Mass Effect

[SUBMAN1]

Got Mass Effect installed - Virgin key as i did with Bioshock. I refuse to allow these idiots copy protections to rule my life. My BioShock key has never been registered as now is Mass Effect. When will they get a clue?

-S

[Dowly]

Dont know, but may I just say that ME was a pleasent surprise. Nice to see a good game once in a while. ;) Tho, it was a bit short (IIRC, the final time was ~16hrs). :-?

[Detritus]

I was also positively surprised and very much looking forward to the next installment- this is supposed to be a trilogy if I've understood it correctly. It's not a perfect game but still definitely a winner. A few things to complain do exist, however:
The hacking minigame grew old really fast. On lockers and such it's allright but on corpses, mineral deposits etc. it's simply stupid.
Too much Mako. Nuff said.
Interface sucked. They made it unnecessarily complicated when they could've done it with the good ole double-click system. I kept assigning 'wrong' skills to people before I got the hang of it.
My game is very dark, could be the monitor though, too. Had to crank gamma all the way up. No biggie.
Got a couple of lock-ups during dialog parts with certain people. To be fixed in patch, I suppose.
Besides these I was actually hooked on it, the whole 'Can't put this down/What happens next?´ thingy. Lotsa thought and effort has been clearly been put into ME with success in the end. The dialogue and voice-acting effectively raised the bar for other games to surpass- Jennifer Hale and Lance Henriksen most notably were really swinging it.
16 hrs to finish? You must've missed half the stuff, mine was at least double to that.

[Galanti]

I look forward to actually starting a game, now that I seem to have solved my freezes and lockups, which were the worst I've ever had in 10 years of gaming. I literally could not get off the Normady for the first mission before the thing would freeze up.

Basically I updated my 8800 drivers to 177.26 (leaked) and commented out a couple of lines in the BIOEngine.ini file related to the sound engine. I can't recall exactly what they were (something to do with 'NoHAL') but anyone here is experiencing similar issues I'll post the fix when I get home.

[SUBMAN1]

Mass Effect is definitely dumbed down for consoles graphics wise. This is no Crysis, that is for sure. Notice the lights in the distance. Talk about lowering detail to make sure frame rate stays high. Not clear and crisp. This is on the max settings with all options running.

-S

http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/8244/masseffectsf5.jpg

[Dowly]

Hmm... that's odd, my graphics are crispy apart that noise filter there is constantly. Where you took that shot? I wanna check it out. :hmm:

[Raptor1]

That pixelation is a known bug that's supposed to be fixed with new drivers coming out, or so I heard (ATI, atleast)

[JSLTIGER]

I was gonna say, that looks like something from the 1990s...Doom anyone?

[SUBMAN1]

That pixelation is a known bug that's supposed to be fixed with new drivers coming out, or so I heard (ATI, atleast)I think you're right. That's a blur filter messing up.

-S

[NeonSamurai]

Personaly i turned the film effect and motion blur off (who the heck gets motion blur when turning their head?)

That shot is the first mission at the dig site where the beacon was suppost to be (it got moved) looking at the ramp going up.

[SUBMAN1]

Don't say i never gave you guys anything:

http://www.badongo.com/file/9955296

That was a pain in the butt to extract. Ended up needing a hex editor to make it work.

-S

[Detritus]

The intro music and scene are among the best I've seen, no doubt. Sometimes I prolonged loading just to listen a little further. Also, after the last scene, listen to the music while the credits roll in. Sweet.

[SUBMAN1]

The intro music and scene are among the best I've seen, no doubt. Sometimes I prolonged loading just to listen a little further. Also, after the last scene, listen to the music while the credits roll in. Sweet.I'll have a listen and if good, I extract that too.

-S

[SUBMAN1]

This was an even BIGGER pain than the intro! Have at it.

I notice that the Intro is at 48 khz, but the credits is at 44.1? Not much for consistancy for them.

http://www.badongo.com/file/9969453

Anyway, this was buried in a 150 MB file, so i had to again use a hex editor. Some files in it have incomaptible streams too.

-S

PS. In case anyone cares, I hear the audio guys for Mass Effect are going to release a whole CD. I will probably pick that up if its this good. I'd like higher quality samples.

[Detritus]

All right, thanks mate! Good stuff indeed. I'm also gonna pick up that CD if/when it comes out Definitely sort of Vangelis' Blade Runner thing going on there.

[SUBMAN1]

All right, thanks mate! Good stuff indeed. I'm also gonna pick up that CD if/when it comes out Definitely sort of Vangelis' Blade Runner thing going on there.I agree

[SUBMAN1]

That pixelation is a known bug that's supposed to be fixed with new drivers coming out, or so I heard (ATI, atleast)Just got 8.6 Catalyst - brand spanking new, and the problem is still there. First real graphical anomoly that I've had with ATI in about 5 years.

-S

[Raptor1]

Same here, 8.6 should've fixed the problem, I looked at the notes and it doesn't say anything about it there

So far ATI haven't failed me as well, maybe it's an engine related issue that will be fixed in a patch

EDIT: Apparently we're not the only ones: http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=636152&forum=127

(There's a fix there, But I haven't tried it)

[SUBMAN1]

... EDIT: Apparently we're not the only ones: http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=636152&forum=127

(There's a fix there, But I haven't tried it)
The fix works, and I don't notice any negative effects from it. The lights look normal once again, and I'm sure the only thing this tweak took away was messed up textures anyway so you don't want it till a fix can be had.

-S

PS. THis says something too:

ATI couldn't have fixed anything regarding MEPC in 8.6 drivers since it takes 3-4 weeks for a driver to pass QA and WHQL..(ie: they already had the drivers done before MEPC came out).
I am more expecting something for 8.7

[SUBMAN1]

Catalyst Beta Drivers should show up here eventually:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=18

-S

[Raptor1]

Yeah, will keep an eye out

[SUBMAN1]

Level 50 is all you can achive in Mass Effect? It came near the end, but still!!! I want to be level 51! I finished all the endings too.

Spoiler below!!!







































































I prefer letting the stupid council bite it I think.

-S

[NeonSamurai]

Level 60 is the max, but i think you can only hit that level on the hardest difficulty setting or something, otherwise its level 50

[SUBMAN1]

Level 60 is the max, but i think you can only hit that level on the hardest difficulty setting or something, otherwise its level 50I thought I selected the hardest level avail? Maybe I didn't?

I did find combat to not be much of a challenge. Maybe i screwed up here.

-S

[NeonSamurai]

I belive the hardest difficulty setting becomes available after beating the game ones. One of the achievements though is getting to level 60 (super power gamer or something)

[Detritus]

That's true. The Insanity level becomes available only after beating the game on Hardcore (casual-normal-veteran-hardcore-insanity) .The same goes for Veteran or Hardcore-you have to play the game on previous difficulty first. I'm not sure how far you're able to make it on given difficulty but on my second run in Veteran I made it over level 50. It largely depends on how you play the game. Completing all the quests is self-evident, surveying the uncharted worlds thoroughly helps too - decrypting mini-game nets you xp's as well. One thing many people may overlook is that by using Mako's armament you get only about 1/3 or so of available xp's. I noticed this on Noveria when using Mako on rocket-geth I got 18 xp's and in a stand-up fight 48 respectively.

[CaptHawkeye]

Bah, Mass Effect was a game I looked forward to for a long time but I ended up hating it. It wouldn't have been such a problem to me if the AI wasn't stone dead retarded and the writing was so staggeringly incompetant it made Hideo Kojima look like Stanley Kubrick.

Even Soveriegn can't attack the Citadel by himself! Whoops he can. No problem, let's call on our massive fleets gaurding all of the Mass Relays into the system.....that never noticed Sov breaching the defenses. They never bother to ask why the Citadel isn't talking either. :)

Oh yeah, and their are HUGE sections of the Citadel that are totally unknown and no one has a problem with this. And a working Mass Relay right in the Council Chambers! EXCELLENT SECURITY! :)