I originally played Mass Effect after picking it up in second-hand game store CEX just because the box art looked interesting. I was instantly captivated by the highly detailed world, great story and visual style. I loved the first game so much that I played it twice; once as a nice-natured female character, and the second as a belligerent male character. The second and third games refined a few mechanics and improved the graphics, but the first will always be legendary because of how it captivated me despite me having no expectations.
I wasn’t hyped for this remaster but after playing Dead Space 1 & 2, I was in the mood for some Sci-FI space games and wanted to give Mass Effect 2 and 3 another play. I did play the first game again but I barely completed any side-missions.
The amount of detail in the history of the world is absolutely fantastic. Everytime you meet a new alien or even hear about them - you are intrigued. Dialogue often refers to past history so you will learn about how the Krogran’s are strong warriors and helped eraridate the insect like Rachni. Salarians developed a genetic mutation to limit the Krogran population which was deployed by the Turians. Turians are allied with Humans but they did battle during the First Contact War when Humans ventured further into space. The Quarians created the mechanical Geth but as they became smarter, the Quarians tried to deactivate them and started a war which the Geth won.
The Citadel is essentially the political capital of the universe. You meet many other races here and deal with the council as you aim to prevent the threat to organic life. You often return here after carrying out various missions on other planets.
Mass Effect 1
Mass Effect 1 feels dated with how dumb the AI is. Your teammates love walking in front of you, sometimes my team members would instantly die at the start of a boss battle, so you will be using lots of Medigel. You seem to die easily when sniped which can be frustrating. The gameplay is the cover-based gunplay which was popular at the time with the likes of Gears of War. I like the way the guns don’t have ammo but they overheat if you shoot too fast; the amount depends on the gun’s attributes.
You can romance a few of the characters. In previous playthroughs, I had a romance with Liara, so I made sure I was mean to her this time. Despite that, she still asked me if I was interested, I turned her down, and later she still persisted. Despite turning her down again, Liara and other characters in Mass Effect 2 acted like we had a relationship. Disappointing that this mechanic seems bugged, but I’m not playing it for the romance.
In this remaster, they have done a great job of improving the graphics but then the planet Feros is ridiculously dark - I don’t understand how they didn’t realise when playtesting. I put my TV on max brightness in some sections and it was still difficult to see.
In the Options menu there is a setting for Film Grain, but I don’t notice the effect. It was a really cool effect in the original game. The audio can be all over the place so there’s some incredibly loud sections.
There’s quite a lot of tedious backtracking with the sidequests. There was one where I started the quest, through about 5 doors and killed the enemies. Then you go back to the start who then gives you a key to open a door where you backtracked from. What’s the point? just let me open the door. I didn’t bother with the exploration parts, but you drive over a very elevated and barren landscape and sometimes find a building in the middle of nowhere with copy-and-pasted interiors.
Mass Effect 2
It seems Bioware listened to feedback about the first game, because there’s a lot of changes to make it more streamlined, but they also made some changes which made the game lose its identity somewhat.
First thing you notice is the visual polish, better lighting, and different colour palette. The animations are much improved, and the first robotic enemies you come across can have their limbs blown off. There’s much more punch to the weapons so you see enemies flinch or be knocked to the ground.
Now you only carry 3 weapons rather than a full set. I liked how the guns were mapped to the Function keys in the first game but now you have to scroll through them with the mousewheel, or select them through a menu. The overheating mechanic has been switched out for a standard reloading mechanic - this is very disappointing because I felt that was part of what made Mass Effect different. The inclusion of heavy weapons are often vital for taking down the strong mechs and bosses.
You now snap in and out of cover easily with one button press and it is a far better and reliable system. Each character has fewer skills but the cooldowns seem faster.
Many areas are smaller, contained areas to keep up the game’s pacing. When you finish a mission, there’s no tedious backtracking. The downside is if there is something to collect nearby, then sometimes you lose the chance. The hacking mini game has been replaced by 2 different ones. One which is like a memory match game, and another where you are selecting a correct image from a scrolling panel. The mission variety is much more interesting and there seems much more content.
Instead of looting loads of guns that you don’t care about, you tend to just get credits to spend on research - new guns or upgrades.
The map screen has changed but then it’s a bit slower to navigate. You now move your ship around the map screen, with some areas requiring fuel, so you need to move to Fuel stations to resupply. You now scan planets for resources which is a bit of a chore - you just slowly pan the planet and move a reticule to find resources, then launch a probe to collect them.
There’s a newer version of the Normandy ship which is much larger, but fairly quick to explore. You get to find your old crew, but there’s loads of new characters to add to your squad. Each character has a primary side quest associated with them, which helps flesh their back story out a bit and adds a ton of value to the game. Completing this makes them “Loyal” which unlocks a new ability and can affect if they survive the final section of the game.
In the first game you mainly drove on barren lands in the Mako which was boring, now these sections are minimal. There’s a new Hovercraft vehicle, and you often boost jump platform to platform.
You hear about the Batarians in the first game but never saw them. Now you get to meet them alongside the evil looking Vorcha. The Collectors are the main story enemy in the game.
You now work for Cerberus, run by The Illusive Man. Cerberus was mentioned in the first game, and you can encounter them in some side-missions, but it’s possible that you can start Mass Effect 2 without any knowledge of who they are. The Illusive Man’s aim is to enhance humanity to be the most powerful race but his methods can be questionable - Cerberus has the reputation of a terrorist organisation. Commander Shepard is willing to work with them as Cerberus seems the only group that are willing to take on The Collectors.
Overall, the gameplay is much better, but the story doesn’t seem as epic. It’s generally just a continuation. I think the final boss is a bit strange and wasn’t sure what the Collectors aimed to do with such a creation.
Mass Effect 3
This game must be really forgettable because I only remembered the opening sequence then a few parts towards the end of the game.
Story wise, you end up wrapping up a few of the story arcs like the Krogan genophage, and the Quarians battle against the Geth in order to reclaim their homeworld. Meanwhile the war with the Reapers has started and your aim is to unite the races in order to have enough military strength to win, retake Earth and save the galaxy. Meanwhile, Cerberus aims to take control of the Reapers so they often get in your way.
The main enemies are the Reaper forces, which are indoctrinated, mutated, mechanical versions of the main races. You will often fight Cerberus but there’s not many moments where you are fighting the standard races.
You do get to meet your old crewmates (the ones that have survived anyway), but only a couple of them actually join as playable characters. The squad selection is much more limited.
Your character seems more agile and can slide and side-roll which only felt useful for leaping out of the way of grenades. It seems much harder to pick up or interact with objects as you seem to have to be closer and look in the exact direction. If you try to move and pick-up, you can end up dodging instead. In the first section, you are introduced to the idea of climbing ladders and leaping over gaps, so it’s predictable that the game is going to be full of this. I’m not sure what it adds because it wasn’t really necessary in the previous games.
The hacking mini-games have been removed completely, now you just wait a few seconds to open doors which could just be hiding a loading screen.
The graphical style doesn’t look as good in my opinion, and it has a more grey/blue colour palette so it generally doesn’t look as stylish.
There's plenty of guns to find and purchase, each can be upgraded with two weapon modifications (so the feature from the first game is back). The heavier your load-out, the longer your cool-down period is, which means you will have to wait longer between using your powers. There's plenty of armour too, and you can switch individual parts to create your own armour.
The grenades have been moved to be a power, but they only get restocked at the start of each mission.
I felt enemies didn’t pose much of a threat. I think I only used the Medigel a few times, and I rarely saw my shields get depleted. I think the powers are generally overpowered, especially because you can wipe out clusters of enemies with the grenades. If enemies get close, the melee attack often kills them in one-hit.
Another disappointment for me was how the Citadel sections have been stripped down to be the most boring area in the game. In the original game, the Citadel felt huge and there was so much to see. In the sequel, you were limited to areas, but it still had the feeling of being a large and important place; just cut down for usability. In this game, the Citadel feels tiny and lifeless, with not much going on, simply relegated to some stripped-down quests.
The game does start to get a bit tiresome towards the end, and it does seem to come to its conclusion on the weird side. I would be interested if the game is easy if you select a different type of character, or maybe different guns. I think Mass Effect 3 also had the disadvantage of me playing the first 2 straight before it, so by this point I was already getting a bit fatigued. I mean - you are talking around 70 hours in total.
Conclusion
Mass Effect 1 seems very dated with its gameplay, and I wasn’t a fan of the changes introduced in the third game (not to the remaster but the original release). However, there is no doubt it's a brilliant series. If you have never played the series before, then this collection is obviously the perfect way to play; you get 3 games, enhanced by including the DLC and improved textures. It’s hard to rate collections - do you give it a score to match the best game, higher than the best game because you got more value, or average them out?