BioWare is like two or three maddening degrees from being the greatest

[Human Snorenado]

I realized this as I was playing Mass Effect earlier today.  Most devs can get the little things down but fail at the big things- world building, storytelling, making a game I want to PLAY.  Conversely, BioWare gets all of that shit right but fails utterly at the little shit that anyone with half a brain and some time can get right.

For example:

-the utterly fubared menus and item management in ME.  This shit is not intuitive at all.  WTF, how does this get out of early testing?  "Hey dudes, it's kind of annoying that you can't scroll through each separate category when you're trying to sell, and the upgrade situation is a total mess.  Maybe we can fix this before the game launches?"
-Apparently in a meticulously designed, well crafted universe there was only one boring, unimaginative architect who made it his mission in life to create boring, unimaginative structures for me to "explore".  Thanks Mr. Architect.

You get the idea.  Seriously, how tough would it be to hire one dude to maybe double or triple the layouts you have available for each type of structure?  Maybe it's just a Canadian thing.

Having bitched about all of that, BioWare does, imo, still rock.  I for one will be picking up that "new shit" this November.

[Human Snorenado]

Yeah, I guess that's true Kosma.  I'm burning through a bunch of sidequests before I finish the game though and I have to say that it's been booooring.

Another minor complaint- there's no way (as far as I know anyhow) to speed up the Mako's shield regeneration, so if you're trying to storm a fortification in your vehicle and you lose your shields, you have to run away and hide on the other side of a ridge or something for four of five minutes until your shields replenish.

Dragon Age will be lots of fun.  Late October/early November looks to be the tits for gaming as far as I'm concerned- Fallout 3 GOTY and Dragon Age.  I also now have the option to get the pc versions since I'm a part of the REPUBLIC OF GAMERS.

[Human Snorenado]

Yeah, I played the hell out of Fallout 3 last year/early this year.

I guess I'll end up getting both on pc- it's cheaper anyhow.  If Dragon Age has more real time combat as opposed to "stop and give orders" then I'll be likely to get it on 360, just cause I like a controller for that more.  Wait, I can use my 360 controller on a pc, can't I?

[treythemovie]

Bioware still thinks they're a PC developer who can just patch anything they didn't bother with after launch.

[Kestastrophe]

Another minor complaint- there's no way (as far as I know anyhow) to speed up the Mako's shield regeneration, so if you're trying to storm a fortification in your vehicle and you lose your shields, you have to run away and hide on the other side of a ridge or something for four of five minutes until your shields replenish.

Try playing through on insane difficulty. The enemies take your vehicle's shields down so quick that you end up having to go and hide after taking just a few shots  :'(. It would have been much better had you been able to increase the efficacy of your Mako.

Another complaint that I had with the game, other than the things you listed, was the weapon variety. All of the weapons looked almost identical, and most were simply higher numbered versions of the same weapon. Allowing weapon mods was a great decision though. Also, the friendly AI was terrible most of the time. I still liked the game and beat it several times for achievements, but they dropped the ball in alot of areas.

[DJ_Tet]

I can't believe it's 2009 and there is still no word on KOTOR III.  I loved Mass Effect and definitely am hyped for the sequel, but as someone who doesn't and won't play an mmorpg, I'm pretty pissed off that the KOTOR series is being handled like it is.

Shades of Phantasy Star Online   Hopefully we get a current gen KOTOR III before too long.

[Great Rumbler]

Bioware is too busy working on that Star Wars MMO to bother with KOTOR III.

[BobFromPikeCreek]

If they actually make planet exploration and the side missions interesting, and increase the variety of structures, Mass Effect 2 could be awesome. ME1 was good if you ignored everything else but the main quest, but that made it pretty short and unsatisfying.

[Human Snorenado]

I thought Dragon Age got pushed back from October to November 3rd?  Cause if it's coming out on the 20th, then I'm gonna have a lot of game playing to do when you factor in Fallout 3 GOTY.

[Human Snorenado]

Polish or something, I'm assuming.  I also like how the PS3 release is just slated for "late November", lulz.

[Human Snorenado]

Polish or something, I'm assuming.  I also like how the PS3 release is just slated for "late November", lulz.

Seriously?  Developer after developer keeps having trouble with that damn thing.

Well, in the devs defense the thing does kind of suck.  Although I'm actually leaning towards getting a slim- I'm kind of looking on it as getting a blu-ray player that will very occasionally allow me to play games that I can't get on the 360.

Borys- just finished my first playthrough last night and I clocked in at around 46 hours.  I wasn't as hardcore as you but I finished all but like 2 sidequests. 

[Human Snorenado]

Yeah, fighting a swarm of Geth was often more challenging than the Saren fights.  When I fought him on Ilos it took me like 10 seconds to beat him.  Carnage->adrenaline burst->carnage = dead boss.

[Human Snorenado]

Yeah, fighting biotic wielding enemies kind of sucked but they didn't have you do it that often.

Honestly, I had the worst time running across the field on the Citadel Tower with all of the Geth cannons.  I was letting Ashley and Tali concentrate on the cannons at first and I would do crowd control on the troopers.  The problem was that I would take my eye off the cannons for one second and BOOM! dead Shepard.  I finally decided to ignore the Geth troopers until after the cannons were dead since their little peashooters hardly hurt me at all.

[Himu]

Just like I said in the other day, Triumph. ME is a really good game...it just has a LOT of stupid game design decisions are hampering it from being GREAT.

I'd like to get ME pc do an ultimate game so I can play ME2 on pc, but I did EVERYTHING in ME on 360. I don't want to go through those shitty boring planets ever again.

[twerd]

The design decisions are especially idiotic considering how long Bioware has been making AAA rpgs. They should have known better. Anyway, Bioware doesn't get enough love for their one non-RPG, and my favorite game of theirs, MDK2.

That game was godly.

[DJ_Tet]

True, MDK2 on Dreamcast was one of my guilty pleasures on that system.  It was definitely my first taste of Bioware.

[twerd]

why is it a guilty pleasure :l

[DJ_Tet]

poor wording, I meant more like 'hidden gem' as it wasn't usually mentioned as one of the 'must-have' Dreamcast titles...

[Kestastrophe]

Apparently the DLC is out:

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/offers/0ccf000a-0000-4000-8000-00004d5307e8?cid=SLink

Anyone want to lend me their game  ?