Mass Effect Limited Edition

I am awed by the sheer beauty of this game! I cannot fathom anything looking and sounding better than this RPG of the Year! As with KOTOR, Bioware had this baby in development for 4 years and it shows. The things you can do...wow. The dialog is out of this world! The Limited Edition comes with all kinds of cool things in a tin box that you'll savor. The following is from my review on various websites: "Game of the Year!" What can I say about this game that hasn't been mentioned already? I could not fathom such a beautiful, entrenching piece of entertainment that expands beyond what one could do with videogames. This is the RPG of the Year and the Game of the Year, in everyone's eyes. You all are in for a treat if you haven't picked up this baby! Story - 10/10 Take Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate Atlantis, Bioshock, Halo and Battlestar Galactica... combine all these and add a new, unique storyline with unique characters and you get Mass Effect and then some. The choices you make affect the story and the way you play. The decisions you take leads to breathtakingly exhilarating moments that will make you want more and to come back for more. Never since KOTOR did anyone top Oblivion and Final Fantasy...until now. You have to play, see and hear it to believe it. I won't say more. The ending...oh boy. It's that good and I've only seen one of them so far! Gameplay - 9/10 Other than technical issues with texture pop-in and the occasional chugginess and weird glitching (ala KOTOR), this game's mechanics are superbly flawless. You will simply love how the real-time combat action rivals that of any other 3rd person shooter of its kind. The fact that you still can pause the game to set up biotics is amazingly executed. Being able to travel to dozens of distant planets and collect items may be tedious to some, but fun to me. The Mako rover is really fun to bounce around in and to destroy enemies with. Character customization is crazy good, better than Oblivion and Saints Row. The body is the only thing you can't change however, but they didn't want an overweight or underweight person running around in their cutscenes I guess. I really enjoyed the weapons and the upgrades, although I received too many items over the limit and had to get rid of most to accommodate newer, better ones. Nothing went beyond level 10 weapons or armory the first play through however. The vibration of the controller was put to good use, except there is none during fixed cutscenes (a stable of Bioware I suppose). Graphics - 10/10 If you think the videos were good, you haven't seen nothing yet. They don't give this game justice; you have to see it yourself to be awe-inspired. I played with film grain turned on and no motion blur for the first play through, giving me a cinema-like experience. The grain does affect the entire game except for the menus and character screens. I don't know if it actually slows the game down a bit or not, but so far it doesn't seem to make a difference. It usually runs between 30 to 60 fps, but when you think about KOTOR, this is way beyond that game as far as polish goes. The fact is, the details are simply amazing. The character's faces, every single one of them to include NPCs, have super sharp resolution and texturing. The game boasts colorful arrays on each and every planet you land on. Even the structures and mountainous terrain are all differently constructed and textured. The sight of any planet's sun(s) are absolutely incredibly bright like the real thing. I love the way all the lights in the game glow in fact, with a streak of horizontal light swiped across, as if it is your eyelashes bending the light, not a camera lens like in other games. The fires could have used a motion blur effect but other than that they look realistically done and are very bright. The animation is top-notch, everything appears motion-captured. As well, with enemies and the like, you'll notice that they all have ragdoll physics! This is especially obvious when you use the throw or lift biotic against them when it turns into slow motion. The scenery is simply astonishing, makes you believe you really are there. Audio - 10/10 The sound is superbly haunting and dramatic. The emotions you get from listening to the musical soundtrack blows away anything you've heard in past games. The score is so good that there is a separate soundtrack for the game! The sound effects are unique and new, as well as scorchingly loud when it comes to weapons. It feels right, sounds right. The voice acting is fantastic, as each character does an excellent job of portraying emotion and mannerisms for that particular character. The game is voiced by major talents. One will notice that Dwight Schultz (of the A-Team, Star Trek: TNG and Pauli Franchetti in The Darkness videogame) is in the credits; he is a master at many voices that you won't recognize him off the bat. A bunch of KOTOR voices are in the game such as the ones who played Carth Onasi and Bastila. The only problem is that the Carth Onasi guy did Alenko Kaidan's voice too softly, IMO. Other than that, everyone did a fine job indeed. It's very atmospheric, from the ocean waves to the humming of the Normandy, and from the button and electronic beeps to the weapons engaging. I cannot test 5.1 surround but it allows for it. Replayability - 9/10 This game has high replay value due to all the tough decisions you must make each play through! What you do and say are integral to the core game's plot and twists, as well as how each character reacts towards you. It's not as deeply intertwined per se as in KOTOR but that's only because with that game you can become completely evil whereas in Mass Effect you are a Marine for the Alliance, so you're not evil, but you can be a jerk if you want and you can make decisions that ends up killing someone. The first time through I played as a male Vanguard getting the best of both soldier and sentinel in one. I made my character look like John Sheppard of Stargate: Atlantis fame, since his default name in the game is John Shephard (spelled differently but that's okay). I'm going to be a "baddy" this time with a female I created, or I can choose to use the same guy I had before to obtain the rest of the awesome long list of achievements! Overall - 10/10 This game is set up for 2 more sequels. With EA buying out Bioware, we as fans hope Bioware doesn't get pushed around with schedules since Mass Effect took 4 years in the making. If it takes that long again, I don't care, just keep the beautiful and exciting game intact for our next adventure! Thank you Bioware for creating my Game of the Year that I can play over and over again! It's way more than worth the money, and a must have. Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/07

Having survived the terrible experience of Mass Effect 3's horrible ending - which, BTW, has been improved from horrible to underwhelming with the Extended Cut DLC - I decided to play ME1 again just to immerse in the fantastic Mass Effect phenomenon at least once more. Moreover, I want to prove to myself that ME3's ending, as disappointing as it is, cannot mar the eternal beauty of ME1 (and to a lesser effect, also ME2) - And I am happy to report that I was not disappointed. To begin with, it is crucial to establish that ME1 is unique in the series because it is a RPG with shooter element, whereas ME2 and ME3 are shooters with RPG elements. The most important and simple distinction is this: In ME1, regardless of how well your aiming skill is, your weapons' accuracy is, by and large, dependent on the XP you invested in a particular weapon. On the other hand, in ME2 and 3, your aiming skill (along with reaction speed) determines your accuracy. Also, ME1 leans heavily toward exploration. Granted, this is the least developed aspects of the game, especially in regard to driving around the planets in the M35 Mako infantry assault vehicle or running around the Citadel doing side quests, which can be uneventful for the most part - if not downright boring. On the other hand, running or driving around afford you some spectacular views such as the Earth rise from the moon or awe-inspiring vista from the Citadel docking bay. In addition to the reasons above, the primary reason that ME1 is special to me is its story elements. As a former fan of the 80s science fiction mini-series like Battlestar Galactica (the one and the only original one, of course) or Buck Roger, I have to say that ME1 captured the atmosphere and the mood of these mini-series perfectly - and even better in many cases. As is, obviously having drawn many experiences from their excellent previous work in the Knight of the Old Republic, the EAbioware writing team, headed by Drew Kapyshyn, did a stellar job in creating their own science fiction universe and its own saga. The music in ME1, composed by Jack Wall and Sam Hulick, may not be perfect - but it is a perfect fit for the game. Surely, it is not as melodramatic as the music in ME3; nor is it as inspiring as ME2's. However, when framed within of the aforementioned science fiction genre, it is simply perfect. As is, I also have the soundtrack of ME1 and highly recommend it fellow ME fans. Another remarkable achievement for ME1 - at least for me - is that up until ME1, I never really give a damn about voice acting in games. In fact, I strongly dislike the idea of merging video games and movies together - and I still do. However, ME1 is an exception due the outstanding performances by virtually all the actors involved - especially Jennifer Hale, who voiced the female Commander Sheppard. As for the limited edition contents, ME1 has the best content in the series IMO. In spite of their stingy habits, EAbioware included a fair amount of goodies here that get thumbs up from me. The highlights are the mini-artbook, which is short but sweet, and the metal tin case that feels substantial and well designed. However, I do have one minor caveat with the CE package: The plastic slipcover, although nice looking, fits around the metal case too loosely. What this means is that, if you are not carefully in handling it, the heavy metal case will slip right out of the slipcover and fall flat on the floor (resulting in a small dent in my case, but a sizable dent in the heart of a connoisseur like myself). In conclusion, and also in retrospection, in spite of all the little things that ME1 did not get right, the overall game is beautifully executed and its story is a substantial work of well-implemented science fiction. Therefore, whether you are newcomer to the ME series or a veteran, it's always a good time to embrace the eternity of Mass Effect 1 at least once... and again.

There certainly is a lot to keep busy with in Mass Effect. My first play-through was right around 40 hours. Exploring all of the various planets is pretty fun, thought it has the slight potential to become repetitive after a while. The narrative was very well-written. Towards the end there I found the story to be very engrossing. There are a few annoying issues with the UI and the inventory system. I think the developers gave each item two or three levels of skin detail. At first, they load all of the lowest quality skins, then the higher quality ones. This is a good technique to have a lot of detailed skins on-screen at one time, but the drawback is that quite often you can watch the skins draw onto the characters and environments. It isn't a problem at all, but it can be distracting at times. The inventory system was the source of greatest frustration for me. Toward the end, I spent about 10 minutes after each mission selling unneeded items to the store guy. It doesn't allow you to sell multiples of an item; if you have four of an unwanted item, you have to sell each individually. It isn't a deal-breaker, but it can be annoying if you have a lot to sell. Overall, a terrific game. If you liked Knights of the Old Republic, then you will probably like Mass Effect.

bought this to complete my mass effect collection and the tin arrived damaged, I'm not sure if it was damaged during shipping or not but yeah, otherwise Im pretty happy it

I should have bought this version all those years ago.

Exactly what I was looking for. Not mint condition but it said used so as expected.