Killga

Bought this at a big discount on the PS4 store just now and I am very pleasently surprised! Basically played through the first 3 missions without much of a break and had to wrestle myself off the PS4 to go to bed at about 2am before being able to finish the 3rd mission. Gameplay and interface are very smooth, intuitive and easy to learn. The mission areas are really big and very very nicely designed! Also the camera is very good in about any situation I encountered - I find that is something many games really struggle with!. Really love the mediterranean flair that is captures very well and (as a German and some Italian speaker) the original language of the enemy soldiers etc in the English game version.. So far I would give it a 10 even if I had paid the full price - its that good!

Ok, as some have rightfully critizised the game can be very unforgiven at the beginning and has a steep learning curve. Back in the days (in the original) all you had to do to land was hit the spinning mailbox slot in the station and now you have to do this and then land inside on a platform that you have to locate. I kind of rage quit after the first few unsuccessful tries but once you get a hold to it it can be done with relative ease and a docking computer can be bought for cheap. Took me a week or two to comfortably land on planets and so its kind of baby steps forward. The game still has everything the original game was great in and much much more all the while staying true to its form.

I have some trouble rating this. I actually bought an XBOX 360 back in the day just to be able to play Mass Effect (1) when it came out. So far the best I can say is that its presentation is quite uneven and unconsistant. Graphics are amazing at one point (say in-system travel and some places and dialogues) and at the next time they are quite awful. Take the Nexus and its crew - it just looks as it was left halfway unfinished (the design not the Nexus itself) and/or done by some interns. Also my female Ryder looks great at times and then its just awful. So far the story seems relatively interesting although its a bit too much "Kids with guns in space" and I feel the Kett offer nothing new so far. It has been said and critizised that all Asari and Salarian look the same - just another sign of the lackluster design Bioware has displayed all the way back to Dragon Age II (copy/paste Dungeon design).

As a Fallout veteran (I played FO1 and FO2 already in the 90s) I really like most of the changes they did to character customization and itemization, which both feel great, and I dont miss degrading weapons and armour conditions at all. Fights are as tough early on as in any FO game, updated V.A.T.S. feels a bit less cheesy than before, and opponent A.I. appears much improved as well. What keeps me from giving it a flat 10 are the few bugs I encountered in talking to NPCs early on and the sub-optimal implementation of housebuilding which feels a bit too clunky.

Another typical EA letdown that at first sight even seems worse than the ME3 disappointment. I was one of the few that actually liked DA2, yet I had to stop playing DAI yesterday after 2 hours as it was just unbearable. First, the character generator is easily on par with that of ME3 - just terrible! All pre-made faces look awful. DA1 and DA2 (also ME1 and ME2 but not ME3) had decently pre-made / stock appearances. Its even more shameful as the first NPC you see (Cassandra) has actually a very nicely made facial design. Speaking of NPC as nicely as Cassandra looks, they completely messed up Varric and the Elf. Just terrible. In general the body designs seems awkward too. Combat view/perspective is also terrible and the ability trees seem to be a further step back compared with DA1 (very good) and DA2 (decent). The UI also seems to be much less intuitive and assessible than DA1 and DA2. The biggest failure in my opinion is the attempt to put DAI into a realistically looking environment. Maybe it is because the realism is poorly designed (see faces/bodies/motions) but to me the much less realistic design of DA1 and DA2 seemed to work a lot better. The bottom line is I really wanted to like this game but after just 2 hours I removed the disk, which really is a as bad an indication as it gets. Right now playing DA1 or even DA2 one more time seems to be more enjoyable.

I haven played Diablo since Diablo 1 way back and the campaing story in 3 was pretty boring/week but the endgame is really where this game shines, even for a semi-casual player like myself. Overall the game is extremely polished and with a few lucky drops you can climb the difficulty levels faster than I had imagined. Speaking of loot there always seems to be a drop that catches you by surprise, which shows the developers really are thinking outside the box and this makes one wanting to come back for more. Also the recently added v2 patch made things even more inteteresting. I only recently tried multiplayer and had a blast too. The truly great games make you love your character and with Diablo 3 this is certainly the case. This is also the first game ever I enjoy more in German than in English, which speaks volumes for the efffort taken in the translation/synchronisation. Still as a RPG addict I have to substract one point for the lackluster campaign story.