I agree with its criticism of the first Mass Effect game. It’s a bit of a slog to get through when 2 and 3 are a thing.
Then again, he misses the Mako in Mass Effect 2 and I did not. I think Mass Effect 2 is very close to perfect, though I could have done without planet mining.
Yeah, I’d say planet mining was the worst part of ME2.
I also wasn’t a huge fan of having to swap out your weapons and armor (Phoenix III into Phoenix IV and so on) in ME1. And having to periodically clean out your inventory.
Yeah, accumulating a bunch of vendor trash was definitely something I don’t miss in later entries in the series.
My version of the slideshow:
Best part of ME1 = World building
Worst part of ME1 = Inventory micro-management
Best part of ME2 = The final mission
Worst part of ME2 = Dumbed-down equipment and power choices
Best part of ME3 = An emotional main plot with cameos from everyone in the entire series
Worst part of ME3 = That one damn marauder at the very end!
Best part of ME:A = Jump jets provided more 3D movement
Worst part of ME:A = Combat often felt repetitive (prime, detonate, repeat). Also the plot felt like kind of a generic rehash of the original series.
Also, I thought the build-your-own-gun system from Mass Effect: Andromeda was kind of cool, in theory.
Oh yeah!
I’m glad to discuss this game here still. I have very fond memories of Mass Effect and still like almost all the main characters throughout. I don’t know if/when I’ll play the entire thing again, but it was nice to see an adult-minded video game that took things seriously.
That’s why I installed only one “cheat” mod for ME2. The one that instantly mines all resources with one probe. Because having played ME2 originally on XBOX 360, that mining was mind-numbingly dull.
I find myself going back to it about once every two years. I mean, I’m not on a schedule. It just seems I get the itch about that often (give or take a bit). To each their own, of course.
Just saw this. Funny:
Finally, an worthy ending to Mass Effect 3!
Seriously, though, I only ever played the legendary edition, which had the patched ending. I liked the ending I got. Was the disappointment mainly that:
- you are of course limited to just a few basic choices
- years of anticipation and the endings are not different enough
How bad was the original ending before they updated it?
I personally preferred the original ending, before the DLC extension. It was moody and abstract and poetic, and left a lot up to the player to interpret. I really respected the big risky swing it took.
But the mainstream audience didn’t want abstract poetry, they wanted hard explicit answers, so the extended DLC filled in all the gaps.
I enjoy my imagination more than watching wiki entries being acted out, but I’m clearly in the minority.
I think there was a much shorter ending slideshow, for one. That never particularly bothered me, because the whole game was showing the impact of your choices in the first two.
I’ve never seen the original ending. I strongly dislike the patched ending, or at least the main bits leading to it.
- I hate the entire ‘Oh hey the Reapers have taken over the Citadel offscreen’ thing. It renders all the minor bits on the Citadel about the refugees and such completely meaningless. All kinds of stuff Shepard supposedly cares about destroyed without comment. Kelly Chambers? Dead. The doctors you’ve been finding stuff for? Dead. Pretty much the entire content of the Citadel DLC? Gone. Etc, etc.
- The entire final battle scene is apparently completely pointless, because the Normandy can swoop down and evac your companions. Wait. What? Why the fuck is it evacing Liara and Garrus when it could be disgorging a couple companies of Krogan warriors to give you a hand with that last marauder? If the Normandy’s stealth thingy can get it that close to the portal, why did you bother with that entire charade of the final battle? It’s the eagles flying the Ring to Mt. Doom all over again.
- The very ending I don’t mind so much. The ethereal kid is kinda dumb, but it’s no worse than the human-shaped Reaper in ME2 (Why is that human-shaped instead of normal Reaper-shaped anyways? The last cycle didn’t make Protoss-shaped Reapers.) The Synthesis ending I also don’t care for, but that’s fine because I can choose Destruction or Control. Well Control is also kinda dumb, because we’ve just spent the entire game trying to convince the Illusive Man that pursuing control is doomed to fail. So actually I kinda like the Indoctrination fan theory, wherein the entire ending is just in Shepard’s head and the Reapers actually win. The cycle continues.
Just to clarify, after choosing control/synthesis/destruction, you see the following cinematic:
- Energy shoots out of the Citadel and spreads from relay to relay.
- The reapers die (destruction ending) or stop attacking (control or synthesis ending).
- Joker is flying the Normandy away from the energy wave, but it overtakes them.
- Joker and a couple of companions exit from the Normandy onto a strange planet.
Aside from #2 and who exits the ship in #4, the endings are basically identical. There isn’t any slideshow or voiceover like in the extended ending (if I remember correctly).
That’s right. No slideshow. Crash, exit, camera pulls back, roll credits.
It’s all clearly intended as a metaphorical expression of the idea that the survivors open their eyes after the battle and find themselves in an entirely new world with no idea what to do next, and I liked it on that level. But the majority of players, evidently, looked at it and took it literally, wanting to know exactly how and why they wound up there and what happens afterward. Again, I would have greatly preferred leaving things vague and thematic and subject to interpretation. But my opinion was not shared by most players, who shouted Bioware into delivering the extended cut, which fills in all the blanks.
And per the observations Gorsnak notes, when you try to go back and rework something as literal that was not supposed to be that way, you almost invariably end up introducing just as many questions and plot holes as you were attempting to eliminate.
But whatever. 99% of the trilogy is fantastic, I’ll forgive the stumble at the finish line.
I liked some parts of the extended ending, like the slideshow showing either happy krogans or unhappy krogans, geth or no geth, etc. And I liked the voiceover for the “control” ending which made it clear that Shepard’s brain was uploaded to the Citadel, achieving near-immortality. But yes, the Normandy swooping in to pickup your friends was kind of stupid.
I saw the Legendary edition on sale for $20 (Canadian), so maybe it’s time to bite the bullet and buy it. I haven’t played any of the DLC, so hopefully it has that much entertainment value.
Most of the DLC is quite good and a few are excellent. And I paid $50+ for the game and it was about 100 hours to play through the trilogy, at least the way I played them.