Massive Time for Mass Effect

While I’ve owned Mass Effect since its release and even started playing it roughly around then, I simply never played it through to completion. Instead, I probably finished it in about 3-5 multi-day spurts of playing. Typically, if I put down a game for awhile, that means it’s probably boring me. But that’s not always the case and wasn’t exactly the case with Mass Effect either. Actually, I quite liked it and would consider playing through it again to experiment with a different kind of character and some different choices.

This is not to say that the game doesn’t have its problems, though. I have many of the same complaints that others have brought up in the months since it’s release, although one of the seemingly most egregious problems seems like it hardly registered with some reviewers: the inventory system. Even this post which gives very detailed and specific complaints about many of the problems the game has (including glitches/bugs, short-circuited storylines, and loading/streaming issues, among others), fails to mention how bad the inventory system is in the game. There was only one post I saw somewhere, that unfortunately I can’t locate right now, that seemed to really express how bad the inventory system really is. For those that haven’t played the game yet, let me elaborate a little.

There are a variety of types of items you can find in the game, but you can only hold a maximum of 150 at any given time. As you go through the game you can open containers and kill enemies to gain more items. When you kill enemies, the items will automatically go into sort of a sub-menu of your Equipment screen that automatically pops up the next time you enter it. From there, you can select the specific items you want, or simply say “Take all” (as most people probably do at the time). Once you start getting close to 150 items in your inventory, say, around 135 items, you’ll receive a message the next time you pick up some stuff telling you that you are approaching the maximum and that you should either sell some stuff or reduce some stuff to “Omni-gel” (which effectively gives you something of limited use to destroy your items). So, what’s so bad about that, you say? Well, aside from the fact that there are not many opportunities to sell items when on a mission, it lies in that “sub-menu” I spoke about before. Say you’ve reached 150 items, but you’ve just picked up some cool new items that you like. Just get rid of some of the crap items in your inventory, right? Seems like that would be easy enough, but it’s unfortunately not possible. If you’re picking up items, whether from opening up a crate or trying to open up your equipment screen, you are STUCK on that “sub-menu” screen for selecting items you’d like to pick up. You CANNOT exit the screen, go into your inventory to delete some stuff, and then go back and pick up the items. Your only option is to either pick up the items or reduce them to Omni-Gel. If you’re at 150 items, literally the ONLY way to exit that screen is to reduce all of the items in it to Omni-gel. One particular time I had gone through a particularly difficult side-mission without going into my Inventory too much. When I finally went into it, I had a whole host of goodies that were apparently my spoils from the mission. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand the inventory system at this point, and when I tried to make some room in my inventory, I ran into this issue. I ended up having to reduce my entire spoils to Omni-gel.

As if this weren’t bad enough, the inventory organization is also atrocious. When equipping characters, it works alright (although still seems a bit slow and clumsy), but going to a shop, particularly to sell stuff (so you don’t run into this stupid problem I mentioned above) is a real chore. Unless I’m missing something, shops are only organized in one way: less to more expensive. That is, the cheapest items are what are at the top of the list, while the most expensive items are at the bottom. This can be helpful, but what would be even more helpful would be if there was a way to organize the items by, I dunno, item type, and then even further than that, by name. See, there just aren’t that many item types, so it’d make it extremely helpful if I could just scroll through certain ones that I know I’ll have a slew of extras in rather than have to scroll (slowly, by the way… for some reason it’s sluggish) through an entire list of everything I have. To make matters even worse, most items have several versions, like Weapon/Armor and ammo upgrades. For instance, you can get Shredder Rounds II and Shredder Rounds III, and so on. So naturally, you’ll often want to get rid of your older stuff to make room for the newer stuff, right? As with everything else, these are all organized by price, meaning that Shredder Rounds II and III can appear pages away from each other when trying to sell something. This often results in basically looking at all of your most expensive stuff, trying to memorize what kind of stuff (and how much of it) you have, and then scrolling back up and selling the older versions bit by bit. Couldn’t they have given me the option to organize all of my Ammo Upgrades together, so that I can see exactly how many Shredder Rounds of all types I have, and then I can choose how many of the older versions I can get rid of in a simple process?

Game Informer this month has a brief preview of the PC version of the game, which apparently will have a “revamped” inventory system. I can only hope that they can get it right this time (and I suppose it’d be too much to ask for a patch for the 360 version too, Bioware?)

But I digress. For all of its faults, Mass Effect is still a fun game. While some of its faults may have been partially responsible for why it took me so long to complete, I think in some ways it was just the type of game that took time to seep in. I never got particularly bored playing the game (except maybe with some of the side quests, which I stopped doing mostly by the end), but, at least with the way I was playing, it seemed to have a really steep learning curve. There is basically no tutorial that tells you how to play, and even going back now and reading some reviews there were apparently a few control options I wasn’t even aware of. While I wasn’t bored, I think I just liked to explore the game in chunks, and then allow myself some other gaming diversions (including the still well-played Rock Band) before going back to it and embracing it again. It’s a game that I’m truly happy that I bought, rather than rented, because while the game would certainly be completable during a rental period, it’s the type of game I really enjoyed taking a leisurely pace through, and I think my experience would’ve been far worse if I had raced through it for a rental.

So, what’s next for me? I actually have several other games I’ve started but never completed. There’s, of course, still Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but I consider that a mainly multiplayer game and will probably mostly continue to play it as such going forward. I also have Assassin’s Creed, another game I was enjoying before shelving to play a few other games; Zack and Wiki, which I had just finished a few levels past the first boss; Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, which I think has been probably close to a year since I’ve played and don’t quite remember where I am (although I do remember fighting “The End”); Dead Rising, which I only just started after having traded for it last year; Resistance, which I stopped playing after an extremely frustrating encounter that set me back at least 30 minutes; or even SSX: Blur, another game I traded for which I don’t think I gave a fair shot to at all. Of course, I could also play some games that I haven’t started yet, but that I’ve been waiting to play. After Mass Effect, I’m definitely curious about Knights of the Old Republic, which I’m told is even better. I also have Final Fantasy XII, Rainbow Six: Vegas (the first), Godfather: Blackhand Edition, Heavenly Sword, Odin Sphere, Persona 3, Lego Star Wars II and Blue Dragon (I couldn’t resist the last two on clearance at Target).

So, with Mario Kart: Wii and GTA4 right around the corner, anyone have some suggestions among these for what I should play? Should I create a poll for this?