I'm trying, I really am. I'm intrigued. I want to keep playing. I want to know why everyone loves this franchise. Guys and gals, it's so hard to get through some of this! My main problems are with the antiquated feel of the third person shooting, sometimes I skip over dialogue on accident due to the button mapping, and the loading times.

Any encouragement to soldier on??

And yes... first world problems.

The second game is really great?

Serious answer: The story is the reason to play that game. You kinda have to slog through some bad gameplay to get to the good stuff (some people like the combat in mass effect 1, I am not one of them). The story in that game is pretty great throughout and the choice stuff is neat to import over if you plan to play Mass Effect 2 (which you should because it is incredible). Other than that I can only say good luck!

Just keep in mind that the first game is a not exactly user friendly. The action can keep unsatisfying, the Mako controls are a tad unwieldy, but the overall game and its scope in 2007 was exciting for a lot of people. Keep at it if you plan on playing the second and third games as their are certain characters that can appear in all three games.

Of course I made the strange mistake of buying Mass Effect 3 a couple of years ago and playing through a large portion of it. I recall enjoying it but I don't remember much about it seeing as I didn't have much context for the story. I'm hoping to complete a playthrough of all three prior to the release of Andromeda.

And then there's me (and three other guys) who think the first game was the best, and it went downhill from there.

Mass Effect 1 doesn't hold up very well in my eyes in terms of gameplay. The shooting is a chore, sniping is not 100% accurate even if you have them square in your sights, the mako sucks, planets are mostly barren and not worth exploring and Vanguard sucks. Just try to get the major story beats as you can and move on to ME2 where there is a lot more refinement. The import stuff is okay but not enough to make me want to play through the game again.

@anund: I totally agree with you and plan to never replay it for fear of realizing how wrong I am.

@tyn0mite: The story, man. The story will pull you through. The game has major problems - half-assed exploration, bad combat, and terrible item management - but the story is great. You'll get used to the combat. You'll become numb to the deluge of useless items, and also hey, maybe don't open every container. And you can pretty well ignore the exploration aspect if you choose. It's still worth it to experience the story.

@hippie_genocide: yeah I'm starting to see that. I've pretty much resorted to just blasting through with the shotgun. It is actually kind of fun! I am intrigued by the story the more I'm getting into it. Do you think the side missions are integral in enjoying the story or should I just mainline it?

I recommend just setting the game difficulty to easy

@xanadu: I did that and it has made it much more enjoyable.

You HAVE to use the accuracy and / or recoil upgrades on your weapons in ME1. It was a very stupid system, and you'll never have to worry about it after that first game. The sequels have way better combat.

ME1 = Best overall story, bad combat.

ME2 = WAY better combat, and a bunch of great individual character stories. Arguably the best game in the series.

ME3 = Conclusion to some important story threads, a very addictive multiplayer mode, and you finally being able to make your own mind up about that ending.

@spaceinsomniac: Sounds like my best bet is to just keep my nose to the grindstone and enjoy the story! I'm really looking forward to Mass Effect 2 if the story is still good and the combat is even better.

I'm actually playing through this for the first time since god...'07? Holy shit is it a technical wreck and combat is just as I remember it, broken. Still, the writing and the story hold up incredible well.

They should just remake this thing. It's the perfect game I think to do that with. Works as a standalone game and all it's short comings could be fixed today no problem.

@liquiddragon: Yeah, if any last gen game is begging for a remaster it would be this one. They already nailed down the hard part being story and world building, but it's kind of a technical mess across the board. I would love to play this again with all the janky parts fixed.

First game was great at the time, but going back now it'll be full of technical and gameplay hangups. But the last 5 hours are dope!

Then 2 comes along with some awesome character stuff and much better gameplay. Main storyline is lacking but it's still great.

3 combines the tightest gameplay with a dark, wartorn atmosphere, culminating in an ending that I loved (which this site crapped on).

It's a really great series, but would've probably hit harder if you played it upon release.

I remember having trouble getting into the first game, but trucked through after hearing the GB guys talk about Mass Effect so much. I dunno when but I got really interested in the story/characters, and then I started doing basically everything I could, barren Mako adventures included.

Mass Effect 2 is also really good but as someone who likes a good story, that game is really lacking outside of the character stuff (which is still good enough to carry everything else, even if I thought they streamlined way too much of the gameplay for it to be interesting anymore).

Mass Effect 3 is weird, because they hit all the right story beats and resolve all the important stuff everyone wanted them to, but the setup of "galaxy at war" makes so much of that stuff feel like a waste of time, or makes the rest of the alien races seem selfish or inept or just plain stupid (since they basically say "fuck off until you fix all our problems we've never been able to fix", and then you fix them in a matter of hours). And yeah the ending is weak and none of the choices at the end really change anything (especially after they redid the ending and removed/retconned all the consequences). It's the weakest in the series as far as I'm concerned, but still not a bad game overall, and some of the DLC (aka crucial content that should have been in the game) makes it a way better experience.

The Citadel DLC from 3 is the best the series has ever been.

I'm in the exact same position! I'm around 6-7 hours in and although I'm enjoying the story and the characters, there's a lot of rust on many of the systems. In my opinion the shooting feels bad, companions are dumb and issuing commands is really frustrating. I find the menus really confusing: applying upgrades to armour and weapons, managing inventory, vendors. Like you mentioned it's very easy to make dialogue decisions that you didn't want accidentally during conversation. Some of the tutorialisation is pretty bad - the game doesn't explain omni-gel well (maybe reading the in-game wiki would be helpful but that's not something I want to do), the game never told me how to exit the Mako (nor did the controls menu) so I had to mash buttons until it happened.

Having said all that these all aren't deal breakers and I can certainly forgive the game given its age and the really good things about it. Looking forward to playing more!

Yeah the story is the reason to play 1 so I'd put it on easy if you aren't enjoying the combat and blaze through it.

I was gonna go back and play Mass Effect this week but when I hooked up my launch 360 it had finally red ringed. It had been sitting under my bed for a year and a half so I'm not too surprised. But I really wanna replay all the Mass Effects before Andromeda comes out.

@beefygrandmole: Forgive me if you are already aware of this but all the games are backwards compatible on XB1!

I've tried to go back and play the original ME several times on both 360 and PS3 but I just couldn't...the gameplay is so slow and plodding and I'm not a huge fan of the combat. I love the story and characters but I really like, and am thankful, for what they did with ME2.

Well, I played ME back in the days and had several issues with it, mostly about the gameplay being repetitive. Some people seem to really like the story, but as I remember it the story started pretty good but got out of control towards the end.

Overall, it's not bad and was - at the time - worth a playthrough, but you will not get any encouragement from me, and I would never re-play it.