I was 18, I played the first Mass Effect very casually.
I have very vague memories, I remember Saren's face, I remember the obscene animations, I remember the thrill of having an experience similar to that of Neverwinter Nights in a sci-fi. Yes, I remember that well.
Basically I can declare myself "virgin from the experience of Mass Effect" and I was able to recover it all in one bite in 2021 thanks to the Legendary edition 4k, on the other hand over the years I have always repeated to myself "when I have time I will recover it" - "yes come on I'll finish I play X and I shoot the trilogy while avoiding Andromeda ”, I promptly went to fill the counter of hours played on Dota 2, exceeding 5000 hours.
So let's start with this somewhat atypical review, I'll tell you about my experience with all three Mass Effects, I'll tell you what my impressions were and what it felt like to discover this immortal franchise that has polarized several generations of gamers. , dividing or merging them.
[Side note: The review is delayed for a couple of weeks, but before doing it I spoke to several colleagues and players and took it upon myself to complete the game almost 100% with more than 115 hours of play.]
Let's talk about Technique
Mass Effect is an old game, all three chapters are OLD or at least they are OLD in their playful concept of third person shooter. I will dwell in particular in this paragraph especially for younger players who will find the title in the various online and physical shops and will not immediately understand that the game is a reskin of the three chapters; remastered properly but maintaining with an amazing fidelity of the mechanics that to date are nothing short of old and outdated.
Mass effect 1 - technical side and gameplay
The first chapter was born in a period that I remember well: 2007 was a year full of memorable games such as Halo 3, cod 4, Crysis, TES Oblivion. Each timed game of him brought memorable innovations and each title enriched the competition with peculiarities that made the medium mature month after month. Everyone chased each other and the games literally taught; just think a few years before the advent of physics in Half Life 2 or the visual quality (and unattainable with the hardware of the time) of Crysis.
Looking in the memory drawers I remember the state of the consoles in those years and the required computing power, Mass Effect 1 in its day had to compromise with several parameters that we take for granted today: for example, the amount of dubbed dialogues (many, really many) that weigh enormously, the textures, the models and the soundtracks. Reading devices at the time were limited and it was necessary to compress as much as possible by sacrificing important playful aspects.
In ME1 they decided to take care (with the great experience of Bioware) the “rpg” components of the game with rich and interesting dialogue options, personalization of the paraphernalia and of the career really avant-garde for the time. Instead, the TPS experience was sacrificed in the main phases of the game (practically 60% of the game) with a cover shooter system with embarrassing artificial intelligences. At the time (and even today) I can make you a perfect comparison, the shooter sector of Mass Effect is Duck Hunt. You take cover, you aim, you shoot at the enemies that come out of cover. Every now and then you swear because a Krogan charges you head on and oneshots you in one blow.
Mass Effect 1 is a decidedly frustrating experience for how we are used to playing in our times, it must be said, however, that the remaster has made the game experience at least enjoyable, by playing we will understand who we will have in front of us, we will have new animations rendered better and enough to identify a minimum in the fantastic narrative plots proposed by Bioware.
Basically ME1 must be played for the narrative experience, in 2021 playing it for its playful value is simply a way to want badly and feel frustrated.
Mass effect 2 - technical side and gameplay
Technically ME2 with the entry of EA takes on different connotations, you begin to feel the increase in the budget and among all three titles it is the one that returns a better feel of the commands in the shooter experience. We will always be bound by cover but the management of the team will have greater synergies and the title defends itself well compared to the 2010 releases (we remember however that RDR1, Fallout: New Vegas, COD Black Ops, Halo: Reach, Alan Wake and many other titles were released. who made history).
The biggest gaps we can find instead for everything that is around the physics of the game; other titles had already developed explosions of the surrounding environment and deeper interactions of game objects beyond the corridor system typical of shooters, Mass Effect 2 saves a lot in this and gives us a type of game with rhythms more or less always marked according to some regular patterns; example: "mission -> shoot -> talk to NPCs -> shoot again -> Cliffhanger -> delivery of the quest". Scheme that is not always bad but it is repetitive with over 35 hours of gameplay required to enjoy the title.
Interesting then the entry of the reactions from Hero / Renegade with quicktime events, many times they will have come out with an American hero speck, other times true pearls of heroism on which to applaud with open hands.
Also in the second title we can see a cinematic ambition that fully incorporates the style of the American Series of those times such as NCIS or Prision Break, with that kind of dynamic and fast shots that stink of Hollwyood of the early 10s, a kilometer away.
On the one hand we will have a fresh (for the times) and dynamic narrative in key scenes of the game, on the other hand, seeing the game in 2021 some scenes will be forced to be "cringe" and absolutely out of fashion, for example the very first quicktime where it is decided to recruit a guy grabbing his gun on the fly with a pitiful scene, I had to pause at the end of the scene to laugh like a jerk.
The first two titles then have in common the exploration of the planets with vehicles, on the one hand in the first chapter we will have really scripted vehicles like the Mako: an extraplanar vehicle that overturns like a turtle awkwardly at the first obstacle, in the two instead we will pilot the hammerhead which behaves much better.
Also very interesting is the space exploration in the second chapter with the procurement of planar resources (in the first you could simply click the exploration and have dialog boxes that gave us rewards or lore notes).
Mass effect 3 - technical side and gameplay
Let's move on to the third chapter, technically it should be the best but I disagree, I am not at all.
Unlike the other titles we will finally be able to race! Year 2012, they remember that in a shooter you can use the option of running: better late than never.
Playing it with Mouse and Keyboard can be almost gratifying with the diversification of the commands, another matter for those like me who wanted to enjoy the three titles with the Xbox One controller, A DISASTER. Really A DISASTER.
There is no way to "bind" the keys, run / repair / jump to another cover ALL require pressing the "a" button, it will happen that we strategically want to run to the other side but our Sheppard in his jog in the morning he will end up slipping into a shelter in full view, dying. This has happened to me more than fifty times, the controls are literally obscene.
Removed this premise and vent, the game abandons a bit the constant rpg of the first two to give an experience more focused on urgency (I don't want to spoil you) and pure action.
We will still have to deal with the Normandy but we will not have the same degree of customization as the second title, we will tour the universe but we will not have the extraction as in the second but the raiders on our heels.
Technically compared to the games of 2012, Mass Effect 3 has considerable advantages only and exclusively in the narrative, the gameplay tries to "rejuvenate", or rather, to keep up with the times but it is necessarily messy and fake, with an artificial intelligence often ridiculous and with teammates who will move / fight much worse than in the second chapter.
Without going too far, in 2012 immortal games such as Borderlands 2 and Halo 4 were released, the comparison on the tps side is really regrettable, ME3 is clumsy and awkward. A sort of qualitative reversal of the latter.
Comparative Technique - gameplay
Not having played ME 2 and ME 3 I had to watch some old gameplay and spend long hours with my colleagues who are playing the Legendary together with me, technically beyond the purely graphic remake in all three chapters the system has been revised and the cooldown of the powers.
The AI has not been touched in the least, all our enemies will follow preset patterns and precise and punctual corridors, after several hours of play you can imagine exactly where your enemies will "spawn" and you will already know where to attack.
Furthermore, as I write this, my colleagues let me know that the crew in combat can move with different commands as opposed to the first one and access to weapons no longer depends on the class, thus being able to explore different combos not included in the pre-remaster trilogy.
The quality of the Remaster
Among all three titles of the chapter, surely the first is the one that needed a remaster, indeed, I dare more, in my opinion it would have needed a real Remake.
Unlike a half life 2 we would not have distorted a majestic work but we would have given a decent combat system to a game with a very interesting narrative and an enviable aesthetic.
I'll be honest anyway, the textures and the 4k, the 60 fps (for me on gtx 1080 Palit much higher), the new animations and particle effects are a pleasure for the eyes. Especially for the second and third chapters that reach a quality that is certainly acceptable by today's standards.
On the first they did a bit of a miracle, but we have to be honest and admit that they placed brand new textures of excellent quality on four polygons in the cross.
The management of the multi monitor is also fluctuating, I played on the bed with the joystick on the 55 ″ 4k hdr, on the first Mass Effect in borderless mode the HDR did not start (it only went in fullscreen) while in the other two titles the hdr started even in a borderless window.
On multiscreen I also report flickering episodes (which seem to have been resolved with the latest patch).
The Narration
After a load of criticism (and let me know, there are) we move on to the strong side of the title, the narrative sector and the storytelling / imaginary of Mass Effect.
What a show.
Scientifically inaccurate: for example "quantum communications" or the concept of time and space that are going to be blessed despite the mass effect and the use of dark energy. But let's face it, aesthetically it's jaw-to-ground.
The trilogy has very low moments of dialogues written by forcing the hand with surprising banalities and steeped in American macho culture (it will be the influence of the neighbors of the Canadian developers) to very high moments of reflection and planetary ethics.
Let's start, for example, with my favorite narrative strand: genophage, a disease that has destroyed the possibility of reproduction of the Krogan (let's say that it has limited it) by solving the problem of the overpopulation of a genetically warmongering alien race. By developing the narrative arc we will make very complex choices and the game will propose ethical dilemmas that sooner or later as humanity in different ways we will have to face, it does so with maturity and depth. I genuinely loved that stretch of history.
Speaking of diversity, we are faced with the acceptance of the different, the fight against xenophobia (in this case a more than legitimate term since we are talking about aliens?), Deciding on the extinction of a complex race like that of the Rachni (spiders space) which will prove to be very important.
Mass effect strikes in some points and uncovered nerves that concern us as a united humanity, it makes us stop and before fighting in a dialogue it makes us weigh the choices giving a sense of complexity and a level of interaction that is rarely seen in a video game. An example above all concerns the questions of Asimoviana memoria on robotics and artificial intelligence, the relationship with Legion (perhaps my favorite NPC ever) on the concept of life and science and consciousness. I don't want to spoil those who haven't played them but they are very sensitive topics and the game provides food for thought that is not at all trivial in that vein.
Another old story for minor or side missions, sometimes some characters are sewn on very marked and uninteresting stereotypes, a bit like the crew of our Normandy commander, absolutely subdued. Speech that does not include the alien companions who are always very interesting and with noteworthy facets.
The narration of the Normandy instead is the cornerstone of the game in my opinion, the ship is a safe anchor in the universe, a point of familiarity and recreation in the long game sessions, here we will deal with the cornerstone that acts as a total to the game. The crew.
The plots may be interesting but they will never be as interesting as the relationship that will weave during the over one hundred hours of play with the members of the "crew", bond with them, have romance, empathize, fail or win. Each choice will have a weight and the real interplanetary journey will focus on the choices we will have and how we will act towards them. Absolutely the part that I preferred the most in the whole trilogy (even if in the third it is less marked).
To conclude; the concatenation of plots with the recovery of bailouts in each chapter (which create a single narrative strand) is something innovative for the times and it is also innovative in today's industry landscape, playing for a long time and carrying a wealth of choices ( even small!) that affect over three games is something fantastic that I loved (and gave me the strength to play that awkward and cumbersome title called ME3, which in my opinion is saved in some choices and in the ending) .
Ah, I was forgetting an important factor that was reminded me by one of the editors: all three titles contain all the DLCs, playing with the add-on experience already included (and sold at crazy prices at the time) gave me a adventure more multifaceted and full of emotions, in itself even this small detail is worth the purchase of the game, especially for those who at the time could not afford the expensive DLCs.
The Nostalgia effect.
One point I wanted to touch upon before the conclusion of this long review is the nostalgia effect.
Before the release of Legendary my friends and colleagues were repeating the mantra of "Bioware's masterpiece", people my age around (32) living on memories like me, all remembering the epic missions and some weapons, some power-ups, the space exploration.
But no one remembered the combat system, the controls, the reactivity, the artificial intelligence, the fact that THERE WERE NO FACIAL MIMICS and the dialogues only had a different tone of voice to make us understand a feeling or an emotion.
The game was lacking in these things already at the time, the technologies were there even if there were prototypes, in my opinion it was a wasted opportunity not to rewrite the facial expression engine or the addition of different models (the sensations of deja-vù looking at the NPCs are at the order of the scene).
Basically Mass Effect is pure nostalgia effect, as a total proof there are several friends who together with me have replayed it and have noticed many ugly things that were customary at the time and the fact that we played those games in a different era and with a different sensitivity.
Maybe Mass Effect has innovated a lot by influencing the future works of the industry, or we have grown as players, yet unlike the old immortal graphic adventures (like monkey island or grim fandango) playing / replaying mass effect in 2021 gives fluctuating emotions that include boredom , the cringe and frustration for the commands alternating with the amazement for the depth of some plots and the visual majesty of many cutscenes remastered to perfection with a high level of detail.
Maybe nostalgia is really rogue and ME was the greatest proof of that.
Conclusion
The Legendary Edition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience Mass Effect if you've never had the chance to play it in its heyday or a chance for someone who has played it but has never tried the DLCs and would like to replay it in a newer guise. modern. Like it or not it's a cornerstone of the gaming industry and in the end the game lends itself to one run, maybe even two. It depends on how long you have now that you are over thirty. Alas.
