The "One With Combat"Award: "Assault Rifle Expert"
This Achievement is awarded for killing 150 enemies with an assault rifle. That sounds like a lot but there's a ton of combat in this game and assault rifles are one of the best options for mowing through them.
The "Mile High Club" Award: "Medal of Valor"
You need to beat the game on the Insanity difficulty setting to score this award. The biggest frustration here is how utterly useless your squadmates will be at this difficulty level. They never defeat enemies themselves, they steal the best cover routinely, and they'll usually be face down on the floor in any fight bigger than a mild skirmish. The good news is that there's no penalty for their repeated deaths, as they instantly revive when the enemies are defeated.
The "Seriously..." Award: "Extreme Power Gamer"
Honestly, the entire Achievement set is one giant grind. This one is the worst because it takes multiple playthroughs with one character to have any chance at getting to level 60.
The "Little Rocket Man" Award: "Paramour"
Some ignorant buffoons stirred up a bunch of controversy by claiming that Mass Effect is chock-full of sex and nudity, insinuating that the whole game is part of an elaborate plan to poison the minds of children. Try to hide your disappointment when you discover that those sex/nudity rumors are mostly false. Although it is possible to form a quasi-lesbian relationship with an alien, so at least that’s something…
T
he Scientist Gone Gamer Award: "Distinguished Combat Medal"All the icons are designed to look like military-style medals. If I were a space marine, I'd want this one on my lapel.
Achievement Set Rating - 5
The Achievement set itself is pretty poor, with too many awards devoted to using X ability Y times (where Y is some unreasonably high number). Additionally, the requirement to play through the game a minimum of three times just to get them all is seriously overboard. On the other hand, the Achievements unlock gamerpics and in-game rewards (like bonus abilities for your characters), which is a huge step in the right direction.
Achievement Difficulty Rating - 5
Mass Effect really isn't a difficult game, and none of the Achievements are that challenging. But as I've already referenced, completing the set is a quite an undertaking due to the time investment (60 hours minimum) which makes it less than ideal for people looking to grab some quick points.
I can agree that the achievement set is pretty poor, but I had a blast playing this game. And it is a true testament to a good game when I start over at the beginning once I complete it (because usually I don't even finish a game). I think the only achievement I earned in Mass Effect was "Assault Rifle Expert".
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed Mass Effect. Though it had some drawbacks (MAKO!) I thought the way dialogue worked created some of the most realistic RPG conversations ever.
ReplyDeleteI was also bummed (haha, pun) about that Paramour business cuz this kid wanted to be corrupted. Wasn't I just all kinds of disappointed when there was hardly any corruption and ZERO male corruption. *sigh* maybe next time...
ReplyDeleteI thought the dialog system was great, and if you could put a system like that in a game like Oblivion you would have something amazing. Ah, how far RPG's have come.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Dragon Age: Origins is anything like that. The setting is more like Oblivion but it's made by the same company (Bioware) as Mass Effect.
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