Mass Effect - Page 2

Might as well drink some bleach and chew some razor blades at this point.

I guess I'm the only one who isn't impressed by a game where all the enemies you shoot just stand there motionless.

It hasn't been confirmed for PC yet.

Yeah, I'm hoping that the AI was dumbed down for those demos we've seen.

The AI may not have even been worked out yet at that point.

But on yet another hand, Assassin's Creed also comes out in November.

I thought that didn't come out until next year. Curses!

Yeah. And then you throw GTA IV in the mix in the middle of October, and you've got three long ass games in about a month's time.

I really hope you can turn this off. I don't get that much value out of listening to voice actors read lines that I can clearly see on the screen. In NWN2 (as well as all of the other Bioware RPGs that use the same dialogue system) I'd often speedread and click ahead, unless there was something really dramatic going on. I'd always speed click through dialogue if I'd already seen it once. It would get obnoxious if you actually had to sit through spoken dialogue as a function of the game to avoid 'offending' the NPCs.

In the gameplay videos, the text of the dialogue was not displayed.

I prefer to turn the subtitles off, myself. Watching the characters speak is much more cinematic.

I've never understood why so many gamers leave subtitles on.

Poor sound dubbing and bizarre spacial audio problems.

I tried to do Oblivion without Subtitles and found that when important characters were talking I couldn't make out everything that was being said.

If I can read the shitty dialogue and skip past the shitty voice acting, I'll always take that option.

The entire idea of making a game cinematic seems odd to me anyways, I'd much rather get the information in an easy to digest form and go off and DO things rather than watch the NPCs and their 127 uniquely animated face muscles.

For some games I do, because the voice acting is some mumbly intern that they roped into the recording studio for course credit. Beyond that, story sequences in games tend to just get me impatient, and I can read a lot faster than people can talk.

It's not odd. If I want a film experience, I'll watch a movie. I prefer gaming when I'm actually playing.

Only to point you in the right direction, same as any other RPG. It's nothing I can't get from just reading the text myself. KOTOR had some good/funny/surprising dialogue, the other 90% was the same old crap that's in every other RPG, just with a Star Wars twist.

I find the conversations to be a an entertaining and important part of these games, not a chore to be slogged through. Different strokes, I suppose.

They're cute, up to a point, but I've never played through a game with dialog or a story interesting enough to warrant my full attention.

Games which have dramatic camera angles, elaborate cut scenes, and beautifully crafted NPCs always give me the impression that the developers were just to inept to become TV/Film Directors.

It also always seems like a really weird way to try and legitimise games as an 'art form'.

I still think GTA is the best in terms of cutscenes, nice little bits of information. Told with flair and done relatively speedily which then let you get on with what you're supposed to be doing, playing.

Yeah, real games should have no story, shitty cutscenes, and one-dimensional characters, preferably voiced by the programmers themselves.

Also, games shouldn't bother with good music or visuals. Sound effects should all be improvised by the developers, so that when something explodes, you hear a shrill voice yell. "KABLOOEY!"

I guarantee you there were theater snobs who said similar things about movies when they were in their infancy. And the comments were just as short-sighted then as now.

Yeah, but theatre and cinema have a general correlation in that they're non-interactive productions designed to tell a story or express an idea.

The key facet of a game is that it's a game, you play it.

What, you don't think Mass Effect is trying to tell a story or express an idea?

Either way, I would be good money that the reason so many people are looking forward to this game over other games coming out this year is not because of "teh awsome fucking gamepplay!"

Seriously, though, this is a story-driven RPG. people play it for the overall experience, not because they wanna run around shooting shit. Because if you wanna do that, you could just buy Stranglehold.

My main point is that for a videogame, the desire to tell a story shouldn't be the most important thing.

If they have such an engrossing and original tale to tell they should make a TV Series/Book and focus on actually making the game something which is fun to play.

What, you think it can't be both?

I think that as soon as a game prides itself on non-interactive narrative it becomes less of a game.

Since Mass Effect is from Bioware, I'll use Knights of the Old Republic as an example of an engrossing tale that I loved "playing". I think games like that and Mass Effect are the best of both worlds. I get to play a part of an original and engrossing tale instead of just being a spectator. While I think I get what you're trying to say, it comes across to me (a little, anyway) as story doesn't matter if you're given cool shit too do.

Those GTA games with cinematic cutscenes and big name actors must not really be games to you then, eh?

In all seriousness, though, it's absurd to say that great gameplay should not be supplemented by a great story and production values. It doesn't have to be one or the other, as you seem to think.

I don't get this because I just couldn't play KOTOR. I felt the game would just push me towards it's story without me having any impact. So what I had left for interaction was combat: wich was me pushing a button to give an attack command to my character so a bunch of numbers could appear, telling me I was a badass. Repeat.

I never did enjoy any Bioware game. I stopped playing Baldur's Gate II after a few hours, same thing for Jade Empire.

With that attitude, Spike, I'd be surprised if you enjoy any roleplaying game. Personally, I get more deeply involved in something like KOTOR than anything like Halo. And it's because there's an involving story. In board games, yes, gameplay is everything. Videogames are more of a hybrid form of entertainment. To deny that is to deny videogames one of the things that make them unique.

Clearly, you're in the minority there. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I never could get into Half-Life. Every time gamers cream their pants over that thing, I feel like I must have missed something.

I'm the exact same way with Halo.

I agree, the good/evil thing was overblown. Combat looks more fun in ME though as they seem to be borrowing heavily from rainbow six vegas/gears of war... KOTOR was painful, run up to enemy/queue up main attack intersperse force wave and done.

Same here. The first time I played KOTOR I played it for eight hours straight. To this day that is the longest I've played any video game in one sitting. It was because I was deeply involved in the story.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Mass Effect. On one hand I love KOTOR but on the other hand I was burned by Jade Empire and there is a good chance, for me at least, that this could become another Jade.

I liked EMPIRE but I can see how one wouldn't. It's certainly flawed, and the combat system is laughable simple, but I thought it was engaging and I like the setting better than KotOR.

Really, KotOR is hampered most by being a Star Wars game. It used to be such a novelty to play as a Jedi knight and now the experience tends to be tepid and predictable.

My theory is you're more of an intellectual gamer so you like Bioware's style of gameplay. I'm more of a visceral gamer, wich is why I love Halo, Half-Life 2, Call of Duty 2 and F.E.A.R. (wich I'm currently playing).

I prefer to have a good story, but if I have to make a choice between great story or great gameplay, I'll go with gameplay.

I'll agree that gameplay tends to be more important than story, since most video games that aim for "mature" or "engaging" stories usually end up failing.

BioWare's stories are usually pretty average on the whole, but they do a great job of at least rounding them out with fun or interesting characters.

If a game is offering up great atmosphere and an interesting world and/or story, I can forgive quite a bit with regards to gameplay. I love the Silent Hill games, might be my favorite series, but the gameplay is absolutely nothing special at all.

But then, I'm the guy who likes to call every person on the Codec over and over and over in a MGS game just to make sure I've heard everything they have to say. I love great gameplay, but I also appreciate great production value when I can get it and if Xenosaga wants to launch into a 20 minute cinema, well... I'll just switch my brain to "watch" mode and enjoy it while it lasts.

Ideally you get something like God of War, which can do both, and even merge the two. But not every game can be God of War.

Also, for the record, I hate Halo, thought KotOR was just okay, and I love Half Life and am currently creaming my pants over it as I type this.

Also Mass Effect looks great.

Haha, God of War's story is like Clash of the Titans with severe autism.

It's true, which begs the question: Can a game's story ever be considered 'art' from a narrative perspective? I'm thinking about starting a new thread on the topic.

I see what you did there.

check out the Bioshock demo.

And I miss Vault 13 too.

I mean, seriously, whoever says that games aren't art hasn't played Mavis Beacon's freestyle typing challenge. You idiots!

When I beat the timer for 45 words-per-minute, I cried. So moving...

Shit, man, I had such a passion for Mavis Beacon. You don't even know.