Mass Effect BioWare Montreal's Mass Effect: Andromeda - where element zero meets trisomy 21

[Iznaliu]

Imagine going to a bakery, and paying $3 for a chocolate chip cookie, but the cookie they give you is a day old, or it has hardly any chips. Yet, the next person, who also paid $3 got new cookies that were fresh and with the right amount of chips. How would you feel? It just doesn't make sense to pay for an inferior experience.

I guess the Codex is't the only place that comes up with stupid metaphors.

 

[Sykar]

My sides cannot keep up anymore.



My sides are dead!

 

[mastroego]

There's a thread on the Nu Bioware forum dedicated to writing open letters to Bioware petitioning for more buttsex

http://bsn.boards.net/thread/6157/open-letters-bioware-regarding-romances

Here's one of the shorter examples....

Dear BioWare:

You are leagues ahead of every other developer in your dedication to presenting under-represented groups (save The Sims franchise). You are also some of the most talented individuals whose work I have had the pleasure of taking part in. Thank you for all your efforts!

That said, I will mention that you are under no requirement to appeal to any group or handle the treatments of various groups equally, BUT, I'm under no requirement to support a franchise that does not support me. If your gay male players were given a discount, I would have no problem with the discount storylines, but I paid over $70 USD, so to get an inferior experience for the same price (if not more) makes no sense monetarily to me.

Imagine going to a bakery, and paying $3 for a chocolate chip cookie, but the cookie they give you is a day old, or it has hardly any chips. Yet, the next person, who also paid $3 got new cookies that were fresh and with the right amount of chips. How would you feel? It just doesn't make sense to pay for an inferior experience.

With that said, again, thank you for your hard work, but I will not be engaging in your products anymore because they have (consistently) given me an inferior experience, with no discount.

TL:DR

I pay the same as everyone else, and I should get the same satisfying feeling as everyone else; it makes no sense to pay full-price for an inferior experience. Give your Gaymers a discount if their experience won't match others.

I'm not sure they understand that actual, first person physical sex doesn't ship with the game.

Jokes aside, it shows what kind of can of worms they've opened by pandering to their precious minorities. Those will never be satisfied enough and will scream "sexism" or "discrimination" for whatever reason.
Meanwhile, regular buyers will have left for saner shores.

 

[Iznaliu]

Good luck selling the game to the "real terrorists" then.
I suggest them to release it on the ISIL controlled territories. I'm sure they'll get satisfactory sales there.

Ask the Native Americans about that.

 

[Atlantico]

I hate to ask as I didn't play ME3, but is this poster implying that having sex with someone who has had a drink rape?

It's like this in ME3; there's a party with the Normandy crew in the Citadel DLC and if you don't romance anyone in the game and play as female Shep, you will wake up in bed with the Prothean crewmember. It's implied you had sex (somehow?) and there are some comments of regret and no memory due to inebriation mentioned.

This happened in my playthrough of ME3, and I confeess, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Not because of rape implications or anything like that, which may or may not be read into that scene - but because I didn't ever acknowledge the the fucking faggotry that is Bioware's romance shit in any of the games, and yet they still found a way to smear it in my face. If only for a short scene.

HEY EVERYONE MUST ROMANCE SOMEONE IN OUR LITTLE FAGGOT FEST.

 

[Wulfstand]

Seeing EAware getting torn to shreds by the media brings joy to my heart.

 

[Vival]

Sweet fucking hell, some of those Bioderp "designer", and I use that term loosely here, have eaten the SJWtard crap hook line and sinker:

"Oh i'm so offended i'm about to shake off my hipster hat!"

I wouldn't buy bioware games because they are fucking trash not because someone said something on social media. While that pathetic sjw crap is part of why their games are unbearable garbage, if that curry asshole somehow made a brillant game i would pay for it. I don't care if he uses that money to buy idiotic coffee mugs and post impotent rage on social media.

 

[Sykar]

Sweet fucking hell, some of those Bioderp "designer", and I use that term loosely here, have eaten the SJWtard crap hook line and sinker:

"Oh i'm so offended i'm about to shake off my hipster hat!"

I wouldn't buy bioware games because they are fucking trash not because someone said something on social media. While that pathetic sjw crap is part of why their games are unbearable garbage, if that curry asshole somehow made a brillant game i would pay for it. I don't care if he uses that money to buy idiotic coffee mugs and post impotent rage on social media.

One excludes the other and for sure have seen with Derp Effect: Down Syndromeda that it does not affect the actual game whatsoever.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I hate to ask as I didn't play ME3, but is this poster implying that having sex with someone who has had a drink rape?

It's like this in ME3; there's a party with the Normandy crew in the Citadel DLC and if you don't romance anyone in the game and play as female Shep, you will wake up in bed with the Prothean crewmember. It's implied you had sex (somehow?) and there are some comments of regret and no memory due to inebriation mentioned.

This happened in my playthrough of ME3, and I confeess, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Not because of rape implications or anything like that, which may or may not be read into that scene - but because I didn't ever acknowledge the the fucking faggotry that is Bioware's romance shit in any of the games, and yet they still found a way to smear it in my face. If only for a short scene.

HEY EVERYONE MUST ROMANCE SOMEONE IN OUR LITTLE FAGGOT FEST.

problem is, citadel dlc is COMEDY, pure comedy, just comedy, nothing else but comedy, it's made to make fun of me3 itself, and it manages to be better than everything else me3 as a whole has to offer.

 

[Vival]

One excludes the other and for sure have seen with Derp Effect: Down Syndromeda that it does not affect the actual game whatsoever.

The whole video is about that dude being offended by dumb shit people said and how he doesn't want to support that.

 

[Sykar]

One excludes the other and for sure have seen with Derp Effect: Down Syndromeda that it does not affect the actual game whatsoever.

The whole video is about that dude being offended by dumb shit people said and how he doesn't want to support that.

And that is wrong why exactly?

 

[markec]

So the choice is bad because i didnt entirely alter the progression of the game?

You really have a tendency to distort an argument since you cant provide anything to counter it or you just have a really bad comprehension skills. So let me repeat again like I did many times before, which I doubt it will accomplish anything since its obviously too complex for you (to be fair I shouldnt expect more from a ME fanboy). Choice is bad since its a forced choice between two shitty characters who are easily replaced and nothing changes in the story.

I chose to think they were grounded and normal. And it was much needed after all the strange shit you had going on both in the plot and in your own ship. You fail to grasp the value of normal people in an fantastic tale, but you fail at so many things this isnt surprising.

Man thats a really creative way to say they are boring and bland. Just because a character is "normal" doesnt mean he should be boring and bland.

Half the crew was a romantic interest, these were the only two soldiers in it under your command. Nice try tho, you almost make an argument worth a shit, thats a first.

So what if the half of the crew was a romantic interest. You honestly think that decision to choose between deaths of tow romantic interest and not two non romantic interests was just a coincidence?

Except the planet wasnt under your command, it wasnt your responsability, those people were. The whole choice as framed as you being in charge of them, it would have lost all meaning if you were just picking between saving a planet or saving your banging buddy. The choice you propose adds less to the narrative and manages to bypass the only part of the decision that is hard "who do i send to die. Who do I kill? These people put their lives on my hands."

Again what you say its true what Im saying is that those characters placed in those situation were conveniently romance options, which is a cheap trick to add extra emosuns to the scene. What In also pointing out that due shitty Bioware writing you dont care about characters in question so the dilemma is pointless, you can just flip a coin and choose.

Sure, more impactful choices would be better, if thats your whole point its fucking retarded. I can come up with deeply impactful choices too, why cant you side with saren? why cant you just quit the military and spend your last days dancing at the bar?
Its a nice exercise in "what ifs" but it isnt relevant to the discussion at hand, and neither is the point you are trying to make.

There is a recurring cliche in all fiction where a hero has to choose between someone he loves and cares about and greater good. Its probably one of the most common cliches since its so effective and everyone can relate to it. I was just recently watching reruns of Star Trek DS9 and in one episode Worf needs to choose between woman he loves and getting to informer who has information that can save millions of lives, he choose woman he loves.

What Im saying is that that the option of abandoning the mission to save someone you care about is natural in human nature and would have been natural to that scene.

But it doesnt impact anything, you get someone else to follow you

Sounds like an impact to me.

few people mention it and thats it.

Sounds like an impact to me.

But not an meaningful impact, learn to read already ffs.

If you are playing a storyfag game with poor gunplay for the story but dont manage to care for the story why the fuck are you playing? are you retarded?

This is probably the stupidest argument you made so far and you made many. Some games peak early some late, I tend to finish games I started and give them a fair chance. ME was shit, I can say that because I played it, if I didnt play it I wouldnt be here arguing with you.

I think its a little more complicated than "they just didnt want to make more content"

What else there is it, they know as long as they have such faithful fanboys like you who will eat and shit served to them and be happy they dont need to put extra effort.

The logic doesnt follow. At the end of the day they commited to this choice far more than any other choice in the game.

Its a common sense its you inner fanboy preventing you to realize that. It tells you a lot about Bioware writing skills if they were they committed to this choice far more than any other choice in the game.

Really doesnt matter if you care about your soldiers or dont, the fact is you sent one to die. Narratively speaking that meant something, it had an impact, but at the end of the day it was just one more casualty of war.

Thats nice and poetic explanation, in real life you made a simple choice of which of the two boring and bland companions you will no longer have in your team.

No i dont, PoE did nothing competently

Actually you sound exactly like PoE apologist, who say PoE had a great story and writing, great combat and characters, everything was great only people dont get it, they are biased against Obsidian etc.

I do find it amusing how you dont see it yourself. You have been quite vocal in you criticism of PoE but when someone raises same concerns about your favorite game you became exactly the same person you claim you hate.

As far as i know they werent randomly generated. And they were rarely fetch quests too. Tho some of them were shit, like getting the krogan armor, or helping the woman get rid of her criminal sister if i remember correctly.

Get a program called Terragen, make a random terrain and in a few seconds you will have your average planet map from ME, use the same function several times with different color filter and suddenly you have entire ME galaxy at hand. Almost all side quests in ME consist of going to a planet, drive a Mako around that planet, find a warehouse, mine or a laboratory (which all have identical layout) in a middle of nowhere, find or kill your target, end mission. Truly breathtaking quest design.

Adjust expectations, this wasnt a work of art or anything, it had some interesting lore, mostly lifted from sci fi shows. it had a few interesting characters. The quarians were good, so where the krogans. I liked the citadel and the truth behind the keepers, which made me appreciate the quest at the start of the game when an NPC has you spying on them. Little details like that.
Thing is you cant really say this is mediocre, when theres so much mediocre games lying around, games like sword coast legends or bound by flame or the myriad of stuff that isnt outright hated. It is certainly one cut above most games.

Its a well written game, the plot is nothing new, ancient evil wakes up, you need to stop it! But i liked how it was approached, the main quest has you gathering information, going to ancient places and trying to reconstruct the past, it was certainly good enough. Plus just on the space opera novelty it scored some points. We get medieval fantasy RPGs every other week, this was certainly refreshing back then and it would probably be better recieved today than it was back then, especially after ME3 and MEA, or Mars: war logs, or Technomancer. Compared to those this game is pretty cool.

I agree what you say here but not that this is above mediocre. The presentation of the game makes it look far better then most games at the time, high production value combined with fluid gameplay, accessibility, SF setting instead of tired fantasy setting, and more competently written and presented story then most games at the time certainly makes it enjoyable and fun to an average player.

But Im not a average player, Im a RPG fan and a gamer who is playing games since the 80s. I dont care what magazines and fanboys say, I dont care is this game better then your average shovelwere, Im judging it by the same standards I do with every other game. As I said when you have around the same time released Mask of Betrayer, Witcher, Geneforge and Avernum this game falls flat. Now dont get me wrong those games I mentioned and especially Witcher are heavily flawed but the overall experience is far better. So instead of judging the game by comparing it to the worse of its kind try comparing it to the best of it.

As for the top 70, youd be hard pressed to find 20 RPGs that could be considered great, and its mostly a popularity contest anyway.

Maybe, but you could find 70 great, very good and good RPGs put on the list and ME is not in any of those three category.

 

[Vival]

And that is wrong why exactly?

Because this whole "i'm offended, boycott them!" is silly.

 

[salaciousbcrumb]

So the choice is bad because i didnt entirely alter the progression of the game?

You really have a tendency to distort an argument since you cant provide anything to counter it or you just have a really bad comprehension skills. So let me repeat again like I did many times before, which I doubt it will accomplish anything since its obviously too complex for you (to be fair I shouldnt expect more from a ME fanboy). Choice is bad since its a forced choice between two shitty characters who are easily replaced and nothing changes in the story.

I chose to think they were grounded and normal. And it was much needed after all the strange shit you had going on both in the plot and in your own ship. You fail to grasp the value of normal people in an fantastic tale, but you fail at so many things this isnt surprising.

Man thats a really creative way to say they are boring and bland. Just because a character is "normal" doesnt mean he should be boring and bland.

Half the crew was a romantic interest, these were the only two soldiers in it under your command. Nice try tho, you almost make an argument worth a shit, thats a first.

So what if the half of the crew was a romantic interest. You honestly think that decision to choose between deaths of tow romantic interest and not two non romantic interests was just a coincidence?

Except the planet wasnt under your command, it wasnt your responsability, those people were. The whole choice as framed as you being in charge of them, it would have lost all meaning if you were just picking between saving a planet or saving your banging buddy. The choice you propose adds less to the narrative and manages to bypass the only part of the decision that is hard "who do i send to die. Who do I kill? These people put their lives on my hands."

Again what you say its true what Im saying is that those characters placed in those situation were conveniently romance options, which is a cheap trick to add extra emosuns to the scene. What In also pointing out that due shitty Bioware writing you dont care about characters in question so the dilemma is pointless, you can just flip a coin and choose.

Sure, more impactful choices would be better, if thats your whole point its fucking retarded. I can come up with deeply impactful choices too, why cant you side with saren? why cant you just quit the military and spend your last days dancing at the bar?
Its a nice exercise in "what ifs" but it isnt relevant to the discussion at hand, and neither is the point you are trying to make.

There is a recurring cliche in all fiction where a hero has to choose between someone he loves and cares about and greater good. Its probably one of the most common cliches since its so effective and everyone can relate to it. I was just recently watching reruns of Star Trek DS9 and in one episode Worf needs to choose between woman he loves and getting to informer who has information that can save millions of lives, he choose woman he loves.

What Im saying is that that the option of abandoning the mission to save someone you care about is natural in human nature and would have been natural to that scene.

But it doesnt impact anything, you get someone else to follow you

Sounds like an impact to me.

few people mention it and thats it.

Sounds like an impact to me.

But not an meaningful impact, learn to read already ffs.

If you are playing a storyfag game with poor gunplay for the story but dont manage to care for the story why the fuck are you playing? are you retarded?

This is probably the stupidest argument you made so far and you made many. Some games peak early some late, I tend to finish games I started and give them a fair chance. ME was shit, I can say that because I played it, if I didnt play it I wouldnt be here arguing with you.

I think its a little more complicated than "they just didnt want to make more content"

What else there is it, they know as long as they have such faithful fanboys like you who will eat and shit served to them and be happy they dont need to put extra effort.

The logic doesnt follow. At the end of the day they commited to this choice far more than any other choice in the game.

Its a common sense its you inner fanboy preventing you to realize that. It tells you a lot about Bioware writing skills if they were they committed to this choice far more than any other choice in the game.

Really doesnt matter if you care about your soldiers or dont, the fact is you sent one to die. Narratively speaking that meant something, it had an impact, but at the end of the day it was just one more casualty of war.

Thats nice and poetic explanation, in real life you made a simple choice of which of the two boring and bland companions you will no longer have in your team.

No i dont, PoE did nothing competently

Actually you sound exactly like PoE apologist, who say PoE had a great story and writing, great combat and characters, everything was great only people dont get it, they are biased against Obsidian etc.

I do find it amusing how you dont see it yourself. You have been quite vocal in you criticism of PoE but when someone raises same concerns about your favorite game you became exactly the same person you claim you hate.

As far as i know they werent randomly generated. And they were rarely fetch quests too. Tho some of them were shit, like getting the krogan armor, or helping the woman get rid of her criminal sister if i remember correctly.

Get a program called Terragen, make a random terrain and in a few seconds you will have your average planet map from ME, use the same function several times with different color filter and suddenly you have entire ME galaxy at hand. Almost all side quests in ME consist of going to a planet, drive a Mako around that planet, find a warehouse, mine or a laboratory (which all have identical layout) in a middle of nowhere, find or kill your target, end mission. Truly breathtaking quest design.

Adjust expectations, this wasnt a work of art or anything, it had some interesting lore, mostly lifted from sci fi shows. it had a few interesting characters. The quarians were good, so where the krogans. I liked the citadel and the truth behind the keepers, which made me appreciate the quest at the start of the game when an NPC has you spying on them. Little details like that.
Thing is you cant really say this is mediocre, when theres so much mediocre games lying around, games like sword coast legends or bound by flame or the myriad of stuff that isnt outright hated. It is certainly one cut above most games.

Its a well written game, the plot is nothing new, ancient evil wakes up, you need to stop it! But i liked how it was approached, the main quest has you gathering information, going to ancient places and trying to reconstruct the past, it was certainly good enough. Plus just on the space opera novelty it scored some points. We get medieval fantasy RPGs every other week, this was certainly refreshing back then and it would probably be better recieved today than it was back then, especially after ME3 and MEA, or Mars: war logs, or Technomancer. Compared to those this game is pretty cool.

I agree what you say here but not that this is above mediocre. The presentation of the game makes it look far better then most games at the time, high production value combined with fluid gameplay, accessibility, SF setting instead of tired fantasy setting, and more competently written and presented story then most games at the time certainly makes it enjoyable and fun to an average player.

But Im not a average player, Im a RPG fan and a gamer who is playing games since the 80s. I dont care what magazines and fanboys say, I dont care is this game better then your average shovelwere, Im judging it by the same standards I do with every other game. As I said when you have around the same time released Mask of Betrayer, Witcher, Geneforge and Avernum this game falls flat. Now dont get me wrong those games I mentioned and especially Witcher are heavily flawed but the overall experience is far better. So instead of judging the game by comparing it to the worse of its kind try comparing it to the best of it.

As for the top 70, youd be hard pressed to find 20 RPGs that could be considered great, and its mostly a popularity contest anyway.

Maybe, but you could find 70 great, very good and good RPGs put on the list and ME is not in any of those three category.

And there I was thinking I was the biggest autistic obsessive in the thread.

 

[markec]

And there I was thinking I was the biggest autistic obsessive in the thread.

You must be new to the Bioware board.

 

[pippin]

I'm getting a bit perplexed as to why some people think there's a need to analyze Mass Effect 1 like this. There isn't really much about that one that deserves such ardent discussion imo... You must have some kind of ulterior reason to try and try to talk positively about the game so people can understand it's "good".

 

[AngryEddy]

I hate to ask as I didn't play ME3, but is this poster implying that having sex with someone who has had a drink rape?

It's like this in ME3; there's a party with the Normandy crew in the Citadel DLC and if you don't romance anyone in the game and play as female Shep, you will wake up in bed with the Prothean crewmember. It's implied you had sex (somehow?) and there are some comments of regret and no memory due to inebriation mentioned.

This happened in my playthrough of ME3, and I confeess, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Not because of rape implications or anything like that, which may or may not be read into that scene - but because I didn't ever acknowledge the the fucking faggotry that is Bioware's romance shit in any of the games, and yet they still found a way to smear it in my face. If only for a short scene.

HEY EVERYONE MUST ROMANCE SOMEONE IN OUR LITTLE FAGGOT FEST.

i was raped by a jamaican alien

 

[salaciousbcrumb]

I hate to ask as I didn't play ME3, but is this poster implying that having sex with someone who has had a drink rape?

It's like this in ME3; there's a party with the Normandy crew in the Citadel DLC and if you don't romance anyone in the game and play as female Shep, you will wake up in bed with the Prothean crewmember. It's implied you had sex (somehow?) and there are some comments of regret and no memory due to inebriation mentioned.

This happened in my playthrough of ME3, and I confeess, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Not because of rape implications or anything like that, which may or may not be read into that scene - but because I didn't ever acknowledge the the fucking faggotry that is Bioware's romance shit in any of the games, and yet they still found a way to smear it in my face. If only for a short scene.

HEY EVERYONE MUST ROMANCE SOMEONE IN OUR LITTLE FAGGOT FEST.

problem is, citadel dlc is COMEDY, pure comedy, just comedy, nothing else but comedy, it's made to make fun of me3 itself, and it manages to be better than everything else me3 as a whole has to offer.

But why would the developer make a comedy based on their established action franchise? It's tone deaf and self indulgent and ruins your overall perception of the series if it's made by the same developer, as it's now cannon.

Besides Bioware cannot into comedy, all they make is cringe, valley girl, sub-par, pre-adolescent Buffy schlock.

 

[pippin]

The comedy was made as to provide something more lighthearted in comparison with the game's actual ending. I thought his was more well known?

 

[Commissar Draco]

And that is wrong why exactly?

Because this whole "i'm offended, boycott them!" is silly.

''Capitalists will sell us the rope we will use to hang them'' as Comrade Lenin has said. Don't be useful idiot comrade if you need to play Bioshit at least borrow it from Buccaneers Cove.

 

[salaciousbcrumb]

I'm getting a bit perplexed as to why some people think there's a need to analyze Mass Effect 1 like this. There isn't really much about that one that deserves such ardent discussion imo... You must have some kind of ulterior reason to try and try to talk positively about the game so people can understand it's "good".

Basically all I think of the writing in ME1 was that it served a purpose, it was good for what it was. It wasn't Beckett, but then if it was it would have ruined the game. It was just an enjoyable episode of the A-Team or an Action film written by people who tapped into the spirit and gave the audience what it wanted.

It wasn't groundbreaking but it served it's purpose and there were some really memorable parts to the game because it was just old cliches from movies or books made manifest for a game audience, so you felt a part of that.

There is no point in saying that the writing in ME1 was good or original, but nor was it bad, as it was fit for it's purpose.

I don't think there's any point in discussing it beyond that.

 

[mastroego]

Good luck selling the game to the "real terrorists" then.
I suggest them to release it on the ISIL controlled territories. I'm sure they'll get satisfactory sales there.

Ask the Native Americans about that.

About what?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I hate to ask as I didn't play ME3, but is this poster implying that having sex with someone who has had a drink rape?

It's like this in ME3; there's a party with the Normandy crew in the Citadel DLC and if you don't romance anyone in the game and play as female Shep, you will wake up in bed with the Prothean crewmember. It's implied you had sex (somehow?) and there are some comments of regret and no memory due to inebriation mentioned.

This happened in my playthrough of ME3, and I confeess, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Not because of rape implications or anything like that, which may or may not be read into that scene - but because I didn't ever acknowledge the the fucking faggotry that is Bioware's romance shit in any of the games, and yet they still found a way to smear it in my face. If only for a short scene.

HEY EVERYONE MUST ROMANCE SOMEONE IN OUR LITTLE FAGGOT FEST.

problem is, citadel dlc is COMEDY, pure comedy, just comedy, nothing else but comedy, it's made to make fun of me3 itself, and it manages to be better than everything else me3 as a whole has to offer.

But why would the developer make a comedy based on their established action franchise? It's tone deaf and self indulgent and ruins your overall perception of the series if it's made by the same developer, as it's now cannon.

Besides Bioware cannot into comedy, all they make is cringe, valley girl, sub-par, pre-adolescent Buffy schlock.

don't know, don't care. but i've hardly laughed as much as with citadel dlc.

 

[Lhynn]

I don't think there's any point in discussing it beyond that.

But this is the codex mang, what the fuck are we going to do if not discuss pointless crap?

 

[CosmicCommander]

I'm getting a bit perplexed as to why some people think there's a need to analyze Mass Effect 1 like this. There isn't really much about that one that deserves such ardent discussion imo... You must have some kind of ulterior reason to try and try to talk positively about the game so people can understand it's "good".

Maybe people enjoyed Mass Effect 1 and want to probe into its lore, story, and characters because they think they're interesting and are attached to them. Seems more parsimonious an explanation than believing that people have an ulterior motive of some sorts regarding the game.

It wasn't groundbreaking but it served it's purpose and there were some really memorable parts to the game because it was just old cliches from movies or books made manifest for a game audience, so you felt a part of that.

There is no point in saying that the writing in ME1 was good or original, but nor was it bad, as it was fit for it's purpose.

Mostly hit the nail on the head. Game writing is - almost by design - intended to be functional rather than transcendental or world-changing. It's an interactive and fully voiced science fiction epic; that's pretty cool and a lot of people like that. A piece of writing is good in my eyes if it meets the goal that it sets out to accomplish.

I think there was some interesting and original stuff buried in the codex and the background. The cultures and biology of the species, the mechanics and logistics of interstellar travel, and a few of the characters were highly enjoyable to learn about and I still think about them ten years on from time to time.

ME1 succeeded in telling us a fun and memorable quasi-hard SF epic, so I think it is good in virtue of its success.