Games | Superior Realities

If you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you’ll recall that I bought the original Mass Effect many moons ago but was unable to play due to compatibility issues with Windows 7. This enraged me and nearly soured me on Bioware’s games permanently, but I did finally get around to playing the later games in the series.

That left me wondering what the original was like, so when I got my new computer, I decided to see if I could get it working. And to my surprise, I was able to.

I’m not sure why I wasn’t able to on the old computer. The fix I used was a little convoluted to execute, but it was not hard to find, and I can’t believe I wouldn’t have found it before. Maybe the fix to get it working on Windows 7 hadn’t been released yet when I looked the first time?

Anyway, the point is I was able to play through the original Mass Effect without issues.

I’m not quite sure how to rate this game. If I had to describe it in a word, it would be, “wonky.” Not bad, per se. Just wonky.

Firstly, the game reeks of “console port” in the worst way possible. It’s blatantly obvious the control scheme was not originally designed with the PC in mind, so it’s sloppy and awkward at the best of times.

There are also a lot of weird mechanics that just… don’t feel right. For instance, the overheat mechanic just feels weird in comparison to a more traditional reload option. And why the bloody hell does Shepard move so slowly?

The pacing is all over the map, too. Much of the character development and optional content is front-loaded onto the first half of the game. As a result, the early parts of the game feel too slow, and the last half feels too rushed.

Mass Effect does feel a bit more like a game, and not a “choose your adventure” novel, than the later installments, but not necessarily in a good way. The gameplay of later ME titles may be shallow and minimalistic, but at least it’s functional. Aside from the issues I’ve already mentioned, the original is bogged down by a lot of what I like to call “RPG BS.”

For instance, this time around, I rolled a class primarily based on fighting with a sniper rifle. But it took me until at least halfway through the game to train up my sniper rifle skill to the point where it was actually useful for anything.

I can’t believe idiotic mechanics like this ever existed in the first place, let alone that they didn’t die the death they so richly deserve back in the ’90s.

I do try to make allowances for the game’s age, but even so, there’s a lot about Mass Effect that just feels awkward and… indefinably wrong somehow.

It was disappointingly short, too. At least the later games were pretty meaty in the content they offered. I blew through this one in just a few days.

But don’t let all those complaints give you the impression I didn’t like the game. It still had a lot going for it. The story, while occasionally inconsistent, is pretty good, and it has all the great character development I’ve come to expect from the Mass Effect series.

I found it interesting to see how the characters had changed and evolved since the beginning. I’m inclined to say that Tali and Wrex changed the most as time went on, while Garrus changed the least. Shoot ’em all and let the spirits sort ’em out, eh, Garrus?

Liara actually displayed some personality this time around, even if it was just that of the blushing damsel in distress waiting to be swept off her feet by Shepard. She’s still easily the least interesting squad member, in my view.

Some missions suffered from pacing issues, but a few were very fun. The Virmire mission is definitely going down as one of the better moments from the entire trilogy.

This game feels a bit more organic than the later installments, too. The maps are a bit bigger and less linear, and I much prefer the elevator rides to endless load screens.

I’m going to do a full play-through of all three games in order, making all different choices this time around. I’ve only played one class and made mostly the same choices so far, so I’m going to try to be as different as possible this time. For instance, I’ve only ever played the later games with Ashley, so this time I chose to save Kaidan. Turns out he’s a pretty cool guy, but I still think I might like Ashley slightly better.

I feel like I should go full renegade this time since I only ever play paragon, but I just never enjoy being the bad guy. I also considered being a male Shepard this time around, but I still really dislike that guy’s voice acting. And it doesn’t really make much of a difference anyway. Male Shepard gets better romance options, but it’s not worth putting up with his monotone for three games.

I’ll probably do another post on my thoughts on the series as a whole once I complete the play through.

New article:

My latest article at ADANAI is Gamer Demographics Dispel Stereotypes.

Yes, girls do, in fact, play video games. In large numbers.

No, I’m still not done lavishing praise on this game.

I had an interesting day in the Secret World recently. Nothing truly spectacular happened, but there were a lot of little moments that reminded me why I love this game, and I’ve gained an even greater appreciation for some parts of it.

Adapt, or die:

Having completed the storyline on my Dragon, I decided to go back to my Templar a bit because there are still some nice Templar outfits I want to unlock. I didn’t want to repeat the same Carpathian Fangs content I’d just done on my main, though, so I decided I’d focus my efforts elsewhere.

This sent me to the Last Train to Cairo. In some ways, the arc was actually more fun the second time, since I knew the tricks to all the stealth bits. But the train sequence proved surprisingly frustrating. Whereas my main had little trouble, my poor Templar kept getting overwhelmed and killed by the cultists.

Eventually, I through up my hands in disgust and switched from my pistol/sword focus build to a chaos/sword tank build, which is much tougher but more boring to play. This let me finish the mission, but I was dismayed by how much worse my Templar’s build was compared to my Dragon’s.

It continued nettling at me as I moved on to Transylvania and began repeating missions — mostly nightmares. I began to despair of being able to continue using the pistol build I enjoyed.

The problem is that many builds in this game require you to generate five or so resources before using your finishers. I find this gets tedious rather fast, so I use builds that avoid that. My Dragon uses blood magic, whose finishers usually require less than five resources. My Templar uses Finish the Movement, a passive that doubles resource generation from focus builders, such as are found in the pistol tree.

Also, pistols look cool.

So my chaos build worked, but it wasn’t fun, and my pistols build is fun, but I had anemic damage and died too much.

I feared I might have to come up with something totally new, but I refused to give in. I dove into the wilds of the ability wheel and began designing new builds with different passives.

I took inspiration from my Dragon and devised a build based on affliction and penetration. Interestingly, my Templar’s version of it uses almost entirely different passives, but the result is the same: penetrations galore.

Wow, that does not sound right.

After some experimentation, I found a new set of passives that greatly boosted her damage, allowing her to defeat enemies before they could wear down her health. The extra penetrations also allowed Immortal Spirit to trigger more enough, slightly increasing her self-healing.

Between the new build and some gear upgrades from Last Train and the Venice vendors in Transylvania, my Templar is suddenly much more powerful than she was before, though still not quite as good as my Dragon. I’ve even managed to do some nightmare missions with the pistol build, with only a few modifications.

And the best part? She still plays more or less the same. I still have largely the same actives, and I still have Finish the Movement keeping things fun.

I’m not normally someone who enjoys theorycrafting in the slightest, but I find experimenting with different builds in this game incredibly rewarding. There are just so many options, and it’s so easy to try different ideas.

There’s a lot to find:

At the same time, I also spent a fair bit of time exploring, something I haven’t done much of in this game. To my surprise, it actually proved fairly enjoyable. For all that exploring a virtual world is one of the main selling points of most MMOs, exploration is generally pretty pointless in most games, with a few notable exceptions. Guild Wars 2 comes to mind.

I won’t pretend TSW makes exploration as interesting as GW2 does, but I did find a surprising amount of lore honeycombs, item missions, and rare mobs by venturing off the beaten path. Nothing terribly rewarding from a power perspective, but enough to make it feel like a fun little treasure hunt.

Plus, the game world is very spooky and immersive, so that adds to the experience. Recent experiences with games like Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter have shown me that — for me — an MMO lives or dies by how much I care about and enjoy the world, and I certainly enjoy the Secret World.

This is an area where the difficulty of the game really works in its favour. Exploration isn’t so fun in World of Warcraft because quest mobs are never a threat. What’s the point of exploration if there’s no thrill of danger? In TSW, braving the unknown actually takes, well, bravery, so that makes for a more compelling experience.

On the other hand, the world isn’t carpeted with random mobs constantly trying to gank you. There are generally only enemies where there need to be enemies — mission areas and the like. This means you’re not constantly getting jumped any time you go anywhere as you are in most MMOs, so that prevents exploration from getting tedious.

One of these days I’m gonna run out of nice things to say about this game. It hasn’t happened yet.

Speaking of outfits…

Shortly before writing this post, I succeeded in unlocking my latest Templar deck: Puritan. Note that the hat is a separate item and not part of the deck uniform.

Dang it, why do Templars get all the nice clothes?

Superior Realities

Category Archives: Games

Mass Effect: Better Late Than Never + New Article

An Educational Day in The Secret World