Mass Effect Legendary Edition remaster trilogy

[Vladimuar]

Why didn't you dye your brows?

 

[Rean]

Why didn't you dye your brows?

Hi

 

[rusty_shackleford]

my custom config file for ME2(ME2 ONLY you dummies)
press F10 when you first get ingame(controlling shepard) to fix the terrible FOV
spacebar no longer selects conversation options, only skips
tacticool mode is now a toggle rather than hold
out of combat storming has unlimited stamina

https://files.catbox.moe/x9dm2r.zip

go to Mass Effect Legendary Edition/Game/ME2/BioGame/CookedPCConsole
back up Coalesced_INT.bin
extract zipped file into the directory

 

[rusty_shackleford]

one of the most consistently amusing parts of the series is the casual racism being proven correct over and over

 

[Caim]

one of the most consistently amusing parts of the series is the casual racism being proven correct over and over

Between the various species, or the fact that Jacob, your only black companion, walks out on Shepard and knocks up another woman if you romance him in between Mass Effect 2 and 3?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

or the fact that Jacob, your only black companion, walks out on Shepard and knocks up another woman if you romance him in between Mass Effect 2 and 3?

*ahem*
you mean your only black companion, whose dad left him,

and the answer is, both

 

[Lacrymas]

We've been over the casual racism. It's "proven right" only because of the law of averages. When you suspect everyone, someone is bound to slip up at one point.

 

[J1M]

We've been over the casual racism. It's "proven right" only because of the law of averages. When you suspect everyone, someone is bound to slip up at one point.

It's a game. Where the author has total control over the setting and the characters that appear in it.

Dark energy reference update: 3 (Tali's recruitment mission, investigating a star aging prematurely)

 

[oldmanpaco]

or the fact that Jacob, your only black companion, walks out on Shepard and knocks up another woman if you romance him in between Mass Effect 2 and 3?

*ahem*
you mean your only black companion, whose dad left him,

and the answer is, both

you mean the only black companion, whose dad left him, and raped all those women?

 

[Alienman]

I thought the Krogans were the blacks?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

We've been over the casual racism. It's "proven right" only because of the law of averages. When you suspect everyone, someone is bound to slip up at one point.

But it's really not.
Even things like e.g., Ashley/Engineer guy/Pressly suspecting Tali of espionage were... completely well-founded. Ever wonder how the Quarian ships got their stealth-tech that's similar to the Normandy?
Anytime the Krogans are stereotyped as being violent and irrational is again, completely true. Like when they aren't allowed on the presidium in ME2 because they're too violent. Then the ones complaining about it threaten to kill the person who won't allow them on the presidium.

It's actually easier to list instances where it doesn't turn out to be true. I'll start: The Volus accusing the Quarian of being a thief because he misplaced his cred-chip.
...But that Volus sure does resemble another stereotype.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Is it Jackie Chan in his gay adolescence?

Jackie Chan was cool once, though.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

I finished Mass Effect 2. Replaying it has convinced me, more than ever, that the Reapers don't really matter to this series. They are just a MacGuffin that force the characters to do shit. This is the 4th time I've played the game (and the first in nearly a decade) and what struck me most playing it this time is that there's next to zero central plot. There are like 3 total main missions involving the collectors, and the rest of the stuff is tangential. However, the "rest of the stuff" is so strong that it doesn't really matter that the central plot is kind of an after thought. This game has some of the best characters and best side-missions that Bioware has ever done, and apart from maybe Overlord, the DLC is also top notch. Samara, Thane, Tali, and Legion are standouts, but almost any companion character in this game (save maybe Jacob, who's just fucking dull) would be the breakout, fan-favorite, character in any game that Bioware has released since Mass Effect 3. Heck, I only played Andromeda 2 years ago and I can't remember a single fucking companion, apart from Pheebee, who I didn't even like that much.

The fact that Bioware didn't care about the main plot is underscored in the big "REAPERS ARE MAKING HUMAN REAPERS!" reveal. For some reason I remembered them devoting more time to it, so I was surprised to discover it's given all of 3 total lines of exposition which boil down to basically: "The reapers are making human reapers because they've always assimilated organic life to create more reapers.....just because." As far as I recall, the central plot of Mass Effect 2 is never mentioned again in Mass Effect 3 (there's a lot of talk about the Reapers enslaving other species, but I don't recall much about them creating new reapers based on other species.....but maybe I've forgotten).

That said, I haven't yet seen anything in the game to contradict my personal fan theory that the reapers act like they do because they are really fucking stupid. Or, more accurately, just ancient outdated AI that doesn't understand how organic life works so they do weird things that makes sense to their programing, but no one else: "We don't understand organic life, so let's create organic life in our image to understand it." That logic kind of would make sense to a machine, but would seem crazy and silly to anyone else. I admit that this is my own personal retcon, though, and likely wasn't intended by Bioware.

However, I was interested to see WAAAAAAAAY more evidence in this game to support the whole "Shepard was indoctrinated all along" theory, especially in the Arrival DLC, which I greatly enjoyed playing because I only ever played it once and I didn't remember any of it at all.

About to start Mass Effect 3. I've always said that ME3 is my favorite game in the series, so we'll see if that holds true after a decade. I can't remember a whole bunch of shit about ME3, as I've played it the least (just twice), so I'm excited to play it.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

my custom config file for ME2(ME2 ONLY you dummies)
press F10 when you first get ingame(controlling shepard) to fix the terrible FOV
spacebar no longer selects conversation options, only skips
tacticool mode is now a toggle rather than hold
out of combat storming has unlimited stamina

https://files.catbox.moe/x9dm2r.zip

go to Mass Effect Legendary Edition/Game/ME2/BioGame/CookedPCConsole
back up Coalesced_INT.bin
extract zipped file into the directory

Do one for Mass Effect 3. The fucking dialog skip drives me crazy. I always speed read the dialog via subtitles and skip it once I finish, but this has resulted in my accidentally making a bunch of dumb decisions that I've had to go back and replay from my previous save to correct.

 

[J1M]

Just press spacebar once instead of mashing it, lol.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Just press spacebar once instead of mashing it, lol.

sometimes the dialogue options pop up early while they're still talking

 

[Child of Malkav]

So, after playing it for some time now, how is it?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

So, after playing it for some time now, how is it?

Most of the remaster seems to have went to ME1, or I've forgotten enough about ME2 since my last playthrough to not really notice. The other two seem to have gotten (welcome) bug fixes, not sure exactly what else.
In some ways, ME2 actually looks like a graphical downgrade from ME1 now. Character facial animations seem odd.

DLC items are now more naturally part of ME2 rather than just planted in your inventory at the start. You have to buy or research them. UI looks better at higher resolutions.

To answer your question:
Good. If you liked the original trilogy, you'll like the remaster. Otherwise, skip it I guess? It's not a new game.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

So, after playing it for some time now, how is it?

Gameplay-wise, it's mostly the same. Mass Effect 1 has quite a few changes, but they don't significantly change how the game plays. The biggest change just seems to be that they "streamlined it" and adjusted insanity to work on NG rather than being locked to only NG++, which means it's way easier (too easy, I think).

Graphically, Mass Effect 1 is a mixed bag. Environments and non-organic characters look better than ME1, however humans and asari look worse. The added lighting blows out the shadows in ME1, which exposes all of the engine's flaws, and they somehow fucked up the character's eyes. They also used ME3 models for everyone, which annoys me (especially on Liara, as her ME3 model looked like a tawdry whore). A patch a while back made some of the blown out lighting less extreme and the most recent patch addressed something with the eyes, so maybe it looks better now (I had finished it long before the last patch was released), but over all I don't think ME1 LE looks better than plain old modded ME.

That said, I think ME2 and ME3 look better, graphically. They both incorporate the new lighting while maintaining the shadows of the original games, and played at 4K with HDR on a good monitor, they look gorgeous and way better than their age. HDR is the one concrete advantage that the LE has over the originals as I don't think it's been modded into them, so it's worth getting the LE for that alone if you have a good monitor. The entire series is loaded with environments that have extreme contrasts between dark and light, plus tons of neon and lens flare, so it's like the series was made to showcase HDR.

For me the only question to consider in buying this is: Do I want to play the Mass Effect series again right now? If the answer is yes, it's a no brainer to replay it with new achievements, all the DLC, and some graphical and gameplay tweaks. If the answer is "no" or even "maybe," the LE isn't going to change your mind, as over all there's really nothing that's new enough about it to make the games worth playing again if you don't have a burning desire to.

 

[Nano]

That said, I think ME2 and ME3 look better, graphically.

The ME2 remaster also gives characters their ME3 models though, which looks almost as weird as it does in the ME1 remaster.

Do I want to play the Mass Effect series again right now? If the answer is yes, it's a no brainer to replay it with new achievements, all the DLC, and some graphical and gameplay tweaks.

The LE is a half-assed mess. If you're going to replay the trilogy you should still play the original games.

 

[Yosharian]

or play the originals instead available at a much lower price and with better graphics

 

[rusty_shackleford]

or play the originals instead available at a much lower price and with better graphics

people who think the originals(even with texture mods) have better graphics are either blind or are judging entirely based off of screenshots

 

[Yosharian]

or play the originals instead available at a much lower price and with better graphics

people who think the originals(even with texture mods) have better graphics are either blind or are judging entirely based off of screenshots

 

[Yosharian]

Spoiler

 

[Nano]

people who think the originals(even with texture mods) have better graphics are either blind or are judging entirely based off of screenshots

Stop being such a degenerate.

The LE carelessly annihilated the game's atmosphere and character.