June Modern Playthrough - Mass Effect

[Duke.Togo]

It's fun reading through everyones thoughts. The games are still pretty recent in my mind, and I'll be curious to see what everyone thinks towards the end.

[MetalFRO]

Put some serious time into this game last night, and though I'm enjoying myself, I have some mixed feelings about it.  I still think the combat is funky, and not something that is as refined as it should be.  I found myself thinking the same thing about KotOR as well, so maybe when BioWare designs an action RPG, they just skimp on the combat in favor of story and character development?  I also determined very quickly that you really have to take it slow when it comes to the combat.  You just can't run into a room guns blazing, because you'll overheat your weapons too fast, and the imprecise nature of the combat means you may not hit anything, so you'll be dying in seconds, especially against enemies that have much more powerful weapons than you.  If you want to survive long and not repeat a section a bunch of times, find cover and be methodical about how you take out enemies.  You may have to stand around and wait for your health to recharge before you can take on more enemies, and thankfully, the AI sometimes allows you to hang back and do that.  Other times, you won't be so lucky, and you'll either have to switch weapons, or say bye bye.

I do, however, appreciate the fact that, once you cleared an area of all foes and one of your teammates signals the "all clear", you can save, so if you're progressing and you get through a battle intact, you can save right away to avoid having to do that battle over again 12 times because the next one is unforgiving, or you have a puzzle you can't solve.  It also helps with the glitchiness.  I am finding this game to be quite glitchy.  I got stuck on Eden Prime at the very beginning, had my weapon drawn, and was in a corner.  It looked like Shepard was slam dancing.  Once I withdrew my weapon, I could move from that spot.  Similarly:

Spoiler (hover to show)

I was on Noveria last night, and once I got the tank (which controls like poo), I drove it too fast trying to get out of the garage, and flipped the tank over before getting out the door.  I was unable to flip the tank back to its wheels, and had to restore my save.  Thankfully, I had saved just before entering the tank, so it didn't take long to recover, but if I hadn't done that, I'd have been repeating the battle in the garage again.

I have a sneaking suspicion this game is going to take me way longer than what howlongtobeat.com specifies.  I have a little over 20 hours in right now.  A small percentage of that time is downtime, while I change laundry loads or have a quick bite, but most of it has been wandering around doing side missions at the Citadel, or dying a lot in combat and having to repeat battle sections 10 or 12 times before nailing the strategy down (or in some cases, blind luck).  I'm not a completionist either, so I won't be handling all the side quests and optional stuff, but certainly some of it will factor in and help me gain XP so I can level my squad's stats.

[Fleach]

I'm going to sit down with the game tomorrow. After editing the recent episode and short notice changes to my work schedule I didn't have much time left for games. That'll change soon though. I'm really excited to play this with everyone!

[MetalFRO]

One other thing I'm wondering - Tali is in my squad, and it says she has over 100 HP, but it only fills up to something small like 30 or 40.  I can't seem to get her health to go any higher than that.  Does anyone know why that is, or what might be the cause of that?  Is there something with her that I need to upgrade in order to fix that?  Is it a glitch?

[Duke.Togo]

MetalFRO - The big thing I would mention is that the combat systems get MUCH better in the sequels. I agree, the Mako kind of stinks, and that's why it never makes a return.

[MetalFRO]

Anyone playing (or played) the mission to Noveria yet? I'm stuck.

Spoiler (hover to show)

I can't seem to figure out how to get through the confrontation with Benezia's minions. Sometimes I can take out the 1st 2 Asari commandos, but when Benezia summons the geth troops, another 2 commandos appear, and one of them always appears practically right on top of me. Even with level 3 armor and a level 3 shotgun or assault rifle, I die. I can't move fast enough to avoid the paralysis effect. The commandos always take out both of my squad as well, leaving only me to fend for myself. I run to the right of the room and take cover, and Garrus follows, but Tali bites it almost immediately. I'm not sure what else to try. If I run to the adjacent corner, they follow me and I get picked off. 12-15 times of attempting that battle with fluctuating AI makes it very frustrating!

[Fleach]

The squad AI in this game is pretty useless, MetalFRO. I'm not too far from where you are and my companions often die quite fast. Is this your first main story mission after becoming a Spectre? I did the Feros mission first and found the battle at the end to be extremely tough. But like you said, take things slow and use cover.

Yeah, the Mako drives like poo. I can't stand the times you have to drive that thing. As for your Tali thing, that might be a glitch (this game is known for being buggy) because she heals fine for me.

What mission routes have you all chosen so far? Also, who do you keep in your teams? Right now I have Femshep, Tali, and Ashley. That's probably a terrible squad, but I like them for some reason.

[MetalFRO]

I think maybe it was a glitch, because when I was playing last night, Tali started healing all the way just fine

My squad is Shepard, Garrus, and Tali right now.  And yes, Noveria/Peak 15 is my first major story mission after becoming a Spectre.  It's funny that, even though I have the later release with all 3 games in a single package, it's still buggy as all get out.  Why wouldn't EA patch that before re-releasing it again?  Oh wait, I forgot - it's EA!!!  I guess I just need to keep trying, and do little tweaks here and there to try and see if I can get past it.  It's just very frustrating that I've spent almost an hour fighting this battle, and have made no progress.  It's a lifesaver that I was able to save just prior to stepping into that room, otherwise I probably would have ragequit by now.

[NeoMagicWarrior]

MetalFRO - The big thing I would mention is that the combat systems get MUCH better in the sequels. I agree, the Mako kind of stinks, and that's why it never makes a return.

This. 100000%. The combat system in ME1 is so bad, and knowing how good it gets is the main reason why I can never go back through this darn game again.

[Fleach]

I think maybe it was a glitch, because when I was playing last night, Tali started healing all the way just fine

My squad is Shepard, Garrus, and Tali right now.  And yes, Noveria/Peak 15 is my first major story mission after becoming a Spectre.  It's funny that, even though I have the later release with all 3 games in a single package, it's still buggy as all get out.  Why wouldn't EA patch that before re-releasing it again?  Oh wait, I forgot - it's EA!!!  I guess I just need to keep trying, and do little tweaks here and there to try and see if I can get past it.  It's just very frustrating that I've spent almost an hour fighting this battle, and have made no progress.  It's a lifesaver that I was able to save just prior to stepping into that room, otherwise I probably would have ragequit by now.

This game was originally a 360 exclusive so there could be bugs unique to the PS3 rerelease. Some things like the sh*tty handling Mako have been there from the original.

[MetalFRO]

Once you get used to the Mako it's not so bad, and the way it handles even starts to make a weird kind of sense, but it's still bizarre

I spent a bunch of time on this again last night.  I felt like kind of a doofus, because after about 30 minutes of making zero progress on the Mistress Benezia fight, I went to YouTube to watch a walkthrough of the battle.  Not sure how I never discovered this, but I didn't realize how it was I was supposed to access the 'talents', and just figured that out last night.  Between ratcheting down the enemy skills, making combat easier, and learning how to use my group's talents, I finally got through that confrontation after about another half dozen tries.  Holy cow, that's hard!  So now I've taken care of Mistress Benezia, and have rescued Liara T'soni.  I may side quest a bit before heading to Feros for the next main story mission.  After upgrading to level 4 armor and a level 4 assault rifle, suddenly the game's battles have become much less difficult, at least as far as the basic combat.  I find I haven't died more than a couple times since the Benezia deal, though there have been far fewer enemies in less cramped quarters than that section was.  Still, I may have just got over the hump in my character levels where I can have a little breathing room and feel less like I'm going to die every 30 seconds.

[noiseredux]

I'm seriously considering grabbing this on sale on Amazon...

[Fleach]

Do it Noise! This game is great. Kind of dry at times due to static delivery of non-story dialogue, but that doesn't hurt the game.

The Benazia fight only took me two tries. I wonder why you're having such a hard time with the combat. One thing I know I haven't learned yet is how to command my squad mates. Is that even possible?

[noiseredux]

well after playing thru Dragon Age Origins (and loving it) I had already had an urge to play the first ME, and this is a good excuse (along with Trilogy being on sale for $9).

[Fleach]

I'm finding a hard time creating checkpoints for this game. This is my first time playing it so everything is new to me. I guess we can all go at our own pace as long as we finish by the end of the month.