Mass Effect

[Bob the Insane]

Actually conversations do have an effect... your equivalent of light and darkside go up depending on what you say and that has a direct effect on the ending of the game.

You are correct of course, but I did not really mean the conversation had not effect (I explained myself poorly), I meant that it had no greater overall effect then the old style stop and go, choose your response from a list style of converstion. It just flowed better...

I had a ME marathon and finished it with my James Shepard Soldier/Commando...

The last save game listed 36 hours and I think I did quite a lot of side quests.

I have mixed feelings overall, the only one landable planet (or ship) per system with 1 to 5 systems per cluster seems a little mean. And once you get down there (planetside), between 3 and 6 places of interest, often a crashed probe(and quite why searching a crashed probe would turn up an assault rifle I have no idea!) and some abondoned installation...

The story is fantastic and the end is really intense. However the overall story is really pretty short once you get stuck in. You really need to fill up your time on other quests to keep things interesting, which can kill the realism a little towards the end where the story is giving it "we must hurry, we are ina race to save the galaxy", but you can in reality mess about polishing off your side quests...

It seems to be missing alot of depth, there are little in the way of factions and there does not seem to be any building of optional relationships (I don't mean the romance thing) with those factions. YOu don;t so much get side quests as you are assigned missions with a defined goal and possibly some options in the execution... The story is pretty straight really, a bit of a railroad with optional sidings, but to progress you need to return to the main track... It does not feel as open as Oblivion, nor as populated. The only built up places you go to are main story elements, every where else is a back water or uninhabited. And the vast bulk of your missions is taking out the opposition in some manner...

Reading over the above, I am being overly critical. This is a great game, but I expected more...