Mass Effect 1. I will admit I wasn’t much of a fan of this series when I heard BioWare was making this but it was only when I played the first game is when I was hooked on this game from start to finish.

This game is special, aged but special there’s a lot of things to like about this game from the sci-fi power fantasy it provides to the amazing story that it gives and the lore of the aliens and planets you visit to, this game has a lot of love and care put into it. There are moments where the game’s age has shown itself whether it’s by the generic combat, clunky physics and the semi open areas that the planets provide is a negative for me but I still enjoyed my time with it and even have a platinum trophy because of how easy this game can be in Insanity by using Adept.

The story in this game is good while not perfect I believe it hooked me enough for me to play the sequels of the series and they do not disappoint. This has my seal of approval to play as it has a charm to it

Playing this on the legendary version, with some mods installed, not enough to change up too much, just minor tweaks and re-additions.

It's been a bit since I sat down and replayed the Mass Effect trilogy, it used to be a yearly tradition, and I don't know why I pulled back. I think when they announced that there was going to be more of this shit, I lost interest because being a Mass Effect fan is like being hit with a metal pipe. Now, this shit was a middle-high school obsession of mine. In middle school, I couldn't play it, but I'd watch all these videos and playthroughs of it, and in high school I finally sat down and played them, and I got hooked. These games hit me like crack in the 80's. Mass Effect is a 2007 game that handles like a 2004 game, it plays rough, yet despite any and all issues: this game is fucking incredible. This game is rife with piss poor gameplay, audio issues, and RPG jank, but goddamn it's world building is so fucking incredible, it's all worth it.

Mass Effect's main story is simple, bad guy does a bad thing, you assemble your ragtag team, and try to stop him. But it's the layers of it that make it work. The galaxy you inhabit, the characters and races you meet, the motivations of characters, and the unravelling of the overall plot make Mass Effect something special. Granted, only 4 of your 6 members have a big impact on story beats (ironically, the two outliers end up being my favorite characters in the series, and in period lmfao) but everyone has their motivations, their beliefs, and give background to the groups they represent. I like the cast in this a lot, even Ashley who gets shit on a lot by people who don't pay attention. Wrex is my favorite in this game, the things you learn about the Krogan from him is all interesting, his pessimistic personality towards his race makes him the deepest of the cast in my humble opinion. The game also has some really cool side characters, with some notable VAs sprinkled in, and Seth Green (I do really like Joker tho so good for you, Scotty). The game has some real nice world building too, in codexes, missions, and such. Even something innocuous can give you a piece of worldbuilding that's pretty neat. Granted, a lot of it ends up being a wall of text, but it's neat regardless.

Well, the gameplay sucks. Moving on.

Ok, I guess I should say more.

Mass Effect 1's level design is weak as hell, the gameplay and shooting is clunky as fuck, inventory problems end up being an annoyance, powers feel bland and boring, and the mako. Granted the LE version tweaks gameplay a bit, and it's less miserable, but it's still outdated and clunky. The way 1 plays makes me somewhat appreciate the future streamlining, cuz it makes playing feel more tolerable. Levels will have regular combat and mako sections, and the combat parts feel strung together quickly, and the mako sections tend to be long straight lines. Speaking of the Mako, it handles like shit, and while it handles somewhat better in LE, the lack of gravity defiance can make open world sections feel worse. Oh yeah, there's "open worlds" as in, empty fucking planets devoid of anything fun. The random worlds are poop.

LE makes some graphical changes I either don't mind or don't like. The eden prime mission lost a lot of it's life, and some of the lighting in areas makes characters look like melted wax. But, for a remaster of a 2007 game, it looks fine. In terms of the soundtrack, I dig it. There's a lot of fun energetic electronic pieces, and some fantastic immersive ambient tracks. Issa goodun.

It's nice to go back to this game, this trilogy means so much to me, and I hope to GOD this company goes under before that new one even has a proper gameplay trailer.

Как уже понятно, я фанатка игр BioWare. После Dragon age, эта игра была всегда моей второй любовью. Боевая система не идеальна, но я прошла игру много раз, на сложности "безумие", так что для реального фаната это не проблема.

Минус однотипные локации (но для игры 2009 года я могу простить)

Самый большой плюс, слаженная история которая продолжается в следующих частях, где ты понимаешь что твои выборы на самом деле имели какое-то значение, и повлияли на мир.

this is a very charming game.

i initially started playing it because of my friends, who were all surprised that i had somehow missed out on it. well, i was surprised to find out that literally EVERYONE in the world had played these games in the late 2000s. and that everyone romanced garrus. i now truly believe that if i walked up to a crowd of random people and asked them about mass effect, they'd all tell me that garrus is the perfect husband. guess i have no choice but to find out what the deal is with this alien man.

well! this game IS fun. my thoughts:

1) the gameplay is janky, but not as janky as i thought it'd be. look, i don't like FPS games. this is the first one i've played in a long, long time. but i got used to it pretty quickly! i played on the easiest setting, using my steam deck (so, using a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard) and i thought it was pretty comfortable. i really liked using liara's abilities - she made it very easy to pick off enemies.

the gameplay sequence for the main planets goes like this: get dropped off somewhere. run and find a group of hostile enemies, maybe four or five. kill them. then run to the next group. you can't save while the enemies in front of you are alive, but you can save before or after that. it really felt like the devs were thinking about people who were playing this game primarily for the story. thank you, old bioware.

2) i really loved the worldbuilding. just loved it. the lore, the sense of history, everything. LOVED getting a new codex entry that would help you make sense of the world. for example, it'd tell you why turians usually wear face paint, and then you'd look at garrus, and then you'd look at saren, and you'd think ah! very fun.

also, the salarians are super cute to me. i know they're kind of ugly but they look kind of like hairless cats.

3) the characters. i'm told that they develop more in the second game. but i did end up liking them a lot! i liked wrex - he was always the most level-headed in the elevator conversations. i found it funny how RUDE garrus is to tali and wrex, though. turians really do think they're superior to krogans and quarians, huh? i'm told he calms down a lot later on. it really is funny, though! it makes him seem kind of very young and naive, like he's not used to interacting with non-turians, despite his very important line of work. i really liked liara, too. she's so enthusiastic about the prothean ruins in the last mission, which made exploring them feel much more emotional and bittersweet.

i don't have many thoughts about the human characters.... except that the humans look kind of weird. older graphics, yes, but i remember them looking a lot less weird in dragon age? well, my shepard was perfect and beautiful, of course. very difficult job, being the most beautiful person in the universe.

onto the next game!

played on steam via the legendary edition