Yeah, I know, bunches of people are raving about it. It's awesome. You can have interspecies lesbo-sex. Blah blah blah. We've all heard it before. But I can't help but make *some* comment about it anyway.
I picked up Mass Effect on Tuesday night, dropped in my 360 as soon as I got home, and lost most of the evening to the game.
Struggled out of bed at noon on Wednesday, sat down in front of Mass Effect again, and played pretty much through until midnight, losing, thus far, a day and a half to the game.
The odd thing is that, as much as I'm enjoying it, I wouldn't say that I consider it a jaw-droppingly good, stand-out sort of game. I mean, it's good, yes. It's fun, yes (though for some reason, I still find combat a bit of a pain in the arse, even though I'm gradually getting better at it), but is it great? I...don't know.
Odder still is that, in spite of apparently feeling like it's a fun but not entirely brilliant game, there's a part of me that apparently disagrees. When I shut the game off last night and went to bed, I fully intended to set Mass Effect aside during gaming time tonight, and spend a bit more time with the COD4 multiplayer, because I own Mass Effect, and COD4 is (currently) a rental that's due back in about five days.
And yet the only game I've been able to think about all day is Mass Effect.
When I think about what I'll do when I get home at the end of the day, Mass Effect is on my mind.
When I think about gaming, Mass Effect is there.
When I look at the clock, wondering how long it is until I can punch out of here, it's Mass Effect that is giving me a reason for punching out.
So what the heck is up with that?
Am I in denial about this game for some reason? Am I trying to pretend that it isn't as good as it is? What the heck would be the point of that? Am I going with the "Yeah, it was okay, I guess," attitude just to try to be different? Absurd.
More than likely, Mass Effect works on some *other* level. More subconscious one. It is, perhaps, a fine example of how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If you look too closely at the individual components, if you find their flaws, you'll not notice how magical the entire experience can be. And maybe it's that magical experience that I've stumbled upon entirely by accident.
And maybe it's the just the promise of hot, inter-species lesbo-sex. That could be too, I guess.
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i'm still really early on in the game.
And the fighting turned me off at first, but it is really starting to grow on me. I think once I started to treat is more as an RPG than a Third-person shooter I began to appreciate the combat more.
Then again, I'm still early into it, so I'm probably getting ahead of myself.
Also when I fought Matriarch Benezia I almost through the controller through the TV...
I actually beat her and made it an hour past that part and suddenly died from a grenade. Unfortunately my last save WAS RIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE! And the autosave sucks..
Here's something to keep in mind that you may have overlooked, I know I did: when you are in the weapons/armor select screen, press 'X' and you can add items to your weapons/armor which make them stronger or better suited for certain situations. It took me a long time to realize that.
And fighting Matriarch Benezia was pure torture. It felt to me like the odds were really stacked in her favor.
If you play this game like a generic shooter, you will lose.
@unstoppablejuggernaut Very nice!
I actually really, really enjoy the combat. It took me a couple of hours to figure it out and now I love it. It almost reminds me of a small condensed version of an RTS game. You know where your enemies are, you pause, figured out what weapon to switch to or what ability to unleash on them, position yourself so you don't get hit, wait for abilities to come back, do it again, etc.
The CRAZIEST thing about it is I have a long history of not liking sci-fi stuff. And to think the game that's drawing me in the most right now is indeed sci-fi.