Why Should I Play Mass Effect?

[Chalacachaca]

Well, Meristation gave it a great score and called it a "Space Opera" so that really sold it out for me. Then I started playing it, and it got better and better as I progressed, and I really liked the voice acting and how natural the facial animations looked.

 

[sabercrusader]

Yeah, defenitly, I'm not going to let the ending of ME3 make me start to say all of Mass Effect sucks. But I'd figure out a way to play the first on your computer, and just try that. Try and play the first one anyway you can and complete it, to decide if it's right for you and so that once you get the second and third on your PS3, you can use that comic DLC for ME2 on the PS3 and make all the important decisions you made in your ME1 playthrough on the Xbox or PC. It's a great series, mostly the characters. They're probably my favorite characters of all time, a few of them. The combat in the first is annoying, but past that, it's great. I recommend it highly.

Snip

The combat is much, much, MUCH better in Mass Effect 2. I would recommend getting that. The combat in ME1 sucked balls, but it's much better in ME2, and almost perfect for the series in ME3. If the combat is the main reason you aren't liking it all that much, it's addressed later in the series. If anything, if you have an Xbox, or maybe even a PS3, and you have online, you can download a demo for ME2, and decide then if it's worth getting or not. Also, being redundant is fun.

 

[Tono Makt]

Why should you play Mass Effect? It has an excellent story through three individual games, it has engrossing characters which players usually come to love, it has bits of humour that are intended for people who are slightly more literate than the stereotypical gamer (an alien singing Gilbert and Sullivan, for example) and is often quite gorgeous to look at. 95% of the characters (both major and minor) that you can follow through the first two games are represented in the third and wrapped up in wonderful ways. (note: I've stopped playing Renegade character in the past few years as it no longer interests me, so I'm talking from a pure Paragon perspective here. Most of the minor characters I've run into have stuck around and been rather happy for my character.)

And even though there is a massive controversy about the final 30 min of the game or so, the first 135 hours of the game are a shining example of an experiment that was awesomely successful. And who knows? By the time you get to ME3, there might be a "Game of the Year" edition that has all the DLC as a part of the game (like Fallout 3 had), and this controversy will be a long, faded memory that has no bearing on your enjoyment of the game.

 

[Madkipz]

(Exposition: I only have a PS3, my PC is crap)
SO Mass Effect has finally wrapped up and my cheap ass should probably take up the opportunity to play the old ones and all that.
I did play the demos, but they leaned highly on the combat which was... not enough to make me run out and buy it. XP And they just plain didn't sell the whole thing too well.
Why do people keep losing their shit over this game, then? Is it because of the story? I'm not afraid to take up a Sci-Fi story, and this series has been said to be the "Greatest Sci-Fi Story of our generation" hundreds and hundreds of times over.
Does the game have a Final Fantasy effect where it gets better the longer you play it?

OK, the real question: Why did you play the Mass Effect series?

no, you shouldn't play it. Instead look to the future and hope they learned from whatever this thing called mass effect was trying to teach them.

Because let's face it.

1) it's not a challenge to rip trough all 3 games. From a gamer's perspective the combat is not difficult. Not even if you up the difficulty will the combat get difficult.

2)The story within these games is spread thin over this not so difficult combat, and it's horribly cliched. You're better off watching another season of Doctor Who or Babylon 5 or even read a book. There are already a million, gazillion books on science fiction better written with a more engaging story that doesn't rely on horrors from the abyss to cause drama.

Heck; Eve online is a better science fiction game than mass effect where you spend the majority of your time looking (crouched besides chest high walls) at different colored alien / synthetic horrors trying to shoot you. Fun fact, the majority of enemies in mass effect 3 are human themselves. ;3

 

[Laughing Man]

and boom just like Mass Effect gets dropped, I am on some Ice Planet I've just managed to solve the dumbest puzzle in the history of gaming, by dumb I mean it tells you to move something from point A to Point B or C and that's it, doesn't give you any more info about what's going on. So managed to do that get a little dialogue scene and during this scene the game crashes, AGAIN.

Reload to my last quick save to find that the enemies that I shot have respawned but here's the kicker the room I saved in locks automatically when their are enemies about so I can't shoot the bad guys and I can't get out of the room.

So you want another reason not to play this game

It is woefully unstable, it will crash, lock or otherwise go tits up for no reason what so ever, dialogue scene crash, you die crash, you move to another area crash. Non repeatable crashes, utter utter rubbish conversion but then attach that to a bug that locks me in a f*cking room I cannot now get out of?

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME, seriously their is no way the story can make up for crap combat, crap menus, confusing combat, bugs coming out the walls and totally and utterly random stability issues

Really King Pojo, save yourself the heart ache buy ANY other game, literally anything else would be better than this pile of monkey arse.

 

[DustyDrB]

People sure need some elaborate reasons to play games these days.

People should play Mass Effect because it's system of choice and consequence is akin to the humble stream. It flows forth and expands, becoming more and more bold until it is a river. The river carries with it the fish and debris much like Mass Effect carries its characters, all moving forward, clashing and struggling in the chaotic flow. Sometimes a lone fisherman may come and pluck away a fish, much like a character in the games will be plucked from the narrative. But the river must flow, and the story must go on. And so it does, churning on until it empties out into the vast ocean, where the sum of all your choices takes its effect on the great sea that is the Mass Effect universe. And therein you will find yourself thirsting for me, searching for sustenance among the waves and...

Man, bullshitting is fun.

OT: Play Mass Effect if you're into Sci-Fi and narrative choice. Or play them if you just like third-person shooters and a decent story. The RPG bits never really shine (though I think the third game is actually the best in this regard), but you still will probably enjoy the games if you are a big RPG fan.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Because even though a bunch of dickheads have got their panties in a bunch doesn't mean that it isn't worth playing. I'm still going to play it when I get a chance because as a rule I ignore everything that everyone ever says to me, unless they have at least a degree, and preferably a Masters.