and intuitive.
And lets just say that the whole Virmire plot was incredible.

Boring uncharted worlds side quests aside, the main plot was awesome, the world realistic and believable, the characters natural and (dis)likeable, battles tense and the music fitting. Not to mention incredible dialogue system and sharp writing. It wasn't just "I am evil, **** off!" but a lot more complex and often racist. Great good old WC3 spirit there.
What more can you ask for?

Well, MassEffect 2 and 3 just as good with character import included. Please Bioware, give us another great saga just like Baldur's Gate, only this time with real "carry-overs".
Especially since you alter the galactic society in various ways over the course of ME.

[NGTM-1R]

I have to admit, the more I play the game, the more I am in awe of Tali's shotgun skills. I wish I was that good with it.

I was actually rather a fan of the exploratory aspect of it, nor did I find the side missions terribly identical (at least at lower levels; rolling in with L60 characters it ought to be boring, when you are the Ultimate Badass everyone is by definition not able to deal with you) but I think the tactical one got shorted. If you spend some time in some of the combat environments, you start to realize that this game could had much impressive combat (I've seen a lot of sniper spots that aren't much use...), but the AI wasn't designed for it.

The world was immensely well-thought-out. The level of detail work that went into the game is seriously impressive.

[CP5670]

I liked this game a lot overall. It was essentially a case of a great story and atmosphere with mediocre gameplay though.

These are some comments from a post I made on another forum:

The story has tons of detail and they obviously put a lot of effort into fleshing out the universe. Some of the dialogue is very well written and there is a wide range of things you can say in conversations. It's worth playing just for the atmosphere. The story is not particularly realistic though and is very reminiscent of Star Wars, essentially a fantasy that happens to be set in space.

The base game is very short, with only five or six main missions. There are numerous side quests but most of them are quite tedious, since they reuse the exact same level design over and over again. I did them just to see the final conversations associated with them. The game can actually be dramatically improved by binding the Unreal engine's slomo command to a key to speed up the game. Your guy moves very slowly by default and there is no way to upgrade your speed, so you end up wasting a lot of time just running around between places. I found the game far more enjoyable after I started using this. My total time was 32 hours after doing all of the side quests except for the ones about finding minerals, although the actual time was less since I went through all the boring parts on quad speed.

The combat in general is very easy, and I only remember two or three parts near the beginning that posed any challenge at all. Your squad mates are totally worthless in combat, even if you keep upgrading their equipment, but you can easily handle everything on your own so it doesn't matter.

The graphics are subpar for such a recent game, despite the relatively poor performance. A few areas have good artwork but it generally looks very similar to Unreal 2, a 2003 game. There are a number of bugs and stability issues as well. Some of the music was quite nice though.

[phatosealpha]

It wasn't bad.  The main quest was good, the side quests needed work....

but dear god, the interface.  The interface.

[Hippo]

i slept with ashley!

i'll leave my opinion as 'anxiously awaiting the sequel'

[MP-Ryan]

I quite enjoyed Mass Effect, but I had a few major nitpicks that drove me absolutely crazy.
1.  Combat.  Yes, it's an RPG, but the combat model didn't have to suck quite so bad.  In fact, a first-person mode for combat would have made it infinitely better to begin with.
2.  Tedium.  Most of the transition between story points was drive here, shoot Geth.  Drive there, shoot more Geth.  Shoot a few Rachni just to add a little interest.  Aha, drive there, now shoot more Geth.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  It got really tedious.
3.  Level design.  Seriously - how hard would it have been to hire ONE FREAKIN' GUY to mix up the level design on the non-plot worlds?  It was simply disappointing how they re-used everything.  This was probably my biggest pet peeve.
4.  The Interface.  While level design was my biggest pet peeve, the interface was the thing that had me wanting to quit playing.  Seriously, what moron designed that inventory system?  Especially the barter system, good grief.  150 items and no way to sort them, AND they don't even display alphabetically.  Made me want to shoot the damn merchant.  Except... oh right, I can't.  BLARGH!
5.  Elevators.  I played this on the PC and the elevator rides were ridiculous.  I can only imagine the pain of console players.
6.  Annoying inability to save during combat.  OK, I know, it makes it tougher and more of an accomplishment to get through battles, but I got really tired of cleaning out an entire room only to have some jackass with a shotgun+carnage come running around a corner, through my allies, and blast me twice in the face before I could get a Barrier up.  THAT bugged me.

Those things aside, there were a couple things I thought were done quite well.
1.  The leveling system.  After playing Oblivion after Mass Effect, it made me really appreciate how they handled levelling up.  While Oblivion's system may be a little more realistic (practicing skills increases proficiency in those skills), I'm not looking for realism in an RPG.  I want immersiveness.  Being able to actually customize my character as I played through according to my wishes rather than because I had to use one particular weapon was a serious blessing, and it makes you much more involved in who your character becomes (I was a Vanguard, and I maxed out my Biotics pretty quickly, most notably Throw and Lift, which are infinitely useful if fighting Geth Colossi on the ground, as I did frequently for the extra XP )
2.  Freedom.  After the introductory levels, you can pretty much go anywhere and do whatever you please - but, you might get your ass kicked because you aren't quite the galactic badass you become 3/4 of the way through the main plot.  I lost count of how many times I died on Phoenix trying to rescue Wrex's armour while at level 4 (it was the first planet I visited after the Citadel).
3.  Integration of companions.  Mass Effect was my first party-based RPG, and I had always stayed away from the genre previously because the idea of managing a party didn't appeal to me.  Mass Effect let me play it like I played through Deus Ex and System Shock 2, which are my two favorite games of all time because of the combined FPS and RPG elements.  Companions were integrated into the story and missions, BUT I didn't have to micromanage their abilities.  That said, I would have liked a little more control over them than the interface allowed simply because I wasn't toting a sniper rifle and some missions got really frustrating because they didn't follow orders well.  Fortunately, I upgraded my pistol as much as possible and the marksman ability made up for the lack of sniping.

[CP5670]

6.  Annoying inability to save during combat.  OK, I know, it makes it tougher and more of an accomplishment to get through battles, but I got really tired of cleaning out an entire room only to have some jackass with a shotgun+carnage come running around a corner, through my allies, and blast me twice in the face before I could get a Barrier up.  THAT bugged me.

The worst part about this is that the game sometimes glitched and considered you to be in combat when a lone enemy guy was somewhere a mile away and wasn't attacking you. The only way to get through these situations was to go over there and take him out. Although the game was so easy that it didn't cause much frustration in practice.

As for the elevators, the speed hack I described made those a lot more tolerable.

[haloboy100]

I guess I'm just really patient or really easy to impress, because I never minded the elevators, and I actually loved the exploration side missions because of the very freelancer-esque feel I got from them and how fluently the Mako handled. ***** at it's unrealistic traction all you want, I'm buying a "Mako Mountain Climbing Team" T-Shirt (yes, they actually sell those). The fact that every single damned installation is reused pissed me off though, and they even use the same music the whole time.

On the note of music, though, I loved the music in this game. I especially love the music you hear while on the last planet (the Prothean one). It reminds me of trance but has a completely epic (and suiting) feeling to it. The credit music is also amazing. Indie rock bands rule.

I really don't get the sleeping with Ashley thing. I explored all dialogue opportunities with her, and it still came as pretty obnoxious and random when all of a sudden you're having sex with her before the final battle.

[TrashMan]

*SNIP*

Graphics were sub-par? WTF????
I now officially hate you.

[MP-Ryan]

*SNIP*

Graphics were sub-par? WTF????
I now officially hate you.

I was also fairly disappointed with the graphical effects.  For a game that was brand-new and made my PC whimper a little, it didn't deliver much in the way of "wow."

[haloboy100]

I don't expect every game to set off fireworks in the graphics department, but at least the artistic design, I thought, was original. For some obscure reason, I just love the look of the Normandy.

Oh, and as for the poll, where's Joker? He's my favorite character! He is voiced by Seth Green, after all. 

[CP5670]

Graphics were sub-par? WTF????
I now officially hate you.

You must not have played much else in the last few years. After you disable those nasty film grain and frame smoothing effects, the lighting and character models make the game look very similar to Unreal 2 or UT2004, but with much lower framerates.

[haloboy100]

Well, it is, after all, built with the Unreal 3 engine.

[Ransom]

I liked the film grain.

It's true the visuals aren't a technical marvel, but the art design is solid. It didn't feel dated to me. If anything, my biggest issue with the visuals were that there was only one model per gender of each species. They were all clones with different heads screwed on.

[CP5670]

That actually applies to most of the ME aliens in general. They are all just humans with different heads screwed on.

[haloboy100]

That actually applies to most of the ME aliens in general. They are all just humans with different heads screwed on.

So are aliens in pretty much all science fiction.
You can't blame Bioware, though; just continuing their tradition of taking something typical and making it great.

[CP5670]

That actually applies to most of the ME aliens in general. They are all just humans with different heads screwed on.

So are aliens in pretty much all science fiction.

How about the Shivans?

You're right that this is a common problem in sci-fi, but the ME ones were particularly generic. They not only looked like humans, but talked and behaved like humans in just about every way.