i’m playing the first mass effect game now. i’ve been looking forward to playing this ever since finishing kotor1. i’d put kotor1 on my list of best games played ever. mass effect is actually my 3rd bioware game (not counting neverwinter nights because it’s not as dialog driven as other bioware games). the 2nd bioware game i played was jade empire…but i was overall disappointed from what i played of it. i remember it feeling unoriginal and predictable. i probably only played it an hour or two but i just couldn’t get immersed in it like i did kotor1. i should probably give it another try someday.

anyways, i’m really enjoying mass effect. the characters, story, universe, are all very engrossing. i’m reminded quite a bit of kotor1 which is a good thing. the combat is very interesting…i haven’t gotten quite used to it yet but i’m getting there. the only part that i momentarily hated was the exploration of the planets with the mako. i was getting so frustrated with driving that clunker and fighting battles with only the machine gun. i looked online to find out a lot of people dislike these segments, but also while doing these searches i found out the mako had a rocket launcher-ish weapon and a scope to zoom in. those two items greatly reduced my frustration level. nonetheless, i do feel like these segments don’t really add to the immersion of the game, but rather detract from it. the game immersion is really all about the story and continuing it. having that broken up by a action oriented driving sequence takes away from that. i see where they were going with these segments – adding some realism of not automatically ending up at the destination or having to walk to get there…or a little something to add variety. but ultimately i still feel they are unnecessary. although i’m starting not to mind them as much.

the only thing that annoys me at this point is the way the game handles the decryption skill. i mess up decrypting all the time and then suddenly don’t have enough omnigel to try again. when i do have a ton of omnigel i just spend it to manually bypass the device. unfortunately, at this part in the game having lots of omnigel is a rare occasion and i always end up feeling i’m missing out on something by not unlocking a container. i’ve heard that nothing key to the game experience would be in any of these containers, but it still bugs me…

areas of interest:
artemis tau system
macedon – sharjila = pirate stronghold
knossos – therum = liara’s whereabouts
sparta – edolus = thresser maw attack
(i gave up on this list as they’re way too many locations to list)

areas completely done with:
planet feros
maroon sea system
armstrong system
voyager system
exodus system
styx theta system
argos rho system
hawking eta system
gemini sigma – ming

update 8/10/2013:
played a lot of mass effect today. i’ve driven that damn mako on so many planets now. it’s definitely the most tedious part of the game. the good news is that all those side quests are optional. the bad news is that i’m a completionist freak so i must finish any side quest that i’m aware of. the side quests are mostly pretty weak. they seem like they were added as an after thought. i’ve noticed that a lot of the quests rehash scenarios used in previous bioware games (out of control religious zealots/cult, sickness/plague, infestation of strange creatures, mind control, etc.). the main story is driven by the main set of quests which is easily the best part of the game. i was surprised to find that mass effect 1 is actually a pretty short game. i think there’s only 8 or so main quests and i have 3.5 of them left. i guess they banked on people doing all the mindless busy work of side quests to make the game last longer (suckers like me). i’ve gotten a lot more used to the combat now and am much better at it. i use the assault rifle for long range (sometimes the sniper rifle) and the shotgun for close range. i don’t really use pistols anymore at all for shepard. i’ve found it’s very important to apply shield bonuses either through talents or armor upgrades (health regeneration as well). also make sure to routinely change out everyone’s weapons and armor as they can become obsolete fairly quickly.

update 8/17/13:
mass effect 1 finished! level 50 with nearly 43 hours of game time and 105 saves. if i hadn’t bothered with all the side quests i probably would have finished the game in 20 hours or so. there’s about to be a few SPOILERS listed here. there were two paths i went down in the game that i didn’t really mean to. one was that i meant to romance ashley but somehow destroyed the possibility of that by admitting to liara there was a connection between us (liara and shepard). so i ended up developing a romance with liara. i watched the youtube video of the ashley romance just to see what happened and maybe i dodged a bullet…lots of poetry reading and cheesiness. i chose for kaidan to die on virmire (although at the time i was hoping there was a way to save both squad members). for one i still thought i had a possibly of romance with ashley so i didn’t want her to die. secondly, i was never that intrigued by the kaidan character and knew i wasn’t going to miss him much. the other choice i didn’t intend to pursue was allowing the council to die at the end. i misinterpreted the choices presented and initially i figured i could easily go back to a previous save file and defeat saren again, but the more i thought about it i liked the outcome with the deaths of the council. not out of any desire to be super evil, but the council never listened to anything shepard said during the 20 times he handled business during the game. and i was always really patient and considerate with shepards dialog choices with the council until the very end. not only did they not listen but they actively interfered with shepard near the end…so they brought their deaths on themselves.

the story got a little odd near the end, but overall i liked it. i feel like there’s a lot left unexplained but that’s probably where the sequels come in. ultimately, i really enjoyed mass effect 1 i can’t say i feel like it’s up to the gold standard of kotor1. kotor1’s main story just felt tighter and better thought out. kotor1 was also the first game of this type that i played so i’m of course always going to remember it the most fondest.

if i were ever to play mass effect 1 again from the beginning (which i doubt i will…at least not for a really long time) i wouldn’t bother with the stupid resource gathering side quests nor the artifact gathering. i’d stick to the main quests and any side quests that actually sounded interesting. i know i’ve ranted on the side quests already, but they’re such a bore. even the non-resource ones you end up basically exploring the same research labs, mines, ships, and fortresses x 10. i know it must be a super pain to design that many levels with such detail, but i wish they could have thrown in just a few more for variety’s sake. the recycling of enemies for side quests was ridiculous as well. like why am i seeing rachni and thorian creepers all over the galaxy…aren’t these extinct or exceptionally rare races? (i feel like only 1 side quest explained this in a convincing manner). definitely the side quests are the weakest part of the game. even so, i ended up doing every single side quest that i came across.

the decryption stuff i complained about before isn’t that bad (it’s still stupid though). later in the game i just used omnigel to manually bypass everything. you get tons of the stuff from converting old equipment into omnigel. it makes more sense to convert items to omnigel than it does to sell them. i had over 3 million credits by the end of the game and with nothing really to do with it. you can always buy equipment but it seems like found equipment is generally better than what you can purchase from a shop (except for a maybe a few items).

some things i learned from my first playthrough is that early on you want to keep investing talent points for shepard in charm and intimidate to open up dialog options. also give shepard points in the sniper rifle talent as well as any health regeneration talents. the sniper rifle is almost entirely unusable without talent points. it’s also useful to get your tech squad members to hard level with the electronics and decryption talents. for squad members i always tried to team up a group that had at least one biotic and one tech member. my usual combos were ashley and kaidan, wrex and tali, liara and garrus.

update 8/18/2013:
to completely finish out mass effect 1 today i checked out the DLC bring down the sky. it turns out you should really do the DLC mission prior to finishing the game. i’m really disappointed in how bioware set this up. you only have two choices either to load up a save where you still have control of the normandy or start the game over. for me to do this right i’d have to play through ilos all over again…forget that. and i’m definitely not starting the game over so i just loaded a random save and went to the new DLC location solely to check out the content of the DLC. the DLC is basically another lame side quest type of thing. the only redeeming quality of the DLC is that you get introduced to the batarians and the final showdown with the batarian terrorist leader is interesting. if you don’t play this DLC you aren’t missing much. still, i wish i had known to install it earlier in the game. i purposely chose not to because i know some addons/expansions change the overall experience of the game and figured i could get to it after finishing the game…oh well. there’s another DLC package called pinnacle station that i’m not bothering with it since it seems to have bad reviews and doesn’t really add anything to the game. and finally i’m reading through all the codex entries for ultimate completeness.

on the topic of DLC, since i ran into this dilemma in mass effect 1 i’ve thoroughly researched the DLC for mass effect 2. it appears that you can play the DLC in any order in mass effect 2 from what i’ve read. however, for the story to fully make sense you should evidently play some before and some after the game’s final mission. so i’m going to install kasumi, overlord, and cerberus network DLC early on and wait until later to install lair of the shadow broker and arrival. by the way, what a rip that the DLC isn’t included on the platinum hit version of mass effect 2. and what’s up with having additional squad members in the DLC content? seems messed up to me…

some final thoughts on mass effect 1…near the end i started to use the pistol again just to mess around and i actually liked it quite a bit. at the level i was it was pretty powerful and it seems to be the most accurate weapon in the game. it wasn’t much use against enemies with heavy defense but worked fine on average enemies. the only enemies that could give me trouble at the end were the geth prime and the krogan warlords (and of course turrets). i didn’t have to worry about average enemies much anymore unless there were tons of them. after watching videos of biotic gameplay i kind of wish i had started shepard off as a biotic class because it looks awesome…maybe in mass effect 2. i’ve come to really respect the combat engine in ME1 it’s superbly done. overall, ME1 is the most engaging game i’ve played in a while and i consider it a must-play type of game. from my various complaints about the game it might seem at times like i don’t like it but that’s not really it. i like the game a lot and am just frustrated by elements that i believe take away from the game’s greatness.

Comments are closed.