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Mass Effect (PC DVD) | 
 enlarge | Category: Video Games
List Price: £34.99
Buy New: £17.99
You Save: £17.00 (49%)
New (6) Used (6) from £9.00
Rating:  100 reviews
Platform: Windows Xp
Genre: role-playing-games
Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Media: CD-ROM
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.6
EAN: 5030930065683
ASIN: B0015M0PYI
Release Date: June 6, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk
Story Summary: You take the role of Commander Shepard starship Normandy, the last hope for all life in the Galaxy. Saren, a rogue member of the elite and untouchable Spectre agents, has discovered the secret to unleashing an apocalyptic force upon the galaxy, and only you stand in his way. To save the lives of billions, you must do whatever it takes to stop Saren and prevent the return of an ancient force bent on the destruction of all organic life. Highlights: Experience a rich and engrossing story where your choices decide the fate of a galaxy
Engage in emotionally charged interactions with the most realistic digital actors ever seen in a video game, using an innovative new dialog system
Immerse yourself in an incredible new adventure from world-famous masters of the RPG BioWare
Stunning high resolution graphics for PC
Optimised GUI and controls for PC gamers
Dominate the battlefield with new individual squad member commandsystem
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| Customer Reviews:
 Mass Effect PC Vs. Your Consumer Rights May 18, 2008
J. D. Baldwin (UK)
82 out of 134 found this review helpful
Mass Effect on the 360 is a great game, and the game itself should be great on the PC also.
Unfortunately, EA and Bioware have crippled this game with DRM. What this means for the consumer is that you get 3 'activations'. If you change your hardware configuration, you must use another one of your 'activations' to be able to play the game on your new configuration. If you use up all 3 of your 'activations', you must contact EA and hope they deem you worthy of being able to play your own legally purchased product. This is a major problem for the average PC gamer who may upgrade their machine on a regular basis, and is a scheme that is incompatible with it's target audience.
This DRM is included under the guise of 'copy protection'. However, they are very much aware that this game will be copied and appear on the internet within days. This is about control, the content producer attempting to maintain some kind of control over how the consumer enjoys their purchase. This product robs the consumer of their fair use rights.
Any consumer who cares about the right to be able to actually use their purchase will stay clear of Mass Effect PC until EA and Bioware release a version of the game that respects the customer.
DRM and invasion of privacy: AVOID May 8, 2008
D. Knight
58 out of 94 found this review helpful
Like many, I've been really looking forward to this game until the last day or two. BioWare have announced that it will be lumbered with a particularly nasty strain of DRM which restricts the amount of times you can install the game (3 times only) and requires the game to repeatedly re-active over the Internet. Lose your connection for a few days? Bye-bye Mass Effect. Want to take the game on holiday on your laptop? No chance. Problem with their activation servers going down? No more Mass Effect.
If you want this game, but the 360 version if possible. But avoid this version at all costs unless you like the idea of being unable to play something you've bought all at the whim of the author.
Ah the irony - scratch one sale..... May 29, 2008
Robert Pollard
52 out of 92 found this review helpful
Due to the excessive drm with only 3 installs, I will not be buying this game. The only thing that would make me interested again is if EA provide a revoke tool, to allow one to remove an install and its license when removed from the target system.
Classic games are installed often - that's a fact. I still play System Shock 1 for heaven sake and that came out in the mid ninetees.
If System Shock 1 had been released with the same kind of DRM I wouldn't be able to play it now for two reasons:
i. Over three installs
ii. Looking Glass went bust - so no activation servers!
The last is particularly interesting. Looking Glass were a successfull studio with a string of hits, yet they still went bust. If Bioware went bust it would quite literally be game over.
The big irony though, is that the pirates will crack this game and will be able to play it without restriction. They can install it as often as they like, they won't have to activate - or beg EA for more activations.
Call me Mr Dumb, but aren't the publishers supposed to be making things difficult for the pirate rather than the legitimate consumer?
I hate to say it, but as things stand, the illegal copies will be more valuable than the legitimate copies, simply because the criminal owner is assured of being able to install and play it whenever they like - unlike the consumers who have to fork out hard earned cash for a 3 install limit and activation.
Makes you wonder whose side the publishers are really on. Either way I'm making my stand here. No money for you EA/Bioware!
ps For those that mentioned Crysis in this thread - they should remember poor sales aren't the result of piracy - they are the result of a poor game. In Crysis's case it was too much like Far Cry. Look at Galactic Civilisations from Stardock. Sold like hotcakes and was top of the charts for a long while - and guess what? No DRM!!!
So my message to developers is that you can't protect your asses everytime you release a bad game by blaming it on piracy. The general public on the whole are not that dumb and will see through you.
EDIT: I note now on June 14th this game has slid down the charts. What is interesting, are the games above it, like FSX and COD4. Many of which were released way before Mass Effect. How can it be that these games, light in DRM, can be out selling the recently released Mass Effect? Surely this is not possible? After all, these games without the draconian DRM that Mass Effect sports must be pirated to death? Thus ensuring poor sales?
Of course, I'm being sarcastic here, but I do make a valid point. Mass Effect even with its big investment in DRM is not selling as well as games that were released with little DRM many months before it. Makes one think that the whole DRM thing is pointless...
RP
Be careful buying second hand! June 18, 2008
W. Nelson (UK)
51 out of 60 found this review helpful
It's a great game with an awful DRM scheme. If you know what you're doing and aren't likely to be changing your computer in the next few years then I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.
But whatever you do don't buy it second hand unless you're sure that the game key you're buying hasn't had all its installs used up. This game should, in my opinion, be banned from listing for sale used because the DRM limits the number of times you can install the game so at most you'll be able to install a used copy only 2 more times. Caveat emptor.
Spolit by the SecuROM DRM... July 2, 2008
matt... (sussex)
47 out of 56 found this review helpful
After recently rebuilding my PC I decided I had to try out with some new games - Mass Effect was the first I bought.
I'd read about issues with the DRM (digital rights management) software, but as I'm used to BioWare games and have played most of their releases on the PC I wasn't worried.
That was my first mistake, after receiving the game from Amazon I was surprised to see that my machine wasn't reading the discs, oh well I thought, there must be a fault in the manufacturing process...
I returned the discs to Amazon and the customer service team dispatched a replacement so quickly it arrived the following day.
Unfortunately I encountered the same problem with the second set of DVDs!
Thinking that lightning rarely strikes twice, I started a very thorough search of the internet to try to address the problem, as well as contacting the game's publishers EA who I am still awaiting a response from.
It turns out that the issue stems from the DRM software that appears to prevent certain DVD burners from working successfully with the game - in my case it stopped the drive reading them all together!
Eventually I managed a workaround having to use a 6 year old DVD ROM drive to install the game.
Thankfully the game doesn't need the discs to play so I could go back to using the DVD burner in the machine, and I was able to enjoy the Mass Effect experience - which is fantastic, looks brilliant and so far has run flawlessly!
While I'm only part way through the game I thought it only fair to post the issues I had with installing it, as well as saying thank you to Amazon for their fantastic customer service!
It seems a shame that yet again the DRM software has taken up the majority of a review and overshadowed the developers hard work in putting together an excellent gaming experience.
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