96 réponses à ce sujet

[DocSigma]

Mass Effect, although utterly great, still felt unpolished. It felt more like an experiment into a new genre, albeit successful, but still an experiment. The story was great but it just didn't flow like DAO's does. It felt more station to station whereas DAO, even though it was still lets go here then here, it still blended perfectly and didn't feel that way. I think ME2 will be beyond good based on what they've learned from ME but I have to give the edge to DAO. I felt for these characters whereas the charaxters in ME i didn't feel for, regardless of the fact that the main character was voice acted.

[Xyan]

Mass-what?!



Yup.. Dragonage wins.

[Soeverein]

Mass Effect, I think, also had a vastly superior leading character.
Even though I didn't have as much control over Shepard as I did my
Grey Warden, I cared far more about Shepard and what was happening to
him. Actually hearing your character speak is so much more rewarding on
an emotional level.

That's definitely true.

Considering that in DAO you choose your voice though AND you got way more dialogue than Shepard, I wonder if it would have even been feasible at all. I mean, I'd have loved voiced over main character texts, but not if it would have meant losing the current depth of dialogue or the option to choose a voice (rather no voice than a voice that doesn't fit my character).

DAO does win points for actually including origin stories, however; I
would have loved to have taken my Shepard through the Battle of
Elysium, or the raid on Torfan.

I know there won't be any more DLCs for ME, but IMO an origins DLC would have been much, much better than the ****ty space station DLC with those FPS style challenges that might have been fun if they had been multiplayer based but were utterly retarded in player vs CPU combat. It would have been done through a flashback or something for all I care.

[Bryy_Miller]

Seraphael wrote...

Dragon Age is clearly the superior game.

Combat in Mass Effect was broken at higher levels. Or even lower levels with the right builds.
Exploration was nonsensical and extremely boring.
Side missions were extremely generic.
Inta-squad interaction quite limited.

Dragon Age does all this better and has a toolset to boot. I suspect and hope ME2 will be superior to either though.

Yeah, Mass Effect felt like a tech demo for Dragon Age.

[Never]

I fell in love with the characters in DA:O much easier, and I think the overall writing is much better.

Having a PC that's full voiced is amazing though...

Tough choice, I just love them both for different reasons! ^.^

[Sam -stone- serious]

Default137 wrote...

The fact you are saying this with a straight face amuses me.

Mass Effect is a hilariously short story, that has tons of junk it does not need thrown in to extend it just a bit more ( you can literally remove all sections of the main quest besides rescuing the blue chick, and attacking Saren, and you have a still perfectly working storyline ), and smothered by useless "artifically" extended side quests, that pretty much everyone I know agrees are boring, not fun, and don't add much to the game at all.

The actual "game" part of Mass Effect takes about 5-6 hours to beat, once you know whats going on, and if you skip all the useless junk thats thrown at you to artificially extend the game, stuff like the planets, gathering all the stuff for achievements, and doing the maybe 10 side quests total they added, all involving you going to a planet that looks exactly the same as all the other planets you've already visited.

I did not say that Mass Effect was bigger, i just said that DAO is FAR from being as large as it appears to be and that its one of the few games i have experience that "push it"  this far. I finished the game in 77 hours and yet i felt that i didnt play it for more than 30 (and that was actually true when i retracked everything i did as easy as pie).

Let me give you an example of what i am talking about. In Ostagar at some point you will be figthing a queen spider. This fight took me well over 20 minutes. Why? Because each 1/10 of the spiders HP  she webed my whole team and retreated back on the ceiling while 5 of her goons descended and needed to be killed before she gets down again. This was until the very end of her HP. Some may call this "EPIC" but to me it was tedious, tiring and wholy not needed. This is the most fresh example i can think of since the game is FULL  on such moments. Other obvious such design is when you got a room full of darkspawn and you have to draw them out 1 by one to shorten their numbers. You will say "thats tactics" but i will say "yeah right" when i pull one by one enemy through a tightly packed group.

i got no doubt in my mind. If i powerplay the game (and i will at some point) i will finish it in less than 30 hours (not skipping dialogue and cut scenes either).

[Burdokva]

While I've posted this in a group discussion, I think it summarizes my views on the subject:

"ME's beauty comes from the overall story - the fight to preserve sentient life in the Galaxy and to end an ancient cycle of destruction; to find the meaning behind it all. It has great characters, engaging romances, tough choices too; but I find the strenght of the narrative to be in that man-vs-machine, good-vs-evil struggle.

DA is, in a sense, the opposite. It has an epic, arching story of struggle between ... well, it's not entirely clear-cut what's good and evil, but there are great things at stake. Epic, ancient, wonderous world - yet I cared most of all about my companions. Morrigan above all, sure, but I really cared for all of them. Even Zevran, when he didn't turn out to be a treacherous jerk.

One has the 'massiveness' (sorry, no pun intended) of an unknown, wonderous new sci-fi world; the other puts you into a familiar, but intensely personal and strong fantasy setting. Take your pick."

I have to agree with DonQuixote07 and Randy1083 that ME has the edge on novelty and that Shepard is a character on his own right. I felt pressured to find Saren and stop him, especially towards the end-game there's a real sense of urgency.

However, party-interaction and companions in DA were better and with deeper personalities. The villains in DA also had me hating them on a far more intense and personal level then a ever did Saren or the Geth.


Overall, ME is an amazing experience, but I liked DA better (to my own surprise).

Modifié par Burdokva, 07 décembre 2009 - 10:25 .

[Profiler89]

I'm a sci-fi fan but, honestly, i think that Dragon Age it's better than Mass Effect.

Origins is deep, huge and immersive. You can play it for 70 hours and you will beg for more.

Mass effect is a great game, we're talkin' about the best sci-fi atmosphere since KOTOR came out but it's really short if compared to dragon age.

DAO got a lot of side quests, tons of codex entries to read, hours of immersive dialogues.



I agree with the one who think that ME is a sort of DAO tech demo. Bioware worked on a barely perfect game, fixing a lot of the errors that were made in Mass Effect.

We need to wait for ME2 now.

[StuartMarshall]

Gameplay: DA:O

Storyline: Mass Effect

Graphics: Not sure personally

[fanman72]

Dragon Age hands down. The one thing I really liked about Mass Effect is the real time combat shooting. I wish games such as Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age especially for warriors and rogues instead of simply clicking on an enemy and attacking, would have a more interactive style of sword fighting (Think Blade of Darkness and hell even Assasin's Creed when you're sword fighting and working out some of the combos). But that would completely change gameplay mechanics. BG2 and DA are among my favorite RPGs of all time mainly for the storyline and depth, but fighting in it always struck me as more along the lines of micromanaging warcraft III units rather than fighting

[fanman72]

double post

[Mikazukinoyaiba2]

DA: O is definitely the better game, but franchise wise I think Mass Effect is better.



Magic Fantasy is great, but I also know it isn't real. But with science fantasy I can at the very least hope for certain aspects to occur in the future. Mass Effect's potential and theme gives me hope personally.



Sometimes I wish I wasn't born until 300 years later.

[TemplarofSteel]

I have to go with Dragon Age: Origins. The reason is that in Dragon Age, i just couldn't stop playing. It made me want more when i finished the game and it is also the first game to make me think more in depth and not on the surface. Mass Effect was just a good game that's it. I never really could get into it that much. Now if there was a sci-fi/ancient type of game, i would be all over that one in a hearbeat

[Hyunsai]

Mass Effect, definitely...



I like the main story 1000 more than DA, and same for the combat gameplay.



It was short, yes, but much more enjoyable. I find Dragon Age not even difficult, but TEDIOUS and I had to make a pause (don't even know if I will finish it) when I was so much bored by the inintuitive and heavy fights (not to mention pathfinding and control issue). Never felt this way in ME.



ME got his flaws, in the end, got my vote easily.

[Jonfon_ire]

Dragon Age. Mass Effect was fine, but not amazing. I much prefer the combat system and characters of Dragon Age. I got sick of being one-shotted in ME as well by various snipers and rockets, before I could even retaliate or get a lock on them.



One brilliant thing ME did was the ragdoll effects for all the Adept powers. I'd never get tired of making things bob around like that or float off like a balloon.

[Sam -stone- serious]

Jonfon_ire wrote...

Dragon Age. Mass Effect was fine, but not amazing. I much prefer the combat system and characters of Dragon Age. I got sick of being one-shotted in ME as well by various snipers and rockets, before I could even retaliate or get a lock on them.

I dont like to be doing this at all but this is a serious L2P issue. Or more importantly L2Know your gear and what the stats do. L2use cover and send in your brutes(s) in first so they get the attention of hard hitting enemies. I swear Wrex was able to tank at least 3 direct rocket attacks before his shields went off. The blasts that were not hitting hit directly could not even graze him.

Again i dont want to play it a smartass i am just saying that putting a reason for not liking a game when its easily your own fault is kind of ...weird.

[mufuti7]

Both are great but overall Mass Effect was noticeably better. While both games are more than the sum of their parts some parts in Mass Effect were worse than anything Dragon Age offered (horrible, repetitive sidequests and exploration for example) but the overall gameplay was superior. Combat was a lot more fun and the story was far better.I am pretty sure Mass Effect 2 is going to be mind-blowing.
I am about to replay ME very soon :-)

Dragon Age: better party interaction / character design
Mass Effect: more exciting gameplay - much better combat, better storyline, interesting gameworld, overall more "cinematic" experience, especially during dialogue (much better writing than Dragon Age too)

Modifié par mufuti7, 08 décembre 2009 - 10:51 .

[Jonfon_ire]

Sam -stone- serious wrote...

Jonfon_ire wrote...

Dragon Age. Mass Effect was fine, but not amazing. I much prefer the combat system and characters of Dragon Age. I got sick of being one-shotted in ME as well by various snipers and rockets, before I could even retaliate or get a lock on them.

I dont like to be doing this at all but this is a serious L2P issue. Or more importantly L2Know your gear and what the stats do. L2use cover and send in your brutes(s) in first so they get the attention of hard hitting enemies. I swear Wrex was able to tank at least 3 direct rocket attacks before his shields went off. The blasts that were not hitting hit directly could not even graze him.

Again i dont want to play it a smartass i am just saying that putting a reason for not liking a game when its easily your own fault is kind of ...weird.

Obviously I know how to play the game (although trying to get my Tanky person through some points as directed was pretty buggy too, for example the moon base had some doors Whatshername refused to go through).

I suppose it'd be more correct to say I disliked the mechanism where if you died it was Game Over time, even if your companions were unharmed, made it very frustrating in parts (like the one I've just described where the pathfinding for Go GoTo commands just seemed buggy or your Tank would instead decide to duck into cover).

[Zenon]

Hard to compare both games for the sake of figuring out what I like(d) better, if any.

Graphics with ME looked more sleek and to me are a bit better than DA:O, especially when it comes to textures. Sound: Both are great and have outstanding voice acting. Storyline: Actually would have to go into detail to elaborate on this, so in a nutshell DA:O has a wider array of quests, deeper companions, more variation for the player through origins and more possible approaches on the path between Ostagar and the end. There are also more humorous conversations in DA:O. What I liked better in ME is, that the real threat/enemy is revealed much later than in DA:O giving the story a new twist. Battle:  Hard to compare, but I consider the AI and the tactics settings in DA:O superior. Atmosphere: I liked both a lot, yet ME gave me more the feeling of really being in outer space while DA:O is literally a little bit more down to earth.

So at this point I'm giving DA:O more points than ME. I must add one more thing though, which makes it impossible for me to say clearly one is better: Don't ask me why in the non-spoiler section, but in ME some situations moved me emotionally deeper than in DA:O. One example is the speeches given by a leader to his or her soldiers before battle.(*) I liked the speech and voice acting of the Salarian better than the one before the final battle in DA:O. Also having to abandon one team-member in ME hurt my feeling more (feeling responsible for my team), than having one walk out on me in DA:O for perhaps understandable reasons.

About Jade Empire: I really liked this game and it's story. In fact the story of JE had a quality I found in KotOR, which was a little bit weaker in ME and DA:O. The huge surprise, that some things taken for granted are entirely different. At least how I saw it. In ME, perhaps because I was prepared a bit for story twists by mentioned games by now, the surprise was not as big as before. In DA:O there is many story twists, almost nothing is as it seems, but most twists are not as huge as in previous games.

In fact as long as I only have to choose between Bioware games it's a hard decision. All are great and Bioware is my reference when it comes to great storytelling. In the end DA:O would win because of it's ability to be extended and the higher amount of content, and the higher motivation to play it again multiple times with different origins.

My ranking:

1. DA:O 9.6/10
2. ME 9.4/10
(3. NWN 2, included as reference because not entirely from Bioware) 9.1/10
4. JE 8.8/10
5. KotOR 8.5/10
6. NWN 8.0/10 (lowered score because of age, but still great with some wonderful community modules.)

(*) There was also a speech by the hero in ME, which obviously wouldn't have added as much to DA:O without a PC voice acting.

Modifié par Zenon, 08 décembre 2009 - 12:52 .

[RetrOldSchool]

I think ME is the most cinematic game I've ever played and the immersion was through the roof. It made me forgive the UNC-quests and the Mako combat, hell, I even enjoyed those parts despite the flaws! Also it's the first part in a trilogy, with choices carrying over to the next part, a definite plus!



DA:O has got a lot going for it though as the winner in my book, such as the size, the more tactical combat, the fact that almost all companions having personal quests, so right now I really can't say which one it is... And if you throw KOTOR in there too, man it's hard.



Let me quote Jack Black:

..Why did you have to make them all so ...beautiful!?"

[Brunopolis]

DA:O is a better game in terms of story and options.



However, Mass Effect has an amazing ending. That ending left me far more satisfied.



Hopefully Mass Effect 2 will fix the replayability issues of Mass Effect 1.