Empty consoles.

**TinCow** · 01-13-2009, 22:44

Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

Mass Effect. If you haven't played the PC version pick it up on the 360. It's tied with Planescape: Torment as my favourite western style RPG.

Wow, that's some high praise right there. This may be a bit off topic, but I'm curious to know what aspects of the game you liked so much to warrant that level of a recommendation.

I personally found the main storyline interesting and engaging, but thought the actual choices given for my actions were pretty limited, the gameplay was repetitive, the inventory system was one of the worst I have ever seen, and the vehicle driving/planet exploration portions were tedious. I would certainly recommend it for a single playthrough on the strength of the main storyline and the details of the game universe, but equal to PS:T?

**frogbeastegg** · 01-14-2009, 15:00

I like then for (mostly) different reasons.

Torment is all about the characters, dialogue, and unravelling that delicious story. Exploring the world is a secondary delight for me, with much of the attraction coming from opening up new dialogue, backstory etc. The third big attraction is the options. You could usually find another way to approach situations.

Away from those things, I didn't like the gameplay that much. As in the Baldur's Gate series et al, the parts based most strongly on AD&D rules didn't engage me. Combat. Trap detecting. Lock picking. The insistence on giving everything a mob of stats instead of a useful description.

When I think of Torment I think of finding Fall From Grace, or Annah's comments, or Morte and his teeth upgrades, or that maze, or Dakon's story. I don't think about pause-clicking my way through yet another mob of gutter thieves.

I have played Torment ... four times? Possible five. I have never finished it - each time I get to a certain point close to the end the game slows to sub 1FPS and becomes unplayable. That's happened on every computer I have tried it on. There is no fix. Each time I start it I know I will not get to see the end, yet it is my single most replayed game.

Mass Effect is flawed, buggy, and I know I probably shouldn't like it as much as I do, but what can I do? I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. Cliched as the plot might have been, it engaged and it produced some brilliantly memorable moments. Cliched as the world was, I loved finding out more about it. Cliched as the characters were, one particular decision I had to make gutted me because I didn't want to have to choose. Together, those points fall under the heading that a well-told familiar story is better than a poorly told new one. Another thing I found, looking at it with a writer's eyes, is that this universe has a lot of milage in it. It's filled with opportunity. That's not a feeling I often get with games.

Average as the combat was, it was a far sight better than "pause, click, unpause ... pause, click, unpause" a la Torment and co. It was enjoyable in its own right, and lies at the heart of two of the game's standout moments for me. Dodgy as the frame rate and technical production values could be, the non-technical values were high indeed. The voice acting in particular is some of the best I have encountered, especially for the female version of Shepard. Repetitive as some of the side quests were ... I can't pan the game for it, as most RPGs have repetitive and/or dull side quests, including the old classics. At least with these I had some fun, rather than wishing I could run faster and get it over with. Some of those side quests were good in their own right. The ship with the man on life support, for example. The mako was a pain to drive; so are the vehicles in most games. At least this one had a rocket launcher and could jump most obstructions.

When I think of Mass Effect I don't think about driving around planet number 29 in a hunt for the 6th Geth attack squad. I think of spending most of an hour on a certain fabled planet talking to a certain rare artifact because I found the information it had to be utterly absorbing. I think about charging an entire space station, running about in space, and telling some highly irritating people to fend for themselves. I remember having my own high tech space ship and being able to go wherever I wanted for whatever purpose.

I have completed Mass Effect with all side quests etc once, and immediately went back for a second, equally thorough playthrough. I was close to completing that one when I had to put it to one side. Why? My boyfriend decided he wanted to play it. He's not much of a gamer, and has never showed an interest in any other RPGs I own.

I guess the most telling thing I can say about Mass Effect is that I completed it in around 45 hours. Normally that would be a month's play time for me. Here it took under 2 weeks. That's how much I liked it.

**TinCow** · 01-14-2009, 15:16

Those are very fair comments, and I completely agree with you about PS:T's flaws. It deserves its spot as the gold standard of storytelling, character development, and freedom of choice. However, as you point out, it has an absurd number of gameplay flaws that most fans overlook. I've personally only finished it once, and my other 3+ tries have all failed due to corrupted saves or other tech problems. It is, simply put, a buggy mess of a game. While I'm a huge fan of the Infinity Engine, PS:T made a massive mistake by trying to implement that radial menus system. It's very confusing, slow, and clunky. The same type of system was tried in Temple of Elemental Evil, and it caused the same problems there. PS:T to me is the best example of how to create a story, and an excellent example of how bad technical design can ruin a game.

**Vladimir** · 01-14-2009, 20:21

Originally Posted by TinCow

Those are very fair comments, and I completely agree with you about PS:T's flaws. It deserves its spot as the gold standard of storytelling, character development, and freedom of choice. However, as you point out, it has an absurd number of gameplay flaws that most fans overlook. I've personally only finished it once, and my other 3+ tries have all failed due to corrupted saves or other tech problems. It is, simply put, a buggy mess of a game. While I'm a huge fan of the Infinity Engine, PS:T made a massive mistake by trying to implement that radial menus system. It's very confusing, slow, and clunky. The same type of system was tried in Temple of Elemental Evil, and it caused the same problems there. PS:T to me is the best example of how to create a story, and an excellent example of how bad technical design can ruin a game.

Like with any game I recommend everyone try the user created mods. There are links on the Gamebanshee forums and planescape-torment.org. This is why I prefer computer games so much. However, I thoroughly enjoyed Morrowind in the X-box.

**CrossLOPER** · 01-23-2009, 16:25

OK, so here is the list I generated. Anyone have anything else that absolutely needs to be here? Granted, I'm probably only going to get some of these over a period of months, but if something is truly worth getting over the others, I'm all ears.

XBOX360
*Mirror's Edge
*Dead Space
*Mass Effect
*GTA IV
*Halo (xbox)
*Ninja Gaiden Black (xbox)
*Beyond Good and Evil (xbox)
*Psychonauts (xbox)
*Fable (xbox)
*Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow (xbox)
*Gears of War
*Assassin's Creed
*Bioshock
PS2
*Max Payne 2
*God of War 2
*Okami
*Shadow of the Colossus
*Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
*Devil May Cry
*Resident Evil (ps)
*Metal Gear Solid
*Silent Hill (ps)