At a crossroads what to play... Batman, Stalker, or Mass Effect

I have a few games that I haven't completed, at best maybe made it 20% through. But with Stalker Pripyat and Mass Effect 2 coming down the road, I want to get through those, but find Batman Arkham Asylum interesting and it has such rave reviews.

Help me decide... please!

 

Stalker (SoC and Clear Sky), Then Batman which is amazing, then play them all again... Mass Effect I hated, couldn't even finish it, so I can't recommend it.

 

Batman is a blast, its a good action game based on the UT3 engine so it doesnt take a lot of power to play while looking good.

What was nice about it was you can pick it up and play it for as little or as much time as you have. So when the kids got up from there nap or something I was not too engaged in the game to where I could not turn it off and come back later.

Batman was supprisingly good and glad I got to play it.

Stalker from the benchmark looks bland to me, reminds me of Fallout 3 way too much and I dont know how I would feel being stuck in another game with that kind of environment. I did not play the first Stalker very long before deciding I did not like how it played and felt. It maybe would have gotten better but who knows. Considering that both of the first two Stalker games were bug ridden I would let somebody else 'beta test' the 3rd one for me before I purchase it. I am thinking about trying out this game at some point though.

Mass Effect 2, I dont know anything about it. I got more than half way through the first one and I know it was a very popular and raved about game. I enjoyed the story and exploring but the combat was too basic for me, so the game got boring and I was unable to finish it. Wish ME was multiplayer so I could have had others controlling me team mates

Both of the 2nd games will give you considerably more play time than batman probably so if you have to pick just one game to hold you over for a while that may be the point of interest, but for a dose of fun Batman cant be beat.

 

go with Batman, play Mass Effect together with Mass Effect 2 when it comes out so you don't forget what choices you made in the first one, i heard you can use your ME1 character in ME2. for stalker i only played Shadows of Chernobyl and i heard Clear Sky is just okay.

 

It's nothing like Fallout 3... Fallout 3 is a RPG that fails at FPS. SoC and Clear Sky are patched and play perfectly now, Call of Pripyat has been out since October in Russia, and in Germany now. Didn't even need a patch and is being hailed as the best one yet. The Stalker game that should have been made from the beginning.

 

Batman is way more arcade-y than the other two, and it's a good game to play when you have a little bit of free time, but not much. Don't get me wrong, it's super fun, but it's not as engaging as the other two games. Plus, it doesn't take as along to beat.

I personally like Mass Effect more than Stalker Chernobyl (I haven't played Clear Sky), and would recommend that you play Mass Effect now and when you want a bit of variety, play Batman in between.

You can't really go wrong with choosing between Mass Effect and Stalker, both are great games and both have their quirks. Mass Effect gets somewhat tedious (not to mention the stupid elevators), but Stalker can get pretty repetitive. However, I have to say that I found the story of Mass Effect to be much more engaging than Stalker.

So, to summarize: Mass Effect + Batman concurrently, then Stalker.

 

Oh man, just reminded me of the elevator rides.... hold on let me go make a sandwich.

 

Finish batman, then play mass effect.

 

The one in the Citadel is the worst. It's so slow you can literally make lunch while you're waiting.

 

Play Mass Effect, ME2 is out in a month!

 

Stalker is a dull, ugly, bug-ridden game I wouldn't recommend to an enemy.

Mass Effect, followed by Batman:AA would be my suggestion and order of playing preference.

 

Batman: Arkham Asylum is excellent! I found it to be highly engaging, and I'm not even a fan of the Batman series. It's just a great game. The way his cape moves with PhysX on High is mesmerizing. I could watch it all day. I played through Batman twice (once on Normal and once on Hard), and I'm totally going to play through it for a third time soon. I also earned every achievement in it because I love it so much. I hope Rocksteady makes another Batman game that is equally fun, if not more so.

 

I chose Batman because I have not played the other 2. I found Stalker SOC kind of a snooze fest. Mass Effect obviously gets rave reviews. So I would say do you want more story driven RPG or the best action game (I've played) since God of War?

 

FWIW, I am on my fourth time playing through Batman, even though I have collected nearly all the extra items associated with the side quest.

The game is simply a terrific, AA title that should be enjoyed by the hardcore and casual video gamer alike.

 

Play Batman first.

Then get on to Mass Effect. ME will take a while to complete anyway so wait on buying ME2 until you're done since you may find it on sale by the time you're ready.

I'm in the same boat. I have about 30 games (console & PC) acquired over the last couple of years I have yet to unwrap/play or finish.

 

Batman is a great action game with some cool game mechanics (x-ray vision, ie Detective mode) that aren't overly awkward in the Batman environment...

It's a very gritty, dark take on Batman, and the action is great...

And best of all, for me, is that you can play it in snippets like others mentioned...Mass Effect will steal your game playing time to the exclusion of all others...and I liked Stalker, but, in the end, nothing really made it stand out in the FPS genre for me and I'm an FPS sucker...Stalker felt like a non-linear Resident Evil 4 to me with the camera angle changed to first person (not that there's anything wrong with RE4...it's an all time favorite game)...

 

Maybe I'll play both Batman and Stalker. I love "snippet" games. As Vicious mentioned, having kids, it's much nicer to be able to walk away from a game if they wake up from sleeping at night or after a nap, or if one starts killing the other, and have to remember what the heck you were doing.

This way I can do Batman when I know I'll only have a spare 20-30 minutes and Stalker when I know I can dedicate at least an hour or more.

Good stuff guys. Thanks for all the feedback!

 

Beat Batman first then play ME

 

That's a good plan, but I recommend playing Mass Effect first, then Stalker.

 

i thought stalker was a great game it gives you the freedom to do whatever you want sort of like how oblivion does. batman is a great game but is very sensitive if you enable physx. mass effect is good but i didnt really play it long enough to really give an opinion on it because uncharted 2 kinda stole my attention lol.

if you plan on getting stalker then look up a mod called stalker complete. its a mod that pretty much makes the game 5x better you can find that mod here http://artistpavel.blogspot.com/2009/04/stalker-complete-2009.html