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Anyone out there a Mass Effect fan? I just finished it a second time to get a handful of achievements I missed as well as make different choices than I did the first time.
I know the sequel doesn't even have a release date, but man I'm excited to play it. If they can fix the minor flaws from ME in ME 2, it should be a near perfect game. Like Pong. -
I'm not a 360 gamer, but one thing about the experience has amused and intrigued me: why do people seem to give such a crap about achievements? I'm not slamming the practice, I just don't get it. I mean, obviously the amount of achievements you've unlocked doesn't even approximate an accurate representation of your skills, so why the draw? Maybe I'm just an achievement virgin.
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Dram
In general, I'm with you. They're silly. But in some games, the achievements actually make the game better. Meaning, they unlock features of the game. In Mass Effect, almost every achievement carries with it a bonus to the game of some type. Halo 3 is another good example. A lot of achievements unlock armor permutations in multi-player, giving you that little extra bit of customization. I don't give a shit about the ones that just go toward your gamerscore. After all, you can't put that on a resume or impress a girl with it, right?
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I'm a Mass Effect fan in that I've got the PC version pre-ordered, so I'll start playing it this next week. I really hope it lives up to what I've been told.
The achievement thing is weird. Like, I know people who wouldn't normally play a game, yet play it to get the points. It's like getting the points is the game they're playing. I just don't see how that is any fun, unless you really get off on the size of your e-peen or knowing that you squeezed every possible macguffin from Sneak King, the Burger King game. However, achievements are not unique to the Xbox 360. Valve recently included them in the Orange Box, and in updates for Team Fortress 2. But the weird thing is, they made them mandatory, sort of. The arguably best new Medic weapon available in TF2 is only unlockable by getting every single one of the 30-odd Medic achievements. But that's actually led more people to circumvent the "rules" by making custom maps designed to be conducive to getting achievements. It's weird to me. It seems like a weird way to lock away items.
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Flanked
From what I heard, they tweaked the PC version to remove some of the problems that people had with the 360 game. There weren't that many flaws, but there were a few glaring ones. Either way, the game is great. And I'll reiterate my point to Dram: Unless achievements carry some bonus, they're ridiculous. If they do, they're worth my time in getting them. Even before achievements, games had unlockables. This is just a new way of doing it unique to the 360.
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I played ME on the 360 and it was great. Its really typical bioware if you've played the KOTOR games but still a lot of fun. The only thing I had a problem with Is I would have liked to see the main missions shortened to allow for more flesh on the side missions. You play the 4 main missions but then you cans spend hours and hours doing the same thing to get all the side missions.
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I <3 Mass Effect! Played it through once with a heroic/good/blue Vanguard(Weapons/Biotic), and gonna play though once again this summer - likely as an evil/villain/red Infiltrator(Weapons/Tech) or Engineer(Technology).
I don't know if I'd like the PC version to be fully "Live" though - if it was, then I could take advantage of the achievements I got on the X360 version, but then it would be less likely to be modded/modable.
In the end, though, I'm not getting it unless I can use my 360 achievements. -
@Honest Ape
We actually have had people put their gamerscore on their resume, and in some circumstances has actually been seen as a positive.f
@everyone else
Achievements are a strange beast, and their appeal is sometimes hard to understand. I personally love them, because I have always been a competitive game-player (meaning I usually don't play RPGs, although KOTOR was fucking awesome). What achievements are doing here is bringing back something we lost when arcades died.
You got the high score, you put your initials in, you can prove you were better than your friends.
The problem today, is that very few games have a simple, arbitrary scoring system. "Points" don't mean anything in the context of most games anymore. With achievements, developers now have a standardized outlet for getting a "high score" back into their games, and allow friends to be competitive again.
@Flanked
Valve's tying the unlockable weapons to achievements may seem a bit odd, but if you remove the word achievement, it's no different than any other unlockable in any prior game. Do some arbitrary tasks, get a bonus for it! The only difference here is that they keep track of the individual steps on the way to the unlockable, in a public way so that you can see what things your friends have or have not done. Interestingly, Valve's achievements on the PC don't even have point values, removing some of the e-penis building you see on XBox Live. At that point it literally is nothing but an unusual-stat tracking system, which rewards you with new guns when you do enough unusual things.
Plus it actually made people play the fucking medic class on public servers again, christ I swear public players are dumb. -
Posted By: josh@Honest Ape
We actually have had people put their gamerscore on their resume, and in some circumstances has actually been seen as a positive.f
@everyone else
Achievements are a strange beast, and their appeal is sometimes hard to understand. I personally love them, because I have always been a competitive game-player (meaning I usually don't play RPGs, although KOTOR was fucking awesome). What achievements are doing here is bringing back something we lost when arcades died.
You got the high score, you put your initials in, you can prove you were better than your friends.
The problem today, is that very few games have a simple, arbitrary scoring system. "Points" don't mean anything in the context of most games anymore. With achievements, developers now have a standardized outlet for getting a "high score" back into their games, and allow friends to be competitive again.
@Flanked
Valve's tying the unlockable weapons to achievements may seem a bit odd, but if you remove the word achievement, it's no different than any other unlockable in any prior game. Do some arbitrary tasks, get a bonus for it! The only difference here is that they keep track of the individual steps on the way to the unlockable, in a public way so that you can see what things your friends have or have not done. Interestingly, Valve's achievements on the PC don't even have point values, removing some of the e-penis building you see on XBox Live. At that point it literally is nothing but an unusual-stat tracking system, which rewards you with new guns when you do enough unusual things.
Plus it actually made people play the fucking medic class on public servers again, christ I swear public players are dumb.
I may be weird in that I still play in arcades.
And yeah, I get that achievements are supposed to be the new arcade high scores, but the problem is that a lot games just throw achievements in willy-nilly, and there's no set standard for difficulty in getting the things. Maybe I'm just a stickler. Also, there are a lot of people out there that play a rather small amount of games, but really well. They end up with a low number when they're probably in the top tier of gamers for those genres. I'd rather just have a database of high scores for the games that I've played on the system, and not have the machine try to mix my apples and orange boxes.
I also don't like the term Gamerscore, for what I think are obvious reasons. -
I've never played Mass Effect as I haven't been able to buy it yet, but I really loved the other Bioware titles. On the point of Achievements I think that some games (like the aforementioned TF2) really do try to give you more bang for your buck, but still allows most people to play the game casually. In the case of some games that don't unlock things (like Oblivion, now that I'm playing through it again on the 360) it basically just tracks what i've done so far in the game. You don't feel compelled to do anything extra, but at the same time you get to kind of keep track of what you or your friends have done in some Meta way (like looking at someone's achievements and seeing whether or not they've beaten a particular game or whatever).
The other thing I see is like Half-Life2, which has achievements that aren't unlocking anything and aren't just being given away. Like going through Episode 1 [I think] and only using 1 bullet. Or carrying the gnome. These examples may unlock an easteregg, but sometimes they're just there as a challenge. In these cases, I think it's no different from beating a ghost of yourself in Mario Kart or completing a "time trial" run through of a FPS. It's something for the hardcore, dedicated gamers to sink they're teeth into and give them some sense of, well, achievement.
It's also something that I, as a casual gamer, can whole-heartily ignore. :D -
I have a unique perspective on games, an unpopular one perhaps. I'm fine with buying goods in game. Gold, weapons, whatever. I'm fine with it as long as the game also gives you a way to attain these without spending additional money beyond purchase price. So what would happen with this? Team Fortress 2 could still have achievements and unlocks, but for the person (me) who doesn't want to grind out killing 50 scouts with a needle gun, there's an option to spend and just get what I'm interested in. The E-peen people are satisfied with their achievements and glory, and I'm satisfied with having my $5 ubersaw. I'm not unbalancing the game since I only have what everyone else can have, one way or the other. In another light, when I play Team Fortress 2, I'm playing to have fun with my friends and be competitive. I feel more capable to have fun and be effective when I have the ubersaw. It's going to take me however many hours to unlock that, whether I'm playing with that goal in mind or not. I can save myself potential hours of un-fun boredom by going into the achievement box map, or I could just send Valve $5 and be back in the game in minutes.
The big potential wrench in my idea is the community reaction to such a plan. The clamor over Battlefield: Bad Company
having items to buy sent EA in a reverse course. Would the same be true for a play-or-buy model?
Oh, and back to topic, I still want to play Mass Effect, achievements or no. Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic were fun enough to give BioWare one "good faith" buy from me. -
Posted By: FlankedI have a unique perspective on games, an unpopular one perhaps. I'm fine with buying goods in game. Gold, weapons, whatever. I'm fine with it as long as the game also gives you a way to attain these without spending additional money beyond purchase price. So what would happen with this? Team Fortress 2 could still have achievements and unlocks, but for the person (me) who doesn't want to grind out killing 50 scouts with a needle gun, there's an option to spend and just get what I'm interested in. The E-peen people are satisfied with their achievements and glory, and I'm satisfied with having my $5 ubersaw. I'm not unbalancing the game since I only have what everyone else can have, one way or the other. In another light, when I play Team Fortress 2, I'm playing to have fun with my friends and be competitive. I feel more capable to have fun and be effective when I have the ubersaw. It's going to take me however many hours to unlock that, whether I'm playing with that goal in mind or not. I can save myself potential hours of un-fun boredom by going into the achievement box map, or I could just send Valve $5 and be back in the game in minutes.
The big potential wrench in my idea is the community reaction to such a plan. The clamor overBattlefield: Bad Company
having items to buy sent EA in a reverse course. Would the same be true for a play-or-buy model?
Oh, and back to topic, I still want to play Mass Effect, achievements or no. Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic were fun enough to give BioWare one "good faith" buy from me.
Yeah, personally I could never endorse item-buying. Ever. I would feel like I was cheating if I ever bought something like that, and from many perspectives I would be by depending on money instead of my own determination and skill. -
Posted By: DramI also don't like the term Gamerscore, for what I think are obvious reasons.
Is it because we all know gamers can't score? -
Posted By: Flanked@Dram
I understand, but nothing says you have to buy anything beyond the game itself. You can still play the game however you want to, and not be penalized for it one way or the other.
Right, but knowing I could have just bought whatever it is that I earned lessens its worth for me. -
Posted By: DramNot necessarily true though, one time a friend of mine not only had sex, he hadconsensualsex.
That was fucking funny. I don't use that gay chat-speak, but if I did, I would say that made me ROTF and LMAO. -
Posted By: joshValve's achievements on the PC don't even have point values, removing some of the e-penis building you see on XBox Live.
Actually, if you use the console command achievement_status in TF2, you'll see that they actually do have a point value - the same values as XBL, I think.
EDIT: It turns out that they removed it with a recent update. They're probably listed in the .gcf though. Also, the command works in Portal, and likely EP2. -
I just started to start my second run when my 360's disc drive decided to crap out on me.
Curse you Microsoft! CURSE YOU! *shakes his fist in the air*
On achievements:
I try to get all the achievements I can or else I don't feel that I've completed the game 100%, otherwise I don't care.
Except when it comes to one of my friends. He's such a self-centered douche that I love rubbing the fact I have a higher gamerscore than he does in his face."This is the earth. And this is Pinky. You can tell the difference quite easily. One is a lump of inert matter hurtling blindly through the void. The other... is the earth." -The Brain -
Posted By: DramI may be weird in that I still play in arcades.
What is this "arcade" thing you speak of?
OK, so as much as I loved KOTOR and was looking forward to Mass Effect, the reports of incredibly long load times has me second-guessing the purchase. Are they really that frequent, or should I just quit stalling already and buy it? -
OK, so as much as I loved KOTOR and was looking forward to Mass Effect, the reports of incredibly long load times has me second-guessing the purchase. Are they really that frequent, or should I just quit stalling already and buy it?
If you're referring to the PA strip about the elevators, you may not have read the accompanying post. Holkins talks about how him and Krahulik were nitpicking, and they really enjoyed the game. -
Posted By: DramOK, so as much as I loved KOTOR and was looking forward to Mass Effect, the reports of incredibly long load times has me second-guessing the purchase. Are they really that frequent, or should I just quit stalling already and buy it?
If you're referring to the PA strip about the elevators, you may not have read the accompanying post. Holkins talks about how him and Krahulik were nitpicking, and they really enjoyed the game.
I wasn't referring to it exclusively, but yes, that's one source. I read a handful of other reviews that mentioned the same thing, but who knows - maybe they get *their* info from Tycho and Gabe. I'm just looking for more info from the FBs -
Posted By: FlankedNot to worry, tomorrow I'll be picking up the game for PC and turning in my social life member's card. Expect a review if I ever emerge.
What is this "social life" of which you speak?
Is it something those non-gamers do in their free-time? -
I bought it. I installed it. Then I spent two hours finding an appropriate driver for my graphics card to be able to actually play it. Now I have work tomorrow, so the opening mission will have to wait until then. I feel like cursing someone for no real gains having been made. Damn you ... uh, Suzanne Somers!
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You know you're addicted to Mass Effect when you hum the song from the citadel elevator whenever you ride in a real elevator.
I really enjoyed this game - played it through once as a 'Paragon' - can't wait to go at it as a Flaming Asshole of Intergalactic Awesomesauce. -
Posted By: josh@Honest Ape
We actually have had people put their gamerscore on their resume, and in some circumstances has actually been seen as a positive.f
@everyone else
Achievements are a strange beast, and their appeal is sometimes hard to understand. I personally love them, because I have always been a competitive game-player (meaning I usually don't play RPGs, although KOTOR was fucking awesome). What achievements are doing here is bringing back something we lost when arcades died.
You got the high score, you put your initials in, you can prove you were better than your friends.
The problem today, is that very few games have a simple, arbitrary scoring system. "Points" don't mean anything in the context of most games anymore. With achievements, developers now have a standardized outlet for getting a "high score" back into their games, and allow friends to be competitive again.
@Flanked
Valve's tying the unlockable weapons to achievements may seem a bit odd, but if you remove the word achievement, it's no different than any other unlockable in any prior game. Do some arbitrary tasks, get a bonus for it! The only difference here is that they keep track of the individual steps on the way to the unlockable, in a public way so that you can see what things your friends have or have not done. Interestingly, Valve's achievements on the PC don't even have point values, removing some of the e-penis building you see on XBox Live. At that point it literally is nothing but an unusual-stat tracking system, which rewards you with new guns when you do enough unusual things.
Plus it actually made people play the fucking medic class on public servers again, christ I swear public players are dumb.
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Posted By: AaronI love Mass Effect simply because it was an RPG that didn't star some kid whose village gets destroyed and he goes on a quest with some friends to stop the bad guy who destroyed his village.You try the best you can. The best you can is good enough.
Isn't there an option where you can choose exactly that as your backstory? -
Posted By: RerunPosted By: AaronI love Mass Effect simply because it was an RPG that didn't star some kid whose village gets destroyed and he goes on a quest with some friends to stop the bad guy who destroyed his village.You try the best you can. The best you can is good enough.
Isn't there an option where you can choose exactly that as your backstory?
Yes. But you don't have an anthropomorphic sidekick that provides comic relief, so it's kind of balanced. -
Posted By: AaronPosted By: RerunIsn't there an option where you can choose exactly that as your backstory?
Sure but you aren't forced to chose that. Also, your backstory you choose in the beginning doesn't really have much an impact on the overall story.You try the best you can. The best you can is good enough.
Well, it does change a lot of dialog and a lot of the game is dialog so I'd say it's a pretty large change...
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In this Discussion
- Aaron July 2008
- AndyTheGeeky May 2008
- Arcys July 2008
- Dram May 2008
- Ferros May 2008
- Flanked July 2008
- FrackTruck May 2008
- honest ape May 2008
- josh May 2008
- monkeyplusplus July 2008
- Razz May 2008
- Rerun July 2008
- Sean May 2008