Mass Effect Trilogy remastered

J. Marston

Zero-Cool wrote: »

I prefer the look of the original there. It's foreboding.

The update looks nice but it is not as ominous.

fixXxer

I spent so long playing ME1, was genuinely heartbroken with what happened to The Normandy as the start of ME2

johnny_ultimate

Jaysus, some of those screenshots completely change the mood and tone of scenes (and not for the better) - eerie, ominous squalor becomes magic hour beauty.

_CreeD_

Methinks this might require some time off work at launch. Flowers for the wife beforehand to allow for missed meals and potential bucket emptying and we're good to go.

Potential-Monke

Can't say they haven't put in effort on the visual front anyway. Looks amazing. I get what people are saying about the change of tone, but I think it's too early to call that just from screenshots. Won't matter, this is a day 1 purchase for me, and I will be taking time off to play it. Don't think I ever played any of the DLC for any of them, so new experiences ahead of me. Shame there's no boost for next gen consoles, but it still looks amazing so not too bothered.

Must try and keep the hype in check now.

Zero-Cool

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Can't say they haven't put in effort on the visual front anyway. Looks amazing. I get what people are saying about the change of tone, but I think it's too early to call that just from screenshots. Won't matter, this is a day 1 purchase for me, and I will be taking time off to play it. Don't think I ever played any of the DLC for any of them, so new experiences ahead of me. Shame there's no boost for next gen consoles, but it still looks amazing so not too bothered.

Must try and keep the hype in check now.

The only dlc i haven't played is from 3 and i cannot wait to play Citadel which is supposed to be the best of the lot but you are in for an absolute treat with some of the other dlc.

Bring Down the Sky, Lair of the Shadow Broker, Overlord, Normandy crash site, Arrival, from Ashes, some of the best missions in the series.

DLC:

Bring Down the Sky
Genesis
Zaeed – The Price of Revenge
Kasumi – Stolen Memory
Lair of the Shadow Broker
Firewalker Pack
Overlord
Normandy Crash Site
Arrival
Genesis 2
From Ashes
Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut
Leviathan
Omega
Citadel
Weapons, Armors, Packs:

Equalizer Pack
Aegis Pack
Firepower Pack
Cerberus Weapon and Armor
Arc Projector
ME2 Alternate Appearance Pack 1
ME2 Alternate Appearance Pack 2
Firefight Pack
Groundside Resistance Pack
Promos:

Recon Operations Pack
Collectors’ Weapon and Armor
Terminus Weapon and Armor
M-29 Incisor
Blood Dragon Armor
Inferno Armor
Recon Hood
Sentry Interface
Umbra Visor
N7 Warfare Gear
AT-12 Raider
Chakram Launcher
M-55 Argus
M-90 Indra
Reckoner Knight Armor

Potential-Monke

I've heard good things about a lot of the dlc alright. And I already loved the Citadel so looking forward to eventually playing that too. Christ there's a lot. It's gonna take some serious time to get through it all.

super_furry

Would love even a non-remastered version for the Switch. I want to hang out Garrus while I take a dump.

McFly85

For whatever reason these completely passed me by back when they came out. I have no idea why, massive space epic seems right up my street! Will definitely be picking this up when it’s out.

McFly85

McFly85 wrote: »

For whatever reason these completely passed me by back when they came out. I have no idea why, massive space epic seems right up my street! Will definitely be picking this up when it’s out.

I only got into it when stuck at home recovering from a broken neck.
It took that for me to bother playing ME2, as I didn't have an XBox to play ME1.

Both ME2 and InFamous got me through some hard times

gizmo

super_furry wrote: »

Would love even a non-remastered version for the Switch. I want to hang out Garrus while I take a dump.

Unfortunately the Switch port would likely fall into the same category as the PS5/XBX with regards the work required to get UE3 working on the platform.

Penn

McFly85 wrote: »

For whatever reason these completely passed me by back when they came out. I have no idea why, massive space epic seems right up my street! Will definitely be picking this up when it’s out.

Never played them either. First I really heard of them was Mass Effect 2, but because I'd heard they were quite story-driven and I hadn't played the first one, I just left it. Will definitely give these a try, though I do wonder if the length of the three games plus dlcs might warrant a break in-between each one to prevent fatigue.

Retr0gamer

I've absolutely no interest in picking these up. Played the originals, enjoyed them and I am grateful for trying them as it's the series that finally got me to understand and enjoy western RPGs. But I just don't think they are the classics that others do, I'm in no rush to play them again. I'm interested in seeing what the critical reception is of the games from the proper journalists to see if the games still live up. Mass Effect 2 will probably still hold up but ME1.... even at the time it was rough and needed serious work.

As for the DLC I missed out on the final ME3 DLC which I heard was excellent but by the time it came out it was ages after I finished ME3 and wasn't going back to play that game. I actually didn't think the DLC in the ME games was all that great. They just felt like corridors where you shot things and then get a lore dump at the end. The apparently amazing Shadow Broker left me cold as it was a corridor you shot through and got text codex at the end which were boring because ME lore isn't interesting at all.

Anyone that hasn't played these games I'd say it's worth picking up. It was still worthwhile going through them even if it was ultimately kind of generic.

I'd totally recommend any new player to completely ignore the paragon/renegade arbitrary morality system and just role play commander shepard how you want to. Makes the game so much more fun.

And also always pick a female Shepard.

Gbear

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd totally recommend any new player to completely ignore the paragon/renegade arbitrary morality system and just role play commander shepard how you want to. Makes the game so much more fun.

And also always pick a female Shepard.

The only issue with this, is that you basically lose content if you don't minmax to a certain degree, in ME2 in particular.

Zero-Cool

Gbear wrote: »

The only issue with this, is that you basically lose content if you don't minmax to a certain degree, in ME2 in particular.

Yupp, It's bad design that to get the most of situations and in some very very important scenes, you need either full paragon or full renegade to get the best out of the situation, especially in ME 2 like you said. Always recommend to either pick either Paragon or Renegade for your playthrough to get the most out of it. Definitely not a great design as sometime you could be playing Paragon but some people just need a good slap.

Hopefully the next mass effect gets rid of this system so you can play a more custom character to your liking without getting punished for it.

Retr0gamer

Gbear wrote: »

The only issue with this, is that you basically lose content if you don't minmax to a certain degree, in ME2 in particular.

True, I ended up losing Wrex in ME1 and no way of changing the outcome as I wasn't paragon enough. It's a really stupid binary system that just doesn't work but being the goody two shoes all the time is soooooo boring. It's what I hated about western RPGs, well Bioware ones as they are very poorly, they give you choice but there's only one real answer. Actually doing roleplaying made Mass effect so much more interesting.

Kiith

I can't imagine not having Wrex for the later games. So many good conversations missed.

Love that it is a possibility though.

Retr0gamer

Kiith wrote: »

I can't imagine not having Wrex for the later games. So many good conversations missed.

Love that it is a possibility though.

They just replace him with his son or something. So kind of a lazy way out of it.

Kind of put me off that final DLC as I heard Wrex was the best thing about it.

Gbear

I can't even really remember the system in Andromeda, so whatever about its implementation, at least the Paragon/Renegade system had some kind of impact.

It's a tricky line to straddle between having your decisions have weight, but having enough axes to measure them that it doesn't seem absurd or facile, and not too many axes that it becomes nonsensical.

I think having a system like the Witcher 3, where story outcomes are generally independent of the rest of the game is better in the long run. If you **** someone over, they're less inclined to help you, but that doesn't automatically make someone 100 miles away know you're a bad egg. It also allows for your options to be less polarised - less "genocide or hugs", and more, "kill a werewolf who's genuinely repentant and was cursed against his will, or spare him and risk him killing innocents again". One of Sapkowski's short stories is called "The Lesser of Two Evils" and I find there's much better fodder for RPGs in that kind of shades of grey storytelling than having to be Jesus or Space Hitler all the time.

Retr0gamer

Bioware just always go for the Space Jesus/Hitler approach and it's just boring. It just means the game offers you loads of choices but really there's only two throughout the game because achievements and rewards are locked behind min maxing them. It worked in KotOR because star wars really is that black and white but every other top tier western RPG just shows up how awful bioware's binary morality systems are. Western RPGs are about choice and having fun with those choices but by gating content behind those choices Bioware effectively shoe horn the player into a Dragon Quest 'But thou must' scenario.

Gbear

Yeah, the quality of the games isn't really mechanical (either the mechanics of interacting with the world, or of storytelling). It's more about the sense of scale, the sense of exploration in a huge galaxy, the inter-personal interactions, the cinematic quality to a lot of the set pieces and that sort of thing.

They've seemingly gotten better with the game mechanics over time, but have arguably gotten worse at putting a story together.

Just make resource hunting easier, please

Zero-Cool

Deleted User wrote: »

Just make resource hunting easier, please

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvbmKWMhjb0

Retr0gamer

I feel the only reason they had resource gathering in Mass Effect was for the Uranus jokes.

Gbear

I actually think the probe minigame wasn't far off being good. It was a good idea. I suspect they just didn't have the resources to properly fill it up with different content.

If you needed to use it to find stuff for missions - hidden bases and what have you, and if they added a few randomised missions in as well, they halved the amount of probes needed to spend on finding resources (you actually only need about 30 or so to max out everything), adding in some other kinds of bonuses - tech, weapons, etc, and it would've been a good, interactive way to get the player to explore the galaxy.

Bioware kinda seemed to throw stuff in the bin rather than refine it from game to game. They pretty much totally removed equipment in game 2, and only brought it back in game 3. They binned the open world exploration from ME and didn't bring it back until Andromeda.

Zero-Cool

I wonder how the war assets in ME 3 will work as the multiplayer game contributed to it. Now there is no multiplayer, I hope it's easier to get top war asset rank.

fixXxer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

True, I ended up losing Wrex in ME1 and no way of changing the outcome as I wasn't paragon enough. It's a really stupid binary system that just doesn't work but being the goody two shoes all the time is soooooo boring. It's what I hated about western RPGs, well Bioware ones as they are very poorly, they give you choice but there's only one real answer. Actually doing roleplaying made Mass effect so much more interesting.

I always found the Dragon Age system more rewarding where different team mates react to what you do based on their personal beliefs. You do what suits you and deal with the consequences of what that means for your squad.

Retr0gamer

Zero-Cool wrote: »

I wonder how the war assets in ME 3 will work as the multiplayer game contributed to it. Now there is no multiplayer, I hope it's easier to get top war asset rank.

I never indulged in the multiplayer at all and never did any grinding for war assets, just did all the side content. I had more than enough by the end of the game. Multiplayer was never really a requirement to get enough war assets.

Word is the Pinnacle Station DLC won't be included due to the code being corrupted. I can't even recall if that was any good or not or if I even played it

Zero-Cool

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I never indulged in the multiplayer at all and never did any grinding for war assets, just did all the side content. I had more than enough by the end of the game. Multiplayer was never really a requirement to get enough war assets.

I know you needed a high score for the 'proper ending' but can't remember how hard that was. I played a bit of multiplayer, was actually really good so not sure of the effect its absence would have. Good to know.

Destroy with Shep still alive under the rubble. Looks like the Next Mass Effect might use that ending as canon.