so fucking good, saw people saying give this a skip before Legendary Edition because it was so dated, so luckily the remaster is fantastic because the series warrants completion from front to back. some aspects like the driving is a little iffy

it feels more like a building block of whats to come, like the one thing Mass Effect does better than any game is have decisions have ramifications later, but the actual story is pretty simple and takes second stage compared to the strength of its characters and worldbuilding. mm the characters goddamn.

best written character is Ashley Williams, solely because on the surface she's just a strong tuff woman who can handle herself on the battlefield, but she's got weird self-centred conservative viewpoints. ive seen her called 'space racist' because she's pretty upfront about her discomfort around alien races, especially in regards to Liara, but at the same time, if you pick her for the salarian Assault on Virmire she's pretty clearly able to set that personal grudge aside for the mission. i totally let ashley die.

It's a bit clunky, definitely flawed, but it has a lot of charm as a fun space opera romp through the galaxy.

The gameplay is an interesting mix of RPG mechanics with almost strategic-like cover shooters. Granted, it doesn't really execute all of it very well when put together, but I think it provides a really neat foundation that's mostly enjoyable. I don't know why Bioware didn't include, like, a way to sort through your inventory though. Or even a basic inventory system for that matter.

Story-wise and plot-wise it's basically structured like a J.J Abrams film (there's even an entire enemy group that are just alien Lens Flares), and it has the writing of a Joss Whedon production. If you played KOTOR 1, then it's almost the same plot with even the some of the same characters voiced by the same voice actors. It has a pretty good hook though, leaning a little bit deep into espionage space politics, but it really doesn't go that far afterwards. It's pretty average.

The game is at it's best when it really immerses you into the role of as a space covert ops team leader who's adventuring the galaxy to the save the world, while encountering alien species and colonies. The open world segments is pretty limited in this regard however. Since most of the planets (not the Hub Worlds) you technically can explore are pretty barren, and doesn't offer a very engaging experience. It doesn't help that most of the side-quests you can only really get in one location.

Overall, it's a solid game. I'd recommend you set your expectations fairly low if you're expecting something "great" from it.

This game was a hot mess, but I beat it 11 times even before the remaster, so that should tell you how enamored I was with its sci-fi world and charming characters back in the late 00's.

I was already a die-hard BioWare fan, with Neverwinter Nights being one of my first games period, Knights of the Old Republic blew my elementary schooler mind, and Jade Empire was fascinating. (Eventually I got to Baldur's Gate as well, but I was terrible at it) So really, it was inevitable that I'd blow past all the janky TPS gameplay to get to the stuff I was really looking forward to from a BioWare title: the dialogue and RPG bits.

I was not disappointed. The game was pack full of interesting details and fun drama. Even 13 years later and after writing and publishing a novel, I'm still incredibly impressed by how well BioWare set up their world. I'm definitely more critical of the writing than I was before, though, but I still appreciate a lot of that.

It used to be with the community that new players were ushered right to ME2 once that came out, I always took issue with that because ME1 is really where the foundation of the story is laid. Thankfully, now the remaster exists and it's smoothed over enough of the rough edges that I don't think any self-respecting sci-fi can weasel their way out of it.

Play Mass Effect. It's not long (for an RPG).

The thing is, in moments, mostly when the game kinda shuts up, it can be a vibe. The music, excepting the military main theme, is pretty great. The sensation of exploring a known but mostly empty universe has a strong sense of melancholy. I had a pretty good time listening to podcasts and driving the mako around beautiful sky boxes.

The thing is, everything you do in that space is bad! Deciding the best way to be a space cop, while engaging in a kind of elegant but mostly flat and uninspired dialogue system, is just not good. Morally repugnant and completely boring.

At its best, Mass Effect feels like living through a season of a Star Trek-like show: you get to experience an exciting story with a well-written and diverse group of characters, all the while making choices that impact the direction of the narrative. It's a very memorable experience that feels like it takes the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book formula to the next level.
On the other hand, the combat is dreadfully boring, and made worse by the PowerPointesque framerates on the Xbox 360 version. I don't remember enjoying a single fight in this game. I spent as little time playing around with my stats in this game as I could--anything to get back to the story and away from the combat. And the Mako is possibly the worst vehicle in a big-budget game that I have ever experience. Nothing can prepare you for the awfulness that is driving the Mako.
I highly recommend this game if you like Sci-Fi, but (unless there are issues I don't know about) I would recommend playing the Remastered version on PC to avoid the framerate issues.
Also, this game has a lot of loading screens. Bring a book.

The last goal I set for myself for the year
"Beat the Mass Effect Trilogy"

I'm conflicted on this introduction because usually this is where I would go, "Aw man I've been missing out this game was amazing", but that's the last of my impressions from beating this game.

While the story was pretty captivating, I could feel this not being the full story even when defeating the final boss. That kinda rubbed me wrong because I didn't feel complete. Of course, I will be going straight into the second game, but from the many forgettable feeling side quests, to the extremely lackluster gameplay; I never felt locked in to my play through.

Gunplay feels gross, and as an Adept, most of my powers looked cool and felt cool when they worked, but navigating the maze that is the menu system in the heat of combat was a headache. Most times, using abilities other than throw disrupted the flow of combat. I never really got comfortable. Yet it wasn't necessary because of how easy the game was even after bumping it up to Hard.

I often forgot that my party members were more than extra bodies in combat. By limiting my ability to speak to them other than on the ship, I found myself interacting with them only to get the same couple of one-liners instead of sitting there and talking about what just happened. This was on brand I guess with my renegade choices, but when serious shit is happening, like life or death of an entire species of that exact party member, i expect more dialog.

There's a bunch more I can hark on that I hope will be immediately changed in 2. Such as the horrible Mako sections, the Myriad of glitches and softlocking from shitty geometry and physics, or the empty planets to survey that's basically busy work. But I have high expectations for the series and hope that a lot of my negative reactions are averted in the second game.

Before I get into my thoughts on this game, I’d like to preface that I’m new to the series and played this game through the legendary edition. I played ME: Andromeda before this and I’m sure fans of this series would say that is the worst game to start with lmao. That game aside, I do not know anything about the story of the original trilogy. I am starting completely fresh and am unaware of any spoilers.

So I finally gave this game a shot bc of how much praise the series as a whole has. And tbh, I was a bit disappointed by the end of it. The world building is the best part of this game and is what ultimately kept me going. The lore as a whole is very intriguing. I also like how the choices between renegade/paragon actually matter. But everything else is just meh. Gameplay is clunky. The biotics aspect of this game felt more of a gimmick than an actual playstyle. I never once felt my biotic abilities to be consistently useful in fights, despite being the Adept build. This is where Andromeda shined with biotics simply due to having more mobility in gameplay. This game does not cater towards a mobile, fast playstyle which makes the use of biotics mostly useless outside of reviving and shield regeneration. You’re better off with a straight combat build. Most of the side missions felt hollow and unrewarding. Most of the characters were forgettable(except for Wrex and Captain Anderson). Bringing all of the companions into your crew felt extremely tacked on and rushed just for the sake of advancing the plot forward. Also, the voice acting does not do most of the characters any type of justice. The side planets you were able to visit never felt worth it to explore. The mako stuff was easily the worst part of the game. Driving that thing through sections of the game was just not fun. And the story felt very generic. They tried to get you to care about Saren towards the end but he was a generic villain for 90% of the game. Go here, shoot stuff, get this information, talk with the council, rinse and repeat. The story was just too cut and dry and there was never a point where it clicked with me.

Idk maybe I had too high of expectations going in bc of how much praise this series has. I’m sure I’d have a drastically different opinion if I played this back in 2007. It’s clearly a limited game for its time and was probably innovative back then. I can see why it has the fanbase it has but playing this game in 2022 was just not it.

The great beginning of the legendary trilogy! To this day, the game is the best space opera in this genre. Everything looks very interesting and exciting, from the character creation screen and its story to the ending, which depends on your decisions throughout the game. The game gives a sense of the event's scale and importance. The depicted universe is well developed and detailed. It is interesting to reveal its secrets and the depth of history. Each character you interact with has an interesting background and can develop in their own way depending on your decisions. All these details add depth and intrigue to the plot.
The gameplay is varied and dynamic, combining different weapons and abilities. The exploration of distant planets is usually not very exciting. Mostly, it all comes down to finding resources and hidden bases in almost empty monotonous locations. A large amount of resources can create problems because after the missions to sort out endlessly deep baggage.
The graphics are suitable for their time. The musical accompaniment is wonderful and atmospheric.
The game can be played multiple times.

As a singular game, Mass Effect 1 is still one of the best built fictional worlds I have had the pleasure of playing in. It's a space adventure shrouded in mystery, where you can balance between being a decent person or a being huge space racist. The morality mechanics are very black and white, but this was an ambitious game for 2007. What more could you want?

The world is expansive and entering the Citadel for the first time is kind of overwhelming since it throws a ton of side quests at you, but once you move past that you're gonna have a good time, I swear.

Obviously start with this game, (some people didn't for some reason) or else you might miss out on your CUSTOM Commander Shepard getting all of their memories and conscious sent to the next game where you can pick up where you left off. That is still one of the coolest features of this series and no other custom RPG has tried to replicate it for some reason.

Aside from yourself, the cast of goobers you meet and befriend are a mixed range of basic bitch to best character you've met in a game. The beauty of variety is that you get to decide who you hang out with every time you go out.

The only thing that I think this game gets weighed down by is the clunky ass movement and combat. The Mako is a meme that has been complained about to death so forget about it, but the combat movement/AI is pretty jank and it would be a lie to say that they aren't. These problems get fixed a bit in the Legenedary Edition, but it's still an issue that could turn some people off.

Some side quests are pretty tedious. It's so worth it to wade through all of that to be graced with such an enthralling plot. You'll cruise down space cowboy highway and enjoy all of the detours.

Mass Effect 1 is a game I enjoyed a lot. It is probably my favorite Sci-Fi setting, and I really like the main story, the lore and the world building.

But, even thought the main quest missions and the combat gameplay are great, the side content is really lacking. There are tons of side quests, but they're all and the same. I can probably count on my fingers the number of side quests that are actually worth doing.

Even with these shortcomings, I still really like the main story missions and the characters. The climax of this game is one of my favorites, just epic.