StarDestroyer.Net BBS

For those interested in Bioware's new game http://uk.xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/ ... 047p1.html

chung16 wrote:For those interested in Bioware's new game http://uk.xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/ ... 047p1.html

Ugh, could this look like any more of a advertisement? I don't know if this guy is a shill, but that's a pretty hilarious way to introduce some info. There's actually a better source of info at the Mass Effect wiki, which I will not link to. ;p

Yeah, stuff like this just gives me 'lol Bioshock' vibes for Mass Effect, and that makes me sad. Such over-anticipatory hype tends to make one cyncial.

chung16 wrote:*snip game ad*

Aaagh! I'm looking forward to the damn game, too, but someone at Gamespy needs to have their brain shoved through an encyclopedia. The singular of Homo sapiens is NOT "Homo sapien"! And it's in the first damn paragraph, too.

Stark wrote:Yeah, stuff like this just gives me 'lol Bioshock' vibes for Mass Effect, and that makes me sad. Such over-anticipatory hype tends to make one cyncial.

Sadly, Bioshock didn't even live up to it's most conservative estimates, let alone the idea that it's the Second Coming of S-S-Shodan. The game does have what most consider to be a new high standard in storytelling, but... ah well, we've been over that. I'd love, perhaps, a BioShcok novel, comic book, animated series or movie. As it is, the game itself is kinda meh though, outside of the story. I really need to replay it and actually pick up those journal things. I got, like, four of them, which is probably why the game seemed so flat. That and I only have a shader model 2 card, so I'm using the neutered graphics settings.

Mass Effect does look pretty sweet, but does anyone really give a flying flaming fuck about the storyline and such? That's the shit you mash the spacebar to skip through. I love story, yes I do. I really, honestly do. But a good story will not save a lackluster game. Until I get some mass effect in-game footage of me butchering badguys I can't get excited.

I really need to replay it and actually pick up those journal things. I got, like, four of them, which is probably why the game seemed so flat. That and I only have a shader model 2 card, so I'm using the neutered graphics settings.

How can you say Bioshock was hardly the second coming of System Shock when you didn't pick up any of the journals? System Shock would be a far lesser game too if you didn't pick up any of the diaries.

Covenant wrote: Mass Effect does look pretty sweet, but does anyone really give a flying flaming fuck about the storyline and such? That's the shit you mash the spacebar to skip through.

But... you can't.

Well, you shouldn't, anyway. Not unless you want to piss everyone off.

Covenant wrote:Mass Effect does look pretty sweet, but does anyone really give a flying flaming fuck about the storyline and such?

...I do.
It's an RPG. Role-playing game. Meaning that it's supposed to be a story that you can get yourself involved in. You may be fine playing Tetris-with-aliens, but most of Mass Effect's target audience is probably looking for story as one of the primary draws.

Sadly, I'm curious about the story too. Simply because it's not a 'join-the-dots' to uncover the story thing, you apparently get to do what you want (although their 'good-bad' system is STILL stupid, even if it's better than the retarded system used elsewhere). So long as it works (and there are real consequences) the game might even have replay value.

Anyway, a modern Starflight with some shooting and some nice writing would be nice. Hopefully it won't be laughably easy/short.

Stark wrote:Sadly, I'm curious about the story too. Simply because it's not a 'join-the-dots' to uncover the story thing, you apparently get to do what you want (although their 'good-bad' system is STILL stupid, even if it's better than the retarded system used elsewhere). So long as it works (and there are real consequences) the game might even have replay value.

Anyway, a modern Starflight with some shooting and some nice writing would be nice. Hopefully it won't be laughably easy/short.

I heard they had changed it to a "factions"-based ethics system. Are you sure it's still the NWN-ish stuff?

Oh, yeah, but instead of 'faction' or 'reputation' which goes up and down, it's split into 'good things you did value' and 'bad things you did value', so doing a good thing doesn't make the bad thing go away (ie, rep from -5 to +5), it means you now have 5 evil points and 5 good points with that faction.

I'm hoping beyond this there are still scripted links, like people actually mentioning specific events you took part in. That sort of thing could be really dynamic.

Vympel wrote:

I really need to replay it and actually pick up those journal things. I got, like, four of them, which is probably why the game seemed so flat. That and I only have a shader model 2 card, so I'm using the neutered graphics settings.

How can you say Bioshock was hardly the second coming of System Shock when you didn't pick up any of the journals? System Shock would be a far lesser game too if you didn't pick up any of the diaries.

Yeah, and that's part of the issue. I'm not flaming them for that, I'm just saying it was extremely hard to really enjoy the game because of the way a lot of the journals were hidden to the point that I missed basically all of them besides... well, a few random ones. I got most of the Surgeon's files, but those are pretty worthless, and just to build him up as a scary guy. Honestly I didn't even know why I was supposed to be scared, I just shotgunned him and that was that. I had one of those buzzer droids, man I love those.

Anyway, my issue with BioShock has always been the shootergame aspect. Since they basically neutered the RPG stuff from SystemShock to make it compatible with the console gamers, the BioShock system was sooo much less deep. Food become instant-touch powerups. I can't, like, smoke later. If I touch the cigs, I smoke them right now. That's a pain. And the customization... and so on, and so on. And the shooting play wasn't even that complicated. The enemies weren't either--they even reused the old guys just by having them all upgrade themselves, which is somewhat annoying. It's like halfway, all the badguys use rocketlaunchers. Eh.

So it was a great storyline that I missed just because I was unable to see the journals most of the time, and a rather lackluster shooter.

I hope Mass Effect's story is really epic and great and everything. I really hope that the storyline/gameplay interaction is a lot above the Oblivion/Fallout style, though. Those were both excellent and fun games, but I find it extremely immersion-breaking to have random people I meet send me on fetch quests, talk to me about their lives, and such.

I'm of two minds on this. There are some games I play for the story, like Planescape:Torment and I enjoy the story as it unfolds, but if the gameplay itself is somewhat bland then it becomes just an intermission between the storyline elements. No story, no matter how good, is going to give me the replay value that good ol' monster bashing will. Games with zero story and all gameplay are what people play ad nasuem multiplayer and such. A storyline game, where the storyline itself is the interesting part, is generally just a somewhat mundane book. I love reading, so I don't need to get my story fix in a game.

That's what I mean. If the game itself is tiresome then there's much less motivation for me to actually play the game. I could, theoretically, just cheat or read the walkthrough. A role-playing game is not excused from needing to put in fun game conventions (not necessarily new ones) to make the game itself fun to play. Playing another game where I either become the savior of mankind or snidely whiplash is really not that appealing, as I've done it so many times that I know what the covnentions are going to be.

KotoR is an example of a game that had a really fun gameplay (to me), and whose story made the action even more fun. I also really enjoyed the story in Halflife 2, and felt it kept the action going. My demands aren't that complex. I just don't like when it feels like the game itself is tacked on to someone's Great Huge Story about overcoming adversity by finding something special within yourself.

My major concern at this point is that Mass Effect's combat looks like a bad shooter. Sure it's pausable with tactics and shit, but it looks bland and uninspired. If the combat sucks, the game will suck.