Mass Effect Features Great Graphics, Blatant Flaws

By Ian Crone of Columbia Spectator
Published December 5, 2007

"Despite its wasted potential, Mass Effect really is an awesome game, with an extraordinary narrative and memorable characters, striking - if occasionally glitchy - visuals, and passable combat. It's only the brilliance of the game that makes its flaws so apparent, and nothing can change the fact that game developer BioWare has produced one of the finest sci-fi role-playing games of all time. If BioWare can fix the problems and keep the essence intact, Mass Effect 2 - a trilogy, at least, is planned - will be an instant classic."

This review does not assign a rating or score.

[Dr Pepper]

I find it strange that Mass Effect is looked down upon for its texture loading issues, but both Gears of War (not as much) and Bioshock (about the same) have the same problem.

Anyway, the game is awesome and if you haven't played it yet I suggest you do. It's an epic experience.

[gamesR4fun]

ya still very much a good game worth it for any hardcore rpg fan but ya it does have some big flaws and an awful lot of loading...

Gears was better imo has for Bioshock only played it on my pc and its smooth (if i tweak the option just so) but Ive seen it on the 360 (my dads a total addict) and its not near has bad either I mean the pop ups a frame drops are massive in ME. Still speaks volumes for the game that so many are enjoying it. Let alone the gameplay quirks like the bad AI and driving that stupid mako what makes it worst is the targeting gets thrown all out of whack on every little dip in the terrain.
Nope not a game without its flaws tho you'd never think so given all the reviews eh...

[BLACKJACK VII]

Hey DP, just for you, when you beat Hardcore you get this killer pic of Saren for a gamerpic (my avatar). Working on Insanity now - peace out...

MASS EFFECT FTW !!!

[CNIVEK]

"Roughly 95 percent of the planets in Mass Effect’s universe are covered in mountains, but the tank climbs terribly. Steering is an exercise in futility, and occasionally a subterranean worm will pop out of the ground and kill you.."

The Mako steers and climbs EXACTLY like Halo's Warthog, just without the rear-wheel steering....and is VERY EASY to master. One of my favorite things to do, is climb to the highest point on every planet, and checkout the surrounding view ; believe it or not, it's possible. :)

[InMyOpinion]

I'm surprised so many reviewers found it glitchy and that it has visual flaws. They seem desperate to focus on the tiny flaws instead of looking at the big picture. The first time I played it I was convinced it was gonna get 10's everywhere. I've played it for 15 hours now and I haven't noticed any except for the texture loading when you start it up. Really, no more than in any other game.

It's funny cause the same reviewers compare it and say KOTOR was flawless. If you have played any of the KOTOR games you know they had much more glitches, graphical slowdowns etc. than Mass Effect. I remember the glitch in KOTOR 2, at the beginning were you got to play as a robot for a while then when it switched back to the main character the game just froze. When you tried loading your saved game you just got to the freezing point(!).

IMO Mass Effect is too good of a game to let reviewers decide. If your hesitating if you should get it or not, try it out yourself before you listen too much on the reviewers. This goes for almost any game.

[The_Engineer]

of xbots use the same REVIEWERS to tell us there are no AAA PS3 titles we're supposed to take you seriously. I don't think most xbots realize how much of a joke they are to REAL gamers.

[Ureval]

I think if KOTOR had the power that ME has it would by far be the better game. ME has some great combat, but in KOTOR there was a lot more options in upgrading your charcter. You had i think like 6 different slots for upgrading your armor, plus all the light saber and weapon upgrades. Obviously the combat in the two games is different, but aside from that, storywise and as an RPG KOTOR was better. Personally, aside from insane loading times, I dont recall KOTOR having a lot of technical issues, not half as much or half as obvious as ME.

All in all technical issues aside ME is a stripped down, but prettier version of KOTOR. If they get those tech issues fixed and make the game more immersive ME2 will be a superior game.

[InMyOpinion]

Hmmm...Did I even mention the PS3 in my comment? Read my last sentence.

But if you want to go there, here's a question for you:

I didn't see many AAA PS3 games nominated for GOTY. How come they don't win any awards if they are as great as you claim?

[InMyOpinion]

This review must be written by someone who truly hates RPG's. It seems like he was intent on hating Mass Effect even before he played it.

[SuperSaiyan4]

And yes there are glitchy problems, texture loading problems - the texture loading issues are because the Unreal 3 engine streams textures whether this will happen on Unreal Tournament 3 is yet to be seen.

Dont forget even KOTOR on the old Xbox had issues as well, and ironically huge RPG's like this and Oblivion had or have issues as well in some cases.

The one thing that bothers me is the screen tearing I dont understand what causes it but why cant developers eliminate that?

[shrimpboat]

Your right Oblivion had these issues on 360 and PS3. I think the loading textures thing can be forgiven since it is an RPG, but this game is great but at the same time it has alot of awful issues that caused me to stop playing it. It could of been greater.

I will be trading this game in when UT III comes out and I will wait for White Knight Stories to play a great RPG.

[godofthunder10]

this is what i call childish,shrimpboat is saying that the whole game sux.the truth is that he probaly never played it.he has a ps3 and can't stand that it's a great game and it's exclusive to the 360 and almost every game that comes out on the 360 and yes the ps3 to have some kind of problem but they are fixed later on.mass effect problems are not that bad
people like shrimpboat is the problem with the gaming world.he want admit that the 360 is a good system with good games.he says that the graphics on the 360 sux with every game but the truth is that the 360 has a lot of games that have better graphics then the same game on the ps3 and like i said he critize every game on the 360 saying that they all sux but when the same game is ported over to the ps3 then all of a sudden it's a great game with great graphics even when the graphics are better on the 360.
people like him like to critize the 360 saying it's trash because it keep breaking,but the truth is that microsoft is fixing the problem now,every new 360 has the new chip in it so it want over heat and people still get a 3 year warrinty for the rrod and the drive and that's about 90% of the console and the 360 life span is 6 to 7 years microsoft said so you have a warrinty for half the 360 life span and they never had any electronic product defected or not that had a 3 year warrint like the 360.
what shrimpboat don't understand or don't want no one to know and hope that they forgot is that sony had a lot of defected ps1 and 2s when they first came out,they had defected drives in them and even when you had a new one with a new game it still said can't read disc and it done it with ever game,hell i bought 5 of them in less then a year and a half and i know people that had to buy more because of it.it took sony about 1 and a 1/2 to 2 year into the console life to finaly get the problem under controle but they didn't do a damn thing in the first 2 year,the only thing people could do was buy another one.sony also had problems with computers blowing up in people faces,defected camers,and they had problems with the first br players but people don't want to talk about that,they want to act like sony never had a defected product.
i hate sony and i will never buy a ps3 but i'll admit that the ps3 is a good system with good games but the 360 is to.the ps3 have some exclusive games that 360 owners wish they had even if they want admit it, but i will,i wish games like Killzone 2 and some others were on the 360 but i'll admit i don't like games like Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and i don't like metal gear because i played it before and i didn't care for it and things like home isn't really my thing.
i know that all ps3 owners like to have some 360 exclusive games to on their ps3 like bioshock and others and i know that they don't care for some to and the 360 games have great good graphics to and they are a lot better then a ps2 or a xbox 1.5 that ps3 fans claim about the 360 graphics.
the truth is that it took sony 3 generation of consoles to get it right the first time but they did with the ps3 and it's dependable on launch day on like the ps1 and 2 and i'll admit that microsoft had problems with the 360 but they are trying to fix them but remember this is just microsoft second console and they are not known to make hardware like sony is but i think that they are getting their and i think that their third time will be different just like it was for sony.
if fans from both sides admit it or not they are both good consoles with great games and all fans from both sides wish that some exclusives from the other console was on the console that they have and they both have great graphics and if you say that it's not true then no matter what happen you are just a fanboy who want admit the truth about the other console if it's something good and it's just childish to act that way.
like i said before i hate sony and will never buy a ps3 bit i'll admit that it's a good system with good games,just because i hate sony i'm not going to lie just because of it,i give credit where credit is due and all 360 fans need to do the same thing but the 360 deserve more credit then the ps3 fans gives it because they know damn well that the graphics on the 360 is better then ps2 and a so call xbox 1.5 they call it.
the 360 have good games just like the ps3 and the ps3 does some things better then the 360 and the 360 does somethings better the the ps3 and i think that fans of both system need to admit the truth instead of saying that every thing sux on the system that they don't have because they know it's not true.even if you hate the company that makes it like i hate sony you could still say the truth instead of being childish saying that every thing on the other system sux.

[Bibto]

In this interview ( http://threespeech.com/blog... with Evan Wells from Naughty Dog, he explains what screen tearing is.

Screen tearing is something that occurs when your frame rate dips below 30Hz. When you drop frame rate you have a choice to either drop all the way to 20Hz, or allow the screen to tear and only have the frame rate drop to 28 or 29Hz.

[power of Green]

At least the loading isn't happening the whole time playing the game. Many games are loading late the whole time you play and some games only load what you are looking at up close at any given time.

Its just a ridiculous to talk about common flaws trying to break one of the greatest games of all time with issues that are common and ignored with any other game.

[power of Green]

Chris399 (1) - 3 hours ago
Lord Anubis (1) - 4 hours ago
Adamalicious (2) - 4 hours ago

[shrimpboat]

Quick Mass Effect (360) Impressions
November 21st, 2007 BennyB

Mass Effect

graphics = god awful
frame rate = awful
shooting = god awful
noise filter = makes me want to kill someone
pacing = very slow
controls = almost bearable
most planets = barren and dull
story = generic

[lou]

This game is not as great as everyone claims and I am glad someone spoke up and pointed out all the flaws that makes you want to put the controller down.

Look at the sells of this game. 113,856 in its second week. Some PS3 games has done better than this and they hyped this game up like it was the second coming. If this game was all that it should of sold 500,000 in the first week at least since the 360 has such a large user base. The only thing it really does well is the voice directing thing and for that I could play a Sega CD game from the 90's

I will admit that the game has some new innovative stuff that might work better on the sequel. Nice try Bioware, better luck next time but I should of bought Assassins Creed instead even though it has some mixed reviews.

[JHFKDFNFGJKFHDKF]

Uncharted had all of these problems and more; why did nobody mention them?

[The_Engineer]

LIARS chacron, UNcharted has NONE of the issues that ME has. OMG fanboys are despicable.

[Bullseye]

ME, but i would really have loved to buy this game, because its my fav genre. However, i haven't and will not be in the future, buying this game.No matter how you cut it, it's full of bugs and disgraces the devs and insults punters by releasing such a bug ridden effort! I know many of you love this game ans therefore i understand why you chose to buy it.My comments simply reflect why i chose not to.

[The Only Truth]

I don't care for any of the opinions here, especially not for the haters.
I played through Mass Effect, just finshed it 2 days ago and it was amazing. Despite all the negative parts (of course there are some, did you ever play a perfect game ? Jesus....) it was an absolutely high entertaining, long running experience and i can't wait for the sequel !

[The_Engineer]

stop trying to deflect, no one is saying its not a good game but to act like the BLATANT flaws in this game are common in the industry is about as bad as it gets. Name one game that had this many flaws and got a free pass like ME has?? I can't think of one, in years past the "glitches" in PC games were far and few in between. You actually had to read about them in some forum to know where they were. This baby puts them right in the spotlight for anyone to see. BIG DIFFERENCE. The fact that this has to be explained to you only shows that most xbots are ultra noobs who were picking their noses when the foundation for this generation was being laid down in the late 90's.

[The Only Truth]

Btw: I began with a C64, you are the noob for talking so much bs !

This only shows how blind you are and how stupid your whole "argumentation" is.

You can't think of any game.....?

I name one for you:

Assassin's Creed

Now get outta my way goddamn Sonyboy, you are making me sick !

[The_Engineer]

Ass creed??

I rest my case, NOOB.

[The Only Truth]

Yeah, better rest it, cause you have no SINGLE idea what you are talking about. That makes you look so plain stupid, it is embarassing for you and everybody who reads your bs.

I suggest you to actually try to play a game. Buy a NES off ebay and step your videogeame experience up. Next-Gen consoles are too much to handle for you right now.

Being a 14 year old acne gangster hiding behind his desktop pc and try to insult grown ups with nothing but stupidity doesn't make you look "cool". Come back in 10 years, when you developed some intelligence.

[HarryEtTubMan]

My friends all say this game is boring... but they aren't lieing XBOTX. They are 360owners tand a couple have PS3's but they all want one. I just got mine. We love Playstation.

[prowiew]

Please stop putting every single review of MAss Effect on the site. Its getting ridiculous. Every single day a new review of whoever have a site. I think at this time everybody knows what kind of game is Mass Effect.

[BLACKJACK VII]

Yes, it does have these issues. However, the article is very exaggerated. For the rest of the haters, sorry, but it is the best story told this generation, period. And the glitches are minor annoyances when the story is so immersive. Mark my words, it will still win RPG of the year & be a GOTY contender BECAUSE the story + graphics + the RPG elements + the gameplay are so good, if far outshines the glitches. Mass Effect gets so many things right, it's easy to look past the bad stuff.

Be happy haters, without the glitches, this game would destroy every new IP this generation & easily take the GOTY. If Mass Effect 2 gets everything ironed out, it will pwn everything else. Peace.

[Si-Pie]

Right again we come back down to someone elses opinion. Now you would have to be blind not to see this game does have flaws! Yes I own it and yes I dont think it lived up to the hype 100% however I do think this is a great game despite the flaws. These frame rate issues etc yes are flaws but doesnt make the game unplayable by any means and the combat, AI in my opinion could of been better. But the story is great and i dont regret buying it.

[atomdooze]

to say that xbox fans are a joke and to list all its flaws on the system and all the games makes him sound like a jelous little girl that didnt get her share of the candy. sad little man if we are a joke were does that leave sony owners? Ill tell you your not even a factor anymore, at least a joke is funny sometimes ur all haters looking for any reason to rattle ur sabers at the box. If you ever just put ur BS attitudes to the side and just played the games im sure you would have a great experence. I for 1 dont mind picking up a ps3 controler and mashin some bottons cause lets face it the ps3 rocks. I just hade to choose with what little money i had what system to buy and I wanted to play great games now not in 2009. So im a joke cause of that? Then ur the retards of the gaming world.

[JokesOnYou]

the ONLY flaw it had was the textures take 2 seconds to load everytime you start a mission, after cutscenes, begining of levels etc, not during the actual gameplay, its sad because I agree if it weren't for these flaws ME would easily be the GOTY, no doubt in my mind, but it is what it is, the game has glitches, but nothing that hurt the gameplay at all, its just if you're like me and most of us on this site we find any technical problem to be dissapointing, if the overall experience of this game wasn't so goddam good this game would easily have been just a avg game made worst by glitches, instead it turned out to be a superb game that doesn't reach its true potential because of glitches, if given the choice I'll take the superb game with glitches over a game that runs perfect but ends up avg or medicore everytime.

JOY