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Smile UK Store - Mass Effect (PC DVD)
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List Price: £34.99
Our Price: £26.98
Availability: Usually dispatched within 2 to 5 weeks
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: CD-ROM
Brand: Electronic Arts
EAN: 5030930065683
Platform: Windows XP
Release Date: 2008-06-06
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Editorial Reviews:
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Story Summary: You take the role of Commander Shepard starship Normandy, the last hope for all life in the Galaxy. Saren, a rogue member of the elite and untouchable Spectre agents, has discovered the secret to unleashing an apocalyptic force upon the galaxy, and only you stand in his way. To save the lives of billions, you must do whatever it takes to stop Saren and prevent the return of an ancient force bent on the destruction of all organic life. Highlights: Experience a rich and engrossing story where your choices decide the fate of a galaxy
Engage in emotionally charged interactions with the most realistic digital actors ever seen in a video game, using an innovative new dialog system
Immerse yourself in an incredible new adventure from world-famous masters of the RPG BioWare
Stunning high resolution graphics for PC
Optimised GUI and controls for PC gamers
Dominate the battlefield with new individual squad member commandsystem
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: DRM is bad, game is good.
Comment: I'm slightly torn over which way to vote here. Should I cast my lot with the anti DRM crew, who in some cases go as far to give the game one star, regardless of game quality, or should I vote on the game's actually strengths.
I decided to go against the flow and give an actual review of the actual game, instead of just a rant against the DRM. Don't get me wrong, I hate what the DRM means for games, and although I've managed not to have a problem with it, it doesn't mean that it could cause me problems in the future.
Gameplay is divided between third person combat, and it's incredible story. Combat can be fun, but certain classes lack the options that other classes have. If you chose to be a soldier, you can use any type of weapon (which is still limited to only - shotgun, sniper rifle, pistol and assualt rifle) whereas other classes can only use 2, or less of the weapons, and one of them only after leveling up a few times.
You can customise your weapons with mods, and get better weapons over time, and while this gives you a fair amount of control over how you would use the weapon (my shotgun is armed with a mod that poisons enemies, so I shoot them, taking most of their health, then hide, waiting for the damage to take its toll) it feels slightly mechanical.
Most classes also have abilities, some resembling Star Wars force powers, others based around "tech" although I haven't had much experience using the latter abilities. Vehicle combat is difficult and slightly clumsy, but thankfully not necessary, since you can get out of your vehicle most times and fight on foot.
After the first few missions, I decided to dial the combat down to normal, so I could focus on the most important aspect of the game - the story. I have to admit, I have never played KoTOR, so I have no comparisons to make with that bioware fans.
The story is engulfing and exciting, making you feel like you are in complete control of your actions (even though in the main missions you are occasionally - and understandably - funelled towards a certain goal). How you complete your goals is largely up to you, and you earn points for taking a stand on issues in two different sectors - renegade and paragon. These are less "Good" and "Evil" than "Selfless" and "Selfish" or "Welcoming" and "Intimidating". Earning points in these sectors is not exclusive, and they both open up new conversation options that can change the outcome of a confrontation. To me, it seems that the developers are actually rewarding the players for developing the character, in whatever direction.
All in all, an unmissable game for sci-fi lovers and RPG players, but should be avoided by anyone who hates having to do any more than fire guns at aliens.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good game, but feels neutered.
Comment: First produced for the X-Box, Mass Effect, shows its origins. Much like previous X-Box games that have been ported to the PC or developed for both platforms this title feels neutered and overly simplistic. Which is a shame because the game shows great potential.
There are four basic weapons, Pistol, Shotgun, Assault Rifle, and Sniper Rifle. However these all employ the same basic model, only the skin is different. This seems somewhat silly considering the different physiologies of the alien races. And a missed opportunity to highlight the different combat doctrines of the alien races. The overly simply model continues with the armours and most of the explorable planets, which are essentially the same.
The 'core' plot worlds are however well thought out and interesting. The plot itself whilst based on the old concept of 'the ancient evil' is told convincingly. The NPCs are for the most part well fleshed out.
The Bad,
All the weapons are armours are - visually - the same.
Most of the planets are the same.
The inventory management is pretty bad.
The APC which you use to explore planets is very difficult to drive.
Load screens, lots of them.
The Good
The action elements of the game are well thought out. Combat is fun and dynamic.
The NPCs in your party all have fairly developed background stories.
No Bugs that I came across.
In general this is a good game, you will not play it for a couple of hours and forget about it like so many others out there. The game even has a fair degree with replay value with the various class's available to play. The game is above all fun, but does leave you with a feeling of being cheated. Overall a great game which shows a lot of promise, but not perhaps worth the thirty plus pounds some retailers are asking for.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Avoid this game all Bioware created games untill such time as they change their Crap DRM
Comment: - I will not be buying this game or any other from Bioware from now on due to the fact that it is obvious they do not understand or have any respect what so ever for their customers. This can be seen by highly restrictive DRM they lumber this game and your machine with. Bioware we do have a choice.
-This game installs root kit software on your machine that spys on your system and cannot be removed from it even after you remove the game and can leave your system open to virus attack. umm.. Bioware my privacy and system is my own NOT yours, wake up.
-The game allows you three changes to your own machine before it stops working (including operating system reinstall, hardware failure, installing on my laptop or heaven forbid upgrading the hardware on your machine). Sorry Bioware I'll do whatever I DARN well please with my OWN hardware and system after all I bought it not you.
-If a game is good I want to reinstall it and play it at a later date to relive the fun - You obviously have no confidence in your games replayability factor, Bioware add another negative point.
-This measure is not about protecting your business from piracy as pirates still easily copy these games and benefit from not having the restrictions. It's about controlling the second hand market and again punishing the customer. Bioware if I want to sell a game on second hand thats our right just like it's my right to sell on my mp3 player, my bike or old books , Bioware live with it, deal with it and make money from "shock" actually making more and better games.
Some things Bioware do know how to do exhibited in this game:
- Alienate and punish their customer (well done boys shear brilliance)
- Demonstrate a basic lack of business understanding
-The customer is king (not your prisoner)
-It's easier and less expensive to keep a loyal customer than win a new one (here's a news flash for you you're losing both new and old customers, "lets kill the goose that lays the golden egg")
-Short term wins don't mean long term gains, the money you gain from the second hand market initially wont recover the long term damage you do to your brand, or loss of customers in the long run)
- Demonstrate a lack understanding of your target audience,on pc's things fail we reinstall/replace them, we upgrade things, and we do sometimes have more than one machine (and no we wont be ripped off for a second copy for our second machine, get real!)
- Demonstrate a lack of understanding of market forces, if I don't like what your doing I will take my money to your competition.
- Demonstrate lack of customer respect (and very publicly at that), by not correcting something your customers very obviously don't like, and if you think I'm wrong look a the xbox360 and PC ratings of this game, notice a difference? and the pc version was actually enhanced over the xbox360 version!.
- If your strategy is to make pc gaming so unattractive we all up root and move to consoles and you still get your money. Think again not all PC gamers are interested in consoles. They are not the same.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It's pretty good
Comment: I've played and enjoyed KOTOR, KOTOR 2 and Jade empire. Now I've played Mass Effect and quite enjoyed it. I think it's good. But it's missing something and I don't know what it is. I was looking forward to this game, I enjoyed playing it but now that I have finished it, I feel curiously unsatisfied.
Possibly I played it on too easy a level because there was certainly nothing challenging about it but I think my main issue was with the time wasting mini plots. When you played Pazaak or swoop bike racing, you knew you were messing about for the sake of it when you should be saving the Galaxy, but I thought they were fun. The vast majority of the non plot missions in Mass effect aren't a lot of fun. Driving that dopey car or surveying planets just felt like something I should do for completeness rather than entertainment. This isn't true of all the non plot missions - I thought the ones given by your team were good.
Reading the above paragraph it seems unfair to have consistently (if vaguely) complained about what is a good game, but I just had very high expectations. I would recomend this game to anyone really but from me and my unrealistically high expectations, it gets a 3.
Oh, and I had no problems with copy protection.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Bioware title
Comment: I'll write this review for people who like RPG's and have already played Bioware games.
If you've ever played Knights of the Old Republic, or Jade Empire, then you'll know what to expect. This game is no worse than any of those games, and in my opinion Bioware has learned a lot from them and made this a better game. This is a much more mature game than previous recent titles, as if they've taken what was good from those games and discarded what was bad and underdeveloped.
Ok, so we may never have another game as detailed as Baldur's Gate, but this, like almost all recent RPG efforts (including Neverwinter Nights), is aimed at a more cinematic feel. Strangely, the action is real time, which works really well I think, and that's coming from a first person shooter fan too. Fortunately, if you're not an action fan, you're able to pause the action in order to send your mates off to cover, perform flanking maneuvers, or cast powerups etc, so if you're not quick on the trigger finger, not to worry. The fight scenes are more about strategy than shoot em up.
The sci fi story itself is very good, not too simple, and the character interactions are more detailed than the usual 'I'll help you for free/help for a price/kill you' options, we're used too.
All in all it's a great looking, action packed, interesting and genuinely fresh game from the masters of the genre. It's not going to appease old schoolers who remember how much detail you could fit into the older games, but it's genuinely more interesting and full of depth than every other cinematic style RPG out there. With... the possible exception of the Witcher. But then, that has swords, this has spaceships. Choose your poison!
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