Well, duct tape my penis to a high-pressure air hose and crank up the PSI, this ain’t a half-bad game after all that. Hey, nobody’s more surprised than I am. I mean, it is still awash in many of the usual numbfuck Bioware gaming tropes, don’t get me wrong.

Let’s take conversation options. All I smelled from these jerks while the game was in development was their farting assurances that the dialogue and conversation options were going to, whatever, cure syphilis and make shaken babies fly to the moon. I don’t know, who really pays attention to what game developers say anymore during development? They all sound like a horrible mishmash of the combat fighter pilot aces who made Trespasser passed through a Molyneaux-O-Matic Empty Promise Generator to me.

Still, a lot of suckers bought Mass Effect primed for some sophisticated, intricate, interweaving fluid dialogue that had a real impact on the story and subsequent events based on the myriad subtle dialogue options presented to you. I expected this:

…and that’s pretty much what I got.

Does anyone really care anyway? I bet you don’t. I bet you THINK you do, but you don’t. Once aliens and shit come flying in and you’ve got a sweet fuckin’ assault rifle and some, whatever, biotic or tech powers maxed out, you could not even give one fraction of a shit about that. The harlequin fetus that wrote Limbo of the Lost could have busted out the lines for this game, the Hell if you’d care once that Krogan mouthed off to you in that elevator and it was Go time. You know the one. That ugly fuck. Rot in Krogan Hell, you jerk, and take the interminable fucking cinematic that precedes you, with you.

BOOM SHAKKA LAKKA LAKKA

BOOM!

Where was I?

Oh, right: internet people have giant worms in their heads.

Exhibit A. Actually, Exhibit A is that fucking horrendous flouncy fanart drawing of the blue chick up there.

Exhibit B, then:

Ehhhhhh heheheheh, Jesus. Shit, I coulda just posted that pic and be done with it, right? Aw, fuck it. I just freebased a month’s supply of diet pills, it’s either this or hit redtube and make dickburger until dawn.

Furthering my point, a lot of people whined about the fact that since Mass Effect came out on the 360 first, it was nothing more than a drool-mouthed console pretend-RPG made out of an old Viewmaster and some crayons. Some swore each copy shipped with a little crash helmet, but those people are FUCKING IDIOTS and I’m totally laughing at all of you saps who believed that stuff. Get a grip, Chip.

So yeah, the skill trees are relatively simplistic compared to games that use AD&D’s 3rd edition rules or whatever. I’m sure it was a real bonerkill for some people that you could load the game up and just, you know, play it and level up and add skill points whenever the hell you felt like it and could even see all the perks that you could eventually obtain way ahead of time, so you could plan your character’s progression with foresight and a modicum of strategy MAYHAPS, MAYHAPS. This would be in insane direct opposition to being left in the ABSOLUTE PITCH BLACK DARK like a lot of hardcore RPGs suffer unto you, or watch some boring percentage or point total next to one of your stats bump up every so often. IN MY DAY, BOY, THE COMPUTER ROLLED 1d10 FOR OUR HIT POINTS WHEN WE LEVELED UP AND IF THAT COMPUTER ROLLED A ONE, WELL THEN BY GOD WE ONLY GOT ONE STINKING HIT POINT AND WE WERE FUCKING GRATEFUL. AND WE DIDN’T HAVE NO FANCY INTERNET FOR OUR PORN, NEITHER. ALL WE HAD WAS OUR SISTER’S CHEERLEADER PICTURES BUT I DIGRESS, SON, I DIGRESS.

I ran a side-by-side comparison to Mass Effect’s crisp, clear, easy to understand character screen to an artist’s interpretation to the miasma of what character creation algorithms consist of in your typical “hardcore” RPG and check this funkadelic Tom Selleck magnum apple pie action:

Mass Effect:

As compared to [game title removed under threat of litigation]:

Yeah. It’s crazy, huh? Fuck it anyway, how many games besides Mass Effect let you roleplay a fucking ugly transvestite space hooker? Apart from Too Human, that is. No wait, that was just made by one, never mind.

So there we go. I’m having fun, shooting stuff, leveling up, upgrading my gear, the whole rip. But you know, I still have a dance in my pants and the DJ is spinning my number, so let’s head out for the wild blue yonder!

Next: My Blue…Heaven?

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 3:23 am and is filed under Bill, PC, XBox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.