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"We're at War. Pick a Side"

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 21 / 31
Date: June 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

support corporations (like EA) that work to take away the rights and freedoms americans have enjoyed for nearly 3 decades or make a statement and fight for the liberty not only of yourself, but of all subsequent generations, as digital society is rapidly becoming the dominant force in the world...turn away from this and any product that employ draconian DRM
One Dollar=One Vote

Great Game... big problems.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 19 / 27
Date: June 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The game is fun. It is something that I could see myself replaying to try the different classes. That does not happen for me much anymore. Voice acting is for the most part excellent and the story is engaging. Although this is a port, the interface was greatly improved for the PC. It doesn't feel like a port from a GUI stanpoint, which is more than can be said for 90% of the ports out there.

Now with the bads:
1.Graphical glitches and really poor shadows.
2.Control scheme in the vehicle is awful.
3.Party AI is bad. Quite often my party members don't do what I tell them to and if I set it to auto they get themselves killed. They also switch to weapons they are not proficient in repeatedly.

And lastly....
4. The DRM is crappy. 3 installs is a joke. They could easily make this like 20 or something and it would limit pirating without inhibiting players. Also, I repeatedly get this error that says unable to access something to do with the security. Some times I have to try to start the game 5 or 6 times...

This is a poor way to treat paying customers. I love the GAME...but the product as a whole is not worth anything more than a 3/5.

Mixed feelings

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 13 / 16
Date: June 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I'm torn. On one hand we have this incredible game. On the other hand we have a publisher who seems determined to do everything they can to bring down the experience with their heavy handed DRM techniques. I'd say the DRM thing has been beaten to death, so I won't focus on that. I can deal with the SecuRom, and I can deal with the game phoning home once to validate my copy. What I can't really deal with is the possibility that I might have to call to get more activations at some point in the future because I can certainly see myself wanting to play this game again.

The game itself has a few bugs. Every once in a while during conversation the main character option seems to flake out and "skip." Fortunately I don't seem to miss anything important in the process as it's always in the form of a statement or question that can be derived from the option you selected and the answer you receive.

The game also seems to be slightly unstable. Initially it would crash so frequently on my machine that I did some memory and CPU stress testing to ensure that the problem didn't lie with the hardware I was running it on. In the end I disabled V-Sync and am running the texture setting on `High' instead of `Ultra High.' My guess is that this game requires the hardware to maintain a certain minimum level of performance. If it dips below this, most games simply "chunk" and run at a much lower frame rate. It seems that this game would rather crash completely than be forced to run below its minimum performance threshold. I suppose this odd behavior is due to it being a console port. Now the game is 99% stable on my computer.

Aside from these issues, the game is mostly flawless aside from the one graphical glitch that seems to pop up every now and then. It's only a minor annoyance, but occasionally the shading is a little off. I updated my graphics card drivers, so that's not the problem.

All that said, this game is incredible; it's definitely worth playing. Whether or not it's worth purchasing is up to you. I'm enjoying the third person semi-RPG style game play, and the storyline is quite good so far. The game also addresses my major complaint with many modern games in that they're mostly too short. This game is certainly not short.

If this game lacked the DRM garbage, I could forgive the software glitches and give this game a 5/5. ...or, if this game lacked the software glitches, I could forgive the DRM garbage and give it a 5/5. Unfortunately, the combination of both makes my review a 3/5.

Paying to RENT

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 15 / 20
Date: July 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Don't buy this game. Will NOT run without an internet connection. It is one of the many new PC games that installs a very intrusive copy protection scheme on your computer. It is very hard to delete this software from your computer cleanly. The game requires an internet connection even though it is mainly a single player game, so it can check to make sure you are using the software properly.(to the manufacturer liking). Basically, you are paying to RENT it.

You will not be able to play this, in the future.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 22
Date: June 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The whole DRM thing is horrible and evil. If people keep purchasing products that contain DRM/SecurRom...etc....they will keep including it on all new games. Avoid all games that have this in them, and force the companies to rethink their stance on anti-piracy. Come one, this isn't a $1000 piece of software.....why OVER PROTECT it with this evil DRM stuff??
People just want to play the game.....it's dumb s%^$#@ stuff like DRM that CAUSE software crackers to crack the game....if the game was CHEAPER and did NOT contain DRM.....I guarantee you the product would sell more and be alot more popular!!!!!!!!!

quite disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 17
Date: June 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

On the Bioware site I saw a number of 'official' reviews, quite a lot of them claiming that an excellent job had been done porting the game to PC and that the game was, indeed, a triumph.
While in fact the PC version so obviously comes from a console version that it is frustrating and extremely disappointing to play.
What if I don't want to automatically use that wall for cover? What if I don't want to automatically use a melee attack just because the enemy is close to me? What if I want to change the camera angle or distance? With a PC the control options are not limited to the few buttons on a console system's controller, so don't take our options away.
They did a fairly good job of making it seem as though you had options as far as where you went and what you did, but the main story line consisted of only 4 missions. You're given the 1st 3 at the start and you can choose which order you do them in, then you do the 4th. The small number of side missions don't make up for the fact that the Mass Effect galaxy is tiny and contains very few options. I completed the game in two and a half days, stretching it out as much as I could. On the plus side, what little there is is highly entertaining, and the storyline is rather good.
However, you have to progress through that storyline virtually alone, as your squadmates are complete morons. If an enemy is on the other side of a room filled with large crates, they will stand there firing at the crates, completely oblivious to the fact that they do not have line of sight. Yet if you tell them to move to the other side of the crates, instead of running around them they will tell you that their path is blocked.
I also disliked the many parts in the game dialogue where it pretended to give choices where there were actually none, with the dialogue progressing the same no matter what option you pick.
To sum it up, Mass Effect is quite disappointing. It is obviously a port of a console system, with very little done to make it a true PC game. There is very little gameplay freedom, and very little actual content. While it looks like it would be a very respectable console game, it is a very poor PC game.

Fantastic game despite the DRM issue

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 30 / 55
Date: June 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

What can I say. This is a great game. The game is beautiful, the controls are sharp and the story is great. It's a GOTY contender for me. If you liked the KOTOR (knights of the old republic) games you'll like this one too. It's just like those except it's set in it's own, new universe.

On to the DRM. You only get three installs and then you need to contact EA for further installs. Similar to what Bioshock had. That's it. What it won't do is destroy your computer like some people would have you believe.

If the 3 install limit turns you off then don't get the game. But you're missing out on a great experince. It's a 5 star game with 1 point off for the DRM.

And yes, I do own the game unlike most of the people who are giving 1 star. They're basing their reviews on anecdotal, second hand evidence and assumptions. They dislike the DRM so they're trying to slander the game to send a message to EA. In other words, they don't know anything about the game and really shouldn't be reviewing it in the first place. Don't go by them if you are thinking about a purchase.

Not buying this game after reading reviews DRM

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 24
Date: June 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I refuse to buy this game after reading about DRM and the stupid precautions taken to keep greedy companies happy. This is a scam charging more for the games would be more reasonable then DRM, but it seems like they are doing both.

Severe DRM restrictions

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 15 / 22
Date: June 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Beware - there are severe DRM restrictions on this title. Three activations and you're out. Use your disk as a coaster after that. I was going to buy this title, but refuse to be subject to such draconian DRM. My money is going elsewhere.

Could have been good, but...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 15 / 22
Date: July 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This product is crippled with unreasonable DRM that makes it very likely you'll suddenly not be able to play this game any more. Simple things like reinstalling the game, reinstalling the OS, changing hard drives, upgrading your graphics card, etc. use up activations (which you are only allowed 3 of). Also, if you ever resell games once you're done with them, you can't do it with this game (even if you uninstall it from your computer) because the next person won't be able to play it.

The bottom line: Don't buy it. If you want to play this game, buy the console version instead.

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