Maybe some 70s Tangerine Dream? If you can accept vocals Gary Numan and Rupert Hine used similar synth sounds in the late 70s to early 80s .
I think ME1's music sounds retro, with 1970s-style analog synths, but am no expert.
ME2 is different from ME1 but just as good:
Sadly around that time you had those 80gigabyte orchestra sample banks. And apparently they just aren't near as good as top electronic producers to even supplant sample.
Realistic and grounded? Do you also think that Age of Decadence is realistic you tool? Gritty underside city is infinitely more of a buttgenre fiction trope than anything Mass Effect 1 was doing. And it's also absurdly fucking boring. Oh, there's a tough no nonsense boss of freeside who needs me to do some jobs before I get the information I want? Wow. Stunning and brave. I can hardly handle this face to face encounter with the depths of human nature.
Mass Effect 1 handles very strangely, but I mostly find it quaint. I actually like not entirely understanding video games. The UI looks brilliant if you ask me. Is it functional? Eh, I finished the game so it can't be that bad. But I love the colours and fancy layouts.
I can agree with that, as long as using the UI does not become a chore. But not only is comparing the performance of various looted items in ME1 tedious, most of it only gives you negligible improvement over what you already have. Of course eventually you realize that the only worthwhile improvements come from the gear you buy from the merchant on your own ship, whose merchandize only improves after each new main mission, and then looting becomes completely meaningless. In addition to that, most side quests take place in the same copy-pasted environments, making exploration meaningless as well.
Indeed this is exactly what Miranda says in the beginning of ME2, complaining that Shepard is just sent around fighting Geth, that are not the real threat. So I'd say ME2's writers were aware of the problem...
I don't remember noticing that. I do remember the main jumps in quality being from purchases. But I don't remember doing this with any kind of systematic understanding.
I loved the Mass Effect planets. Going on weird tangents to procedural generated bumpy texture land in the tank-buggy. Taking some guys down to look at a space-bunker and tick off some vaguely interesting job from the list. If it's pretty enough and handles well I don't care about much else. Empty may have been a mistake but I always thought it was the strongest potential use of space. It's a distinct experience. These big, empty worlds. Going there from a place where you're fighting or the citadel is a great contrast, but also there's thematic and aesthetic continuity. There's a tasteful simplicity to the presentation of uncultivated world and the interiors of the citadel, the way your ship looks, your armour. Quiet, sparse, enough.In addition to that, most side quests take place in the same copy-pasted environments, making exploration meaningless as well.
I don't think the locations were procedurally generated back then, in fact even some caves were identical clones. Maybe one cave contained a different kind of storage boxes then another. Many times I wondered if I hadn't already been at the same location before.I loved the Mass Effect planets. Going on weird tangents to procedural generated bumpy texture land in the tank-buggy. Taking some guys down to look at a space-bunker and tick off some vaguely interesting job from the list. If it's pretty enough and handles well I don't care about much else. Empty may have been a mistake but I always thought it was the strongest potential use of space. It's a distinct experience. These big, empty worlds. Going there from a place where you're fighting or the citadel is a great contrast, but also there's thematic and aesthetic continuity. There's a tasteful simplicity to the presentation of uncultivated world and the interiors of the citadel, the way your ship looks, your armour. Quiet, sparse, enough.In addition to that, most side quests take place in the same copy-pasted environments, making exploration meaningless as well.
I recall there were some similar side quests in ME2 too: one with fake parkour on a spaceship wreck, one fighting hostile mechs in a sandstorm, one fighting bugs in some misty swamp. And you didn't have to drive a terrible vehicle, fortunately. There's also a ME2 DLC where you drive a hovercraft over lava streams and shoot Geth, but I thought it was mostly boring. Vehicles are always an annoyance, unless the main purpose of the game is using a vehicle, like in spaceship dog fights or racing games.
