JAR Media Posdact - Is Mass Effect 1 as GOOD as They Say?

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

Jim and Alex sit down on their tiny chairs to have an extended, rambly chat about the first entry in the Mass Effect series that was recently remastered as part of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Warning, full spoilers! https://www.patreon.com/jarmedia Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/jar-media-store Twitter: https://twitter.com/FourFunnies Timecodes: 00:00 Intro 01:00 The Worldbuilding & Story 34:29 Gameplay 54:08 Questions from JAR Twitter 1:07:05 Losses in the art direction

Good afternoon, morning, evening or night, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to is Mass Effect 1, Inside Legendary Edition? Yeah. Unclosed bracket. As good as they say. A show where we answer the question, is said piece of media to what they say, as the general consensus is we know better than everyone else so we're going to answer that question for you we've got to decide we've got to put the the truth out there yeah we need to use our superior

knowledge to let people know we got to use our mass effect fields our biotic skills yeah we've got to whip out our omni tool and yeah our biotic amps our medigil we need to use all that stuff to to sort of break down the truth do you know how many mass fit law videos i've watched in prep I've watched a few I doubt as many as you this entire topic is quite quite intimidating

if I'm being honest yeah I didn't quite appreciate the depth that they'd put into the Massafet universe I'd always appreciate it I've always liked Massifet but it wasn't until revisiting it now

and going through it again just the level of detail that they put into it I kept thinking, man, it's so nice for this stories that they tell through Mass Effect and through all the law and everything, how they get across, we put more thought into this, in you. You know, you know how often it's like, in like a story in some video game, it's like, man, I'm noticing shit that's like, I shouldn't have put more thought in the surface of the stuff that's distracting me. In Mass Effect, I feel the total opposite. It's like they've thought so many levels beyond what you, what you're going to be. even thought possible to begin with and it's

it's kind of what the whole story is about there's so much that's like revealed and planned throughout the whole Massifet series. Yeah but also the stuff that is just set in stone in the history of the universe they have gone through like centuries

of just history for a fictional universe and they let you delve into it as deep as you want to go. Because it's law and you know these kind of law backstory videos and shit and all this extra detail. It's quite big in games now,

late Dark Souls, Destiny, whatever. But here in Mass Effect, it's like the perfect amalgamation of you get the kind of plot delivered and that's good on its own, but there is this deep history that you do learn through the codex,

you do learn through the dialogue and just the way people speak. It goes so deep that even some of the nomenclature, the words that certain races throw out certain gods they're referencing. Those gods have entire histories, backstories. There's like an Asari god.

They were always referring to this goddess. Yeah. That's like a big thing. But then it's like revealed that the goddess is actually like a Prothian, like implant thing. It goes deep. So this is what I mean about trying to find a jumping on point. Yeah. Yeah.

But the thing with that is I didn't even know that. but you don't need to no it's it's the perfect balance where the the game naturally gives you everything you need to know so you can enjoy it and have a good time but if you are someone that really gets into this shit

yeah it has so much to offer yeah so I guess we should try and start sort of top level sort of I mean the basic premise is your a space James Bond going around the galaxy

trying to stop an evil threat in the most simple level like an existential horror threat that's been we gotta talk spoilers I don't know

like how to break this down without just delve in into the deep end honestly because I mean I would recommend to just play the games like yourself first

they're definitely worth playing so the answer to the question is mass effect as good as they say I mean the thing is I don't think Mass Effect 1 going by Mass Effect 1's Metacritic score is as good as they say it's not that good

but in terms of a being I think it is that good considering a 2007 game I think that is a 90s what was it on Metacriticat and 91 yeah I think for 2007 that game is a 91 because I couldn't believe how

proficient it is and how well it's held up maybe not with some of the design choices and the game play stuff but the actual the story, the heart of the plot and the beats of what progressed it throughout the game

I think it actually has the best plot of a mass effect game I think what it's able to achieve and how it establishes the entire world it establishes multiple different conflicts all the different races establishes the main core cast of characters, gets you to love them all,

has all the beats you want, the set pieces, the presentation of it too, I find surprisingly effective, like with the last set piece of the game that's set on the Citadel. That's like a great set piece ending moment. It's ingenious to take this place

that you associate with sort of tranquility and sort of a hub and use that in the way they do it's an amazing way to it's like a video game sort of trope at this point like you have your base and then at some point

your base is attacked in some way and that's always like a satisfying yeah I agree with everything you've said but stuff we'll get into later is why I don't think the game is as good as they say but I do think it's a game if you are into video games in any capacity you

owe it to yourself to play this game. Yeah. Yeah, because I would always write off MassFet 1 because it hadn't been legendary editioned. I would say going back to the original would be a bit tough. But they've done a lot of work

on modernising it a little bit. But we want to talk about the gameplay later. I reckon we should just say whatever we want, spoil whatever we want. I'm clearly ready to just dive deep into whatever yeah let's do it

whatever shit I've been reading so the basic plot of MassFet 1 even though we just did a brief one I'm just going to spoil whatever now the main kind of thrust of the game is that you discover that there is an ancient race

well not even a race it's kind of an ancient AI creation these reapers they're an alien race of robots that yeah you find that out in this game but there are multiple reveals regarding like the reapers

and the greater way they kind of interact with the universe you find out that these reaper creatures they purge the galaxy every 40,000 years or so and they've been doing this the cycles countless cycles and the kind of thrust of the story is trying to stop the cycle and it's the first time things are kind of going a bit different different in the cycle and the reapers are actually scared of what um you as the main character is building up and choosing like through your choices and yeah that is essentially the the point of the first game is to they introduce this thing that's been happening for mm-hmm i love the the the nomenclature they use it's like all of this is beyond your comprehend beyond your

comprehension we have been around so long you you can't even understand it the reason we're doing it you can't understand it yeah and you actually you find out i'm in aspect three like the true origin of the reapers and everything yeah which i i don't think i actually yeah that it's in a dlc so you never you wouldn't know yeah um but yeah the point of the game is that you sort of make this dent in sort of in destiny in something that has been happening for all of time um um yeah it well yeah because that is what's so great about it establishing this this threat this looming threat that's coming um but in in the first game it boils down to the climax is them

fighting one you know they have hordes of these things coming and what is so brilliant about mass fat one is yeah they established the world and what is so crucial to the massafet world is the the the kind of transportation system that is in the galaxy is like it's a trap effectively that the reapers have set so what happens is primitive species evolved to a certain point until they're spacefaring then they'll stumble across some kind of reaper tech or what they think is protean tech or whatever which boosts them ahead in terms of evolution and it's kind of a tricky way that the reapers are able to nudge different races to evolve down certain paths and it always leads to them discovering these what do you call them the mass relays yeah they're these big what the fuck is you even call them they're like these big ship things with the the massive field yeah they look like a ship and from what they show you you can they're like slingshots yeah they're around the galaxy yeah like light

speed so you can just get to anywhere in the galaxy yeah and they're all connected in such a way It's like an underground train. Yeah, it's like the underground in London, sort of. Yeah. But all across the whole galaxy. With the hub being this place called the Citadel, which is, you find out in the game, I think the Asari are the first ones to discover the Citadel.

Yeah. And from that point, they kind of adapt to the technology. They obviously live using all the Prothian tech and all the Reaper tech and everything. and they don't realize the reliance they have on it and what they're doing is actually setting a trap for them because the relays are how the reapers reap

because it means what they use the citadel as a point of like warping in and then they just go relay to relay shutting the relay down nothing within nothing locally can escape so they just harvest it and the way they harvest is horrible and they're like they have this

innate ability of indoctrinating they call it where um they have this ability of sort of convincing people that and controlling people through means that where they believe themselves that they're on the right side even though yeah it's sort of a case of um because this this is the main antagonist's motivation the the point of indoctrination is that it convinces you that you've already lost and there's the the best thing you can do is become a slave that's yeah well

indoctrination is a big thing in all three of the games and just this idea of control and AI and rebelling against the created and the cyclical thing and I to me mass effect is about

it's about evolution the whole thing simply because that's another like genius part of it. Each one of the races, they are kind of like these concepts of, hey, what if there was an alien race where the primary, like, like the apex species, you know, like humans are on Earth, like the Asari, for example, they evolved with the ability to mate by like joining nervous systems and they get like get DNA from that and that's how they have. have like a versatile species yeah they they talk about um because you can talk to leara in the

game about how it works yeah and it is it's asexual reproduction so like like there are species that do that on yeah yeah yeah but they they sort of use other like sentient beings to improve their DNA to like further mutate them and awesome idea yeah and that that whole thing with like the quarians for example

where they created an AI themselves the Geith which rebelled against them so then they're forced to living in this like flotilla all these ships they're never settled on a planet

they don't ever well their home world is overtaken by the Geith so they're space fairing which meant they're always in these suits so they've got like really bad immune systems yeah their immune systems really suffer so there's like always this underlying logic to the way the world kind of works it it makes sense even though it's they have the biotic powers they've got the silly weapons the silly sci-fi kind of stuff there is this underlying kind of logic to it

and the way that everything fits together um yeah they they came up with rules within this universe and they stick to them to a T at least in Mass Effect 1 they never break a single rule or setup they make Yeah Yeah but the The actual conflict begins

With Saran who's the main villain He's a Turian who's I think his brother was Like killed in the first contact war So he already had an innate thing Against humans Which kind of drove his initial motivation

Which I guess helped sovereign, is that the reaper in that? Yeah, yeah. The first reaper or whatever. So there's a bunch of reveals in Massifet one. Yeah, sovereign being a reaper and being a ship or whatever.

That's one of the major reveals in the game. Yeah, the way it just comes together seems so natural and the way it's like blocked out over the trilogy. You get just enough in the first game where there's so much mystery, so much intrigue, it leaves on a point, one of them but there's still all this other shit that's yet to come yeah yeah but i do want to say as

well everything they give you in mass effect one if if they could have for whatever reason never have made mass effect two or three mass effect one gave you enough yeah it's yeah it's a complete story because it it ends with you making a victory but eluding the more is going to happen in the future yeah it's so it's such a good way of having like you overcome an odd an impossible odd but there's still yeah it's the Star Wars thing

it's we've destroyed the Death Star big victory but we haven't won yeah I think about Star Wars in terms of like contrasting it to Mass Effect it almost feels like you know when George would always say yeah we planned out this whole thing

yeah it's like no this is like when you've planned shit to a tier I think it's spent over a year just in like pre-production just like figuring out just the world and the history and everything and like there's so much to it and it the way it actually

is embedded into the story of the stuff like the Rachnai Wars and the Genophage and these things that are all linked and they all come together and like the first contact war and how like Ashley a member of your squad

where her like story is that her granddad was like in the first contact war and he was the first guy to surrender to aliens so it's like a huge so which is like her explanation as to why she's kind of racist the space racist yeah so i'm dancing around if i can jump in everywhere but the point is the story and the the law is what is incredible about mass fat one it's on par with like the great movie worlds the great books i really think it's yeah if not superior

it stands the test of time i think this game may have the best sci-fi world i have ever because i'm not i'm not someone i prefer when it comes to fiction i prefer fantasy yeah to be perfectly honest swords and shields and dragons or whatever yeah but when when i was younger and i was playing this game and the rest of them i was never that into them but something was grabbing me and it is all of that that you've just talked about this just this ridiculously thought through world that even with the limitations of mass effect one of which there are many yeah we'll get into that this play this world is so dense with with detail and history that you you're immediately along for the road yeah but it's also

the way it is dripped out because i said like the genophage for example huge part of each game huge part each game has like an entire section dedicated just to the genophage and it kind of all comes to a tea in the third game and that's like

such a rewarding part of the world and it does seep into everything it's in like all the conversations it's the major motivations for certain characters and it feeds into the way like the different races

have ancient beefs with each other because like the Solararians are like bug creature that are they bugs are kind of like lizard The Salarians Yeah yeah

They're like short-lived Fast-talking Really clever Yeah really intelligent Yeah stuff that on a surface level Looks like Yeah that's Yeah that's the thing

The obvious like tropey things Like the warrior race You know Like every science fiction has their version of it But the Krogan's is such Interesting like characters. Yeah, and particularly the stepping off

point into that world, we get a Mass Effect 1 being Rex is a really complex character. Yeah, because the Krogan, when you jump in, they're kind of they're in a

bad place. Yeah, awful. They've got no, like, kind of organization as a race. They're split up all over the galaxy. They're just like mercenaries and muscle and on their home planet. just like chaos like there's yeah they're essentially

a race post-genocide and they don't know what to do about it because going by Mass Effect rules they're not a thinking race they're a fighting race yeah yeah but what is so fascinating about that is when you actually delve into the Ragnai wars

and everything it's like they needed the Krogan yeah they used the Krogan and then when the Krogan became too fearful they genetically modified them so they couldn't kids anymore yeah and it's like yeah the way that comes out through the game it's it's genius the way they implement all these like it's like echoes of society obviously humans the way it's breaking up all the way like humans like beef and have conflict and the the politics of it but when you apply it to the sci-fi world and you have your crogans your salarians it just comes

across like so creative and it doesn't like hammer down like obvious themes or anything it's Yeah, and it doesn't outright say to you what the right thing to do is. Well, yeah, another thing I love about the game is the title. Mass effect. It's double meaning with the, it's like the gimmick of the three games, is that your choices have a mass effect on the world. But also within the law, the mass effect fields are absolutely core to the way everything. also had a massive effect on everything

because it's how they progress to yeah light speed travel yeah it's just so thoughtful and self contained in the way it's like yeah in 21 something like humans find something on Mars

so that that opening like Blade Runner crawl where it's like just sets the scene with that music with that atmosphere yeah quick aside did Destiny rip off mass effect Well, that was drama behind the scenes, if you remember.

Do you remember that Jason Trier article where he's like describing the whole problem behind the scenes at Bungi? This is like a total side. But in that, in that report, apparently that's part of why destiny was like such a mess. It's because half of them wanted to make mass effect. Half of them wanted to do this like online multiplayer thing. Because there's definitely enough content in destiny, like in terms of like mass. maps and worlds and shit where they could more more than mass effect they could yeah because mass effect actually does a really good job of like establishing a core and then rejigging the shit

they've established in a way to keep it fresh um while also having like a great story and everything you want but yeah i mean as far as the story goes i mean you can fucking go forever um yeah i i think Do you want to go more into, like, the actual levels or standouts or... Just story-wise, it is practically flawless. Yeah, because each level explores something that's crucial to... Yeah, the world as a whole. Yeah. And the plot.

Mm-hmm. You never waste time. Yeah, so you've got, like, the Rackney place, the Racknai level, where Liyara's mom shows up and... Yeah, Noviria. then there's Ferris with the you know I heard a crazy detail

about you know that level where you go to rescue Leara yeah it's like supposed to be on the first levels of the game you can not do that level and wait till like the end of the game and do it

and they like change her dialogue so when she's like brought into the ship and because you've done everything like you're explaining everything that's happened and then her dialogue's really funny because she's like what what are you talking about i've been like trapped in this thing this whole time that is something the the amount of thought they've put into dialogue this will this plays more into mass effect two i've noticed way more of that stuff in mass fat two but mass effect one um just the order in which you do things

the amount of different lines they recorded based on what your character knows and what you've done as the player. It's mind-boggling. It has the best use of the dialogue tree and actually the different options you can get through it. Yeah. It's the most open which is its biggest strength and weakness. Yeah, should we focus on the dialogue for a bit? Because that is a core part of this game. It's part of the Mass Effect. Yeah, it certainly is. It's where I have my first floor

with the game. A bunch of it's the Paragon Renegade system which I do think is aged not very gracefully Yeah because it It basically bores down the play style To your one of two things Most people are they're going to stick to their kind of paragon

choices Or their renegade ones I don't see why you would Even bother jumping around If you're doing some Paragon Some Renegade your bar is only going to be like half on both and you're not going to have stat checks. Unless you do the glitch.

Then you're going to do any glitches this time. I used to do that. I did the like mining glitch on the original one. Mining. There's like a bomb you set off in that Leara level and there's like an XP. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, I didn't do that either.

Yeah, I did that on the 360, but. Yeah, there's a lot of, my issue with the choices is that a lot of the time they boil down, they boil down to choose option that is good and has no consequences or choose option that is bad and has loads of bad consequences. It's one of the things about Mass Effect where the choices actually don't mean that much.

Yeah. Broadly over the trilogy. There are some major things like the Racknice stuff in one, the Geniface stuff in two. there are examples of it and there's especially in the the wider side quest stuff there's some really cool like payoffs um and the way those come together yeah yeah but yeah i do agree with what you mean yeah it's it's i don't know why if you're playing a role-playing game and you're role-playing as a guy that's trying to save the universe

where you're even given the option to just be evil the idea of being renegade I understand like ruthless I think the way the game should have worked this is me totally like spitballing but I think Paragon

those choices should have led to harder gameplay whereas Renegade would have made the game easier in terms of combat like threaten people out so they don't have to fight or bribe them. So Paragon, you say Renegade, you could preemptively shoot people or something in a room. Whereas Paragon, you wouldn't. So that's what they're doing too.

Yeah, yeah, partially, though. Again, the choice, for example, because I've been doing a renegade go through, but I have been switching to Paragon for certain critical choices. Because I can't. Some are just bad. Yeah, I can't understand why you could even consider the Renegade option, like the Racknite. At my point of playing the game, I knew nothing about the Ragni. I didn't know their history.

And from the information I was given, it didn't make sense to just wipe out this entire clearly intelligent species that I'm talking to. Yeah. Yeah, because the, the Rachnai and that, that other level with the, the, like, plant thing. Yeah, is it the Therian? Yeah, the Therian on Thessian. It's T.H. Yeah. It's on Ferros. Ferros, yeah.

It's, I'm really bad remembering all the planets and stuff like that. There's just so many. Yeah, I've got most of them in my head. But they, they both, like. enforce the the indoctrination control thing yeah to um yeah i don't really have any problems with the story of massfoot one in particular uh what about the characters i mean i think it has the best villain probably of the three yeah but i also think it has the weakest uh squad it's it's yeah the characters aren't weak it's just the way you end up

interact with them. There's less sort of specifically designed cutscenes. Yeah, there's no like loyalty mission type thing. Yeah, yeah. But there's just less flair in general. You go down to a character. You talk to them on the ship. It's just shot, reverse, shot, shot, reverse shot.

And they don't show any emotion or anything. It's just their lines. Then you get to choose your lines. The voice acting carries it in one. Yeah, for sure. And they're like dialogue writing, I guess. Yeah, and all the information you're given. You just don't have that touch like you do in Mass Effect 2 where...

A bit slicker. Yeah, slicker. When you're talking to Garris and he sort of turns away from the camera because he's in grief about his squad that's killed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They definitely upped that as it went along. Yeah, big time. But again, it came out in 2007. It is, it's cruel to compare.

but going by Mass Effect Legendary Edition was released this year but yeah that stuff is weaker I'm not mad about Leara's mum that much um

yeah yeah again it just suffers from the the lack of like cinematic flare they could put into it yeah limited by the attack of the time yeah

because that would be like a huge story beat normally or like a huge point of drama but it's almost like yeah and the fact that it is an option to bring lear on that mission that's the thing it's like when you have to design it to be so broad you are going to miss certain certain things like that but overall i like the story in the way it establishes the world and the like the mechanics of everything like we said and the races and shit yeah without a doubt does it and like it sets the seeds for the uh other games in MassFet 1 there's like the side quests with Cerberus they set that stuff up yeah yeah well that stuff's good I do want to mention um there's actually a really cool

hidden mechanic in Mass Effect 1 really yeah so with with each character you you have your Paragon Renegade stat that you can see but the way you talk to each character influences their Paragon Renegade that you don't see. But it affects the lines that they say to you in critical moments. Wow. So if you agree with Ashley about all the racism stuff, she goes down to more Renegade. And then in her voice lines in the game,

so on your team, you always have like the angel and the devil on your shoulder. one of them will tell you to do one thing one of them will tell you to do the other which one says it depends on their independent Paragon Renegade Oh I didn't know that yeah God I didn't know it tracked it independently Yeah

No I saw it on a channel called Game Makers Toolkit Which I highly recommend Like yeah MassFET 1 Doing shit like that This is what I mean And there was still things in MassFet 1 that I was seeing That I'd never seen before

I couldn't say the same about two or three that is what is unique about one yeah and I sort of feel like there is still more if I went back and played it again I'd see stuff that I didn't see this time there's even weird stuff like there's a side quest in Mass Effect 3 you can only do if you did like a really random sidequist

in MassFit 1 really? Last note on the while we're talking about story or whatever music and just general atmosphere presentation again it's so important for that first one to establish the identity and it just nails it within the first 15 minutes the the identity is so strong within the first 10 seconds I was immediately in because I bought this game on a whim you know I've been down on this game

for ages I was like there's no fucking way I'm ever playing mess with one again this game it's trash yeah I I go on the game hear that menu music that main menu music is enough to motivate anyone to start this game I truly believe that the soundtrack is next level

it shits over the other two soundtracks oh yeah it shits over it might be one of the best sound like video game soundtracks because it's like an old way of thinking the way they do the music in that game's like fucking always playing music yeah yeah

every area almost like a Mario world has like it's music and you will never forget that fucking music yeah if you were just played if you were played the nevary music it takes you to the location the like color palette the yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like the story beat yeah everything it's so it's so well done with everything presentation wise like that yeah major props yeah and that that soundtrack it's like establishing that main theme you said about with the uh And the galaxy map, the Normandy when you're in the ship, music. That synth, the droning synth, it, yeah, it's so cool.

Absolutely obsessed with it in MassFit 1. Yeah, without a doubt. Gameplay. As when things get interesting, because while we've been, like, praising this game all over, for its story and its world-building and everything, gameplay is more complicated because I got to tell you I play this one insanity and there were points where I was pulling my hair out um not even at like the straight gameplay but the just the jank

awkwardness of like old games from that time it's the only mass spec game where you have you can actually look at the the map in like every level um yeah I mean it falls under gameplay I guess the level design is fucking atrocious it is so fucking bad. Yeah. I can only put up with it because I've played the game so many times so I know where to go. Yeah, and I didn't. It took me back exactly to why I was saying to you, I'm never going to play this fucking game again. I think it's shit. They often give you answers to things by you have to like actually read in the journal, like what it's telling it to do. Which I don't

necessarily have a problem with, but even when it's not that, it, The signposting is non-existent. The signposting is really bad. They actually improved it in this version. Really? The signposting... You know, in Mass Effect, it kind of became an established mechanic when you're scanning over an area.

If there's something of note, it's kind of highlighted, so you know that there's something important. Yeah, yeah. I don't really remember MassFet 1 having it with the range it does that it does now. Because I remember, like, there's like a process through going through a level. You want to make sure you're going not the main way. Yeah, you want to comb everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember that being really awkward in MassFit 1 and 2 originally, and they've definitely changed that. Should we talk about the changes then first? Yeah. Because the gameplay is better, a lot better. Without a doubt. There's feedback now, hit markers, just in general.

The camera placement, the HUD is all different. They tweaked a hell of a lot. definitely the one they tweaked the most. That's why it was delayed, wasn't it? Because they wanted to get one. Yeah, I think if they'd have released Mass Effect 1 in a state where it just played the same as

I wouldn't have played them. No, because it was really bad. I don't know if you remember, but like the accuracy on weapons, it would bloom immediately. There was no visible recoil. The screen wouldn't move.

And then it would take forever to become accurate again they've totally redone the whole system it does feel it feels surprisingly good when it's working properly yeah yeah you can't take out that inherent jank from yeah game

it's it's way more like physics based than two and three yeah because you're in the meiko a lot this fucking car thing so you're jumping in and out of that like traveling around and

I think the make-home was like the worst probably the thing I dread most in MassFit 1 yeah those parts just aren't fun yeah and every single side quest in the game comes down to you being just placed in a procedurally generated square of a map yeah and then there's the green planet and the red planet

yeah well there's there's like 15 green planets 15 red planets and 15 white planets That shit Fuck is sucks I think it's perfectly legitimate To just do main missions In MassFit 1 Yeah

Fuck around in the Citadel Do Bring Down the Sky And just do the main missions But even Bring Down the Sky Was a DLC for MassFo 1 It's got to be one of the worst DLCs I've ever played

Um Yeah It's not very good Um The only thing as to Mass Effect 1 is the race that you never see being the Batarians which is quite significant if...

Yeah, again, I just like the story stuff I don't like the design of that the way it works. It's terrible because it's just another... And it was even worse in the original. You know, you're like driving around and these like turrets come out of the ground. In the original you could just like

park on a mountain and just like shoot the cannon down and kill them for like... You can do that in the majority of Mako combat. I couldn't on insanity. I had to be... Really? Yeah.

But even with that being said, that there is no thought through combat for the make. Combat sucks. They did adjust it slightly so you can move around and repair now. You couldn't move before. In the original, it, like, locked you in place. That is so stupid. So when you're fighting, like, Threshamores, it was, like, awful.

Yeah. But this all stems from what Mass Effect 1 was originally meant to be. Which is a game totally different To what we go Yeah Well yeah But I mean It's a case where

Their limitations Drove them to make a better game Than if they did get to do this procedurally generated Andromeda game Because I still don't think now Procedural Generation is in a place Where you can make a quality narrative It's the kind of thing where it's

It sounds like really awesome and alluring but in when you actually play no man sky it's actually like in practice yeah we just can't do the numbers it to me a hyper-focused more linear experience with like ultimate planning with a focus on the story like mass fake that to me is much more valuable than the idea of with the admittedly cool idea of exploring like a galaxy going planet to planet but you've got to choose one of those things They tried to do both One of them fell flat on its face So fucking hard

But the other stuff was so good That it It was enough to You know They're lucky they made the universe They did Because this gameplay ain't carrying Shit

What sort of abilities did you use Because it breaks down into three major Sort of gameplay options You got your guns You got your biotics Straight combat magic and tech? Yeah.

Tech and magic are pretty similar. Yeah. It's just the way all of it works. MassFet 1 is pretty jank. You can't do what you can do in the later games where you can map multiple abilities to like the bumpers or multiple keys or whatever. I mean, I played on PC which works differently.

So you can map every ability to the numbers and just immediately spam them all out. Did you play, like, a, what price did you play? I played as an engineer, which meant that only weapon I could, like, upgrade my skills in was pistols. Mm-hmm. But you get all the abilities, though. You get all these abilities where you can, like, deal loads of damage to shields, you can make it so... You're like hack AI and shit.

Yeah, you can, you can make AI attack their friends. You can... It's loads of fun shit. You can, like, use an ability. that makes it so anyone that gets hit by that ability can't use any of their abilities so the thing is what it turned into in the later part of the game so I played on hardcore I think not the hardest but up there um what it turned into was get into a room hold shift and just go through them just usability ability yeah because each each power in mass pit one

recharges independently yeah so you can just use when you're a class like that that you have a million powers so you can just spam a million powers yeah yeah um and what i would do on insanity is kind of rely on the powers that ragdoll people yeah once that's the tactic but the thing is when you get to a certain point in the game where you can put explosive rounds on your weapons which means every single shot you shoot and hits near or hits the target they just fall over. Yeah. And then once they've fallen over, you continue to shoot them, they move.

You don't even need explosive rounds for that. Some of the, like, poison rounds do it even. Really? Yeah. Yeah, if you just read the descriptions, because that's another fuck thing about the game, is the, like, equipment system. It's cool that there is, like, so much loot and whatever. Yeah.

But the way, what is the problem with it? Are you getting too much of it, and then the, the UI is so awkward and, like, comparing everything is such a pain in the ass. You just never want to do it. Yeah. Well, the thing is, it's organized in a way where the best thing is normally at the top. Well, you can choose how you sort it, but... That's how I never changed how it was sorted, and that's just how it was for me.

Yeah, yeah. So, I'd pick up, like, a thousand things, then just go into the menu, put on the best thing, and then be good for the next five hours. Yeah. And then you go until you start getting the warning messages that you're going to be over-encumbered or whatever. Yeah, and then you have to go through the menu. he's putting the trash can thing on every single one. Which wasn't in the original.

Yeah, so it took even longer. This is a lesson to anyone making an RPG. Carry limits. Not fun. Never do it. Yeah, not fun. Weight limits, no. Just don't do it.

Do the Dark Souls thing. Infinitely better. Well, they do that in MassFit 3, don't they? It's kind of like your powers come back based on how heavy you are, how much shit you have equipped. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but also you're not like carrying a bunch of equipment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It goes to your ship and shit. It doesn't make sense that Shepard is carrying like a thousand fucking guns and arms and shit on him. So I even put a cap on it, yeah. Yeah. I even care about it. Yeah, I mean, what do you think of like the enemy variety?

Um, in terms... quite heavily in MassFet 1. Yeah. In terms of how they look, it's quite varied. In terms of how you deal with them, it's always the same. They've got a couple of different gimmicks. They've got like heavy guys that sprint at you.

Awful. Awful. Fucking terrible. They're really annoying on insanity. Yeah, I can believe it. You've got to like freeze them or just get them on the ground. There's the geth that sort of jump around and snipe. They're my personal least favorite.

Yeah. any sniper character bullshit yeah because the difficulty i was on they killed me in one hit really they have that annoying move where they like hit you with this thing and then everything's like overheated for like five minutes yeah yeah that as well um like that there's a huge difficulty spike early early on when you uh when you go to leara mm you have to fight one of the four-legged gaffe yeah it's it's impossible it's yeah that is that part you just have to do it over and over and over i died so many times you get the lucky one.

Well, the way I did it was I just got a sniper and just stood really far back because the AI is a bit fucking MassFit once. Actually, the AI I think is a little bit broken in all of them. Is this a legendary edition thing? I think it might be a legendary edition thing, a bug where

some of the AI just straight up aren't activating. They're just standing there. Not moving. Or whatever. Some buggy shit like that, the achievements are fucked. I did a mass pet two on insanity didn't get the achievement for it um yeah weirdly after i finished mass effect one um yeah when i finished the last level i got an achievement for finishing five levels with

aquarium on my team i hadn't done a single level with aquarium on my team oh really yeah i never had the achievements are just fucked they're fucked yeah they're totally round because there's like ones for using powers a certain amount of times are definitely 100% Did used it more than 30 times, but they're like two of them are still haven't unlocked. Um, shit like that's annoying, but largely it was pretty good. All the glitches, all the main glitches I had a MassFit one with the exact same ones I had in that original version on the Eden Prime where, like, the music just fucking breaks for some reason. Like in the last part where you're diffusing bombs, there's just no sound. Mm-hmm.

Um, I always used to get that glitch on the original. I think that level is just like fucked. They're like, source code. Must be just, like, so, yeah, because MassFit 1 is a bit fucky, because they couldn't even include Pinnacle Station, which was an awful MassFet 1 DLC. Was that the... It was like this Horde mode thing. The VR Horde mode thing. Yeah.

So I know some people are sad it's not in there, but I'm actually happy that that's not in there. Yeah. Yeah, because I was wondering why it was never on my map. And I was like, I mean, I don't give a shit. MassFat 1 has the worst DLC. Two and three actually have DLC that's like must play, improves the whole, like, universe. shit whereas one's whatever um yeah might make your experience worse other little like quality of life things that pissed me off a mass fit one um just going around the galaxy map's really

annoying because they don't have like labels that like stay there to yeah for cyclists even after you've done um any of the main quests they they stay tagged there as if like you're going to want to go back because all that that's so you can like go back to do side quest and things. Are there even many in the main... There's a fair amount of like conversations you can have and like extra stuff to do in all of the main locations.

Yeah, I just found most of it I was motivated enough to do it while doing the main missions. I think that's what most people would do. It's designed in such a way for you to do that, I think. But this being said, there aren't very many main missions in MassFit 1. These are like custom designed actual levels. You've got Eden Prime.

you've got the Leara map which is there's the yeah there's noveria pharos vermiya and then the last level but each one of these

some of them are multiple hours long yeah yeah I'm not saying it's a lack of content or anything but when each actual gameplay wise each mission is so poorly made like

it is kind of embarrassing you know it's like aged yeah it it did this is again why I didn't want to go back to the game

so the side stuff shit if you got to if you're playing Mass Effect 1 for the first time and you get to the Leara planet and you can't get past that Gath four-legged thing

and then you stop you know what? Fair enough If you get to Noviria and then you get lost in the science labs and then you decide to never play again, fair enough. If you're doing Ferris and you get lost on the way back to kill the fucking tree and then you never play again. It also saves a terrible emassette one as well. Yeah, that as well, yeah, the game, it's crazy. The game, it almost feels like it's doing everything it can to just piss you off and make you not want to play the game. But at the same time, it's saying, look,

at this fucking universe we made. Look how awesome all this shit is. No, I know that exact thing you're describing. I played it enough times for that that rage to come out. And I did have some really annoying moments where I was like, oh my God, I do not miss this part of it. It's the only one of the three where I've been feeling that where the design

like so so fucking dated in ways. Yeah. Well, it just it really feels like that contrast of uh oh shit we can't do this procedurally generated thing we need to make these missions yeah we'll make six missions yeah i don't think anyone's out here making the argument that mass one is the best side content or anything no but also the thing that saves it is that citadel last level if you have done enough side shit to become like really powerful and you're just annihilating and you're going through the citadel like you get god it's a great

last level and then that really good that uh check the conversation when you have with sarin where you can get him to kill himself so fucking dark and such a cool like payoff for building up your like

paragoner stuff and it's like a moment of weakness for him yeah but also it doesn't really it's more comedic than anything if you're doing it Ranegade you basically just say to him why don't you just kill yourself

yeah you're like um kill yourself or you're a pussy basically and it works and he's like fuck maybe you're right yeah and then he shoots himself in the head it's a really weird the paragon one makes more sense yeah I can believe that

but yeah it just seems quite silly I will not deny there's a lot silliness in there there's cornyness for sure there's like inherent corniness to all the different like aliens and shit and they've all got like everyone's sort of like

got the same body in Mass Effect yeah totally there's like there's like especially with humans there's like one type of guy and one type of girl it's just less noticeable when like every Krogan looks the same because they're fucking aliens

yeah there's man body and woman body in terms of humans that's you know why Krogan's have like the weird hunchback no They're like camels. They've got like a hump and it stores nutrients so they don't have to like eat and drink so they can just fight. That's pretty sick.

Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense for like the warrior race or whatever. Anything else major in MassFit 1? If we head over to JAR Twitter and see what the Jarlings think. Although I've been shitting on the gameplay and stuff, it does get really fun once you get over the hump. Yeah. Once you become overpowered. Yeah, this is with the context of we're very familiar with it too.

I am much less familiar with MassFo than you are. You have played the whole game before, though. Yeah, yeah. You know what's up in terms of that kind of stuff. So the new surprises for someone who's just jumping in for the first time might, I don't know, they might not be annoyed by some of the things we are. Yeah, or be more annoyed by stuff that we might have even looked at. Well, yeah, I really don't know what would be like jumping into this without caring about MassFect at all.

Yeah, I think it's genuinely hard to not care from what the game gives you. Well, yeah, let's see what the job is think. I just tweeted out, thoughts on MassFET 1? At Unoga, MK2 said it's kind of boring for most parts. Inferior and 90% of the way it's to MassFet 2. I like some of the immersive gameplay mechanics, but that's... about it just pales when compared to ME2. Somewhat true.

Yeah, I actually can't wait to talk about MassFet 2, because I finished it like a few days ago. Yeah, it might be a little while awake. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to hear a little bit through. Well, yeah, so you just finished MassFet 1. Yeah, I will say, after going from the peak of Mass Effect 1

into the start of Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect remastered gameplay From what I've played Feels better Than original Mass Effect 2 gameplay So I assume they didn't tweak it at all You do get slightly more feedback, I think In 2

Yeah, it's just I think the gameplay is just better in 2 The thing with 2 is To me it suffers more from the Giz of War era Of games You're very sort of sluggish Oh yeah, yeah I mean, we can get into that when we eventually do Mass Effect 2.

Yeah. Because I've got some similar hair, pull-out moments from 2. Yeah, I think that's pretty much true, to be honest. I haven't played enough of Mass Effect 2 again to say. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say it's boring, though. I wouldn't say Mass Effect 1 is... Unless you're just doing side stuff for ages.

Yeah, I could see it. The story is enough for you to never be bored. Yeah. Heck, Flexington says it was. excellent major shout out to the Elkhore ambassador for being such a cool guy that's another thing I like is um there's so many races in the game

and there's kind of a hierarchy within the game of like in the citadel there are only a select few races who are on the like council all these other races that are like doing their own shit and like they're like integrated into the citadel but they're not involved in the government

in the same way yeah so you have like the Hannaar the El Cor volus Shout out to the playlist. Yeah. No, their story is actually really cool. They're like a merchant race. Mm-hmm.

Because they're so physically incapable. Yeah. They're just really good at, like, trading shit. Yeah. All of the races are pretty great to me. There's only one I'm not mad on. Those, like, screaming ones from... The vorture.

The vorture. They've got a stupid name. They've got stupid look. They're not in M-A-Fit ones, so... Yeah, yeah. Not even a stroke against the game. um power couch says masterclass world building and sci-fi atmosphere in gaming geeky talky lovable focuses more on storytelling than action and one-liners unfortunately dragged down by clunky gameplay

reused assets and maker the one in the series with the most passion and soul like it's like the most pure unfiltered pure just creativity yeah it's like it feels like there's nothing holding it back i don't know if that last part is fair to say against Spireware. The Passion and Soul bit. Yeah. I think that's what they mean, though.

It's like it's that creative spark where they're like just go crazy, come up with this shit. And they actually did it and they managed to get it in the game in a way that sure, some of it's fucky, but damn, they actually did it. Absolutely worth. Good shout out to the

reused assets as well. This game is bogged down with reused assets. Big time. This is some destiny shit. we're talking about yeah it's genuinely that bad but do you think even in like the main missions it's that bad what do you think is when you're including the extra shit it feels like within the main missions they reuse assets from themselves yeah you know they're connecting corridors and shit the the layouts it feels that this reference will go over everyone's heard apart from yours

make it. It's like they've built these assets for, they've built the Ferris assets. Let's connect these corridors. Yeah. I think that's the worst designed level to me is actually that Racknai one with the... Niveria. Yeah.

You've got to like, there's this awful part where you've got to like go into this like AI thing and deactivate something. Yeah, there's one of those puzzles where there's three slots and you can't I'm not going to try to fucking explain the it's yeah there's a couple just navigating around that area it's just so to me yeah yeah that was my

least favorite part of the game yellow of the north says very good but only good and worth playing if you plan on playing the whole trilogy i don't think it's much on its own personally but i haven't played the remastered version or any of the dc i think now that's true yeah although i said the game like in its story it stands alone But now, yeah, if you were only going to play Mass Effect 2, because you've heard all the good stuff about Mass Effect 2, you don't need to play MassFet 1. Yeah, that's how we both played. Yeah, we started with 2, but, I don't know. Going back to 1 is like where a lot of my fondest Mass Effect memories are.

Really? Yeah. Middle Amber. says, I think the remaster or whatever, will show that this game was far ahead of its time when it came to storytelling, a flawed masterpiece from my memory. I think that's a good shout, actually, with the... Because it's easy to get bogged down in the jankiness of it and forget actually how good what the, like, story, the overarching plot of that game is.

We'll totally be taking it for granted at this point. What they did with that game. This is something I'm so happy about, actually, is that Mass Effect has been, like, left on such a fucking downer for so long since 2012. And it only went lower with Andromeda. Yeah, and Andromeda put the nail in the coffin for me. Again, it was another reason why I was so negative on MassFet 1. Knowing that it led to Mass Effect 3, which then led to Andromeda, how am I supposed to get invested in this universe?

But that's what's so good about the legendary edition is all three of them packaged in, you have the perspective now. so even though you know what's coming with like MassPet 3 or whatever there's still you're seeing the positives a bit more instead of having to hyper focus on the negative shit um everything says best of the three wasn't just a gears of war clone has a real antagonist unlike emmy 2 sarin is called his fuck what the fuck was a human reaper as opposed to a regular one anyways so that's spoilers for my understanding of the human reaper is that

Because they're so, like, scared of shepherd. Every cycle, the reapers are harvesting DNA to build a reaper. Right. So they're, like, making one out of every harvest, like the perfect amalgamation of all of that genetic data. My understanding is that they're, like, so fearful and respectful of, like, shepherd or whatever and what you're doing is that they're making one in the form of him. Right.

um yeah i haven't played mass fic too recently so i didn't know um the human reaper is weird though we'll get into that yeah yeah it's a reaper baby but yeah i i can't say that mass fat one is the best of the three i just can't i can only say that for the story really yeah yeah i'll totally accept that the story is the best but no it it's not the best game no no no no um Because they're these sects of form now of people that have like, man, I wish two and three were like the same, the exact same as one sort of thing. I understand what they did. Yeah.

But I also can empathize with those that reminisce on, like, another direction it possibly could have gone. Let's end on this one then from Leon the Akpan. An exemplar for video game storytelling, character writing, and world building as well. as well as being a sci-fi, sorry, as well as being a sci-fi world staple that for me topples Star Wars, despite its technical limitations of the time, it manages to still be one of the best games I've ever played. Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel on it. I'm definitely skewed because of my nostalgia for it and everything, but I feel like I've been pretty fair with it. I know what's up with the game, I know what's good and bad about it, I think. Um, and you, you can totally

like a game to an excessive degree without having to say like it's the best thing ever made you can see for sure for sure and yeah Akpan's no I think you actually see the flaws more if you're into it if you're the ones most into it

you see shit more than those who don't who don't give a fuck yeah and it I agree with the the Star Wars thing to an extent because the universe is more thought well yeah for me full and full three

Yeah, because for me, growing up as like a Star Wars kid and then kind of disconnecting with Star Wars because it was so shit for ages. That was right as Star Wars became shit was when like Mass Effect like came in to my life and was like, here you go. Have like a science fiction universe to get obsessed with or whatever you mean. Yeah, I just wish Mass Effect had lightsabers because like there's no cooler weapon than a lightsaber in sci-fi. There isn't, sorry. Guns are lame. Yeah, it's cool. Mass Effect doesn't have its like weapon.

They tried with the like Omni blade thing That's like the Yikio It's not it's not the It's not cool It's like it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's not like the It's not like that that make mass effect cool Yeah no the the iconic mass effect thing is shepherds little

Hair dent thing Yeah That's his weapon And an underrated thing in the mass effect trilogy as space battles. There are loads of really good space battles. The one at the end of one is really cool where they take out the Reaper

and the way it's like cutting between you fighting sarin and then it goes off to what the Normandy's doing. Although that is fucking... That boss fight sucks. Sorry, but it does. And I don't like the way they use that cut to regenerate the boss's health. That is lame.

Show him doing something. something that gives him his shields back. Don't just cut away to the Reaper being hurt and then give him more health. Like what? Yeah. Yeah, that is weird. Netpick.

The game's just sort of like that though, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Again, what I've said basically is that the game was way ahead of its time. Yeah, on that note, and one of the main reasons I actually think this is the way to play it. if you remember playing it on the original versions there's that like slight load thing

you could sometimes see when the game is figuring out oh you chose this option okay now got to load this shit yeah yeah that's not a thing anymore maybe every now and again you kind of notice it but the way it's loading it's fucking seamless so it's not interrupting the flow and that flow is like huge to the way the game works and i was thinking about back in the day you just kind of get used to it

when a game's like kind of janky and fucky and you're just like taking like a second to the road I actually can't believe we put up with that shit because we like I didn't have a smartphone at the time I wasn't doing anything during the you get into an elevator and back in the original that shit moved slow like on the normandy

it move really slow and they have these really long conversations that the characters have to fill that time because they knew the loading screens were so long and now you actually have the option to skip the elevators yeah it's just being done yeah the way they do it is funny too

because it's like speeding up the actual asset in the game instead of like yeah yeah fast forwarding it's really weird um I'm so glad they implement stuff like that um the only other thing I can think

of thrown out for this is the art direction changes based on the new resolution and the the upping of the um

you know the lighting the textures yeah yeah because I know before you you were coming down on the idea that there was something lost in that mood the atmosphere that was in the original which was had that film grain slider up to the fucking max

the lowest resolution but there was a sort of gloominess not like it was all depressing and I know what you mean it was just this kind of like you were in a military ship specifically the Normandy

when you're on board the Normandy originally it felt like this is a ship that is designed for fighting like it's for it's a military ship whereas now it's sort of I don't know the glossiness takes away from it

I don't think it should be a place you really yeah it's sort of more in line with two and three now with the way that Normandy kind of Yeah, but I loved the contrast as well, originally, from Mass Effect 1's Normandy being this, like, sort of like, you wouldn't really want to be on board this thing. It's just a military vessel. And then Mass Effect 2, it's like, this is a private organization's, like, luxury. You get a double bed in this. They took the, like, shitter design and just nailed it, yeah.

Yeah, which really works for the, what you're doing in Mass Effect 1 versus Mass Effect 2. So, I mean, it's a really slight thing that... I was kind of all primed and ready for that to be something that really annoyed me like it does in the Halo anniversary, the first one. Yeah, yeah. Where it's just, like, so fucking wrong. But I don't know, it didn't really bother me that much because some of the big examples of changes are like Eden Prime is one of the main ones.

But like the colour of the sky is completely different because the light is different. um yeah and i do get the case for why and i would not blame any of being bothered by that but um the thing is the the more i played it the more i forgot and the game just turned into exactly what i remembered it being yeah and they tinker with it so much like changing shepard's model to be the two and three one yeah yeah he definitely that makes a huge difference um apart from when he crosses his arms i'm sure sure you noticed it as well

the body you like clipping that's the thing in all of them he looks totally fucked though when he crosses his arms it's just a funny there's definitely loads of like fucking bug eye like because it's weird now

because the game like the graphics look genuinely incredible for MassFit 1 at points but it's rooted within this like ancient animation yeah Yeah, and the animation is like 50% of it to me

And so I couldn't look past that stuff Yeah Yeah, I found out today that the reason the animations are so bad Andromeda It's because they were forced to use Oh shit, frostbite Frostbite, yeah Which had no baked in animation

Like tools So they had to do it all from scratch Yeah, yeah It's just like, what the fucking fucking fucking doing They, like, nailed the, you know, the little animations they do and shit when they talk. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I guess they didn't want to pay epic.

Yeah, that was a stupid EA thing for the time. They've given up on that, but... Yeah, I just fucked, like, like, ten years of their games, whatever. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think we're pretty much done here, bro. Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, we could ramble on for...

Yeah. Another six hours, I reckon, but I don't know. What do you think? Do you think we're right? Do you think we're wrong? If you think we're wrong, then leave. Don't come back. Are my shorts too short, or are they not short enough?

Are my nipples too pointy? I just don't know. Yeah. Let us know your thoughts in the comments or whatever. We'll probably put this up as I could know a podcast as well. That makes sense. Yeah, for sure. it's like a whole discussion thing yeah um and i think it was the correct decision to do each game

separately because can you imagine yeah yeah i hope you enjoyed the our ramblings on this but uh i don't know great series that i think everyone should play so yeah so play mass fact one get back to us start mass effect two then we'll hopefully well i'll hopefully finish mass effect two yeah yeah I should go Shepard Rex Shepard

Rex Shepard, Shippard Shippard Rex Rex