Rejoice! Mass Effect coming to PC in May

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-13 04:31am

Link

Bow down, and rejoice. Re-vamped inventory management system and decryption mini-games, assignable hot keys for more run & gun style of play - oh, and does it go without saying that the elevator rides will be a lot shorter?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-02-13 04:58am

Shame it'll still be riddled with plotholes and really boring then.

I'm surprised they're even KEEPING the decryption 'minigame'. It was hilariously lame and worthless since even if you had no skills you had nigh-infinite gel to use skipping it.

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-13 05:53am

LOL. Is Yahtzee's review of it that accurate then?

(cos his review of Witcher wasn't IMO hehe - I'm fucking immersed in that game)

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-02-13 06:06am

Yeah, his later stuff is way off the mark. Witcher set in medieval England?

It's fine for a playthrough, but it's *really* short (ie, 22h 100% completion all sidequests all planets all skills, you can finish the main quest in 7 hours), the end doesn't make much sense, and the interface was terrible. At least they'll be able to fix the interface by the simple addition of a mouse. Just don't even bother looking for 'exciting sidequests' etc, because there fucking aren't any, and the planets are less exciting than Star Control 2's planets. The combat is sometimes neat though, but the 'charge into melee and kill you with one hit' business meant you basically have to keep a jedi on your team all the time you save your ass.

The 'decryption minigame' was 'press A, B, X or Y as they light up onscreen'. It was absurd and had no place in the game: your guy needs x points of decryption to even try, so why make you play a silly game? Oh right, to provide the illusion that you're actually doing something. Apparrently some people had problems with it, but I found it really easy to do.

Post by **Edi** » 2008-02-13 06:23am

Vympel wrote:LOL. Is Yahtzee's review of it that accurate then?

(cos his review of Witcher wasn't IMO hehe - I'm fucking immersed in that game)

Ah, you too? Witcher fucking rocks. Especially since I started out playing it with the 1.2 patch, so no trouble with the load times and other shit that were a problem in earlier versions.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-02-13 06:34am

It's actually kind of amusing to read about Witcher online: it seems very few people liked it, but I thought it was awesome. People complain about things like 'combat is boring' (because clicking is more boring in realtime than in turnbased) or 'story is confusing' (because a complex world is bad) and such.

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-13 07:54am

Edi wrote: Ah, you too? Witcher fucking rocks. Especially since I started out playing it with the 1.2 patch, so no trouble with the load times and other shit that were a problem in earlier versions.

The good thing is I only started playing the game in earnest after the 1.2 patch hit, so I got very little frustration from the loading times - the combat animations are awesome (especially the fucking sick finishing moves) I like the character advancement system, Geralt's a badass, and the world is refreshing.

It's a little bit rough around the edges in some quests (the Suspect quest in Chapter II springs to mind - somehow Geralt knew that Vivaldi had lost control of his bank, but I never did, yet the option came up in dialog and I was WTFing), but it's barely noticeable.

Heck, even the level of money is well-balanced - you don't have shitloads of cash like in other RPGs, it's a real battle to scrounge up 5,000 Orens for the improved Leather Armor, especially given all the money to invest in books about monsters and ingredients.

Psychic_Sandwich · Post by **Psychic_Sandwich** » 2008-02-13 10:06am

Mass Effect will have been out for, what, six months in May? Is that not a bit of a short time in which to create a decent port?

Civil War Man · Post by **Civil War Man** » 2008-02-13 11:30am

This is one of the reasons I don't buy consoles. Almost any game that's popular/worthwhile eventually gets released on PC.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2008-02-13 12:56pm

this will Vista exclusive or XP/Vista?

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-13 06:02pm

No publisher in its right mind would make Mass Effect Vista exclusive.

Ar-Adunakhor · Post by **Ar-Adunakhor** » 2008-02-13 08:31pm

You know, I remember reading about how Mass Effect was going to be a console exclusive and telling the fanboys that it was a damn lie. Everyone and their brother (or so it seemed) bought into the "never coming to PC" crap and said unless I bought Console X I would never see some of the best games EVAR.

Glad to see that was as laughable as it sounded.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-02-13 08:37pm

Ar-Adunakhor wrote:You know, I remember reading about how Mass Effect was going to be a console exclusive and telling the fanboys that it was a damn lie. Everyone and their brother (or so it seemed) bought into the "never coming to PC" crap and said unless I bought Console X I would never see some of the best games EVAR.

Glad to see that was as laughable as it sounded.

They were also wrong about the game being good. Yay PC, even more lackluster RPGs! GO CUTSCENE POWER!

It would make me laugh if they did a Gears and made the planets more interesting or introduced more content, though.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2008-02-13 08:45pm

'Exclusive' has never meant 'it will only belong to this system'. It means, 'it will only belong to this system for some amount of time'. Half of the popular X-Box 'Exclusives' got ported right over to the PC in a few months, with varying degrees of success.

Of course, this isn't stopping some idiots for actually complaining on some gaming places, so I am told. Apparently, some people are angry they spent money to buy a console, for an 'exclusive' only to have the game come out on another system months later.

Civil War Man · Post by **Civil War Man** » 2008-02-13 08:57pm

Stark wrote:It would make me laugh if they did a Gears and made the planets more interesting or introduced more content, though.

Not the same, but in the KOTOR PC release they added an entire planet. It was just a glorified shop, though the stock was even more powerful than the "Most Powerful Items in the Game" shop on Korriban.

Makes me laugh at anyone who thinks any X-Box RPG, particularly those made by Bioware, will be console exclusive.

By the way, I would like to mention that although I didn't mention Mass Effect by name, it was one of the games I was referring to in this thread

And of course, for most of these games (particularly with the 360 games), it's only a matter of time before a PC version released, if there isn't one already.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2008-02-14 01:47am

People really didn't think that a game for the MICROSOFT X-Box wasn't going to get PCized? Like, really??

Losonti Tokash · Post by **Losonti Tokash** » 2008-02-14 01:56am

Civil War Man wrote:Not the same, but in the KOTOR PC release they added an entire planet. It was just a glorified shop, though the stock was even more powerful than the "Most Powerful Items in the Game" shop on Korriban.

Are you talking about that space station with the Rodian? That was available as downloadable content for the Xbox version.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2008-02-14 04:34am

Considering how much money and support MS is throwing into making their programming tools as capable as possible in targeting both the XBOX360 and the PC, as well as all the recent movement on the PC side for it to work (Games for Windows, etc.), anyone not expecting a well-selling XBOX game to come to the PC is stupid. Its in MS's best interest because they control both platforms and it has benefits which ever way you cut it (extra profits, stopping PC gamers from going out and buying a console which might be the OMG PS3, etc.) and they are always willing to spend money and engineering support for things they see to be in their interest.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2008-02-14 06:43am

Losonti Tokash wrote:
Civil War Man wrote:Not the same, but in the KOTOR PC release they added an entire planet. It was just a glorified shop, though the stock was even more powerful than the "Most Powerful Items in the Game" shop on Korriban.
Are you talking about that space station with the Rodian? That was available as downloadable content for the Xbox version.

That's likely what the PC version will get. The DLC pack that's been announced built in, and maybe another one that will subsequently be released over Live.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2008-02-14 06:58am

Vympel wrote:No publisher in its right mind would make Mass Effect Vista exclusive.

Microsoft is the publisher

At the very least it will require Windows XP, and probably will not work on Windows 2000 at all (or the installer will block it)

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-14 08:02am

Microsoft is the publisher

No, EA is the publisher. Reading links is good for you. Bioware is owned by EA.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2008-02-14 12:47pm

Vympel wrote:
Microsoft is the publisher
No, EA is the publisher. Reading links is good for you. Bioware is owned by EA.

I think he meant a publisher who'd make stuff Vista exclusive like MS did with Halo 2 (which is the reason I never got it even though I liked Halo).

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2008-02-14 05:45pm

Vympel wrote:
Microsoft is the publisher
No, EA is the publisher. Reading links is good for you. Bioware is owned by EA.

Microsoft is the publisher of the xbox 360 version and likely has considerable controlling interest in what the PC publisher (EA) can do.

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-14 05:56pm

Xon wrote: Microsoft is the publisher of the xbox 360 version and likely has considerable controlling interest in what the PC publisher (EA) can do.

Given that Bioware is the developer and EA owns Bioware, not Microsoft, I don't see how there could be a legal or commercial basis for that to be the case. They wouldn't do something that would achieve nothing but limit their sales so Microsoft (to whom they owe nothing) could sell more copies of Vista without a damn good reason, like a massive bribe.

And in any event, Gears of War for the PC wasn't Vista only, and it was an original X360 exclusive, published by Microsoft.