Mass Effect Legendary Edition

[Harrisown]

8 minutes ago, Majora said:

I only ever played through each game once as I get really precious in games like this about not wanting to pull back the curtain by replaying it with different choices. I think enough time has passed that I'm happy to replay them now though, I've probably forgotten loads by now.

 

3 was fine and actually had some brilliant individual moments but for me they were never able to recover from the suicide mission at the end of 2. The suicide mission was a great idea and my heart was in my mouth the entire time buuuuuut that concept should have been used at the end of 3, not 2. The way most of 2's cast got sidelined into blink and you'll miss it, completely inessential walk-on cameos in 3 because Bioware couldn't guarantee they'd appear in your version of the story was heartbreaking. Talk about painting yourself into a corner. 

They are my favourite games of all time and I finished the first one 5 times but I only did the 3rd game once. I didn’t even play the redux ending out of principle because of the way the community hounded them into it but it’s been so long it’s time to do it all again.

 

’I wonder if the game is still using unreal engine 3?

[Thor]

21 minutes ago, Harrisown said:

’I wonder if the game is still using unreal engine 3?

It is. They looked at moving over to UE4, but they found there was loads of stuff that just would not work if they did.

[Yiggy]

I’ve never played any of them so thinking of giving this a go with the Mrs who loves a bit of sci-fi. 
 

I heard the first one has shit combat. Is this true?

 

Are there tricky gameplay elements to any of them that would cause delay in getting through the story? (I guess I’m asking if they’re hard!)

[Thor]

ME1's combat is just about serviceable, but it would appear they have attempted to address that (a little) for this remaster. As for difficulty. No, if anything you'll find yourself massively overpowered (choose Adept or Vanguard as your character class) with awesome biotic abilities.

[Orococco]

The improvements to the first game's shooting feel (and hopefully sound), better squad AI and the additon of squad commands, and better UI are all huge improvements, much more significant than the visual overhaul imo. Universal character creator across the trilogy is ace too, should make it feel much more seamless. Overall a surprisingly decent effort, on paper at least.

[Alex W.]

Didn’t ME1 already have squad commands?

The thread about the best ME game made me realise what really bothers me about the ME1 changes. They’re all about making the game more like its sequels. I’d hate for ME1 to be remembered as a broken version of ME2, rather than the sprawling experiment from which that very different game grew.

 

[Talvalin]

The worst parts of ME1 were the inventory management and the identikit bases when exploring planets. The combat was fine and though I will accept that the combat did improve with subsequent games, the addition of heat clips as a stand-in for ammunition was a weird step backwards from the first game's principle of guns that had infinite ammunition but would overheat with repeated firing.

 

Did I mention the awful inventory management? Seriously, it was really fucking bad.

[Sumire]

I wish they had just remade ME1 to a really high quality like Resident Evil 2 instead of this approach. 

[Orococco]

41 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

Didn’t ME1 already have squad commands?

 

 

You could direct your squad to position, but am I right in thinking that firing off squadmates' powers on the d-pad (or was it shoulder buttons??) only arrived with ME2? I may be wrong.

 

I recall the guns and powers having very little percussive impact in the first game, with rather apologetic pew-pew sound effects. Giving combat a bit more bite, even if it's just perceived, would go a long way to making it feel a better shooter. There's plenty of shooting in the game, after all. I can't see those sort of changes negatively impacting on the RPG good stuff.

[mdn2]

This is up for preorder on the Xbox store - £53.99 if you have Gamepass or EA Access. 

[Dudley]

9 hours ago, Thor said:

It is. They looked at moving over to UE4, but they found there was loads of stuff that just would not work if they did.

 

And here's the thing for people asking for remakes to the extent of characters appearing in new games.

 

This would be absolute hell with the scripting.

 

And quite apart from that you'd need to get the original voice actor in and then you'd probably need to revoice all their old lines since voices change over time.

 

etc etc.

 

That was never what was implied or promised and it'd be basically a "start from scratch" job.

[Cosmic_Guru]

9 hours ago, Yiggy said:

I’ve never played any of them so thinking of giving this a go with the Mrs who loves a bit of sci-fi. 
 

I heard the first one has shit combat. Is this true?

 

Are there tricky gameplay elements to any of them that would cause delay in getting through the story? (I guess I’m asking if they’re hard!)

Combat isn't shit in 1 but don't expect to be proficient in weapons in which you don't have points invested.  There are several difficulty levels to choose from.  On normal you will be seriously OP by the end.  A couple of pinch points on each game which are a fair challenge on the hardest difficulty level.

[Alex W.]

I think the fact that ME1 rolled for hit probability and damage on top of having you manually aim really confused people about how the combat worked.

[K]

ME1 was much more of an RPG than ME2 was. I seem to recall they ditched a lot of the underlying dice-rolling and stat-checking for the second game, and the shooting worked a lot better for it - ME1 in particular had that bad RPG power curve where it was incredibly hard at the start and trivially easy at the end.

[Alex W.]

I think I had a pistol that destroyed tanks.

[Ran]

I loved it. Stacking those mods that increase damage output and balancing them out with the best cooling mods you have to create an assault rifle that you can only fire in "short, controlled bursts".

Annihilating all comers henceforth! I was really gutted they ditched that aspect of the weapon system. I played through the entire trilogy a year or so ago and I enjoyed 2 way more with my silly misgivings about changes resolved (and by not driving myself insane by crazily probing every tiny iota of every planet looking for secret secrets and convincing myself I would need every last crumb of resource!)

I hadn't played 3 before and thought it was fantastic, maybe I wasn't as invested in the franchise as most because though the ending didn't blow me away I was happy enough with the experience as a trilogy. 

[Sprite Machine]

10 hours ago, Thor said:

It is. They looked at moving over to UE4, but they found there was loads of stuff that just would not work if they did.

I wonder why the system requirements are so high, then. 

 

I'd love to play through these again. I don't think I ever played the DLC for the first game (unless it was included on PC, I can't remember), and I didn't get the final DLC for the third game, so some of it will be new at least. I remember the faff of getting the DLC for ME2 (buying Bioware points) and all the hubbub with the pre-order codes and cut content and stuff for the third game. I've also never played any these with a controller, as even ME3 didn't support controllers out of the box, which even at the time seemed ridiculous.

 

Yeah, I could play them modded now and they'd probably run fine, but maybe when I've got a new PC and/or a proper new TV, I'll treat myself to this. Gotta do 'em justice.

[Alex W.]

Spectre justice.

[Dudley]

24 minutes ago, Sprite Machine said:

I wonder why the system requirements are so high, then. 

 

 

Entirely without evidence but I wonder if making UE3 do super pretty it wasn't entirely designed for is less efficient ultimately than using the one that's supposed to do it.

[Thor]

12 minutes ago, Dudley said:

 

Entirely without evidence but I wonder if making UE3 do super pretty it wasn't entirely designed for is less efficient ultimately than using the one that's supposed to do it.

I know it's a completely different game, so perhaps not a fair compsrison, but Arkham Knight was UE3, and that still remains one of the best looking games of the last generation.

 

[Garwoofoo]

17 minutes ago, Thor said:

I know it's a completely different game, so perhaps not a fair compsrison, but Arkham Knight was UE3, and that still remains one of the best looking games of the last generation.

 

 

That game also, notoriously, had huge technical issues on PC at launch, and even now, requires a surprisingly beefy machine and lots of memory for a smooth experience. I think the comparison holds up.

[Thor]

Just now, Garwoofoo said:

That game also, notoriously, had huge technical issues on PC at launch, and even now, requires a surprisingly beefy machine and lots of memory for a smooth experience. I think the comparison holds up.

It's one of the reasons I'm leaning toward PS5 for this remaster rather than PC. HDR being the other one. If they manage to get HDR right at all, it'll be on console, not PC.

[Spacehost]

2 hours ago, Alex W. said:

Spectre justice.

You're going to kick your PS4 out a window?

[Vemsie]

Not sure I'll get this. I enjoyed them at the time and we definitely need more space operas in gaming, but I'm not sure I'd enjoy them as much today. And with Returnal, Resident Evil Village and Deathloop launching around that time as well, there's only so much time I have. Perhaps later.

[PaB]

It’s been long enough since I played ME that I am in like Flynn for this .

 

But , I am getting cold sweats over searching the grid on endless planets in ME1 

[Thor]

10 minutes ago, PeteBrant said:

It’s been long enough since I played ME that I am in like Flynn for this .

 

But , I am getting cold sweats over searching the grid on endless planets in ME1 

Grid?  The map shows you the points of interest, as I recall the only things to find off the beaten path are minerals and metals. Of course, you'll need all those Asari Matriarch Writings in ME1 if you want Conrad Verner's Dark Energy dissertation in ME3.  

 

Speaking of Conrad, I wonder if they finally fixed that bug with him in ME2. 

[Benny]

Too bloody expensive.

[PaB]

44 minutes ago, Thor said:

Grid?  The map shows you the points of interest, as I recall the only things to find off the beaten path are minerals and metals. Of course, you'll need all those Asari Matriarch Writings in ME1 if you want Conrad Verner's Dark Energy dissertation in ME3.  

 

Speaking of Conrad, I wonder if they finally fixed that bug with him in ME2. 

I just remember searching every inch of  every single planet for stuff . 

[Thor]

9 minutes ago, PeteBrant said:

I just remember searching every inch of  every single planet for stuff . 

Me too, but there's, I think, no need.

[Oz]

I can’t remember pinnacle station. I am almost certain I played everything which could be played multiple times. Could someone remind me what that dlc was about? I will only live now in our memory so if we forget it will be forever lost in time. Like tears in the rain.