Age Rating:

12 (BBFC)

What is it?

A Bioware RPG witha futuristic space-colony setting and third-person-cover combat

It is fun?

Hell, yes.

Is it worth the money?

(£39.99)

Yes, yes, yes. At £1 per hour, it’s very good value for money.

Why?

I love western-style RPGs. I love sci-fi settings. And I love taking cover during combat. I love Mass Effect. This game is almost made for me :)

There are flaws. I talked about Mass Effect’s dialogue issue back in December. The inventory interface is quite possibly the worst I’ve ever seen, as is the party selection menu. Still, I had so much fun playing the game itself that I don’t really care.

The Good:

• Purpose - You have actual goals throughout the game that aren’t simply “shoot everything in sight”. Sure, that’s generally the means to your end, but at least there’s a purpose behind it.
• Combat - The combat system is great. It’s like Gears of War but less frustrating. Gears feels like you’re wearing a huge chunk of magnetic armour and everything else is made of iron. Mass Effect gives you more control when running and it’s far easier to go around things.
• Breadth - You have a giant world to explore. This isn’t a sandbox game but you can spend hours just exploring the Citadel and pick up lots of side-quests
• A useful journal! Longtime readers will know, I’m a bit fanatic about RPG journals. This one does the job, though could have done with listing the target locations more prominently. Iinstead, you’re forced to open up every single item repeatedly, to find the nearby missions.
• Force powers Biotics - These mysterious powers are great fun. There’s a little something for everyone - healing, direct damage, disabling, shields, sharpshooting… I love it. None of them look quite as spectacular as KOTOR2’s Force Storm, but the combination of Lift and an assault-rifle-wielding teammate looks impressively violent.
• Advancement - I’m not sure if BioWare did a sneaky enemies-level-up-with-you but if they did, it was very subtle and much more satisfying than Oblivion. In Oblivion as you got more powerful, it never felt that way because even the lowliest grass-dwelling bandit mysteriously sprouted glass armour and would kick your sorry ass unless you specialised in combat. In Mass Effect, you can do the majority of the game in any order and it’s always challenging, but you still get the feeling of becoming more powerful.

The Bad:

• The interface and dialogue system. The interface will need a whole post to explain, so I’ll save that for another time. Just trust me, it’s rubbish.
• Uncharted worlds - These are fun to start with. The first time you get dropped on an uncharted world, it’s a breathtakingly beautiful scene. The next hundred and fifty seven times start to grate. Ultimately, the uncharted worlds all feel the same - drive around from way point to way point, drive in circles shooting something, fall off a mountain, find building, kill everyone, search back room (or for variety, upstairs back room), play unlocking mini-game, The End. But it’s the only way to get that level 50 achievement so, for some insane reason, I did them all. There’s no way I’m going for level 60 on another playthrough.
• Repetition - The endless combat in corridors for the main quest does get a little samey after a while.
• Achievements - If you collect gamerpoints compulsively, Mass Effect will swallow you for days. Assuming that you play as efficiently as possible, you’ll have to play the game all the way through twice and the middle four planets at least once more with different allies. Considering it took me around 40 hours to hit level 50 with almost all the sidequests, that’s something in the region of 80-100 hours to get all the gamerpoints. I’d advise you to rent Avatar: The Burning Earth instead, but you probably already did.
• Tower of Hanoi - Has BioWare ever made an RPG that didn’t feature the Tower of Hanoi? I’ve been solving this puzzle for at least 15 years now. I know it was in KOTOR and I’m sure I saw it in another BioWare game. Here’s a compromise; show us the puzzle and have a character ask what it is. If we answer Tower (or Towers) of Hanoi we get a free pass, okay?

In summary:

It’s a brilliant space-shooter RPG. Mass Effect would get my vote for Game of The Year 2007.

Mysteriously HUD-Free Screenshots

Popularity: 13% [?]

This is the fifth part in my ongoing series of articles detailing the essentials to consider when writing a journal for a computer-based role-playing game. The previous parts are:

• RPG Journal Part I - The Basics
• RPG Journal Part II - The Categories
• RPG Journal Part III - Information
• RPG Journal Part IV - Maps

Inventory

When I pick up an as-yet-unrevealed quest item, please please please, log it in the journal. I can’t stand it when you find odd items like A Toothbrush with no clue as to its importance. I learned my gaming habits from playing Steve Meretzky games. Did anyone else get caught out by leaving the screwdriver back in Arthur’s house in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy? Or have their Simpleberry Bush confiscated in Spellcasting 201: The Sorceror’s Applicance? Growing up with those games has left me with a healthy inventory-centric paranoia.
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Popularity: 8% [?]

Long-time readers of The Average Gamer may have noticed a certain tendency on my part. Every once in a while I come over all excitable about some aspect of gaming. I’ll write an entire series of posts about it. Then the series stops. Abruptly.

I do apologise. Here is part 4 of How To Write an RPG Journal - Maps. Turns out maps are quite big enough to warrant their own section. For those of you who missed the series back in January, have a look at RPG Journal Part I - The Basics, RPG Journal Part II - The Categories, and RPG Journal Part III - Information.

Maps

Maps are important. Incredibly important. Even when your game isn’t the size of World of Warcraft. I know, it’s not the sort of thing that gets mentioned in reviews. Trust me, the map feature is sorely missed if it’s not there.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. If I recall, it didn’t have a map. If it did have a map, it was next-to-useless. Remember that giant bird cage in the menagerie? I climbed all the way to the top of that. Then I went on holiday. When I came back a month later I had no idea where I’d been or where I was going. I spent a few days running around in large but unproductive circles before moving on to a more rewarding game. Seamlessly-blended levels are pretty and immersive but make everything look very samey.
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Popularity: 8% [?]

This is the third in a series of posts that attempt to deconstruct the humble computer RPG journal. Other posts in the series are:

This post is all about fleshing out your RPG journal. Make it useful. I’m not about to tell anyone how to write. Rather, I’ll focus on what to include and what’s safe to discard.

Record everything

RPG quests can be horrifically complex. Well-written dialogue provides a lot of information. Journals for computer role-playing games are there to take some of the strain out of remembering. Don’t forget, us gamers are busy people. Between blogging, learning VB.net, having a social life, household chores and everything else, remembering the fine details of a D&D computer RPG quest is pretty low on the list. It is crucial not to overlook pertinent facts when writing a journal. Here’s a list of things you should include in every quest entry.
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Popularity: 10% [?]

This is the first in a series of posts that attempt to deconstruct the humble computer RPG journal. Other posts in the series are:

RPGs. Role Playing Games. Games where the emphasis is on role-playing and story, choosing what missions to complete and how you complete them.

By their very essence, computer RPGs are complex. You can have five or more different tasks to juggle at the same time and for each task you can choose to do them a different way in order to achieve a different outcome. Gee, what would be useful to keep track of this? Why, a journal of course. How convenient that the game developers provided one for me. Now I don’t need to write everything down and lose it because the game will keep track of all the details, right?

Wrong.
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Popularity: 10% [?]

I found web-based Flash game Murloc RPG at XGenStudios, who also host Defend Your Castle. Apparently Gamer Disclaimer is a bit of a World of Warcraft fan. Rather than hoping for Blizzard to make Murlocs into a playable race, (s)he decided to write (her/)his own 5MB flash game. It was featured in the WoW Community Spotlight back in October.

Murloc RPG puts you in the role of Murk, an inexperienced Murloc warrior. Your accomplishments shall surely grant you everlasting glory, at least until an adventurer finds your village…

• 20 Talents
• 50+ Items
• Tons of enemies to battle
• Fully developed storyline
• Lots of areas to explore

It looks good. It also does a bloody good job of modelling the early levels of every MMORPG known to man. Yep, your first quest is go out and get the chief 10 chunks of meat. Wolf meat, in this case. Here’s your rusty knife. Try not to yawn too loudly.

It could benefit from a few more keyboard controls, especially in battle. I’m a big fan of one-handed games. The sound is pretty repetitive as is the grind. Nonetheless, it’s an entertaining flash game. Try it out. You get 3 save slots so turn the sound off at work. It’ll make a great long-term alternative to Solitaire.

Screenshots:

Links:
Murloc RPG on XGenStudios
Gamer Disclaimer
World of Warcraft Community Spotlight Archive

[via GamingTags]

Popularity: 26% [?]

Dungeon Master is a bloody brilliant game, period. It’s a game that I’ve spent a lot of time playing over the years on several different platforms (Atari ST, Amiga and PC Engine).
Originally released on the Atari ST in 1987 by the now defunct developer FTL, Dungeon Master was an instant classic as well as being the first real-time 3D roll playing game.

Chaos Strikes Back followed a couple of years later utilising the same 3D engine but with the addition of some very fiendish level design and tough new monsters produced what was a very challenging game. You could also play Chaos Strikes Back using the characters you’d previously developed whilst playing Dungeon Master which led to many people revisting DM to train up their characters.

Finally, after a 6 year wait (sounds familiar - Valve and HL2) Dungeon Master II appeared on the PC in 1995 with much improved graphics and sound but still with the classic gameplay intact. It was more evolution rather than revolution which is possibly why the game didn’t perform well at retail. And then nothing. Dungeon Master was no more.

Skip forward to the present day. You can now relive the wonder that is Dungeon Master on your PC thanks to George Gilbert and his Return to Chaos programming project. You can download the latest version of it here (8.9mb). Unfortunately, no Dungeon Master like game has ever appeared on any of the recent consoles (there was Labyrinth on the PSOne, promo screenshots in EDGE in 1995 but the game was never released. Anyone remember this?) Well, maybe Dungeon Siege has been the closest we’ve got to a modern version of DM come to think of it. We’ve really got enough football, driving and GTA games at the moment thanks very much, how about some dungeon action?

Some features of Return to Chaos:

• Only 8.9mb in size
• No installation required - unzip to a folder and run the RTC.exe
• DM and Chaos Strikes Back both fully playable as well as a zoo level populated by all the monsters in DM
• DM II has recently been added (some levels of the game are still in development though)
• Dungeon Editor - create/edit dungeons/traps/monsters
• Custom dungeons - create your own with the editor or download them from here
• Frequent updates - bug fixes, additional features like new maps and new spells

So there you have it. If you fancy a bit of classic 3D adventuring then Dungeon Master is the game for you!

Screenshots:

Popularity: 18% [?]

RF Online ships this week. I fired up the RF Online beta last week and puttered around as a Cora Ranger for two or three hours - I couldn’t find a single reason to continue playing it. I realise that it was still unfinished but this game sucks like a Dyson! Continue Reading

Popularity: 28% [?]