Nerdy post

[teenonfire4evil]

So I finally picked up Mass Effect on PC yesterday... I squeezed in a good evening and morning, and I gotta say that I really enjoy the KOTOR flavor blended with a nice shooter edge. The dialogue interactions are well rendered, and I hear there are boobs in it, so I'm sure I will enjoy the character development and storyline. In fact, the only

Comments

[beeporama]

What class are you playing? For most, it's more about the awesome new tech/biotic powers than the weapons.

But the story is that good. I think the combat is like combat in Buffy The Vampire Slayer: more there to break up the tension and keep things exciting than being the whole point of the experience.

[teenonfire4evil]

I started out playing tech/adept, but decided that life sucked without having my main character have some sort of range-capable weapon, so I started over with soldier. Usually in these kinds of games I make my primary character a combat tank, and use my teammates for the healing/hacking/big magic damage, since they usually require a lot less micromanagement than the plinking off bad guys my main guy is doing. Since the default character is a soldier, I figured I couldn't go wrong with it.

Any advice?

[beeporama]

I think the Vanguard (Soldier/Adept combo) is the best first time class, because it's pretty tough and gives you a feel for both using the powers as well as straight-up combat. Soldier is supposed to be the best class for just powering through without dickering around without being tactical and shit; if you like tanking you chose right.

I would say, don't waste your skill points on using all weapons. Pick either the Assault Rifle or Pistol, and focus on it and the shotgun; most of your fights will be close or medium range with the Soldier class. Bump up your defensive skills; your primary job is to stay alive, because eventually you will be able to resurrect fallen teamates, but they can't resurrect you. That last part is important if you're tanking; know when to retreat and let your squad take the bullets, because, it's OK if they die

[beeporama]

Oh, I forgot to add: it's easy to get weapon fatigue, and I don't think you have to spend too much time dicking around with customizing, and probably even shouldn't. You'll probably put on certain mods and just keep them there.

However, it is worth switching the ammo out on your personal primary weapon (pistol/assault rifle) to the anti-machine/anti-organic ammo, depending on what you're fighting.

You can usually just leave the "knockback" ammo on the shotgun, and leave your allies armed with either the freezing/burning/toxic ammo.

Damn, talking about this makes me want to play through a sixth time.

[inmostlight]

Yes, by far my biggest gripe with Mass Effect was that the inventory and weapon system was so lame. By about 1/3 of the way through you can have the best weapon in the game, and there are entirely too many different ammo/effect doodads without much difference. It's just a number game, I would have liked it better if say guns from one company had some noticeable difference from other companies other than just their numbers. And in the final third of the game inventory is basically irrelevant and just annoying when you keep coming across items that are useless, and selling them is useless because there's nothing else good left to buy.

[inmostlight]

That said, Mass Effect also has one of the best final acts of any game I've ever played. It's like three or four hours of nothing but "Holy shit!" moments.

[teenonfire4evil]

yeah... I recognized it as the game's weak point pretty fast. I typically enjoy games with a lot of fun weapon customization options and such, but in games like this, most of the effects are just number hashing that happen inside the black box in ways that aren't in any way visually apparent... you might just kill robots the slightest bit faster, or take a tiny bit less damage from hits. I'm pretty much the kind of gamer that likes a lot of big flashes and loud explosions... if I get a gun that does a lot more damage than my last one, I want to FEEL it.

[hoptoad]

combat actually got easier for me toward the end. actually, right after feros. i was taking down big tank baddies with one shot no problem.

i played an infiltrator first time out and my fave backup was garrus and wrex. i rushed sniper development and spectre training. then focused on charm/intimidate and electronics. but then like inmostlight said, that was kinda useless. i just kept getting the same stuff OVER and OVER. i have so much money half way through that i just stopped checking stuff.

also, it TOTALLY should have been decent 3 with a scottish pilot.