Playtime: 30 Hours
Score: 7/10
While I am a big fan of the Mass Effect trilogy, I only recently got the Legendary Edition, and have now completed the first game. I beat this game many years ago back on the PS3, and while its not my favorite in the series, its still a good game!
Of the remastered trilogy, this one got the most attention and reworking from Bioware, since it is the oldest and the most outdated of the 3. I think they did a great job though, with not only updating the graphics but also reworking much of the mechanics to fit the other games. You have a new leveling system that caps out at 30 (but you can still switch back to the classic lvl 1-60) which really helps the progression of the game. The shooting is definitley better, but is still a little janky when compared to the original. The AI was touted as one of the improvements they made, but I didn't really notice much. Enemies either hide behind cover, or run around like jerks and make it hard for you to hit them. Companions though can be real dumb sometimes as they will sometimes stop dead in their tracks and refuse to follow you. Luckily saving your game and just reloading, resets the AI and fixes it without you having to reboot the game completely. The performance however was great as my framerate never dropped and the game never crashed on me, which should be expected but you never know with PC ports, especially from EA.
As for the game itself, I really enjoyed it, though you can definitely feel the jank and how much they improved in ME 2&3. This game by far has the most expoloration and open endedness, as you can travel across the galaxy and land on different planets. The only problem is the planets are really barren with a few minerals and anamolies to find and usually one building you can go into. The interiors are very copy and pasted though, with a few rooms that look identical to each other. Playing through this though, gave me a taste of what Starfield will probably be like with those 1000 barren planets, with nothing to do on them lol But on a serious note, I can definitely see Bethesda using this game as a template, and its a solid foundation for them to build on. I just hope they make the planets more interesting. The other issue that has been memed to death is the mako. It does control better with the new control scheme and you get used to it after a while. My issue isn't really drivng the car, its more just the annoying planets you have to drive on. Some of them are like 90% mountains with barely any flat ground for you to drive on, and driving up steep heels can be really annoying. It feels like I'm playing a really bad, pre-alpha version of Death Stranding, only in that game I felt accomplished after scailing a high mountain. Here I just beat my head against the wall in frustration.
However this game does do a lot of things well. The story is still fantastic with its well written characters and companions; a fantastic villain in Saren and FemShepard will always be a badass in my mind! Jennifer Hale's voice as female Shepard is still iconic and its what made me fall in love with character. She just elevates Shepard's dialogue to a whole new level! Other cool things is the new character creator and the fact that you can play all three games as the default female Shepard from ME3, though I customized mine to look like the Major from Ghost in the Shell, since they had her hairstyle. I even found a skin tight armor in the game that looked like the Major's camo suit from the anime, which definitely made feel me more attached to my Shepard!
Also as a side note, the photomode in this game is very cool and I found myself stopping and taking pictures quite often throughout my adventures on the more pretty looking planets.
What elevates the combat though. is the sound design which got a major overhaul. Guns sound really good and impactful when you fire them which helps the overall feel. This game is very loot shooter heavy also, as your constantly picking up new guns, armor and ammo upgrades. After a while I stopped caring and turned most of my loot into omni-gel which you need to bypass the hacking mini-game which got very annoying. My issue there, is that there's only one mini game for both hacking and recovering artifacts from long dead bodies you find on the planets. Why I need to play a mini game to pick up something off a corpse is beyond me. The last thing I will say about the loot is I love some of the ammo types you get and I miss them in ME2. I get that they needed to simplfy it down to a few types, but I do miss the chemical ammo in this game, which is very useful as it just melts enemies into goop piles, which I will always find satisfying!
Overall though, I am glad I got to go back and replay this one and restart my journey through the trilogy. This game made me appreciate the improvements they made and remember Bioware's golden years before those pesky Anthems and Andromeda's ruined everything. If you love Mass Effect, I recommend this remaster and that you give this one a replay!
Score: 7/10
While I am a big fan of the Mass Effect trilogy, I only recently got the Legendary Edition, and have now completed the first game. I beat this game many years ago back on the PS3, and while its not my favorite in the series, its still a good game!
Of the remastered trilogy, this one got the most attention and reworking from Bioware, since it is the oldest and the most outdated of the 3. I think they did a great job though, with not only updating the graphics but also reworking much of the mechanics to fit the other games. You have a new leveling system that caps out at 30 (but you can still switch back to the classic lvl 1-60) which really helps the progression of the game. The shooting is definitley better, but is still a little janky when compared to the original. The AI was touted as one of the improvements they made, but I didn't really notice much. Enemies either hide behind cover, or run around like jerks and make it hard for you to hit them. Companions though can be real dumb sometimes as they will sometimes stop dead in their tracks and refuse to follow you. Luckily saving your game and just reloading, resets the AI and fixes it without you having to reboot the game completely. The performance however was great as my framerate never dropped and the game never crashed on me, which should be expected but you never know with PC ports, especially from EA.
As for the game itself, I really enjoyed it, though you can definitely feel the jank and how much they improved in ME 2&3. This game by far has the most expoloration and open endedness, as you can travel across the galaxy and land on different planets. The only problem is the planets are really barren with a few minerals and anamolies to find and usually one building you can go into. The interiors are very copy and pasted though, with a few rooms that look identical to each other. Playing through this though, gave me a taste of what Starfield will probably be like with those 1000 barren planets, with nothing to do on them lol But on a serious note, I can definitely see Bethesda using this game as a template, and its a solid foundation for them to build on. I just hope they make the planets more interesting. The other issue that has been memed to death is the mako. It does control better with the new control scheme and you get used to it after a while. My issue isn't really drivng the car, its more just the annoying planets you have to drive on. Some of them are like 90% mountains with barely any flat ground for you to drive on, and driving up steep heels can be really annoying. It feels like I'm playing a really bad, pre-alpha version of Death Stranding, only in that game I felt accomplished after scailing a high mountain. Here I just beat my head against the wall in frustration.
However this game does do a lot of things well. The story is still fantastic with its well written characters and companions; a fantastic villain in Saren and FemShepard will always be a badass in my mind! Jennifer Hale's voice as female Shepard is still iconic and its what made me fall in love with character. She just elevates Shepard's dialogue to a whole new level! Other cool things is the new character creator and the fact that you can play all three games as the default female Shepard from ME3, though I customized mine to look like the Major from Ghost in the Shell, since they had her hairstyle. I even found a skin tight armor in the game that looked like the Major's camo suit from the anime, which definitely made feel me more attached to my Shepard!
Also as a side note, the photomode in this game is very cool and I found myself stopping and taking pictures quite often throughout my adventures on the more pretty looking planets.
What elevates the combat though. is the sound design which got a major overhaul. Guns sound really good and impactful when you fire them which helps the overall feel. This game is very loot shooter heavy also, as your constantly picking up new guns, armor and ammo upgrades. After a while I stopped caring and turned most of my loot into omni-gel which you need to bypass the hacking mini-game which got very annoying. My issue there, is that there's only one mini game for both hacking and recovering artifacts from long dead bodies you find on the planets. Why I need to play a mini game to pick up something off a corpse is beyond me. The last thing I will say about the loot is I love some of the ammo types you get and I miss them in ME2. I get that they needed to simplfy it down to a few types, but I do miss the chemical ammo in this game, which is very useful as it just melts enemies into goop piles, which I will always find satisfying!
Overall though, I am glad I got to go back and replay this one and restart my journey through the trilogy. This game made me appreciate the improvements they made and remember Bioware's golden years before those pesky Anthems and Andromeda's ruined everything. If you love Mass Effect, I recommend this remaster and that you give this one a replay!