Wow man sorry to see your thread so derailed. Great review although I dissagree with a few points.
Presentatin/Quality: I pretty much agree with you here. I only heard one bad voice talent in the game. It was not horrible but the overall excelence of the other actors really made the Human Ambassador stand out as sub-par. I never really noticed a frame rate issue bad enough to bother me but the Texture pop in was a bit irritating.
Id give it a 9.2
Sound: I tend to dissagree with almost everyone here. Sound effects, voice acting, and quality of sound were all top notch but I hated the music. It felt very 70's bad Sci-Fi movie to me. The song in the credits was about the only thing I liked.
a very opinionated 7.5
Gameplay: I played through as a Infiltrator on hard and did mostly paragon choices, the Ashly romance, and only about 4-5 hrs of side quest stuff clocked in at 20 hrs. The only negative aspect of gameplay to me was the Makko. Its the worlds best ATV and can drive over anything on the side missions/exploration but is limited to treches in the main storyline. I just found it unsatifying and ended up getting out to fight in a lot of instances as the combat was more fun. Anyone else run over armatures and colosuses back up shoot with cannon and reapeat?
The cover system, shooting, and tech/biotic abilites made for some Killer gameplay. Not the best enemy ai in the world but its a lot better than it looked in gameplay vids. I found combat to be downright fun when you mix in all the extra abilities. Squad AI was just sad though its a good thing they cant shoot you.
I had a LOT of fun with the combat aspects of gameplay 9.5
Story: Pretty much completly agree with you here. Excellent story. Converstion tree very well implemented and does a good job of immersing you in the storyline. I wish they would have greyed out completed dialog trees though. It is short for a RPG main plotline took me about 15 hrs I think for the main plot. It needed about 2 more missions IMO.
I did not find much of the 4 to 5 hrs I spent on side quest exploration to be very compelling and thats why I droped it and focused on the main plot. Also they did a great job of making the galaxy feel large. Unfourtunatly it also feels lifeless and empty. Even on the citidel NPC's are just window dressing there is no interaction with the envirionment. Most just stand there. None react when you draw your weapon and shoot by or in some cases where it is allowed off station at them. I found that very unsatisfying.
Still excelent story 9.5
Graphics: Its a beautiful game. I loved the art style. Some of the best aliens Ive seen(Wrex) along with some cliched film knockoffs(Alien Queen,cylons) but all well done. That said all the worlds felt barren/lifeless. Its a pretty engine but it needs some vegitation. Texture pop in was distracting and worth noting but frame rate drops were inconsequential IMO.
9
overall 9
If you like story driven gamplay run dont walk to get this game.
OT: The Witcher If you have a PC with XP and you love story drive RPGS you owe it to yourself to play this game. If you have Vista dont bother it wont run without crashing.
