It takes a big person to admit a mistake. And it takes an even bigger reviewer to do the same thing. Dean Takahashi wrote a fairly harsh review of Mass Effect...going as far as calling it "Mass Defect" (and making it cry all night and pass out over a half-eaten box of bonbons). And now, he's taking much of it back:
When so many readers wrote in to tell me that I messed up my review of Mass Effect, I had to take a second look. It turns out, you were right. I was wrong. I owe an apology to you for writing a bad review. I also apologize to BioWare, which made a better game than I thought, and gulp, to Microsoft. The game play is not as flawed as I thought.
His mistake? He forgot to assign talent points.
The dumb thing about the way I played the game, as many pointed out, is that I didn't make use of my Talent Points. I started the game doing so, but while on Feros, I didn't pay attention to all the Talent Points I was accumulating after every encounter. Those points just sat there. They were waiting for me to assign them to specific character trait improvements...A lot of positive effects flowed from this expanded repertoire in game play.
He doesn't say the game is perfect, but clearly, it's far more playable with adequate characters.
Now for my own confession: I , along with another writer I know, missed weapon and armor upgrades for three or four hours of play. Needless to say, I had a similar "combat is way better" revelation following some adjustments.
A massive mea culpa and apology for a bad Mass Effect review [via xbox360fanboy][image]