In Mass Effect’s future, soldiers do battle with guns, laser rifles and grenades, and are protected by shielded armor. All of these can be customised so squad leaders are able to prepare loadouts to fit any and all mission requirements. Squads may also acquire items on the battlefield by engaging in the time-honoured tradition of frisking bodies of recent victims for loot which can then be stored in a shared stash capable of holding 150 items.
Items surplus to requirements can be sold to vendors — a time-consuming affair since tragically, sometime between now and 2183, humanity has lost the crucial ability to “sort inventory items according to item type” while selling goods — or magically reduced to goo called omni-gel. Aside from alleviating storage concerns, omni-gel can also be used as vehicle repair material, electronic lockpicks and possibly as a personal lubricant during intimate cutscenes.
The one thing omni-gel cannot magically do is fix problems with the PC port of the game. Past experience with BioWare’s products have taught me never to get one of the company’s RPGs until two patches have fixed the biggest bugs and completed post-release playbalancing but exasperatingly, Mass Effect still has problems even with patch 1.02.
(To be fair, it must be noted Mass Effect’s PC port was done by a third-party. However, BioWare did have a hand in producing the patches.)
I was surprised to learn Mass Effect doesn’t support Realtek HD Audio in hardware mode. This came as a surprise because Realtek’s onboard audio solutions are common and because Mass Effect’s lack of support for them is not stated anywhere in the system requirements. EA suggests using the software mode audio setting but there are problems in this mode as well. The main issues are audio crackling and speech being muted or completely cutting out. In a role-playing game that features full voice acting for dialogue, this presents something of a problem. These issues with Realtek audio were addressed according to the 1.02 patch notes yet the Steam version is still plagued with them. There’s a user-suggested fix but I would recommend enabling subtitles just in case.
Mass Effect’s graphics were sometimes just as problematic as its sound. Halfway through the game, I encountered severe graphics corruption which would usually start as soon as I brought up the tactics HUD. Deleting the local shader cache files seems to fix the issue. To do this, launch the Mass Effect Configuration Utility (MassEffectConfig.exe in the Steam/steamapps/common/mass effect/Binaries folder), select the Repair option then hit the Delete Local Shader Cache Files button.
To get optimum performance from this Unreal Engine 3 game, try consulting this Mass Effect tweak guide. The single most useful trick is enabling the FPS counter since it’s an indispensable tool when trying to get the right balance between presentation and performance on the PC. It’s a little annoying BioWare made it an undocumented feature.
It’s 2183; we shouldn’t need to edit INI files to benchmark a game.
Hello there Mr.Gobi. It’s been a while since we communicate. Seems as though you are going retro and playing all these classic titles. Haven’t tried Dragon Age Origins ? (Waiting for special offer from Steam perhaps ?). Got hooked on my PSP recently so I have been neglecting my GW account for quite some time… : P. Hope to chat with you again in the near future (or maybe see you again in GW2 : D ). Take care.
I’ve got Oblivion, Fallout, Torchlight and those old school Might and Magic titles to get through so Dragon Age: Origins can wait.
As for Guild Wars, I haven’t even installed it on my new hard disk. I expect to get the Bonus Mission Pack at some point, however. I would like to tackle the high-end PvE content as well though it might be tough putting a team together to complete them.