Mass Effect: Effectively Overhyped

What game were you playing, the Mass Effect I played was like an epic interactive Sci-fi movie.

your review of mass effect is terrible.

bioware rpgs have always been about character driven narratives. if i remember correctly, and i do, kotor was about charm and intimidate as well. why play an rpg at all if you don't want the interaction and the dialogue. the only difference i see between mass effect and a traditional rpg in the way it tackles dialogue is that in mass effect it's acted out rather than you having to read it.

sure, mass effect's combat system needs work. but it's leaps and bounds beyond selecting the attack command in traditional rpgs. oh there's tactics involved in those, but so too in mass effect if you choose to have your combat that way.

i did laugh when you nitpicked about the looting. then i realized you were serious. In what traditional rpg do you not get the loot after a battle? even in games like oblivion and kotor you can choose to 'leave' the loot, isn't that effectively the same as destroying the loot? when do you come back to get that junk?

What game were you playing? The Mass Effect I played was like an epic interactive Sci-fi movie where you make the star. It might have had a few glitches, but nothing to the the scale of how you feel about it. Now to the positive of you review

"Visuals are absolutely stunning,
" Two dozen hours for the main story"

You are the worst type of pseudo-intellectual there is, how did you even get a job writing? Truly this is a sign of the end

Come here and see you get completely owned you snobbish noob, go back to your Tandy.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/masseffect/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-39642402&pid=930279

Tokajim: I want the interaction, I want the dialogue... But I don't want two dozen hours of talky space opera with some combat and light RPG filler on the side. That's just one of several issues I had with the game.

Celrath gets it exactly right when calling it an "epic interactive sci-fi movie." Not a game, but an *interactive movie*. My apologies for wanting a game.

Perhaps your ideas of what this game is do not fit the mold you created for it, and there is nothing wrong with that. I enjoy TOME and ADOM but I do not expect every game to be some ascii ultra-hardcore rpg game when it did not claim to be one to its audience. This is a new genre and a new branching of the style, can't you even see it for that? Nothing has been done before like this and thats a fact. 6 out of 10, barely a fair? get with the program man, seriously. And 'dry clinical rooms' your the only person ive even read that describes it that way and don't you know this game is a homage to the late 70's sci'fi's ? but of course you knew that because with your bloated use of Word's thesaurus function you could create any impression now couldn't it? Yeah any one, but one that would fool people with deductive reasoning.

No, I couldn't, and I wouldn't want to Telekenesis. I'm only interested in passing along information. By all means, ignore it at my pleasure.

That said, do, you know, actually *play* the game and parse the other issues I have (and there were many) before jumping all over my take. It did just shipped to stores today, after all, and doesn't actually hit shelves nationwide until tomorrow.

A reviewers job is to advice people what they should spend their hard earned money on. It is ok to have a personal preference but this score is obviously greatly askew with the general opinion and hence generally bad advice. Since your job is to advice people you are clearly not doing a good job. A tasteless reviewer is like a waiter with his finger in the soup!

Given this, what happened to a previous review of yours becomes no mystery whatsoever:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3154916

If you'd been smart you would have settled for a 7 and done your best to motivate it, people would have disagreed without an outrage, a 6 is an assult on a game from developers that are as respected and hardworking as Bioware. The only thing your review is good for now is starting arguments with your readers.

Jikes: So when you look at movie reviews and find one or two outliers, you just ignore the text and finger the score and call it "bad advice"? Huh?

And reviews get pulled (or pre-pulled) all the time when editors don't agree with their reviewers. In that case, 1UP made a serious error and posted something they weren't prepared to stand by. That's entirely 1UP's error, not mine, but what's more, it's also completely irrelevant to this discussion.

this is the only site that rates great games sub-par scores. they did the same thing with Halo 3 saying some bull**** about wats missing when its an awesome game. i never listen to this site wen i want to buy games because they just suck at giving advice

So an 85% for Halo 3 is sub-par? Really?

From what i can understand being a reviewer, especially of games, can be a rough life since the group your reaching out to has no problem being vocal about their opinions. But that kindness aside your review is way to snobbish and emotional for its own good and this is the profession you chose, so you have to deal with it and be aware of it when you choose a format to present your opinion in.

Totally agree Matt. Don't listen to these people trashing you. They clearly aren't familiar with RPG genre, not to mention BioWares long and storied history of RPGs. If Mass Effect is the "evolution" of the genre, I guess evolution means over-hyped, slowdown ridden, watered-down RPG third person "shooter". People get so caught up in the hype that they don't objectively judge the final product. (P.S. I beat the game last night). It is a good game to be sure, but great? No way.

Skemo, there is some brown on your nose.

Tele: I respectfully disagree that emotion even *mildly* has anything to do with my text (I'd say 100% of the emotion's here, in the comment responses).

It's as if I'm only allowed to hand out less than a 9 or 10 if a game's hasn't been (a) hyped (b) released from a beloved developer and (c) looks really, really pretty (which ME certainly does!). And then the text is supposed to just be anticipatory message board and comment posts turned into bullet points.

So. Anyone want to talk about what I didn't like *specifically*?

Matt:
Bringing up the 1UP review is about as relevant to the discussion as movie reviews are, though I'll admit that it was unnecessary.

I read a lot of reviews both for movies and for games and they are very different in nature. In the game industry things such as technical achievement and craft usually make up a large part of the score, here Mass Effect is undeniably well over a 6. The polish, story appeal etc. tend to make up a smaller part of the overall score. Like from 6-10.

When I look at movies I go by the overall on Rotten Tomatoes, but if you look at games you'll find that the overall is usually a relative consensus. It is the average score that determines the weight of a game and scores as low as 6 almost never besmear AAA titles. Which is why it upsets me that my own personal favorite of the year should suffer one.

Well don't worry about the meta scores being affected (if you're into that, and I really wish people weren't) because PCW isn't tallied.

I can understand most of your points but I seriously disagree with the tone you presented them in. They are overly cynical and defensive before even the first response was posted by a user as if anticipating the torrent that was to come. Furthermore I feel that you are not judging this game on where it stands in its own genre but trying to pigeonhole it into other genres and judging it by those standards as if it is supposed to live up to them. Whether you say you would not want to do that or not is irrelevant because that is how the nature of your review and comments come across as.

I know there are some problems such a slow-down and texture pop up ect, but the weight you placed on the negatives you posed are way to heavy, and especially when placed in context to the whole package.

Skemo, I've played a huge number of RPGs, especially CRPGs and that includes all of Biowares past titles. And whilst I will admit that BG2 is still my favorite I also realize what todays markets and technological developments require of modern games. Some things have been lost but there is absolutely a lot of development in a huge number of areas. Graphics, fluency, authenticity and that cinematic edge are all finally coming to fruition and that absolutely deserves a nod.

Okay, but Tele, I literally spent the first 8-9 hours alone in the Citadel wandering from statuesque body to body, clicking through a dialogue system that's only modestly different from past BioWare efforts (you can click a few second ahead, which does allow for more naturally paced dialogue, but so what?) and engaging in very little action, just One. Long. Conversation. Tree. After Another. And with virtually no impact on the bottom line. Not really. It's like clicking through an totally deterministic e-Book you can also pan around in 3D or something.

When I finally got off the station and started wandering over to side planets, they each and every one turn out to be random-generated-looking boxed in arenas with a few generic debris and artifact sites and some really dumb (A.I.-wise) creatures. And the jumping gimmick with the Mako? Come on! Super Mass Effect Bros? Really?

Running out of words here and I'd rather let you guys talk, so...

Matt:
I'm very into metascores, mostly because I find myself agreeing with them a lot. Not always ofcourse, World of Warcraft is one notable exception and I feel that Bioshock is a little overrated together with Mario. But I wouldn't give any of those games a 6. ;-p

Since this site isn't tallied however I'll just agree to disagree and call it a night. :)

It seems to be that Matt has used this to get attention, and apparently it has worked. I disagree with his style of basing his review purely on the mechanics of the game. Though this game is not "his" kind of game, I'm sure plenty of people will enjoy playing it for months, if not years, to come. I don't believe yelling at him will solve anything I simply hope he can take our comments as constructive criticism.

Sounds more like a negative rant/complaint than anything else. I guess the ony way to get attention is to overreact and contrast with the majority of the review.However this is almost too immature to be considered a review as the entire thing (no exaggeration) is looking at the negative aspects, and going as far as to (somehow) spin some positive ones negatively. And before you say "I've played the game, you haven't because street date is the 20th", do your research and find that K-mart broke that release date and I happend to find it and play it. In no way does this game deserve this criticism because as an Intellectual individual, you must approach any game or piece of work with an open mind.This review does not, as it singles out any possibility of a game crossing a "GENRE BOUNDARY", meaning anything that ISN'T an RPG characteristic in this game, is very bad. So in conclusion this REVIEW (not opinion,because everyone is entitled to that) recieves a 2/10, only positive being grammer.

No, Matt has not used this to get attention. If Matt wanted to get attention, he'd give ME a zero and claim all RPGs embolden the evildoers, etc.

Just passing along my take. I think it's well-reasoned. That doesn't mean those reasons have to be yours.

Maybe when 'half way through mass effect your eyes glazed over' the idea that, perhaps y,ou just plain don't enjoy games as much as you used to in days of yore? I know I don't on most levels, but enjoy them more on a select few levels and that happens when you grow older. That is your responsibility as a reviewer to ...role-play, and put yourself into the shoes of the age groups your trying to speak to and look at the game from their perspective, and relate. This does not mean circumventing what you think is negative about the game. Games are not as fun for me as they used to be and thats a fact but im not trying to negate your negative points about the game but the weight you put on them. If you aren't having fun anymore then whats the point? A mature attitude can accomplish both a professional unbiased view but also at the same time put themselves into that frame of mind you had when you were a kid and draw from both of those sources for inspiration in a review.

Ok Mr. Peckham, I'd first like to start by saying that I was once a fan of yours. I actually never read any of your reviews until you did the review for Halo 3 which I loved. I thought the review was way too harsh but I applauded the principal of not continuing to give first rate scores to a game that was basically an incremental improvement over the previous 2 titles in the series (and I mean incremental in the way that Madden 08 has improved upon Madden 07).

For a long time I've felt that the gaming community has got to someday begin to expand the criteria used to define what makes a game truly exceptional. Halo 3 is the prime example of this problem. The story is something my niece could have written (she's 4) and the characters are about as fleshed out as the average orc in LOTR. It's basically a whole lot of mindless action. In the film industry, it would be the equivalent of a mindless, popcorn munching, summer blockbuster. The difference is, of course, that while the summer blockbuster may clean up in terms of ticket revenue, the film critics will probably pan it. In the video game world, the mindless blockbuster is still good for a 9.5 with the critics.

That's the thing. Until video game critics and journalists demand more originality and innovation, games may continue to be predominately a bunch of sequels and movie tie-ins that do nothing to further the medium. At some point, video game critics must adopt a more complete and nuanced set of guidelines for defining an excellent game or we're doomed to have Halo 3 represent us to the rest of the non-gaming world. While your review of that game was overly harsh, it was necessary with all of the Bungie butt kissers out there swooning over Halo 2007.

That being said, you completely lost me with your review of Mass Effect. You've gone from being one of the game journalists that I most respected to being one who's opinions no longer hold any value to me. I'm one of the few people who was fortunate enough to be strolling through K-Mart last week and happen upon a copy of Mass Effect before its official release date. As such, I've been playing the game for a week. If I had read your review before I bought it I might have been swayed towards not buying it. Thank God I saw the game before I read your absurd write up. It's easily the best 360 game I've played and one of the few games that really pushes not only its genre but video games as a medium into new territory. Your analysis of this game does a disservice to anyone who reads the review. Not only are your opinions clearly biased (for reasons I do not know) but some of the information in the write up is flat out false.

You actually criticize the story and the conversation system in this game. "Talking heads," was the catch phrase you chose to utilize when describing character interaction. I'm wondering; if the conversations in Mass Effect are no good, then what game are they good in? This is one aspect of the game that is leaps and bounds above what any other game has achieved. The voice acting is the best I've seen in a game, the characters' body language actually corresponds to the dialogue and the fact that you are actively involved in the conversations helps with the immersion tremendously. Simply put, there is no game with a conversation mechanic that comes close (KOTOR included).

As for the story; it's the best I've seen in a game this century. The characters are as real as games have ever produced and the main plot goes places you might not see coming. Again; If this story is sub-par, then what video game story is any good?

I agree with your observation that there are glitches in terms of frame rate drops and load times. The game is as buggy as Bioware's previous offerings so it really doesn't surprise me but it is still a negative. The combat is also less than ideal due to issues with the A.I. of both teammates and enemies. We can agree on those two negatives but that's about it.

It seems to me that you decided that you did not like this game before you ever put it into your XBOX 360. As such, you approached every aspect of the game with the mindset of "what sucks about this?"

Despite the fact that you can actually travel from planet to planet across an impressively realized galaxy, you complain that the 15 or so planets that you can visit which actually have highly detailed environments and societies are not enough. Well what are you comparing it to when you say it?s inadequate? What game offers more than that?

You complain about the Mako which I found to be a fun way to diversify the game play and to add a sense of scale to the different planets. What are you complaining about? What did you expect, a full ATV simulator complete with the ability to buy new parts, add horsepower and enter some kind of championship? As something that is really peripheral to the main game play experience, the mako is quite impressive.

You even complain about the codex. Your complaint here is more specific. You don't like the fact that for certain planets and historical events within the game's universe, you can only read about them and not experience them first hand. Well guess what, that's life. If a planet is not safe to land on, you can't land there. If you weren't there when a new brand of technology was invented, then you can only read about it. The fact that they have taken the time to flesh things out by adding the journal entries should be applauded, not criticized. Even without them, the game has an abundance of content.

That's my biggest problem with your review. You criticize all the bells and whistles that have been added to this game as if they are the nuts and bolts. Extras are extras. Appreciate them or ignore them. Don't complain about them.

Finally, you are flat out wrong about your assessment of player decisions not making a difference in the game's plot progression. I'm on my second play through right now and already the story is going very differently. There are characters and side quests that you may or may not encounter depending on the way you play the game. There is also a tremendous variability in your interactions with your own squad-mates. Romances, fights and other incidents are all possible. This, again, is one of the areas in which this game truly excels.

Your review fails to capture the essence of this game and instead paints a picture of a game that I don't recognize. Obviously personal opinions vary but I see absolutely nothing that even remotely resembles objectivity in your evaluation of this game. You don't even mention the excellent musical score or the high replay value in your review.

In short, while I once believed that you were a courageous (if somewhat overzealous) journalist who appreciated the creative aspects of video games, I now believe that you are merely a man with an axe to grind (again, for reasons I do not know) who really has no business reviewing videogames at all. Mass Effect is a game that embodies everything that videogames have been lacking. In many ways it is the anti-Halo. I?m disappointed that you of all people did not realize that.

haha, very good points and your lovely response is so nice, almost like a good.....review, knuk. Seriously matt you dig your own grave, you should really be more humble. its not that were saying you cannot express your perhaps deviant perspectives, in fact I share them with Halo 3. Its your emotional and uncontrolled responses in your reviews that get you in trouble. Really, you should be more humble and respect the blessing you have to be in the position you are in which many of us would count as a great boon but you act like you have no respect for the chances you have been given.

Wow.

#Jikes, jikes! So user names aren't unique in this place, I was here first man? You know, I've changed my opinion all around on my argument reviews just shouldn't be censored. Of course I'll rate a review on how well it agrees with my own opinion but I can't really ask it to shut up, or be objective about something that is so entirely subjective. Its like rooting for Bioware and being an online hooligan. Although, I think that Matt has to be somewhat expecting these reactions when he judges long awaited, greatly anticipated, games (peoples favorites) as harshly and as he does.

Okay, I think you're way off (and missing most of my points, sadly) in your critique of my critique sandman, but what I really want to know is...how did you break the 1000 character comment limit? This is my blog and even I can't do that, so there's no way I can even begin to respond in kind... :P

Interesting point matt =P

Nice review though Sandman. :p
Hey, maybe reviews should be written in hate/love pairs, a prosecutor and an attorney dash it out so everyone has someone to agree with. :p

Matt, try writing it first and then copy and paste it.

I tried copying from Word just a minute ago and it didn't work. =)

What browser are you using sandman?

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Copying works in mozzila. Probably something to do with the javascript.

Mozilla even.

I actually did it using the microsoft works word processor

Yes but the browser that you surf the webb with. I couldn't copy from word into an internet explorer window, but I could copy the text into a window opened with mozilla firefox. Javascript which I presume that this site uses often acts a little different with different browsers.

sorry, I just use explorer

Okay, hopefully this'll post in.

To Sandman:

Of course my opinions are biased. If you want an objective "review," just read the game's Wikipedia description. "It does this, and this, and this, and this..." then add a few "pretty well's" and "not too shabby's" and "omg amazing!'s" in after each.

Yes, talking heads. Pretty talking heads, to be sure, but "Tell me more about..." over and over. I felt disturbingly like a talking tool, not the hand wielding one I was hoping to be, and the body language (though communicatively non-interactive) was yards better in Andy Serkis' Heavenly Sword. I'm not knocking the quality of the acting or the cool cinematic stuff (note my reference to the design team's awareness of subtle film theory techniques) but rather the fact that it's so *much* of what you end up doing. If dialogue-driven games were all the rage, we'd still be playing Gabriel Knight. Whatever else we want to say about the clever (but not *that* clever) dialogue wheel, the fact is, we're not.

No, it's not possible to shift the story. Not meaningfully. Yes, you can pinch off some ancillary dialogue and a piddle's worth of generic (as in irritatingly blah) side quests and the emotionally non-connective romance bits, but nothing that stands out as much more than slightly above average. Hey, whatever happened to "slightly above average" being a *bad* thing? I'm a slightly above average typist. That makes me pretty good by most people's standards.

I don't do "best whatever" of the century, so I'm not touching that one. I will say that as much as I admired ME's main story, I didn't get goosebumps playing it. I did playing BioShock. But I did really, really like ME's story. Isn't that enough?

The glitches aren't trivial. Broken voice work? Gimmicky ways to beat the A.I. by running in and out of load-in areas? Preposterously slow elevators? Really annoying frame rate and hard drive access issues? Textures that often take 2-3 seconds to fully fill out properly? Events that trigger out of order if you transit in one way and leave by another without fulfilling the area imperative? Timer bars that stay locked on-screen requiring reloads? And the A.I. issue is bigger than all the rest combined considering it's the central draw against which you're supposed to be able to test all your nifty combat and tech and biotic abilities.

Go back and read my blog entries mentioning ME the last few weeks. After Crysis, this was the game I was *most* looking forward to. I've never written a "what sucks about this" review in my life.

The Mako is "quite impressive"? Okay, so kiddy driving games with one-two punch guns and a gimmicky jumping mechanic somehow wash with your idea of serious sci-fi. That's all you're telling me.

Let's talk planets. You zoom into a system and see half a dozen. Hey! Cool! Now let's see, where should I go first. Oh wait, this one only lets me click a button to take some minerals. No challenge, no mini-game, no clever logic puzzle. Just...hit a button. Tap! Okay, let's try another. Cool! I can actually land on this one! Let's see. Relics and debris. Relics and debris. More relics and debris. Monsters. Monsters. Relics and debris. More monsters. Pop the Mako, dodge the flying projectile vomit. Zap zap zap. Pop the Mako again. Getting bored now. More bored. Yep, ennui has officially set in. Bueller? Bueller??? ;-)

The codex itself isn't a problem, but the way you get points for unlocking codex entries bugged me. It presents itself as a reward, and offering up text to read (telling) instead of somehow showing is a no-no in my book. Why not have other characters talk more about the stuff you're otherwise forced to read and introduce it more naturally? Or have it run in video displays (like, for lack of a better top-of-my-head reference, those opening optionally interactive video terminals in Doom 3)? As much as you're supposed to glean from the codex, it feels like a sloppy way to say "hey, here's some background info we couldn't be bothered to work in more intuitively, hope you don't mind (literally) reading our design notes to put you 'in the mood'."

Also, I urge all of you to have a look at this:

http://blogs.pcworld.com/gameon/archives/005192.html

The label still reads "YMMV" (as it should) but it's worth a gander since ME is so story-centric. For the record, I subscribe to Ken's ideas (grumps, quibbles, etc.) about storytelling.

Matt:

I was going to criticize your review and argue that you seemed determined to dislike it from the outset, but given your comments here i have come to believe that you judged it in a manner that you consider to be fair, i disagree with you, as seemingly do most people, but i respect your opinion and will refrain from essentially repeating the same arguments others here have.

However what i will say is that the review is horrifically laid out, sixteen pages with one paragraph a page is just ridiculous and makes it much less enjoyable to read than were it 2-6 full pages as most reviews are. I assume this is not your fault so much as a design decision on PC Worlds part, and this is the first review i have read here so perhaps this is not the way it is usually done, but assuming this is the usual layout it is really something that should be reconsidered as that alone is enough to deter me to some extent from reading any other reviews here.

Totally cool Stranded. That's all I was after. Just food for thought. I'm not trying to convert the converted.

But I'll pass your comments on about the layout. I think it's an audience thing. PCW's traditional readers seem to prefer the picture layout, but the enthusiast readers (assuming that's you, but correct me if I'm wrong) prefer the block text. I can do either. We'd originally planned the latter, but switched to captions last minute to accommodate the readership. My (extremely detailed) Crysis review got a fraction of the hits the screenshot feature did, so we tried to have it both ways this time -- screenshots with beefy captions that comprised the entire review. I would've gone into even more detail if I'd gone straight text.

I strongly disagree with your review, but it's obnoxious that people are getting so mad over it. If everyone had the same opinion, what would the point of reviews even be. People need to learn that just because someone's review goes against the majority it does not mean it isn't a legitimate opinion. Besides, how does your review affect my enjoyment of the game?

I only have one suggestion: try to be less incendiary-- both in your review and in your response to comments. Most of the review was fine, but occasionally you lapsed into a more quarrelsome tone. Your responses to comments, however, (especially your response to sandman) have been completely unacceptable. It's understandable that you are tired of people getting pissed at you for your somewhat controversial opinion, but taking it out on everyone who comments is ridiculous. Take sandman, for example.

Even though his opinion is no more legitimate than yours, because you used unnecessarily aggressive (and in many cases unsupported) forms of argumentation his views appear to be more reasoned out. (An example would be: The Mako is "quite impressive"? Okay, so kiddy driving games with one-two punch guns and a gimmicky jumping mechanic somehow wash with your idea of serious sci-fi. That's all you're telling me).

Please understand that I whole-heartedly support your right to give your own opinion and will not get frustrated when you do so; however, do try to be a little more logical when presenting your points and when arguing with others.

Well then I apologize to both of you, Concealed -- I was actually just aiming for a lighthearted but also no-frills approach. Instead of Terrence Stamp (or whatever angry condescension sounds like to quiet minds in silent cyberspace) imagine Tweety-Bird reading the text of my comments if that helps any. :-)

Surprisingly, that helps. Heh.

In response to your response Matt, I?ll go basically in the order of the points you?ve already made. First off, while Heavenly sword certainly had impressive animations and voice work during character dialogue, those were cut scenes. As you?ve acknowledged, you have absolutely no control over them. As such, they are irrelevant to the topic of dialogue systems. Yes, Mass Effect has a lot of dialogue. It?s central to your experience of the game?s universe. In Mass Effect, if you want to know something, you have to ask someone about it and then you listen to their response. Try to wrap your head around that concept. This is an RPG, not an action game.

Your critique of not being able to alter the main plot line significantly is as immature as it is unrealistic. What would you have them do, give you the choice to join Saren and be a traitor? Perhaps you could simply quit the military and start your own organ smuggling operation. The fact is that the game allows you to achieve your objectives in any way you see fit while not veering into the GTA sociopath ?I can do anything? mold that basically would make it ridiculous and completely implausible. You can change the story significantly. What the characters experience is as big a part of the story as is the main plot line.

The side quests were somewhat under whelming I?ll give you that but the romances were fine. What did you expect? Again, if you are going to say that they were weak then provide an example of a game that did them better. The bad guy/good guy morality system that you feel is superior to what this game offers is overly simplistic and (thanks to Mass Effect) dated.

You feel the story was good but not exceptional. That?s your opinion and I won?t argue with it. In my opinion, Bioshock had a good but unexceptional story. In Mass Effect the player character became fleshed out and was not merely the silent protagonist that stars in 75% of the shooters out there. I really liked the creepy atmosphere and villains in Bioshock but to me Mass Effect is in a different league in terms of story telling.

As far as the glitches, you seem to have had a much worse experience with them then I did. Honestly they were only a minor drawback for me. Sometimes the frame rate would dip in a particularly intense battle. Sometimes the more detailed textures would load up after the initial load period. That?s my only gripe with the bugs. A lot of the stuff you?re talking about are things that you only experience when you?re looking for them (such as the ?gimmicky ways to beat the A.I.?)

The Mako argument has no legs man. This is not a driving game. The Mako is merely a vehicle used to explore the terrain. It handles pretty well too and the physics are decent. You are complaining that it?s essentially a mini-game. Well duh! It is a mini-game! And I won?t even get into your comment about serious sci-fi.

Your arguments about the planets are ridiculous. You would actually like to be able to land on any planet you see and it upsets you that you can?t. You are also upset that some of the planets offer a relatively limited game play experience. Guess what, if every world were as highly detailed and fully realized as the most important ones, the game would not fit on a single DVD. In fact it would be several times larger than any game that has ever existed. If a game has to be far and away the largest ever in order to be adequate then there are no adequate games.

I like the fact that you have to use the journals to find out some of the information in the game. I hate when characters in sci-fi in movies explain current events and important historical happenings that the main character should already know just for the purposes of informing the viewer. Instead of shamelessly working factoids into the actual dialogue, Mass Effect has created a system by which they are compiled in a database that you may or may not indulge in.

Your score doesn?t make sense Matt. By game critic standards, a score of 60 out of a hundred is reserved for sub-par games. Mass Effect simply does not fit that mold. You?ve given far lesser games far higher marks. I can only wonder what your motivation is for producing such a misleading review.

No, in Mass Effect if you want *go anywhere* (as opposed to "know something") you have to ask someone about something and listen to their response. It's not really an option. Try to complete the game without talking to anybody. That's a concept my head's all too wrapped around. If you think I'm quibbling with the fact that there's a lot of dialogue...you're right! An excessive amount. A tedious amount. Frequently unbroken for long, exhaustive stints where you wander back and forth and back and forth in a way unbecoming of what I've come to expect in a contemporary RPG, i.e. that doesn't violate Ken Ralston's impromptu "sine wave law." And no, it's not *just* an RPG, as you imply. It's a full-throated action-RPG, or it bills itself quite plainly as one in the publisher's "fact sheet" sitting right here in front me.

Let's the incendiary qualifiers like "immature." Not helping anyone. But to answer your question... Look, ME says you'll have to make "morally complex questions that significantly impact on the fate of all life in the universe." Okay, someone point those out to me, because I apparently missed them somewhere between the part where I started and finished the game. Of course I'm not expecting it to be GTA. Never so much as hinted at that. I was simply disappointed that for all the talky-talky, the conversation options and respective outcomes were incredibly myopic. If you're getting more than that from the little plot shifts I think you're talking about, that's all you, injected, signed, and sealed, because more than a few trivial alternative conversations just ain't there, having played several key areas through repeatedly, just to see.

Bad guy/good guy morality system? What? When did I say anything about that?

The Mako argument is *all* legs, because you can't bypass it, and you simply *have* to drive that sucker all over the place. Love it or love it, there's no leaving it. I'm not in the slightest complaining that Super Mass Effect Bros. is a mini-game, I'm complaining that it's a *dumb* mini-game. Because it is. See the difference?

And regarding the planets, no, I don't need to land on them, I just don't need them at all if all they are is a couple of button taps and irrelevant (to the story as well as the universe) filler. And you can't tell which is which, you have to *scan* those puppies one at a time, like digging for the meat in a pile of cheap, watered down, mealy Red Lobster crab legs. How exciting! (I suppose you could argue "anticipation," but it didn't do anything for me.) In a story, every detail should be deliberate. In a film, same thing. And in a game. I'm calling "unjustified" on those planets. Because they aren't, as far as I'm concerned. If they do it for you, more power to you.

I'm glad you like the journals. I don't. See? We can disagree without you calling me "immature" or "ridiculous" or "misleading" and questioning my motivation as if I'm part of some super-secret reviewer cabal involved in deep dark plots to give games slightly-above-average-reviews.

Seriously, just agree to disagree dude. We're at loggerheads.

Okay Matt, I?ll take your advice and agree to disagree. I disagree with your account of excessive dialogue because I did not experience this myself. I also disagree with your characterization of the Mako as a ?dumb? mini game. I actually liked it. I didn?t find spending a few seconds to scan the planets in a system tedious at all and I prefer having the systems fleshed out with multiple planets (even ones you can?t explore) to having only game levels represented. In our own solar system there are planets like Jupiter and Saturn that you cannot land on. It adds an element of realism to the game that not every world has an environment that is conducive to human exploration. We disagree on the journals (as you have so graciously pointed out). Finally we disagree on whether or not your actions can effect the storyline. As someone who has played through the game twice (and not merely used a save point to experiment with different dialogue options with the same character) I have experienced this first hand. It?s not just about ?what happens if I make this decision in this particular instance?,? it?s ?what happens if I?m this kind of character who has made these kinds of decisions in the past and is looked upon in this way by others?and I make this decision in this particular instance??

Anyways, we don?t agree. I apologize if you felt my comments were offensive. I did not intend that to be the case. I don?t know you personally and so I have no reason to want to offend you.

The writer of this article adequately represents the difference between intelligence and wisdom. Well, he's a smart ass at least. First of all "writer," I want to let you know how I've spent the last 3 minutes: laughing my ass off while you try to even begin to compare Mass Effect to Baldur's Gate. Wait... no, there was another chuckle; not done yet. Why don't you go join The View and complain about every other wonderful thing in the world like all those other ridiculous bitches. The best game in years comes along and all you can do is nay say? This game is the second coming of Mario. That's how good this game is to me. It finally brings the nerds and the shooters together. When will anything be good enough for you? You probably think The Godfather is flawed because... wow... I'm sure you'd know why. I know it's your job as a critic to shoot things down, but this article was the biggest load of crap I've ever read. Go to hell. Get some therapy. Write for the Cooking Channel. Quiet!

And I'm not going to say I'm sorry for ripping on you like that other dude. You deserve all of this. If you're not good at reviewing games, why do you have this job. P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C. Go back to school and get another degree and move on.

Since this is just a simple blog-rant type entry, it's ok to be shallow with a review, otherwise(if it is actually tallied in sites like gameranking or metacritic) it'd be called irresbonsible, since it looks at the game in such a way. It's a me criticizing a james bond movie as saying it's one a good guy trying to kill a bad guy with guns and he seems invincible etc etc.

Seems like you rated it while being in a pissed off mood, too.

Your comment in your review of the game "...exotic lens flare that directors like John Carpenter celebrate in movies like 'The Thing' " leaves me puzzled (to say the least), as there are no such shots anywhere in this film.

MrSatyre: Really? Okay, you know the shots of lights in Carpenter's The Thing where as the camera pans by, they flare with, for lack of a better word, a halo? In ME, you look at stars or lights on the interior of your ship (the Normandy) and they have the same effect. For whatever reason, I always associate that with 1970s/1980s sci-fi films.

Hey Matt, stick by your review. I haven't played the game myself so I have no opinion. But I've seen the video reviews over at other sites and the gameplay to me looks exactly what you say it to be... lots of dialogue and somewhat dull gameplay. Halo 3 didn't deserve over an 8.5. Go to xbox 360 forums and most of the people in there think Halo 3 was way overhyped. These fanboys are just stupid. When a lot of people start actually playing the game and reporting back, we'll find out what the truth is just like we found out with Halo 3 it was overhyped. If the non-fanboys are loving it then you will be proven wrong. If they are not, then the fanboys will be wrong again.

p.s. - i will say one thing in defense of the xbox fanboys though. Oblivion to me is the best RPG ever but it also had tons of dialogue. But it also has tons of gameplay when wandering around and in Dungeons and things.

Oblivion was very open ended. You talk to people when you want to talk to them. It's not a story on a rail. You do what you want when you want.

Have you played Oblivion Matt? And could you compare ME and Oblivion's game play?

Yep JD, and when it came out, I loved it.

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/games/sfw12532.html

Of course the shine's off 1.5 years out, and I haven't fired it up on my 360 or PC in over six months, but it was stunning (for what it was as well as proved was possible) when it first hit. My biggest beef with Oblivion after poking it for 200 or so hours is the superficiality of the "radiant" A.I.

I'd rate ME's conversations more engaging and believable, but every time I fire up ME, I feel like I'm stuck in a gigantic conversation simulator, trying desperately to get away for some action R&R. Oblivion's much better paced, though direct comparisons don't work for the same reasons comparing BG2 to Ultima 8 can be kind of dodgy.

Hey, go play any of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games on the DS. Then you'll have a useful yardstick to compare the dialog to. Don't get me wrong; I love those games, but there are screens and screens and screens of dialog where you just keep hitting the "A" button to go to the next screen, That's understandable, since it is a courtroom drama, bue there's no way to short-circuit it if you accidentally and the same question twice. Yikes!

I do agree that it would be nice if you could attempt to land on more planets. There are a few detailed worlds and a lot of generic ones, but why not use the old procedural generators to create near-infinite random worlds to land on. And also do the old text adventure trick: "Are you sure?" "Yes" "Dont say I didn't warn you... The thick atmostphere crushes your ship like an eggshell. In other words, you're dead. Do you want to reload your last save point?"

I have to agree with Matt. I wanted this game to be so friggin great. I really did.

Its nothing but dialog trees with bits of action here and there. The fights aren't even exciting or creative. I gave up issuing commands to my squad. I just aim and shoot until until the enemy is dead. I don't even use biotics or special commands.

The game looks great I must admit. But the voice acting is only okay. Am I the only person that is surprised that most of the aliens sound American? I think a Star Wars approach to vocals would have been better.

Oh and here's the kicker...On the Citadel (which is like a Galactic U.N) you have to run back and forth across the station to talk to people. They don't have communicators in the future? It would be cooler if you can just call up people on your futuristic iphone after you met them face to face.

Matt stick to your guns...nevermind these hype headed
kool aid drinking, sheep!

Sorry but you are very wrong. First of all you can not get this full experience by playing 24 hours? Are you kidding you honestly expect to review an RPG like this in 24 hours? Thats your fault right there. Furthermore Mass effect uses a classic turn based, choose your own adventure system. While this might not be the newest invention it is done VERY WELL. The voice acting, the many different paths. This is truly a game worth playing multiple times over just to see what happens. The fighting is fun, very customizable to your style, and you can put cryo rounds that freeze enemies and make them explode, for example, if you wish. The music is good, the vehicle takes some getting used to if you played halo games but it works very good after a while. The only faults in this game is that the menus are far too slow, and the textures take a while to load. The game pushes the limits of the 360, in quality like no other game has. Come on, put some actual time into your work.

This review is very inaccurate and I think it's because the game came out on the Xbox 360 instead of PC. Why is a website called PCWorld rating Xbox 360 games anyway? OF COURSE you'll rate anything not on PC lower.

I've been playing the game for the past 18 days non-stop, yes, it's THAT fun and THAT replayable. I've never found myself this addicted to a game before, I can honestly say this is the best game I have ever played.

Look, if anyone needs further proof that this review is bull, go watch X-play's review, or Gametrailer's, or IGN's review. X-play sounded like they wanted to give it a 6 out of 5, they gave it a 5 out of 5, but I've never heard them sound so positive about a 5 out of 5 game before.

Oh and to Samyse, you're wrong about clicking a question and not being able to skip the dialog, you just press X to skip dialog. And Mainsource, you just need to crank up the difficulty, set the game to veteran, hardcore, or insane.(the last two must be unlocked)

were you drinking when you had to play the game?

Meh, I think what you hate about the game is what I love about it. I dislike the combat sections, but greatly enjoy the atmosphere that can suck you in. You seem to dislike adventure games as well, but I have always loved them and Kings Quest/Space Quest/Etc still have a place on my hard drive to this day.

I have yet to run into any major bugs in this game. I wouldn?t call the loading times all that bad either, I've seen much worse. As for the long elevator rides, looks like a disguised loading screen to me which would explain the length. Frame rate stutters now and then, but not to an unacceptable level for me.

I agree that this game is not a good RPG. It lacks what makes an RPG an RPG. What it is, is a great Action-Adventure game. I think your judging this game too harshly on its poor RPG features. Just forget the genera that your little paper says the game belongs to and play it to enjoy it. Not to rank it against what a classic RPG is.

PS: Evil char limit:P I have more to say!!

Your post reeks of intellectual snobbery. I'm sure it's mostly to get a reaction so you can point at all the flames and say to your friends, "Look how counter-culture I am."

I don't mind the fact that reviews are ultimately subjective, but one is at least supposed to try and hide their biases. Please, for the good of the consumer, and good writing in general, pick a different occupation.

I am sorry, but starting next week, I will cancel my subscription to PC World immediately. By hiring someone like Matt Peckham to do an official review of a major game title on its official website, PC World has definitely shown me that the people writing for them may not all that be professional.

This so-called review is biased, subjective, and tries extremely hard to find as many negatives as possible. It's 16 pages of utter garbage. I am not saying this because I didn't like his opinion. Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion.

What is Matt Peckham writing and posting here? He wasn't asked to write 16 pages of biased statements of opinions. He was asked to write a professional review, with objective, unbiased statements with good examples. Did he do that? Absolutely Not.

If Matt Peckham wants to make his living as a professional writer, I strongly suggest this unprofessional reviewer to go back to college and take some more classes on professional writing.

Ok the guy who wrote this review is a dumbass Mass Effect is one of the best RPG's i have played, and iv'e played alot believe me, from WoW to Oblivion, this game falls into the same league as Fable and many other highly rated multi-choice RPG's and for me the graphics just make all so much better, why give any game a bad review when your clearly gonna get bad feedback. I would advise this guy to post good review or either backup his dislikes with reasonable and factual points, not just blab on about how he dosnt like it personally.

Great blog with lots of useful information and excellent commentary! Thanks for sharing.

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