Mass Effect PC will 'Bring Down the Sky' at launch [Updated]

I would guess that Bioware/EA would put all the DLC into one expansion pack for PC. Whether that means it will all be on the 360 first or not will be the question.

That's a great theory also. They did mention that the announcement was forthcoming, though, and I don't think they have a complete expansion in the works...

Just give us a toolkit, and we'll make our own.

It's finished just fine now, guy. You keep waiting, though. The rest of us have already played the best gaming experience of 2007.

@scoob

I've already beat the game on 360 and am on my 2nd playthrough. I was referring specifically to the PC version of the game, which by all accounts looks to be a more polished game.

Honestly, I doubt its a more polished game.

Sure. The elevator rides will be shorter, and there won't be texture popping.

... Everyone likes to bring up how expensive PCs are when putting them down, but when complaining that PC gets something that they don't it's totally forgotten. Of course we won't have texture popping-- our systems are better. That has little to do with polish.

Yeah, plus the whole game can be installed. That's gotta make it a helluva lot faster. However, a game still has to be programmed to take advantage of those features. I would argue that Gears of War is an example of a polished game (at least graphically), and is visually leaps and bounds above Mass Effect, despite the fact it's running on the same hardware.

I haven't actually seen Mass Effect in action, but I imagine the maps are much larger than those in Gears of War?

Particularly on memory-limited systems (all the current-gen consoles), big things are difficult to render, and complex LOD systems cause some trouble.

Of course, probably does have a bit to do with polish... not to contradict myself. Bioware probably can't work UE3 as well as Epic =P

Exactly, Jeff. It all goes back to the competency and judgement of the developers. For example, if those maps are so large then why doesn't Bioware just make them smaller? If textures are still loading during a cutscene, why not have a load screen up for a little longer until all the resources are in place? Rather than throwing too many particles and polygons up on the screen, why not cut back a little, and design the game around having a solid framrate first and foremost?

There are also non-technical problems with the game. Why inform the player that their inventory is full, present them with a screen (which has no cancel button) where they can reduce items to medi-gel, yet fail to show stats for said items (y'know, so you can decide if you wanna instead remove a less powerful weapon that is already equiped and therefore not on the list). At one point I had removed so many items from my inventory that I had 1390 medi-gel, yet the game has medi-gel cap, so the next time I went into inventory it reverted to 999 medi-gel. It's just dumb game design.