Mass Effect I Like Mass Effect 1

[Steedless]

It's one of the very few games that shares the spirit of classic sci-fi shows like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Stargate, Battlestar, Farscape, etc. and I wish more games were made in this style of exploratory/speculative sci-fi.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I like it too for the same reasons. Mass Effect 1 has many nods to Star Trek--including several cast members who do voice acting for the game.

I liked finding planets and roaming, even if the mako was turbulent and most planets bleak. The first game reminded me a lot of Star Control II, which is a compliment. The classes and abilities were good. So were the NPCs and overall writing. It was familiar but it's own thing. I enjoyed ME2 quite a bit, but ME1 really hit the mark. I have played it through fully probably half a dozen times.

 

[Rean]

Good, good.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Amazing music, great aesthetic and some of the best world building in RPGs. That's enough for me to like it.

There's a classic in there with some work, unfortunately never expanded upon.

 

[Fedora Master]

It was good and then it wasn't because these people can't leave well enough alone.

 

[Comrade Goby]

Sovereign

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

It's one of the very few games that shares the spirit of classic sci-fi shows like Star Trek, Babylon 5

Star Trek (TOS) evokes two things only: extremely low budget production values and a powerful Tolkienesque sense of friendship. Neither of those two things are true of Mass Effect.
Babylon 5 evokes two things again: an endless soap opera filler and the goodness of humanity represented by captain Smiley (forgot the real name). What does this have to do with Mass Effect?

Mass effect evokes only two things for me: the beginning of the fanfic female writer voice as the new norm and the dialogue wheel. The quality of writing that couldn't be lower. And sure enough, all subsequent RPGs followed the same baseline.
I know the writers were technically male. They somehow managed to sound female all the same. For a military themed game, I didn't see a single occurrence of military slang, or people respecting rank when talking, or anything being tough or manly. It was like seeing men through women's eyes, witnessing their complete lack of understanding. None of those writers served in the army or did any research. They just made shit up, and it was boring and painful to see such laziness and decline get praise from the normies. At least the Dex didn't admit liking it. But now apparently coming outs are allowed.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

I didn't see a single occurrence of military slang, or people respecting rank when talking

This is just blatantly false, at least for the first game.

There's literally a Codex entry called "Military Jargon" that has definitions for words used in game.

 

[Inec0rn]

The best Bioware game. It wasn't perfect either but the flaws were minor. Never finished the series.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The best Bioware game.

Damning with faint praise.

 

[roguefrog]

Yup. Mass Effect is the best one. Great world building. Ambitious. Grandiose.

And I would dare say one of the few games with a dope ending.

Shame about the sequels.

 

[Nano]

ME1 is unironically one of BW's worst when it comes to storyfaggotry. The main story is only slightly less retarded than the rest of them (eg. the Council accepts an audio file as the ultimate proof their agent went rogue) and most of the characters feel like they were written by an autistic guy infodumping. Also around half of the dialogue choices are fake.

 

[skaraher]

ME1 is unironically one of BW's worst when it comes to storyfaggotry. The main story is only slightly less retarded than the rest of them (eg. the Council accepts an audio file as the ultimate proof their agent went rogue) and most of the characters feel like they were written by an autistic guy infodumping. Also around half of the dialogue choices are fake.

The Spectre intronisation scene was peak cringe.

 

[Maxie]

it's better than most rpgs because you get to shoot people dead

 

[Morgoth]

Oh I like ME1.

 

[Qarthadqart]

I didn't see a single occurrence of military slang, or people respecting rank when talking

This is just blatantly false, at least for the first game.

There's literally a Codex entry called "Military Jargon" that has definitions for words used in game.

It's reflected in the game too, unlike a lot of Codex entries (e.g. "The commanding officer is ashore, XO Presly has the deck"). Your crew also salutes and calls you "sir," and you can do the same for superiors.

 

[Vagabond Merchant]

Mass Effect 3 coop multiplayer is clearly the superior Mass Effect

 

[Serus]

Don't worry, it isn't lethal.
It can be contagious. Fortunately people who already played it, even a little, are immune.

 

[Lemming42]

I wish I liked it but I don't. The setting is interesting but the actual story is dogshit. It feels like it's trapped inside the medium of being a videogame or something; there's lots of stuff that could be interesting but BioWare suck so it always turns into a corridor shootout.

Feros with the huge alien plant thing is the bit that always sticks in my mind - the plot outline vaguely echoes something like Star Trek's "This Side Of Paradise" with the idea of a plant telepathically controlling a group of colonists, but because this is a BioWare game, the actual plot is "Shepard shoots at some Geth. Shepard drives the Mako to a location with more Geth, and shoots them. Shepard returns to the colony to find that the colonists have all gone berserk and must be shot or otherwise subdued. Shepard descends into the plant's lair, where s/he must shoot the plant's thralls. Shepard shoots the plant".

It's the same for literally every planet. That tropical place - theoretically interesting plot in that the genophage cure could be there and Ashley's losing her rag with Wrex, but the actual plot is once again that Shepard must walk down some corridors shooting Geth, before Saren arrives, who Shepard must shoot at. Shepard then picks a corridor to run down while shooting more Geth, and either Kaiden or Ashley die depending on which corridor was chosen. Lame as fuck.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

I wish I liked it but I don't. The setting is interesting but the actual story is dogshit. It feels like it's trapped inside the medium of being a videogame or something; there's lots of stuff that could be interesting but BioWare suck so it always turns into a corridor shootout.

Feros with the huge alien plant thing is the bit that always sticks in my mind - the plot outline vaguely echoes something like Star Trek's "This Side Of Paradise" with the idea of a plant telepathically controlling a group of colonists, but because this is a BioWare game, the actual plot is "Shepard shoots at some Geth. Shepard drives the Mako to a location with more Geth, and shoots them. Shepard returns to the colony to find that the colonists have all gone berserk and must be shot or otherwise subdued. Shepard descends into the plant's lair, where he must shoot the plant's thralls. Shepard shoots the plant".

It's the same for literally every planet. That tropical place - theoretically interesting plot in that the genophage cure could be there and Ashley's losing her rag with Wrex, but the actual plot is once again that Shepard must walk down some corridors shooting Geth, before Saren arrives, who Shepard must shoot at. Shepard then picks a corridor to run down while shooting more Geth, and either Kaiden or Ashley die depending on which corridor was chosen. Lame as fuck.

I've never seen someone confuse gameplay with plot before, that's a new one for me.

 

[Lemming42]

The two are inseparable. The plots are all structured to place Shepard and crew in situations where shootouts ensue, which themselves form the majority of the plot of each quest. Unless you think the shooting and exploration segments, the thing the player spends 90% of their time doing and what comprises almost all of what's seen on-screen, is meant to be taking place in a non-canon pocket dimension or something.

Again, the Feros plot literally is that Shepard defeats the Geth in combat, then fights the colonists, then fights the plant's thralls, and vanquishes the plant. The gameplay is the plot.

 

[Necrensha]

They should've started with a way less grandiose plot, the fact that Sovereign alone was just bulldozing through the entire combined forces of all races unscathed was absurd for entry number 1, and then they had to pretend like the entire galaxy would just close their eyes and do nothing about that whole problem in ME2.
I still like it, though.

 

[Fedora Master]

I do like the fact that Saren was basically right from the start.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

I wish I liked it but I don't. The setting is interesting but the actual story is dogshit. It feels like it's trapped inside the medium of being a videogame or something; there's lots of stuff that could be interesting but BioWare suck so it always turns into a corridor shootout.

Feros with the huge alien plant thing is the bit that always sticks in my mind - the plot outline vaguely echoes something like Star Trek's "This Side Of Paradise" with the idea of a plant telepathically controlling a group of colonists, but because this is a BioWare game, the actual plot is "Shepard shoots at some Geth. Shepard drives the Mako to a location with more Geth, and shoots them. Shepard returns to the colony to find that the colonists have all gone berserk and must be shot or otherwise subdued. Shepard descends into the plant's lair, where s/he must shoot the plant's thralls. Shepard shoots the plant".

It's the same for literally every planet. That tropical place - theoretically interesting plot in that the genophage cure could be there and Ashley's losing her rag with Wrex, but the actual plot is once again that Shepard must walk down some corridors shooting Geth, before Saren arrives, who Shepard must shoot at. Shepard then picks a corridor to run down while shooting more Geth, and either Kaiden or Ashley die depending on which corridor was chosen. Lame as fuck.

The story, setting and characters are the strongest points of Mass Effect 1. They all somehow managed to stick to my memory, which is typically not the case with average dogshit. The third person action gameplay is the weakest part of ME1 as far as I'm concerned. I'm still baffled how Bioware managed to improve that aspect with each iteration yet always managed to drop the ball in some other area instead.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

ME1 combat does what it was trying to achieve better than ME2 did. ME3 was the game with the best nu-BioWare combat.