Braidedheadman

Agreed. The Baldur's Gate series was by far the best RPG game I have ever played and is probably my all-time favorite game period. KoTOR was lots of fun too, but it just felt stilted by comparison. The story arc wasn't any where near as grand as Baldur's Gate's storyline was, spanning as it did across four titles in total. Did anyone complete the "Golden Pantaloon" sub-plot that started with the first game and ended with the last BG2 expansion pack? No game that I can think of has ever approached the kind of depth that this game did before or since. Ah... Memories...

@ The Topic:

I've resisted the urge to pick this game (the PC version) up every time I see it on the shelf when I'm at the store for one simple reason:

SecuROM's new, so-called "anti-piracy" scheme of limiting installations to three, and only three, installations per license.

They claim you can install it on the same machine without limit and play without the disc in the tray, and fair enough. But what they fail to tell people is that by simply installing the game on more than one Windows user account, an installation is consumed for each one. Thus, if you have to reformat, or if you switch operating systems (or multi-boot), you are being screwed out of an installation token - for which they have not provided any mechanism whereby one can retrieve said token. Upgrading hardware is likewise a sure way of flushing your precious tokens down the crapper. When you've finally run out of tokens, you have to call EA's "customer support" line, surrender all kinds of personal information, and beg'n'plead for a new install token - and pray that your technician is feeling generous that day.

I've also seen reports whereby people have been robbed of their installation tokens by updating drivers or plugging in various USB devices. I'm kind of skeptical about how true these sorts of reported incidents are. But the fact that EA is utterly unwilling to comment on just what activities will trigger the loss of an installation token on their support forums, it's hard not to be at least sympathetic toward them.

It's utterly retarded and I am not about to pay EA or Bioware (whom I used to worship as the de facto authority on all things cRPG) for the privilege of being treated like a criminal or rent one of their games in this manner. I'm also not willing to pick up the cracks (which were available within two days of ME's release - GG SecuROM nubs. No RE. kkthxbai) in order to resolve this issue as you never know what beastly little programs are going hitch along for the ride.

Verdict:

Pay EA for the honor of being treated like a criminal and have my PC locked down in its current state with no option to upgrade, reformat, or customize my user accounts? Not a chance.

Support EA and SecuROM in their draconian efforts to circumvent my rights as a paying customer to fair use of products that I purchase and use (not limited to their software) as part of my PC system and hobby? Most resoundingly: No!

I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone. At least not for the PC; the console's probably a different story.

[Edit] And just to assure you all that I am not making any of this shit up, have a gander at this post over at EA's UK community forums. It's talking about SPORE, but that game will use the same exact SecuROM version that ME currently uses.

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Sirusblk

I was actually taken back by the freedom of choice in choosing where to go at first. Litteraly there's a dozen star system clusters, and about half a dozen star systems within those, and another half a dozen planets in each star system. That's a lot of planets to go to right off the back!

I can't say I've gotten very far. I still need to upgrade my computer to make aiming even remotely palatable. Right now it's unbearable. Not that combat is my favorite part anyways. I love talking to people, which is a ridiculous claim within itself, but try it and see how much you like it.

I kind of wish it brought more fun into the combat. I don't enjoy the gunplay much but it might be my 9 fps :P

jepzilla

Unfortunately, most of those systems and worlds are empty. The game could do with a couple orders of magnitude more side quests.

Hidus

Still trying to get into Ashley Williams pants. You would think she would be more grateful after I rescued her. Will keep you posted.

Hidus

Yeah it's tough to get into a game when you are getting horrible framerates.

As for the combat, did you go with the default character? I played him a couple hours then decided I would rather use the cool magic tricks over the guns so I restarted and made a custom "Adept" char. I can only use pistols and light armor but I have ridiculously powerful biotic abilities.

Sirusblk

I was going for the regular default character except for female (wink, wink) and there were certain situations I had to snipe, which is horrible when they try to give you an unsteady hand mixed with 2 fps when zoomed in :P

Good thing this game doesn't have ammo :P

Also does any class make hacking an easier affair? Mixed with a horrible framerate and having to use the stupid mouse it's unbearable >

Sirusblk

Huh that's weird. I know SecuRom is bad, but even companies like Adobe have it in place. I have two keys I can use, when I reformatted my computer I had to call them and they deactivated the last one. Hopefully SecuRom will work more or less the same.

That being said, I have Mass effect, installed on an external self powered hard drive for my little laptop. I've disconnected reconnected the dang thing over a dozen times in one day, let alone the whole life time of the game. I've never been stopped from reinstalling it, even when I installed it on my dad's computer then again on my own computer after reformatting.

I'm not saying I support SecuROM, I've seen viruses that are kinder to my computer and me, but I don't think it should stop you from buying the game.

Besides it was much much worse originally. Hopefully Will Wright will prevail in his pink tiara and magic wand

Braidedheadman

As I've come to understand it, SecuROM claims to work in such a way that you can install onto the SAME computer any number of times provided that: 1.) It's hardware isn't changed and 2.) You haven't changed Operating Systems (or reformatted and reinstalled). Thus, you can use that portable HD, installing to it as many times as you wish, and dis/reconnecting it as such without it breaking your game. But, should you later wish to install ME onto an internal HD, that will likely consumer another installation token. Likewise, if you wish to install on to that or another portable HD again, you'll be giving up one of your tokens.

In more recent developments, and seemingly in response to the outrage that SecuROM's software has caused as well as EA's adoption of it, Stardock (makers of Sins of a Solar Empire, among other games) announced yesterday the "Gamer's Bill of Rights" on their website. [Edit] I had posted commentary on this subject here, but I decided that it's important enough to warrant having discussion in its own thread.

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Sirusblk

They just released an expansion which PC users can get for free You just have to register your game with EA

http://masseffect.bioware.com/galact...thesky_pc.html

Braidedheadman

Hmmm... sounds like a plot to get PC gamers more interested in the game. Maybe it's not selling as well as they'd hoped?

Gee, I wonder why that could be? *casts a quick glance at SecuROM & limited activations* >.>

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