27 réponses à ce sujet

[Deadly dwarf]

I've been playing Dragon Age for the past year but have heard people mention ME in passing.  All I know is that ME has a sci-fi setting and the hero is named Shepherd  (a man I presume?)  Otherwise, is it an RPG in the same manner as Dragon Age?  (Diverse group of selectable companions going on diverse quests in a frantic effort to save their world?)

 

I know you can purchase the first three games in a trilogy available via download on Origins.  Is that the best way to get into the game?  Anything else I should know before I pull the trigger?

[Vigilance97]

Yeah, Mass Effect is pretty much Dragon Age in space. Shepard can be male or female, but is always human.

 

Get the trilogy and if you can some of the DLC(Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival for ME2, Leviathan and Citadel for ME3 are the must-haves IMO).

 

Have fun! 

[MrFob]

The combat system of ME is way more action focused. Basically it works like a third person shooter. In ME1, your stats still affect your accuracy and damage a lot but from ME2 onward, it's basically straight up shooter gameplay, although you can pause the action any time to give orders to your companions (see below) or just to get your bearings.. In addition to shooting, you have special powers, depending on your class, which range from special damage types (fire/electrical, etc.) to crowd control such as suspending enemies in the air and similar things.

 

Also you cannot select your companions. Instead you give orders, where to take cover or which powers to use. But you will never leave the perspective of your main character, so you need to position yourself in a way as to have a good overview of the battlefield.

 

Dialogues are there aplenty and they are using the wheel, similar to DA2/I (in fact, the later DA titles brought the wheel interface into the series from ME). You'll make decisions throughout all three games which can carry over through the trilogy as you import saves into the sequel games.

 

In terms of story: I'd say expect a very strong start with beautiful world building and one of the most enticing scifi settings ever created, deep lore, beautiful visual style and fascinating new worlds and alien races. Expect deep and developing characters and thoughtful and emotional stories. But also expect a fair amount of inconsistency between the three games and expect the story to turn more and more from good old nerdy scifi to sometimes brainless action schlock as the trilogy goes on.

 

All in all, if you are asking whether or not you should give it a try, I'd say if you like DA and BW games in general, it's a no-brainer, just get the trilogy (and the story DLCs, which are all fairly important or really entertaining and add a lot to the games).

 

As for how best to get it, unfortunately, AFAIK, there is no really great way to get everything. There is no super pack that includes everything. Whatever you do, you will probably have to bite EA's bullet buy at least some of the DLC extra.

 

Whatever you do, I definitely recommend getting the trilogy for PC. The requirements are not that tough these days and you'll have the option to use mods, which can substantially augment the experience.

 

For example, for ME1, I do recommend using MEUTIM, the ME1 Updated and Improved Textures Mod. Don't even start without it. There are also lot's of upgrades for textures and even some content stuff for ME2 and 3 on the Nexus. For a first playthrough I would recommend to stick to the textures but it's worth checking the sections for the games on Nexus, you won't regret it.

[Deadly dwarf]

Thanks V97 & MrFob!  I'm downloading the trilogy from Origins now.  Thanks for the tip on mods.  I used a number of mods for Origins and was wondering if ME1 was as mod friendly.  I'll also try the textures mod per your recommendation.

[MrFob]

No problem. Just read the instructions carefully for every mod you use. The ME series is less mod friendly than DA:O, so some may require some fiddling for things to work properly. MEUTIM for example has a very comvenient installer but if you read the instructions, there are still some tweaks you can apply to some ini files to make things look good.

 

Have fun!

 

 

(Got to admit, I do envy people who get to experience all of this for the first time)

[Acno777]

Sometimes, the words that come out of Shepard's mouth are not what you would expect to match what is written on the dialogue wheel.

[MrFob]

Sometimes, the words that come out of Shepard's mouth are not what you would expect to match what is written on the dialogue wheel.

 

I'd say this is a rare exception though. In countless replays, I have encountered only a handful of instances where this happened. And while those do break immersion, usually I found those more funny than annoying.

[Mberry]

I am just finishing ME3 starting from ME1.  I really recommend getting all the DLC.  They really rounded out the game play and the story.

[Deadly dwarf]

I downloaded ME1 and booted up as is just to see how things looked originally.  I was kind of surprised it looked more primitive than DA Origins.  And the default Shepherds -- both male and female -- are really rather homely.  I tried playing around with the character creator, but only made things worse.  Does MEUTIM correct the uglies? 

[Deadly dwarf]

The combat system of ME is way more action focused. Basically it works like a third person shooter. In ME1, your stats still affect your accuracy and damage a lot but from ME2 onward, it's basically straight up shooter gameplay, although you can pause the action any time to give orders to your companions (see below) or just to get your bearings.. In addition to shooting, you have special powers, depending on your class, which range from special damage types (fire/electrical, etc.) to crowd control such as suspending enemies in the air and similar things.

 

Also you cannot select your companions. Instead you give orders, where to take cover or which powers to use. But you will never leave the perspective of your main character, so you need to position yourself in a way as to have a good overview of the battlefield.

 

Dialogues are there aplenty and they are using the wheel, similar to DA2/I (in fact, the later DA titles brought the wheel interface into the series from ME). You'll make decisions throughout all three games which can carry over through the trilogy as you import saves into the sequel games.

 

In terms of story: I'd say expect a very strong start with beautiful world building and one of the most enticing scifi settings ever created, deep lore, beautiful visual style and fascinating new worlds and alien races. Expect deep and developing characters and thoughtful and emotional stories. But also expect a fair amount of inconsistency between the three games and expect the story to turn more and more from good old nerdy scifi to sometimes brainless action schlock as the trilogy goes on.

 

All in all, if you are asking whether or not you should give it a try, I'd say if you like DA and BW games in general, it's a no-brainer, just get the trilogy (and the story DLCs, which are all fairly important or really entertaining and add a lot to the games).

 

As for how best to get it, unfortunately, AFAIK, there is no really great way to get everything. There is no super pack that includes everything. Whatever you do, you will probably have to bite EA's bullet buy at least some of the DLC extra.

 

Whatever you do, I definitely recommend getting the trilogy for PC. The requirements are not that tough these days and you'll have the option to use mods, which can substantially augment the experience.

 

For example, for ME1, I do recommend using MEUTIM, the ME1 Updated and Improved Textures Mod. Don't even start without it. There are also lot's of upgrades for textures and even some content stuff for ME2 and 3 on the Nexus. For a first playthrough I would recommend to stick to the textures but it's worth checking the sections for the games on Nexus, you won't regret it.

 

Arghh!!!  I installed the mod and now I get "rendering thread exception" error as it crashes immediately after you see the "bioware" logo!  I assume I must have done something wrong.  Any ideas?

[aoibhealfae]

Sometimes, the words that come out of Shepard's mouth are not what you would expect to match what is written on the dialogue wheel.

 

If you think Mass Effect this annoying, I have a lot more trouble with this in SWTOR especially when the dialogue alignment was a mess at Imperial side. The top could be Dark side, middle : neutral, bottom : Light side and sometimes it can be reverse whenever it like. Drive me crazy but fortunately there's esc button

 

Mass Effect 2 was quite terrible too since a lot of the dialogues can be pro-Cerberus regardless of your alignment and unlike ME1, sometimes it took away a dialogue so you're left with responding something neutrally when you want to argue with it. Case like with dying Tela Vasir, both dialogue make it like Shepard didn't mind at all that Cerberus is terrible because "it didn't matter" and she blasted that they're responsible for getting Shepard's unit on Akuze killed. And then the conversation with Miranda where you can't argue against her about Cerberus at all because she will go on about their cause is for the betterment of humanity. Took the end of the game just to show a clear defiance against TIM. 40 hours worth of playthrough just to say no. And it took the next game for Shepard to actually have a soul rather than listening and asking question dumbly. How was this better?

[MrFob]

Arghh!!!  I installed the mod and now I get "rendering thread exception" error as it crashes immediately after you see the "bioware" logo!  I assume I must have done something wrong.  Any ideas?

 

Hmmm, not really, always worked for me without issue. Did you do the changes to the ini files as per the install instructions?

Maybe post in the linked MEUTIM thread.

[Deadly dwarf]

I made the changes to the Texture group lines but was unable to find the "dynamic shadow fix" lines.  As to the LAA patch, I utilized that on two files I found in the Mass Effect folder.  (Both files came up when doing the "MassEffect.exe" search.

 

Note, the trilogy I downloaded I downloaded from Origins.  It also seems to have downloaded twice:  once under "documents" and once in the "programs" folder.  I made all changes to the Mass Effect folder I found under "Documents."

[MrFob]

I made the changes to the Texture group lines but was unable to find the "dynamic shadow fix" lines.  As to the LAA patch, I utilized that on two files I found in the Mass Effect folder.  (Both files came up when doing the "MassEffect.exe" search.

 

Note, the trilogy I downloaded I downloaded from Origins.  It also seems to have downloaded twice:  once under "documents" and once in the "programs" folder.  I made all changes to the Mass Effect folder I found under "Documents."

 

That sounds right. the "documents" portion of the game only contains stuff like your settings files and savegames, while "programs" part contains the actual game files. You should only need to make changes to the BIOEngine.ini in the "documents part.

But note: Mass Effect 1 has a habit of resetting its ini files to default state at startup. Check if your changes to the ini file are still there. If not, make them again, save the file, then right click on the file in Windows Explorer, click on "Properties" and check the box for "Read-only". This will prevent the game from resetting your file. Hope that helps. If not, as I said, try to post in the MEUTIM thread.

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles, as I said, I never encountered these kinds of issues. I still think it's worth the fiddling though. Especially in the dialogue close ups, some of the original textures can look very ugly.

[themikefest]

Post your playthrough in this thread, if you like.

[Deadly dwarf]

That sounds right. the "documents" portion of the game only contains stuff like your settings files and savegames, while "programs" part contains the actual game files. You should only need to make changes to the BIOEngine.ini in the "documents part.

But note: Mass Effect 1 has a habit of resetting its ini files to default state at startup. Check if your changes to the ini file are still there. If not, make them again, save the file, then right click on the file in Windows Explorer, click on "Properties" and check the box for "Read-only". This will prevent the game from resetting your file. Hope that helps. If not, as I said, try to post in the MEUTIM thread.

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles, as I said, I never encountered these kinds of issues. I still think it's worth the fiddling though. Especially in the dialogue close ups, some of the original textures can look very ugly.

 

No changes to the BIOENGINE.ini changes I made to the TEXTGROUP settings.  Again, when I try to start, it doesn't get very far.  Also, I was unable to make the "Shadow fix" changes because I couldn't find those lines on the notepad where the TEXTGROUP lines were.

[Deadly dwarf]

I got ME running, but only after resetting all the BIOENGINE.ini lines back to default.  Does that pretty much defeat the purpose of the mod?  While running the game, I notice the picture is just slightly "fuzzy" -- almost like trying to get a distant TV station with an antenna.  The result of running MEUTIM without the BIOENGINE.ini changes?

 

Oh well....the game is almost 10 years old, I suppose I should expect things to be a bit crude. 

[Deadly dwarf]

Dumb question, is ME keyboard only?  Or is there a way to hook it up to a game controller?  I recently bought a game controller for PC which I use for Dragon Age games.  Is there a way to do the same for ME?

[Rosstoration]

The fuzzy-ness is actually an in-game "grain" setting, or it's called something similar, you can lower it and raise it. I never really used MEUTIM, I've found the game looks pretty great even without it. ME1 doesn't have native controller support, you're going to have to mod the game with this: http://www.nexusmods...ffect/mods/60/? I've never used it myself, I just use the PC controls, so I don't know how difficult it is to set up or if it will work with a non 360 controller.

 

Oh, and try to go into ME1 knowing as little about the world and the game as possible, there are some great plot twists in the series I don't want you to be spoiled about.

[Apo]

Prepare to be hooked to one of the best gaming experience ever

 

And don't forget to talk to your crew (and sometimes to npc) after each main mission, and keep attention to what some npc tell you because there's a lot of side missions that you can skip without talking to them.

 

And enjoy your journey, it will be very emotional

[Deadly dwarf]

The fuzzy-ness is actually an in-game "grain" setting, or it's called something similar, you can lower it and raise it. I never really used MEUTIM, I've found the game looks pretty great even without it. ME1 doesn't have native controller support, you're going to have to mod the game with this: http://www.nexusmods...ffect/mods/60/? I've never used it myself, I just use the PC controls, so I don't know how difficult it is to set up or if it will work with a non 360 controller.

 

Oh, and try to go into ME1 knowing as little about the world and the game as possible, there are some great plot twists in the series I don't want you to be spoiled about.

 

Thanks.  You were right, I was able to remove the "graininess" via options as well as jack up the resolution, etc.  At this point, I don't know what impact the MEUTIM mod is having on my install.  Any idea why the "graininess" was standard?  Was it supposed to help create a certain atmosphere?  Oh well....I didn't get it.  I was also surprised at how homely the default female Shepard is.  Male Shepard default is, at least, "ruggedly handsome" (though his voice is a bit too mechanical).  Perhaps they were trying to create a serious atmosphere or something like that.  So far, I'm sticking to PC controls which seem to work well enough.

And don't forget to talk to your crew (and sometimes to npc) after each main mission, and keep attention to what some npc tell you because there's a lot of side missions that you can skip without talking to them.

 

You would think I would know that after playing the Dragon Age games but I think I've already burned a few bridges...  At the Citadel, I ran into a guy who wanted Shepard's autograph.  I was suspicious and turned him down, thinking there was some sort of trap.  Afterwards, I thought that even if it was a trap, it was needed to trigger some additional subplots.  Oh well...something to remember for my second playthrough!

[MrFob]

The film grain effect was put in the game to give it more of an oldschool cinematic feel. ME1 was meant to be a bit of a nod back to the classic scifi movies of the 80s, so they wanted to reflect this visually as well. I usually turn it off as well though.

 

As for Shepard's mechanical voice acting, in ME1 they told the Shepard voice actors (Mark Meer0 to remain fairly non-emotional (apparently they actually re-recorded lines that were not toned down enough), so that players would be able to switch between paragon and renegade responses without the making the character seem like having a bipolar personality. They changed this stance in ME2 and especially in ME3, so you can expect the VO to get better over time.

 

FemShep: I agree, I am not sure but I think they modeled default Femshep from scratch while using a scanned face for maleShep. Also, for ME3, they did change FemShep's appearance quite a bit, based on a rather controversial survey among the fans before ME3's release.

 

As for burning bridges with that guy, not to spoil too much but you'll find it very hard to burn that particular bridge.

[Deadly dwarf]

The film grain effect was put in the game to give it more of an oldschool cinematic feel. ME1 was meant to be a bit of a nod back to the classic scifi movies of the 80s, so they wanted to reflect this visually as well. I usually turn it off as well though.

 

As for Shepard's mechanical voice acting, in ME1 they told the Shepard voice actors (Mark Meer0 to remain fairly non-emotional (apparently they actually re-recorded lines that were not toned down enough), so that players would be able to switch between paragon and renegade responses without the making the character seem like having a bipolar personality. They changed this stance in ME2 and especially in ME3, so you can expect the VO to get better over time.

 

FemShep: I agree, I am not sure but I think they modeled default Femshep from scratch while using a scanned face for maleShep. Also, for ME3, they did change FemShep's appearance quite a bit, based on a rather controversial survey among the fans before ME3's release.

 

As for burning bridges with that guy, not to spoil too much but you'll find it very hard to burn that particular bridge.

 

The grain effect did remind me of the real old days when, as a kid, I had to adjust the TV antenna to get adequate reception to watch Channel 43 in Cleveland so I could watch shows like "Giant Robot," "UltraMan," "Astro Boy," and "Speed Racer!"  I suppose the grainy reception helped hide the cheesy special effects!

 

Thanks for the other explanations.  Always good to know what was going on behind the scenes.  Not all experiments end in success.  So far, my Shep leads a team of three.  Is three the magic number in ME, or does the team grow to four as in Dragon Age?

[Deager]

3 is your magic number barring very few exceptions.

 

I would say, just give the game a whirl. If you get a little listless with it, hang in there. I thought it was just KOTOR but without light sabers until a key plot point. It's well worth playing the trilogy at least once to see all the stuff that can happen.

[sjsharp2011]

The grain effect did remind me of the real old days when, as a kid, I had to adjust the TV antenna to get adequate reception to watch Channel 43 in Cleveland so I could watch shows like "Giant Robot," "UltraMan," "Astro Boy," and "Speed Racer!"  I suppose the grainy reception helped hide the cheesy special effects!

 

Thanks for the other explanations.  Always good to know what was going on behind the scenes.  Not all experiments end in success.  So far, my Shep leads a team of three.  Is three the magic number in ME, or does the team grow to four as in Dragon Age?

yeah you always lead a team of 3 in ME. There are 1 or 2 exceptions but most of those aer either side missions or DLC missions where you're asked to go in alone or something. The games not super hard to figure out in fact I'd say in general it's probably easier than DA. As for the guy you mentioned Conrad he's just a fun distraction not really essential to the plot. He's just a gyu that pops up from time to time. But his moments can be quite comical as he's kind of like the Bodahn/Sandal type guy except Conrad dosen't run a shop or upgrade your weapons like Bodahn can . I was referring to the fact that personality wise they are similar.