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Mass Effect Review (continued)
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Manufacturer: Electronic Arts
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ESRB Rating: Mature
Platform(s): Windows Vista, Windows XP
Release Date: May 27, 2008
Average Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
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More User Submitted Mass Effect Reviews
Date: 2008-09-12
DRM Ruins this Great PC Port
This was a great PC port. Don't bother renting it from EA though. You'll only be forced to jump through hoops to be able to play it after you install it for the 4th time. For my 4th install I had to wait 6 days to get another install authorized. Now I'm on my 5th install...I've waited 2 days to get a response requesting my EA account, data of birth, and zip code. I've had it with EA.
Date: 2008-09-11
DRM Shovelware
Much like Spore, this game only lets you activate the game 3 times.
If you are a soccer mom and own a dell, you probably will have no problem with this.
If you like to upgrade your hardware and OS frequently then you are in a world a trouble.
When Windows 7 is out, I will not be able to play either this game or Spore unless I call EA (costs $) to free up another activation.
Steam-like protection is the way to go IMO.
Date: 2008-09-11
Excellent sci-fi shooter/RPG hybrid
I've played through Mass Effect half a dozen times now with various characters and it is still fun. The game is in many ways similar to Bioware's previous products (e.g. Knights of the Old Republic), but this time the underlying combat engine is that of a third person shooter and the setting is entirely original (and very well detailed). There are quite a few interesting characters and the main plot is quite good. The side quests are OK, but they would have been even better if Bioware had not re-used each area so many times.
You play a character with a fixed last name (Shepard), but most other things (gender, appearance, background) are left for you to determine as are the choices the character encounters. Unlike Bioware's previous alignment scales, the Paragon/Renegade meters are independent -- getting Paragon points does not mean your Renegade points decrease and vice versa, though in many situations you can only get one or the other.
Unlike in most other Bioware games, the player's reflexes matter a great deal. The character does gain experience, level up and become more powerful as the game progresses, but aiming, dodging the slower moving projectiles, taking cover and so on is always handled by the player. That said, I like the combat system in this -- it plays differently depending on which class you choose and you can always pause to assess the situation and give orders if the action gets too intense.
Technically, the game is well-optimized. I did not expect to be able to max out the graphical settings on my laptop's 8600M GT video card, but it works. There are a few annoyances that will hopefully be addressed in a later patch. Most notably, returning from ALT-TAB takes almost a full minute.
One last note about the DRM: yes, it is annoying and yes, it is not pleasant that EA seems to treat their customers as criminals. However, there is very little new here -- almost every game I've played for the past decade has had either Securom or something even worse associated with it. Even the limited activations part is not new -- Microsoft has been doing that with Office for a while now. With this scheme, at least I don't have to go looking for a disk every time I want to play (it also saves wear and tear on the disk drive).
Date: 2008-09-10
3 time installation limit
I refuse to pay for any software that can only be installed three times without long distance calling some outsourced tech support lackey, at my expense no less. I don't plan on ever begging someone to let me install a game I paid money for 5 or 10 years down the line. Don't buy games with installation limits, you end up the loser when such schemes are used.
Date: 2008-09-10
DRM is a Deal Killer
DRM has been bad in the past (if you scratch a CD you cannot install the game, and you can't backup the CD) but this takes it to new levels. You can only install this game three times. Ever. Have a laptop? A computer for the kids? Plus your own? You've used up your installs. What if you need to reformat your hard drive and reinstall? Can't because you are out of installs.
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