Watching the first 20 minutes of Mass Effect played by a cute BioWare representative, I couldn't help but be reminded of a ventriloquist I saw on America's Got Talent a few nights ago. Why I happened to be watching America's Got Talent is none of your business, but let it be known that I wasn't happy about it.
Now, the thing about Mass Effect is that it seemed, more or less, like a ventriloquist's dummy. Of course, it was a very nice-modeled, well-rendered dummy with nice textures, but nothing more. The game, much like Pinocchio, lacks life.
The gameplay looks like your standard FPS fare, which is to say that I didn't see anything great or remarkable. There's a variety of weapons and abilities to use, but my pants didn't get wet or tight because of them. Gameplay is kind of hard to judge without an actual controller in your hands, so I'm going to reserve judgment on that.
Where the presentation really fell short, however, is in the emotionless voice acting and subpar facial animations. Not only did the conversation lack the natural ebb and flow to which we were all looking forward, but it was as if the voice actor's took commas, question marks, and exclamations points out of their repertoire. The dialogue has about as much emotional engagement as a grocery list. Even worse, the facial animations match the shoddy voice acting: the mouths move, and that's about it. It'd be great for a Joan Rivers botox sim, but it doesn't really make for a compelling video game.
At worst, Mass Effect is disappointing. The best reaction I've heard all day was this: "It wasn't that bad, just more of the same." If "not that bad" is all you've got going for you ...
Ho hum.
Contest:
12:57 AM on 08.25.2007
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I saw a gameplay video a few weeks back and it totally put me off buying the game. It looks kind of sticky and lumpy. There was no fluidity to the way the character was interacting with anything and the shooter elements looked very primative. There was a distinct lack of "gloss" to the whole mechanic, or it certainly looked that way to me...
...but I'm an idiot, feel free to disregard.
They should let fans, and journalists play the games a few months in advance to point out this kind of stuff.
Maybe they should just let you play in advance. :]
But the animation straight up sucks fucking balls. More specifically, the facial animation. HL2 came out 3 years ago and still has the best facial animation to date. Games on the 360, especially big budget title has no fucking reason to have shitty 50 morph point sucky facial animations. The mouth moves crappily and there is almost no expression whatsoever. An occasional eyebrow raise looks terrible and at all other time, there is absolutely no expression on any characters face during the game.
Mainly because I am a BioWare fanboy.
That is all.
A month ago people were shitting themselves. Now with one little reflection it seems people were swayed to a negative feeling... you gotta have more independence and back bone than that!!
The quality level of this game looks to be refreshing. Disappointed is a bit of a harsh term when you're wishing for 10 steps past excellence...forget the hype.
oh yeah and I bet it's fun too....remember fun? Not too many games bother with that anymore haha
This just backs it up. Thanks for being honest, Orcist. Rock.
Damn good point.
I am very proud to read destructoid articles that keep it real, specially Orcist, when you see something sweet u say it, when u see shit, u go with diarrhea to the rest room.
even that Car that does a jump, wtf is that, and when it roles on water, theres nothing realistic or detailed there.
Thanks man.
Bioshock possibly sacrificed extending the KOTOR series "which was a very big deal mind you, especially since i am still clinging to hope for KOTOR3" themselves in favor of developing mainly MASS EFFECT, and a little Jade Empire i believe. Regardless, Mass Effect has been in the works for quite awhile, and to say that such an accomplished developer like Bioware will disappoint us b/c Mass Effect's dialog system was "lifeless, lacked flow", or because "the gameplay is kind of hard to judge without a controller in your hands" just seems ridiculous to me. I guess people around here are not done jacking off to Bioshock yet, being the big ex sponsor and all.
dialogue: full of life
gameplay: totally judgeable without a controller in my hands....
...while blindfolded.
I don't know how they're working the animation angle, but I figure with their engine it would be simple to drop a few quick graphical tweaks into a line of speech to add to the conversations. No doubt the system is automated considering the amount of speech in a title like this.
I remove my nonexistent hat to those on the QA team for this game. I hope you guys get a boatload of overtime and can pay off those student loans.
I just hope i can overlook said lifeless convo
3) This is the first game where you can actively cut-off the character you're conversing with and respond in like. So guy, name another game where that is possible? What other game has MORE REALISTIC DIALOG??
5) Every video/screenshot/preview screams "POLISH". This isn't a game that by watching someone play 20 minutes you can a) immerse yourself in and b) draw a conslusion to it's greatness or lack thereof.
6) THE FRICKIN GAME IS HUGE!!! (again, how do you draw conclusions so quickly) There's even a novel that you can get the backstory on the universe. There will be 2 sequels to Mass Effect. The doctors claim that NO ONE will be able to see everything in a single play-through. Once you're home alone and begin playing it YOURSELF, give us your opinion after, let's say, 10-20 hours.
8) Gamespot saw a recent build in Leipzig (assume where you did as well). Quick notes from Gamespot.. 'dramatic story points', 'heated discussion', 'tense, pivitol situations', 'dialogue sequences exhibiting a lot of polish and flowing smoothly'.
Does this sound like lack of drama or lifeless dialog?
But then again, I'm swedish, and we rarely show any emotions.