Zero Punctuation: Mass Effect
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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I think the devs were Campbell fans. At one point she will say "This is my boomstick!" if you try to talk to her in the party.
I would play ME instead of reading a book because I have more choice and I enjoy acting. Choose your own Adventure is terrible writing, so I wouldn't bother with that. ME is better.
I don't know if Duwom is joking, but you should care about some characters if it's done well, nothing in any media is anything more than words/actions presented to you, and ME has no dice rolls. So you really have no idea what you're talking about.
I would play ME instead of reading a book because I have more choice and I enjoy acting. Choose your own Adventure is terrible writing, so I wouldn't bother with that. ME is better.
I don't know if Duwom is joking, but you should care about some characters if it's done well, nothing in any media is anything more than words/actions presented to you, and ME has no dice rolls. So you really have no idea what you're talking about.
There is, because it looks stupid and is terribly unrealistic (I don't see many hideously androgynous people every day). Yes, there's suspension of disbelief, but if the characters don't know if they're a man or a woman, have DD breasts and a 10' waist, have eyes and mouths the size of their head, or get angsty and emotional about every little thing, it's annoying. And he is choosing not to play them.Ryuuku said:
Hmm, the male protagonists in Japanese RPGs often look like girls because it's one of the cultural standards in Japan. You may want to read on <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bish%C5%8Dnen>Bishonen or something. It's not like we don't have cultural memes of our own, in movies, shows and games alike. I mean, what if some Japanese fellow asks you why are there always so many women in James Bond movies, and why most of them fall for the protagonist as soon as he enters the scene?
Huh?
Huh?
I'll just tell them that Bond is a handsome seductive man.Maurog said:
So you're saying in Japan, girls often like the "homosexual" looking guys?
By "homosexual-looking" you meant "effeminate"?SomeBlackGuy said:
With such phenomena as the popular all-female theater [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takarazuka_Revue](coincidentally, most fans are female) and homosexual pornography for women [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi] (most gay men don't like it), this trend doesn't look so surprising.
This is actually really funny.R Man said:
One of the things I've noticed about this game is that everyone loves to spout opinions on it, yet few actually spend enough time on anything higher than casual (very easy) difficulty beforehand to have any idea what they're talking about. If you don't use the combat wheel often you are doing something wrong. Yes, it pauses combat. You will be doing this all the time as was obviously intended. The most particularly useful and frequent combat pausing is done when fighting geth hoppers. You will not come close to surviving hardcore or insanity without using the wheel. Maybe veteran, but you'd still be making things harder on yourself just to play the game like it's Halo.
Having said all that, aside from your squad AI, the combat feels unique, fairly deep, and is a lot of fun. If you took away the combat wheel and its pausing you would be completely changing the entire game for the worse. It would almost certainly become more twitch than strategic RPG.
Story is good. Different choices are good. Side missions are a wash, as they aren't refined enough and the mako sucks. At the same time there are still enough good moments to redeem UCW if you ignore the collection / survey missions.
This game was also released before it should have been. Too many bugs for a title of this level. While they don't make it unplayable, it definitely takes away immersion sometimes. There's a lot to dislike about Mass Effect... but what there is to love makes it really easy to look the other way.
Never having played (and never going to), I just want to know: what do you do with the girl if you choose to be female?
Surely she can't ride your purple python then?
Surely she can't ride your purple python then?
"Why do they look like girls/pretty?"
It's just the pretty boy look that a lot of asian guys have, whether they like it or not (my friend complains about this and how he's hairless, "I got no f***ing 'stouche and chest hair!"), and the Japs seem to embrace it (they're not ashamed about it and rightfully shouldn't). You can't help it if you look like that. If anyone's wondering why a lot of them are so slim with little muscle try living in Japan for a month or just live super healthy. The look doesn't appeal to everyone, and to the macho it probably looks plain unmanly and homosexual. "Girlish swordsman Hiroshi" XD
It's just the pretty boy look that a lot of asian guys have, whether they like it or not (my friend complains about this and how he's hairless, "I got no f***ing 'stouche and chest hair!"), and the Japs seem to embrace it (they're not ashamed about it and rightfully shouldn't). You can't help it if you look like that. If anyone's wondering why a lot of them are so slim with little muscle try living in Japan for a month or just live super healthy. The look doesn't appeal to everyone, and to the macho it probably looks plain unmanly and homosexual. "Girlish swordsman Hiroshi" XD
I don't use the combat wheel because I use tactics rather than jumping around trying to do a Master Chief impersonation. I hide behind cover and I time my shots well. When I'm outmatched I don't fret or panic, I fall back. I don't always use the wheel because I ensure that when I fight it is on my terms. Obviously it doesn't always work so I break out the combat wheel.AngryCola said:
Also Hardcore and Insane Difficulty are called Hardcore and Insane for a reason. They are more difficult to play and when I do start playing a 'tougher' game then my use of the combat wheel goes up correspondingly. Not all gamers are hard core players though, and many (Especially with RPG's) just want to play for the story line. If you do play on harder difficulty then you have to expect to use special abilities, grenades and healing more often as that is the point of higher difficulties, to be more of a challenge.
For the last time, Yahtzee is not gay...didn't you see his Guitar Hero 3 review? Geez...he couldn't have been more convincing...ebannaw said:
You're damn right it is. And while you are entitled to have your own opinion, there's no need to get all affronted when someone expresses their's, vomiting puerile hate-speech all over a forum...you knob gobbler.ebannaw said:
[Insert random sycophantic comment aimed in Yahtzee's general direction]
Do a Christmas special...please...so Tiny Tim gets better.
No, there is something wrong with it. Firstly, I would like to play my game were the main character's sexuality wouldn't be questioned. Secondly, the games just suck the balls! They're the least fun thing I have ever done. I play the demo of Blue dragon that was on my Mass Effect 'extras' disk, and found that the game sucked... HARD! It was so boring. I want to play a game for fun because that's what they're all about. But no, FF and BD and al the rest of the JRPG's are all the same, click attack, then click on the enemy to attack, and maybe do a special move... were's the fun in that! I don't have to learn about Japanese culture to know what I don't like, and this is it!Ryuuku said:
Ahaha I find it RATHER amusing how people whine when their games get SMASHED by Yahtzee...
I'll tell you losers who are all defensive about your games:
Don't be so stupid!
I love JRPGS, I love Zelda, I love a lot of games that Yahtzee reviews, and you know what I do?
I LAUGH WITH IT.
You have to learn not to be so stuck onto your games! Face it, most of the stuff Yahtzee reviews is true, and that's what makes it funny. So don't go around insulting him, hes just trying to provide entertaining reviews for you guys.
I'll tell you losers who are all defensive about your games:
Don't be so stupid!
I love JRPGS, I love Zelda, I love a lot of games that Yahtzee reviews, and you know what I do?
I LAUGH WITH IT.
You have to learn not to be so stuck onto your games! Face it, most of the stuff Yahtzee reviews is true, and that's what makes it funny. So don't go around insulting him, hes just trying to provide entertaining reviews for you guys.
I really have to disagree with Yatzhee this time round. Most of the time I find he hits the nail on the head, but this time 'round he just seems to have missed completely and hit a different nail.
For starters, I get the sense Yatzhee hasn't played the game. If he had, he would have found plenty of other things to criticise. Instead, he seems to have barely scratched the surface. For example, he claims you can either be a brown-haired man or woman, despite the fact you can change your hair colour. That doesn't sound like much, but the fact he missed something as obvious as that is troubling, and casts doubts on how thorough the rest of the review was.
Secondly, he seems to be complaining about things that just aren't true. Mass Effect's dialogue IS punchy and succinct, much more so than the other RPGs Yatzhee is apparently comparing it to. Conversations usually only take around about a minute, slightly longer for more the more epic matters, and responses and questions are usually only one line long, maybe slightly longer. If anything, conversations and character development are the centre of Mass Effect's fun.
And lastly, the combat. Me, I'm not a massive RPG fan. I was bored by Morrowind, lost interest in Deux Ex: IW, and cast aside KotOR. But that never happened with Mass Effect, and the fact it has such an enjoyable combat system must have at least supplemented this.
In Morrowind, combat was, to quote Gilbert Grape, dancing to no music. You get through it, but you don't feel any exhiliration. KotOR's turn-based/real-time combat was slightly better, but you didn't feel very connected. And even Deus Ex, with it's FPS combat, failed to impress. Mass Effect has a combat reminiscent of Gears of War, as is the enjoyment gained from it.
I definetely never had any trouble with my squad blocking my line of sight, and thats what irks me when Yatzhee claims that this happens all the time.
At any rate, I'm definetely not an RPG fan, but I was still drawn in by Mass Effect. The fact Yatzhee spends most of the review griping about trivial matters, and barely goes into detail with the game, reveals that he has barely played it. He may have completed it, but he hasn't played it.
For starters, I get the sense Yatzhee hasn't played the game. If he had, he would have found plenty of other things to criticise. Instead, he seems to have barely scratched the surface. For example, he claims you can either be a brown-haired man or woman, despite the fact you can change your hair colour. That doesn't sound like much, but the fact he missed something as obvious as that is troubling, and casts doubts on how thorough the rest of the review was.
Secondly, he seems to be complaining about things that just aren't true. Mass Effect's dialogue IS punchy and succinct, much more so than the other RPGs Yatzhee is apparently comparing it to. Conversations usually only take around about a minute, slightly longer for more the more epic matters, and responses and questions are usually only one line long, maybe slightly longer. If anything, conversations and character development are the centre of Mass Effect's fun.
And lastly, the combat. Me, I'm not a massive RPG fan. I was bored by Morrowind, lost interest in Deux Ex: IW, and cast aside KotOR. But that never happened with Mass Effect, and the fact it has such an enjoyable combat system must have at least supplemented this.
In Morrowind, combat was, to quote Gilbert Grape, dancing to no music. You get through it, but you don't feel any exhiliration. KotOR's turn-based/real-time combat was slightly better, but you didn't feel very connected. And even Deus Ex, with it's FPS combat, failed to impress. Mass Effect has a combat reminiscent of Gears of War, as is the enjoyment gained from it.
I definetely never had any trouble with my squad blocking my line of sight, and thats what irks me when Yatzhee claims that this happens all the time.
At any rate, I'm definetely not an RPG fan, but I was still drawn in by Mass Effect. The fact Yatzhee spends most of the review griping about trivial matters, and barely goes into detail with the game, reveals that he has barely played it. He may have completed it, but he hasn't played it.
What does that even mean?J-Val said:
I don't think he "missed" so much as didn't care to mention that you can change your character's hair style. And just how thorough can a roughly 5 minute review be on a game that can take upwards of 20 hours to complete (if you go all out with the side quests). Hell, there are conversations in Mass Effect that go on for longer than Yahtzee's review. I find it troubling how serious you're taking his review.J-Val said:
Or it reveals that he does not have the time, or possibly the patience, to go through every single detail of such an epic game. You can't seriously expect him to play through every last side quest, read every single word in the codex, and basically play this game until it has spun itself into a smoldering husk inside his 360's disc drive just for a short video.J-Val said:
He's played enough of it for this review though. Or are you going to demand that he unlocks every achievement before he does another review for the Xbox?J-Val said: