Mass Effect is not a good game

Looks bad: agreed.

Stable framerate of 12: horseshit

Longest load times ever: horseshit

Grueling checkpointing: horseshit

MAKO: the greatest

Plays bad: horseshit

Some awful writing: there's probably some awful writing

Too many levels: horseshit

Busted inventory and loot: horseshit

CONCLUSION:

.... it actually does make it better in the sense of that you understand why some of the issues exist. People didn't have UE3 figured out. Go back and play any UE3 game.

Plenty of people can get past technical issues if the story is better, the world is better, the game is more open etc. I guess you can't, but others can.

It's not bad at all. It's just fine in the story missions. The only issue is that the side planets which are just boring in themselves. That has nothing to do with the Mako. Just another aspect of ME1 that could have been refined but instead was totally scrapped going into 2, which is unfortunate.

@artisanbreads: It doesn't make it any more fun to play, which is all that matters. Super Mario 3 still holds up, and I don't have to give that game a free pass just because it's old. The game is what it is, and even though I realize it was hard to program for a new console, that doesn't make the game any better today.

And the Mako sucks.

Sounds like a console version.

Which is understandable as a lot of people who played that version had those exact problems with the game.

However on the PC the first Mass Effect holds up quite well and a lot of those problems you mentioned are completely non existent. I've replayed it again back when ME2 came out and the game looked quite good, with sharp textures, no pop in, running at 60+ fps. And the inventory menus were perfectly usable with M&K. There is also a quick save on PC as well as easy fast manual saves.

There you go, that's already most of the negatives completely removed from the quality equation.

Saying that ME leveling system is bad however just shows that you're not very good/experienced at RPGs, no offense. It was easily the best most varied system of the series with the most potential. The stuff you could make with that leveling system was more diverse, more interesting, more powerful and way more rewarding then anything in ME2 or 3. Compared to some shit you could do in the first game, in 2 and 3 Shepard straight up felt like a wet noodle. With some thought and effort you could create a character that had so much shields with such a fast recharge that you could literally (and i am not misusing the word) just walk through firefights never taking cover feeling almost invulnerable; or create an actual biotic god that could shut down multiple squads and keep them helpless for as long as you wished completely at your mercy, in total control of the battlefield; or you could be sniping geth armatures and one shotting them with a proper setup and weapon build; or run around as an infiltrator with an buff ability that was on 90% of the time with a pistol that froze everyone had no recoil, almost no spread, never overheated, fired faster then an AR and did more damage; etc, the list of builds can go on. You could actually play the same single class in very different ways.

The dumbed down simplified leveling of ME2 is kind of a joke to any rpg fan who loved ME1 and it was widely criticized outside of mainstream journalism.

Others have already chipped in on the story aspects. ME2 collect the team and babysit their daddy issues while not really moving the overall story forward is a downright disappointment.

Mako is personal preference, but once again i found if controlled fine with a M&K and was a hell of a lot of fun to drive, once you figured out it's tricks and how to properly cheese the hell out of it :P

No, it actually is a pretty excellent game. And it has, what I think is, the best moment in the entire series.

The lengthy, compelling and kind of terrifying conversation with Sovereign.

Nah the Mako was rough, but I could deal with it. As for Legion_, that's nice, do you want a cookie for being obstinate? Again even if you don't want to overlook those flaws I reply by simply pointing at the PC version which has been available cheap as dirt many times (I actually got it free) and fixes 90% of your issues. As in no texture pop in, massively faster loads, better resolution, better interface, better FPS blah blah blah. Your auto saving complaint I overlooked but frankly was never legitimate to begin with, the fact that you relied on auto saves is actually hilarious to me. Maybe you didn't notice but you can save anywhere in the game as long as you aren't in combat, the fact that you didn't bother isn't the games fault.

You guys keep saying that, I'll be over here climbing up mountains and jumping off cliffs.

Again, you get hung up on technical limitations, I enjoy a better story and atmosphere and more freedom and exploration (probably all the most important elements to an RPG).

Beyond that, play it on PC and it performs much better. The criticisms ring hollow, especially for someone who is an RPG fan. A shooter fan? Sure.

@karkarov: Okay, that's pretty idiotic. Of course the auto save is a problem, and the hard save would only be a viable alternative if it was I could use it all the time. For instance, I blasted my way through the easy as fuck Peak 15 part. Then I suddenly ran into Benezia. There was no autosave before the fight, and I couldn't save after running into the room, because I was in combat. Pretty fucking terrible, like most of ME1.

@tennmuerti: I've played ALOT of RPG's in my day, and it's easily my favorite genre. Still, I thought the level system in Mass Effect sucked. You gain levels way to easy, so the thrill of levelling up is gone. And there's simply to many choice each time. I think the game would have benefitted by having fewer levels (the cap is 60, it should be 30), with each level up being more meaningful.

@artisanbreads: I'm of the school that thinks story should service gameplay. The interactivity is the most important part of games, and if it's not fun to play, I find it hard to recommend. Still, I've commited to replaying the entire trilogy, which I suppose speaks volumes about the characters.

By today's standards, the game had its faults. But at the time... damn, was that an awesome experience. Still prefer Mass Effect 2 out of the three for its balance on story and mechanics, but that universe is easily one of my favorites from this generation.

I'm still hoping for a Mass Effect MMO. I think it's the only universe I'd be interested in playing as a MMO.

Yeah, I agree. ME1 is fairly terrible. The only redeemable thing was it's interesting game world. The actual game itself was quite boring and bad, in my opinion. I really liked ME2 (was floored by how much I liked it at the time) and somewhat indifferent towards ME3.

@canteu: I shall hit enter between every sentence.

For no apparent reason.

Indeed.

In terms of money pretty much everyone that isn't a little kid has enough money to buy games, especially with how fast prices crash now, maybe you can't afford $60 every time a game you want comes out but you can probably muster $30 a few months later; at least if you're taking the time to browse internet game forums. No slight meant on that front. Did Einstein/Vaas ever tell you the definition of insanity? Aside from Super Metroid, Link to the Past, and a handful of really good platformers (or possibly any emulated game sped up about 20x) there's pretty much no game that you should play 20 times over (unless you're trying to speed run I suppose). Even if it's the best game of all time you'll have a lot more value for your first few runs than you'll ever have on subsequent runs, and you could easily find a game on some console that's worth playing instead of dumping another 30 hours on Dark Cloud 2 or whatever.

Uncharted 2 is an absolutely incredible game and I spent about 100 hours playing it, but by the 5th or 6th time through the campaign even something as awesome as it got a little dry; the vast majority of multiplayer games get boring about 20 hours after you get good at them, some 50. Starcraft: Brood War is an exception here, but it also benefitted from the creativity of future indy developers and the like who had no other outlet for their abilities so you had dozens and dozens of genres emerging in just the one game, then WC3 happened and one genre instead of dozens became pre-eminent.

@fredchuckdave: You seem to believe that playing one game multiple time renders one incapable of playing others. Not sure where you got that from. I've obviously played many, many other games other than the ones I mentioned, and I'm sure the first guy has played many more games than the Mass Effect series.

Frankly, playing a platformer over and over, now that's weird, since you're literally memorizing patterns. At least the games we mentioned have some variation and player agency other than to enact a pre-set perfect path.

I still fail to see your point. I guess it's because you don't have one, and were just trying to be snarky.

You can't tell people what to enjoy. It doesn't work like that.

i feel like the mako myth is greater than the reality. its not that bad at all and it comprises like 4% of gameplay. jeff brings it up every time he talks about the game and while they aren't the best parts of the game i kind of enjoyed them.

mass effect 2 felt like a really weird transition to me. for instance in ME1 combat could come out of a conversation with an npc in a bar or something in ME2 you were constantly loaded into corridors with moving targets. i cant think of a moment in ME2 where you can get out of combat through dialogue in a way that isn't a set up renegade or paragon action. i dont know i guess i felt more like i was playing a cheesy action movie in that game.

mass effect and DA:O were the last bioware games that felt like they were made by bioware as i understood them (maybe my understanding was wrong.) everything after that just didn't connect with me or felt like is wasn't made for me which is fine but i've moved on.

I agree through and through. It was a time when there was still mystery wrapped around the origins of the Reapers, and the writing staff were channeling their best Lovecraft impressions to create a true menace. Over time, the species just lost its threatening figure, though the derelict Reaper from ME2 sparked more of the tension that I enjoyed, what with the "dead gods can dream" motif going on. But, just look back at the conversations with the prominent Reapers: Sovereign on ME1 instilled terror and malice. Harbinger's speech at the end of Arrival lost some of that mojo, and by the time we speak to the destroyer on Rannoch, the spark had all but died out.

STRONGLY DISAGREE.

Mass Effect was the best in the series.

Shepherds story in Mass Effect was about the underdog, fighting against the government to fight a rouge specter. This is where a lot of the Paragon and Renegade tension came from. Disobeying your orders from command would give you renegade points but it could also save lives, it was the emotion that you can save people that drove you to pick renegade or paragon.

In Mass Effect 2 Shepherd was no longer an Underdog, he was the only one who could save the galaxy, he could do no wrong, not just because he was a specter, that part didn't mater anymore. Paragon and Renegade had been reduced to extreme actions, that were driven by the emotion of excitement, as opposed to the emotion of the plot.

I preferred Mass Effect greatly over ME2.

I think mass effect is great. I love it and i think its the best in the series, though tbh I we need not compare me1 to 2 and 3 as weird as that sounds. ME1 is an rpg while ME2 and 3 are shooters with light rpg mechanics. ME2 and 3 are shooters will light rpg elements. I didn't have a problem with most of the things you said here b/c i played on the pc where the framerate is solid, the iu is ok but certainly manageable, and you can quicksave anytime (and if you do your build right, this isn't a problem since about 1/3 of the way into the game you can become unstoppable god. I'll agree that I wasn't a fan of the mako, but i really liked the concept. I was actually disappointed that they dropped it instead of expanding on it. Bioware has always had some cheesy lines of dialogue, its to be expected when you have to write that many lines of dialogue for game. There are plenty of games that are significantly worse in this respect. But i think the writing is pretty solid and the world building they do is amazing in ME1. Also the story is significantly better in ME1 than in 2 and 3 and that's what you play me for.The story not the combat. That's one of the main reasons why I don't like ME3 as much as ME1 and 2. There's not a lot of story or dialouge options in ME3 which just makes me less interested in the game since there are games with better combat.

Not a great shooter, Far superior RPG.

I dunno it just had that Bioware magic with the writing and characters, Mass Effect 2 felt like it lost a bit of that, by the time 3 came around it was just gone - In it's place some of the most retarded melodramatic B grade shit i've ever seen, most of the characters completely unlikable - shepard being the biggest fuck stick of the whole lot.

I'm just having a revelation that given shepard half fills the responsibility of the player role playing him, his personality lying within his dialogue responses and actions are written to cater to how the target audience expects him to react. Dam. That's what happened here - this shit got totally "big bang theoried." Every response shepard makes not being remotely close to my approval or expectations is probably due to me no longer being the target audience. Instead it was probably all run through Michael Bays transformer movies script generator for cool teens

Dam anyway back on track.

Unfortunately ME1 falls half into the gameplay category of a shooter. Shooters play like ass within like 3 years of age, and this one wasn't that great to begin with.

If you were excited for Mass Effect at that time, you weren't excited about getting it to shoot shit. You were excited because it was the new fucking Bioware RPG. One of the big opinions at the time was that the combat should of been left the same as Knights of the old republic (I agree). Man how that might of changed things for the trilogy.

Cock. Are you offended because I think (know) Mass Effect is a bad game? Weird.

1. Lot's of old games look good.

2. True.

3. True.

4. It's the game that sucks, not me.

5. Mako sucks.

6. Combat is bad.

7. So because other games have bad writing, it's okay for ME to have it? Solid logic if you're 12.

8. I love RPG's, and I'm certainly used to spending time in menus. The levelling system is bad because you get too many levels, and each skill point you dump feels like it's wasted. Should have focused on fewer levels, and more impact for each level up.

9. I'm just fine at using menus.

10. You are a bad person.

I think ME1 easily has the best story and plot structure of the entire series, and, while I prefer the combat in the series' later games, it's still pretty fun to play as a biotic and throw people around, especially in the final zero-G mission. It can definitely be frustrating, but playing through it for about the 5th time last year (first time on PC, though), I had an absolutely delightful time. Mako can actually be pretty fun, too, once you realize how easy it is to snipe with it/drive past all enemies.

So it's ok to whine about Mass Effect now? Woooooooooooooo.

ME1 is mildly interesting and ME2 is crap. Yaaaaaaaay.

*Anything said in this post is entirely the opinion of TobbRobb and can be subject to change at any moment while still preserving the general message of "not for me".*

The "get the team together" motif of the second game just doesn't tickle my fancy. Also I just think the reaper angle is fucking stupid. I liked it better when it was just Saren and the Geth. The entire game just felt more pure it was something nobody had ever seen before and that is why it caught on. The later games just turned into bad corridor action shooters. But getting back to the story I think Saren is absolutely the most compelling character in the entire series flat out. There were also some just fantastic choice moments. The story's pacing just felt better and I felt way more driven in the first one to an actual cause. Where in Mass Effect 2 it felt like you just kept getting sidetracked. No real comment on anything Mass Effect 3 because i didn't play it and won't because the series entirely lost me after mass effect 2.

FUCK THAT, ME1 IS THE HIGH POINT OF THE ENTIRE SERIES.

Mass Effect 2 is the beginning of the end for the series, and the point where Bioware started to go more for boring shooter with lite RPG elements rather than an actual RPG. They began simplifying conversations into top right blue/bottom right red with no in between choices, took out seemingly all exploration (The Mako rules btw) and the main story is not very good. Also, The Collector's are pretty awful as an antagonist when compared to what Saren/Sovereign were in the the first game.

Mass Effect 1 certainly had its fair share of problems, but that doesn't make it a bad game. To say otherwise would be completely ignoring what the game does best, story and atmosphere. Exploring a depressing, desolate alien World only to stumble into a Thresher Maw nest is awesome. I'm a sucker for open-world games. I love being able to craft my own experience within a game rather than being lead down a cheese maze only to be plucked out for the next mission till the game ends. It was a huge disappointment to learn Bioware completely abandon the open nature of the side missions in ME 2. For me, it was the best part of the Mass Effect series and something I'll always look back fondly on regardless of what anyone has to say to the contrary. Fuck y'all Mako haters.

Looks bad: Cmon, you could say that about any game from 2007. The game is pretty old, and for the time it looks great. Judging the looks 6 years later isn't really fair.

Stable frame rate of 12: If you play on PC that is not the case at all. Sure on Xbox and PS3 it has it's problems, but it is definitely not set at 12. But yes, they could have done some better optimization.

Load times are long: Most games from 2007 had long load times, for sure.

Grueling Checkpointing: Can't argue there. Some of the checkpoints are atrociously bad. Probably because it was built with quick save in mind (which consoles don't get).

MAKO: No comment

Some awful writing: All of the Mass Effect games have awful writing, such as 3's fucking terrible Deus Ex Machina ending. Actually can't think of anything for 2, god that game's great. Though I'm sure it exists.

Busted Leveling: I thought the idea of getting XP for exploring was pretty cool, though it could've been implemented better. And in the later levels upgrades hardly mean anything.

Busted inventory system: Yeah, there is some awful loot for sure, and they could have toned down the amount you get a bit. But it certainly isn't terrible. At least they sort it out in sections, what if they didnt? That would be one helluva ride.

In all, I think calling the game bad is a little too far. The game does definitely has it's high points. Saren was a really cool villain, and becoming a Spectre was great. Not to mention it marks the first time you meet memorable characters like Tali, Wrex, Garrus, and Liara. Not to mention the GREAT conversation with Sovereign. Mass Effect 2 and 3 (maybe) is definitely a better game in every way, but that doesn't make the first game BAD. Just inferior, which I can certainly agree on.

I disagree. It may not play as well as Mass Effect 2, but I like the first two equally. I think it's because the original has more RPG mechanics in it than the sequels, which I quite enjoy.

The checkpointing part was only an issue for me once, and then I started manually saving like you're supposed to... But yeah, ME1 is hard to go back to, but I still think it does a lot of things better than 2 and 3, and I wish they iterated on more of the ideas in 1 rather than going the streamlined direction they went in 2.

im sure if i tried hard enough i could find fault and pick a part any game.

i just really enjoyed all the ME games and didn't really care about the faults you found

@genocidalkitten:

7. Three lines of dialouge? More like the entire Noveria section, and every scene Benezia is in. And then there's the stuff with Liara when she's melding your minds... "Embrace eternity!" and then she faints. So bad.

8. I think it's important to give proper feedback for every level. Mass Effect failed to do that by making every level less significant.

10. You insulted me like hell for no reason. I certainly put weight into every complaint I have about the game.

I just finished it yesterday, and jumped straight over to Mass Effect 2. I found myself playing it for five hours straight, because it was such a relief to play compared to the first game.

Don't really have to try all that hard to find faults with Mass Effect.

I'm replaying through this game on 360 with it installed and it's much better than playing it off the disc. It's still not stable and has texture pop-in, but I can look past that and enjoy the story. I really like the music, sci-fi theme and the story. I understand the negatives, but for me, it's one of my favorite games.

I really did, and I was certainly not a dick towards anyone. You're just insulted because I don't like Mass Effect, which is crazy.

You should read my first post again. I gave a reason for everything I complained about, explaining with several sentences most times.

Of course I'm gonna be a dick to someone who acts like a dick.

"I could write a thoughtful genuine response to all the things you said here but, considering some of your responses that would be a waste of my time, so heres a defense of ME1 with as much thought and care put into it as you put into your post."

That's pretty dickish.

The Mako was awesome. I don't get why people don't like it. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FLOATY. YOU'RE IN SPACE. Use the jetpack right and you will master the Mako.

It's the best ME game. 2 was good but was too much of a Hollywood action flick for it's own good. It is IMO the last great Bioware game.

I actually think this moment is one of the greatest moments in gaming history, period. They perfectly pulled off Sovereign, he was the best villain.

I respectfully disagree, good sir! I still think it's fantastic.

I'm just curious: why are you analyzing a game that has already been iterated upon?

As a place in time mass effect was amazing, where it is now is out of date. RPGs rarely stand the test of time.

@legion_: I'm not going to sit here and tell you you're wrong, or that it isn't as bad as you think. Mostly, that's because I respect you too much.

I did this to myself once, though. There's this movie called Sunshine. I'd seen it a bunch of times before, loved it, loved everything Danny Boyle had directed beforehand and everything Alex Garland had written (and had gone on to write--dude's a legitimate gem).

Anyway. After having loved the movie since its release, I went in with a more critical eye. I don't mean critical in the sense that connotes "fair, logical, skeptical." Just the sense that connotes "negative." Basically, I came away from that screening thinking, Why did I like that movie in the first place? It has so many problems! This character is poorly implemented, the back third is so tonally dissonant, the premise doesn't even make sense, rabble-rabble-rabble!

All I'm saying is, it happens. "It" being, you going back to a thing you'd mythologized or canonized in your mind as being an upstanding totem of quality and thereupon seeing some of the inconsistencies of the narrative or the mechanics of the thing with such grotesque detail that you're to some extent forever suspicious of the thing's assumed excellence.

For what it's worth, I came full circle eventually and found myself loving Sunshine again, despite my one experience with it where I found most of it totally preposterous. Hopefully you'll get there too.

Also, I love the Mako.

"I don't like this game. My opinion is law. Anyone who disagrees with me shall be met with thinly-veiled disdain."

@genocidalkitten:

1. Boring locations with bad textures. There are two memorable locations in my opinion, and that's Noveria and Virmire. The rest just feels bland. Feros is basically just grey. Especially the side planets are awfully boring.

2. Playing on a console, this is a big problem. Noveria is especially bad in this department.

3. Long load times that also stack. Pretty annoying.

5. It's controls poorly. One example: If you have rotate the camera and then push forward on the stick, instead of turning around to get the nose forwards, the MAKO just starts backing up. Halo is a good example on how this should be handled. Also, it's hella boring to drive in ninety degree angels up mountains on deserted planets.

6. When I shoot, I want to hit where I'm aiming. It's hard to explain, but it just feels so sloppy.

8. Why have all the different loot when there's no reason to use anything but the Master Spectre gear? All the other weapons look stupid. The only armor that looks cool is the N7 armor. Anyway, it just ends up with me selling everything I get, and buy Master Spectre gear for all my dudes and dudettes.

I liked me1 the best.

As someone that played on pc and did no optional mako mission most negative points didn't concern me.

The omission of ... essentialy .... loot and medikits and a combat system i prederred on the other hand did taint everything after me1. Add the fact that thanks to regenerating health all combat was boring as shit and the hooks that i loved (being a spectre,exploring the citadel, doing c-sec stuff) got lost to make room for a biger scale and and new misterious organisation.

To be fair i haven't played 1 or 2 since 2 came out and you tend to remeber the positives for games you liked and negatives for ones you didn't ... I can barely remember having to gel all loot over a horrible menue for example.

Playing on a PC alleviates your first four issues. You get no texture pop in, 60FPS, short load times, and quicksaves whenever you like. As that last point eliminates your "worst part of the game", I'd say it's a major improvement over what you played. The writing has its faults but is overall one of the better examples of video game writing in this generation, although the old PC RPGs like Planetscape: Torment still have an edge in my mind, even though it has been years since I played them.

Now, for the points that I agree with: The Mako isn't super great. I didn't go out of my way to do a lot of the optional planet exploring stuff, but on the occasions that I did I quickly realized that my time could be better spent. Once, I even jammed it into the support structure of a building and could do nothing but watch in amusement as it jiggled and vibrated in place....which sadly necessitated a reload as I couldn't get out of it or progress. Once again, quicksaves made that less painful.

The leveling is busted, but I don't agree with your explanation of why. As a Solider, I reached the point that, even on Insanity, I was invincible. Far from not feeling more powerful, I became an unstoppable god-engine that could just walk straight up to any enemy and hold down the fire button until it died, including bosses. Coupled with the broken item system that allowed me to have weapons that could not overheat, all challenge even at the hardest difficulty level was reduced to zero. I'm serious; I don't remember the exact way damage was calculated, but I know that you could, through proper skills and armor upgrades, reduce 1000 points of incoming damage down to 10 or less, allowing you to take direct shots from the final boss without any real danger.

My problem with ME2 and 3 revolves around the fact that the dialog options feel simplified (especially in 3), and the overall plot is worse. It plays better, I'll agree, but it doesn't play so much better than other 3rd person shooters that I feel it overrides the loss of the two defining features of the series. If they would have married the gameplay of 2, with the story and depth of conversation from the original to create the final entry, I would have been more than pleased. As it stands, I still hold the first game to be the best simply due to the way it helped create a universe to explore, rather than the actual act of exploring it.