No topic for this gem of a game? Must rectify!
Mass Effect officially has competition for RPG of the year. Heck, The Witcher might be the best RPG since Planescape.
You take the role of a monster-hunter apparently returned from the dead, trying to discover what happened to you, and avenge the near-destruction of your order.
Decisions truly matter in this game, and not the simple "angel vs lunatic" choices some recent RPGs have presented. Many decisions in The Witcher are between two sides that each have a reasonable point, or between outcomes where all of them are distasteful (think lesser of two evils). Also, these decisions often have far-reaching and unexpected effects on the future story, with cutscenes many hours later revealing how a previous choice had a logical but not-so-obvious impact on how things are proceeding.
Quests range from simple kill/delivery stuff, to fairly involved storylines including investigating a murder where it's entirely possible to implicate (and kill!) the wrong man. Conversations often produce clues and friends (or enemies), while gifts, bribes, drinking contests, and blackmail are also acceptable ways of acquiring information. Fight clubs and dice gambling can augment the income. The time of day also determines where characters are and what options are available, as people go about their daily lives - and creatures control the night. All of the details that you discover are logged in a fairly extensive journal that tracks quests, people, places, recipes, and important concepts.
The game is full of dark humor and mature content (violence, prolific cursing, nudity (including full frontal), and sexual acts (mostly off-screen, of course) abound. The game even allows you to collect tarot cards featuring nude or semi-nude portraits of your feminine conquests.
Combat is a cross between strategy (mixing your own alchemy potions and choosing when to use them, picking spells, weapon types and stances to match enemies) and twitch reactions (a fairly forgiving system where timing clicks determines how devastating your attacks become - lightning reflexes and mad clicking are not required). It works pretty well and delivers some rewarding visuals when finishing off stunned/knocked out enemies.
The only big drawbacks to the game are a clumsy inventory system (lots of sorting by hand required), and some horrific load times if your system has a fragmented hard drive and/or low RAM. It says something about the game that it's still great despite the frustration of of 30 seconds of loading every time I investigate a house...
I'm having an absolute blast with this game, and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who likes the deep RPG genre. The US version has some mild censoring (of nudity of course, since boobies make people kill each other or something!), so I'd recommend getting the import version from someplace like GoGamer.
Mass Effect officially has competition for RPG of the year. Heck, The Witcher might be the best RPG since Planescape.
You take the role of a monster-hunter apparently returned from the dead, trying to discover what happened to you, and avenge the near-destruction of your order.
Decisions truly matter in this game, and not the simple "angel vs lunatic" choices some recent RPGs have presented. Many decisions in The Witcher are between two sides that each have a reasonable point, or between outcomes where all of them are distasteful (think lesser of two evils). Also, these decisions often have far-reaching and unexpected effects on the future story, with cutscenes many hours later revealing how a previous choice had a logical but not-so-obvious impact on how things are proceeding.
Quests range from simple kill/delivery stuff, to fairly involved storylines including investigating a murder where it's entirely possible to implicate (and kill!) the wrong man. Conversations often produce clues and friends (or enemies), while gifts, bribes, drinking contests, and blackmail are also acceptable ways of acquiring information. Fight clubs and dice gambling can augment the income. The time of day also determines where characters are and what options are available, as people go about their daily lives - and creatures control the night. All of the details that you discover are logged in a fairly extensive journal that tracks quests, people, places, recipes, and important concepts.
The game is full of dark humor and mature content (violence, prolific cursing, nudity (including full frontal), and sexual acts (mostly off-screen, of course) abound. The game even allows you to collect tarot cards featuring nude or semi-nude portraits of your feminine conquests.
Combat is a cross between strategy (mixing your own alchemy potions and choosing when to use them, picking spells, weapon types and stances to match enemies) and twitch reactions (a fairly forgiving system where timing clicks determines how devastating your attacks become - lightning reflexes and mad clicking are not required). It works pretty well and delivers some rewarding visuals when finishing off stunned/knocked out enemies.
The only big drawbacks to the game are a clumsy inventory system (lots of sorting by hand required), and some horrific load times if your system has a fragmented hard drive and/or low RAM. It says something about the game that it's still great despite the frustration of of 30 seconds of loading every time I investigate a house...
I'm having an absolute blast with this game, and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who likes the deep RPG genre. The US version has some mild censoring (of nudity of course, since boobies make people kill each other or something!), so I'd recommend getting the import version from someplace like GoGamer.
