Quote from Dajmin :

Been absolutely loving it so far. I'm wishing I'd started on a higher difficulty level though, seems like the combat sections are over too quickly on normal.

Which difficulty are you playing on?.

I just went for normal for my first playthough (you never know, I might actually get round to doing a second....), seems fairly well balanced, fights (at least the ones when I was recruiting Mordin) weren't a cakewalk.

I'm on normal. You even quoted me saying it

My fights aren't exactly easy, but they don't seem to be pushing me as much as I'd hope for. I guess maybe squad make-up and character class go a long way. Without spoilers it's impossible to give the exact times I'm talking about. Makes no difference I suppose, I'm still enjoying it and I'm still dying enough to keep me on my toes.

Blindness comes with age........

Quote from adamlfs :

Now to wait a year for the epic end to this brilliant series.

any official statements from Bioware with that info you could link me to?

They've mentioned on numerous gaming sites that ME3 has been in development for a little bit and should be out in 2011

The CVG article is here: http://tinyurl.com/yjxya4e

And I personally can't get enough. I'm in love with the Mass Effect universe. The lore is amazingly deep and the universe has an abundance of backstory. Bit skeptical about the idea of movies (unless Peter Jackson and James Cameron want to get together for it) but I love it all.

I'm all for the endless games that MadCat360 mentioned; a co-op squad-based RPG/shooter with a never-ending story would put me in a state of perpetual bliss from which I may never recover

Quote from Dajmin :

I'm all for the endless games that MadCat360 mentioned; a co-op squad-based RPG/shooter with a never-ending story would put me in a state of perpetual bliss from which I may never recover

Almost sounds like Borderlands...........

That'd do. But with more dialogue options and less collect-and-return missions (that old MMO hangover really needs to be removed from all games).

And a story arc that actually doesn't ever end

Quote from Dajmin :

That'd do. But with more dialogue options and less collect-and-return missions (that old MMO hangover really needs to be removed from all games).

And a story arc that actually doesn't ever end

Hmmm.......a neverending story without generic "cut and paste" missions, more dialog and story is a HELL of a task.

The "MMO hangover" is there for a reason, it would be (IMO) next to impossible to create a never ending story with "custom" missions.

Although..........if Borderlands evolved the random weapons system iinto missions, that might work.......but they'd still have to follow fairly generic cut and paste "kill this", "take this here" type thing, although every mission would be different.

It'd need to have mission decisions that actually affected the world too, and I don't know how well that'd work in an endless world. You'd eventually get to a point where you had killed everyone who mattered or where making a "good" or "evil" decision had no further consequences. And you inevitably end up mindlessly grinding in situations like that.

I reckon the Pinnacle Station idea of ME1 was a good idea in that sort of environment. If they could expand on that idea and make it both co-op and versus it could be great. The missions themselves might not have any external ramifications but you feel like you're part of a competitive body and it keeps you busy.

Quote from danowat :

I have NO idea how you guys can play through so quickly, I reckon it'll be 6 months before I finish the story the first time.

+1

I've never seen the point of "rushing" through an RPG.

Well I don't feel I rushed it; I may have not gone to every planet in the galaxy. But that doesn't mean I can't... once you’re at the end you will see.
And about 30+ hours gameplay is good I feel, plus on insane that slows you down a lot... with the countless retries in every part of the game, and god the ending is horrid on that difficulty.
Fair play to you guys who can make it last 60+ hours, more power to ya.
But I’m now going through the story again with a paragon character, so I still feel I can get more out of the game, even though I’m playing on normal now. Ok it feels stupid because you can rush through every area like a terminator, but come on your Shepard. Some bad ass mofo who is ment to kick ass no matter what

Quote from adamlfs :

Well I don't feel I rushed it; I may have not gone to every planet in the galaxy. But that doesn't mean I can't... once you’re at the end you will see.
And about 30+ hours gameplay is good I feel, plus on insane that slows you down a lot... with the countless retries in every part of the game, and god the ending is horrid on that difficulty.
Fair play to you guys who can make it last 60+ hours, more power to ya.
But I’m now going through the story again with a paragon character, so I still feel I can get more out of the game, even though I’m playing on normal now. Ok it feels stupid because you can rush through every area like a terminator, but come on your Shepard. Some bad ass mofo who is ment to kick ass no matter what

It's not like i take a lot of time for the fighting scenes etc. But you must be going through the conversations like it's a speed talking contest.

Well no I did listen to all the convo's and did all the extra parts when talking to someone. It doesn't take long to read and then decide what I want to do :P

Normally I "rush" the first time I play and then I start again several times and each time I do more missions

I guess I just prefer to get the most out of a single playthrough, rather than multiples.

Quote from Dajmin :

I'm all for the endless games that MadCat360 mentioned; a co-op squad-based RPG/shooter with a never-ending story would put me in a state of perpetual bliss from which I may never recover

There are games pushing the procedurally generated envelope. Infinity: Quest for Earth (a space MMO) is procedurally generating an entire galaxy with millions of stars and planets. After a procedural world comes procedural missions. It shouldn't be too hard to make a procedural story after that. Voice synthesis is getting better and by the time a game like that is ready should be producing believable results.

Procedural generation is a very powerful tool. It can be defined and scripted to produce very accurate and refined results. A system could be programmed, in theory, to produce a story with very accurate and hand-crafted pacing guidelines (at x conditions, character of type a dies, at z conditions, faction type b attacks faction type c). Procedural generation, I think, is gaming's next biggest revolution.

I hate having absolutely no time for RPG like this, which absolutely deserves it. Stupid final year in school. It's a challenge for people like me, to get every element of the story when playing first time and understand it all. I keep saying to my parents that apart from killing everything it kinda improves my average level of english. :smash:

Quote from Mysho :

I hate having absolutely no time for RPG like this, which absolutely deserves it. Stupid final year in school.

If a game make you score badly at school, I suggest you forget about it.... the school that is

Quote from danowat :

They've mentioned on numerous gaming sites that ME3 has been in development for a little bit and should be out in 2011

means it could be 2 years away, not 1, as Adam stated and knowing Bioware, they could easily postpone the christmas release to January - February like they did just now... so Im guessing 2+ years of waiting is what we're looking at

(It's not that bad though, they'll probably give us a cool detailed universe... we've been waiting for a scirocco for that long, we can wait for a universe longer)

It still reminds me (good old)knights of the old republic 1 & 2 (those games have one of the deepest storys i know, love the story of star wars, it's way too big and complicated for me though.) they were a blast back then. The new one looks interesting too, probably trying it out after ME2 & 1.
trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOvbv-LkK6w&feature=fvw

overview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1_8c2Rw5Cs

So far, has anyone found the story seems to lack "depth" compared to ME1?.

I just get the feeling it's not on such a grand scale as ME1, the universe just feels a bit smaller, missions seem shorter etc.

I've played about four hours so far. So i can't comment on that very much. Initial impressions are good. The story and missions feel pretty much like ME1 to me. Same same, but different.

I went back to Demons Souls however. I can't help it, all other games feel easy and boring since i got that game. :hide:

Quote from danowat :

So far, has anyone found the story seems to lack "depth" compared to ME1?.

I just get the feeling it's not on such a grand scale as ME1, the universe just feels a bit smaller, missions seem shorter etc.

A little, but the more I get pushed through the story the more epic the missions seem to get. I guess it could be the price for making the side-mission planets a little more interesting.

I just did the mission you get the "Ghost Ship" achievement for and I have to say that was pretty bloody spectacular.

I am not very far in, and as impressive as it is, I think the obvious "streamlining" that has been done to make it appeal to a wider audience has meant its lost some of its "open world" charm, its certainly much more main storyline driven.

Whatever happens, it doesn't solve the fact that the planet scanning mini-game is tediously mind numbing, seriously, is that the best they could have made of that?