What up duders.

In service of Commander Shepards last outing, I've decided to play through the entire trilogy again. Right now, I'm on the first game. And man, that game is just fucking bad.

There's tons of people who claim it's the best game in the series, and to you I say; that's CRAZY TALK. It's easily the worst. And here's a couple of reasons why:

• Looks bad: The game simply has awful graphics. It's bland and boring to look at, and especially the uncharted planets are underwhelming. And don't get me started on the awful texture pop in. Oh well, you did. It's awful.
• Stable frame rate of 12: Okay, so I don't know what the average frame rate for this game is, but it's certainly under 30. It's understandable that it will take a hit in dense combat situations, but it's unforgivable that it barely keeps it together when Shepard and gang are just walking around the Citadel.
• Longest load times ever: This pretty much explains itself. There's awfully long loading times, and it doesn't help when they stack them on top each other, so you might not actually play the game for five minute stretches at a time. And those fucking elevators.
• Grueling checkpointing: This is perhaps the worst part of the entire game. The game has a autosave function, but it uses it so terribly bad. It saves every time you change location in the Citadel, forcing you to wait long stretches at a time, but then figures out it's not a good idea to save before hard boss fights. I fought my way to Benezia, and promptly died, only to realize the last time the game autosaved was over an hour ago, when I first got in the Mako! Unforgivable.
• MAKO: Ugh...
• Plays bad: Simply put, the combat is bad. Really bad. It's boring, slow and uninspired. You don't ever get the feeling you're actually in a firefight, mostly thanks to the toy guns you're using.
• Some awful writing: This was perhaps the thing that shocked me the most, as I remember Mass Effect having solid writing. And for the most part, it's fine. But there are some points in the game where I covered my eyes in shame, it was so bad I got embarrassed. Especially the part where you fight Benezia is awful. She manages to break free of Sovereigns' indoctrination for a while, getting all emotional with Liara. She then suddenly turns around and says: DIE. Literally, she says that. It reminded me of that part in the Mortal Kombat movie when that chick says something like "Too-bad-you...................................Will die!". It strikes again at the end of the fight, with some terrible drama, where she proclaims that they always said there would be a white light, but she doesn't see it. What is this, a soap?
• Busted levelling: The main problem here is that there's too many levels. You get levels for opening a door or looking at your ship. It makes the level up less satisfying, and more like a mandatory skill dump every now and then. It doesn't help that there's simply to many choices, leading to you never really feeling more powerful.
• Busted inventory and loot: Damn these systems are bad. First off, you just get to much loot. And so much of that loot looks fucking ugly. The other problem is of course that cycling through all this loot is made even more boring by creating one of the worst interfaces ever. It's a shame.

As you might see from my name and profile picture, I'm a huge fan of the Mass Effect series. I had such good memories from the first game, so it's a shame to see that it only was memory lane playing tricks on me. Make no mistake, this is not a good game. The only reason I keep playing it, is so I can shape my story exactly how I want to. I guess that speaks to the quality of the characters, which is the only redeeming quality of this game. The broad strokes of the story is also good, again thanks to those characters.

I'm left scratching my head, and wonder what the hell people are thinking when they say ME1 is better than both ME2 and ME3. For me, it's easily the worst. I have a feeling that a lot of people who are saying this, haven't played the game in a long ass time. Or maybe they're just hipsters. Who knows?

I replayed it on PC last year and quite enjoyed it. It's more like a traditional bioware in a number of ways than 2 and 3.

Well, it's not the best game in the series, but it is by no means a bad game. It does have some legitimate problems, many of which you brought up, but you are overstating a lot them. For one, the first four entries on your list can be countered with "play the PC version", and they are either non existent or hugely improved.

As for your other complaints, yes the Mako is terrible, the loot monotonous, and the combat clunky, but there is more to the game than those things. I have no problem with the leveling and the instances of bad writing are no worse or more frequent than the rest of the series, and on the whole the writing is great and the universe and back-story are amazingly realized. It's easy to take the universe building for granted now that so many of us are so familiar with the series, but the reason so many grew attached to the series is because of how expertly crafted the fiction was in the first game.

The gameplay certainly doesn't hold up, but the story and character building are what made that game so great in the first place, and that is all still as good as it ever was. I understand going back and re-playing a game you are very familiar with that the gameplay is always going to stick out more than the story since the story is no longer new to you, but don't dismiss what's great about the game simply because you are experiencing it with a different mindset than you did originally.

For the record, I've played through the game in it's entirety 7 times (ME2 - 7 times, ME3 - 4 times), with the most recent being February 2012, and I have always enjoyed it.

@ll_exile_ll: Play more games.

Mass Effect isn't bad it's just really overrated for one (much like every other Bioware game that isn't ME2) and has a lot of tedious mechanics that they were smart enough to remove/revamp into other tedious mechanics in the later games.

It's not a bad game, but Mass Effect 2 is better, and people who think Mass Effect 2 sucks and ME1 is amazing are crazy people.

Get a better PC.

ME2 was the peak for sure. 3 made 1 look pretty great though, like DA2 made Origins look like the masterpiece it isn't.

Still the best one*! It has a charm that 2 was lacking in and 3* was completely void of. ME1 was a quirky (mechanically terrible) sci-fi RPG adventure! Compared to it ME2 was merely a polished action RPG.

Yeah Mako sucks, the elevators suck, the combat sucks, the interface sucks but...you know? It had soul! Or something! I don't know. It might be that I didn't care for the combat in any of the three* ME games, so any improvements made in that department were mostly irrelevant to me.

*Actually haven't played ME3 beyond the demo

I played the games out of order as I started on the PS3 so I played 2 and 3 there then bought all 3 again later on the PC. I still felt that 1 held up when I went back and played it.

Mass Effect 1's story was way better than anything else in the series. And the combat is like it is because its way more dependent on your stats. ME 2 is basically where the series turned into an action game.

First off, I did not deny that the game had design and gameplay flaws, in fact I think I pretty much agreed with the OP on that front. I didn't refute any of his claims about the clunky gameplay or poorly conceived design elements, I simply shared my thoughts about the things the game does well that he did not mention.

Secondly, why the condescending bullshit advice and the why the hell did you even reply to me in the first place. Nothing in your post addressed anything I said. You have absolutely no idea how many or what kinds of games I play, and are preemptively trying to discredit my argument (which you seem to think you are disagreeing with despite not even really addressing anything I said) by making baseless assumptions about my gaming knowledge and/or experience.

Read more books. Oh, and fuck off.

I think all 3 are fantastic

@ll_exile_ll: I just read this book and wrote this about it. I don't think I've read a book 7 times though so you've got me beat there, as always books = video games. Next Book and The Book After That.

On a serious note if you're like 12 and have no money I guess it makes some amount of sense to play games over and over, but 7 times on a 20 hour game is absurd, ludicrous, just plain stupid (Dark Souls may be an exception here but you wouldn't be dealing with presumably nearly identical gameplay and the game isn't trivial). The game has 2 choices, not 7, and the choices don't make enormous changes to how the game is structured a la The Witcher 2 or Front Mission 3 so 2 is still stretching it.

I played ME1 day 1, ME2 not day one as I left it sitting next to my xbox as I replayed ME1 to get my save right. Same happened with ME3 except this time I had to replay from 1 all the way to 3.

I have played ME1 more as I enjoy it all more. ME3 may have taken 2nd place if alot of it didn't feel misplaced in story and game play. However alot of the mechanics in 3 are brilliant, just the game around it is lacking to me and of course the whole ending thing.

ME2, I just dont care for it. Its the middle chapter that to be honest....nothing happens. ME2 dosnt do anything radical in game play changes other than refine it, the story isnt that great. The crew you get is mostly uninteresting (Jacob, Miranda, Jack) Mordan is really the only good one from all them. Garrus and Tali completely over shadow them.

All the crew in the first one are far better. Garrus, Wrex, Tali, Laira, hell Ashley and Kaiden are better than Jacob, Miranda and Jack.

The entire story feels more epic, the constant fights with the council, the fact your learning in a new world.

The game play isnt all that diffrent from ME2 and 3, you have powers you use them you take cover, you shoot, mod weapons.

Yes these things are refined much better in 2 and 3 except the rest of the game just doesn't make me feel epic.

Yes the Mako is not great. Except it was an experiment, they were trying new things sometimes these things fail.

In the end you seem to forget times have changed. I prefer ME1 more than the other ME's. However it is dated and it is unrefined compared. You seem to forget we have had 6 years difference since the first ME1. To come out and mainly call it a bad game due it is age is stupid.

Go play Baldurs Gate, go play Kights of the old Republic 1 or 2. These are old games you have to take a little retro smelling salts to remind yourself they are not modern games trying to keep up with a game that just came out last week. They are amazing for the time they were introduced and with the write frame of mind they still are.

However you would not it seems as more up to date games of the same type are more "REFINED" this is what happens.

The main thing people seem to missing here is. "Enjoyment" apparently we are not allowed to enjoy different things. I enjoy replaying ME1 more than ME3. I would enjoy playing Wizardry 8 again than replay ME2. Why is this such an insult to some people here?

@sackmanjones: Your avatar is telling.

I haven't played 3, but I think ME1 is better than ME2. The story in the first game actually had a reasonable arc, the second was pretty much "Build team, get bad guys".

Plus, the Citadel in ME1 was awesome. As was mentioned on a recent episode of Idle Thumbs (I think Brad was there), running around the Citadel playing Space Cop is just plain fun, the highlight of the first two games, imo.

Mass Effect 1 had the best overall story. ME2 had the best side stories with the recruiting missions. And ME3? I don't know. I haven't cared to play it yet.

Why do people hate the mako? is such a fun kinda broken rover is awesome.

Played it after ME3 came out. It's certainly better than 3.

The mako is fucking terrible. I love all three Mass Effect games but the mako parts just aren't fun. Getting stuck on terrain, stumbling through boring ass landscapes while trying to shoot at stuff that is sometimes miles away with barely any feedback and not to forget the stupid worms that kill in one hit.

Disagree with just about everything. Mass Effect 2 and 3 have some of the best graphics of any console game. They have the best writing of ANY game EVER and leveling up a lot is fun and keeps you playing.

The one thing I can say is the Mako is terrible and it is the reason I never finished the first game (I only played for about 4 hours). I'm trying to play through it now but every time I have to get in the Mako I just shut it off and come back 3 months later. Also the first game plays really slow with a lot of walking and trying to find the right door and not a lot of tense action like in 2 and 3.

I thought the first ME was very meh/10, it had alot of things going for it, good designs, interesting universe, great ideas and set pieces.

But as others have already stated, ME2 was just a better all around refined game, the story was closer-knit, characters were better rounded, gameplay was tightened and the story felt like it had a direction as where ME's story didn't have any real context, it became too grand too quickly to properly build suspense, like any great monster movie DON'T SHOW YOUR MONSTER IN THE FIRST ACT.

And ME3... what can be said that hasn't already been? It's gameplay was overly refined(simplified), story too loose and sudden, the scale of a galactic war felt bottled as you roam around your monopoly board with your Normandy piece trying to pass go before the reaper pieces do just feels stupid and rushed and then as bad as all those things are you still have the ending(EC or not still shit) which felt forced, unoriginal and simply corporate, it's clear that too many pieces were lost on biowares side of the chess board before ME3 was done, too much talent had left, left for other projects or were not allowed freedom by EA in favor of selling DLC or god knows.

I loved all 3 but the first one is by far the best in the series. One of my favorite games ever. Ill take exploring with the mako over probing and mining planets anyday.

I played all 3 Mass Effect game last year after all the rage over the ME3 ending. I did play the first one on PC a couple years before that when it was still new for a couple hours but it never clicked. Seeing a ton of ME2 and 3 over the years made it look like everything i hated about the first one was changed for the better.

I stayed on board this time for the story, characters and atmosphere. Gameplay wise it's an abysmal game. Someone may say the gameplay in Mass Effect 1 is the same as in ME2 and ME3 only that it's been refined over the years but it's not telling the whole thing. The gameplay in 2 as been refined to turn it into something serviceable. The first one wasn't serviceable, it was barely holding together. The game came out 6 years ago but already felt like a 6 years old then.

Yeah, what are you playing this on? A Pentium 4 and a Riva TNT2?

@demoskinos said:

Can you elaborate on this? I've heard other people make this claim, but have never understood the stance. What is it about the story that you think is better than the others?

I look at the main quest and see a story that starts with the Normandy randomly stumbling into a distress call from Eden Prime that leads Shepard to discover Saren's evil plans, goes to the Citadel and lucks into finding half a dozen others that join your party for various unrelated reasons and then proceeds down a series of loosely connected stories that feel more like a Saturday morning cartoons 'stop the villains evil machinations' than steps down a logically plotted path. The stories on Virmire, Noveria and Feros have nothing in common except that Saren went there and caused some trouble because Sovereign told him to. It's a patchwork of stories rather than a single cohesive one.

Considering the game came out 6 years ago, yeah it's not that surprising the visuals don't hold up - especially when compared to the other games in the franchise. For your actual gameplay complaints, it's an RPG. 2 and 3 are shooters. It was a janky RPG, for sure, but it was also the introduction of those characters and the universe, so I happily looked past the jank.

Personally, I don't like third person (especially cover based) shooters. Mass Effect 2's combat hallways left a bad taste in my mouth and I never even touched 3 because of it. They seemed like pretty good third person shooters, but shooters nonetheless. But, I love RPGs, and I put many hours into the first one so it's left the best impression of the series on me.

I like 1 the best. I'm crazy. And I don't care who knows. I also think 3 is better than 2. I think I may need help.

thats just like, your opinion man.

Uh-huh.

@legion_: Mass Effect 1 is the best RPG in the series; the other two games are just action games with very few elements from the game-y side of RPG's.

• Looks bad: Yes, it's from 2007. Everything from 2007 except Crysis looks bad.
• Stable frame rate of 12: Remember that the Citadel is huge and full of NPC's - just because you aren't in combat doesn't mean that it isn't taxing on the hardware. Meanwhile, the PC version maintains a solid 60.
• Longest load times ever: I never felt like they were that bad on 360, and of course PC.
• Grueling checkpointing: The game has manual saves as long as you aren't in combat. That doesn't completely excuse this issue, but it does greatly alleviate the problem.
• MAKO: ...isn't great but it's not excruciating.
• Plays bad: It's not the best playing game but it can be pretty satisfying at times, but this boils down to opinion. The level design is pretty bad often enough, though.
• Some awful writing: It's a Bioware game. Yes, the writing is hit or miss. Sometimes it's decent; sometimes it's really hammy and bad. Why people praise Bioware's writing is beyond me.
• Busted levelling: What? No, the leveling is fine.
• Busted inventory and loot: I won't disagree on this one. The inventory never bothered me but it could be far better designed.

I like parts of 2 and 3 but #1 is the best game of the 3. It's more than just an 3rd person action game. You can tell they really tried to make the Mass Effect world into something special. Things like the mission that throws back to Starship Troopers and the much more diabolical Cerberus - far less cliched than the second two games.

You can feel they were going for some really cool stuff too like with the Mako and planetary exploration. I think it turned out like it did because of the limitations of the console hardware and realities of the software dev technology of 2007.

But they were at least reaching for it. 2 and especially 3 just felt like, "well shit, make it a 3rd person shooter with some dialog and ship it! We need to get paid." 2 and 3 are incredibly safe games. Start to finish there isn't really anything surprising or risky.

Mass Effect 2 is too streamlined, has an awful main plot (in comparison to the first) that has no sense of focus or mystery, has no meaningful villain/antagonist, hacked away every meaningful aspect of the 'RPG' genre that it was supposed to belong to, and felt significantly more linear.

Mass Effect 1 is much more faithful to the Bioware name.

I love Mass Effect 2, but honestly, it set Bioware down a road that departed them from their classic games of yore.

It certainly has it's gameplay and design flaws, but I'll always argue that it has the best story out of the three of them.

In my opinion: Mass Effect 1 has the best story, Mass Effect 2 has the best characters and crew, Mass Effect 3 has the best gameplay.

What they all have in common is universe building. Not only do they introduce you to pretty much every major theme/idea in the Mass Effect universe, they tie them all to Saren and eventually to Sovereign. By the time the game is over you've chased Saren all over the galaxy and learned all about the Genophage, the Rachni, Indoctrination, the Geth, the Protheons, and how Sovereign and the reapers use the Mass Effect Relays to control how the galaxy grows. Yes, there is a lot going on but everything is tied to Saren and Sovereign.

Mass Effect 2 might have the best individual stories with the characters but as a whole it's not very cohesive. Most of the game is spent gathering up your crew and getting their loyalty. When you look at the main story thread it's pretty bare. With just a handful of missions learning about the Collectors, their goal, and how they are related to the Reapers.

Mass Effect 3 basically just goes from major theme/idea and closes the thread on them. Commendable but a lot of it is undone by the original ending making a lot of your earlier choice completely irrelevant.

Yea the only reason I went back to play Mass Effect 1 after trying to playthrough it twice was that Mass Effect 2 came out and is absolutely awesome. Seriously, people who say ME1 is the best in the series is CRAZY. Not that fun to play, and the improvements to ME2 were so huge.

I just have to add that even though I think ME2 is the best game in the series, I don't understand how people can say that ME3 is simplified compared to it. ME3 actually has more customization when it comes to guns, armor and your character than ME2 has, and it's simply deeper in every regard. I think that's just people looking for an excuse not to like ME3. That game is fucking great.

everyone hating on/critisiing Mass Effect is perfectly correct about a lot of things, it's still my favourite game of this game of this generation

I understand that the stories on those planets are all tied to Saren and Sovereign and flesh out the world, but they still exist separately from each other. For whatever reason, and maybe unfairly, I look at them as being about as related as every episode of Ninja Turtles. It's all in service of the universe building, that's where my issues lie. Don't get me wrong, that's an incredibly challenging thing to get right and imperative for the first game in a trilogy to pull off.

As far as Mass 2, gathering a group of individuals for an incredibly dangerous mission that will decide the fate of the universe and making them a unified team is the story. In learning more about their pasts, you better understand them as people and are better equipped to lead them. Hell, the game builds to a point that tests your ability to utilize their individual specialties- gameplay that rewards your investment in the story. It definitely has a smaller scope, but that focus ensures relevancy and thus, cohesion.

Saying it's a bad game is abit of overreaction. For younger people who started this generation and casual gaming media 20 somethings who never played classic PC RPG's I'm sure it appears amazing. For older wiser people who played titles such as Planescape Torment Or Baldurs Gate.... It's alright.

I'm glad you have that user name, so I don't have to point it out.

I enjoyed it when it first came out, because it was such a huge beast that came out of nowhere. I had pretty much no PC gaming history at the time, so this whole Bioware formula was pretty new to me. DIALOGUE OPTIONS WHAT eetz lik aye am in da gayme maycking CHOYCES!!!

But yeah, it's pretty rough going back to it. Just because a game is a pioneer and innovator, doesn't mean it automatically makes it the best of that genre anymore. To quote a frequent Patrick Klepeck catchphrase of sorts, "I'm glad that this game exists"

No it is the best game in the series. You need to account for the fact that it was an early Xbox release and they obviously hadn't worked out everything yet hence issues like the texture pop in. Also if you play the PC version a large number of the issues you mention simply don't exist. While the gameplay itself is not as good as ME 2 or even 3, and yes the Mako is ass, the story, branching dialog, sound track, and over all atmosphere of the game make up for it. I cared about what was going down in ME1... I was interested in ME2.... and I felt very meh most of ME3. Fortunately you can basically skip the Mako if you want, and the mechanics of the games combat while worse is still okay and perfectly tolerable.

dude if we are talking about mass effect 1, I am with you fuck that game I can never go back and play it there are so many shity things about that game. The combat is crap, the side missions are crap, the loading times are crap, the game play in general is crap, the Mako is crap, man I could go on forever fuck that game. All of it is even worse after you play ME2/3.

I never thought Mass Effect was an especially great game to play, even back in 2007. It's a clumsy action RPG that is equal parts mediocre action and mediocre RPG, with a giant galaxy full of identical planets for you to explore with the Mako, which is the literal worst. Also at one point you solve a towers of hanoi puzzle, because it's a Bioware game.

On the other hand, it has a much more defined tone than the other two games, with very thick film-grain and some pretty heavy synths for the soundtrack. Sure, all of your alien party members are pretty much lore-dumps for their respective races and the game fits the Bioware formula of "Go to 4 different places each with their own separate problems", but Mass Effect is an incredibly important game, even if I don't particularly want to play it again and always thought it was a bit overrated.

I've finished Dark Cloud 2 100% roughly 20 times. It's way longer than 20 hours.

I'm pretty sure I've finished each Final Fantasy about 10 times each (10 and below).

I've finished many of the Star Ocean games several times over. More specifically Till the end of time, several times, on 4D. Vastly longer than 20 hours.

I am not 12, and I can afford the games I want.

I fail to see your point here.

Maybe he just really likes those games? Ever think of that?

I guess people who watch movies more than once are dumb... yup, that's probably right.

Couldn't agree more with TC

Your first three points I throw out completely. (give me elevator loading times over shitty loading screens any day).

And the rest is subjective. I don't possibly understand how you could say ME 1 has bad writing when it's basically the same writing in all the games. And the overall plot is actually cohesive and well done, vs what came after. This game actually has, oh wow, a villain, what a thought.

Like some others have said, it had a charm too it. It felt Star Trek or Star Wars like. 2 became grim (and it's plot frankly didn't have much relevant to the overall conflict already set in motion), 3 had the motion going full bore but tried to also have some leisurely pace to it which felt very silly.

1 had the Citadel as a proper place. It had more of a sense of discovery. It didn't feel the need to try to be dark.

It was the broadest. Sure, not all of it worked well, but instead of fixing the issues they condensed everything down (the systems, environments, etc). Still my favorite of the 3.

I think it's all about context. At the time, Mass Effect was amazing, even if the combat was busted, the Mako was stupid, etc. We just hadn't seen anything like it, and the fiction was so expansive and well realized... it was shiny and new and full of promise.

It wasn't until ME2 that the game part of it all got really good.

No, it's the worst game in the series. And no, I won't account for the game being a early Xbox release, because that doesn't make it any better. The game is a mess, which is a shame, considering the story is pretty good.

Everytime someone mentions how bad the Mako was, all I want to do is boot up the game and drive around for a bit. I loved that thing.