I don’t think we’ll ever see a game like
Mass Effect again. Back in 2007, Bioware told a gripping and
self-contained story, created a cohesive universe from scratch, and set up sequels, all in the
space of a tightly packaged 25 hour game. Try to imagine this happening in 2018 or onwards. I’ll ignore obvious issues like forced multiplayer
and microtransactions because this video would quickly descend into a rant about the good
old days. For a start, a new IP would almost certainly
have an open world and it would be full of stuff to do, most of it tedious and with little,
if any, connection to the main story. Mass Effect doesn’t have that problem. It takes place in linear levels or in tiny
open areas with only a couple of waypoints to deal with. The side quests are repetitive to play but
they contribute to either the main story, worldbuilding, or even the sequels in some
cases. Modern RPGs deal with worldbuilding by giving
you hundreds of small books to read and journals to pick up. These vary from personal stories, perhaps
about the owner of the house your are currently robbing, to accounts of major battles that
happened hundreds of years ago. It’s the equivalent of trying to learn about
humans by reading a few paragraphs about the Battle of Hastings. I can’t be the only person who boots up
a new RPG determined to read every piece of content on offer and immerse myself in the
world, only to get slowly lose my mind as I try to remember which long dead king betrayed
some other long dead king and why I should care. With Mass Effect, Bioware understood that
less is more. Notes and journals are kept to a minimum. You’re given history about the galaxy and
the species that inhabit it, but nearly all of it is directly relevant to the story. Nothing feels random. You’re told about the Krogan genophage for
a reason. You’re told about the creation of the geth
because it plays a huge role in what happens. The First Contact War between humans and turians
is important to understanding the role humanity plays in the story and why some species are
still a little frosty towards them. Mass Effect has a couple of big information
dumps, but they didn’t weigh me down, they spurred me on. Nothing about this should be considered especially
remarkable, and yet it is shockingly rare in video games, where I suspect most pieces
of side content are written by the developers without much of a connection to the main story. You don’t see this problem as often in television
and movies, most likely because they work on strict time and cost constraints. Movies are rarely sold by reference to their
length whereas a game having loads of padding is front and center of advertising materials. Books are more likely to go off on tangents,
although any halfway competent editor will ensure that every paragraph and sentence is
there for a reason. I’m going to try and limit comparisons to
Mass Effect Andromeda during this video--I think I said some words about it somewhere
else once--but I will say that comparing the first Mass Effect to Andromeda only makes
the latter look worse. Andromeda shares themes with the original
Mass Effect and yet it makes mistake after mistake when the instruction manual for success
was right there the entire time. All the writers had to do was play the game
that started the franchise off in the first place and Andromeda would have been infinitely
better. First of all, Mass Effect gives us some flexibility
with Shepard’s back story and just about avoids a cliche chosen one narrative. While what you’re doing is of crucial importance,
you never feel like the whole galaxy revolves around you. Humanity as a whole is a relatively small
part of the galaxy instead of the dominant race. The other species have been in contact with
each other for hundreds or even thousands of years and have their own sets of conflicts
and relationships. This next difference between the two games
is a big deal: Mass Effect has a bad guy with a motivation you care about. In my Andromeda video, I mention the common
adedge “the antagonist is the protagonist of his own story.” That clearly wasn’t the case with Andromeda
where the bad guy was so unmemorable that I have quite literally forgotten his name
and can’t be bothered to look it up. I played Andromeda for over 50 hours and made
a two and half hour video on it which took me a month. The fact that the antagonist left zero impression
says a lot. Mass Effect also has larger story threads
that are engaging enough to have you craving a sequel and I really could go on. Story wise, I don’t think Andromeda does
one thing better than the game that predated it by ten years, with the possible exception
of companion side quests, although most of them were terrible. Before I get stuck into the story, there’s
a quick bit of housekeeping just so you know what you’re looking. I did two different playthroughs for this
video. My first and main playthrough was as FemShep. I did nearly all of the side quests, took
my time, and was good to a fault. I played on veteran difficulty which is the
hardest option available at the start. Most of the footage in this video is from
this playthrough. Obviously this means there will be spoilers. My second playthrough was as a renegade MaleShep. I wanted to make this playthrough as different
as possible from the first, with the plan being to carry both characters through to
the end of the trilogy to see just how different things can be, or not as the case may be. For those who don’t know, I hadn’t played
the first Mass Effect before this project. I had played two and three however I’m going
to do my best to limit discussion to the events of this game where possible. Fortunately, I have a terrible memory so that
should take care of itself. In addition, I read the spin off novel Revelation
which takes place before the events of this game and stars Captain Anderson and Saren. For those curious, Revelation is decent enough
by the standards of video game novels. It’s a quick and simple read which wouldn’t
be of any interest if it were not connected to the Mass Effect world, but that’s fine. I also read a couple of the comics, although
I’ll be saving most comics for the next two games in the series which they are clearly
intended to accompany. To be clear, you absolutely do not need to
read any extra materials to enjoy the story in Mass Effect. It’s another example of what Bioware did
right. For example, Revelation fleshes out Saren’s
motivations however he is still a compelling antagonist without this information. There’s a huge difference between this and
having a blank slate antagonist with no motivation unless you read some side content. I wrote most of this script before even reading
the book and it didn’t change my opinion of the game. Bioware knows--or rather knew--how to tell
a story in the actual game, a skill that has apparently been lost to the ages, as developers
forgo telling stories in favor of lore dumps. Finally, I installed a couple of mods to make
the game look a little prettier, especially in the facial animations. The only gameplay mod was one for improved
mouse controls, otherwise, it’s all the same. Playing Mass Effect reminded me of sinking
into a good book more than it did playing RPGs like the Fallouts and Elder Scrolls of
the world. You don’t roleplay as a character of your
own creation; you roleplay as Shepard. To be more precise, you roleplay as one of
two different versions of Shepard. It’s like following a protagonist through
a novel except if you like you can go back and read the same main story with the protagonist
making a different set of decisions. For those of you who’ve never played Mass
Effect, or have forgotten it, I’m going to give a quick recap of the basics so we
can see how nicely everything comes together near the end. This is basically just a story summary but
I think it’s worth doing to appreciate just how good a job Bioware did with the storytelling. In the year 2148, humanity discovered mass
effect technology on Mars which allowed for faster than light travel. Shortly after they discovered that Pluto’s
moon Charon wasn’t a moon at all, but a mass relay. To be clear, mass effect technology is a separate
thing from the mass relays. Mass effect technology helped create faster
than light travel which in turn is used by the mass relays to connect distant locations
and make it easy to travel from one part of the galaxy to the other. This mass effect technology belonged to a
race of aliens known as the Protheans, however they disappeared 50,000 years ago and no one
knows what happened to them. Humanity uses the mass relays to navigate
the Milky Way and quickly gets itself into a war with the Turians. It was all a bit of a misunderstanding: humans
activated a mass relay that had been shut down because no one knew where it led. Using mass relays to travel to unknown places
proved deadly once in the past when it caused a war with a race known as the Rachni and
since then it has been outlawed which is why the turians attacked humans when they activated
it. Fortunately, the First Contact War only lasted
a couple of months, although tensions between the two races continued for decades. After the war, humanity discovered the citadel,
another invention of the Protheans, which is already home to a bunch of other races. The Asari were the first ones to discover
the citadel and they share seats on the council with Salarians and Turians. These three races hold by far the most power:
so much so that the timespan of one year is the average of a year from the home planets
of these three races. (1.09 times longer than Earth’s, if you’re
curious). Humanity formed the Systems Alliance, together
with its own military, to better represent itself in the citadel. Our story begins in 2183, on a mission to
a human colony known as Eden Prime which came under a surprise attack from the a machine
race known as the Geth. Now, in more recent Bioware games, the Geth
would be generic laser fodder for the rest of the campaign, perhaps with a leader called
alpha prime or something equally tedious with a vague desire to take over the galaxy. However, this is the original Mass Effect,
so the Geth have a story of their own and it’s a surprisingly sympathetic one. The Geth were created by quarians as a form
of slave labor. Apparently no matter where you come from in
the galaxy you have your own version of the Terminator story so you know that full artificial
intelligence always ends up turning against its creators. The quarians started cautiously and didn’t
give the Geth artificial intelligence, however, the quarians wanted more from their slaves
and gradually increased their abilities over time, always believing that they would be
able to retain complete control over their subjects. The geth operate on a neural network which
means that the more of them there are in the vicinity, the more processing power they have. It’s worth noting that this is not a hive
mind. They don’t share thoughts, but when acting
as a group they can be more powerful than the sum of their parts. After one too many improvements, the quarians
realized they were about to lose control of the geth and decided to take preemptive action. The quarians attacked the geth and tried to
eliminate them before it was too late. The geth fought back and nearly wiped the
quarians out in return. A few million quarians survived--not much
on a galactic scale--and the geth retreated to a part of the galaxy called the Persius
Veil where they had stayed, until now. The Alliance sends Commander Shepard in the
Normandy to help the human colony deal with the geth. While protecting a colony is clearly an important
mission for the alliance, it’s not something that would otherwise register with the galactic
council, which is why it’s so unusual that there is a Spectre called Nilhus on board. Spectre is the name for members of Special
Tactics and Reconnaissance. Basically agents working for the galactic
council who operate outside of the law. The mere presence of the spectre is enough
to tip off Shepard that this is more than a simple rescue mission and of course it is. Before landing, Captain Anderson tells you
that in addition to saving the colony, you must recover a mysterious Prothean beacon
before the Geth can get their hands on it. The mission doesn’t go well. One of your team members dies quicker than
me in a battle royale game and it was equally predictable based on the conversation you
had with him on the ship. He might as well have gone into battle with
a bullseye on his chest. It’s no great loss. You meet Ashley who is a far superior replacement
anyway. Nihlus, who went off by himself, is executed
by another turian Spectre called Saren. Shepard finds the prothean technology which
communicates with her via a series of images showing an impending threat to the galaxy
by machines called the reapers before promptly self-destructing. Next up you head to the citadel, home to over
ten million people from a huge variety of races, or so we’re told. It never really feels that way of course,
but we can use our imaginations. We visit the presidium, which is effectively
the government with the council and embassies, and can also explore the wards, a slightly
grungier area of markets, nightclubs, and military academies. You meet up with Wrex, a Krogan, and Garrus,
a Turian, who quickly join your squad. Your job is to prove that Saren executed Nihlus
and betrayed the council, which means lots of wandering around and talking to people
until you stumble into Tali who happens to be carrying a incriminating recording of Saren
and a woman called Matriarch Benezia. One of the comics tells the story of how Tali
came by this information and made it to the citadel, but it doesn’t tell you anything
you don’t already know from the game. She was on a pilgrimage, a right of passage
among the quarians, and stumbled upon a dead geth. She was able to salvage the recording and
make it to the citadel just in time. The comic serves as an excellent example of
how you can fill pages with pictures and words without really saying anything. And yes, I am aware that similar criticism
could be applied to my videos. Dumping the player on the citadel for a couple
of hours and leaving them to deal with inter-planetary politics was a brave decision for Bioware
to make, but it absolutely works. The pace comes to a grinding halt in the best
possible way. The prologue might have given you the wrong
idea about what sort of game Mass Effect was; the citadel reminds you that Mass Effect is
as much about conversations as it is shooting. You can partake in a bit of combat here, but
many of the quests are about conversing with the right people or talking potential opponents
out of fighting in the first place. Most importantly, the citadel provides another
lesson in humanity’s insignificance. I spent hours here just wandering around learning
about other races, some of which are major players while others are relatively insignificant. Notably you get your first interaction with
the Asari, an asexual race, despite their obvious female appearance and pronouns. The asari are a pragmatic bunch with long
lifespans and a huge role in galactic politics. In the Redemption novel, Captain Anderson
notes how strange he finds it that they are so dominant in politics while also being content
to dance seductively on stage for the pleasure of others. The asari certainly have some unusual viewpoints
when it comes to procreation. Mating with your own species is actually frowned
upon because it’s seen as more beneficial to pass on new genetic benefits from other
species to make stronger asari. There’s also the Volus, a race of small
creatures who always wear masks due to the atmospheric difference between the citadel
and their home planet. The first one you meet, Din Korlack, the Volus
ambassador on the citadel, isn’t too fond of humans. As far as he’s concerned, humans were given
an embassy on the citadel way too soon and he’s annoyed that they seem to have jumped
ahead of the Volus in the race to a council seat. Best of all are the elcor who speak in such
a monotone voice that they have to start each sentence with their intended tone of voice
to make sure the speaker doesn’t accidentally misunderstand or take offense. The hanar are the only species that feel completely
out of place, although that’s likely just because they aren’t bipedal. I have a hard time imagining these floating
jellyfish making it into space to find the citadel in the first place, but maybe that’s
my own prejudice. Then there’s the mysterious keepers. None of the species on board the citadel can
keep the place running. Fortunately the protheans left behind these
weird creatures to look after the place. You’re not allowed to communicate with them;
they just get on with their jobs. It’s more than a little scary to think that
the lives of over 10 million people is in the hands of the keepers doing whatever the
hell it is they are doing. You might also meet Barla Von, a Volus who
works for an individual known as the Shadow Broker, a dealer of information. This individual, or as Barla Von suspects,
a group of individuals, don’t play a big part in this story, but they certainly play
a bigger role later. After convincing the council of Saren’s
guilt, you’re promoted to specter and given the small job of tracking him down via three
missions that you can complete in any order: You can rescue Matriarch Benezia’s daughter
Liara who is on a dig site studying protheon tech, go and chase down Benezia herself on
Noveria, or go to Feros where Saren is attacking with his geth. After completing two of these quests, you’re
asked to go to Virmire. Regardless of the order you pick, you’ll
have to do all four to progress. The promotion to specter does feel a touch
abrupt but we know that Shepard has a successful military history and being humanity’s only
specter is a reminder that humans are a small part of the galaxy. During the first three missions, you rescue
Liara, fight Benezia who is under Saren’s control and discover that Saren is after a
prothean artifact called the Conduit. There’s a lot going on in these missions,
but I’ll discuss that in more detail when getting into the paragon and renegade systems. The information dumps come thick and fast
from here on out. This is where I began to fully appreciate
just what Bioware had created. On Virmire you talk with an artificial intelligence
called Sovereign. It’s usually a sign of bad writing where
all the huge plot points are dumped on you one after the other via a static conversation. Prevailing wisdom is that slow scenes such
as this one ruin the pacing and risk losing the audience. That’s probably true in film and to an extent
television, but as I said earlier, Mass Effect is much more like a book. You can slow things down and take your time
when necessary. This conversation with Sovereign had me gripped
from beginning to end, even as someone who had already played the sequels and therefore
knew the gist of this information already. The big reveals drop one after the other. Shepard recognizes Sovereign from her visions,
but mistakenly believed it to be a reaper ship when it is actually a reaper itself. The reapers are a race of machines that hibernate
in dark space, which I think is just a reference to uncharted space outside of the milky way. Every 50,000 years, the reapers wake from
hibernation and set about clearing the galaxy of all intelligent life. It turns out it was the reapers, not the protheans,
who created the mass relays and the citadel. The reapers provide the tools for civilizations
to advance and spread across the galaxy and then wipe them out when they deem suitable. As I mentioned antagonists without their own
interesting stories can be dull, but the reapers are a little different. Reapers are machines. Sovereign describes them as infinite. They have no concept of time or mercy. Every 50,000 years they will wipe out all
advanced life and as you may have noticed, the protheons were wiped out 50,000 years
ago. Humanity’s time is almost up. Saren is working for Sovereign in the belief
that the reapers will let him survive the destruction of all life in the Milky Way. He figures it’s better to surrender to them
than just die. It’s fairly obvious the Reapers won’t
keep to the bargain and in Saren’s defense he is being subtly mind controlled by Sovereign. As for the geth, they are working for Saren
because they worship Sovereign. Sovereign is the ultimate AI, so it’s understandable
that the geth would see it as a God. This is one of the little touches that I love
about Mass Effect’s story and worldbuilding. We weren’t told about the creation of the
geth for no reason. It wasn’t just a conversation we had to
pass the time on the normandy. The geth’s creation explains why they would
work with Saren and Sovereign which elevates them beyond many other generic bad guys. Sovereign’s job is to keep an eye on the
galaxy and initiate the wake up call to the reapers in dark space. This is acheived by sending a signal to the
citadel which then communicates with the keepers, who it turns out are working for the reapers,
not the protheans. The citadel is actually one large mass relay
itself, so the keepers can open the door and let the reapers flood in. Something went wrong and Sovereign’s message
didn’t go through as planned. The next mission is the race to the conduit
on Ilos. Shepard is diverted by another virtual intelligence,
this time of protheon making. The VI, which calls itself Vigil, confirms
that the protheons did indeed go extinct at the hands of the reapers. It took decades, but there was nothing they
could do to fight back. On Ilos, they went into stasis until the reapers
left the galaxy. On being awakened, the protheans used the
conduit, which is essentially a miniature mass relay, to connect with a secret backdoor
in the citadel which in a stroke of absolute genius is a small replica of a mass relay
that everyone assumed was a work of art. I’m a sucker for those “it was right there
all along moments,” so this was really cool. Once on the citadel, the protheans were able
to change the message sent to the keepers to stop them from awakening the reapers. This is why Sovereign’s message failed. The protheans did this knowing it was too
late to save themselves but hoping that it would help break the cycle for those who came
next. You then chase Saren through the conduit and
catch up with him on the citadel. You can talk Saren into killing himself or
fight him, but either way he dies and then becomes possessed by Sovereign for a final
battle. The best part of the ending is what’s going
on elsewhere. Sovereign and the geth attack the citadel
and while they eventually lose, it’s a close fight which may even destroy the council depending
on what decision you make. This makes for a tense finale to round out
the story but also does a fantastic job setting up the sequel. Sovereign is just one reaper ship; there are
plenty more coming and we don’t look equipped to deal with it. As you can no doubt tell at this point, I
thoroughly enjoyed Mass Effect’s story. I need to replay the two sequels before coming
to any definitive conclusion, but it’s likely this story will be my favorite of the trilogy. What the first game doesn’t do quite as
well as its sequels, in my opinion, is the characters. It’s not that the characters here aren’t
great, it’s that we don’t get to know them well enough. Liara is probably the exception because she
is the daughter of Matriach Benezia, so you get a decent chunk of backstory and character
building. Kaiden and Ashley, the two human companions,
are there to act as the angel and devil on your shoulder while making important decisions. As a human biotic, Kaiden had plenty of potential,
but the only time I was glad for his presence was when I could sacrifice him to save Ashley
on Virmire. He finally came in use. Killing Kaiden was one of the only major decisions
I made the same way in both playthroughs, although I did change the precise way in which
he died. I spent hours in major conversations with
Garrus, Tali, Liara, and Wrex, however for the most part those conversations were engaging
because of the information they provided about their respective species, not about themselves. Each character is effectively a representative
of their race to tell you major points from their history and typical traits. Imagine if we were playing as an Asari and
spoke to a human in this way. How would the human describe the entire species? If it were Ashley, we might make the assumption
that humans were only out for themselves. If we spoke to Kaiden, we might never want
to speak to a human again. You do get backstories for your companions,
but without dedicated quest lines to flesh them out, it feels less impactful. Wrex laments how krogans are more concerned
with fighting than curing the genophage, and tells you how he killed his father before
asking you to go on a short fetch quest for him. Garrus wants out of C-Sec where he was constantly
caught up in red tape. He softens a lot during the story. Tali was on her pilgrimage, however all quarians
do that so again, it felt like more of an excuse to tell us about the species as a whole. Liara is an excitable student, trying to uncover
the mysteries of the protheans and ends up being a bit of a plot device to help reveal
more information when required. Characterization improves in subsequent games
and it’s understandable that Bioware didn’t have the resources for loads of in-depth character
side quests, but it means I didn’t get as close to a couple of the characters as I’d
have liked. Surprisingly, I found Shepard herself to be
the biggest disappointment. I believe most of the problems with her character
can be placed at the feet of the paragon renegade system. Conversations in Mass Effect use the now infamous
dialogue wheel. You typically have three choices of response
on the right hand side. Choosing the top one is the paragon response,
which means it’s morally right and politer than a British person during afternoon tea. The bottom response is rude or combative depending
on the circumstances. The middle option is what I call the Zelda
response. It’s fine. Doesn’t commit too much either way and does
the job if you don’t want to engage with a story while avoiding unnecessary combat. It functionally continues the conversation
and you wouldn’t miss its absence. If you stick with the Zelda option, you’re
missing out on better experiences elsewhere. At the end of each conversation, you’re
awarded paragon or renegade points depending on how you acted, although this doesn’t
necessarily mean that the conversation turned out any differently. You can make important decisions via this
wheel but as often as not the only difference is the tone of voice Shepard uses to deliver
the same words. These points are added to your paragon and
renegade meters. When you reach certain levels in paragon or
renegade, say 25%, you open up charm and intimidation options on your character skill tree which
you can then invest in the next time you have skill points to spend. Having high charm or intimidation then opens
up bonus conversation options which typically offer helpful new ways to resolve conversations. You can even avoid one of the late game fights
against Saren by convincing him to kill himself. This system is probably a touch more convoluted
than it needs to be and does get changed in subsequent games if my memory serves me correctly. Bioware could have probably skipped the whole
charm and intimidation thing entirely and just had the extra conversation options pop
up based on your paragon and renegade meters. Instead, it added an extra step and forced
you to spend a few level up points to get the full benefit. Another fairly obvious problem with the paragon
renegade system is the need to be either a paragon or a renegade. If you like to roleplay as a morally ambiguous
character or mix things up a bit as the situation requires then you’re out of luck. In Mass Effect, you are punished for not going
either paragon or renegade. If you don’t focus on maxing out one of
the bars then you will miss out on conversation options and more efficient ways to resolve
problems. You even miss out on special side quests that
are triggered near the end of the story once your paragon or renegade meters are about
three-quarters full. There’s also the issue of many of the choices
being a touch too black or white. If you ignore the Zelda choice, which you
absolutely should do, then you essentially have two different Shepards to play as and
therefore two major playthrough options. Within these two playthroughs there are a
multitude of smaller decisions to make so you can certainly do more than two runs if
you like, but you’re only really playing as two versions of Shepard. This can be a little limiting compared to
other RPGs. I like to play as chaotic good, for example,
but if you play paragon then you are basically forced to be lawful good throughout. Being restricted to two extremes like this
obviously isn’t ideal, but it goes back to what I said earlier about how the roleplaying
in Mass Effect isn’t open in nature like an Elder Scrolls game. You’re playing as Shepard and it just so
happens that you can choose between two different versions. Both of them are at least vaguely believable. I enjoyed the inFamous games, but boy did
the evil version of Cole feel stupid and unnecessary. Mass Effect’s system isn’t as silly as
the one in inFamous, but it’s clear that the paragon choices are the more fleshed out
of the two and if there is a canon story then it’s the paragon one. Renegade Shepard has its good moments still. You make tough decisions and take a firm hand
with your crew. Renegade Shep can be a jerk, but a believable
one. If this treatment was consistent all the way
through then it wouldn’t be so bad, however that’s not the case. First of all, some renegade conversation choices
just make him sound like a petulant child not some tough leader. He comes across as illogical and petty in
a way that breaks his character. This is often reflected in the way others
react to your renegade comments. They either ignore it and provide the exact
same response as they would to a paragon reply, or they wave it away with some comment like
“I wouldn’t put it like that” and the proceed to say the exact same thing they would
have anyway. Shepard does that as well on occasion, providing
the same comment for paragon and renegade answers. Perhaps there’s a tone of voice difference
in how he delivers the comments however my playthroughs had two different voice actors,
so I can’t say for sure. Renegade conversations often become a case
of Shepard just being an ar$ehole to the person he’s talking to instead of keeping his views
consistent. A good example of this is an optional conversation
you can have with Ashley on the ship. Ashley has some troubling views, at least
at first. A generous interpretation would be that she
doesn’t want non-humans on the ship because they might steal the Alliance’s military
secrets. But let’s face it, she’s likely caught
a bout of the racisms. Her character changes a lot over the series
so she’s worth spending time with regardless of a bad first impression. As a paragon, you even feel like you have
an active role in her growth which makes the bond stronger. When Shepard talks to her as a renegade you
can agree with her view that humans should look after themselves first and foremost. So far, so appropriate. However, later on in the same conversation
the renegade conversation option makes Shepard admonish her for those same viewpoints. The renegade option seems to prioritize disagreeing
with people instead of sharing a $hitty opinion. It’s almost like a lot of the angry people
out there just enjoy being angry. Other parts of the paragon renegade system
have good ideas, which aren’t well executed. There are side quests and optional ways of
resolving situations on the main path that are clearly designed for either paragon or
renegade and reward those points appropriately. Nothing wrong with that of course, except
even if you reject the quest it still gets added to your quest log which is annoying,
for one thing, and potentially a problem if you forget the nature of the quest and end
up completing it later. The quest description often sounds generic,
like going and getting a file. You might not necessarily remember that to
get the file you have to kill loads of people first. There are also quests where you’ll initially
get one set of points, say renegade, but can then change tack and pick up paragon points. This kind of variety in quest design is of
course to be commended but, going back to the earlier point about how you absolutely
must focus on either paragon or renegade, you can see the problem with implementation. A good example of this is can be found on
Noveria when you need to find a way to get a keycard to access a new area. You have a couple of options, including getting
in the boss’ good books by ratting out someone else for smuggling. Another option is to help out Lorik Qui’in
at the bar. He wants you to grab some data from his office
believing that it will help uncover corruption. He adds that you will likely have to kill
some otherwise innocent guards in the process. During my paragon playthrough, Shepard rejected
the quest because killing guards wasn’t a cost she was prepared to pay, not when there
were other less bloodthirsty options. The quest gets added to your log anyway so
I just had to ignore it for the rest of the game. On my renegade playthrough, I intended to
do the opposite and take the quest, except by acting like a renegade I couldn’t get
Lorik to tell me about the quest in the first place. I had to select the boring Zelda option first
and then resume being a jerk. It seems odd that a quest specifically designed
for renegades would be easily missable by a character acting as a renegade. Anyway, once you do have the quest you carry
on and pick up renegade points for killing guards. You then get the opportunity to redeem yourself
somewhat by taking the paragon route and using the information to reveal the corruption. If the split between paragon and renegade
weren’t so important I’d be loving this option, but you only get to make this choice
if you first pick up renegade points which you’ll likely be avoiding if you’re playing
as a paragon. You’d have to know in advance that doing
a renegade quest would eventually reward you with paragon points and without having played
the game before there’s no real way to know that. Finally, the way the charm and intimidate
options open up is a little borked in my opinion. As discussed, whether you have a charm or
intimidate option available depends on the amount of points you have invested in those
stats which in turn depends on your renegade or paragon score. Obviously, the further you are in your playthrough,
the more likely you are to have the requisite number of charm and intimidate points. This is an issue with those first three missions
that you can do in any order. Story wise, you’re best off collecting Liara
first as you know she might be able to help you deal with Matriarch Benezia on Noveria. While you have a free choice between Noveria
and Feros, the charm and intimidation options that appear during those quests clearly suggest
that you’re supposed to do Noveria before Feros. Noveria has the aforementioned quests where
you help out Lorik. If you want to convince him about to testify
about the corruption then you need a charm or intimidation score of 5. No quest on Noveria requires charm or intimidation
above eight. Compare that to Feros where a major decision
needs charm of 12 or intimidation of 10. I just about reached charm of 12 which happens
to be the highest you can get, but I only did that a few minutes before I needed it. On my renegade run, I didn’t have enough
intimidation to activate the intimidation option because I did the quests in the other
order. Another quirk is that a paragon’s charm
options are always the best options to select to earn you more paragon points. It’s a nice consistent loop. You earn paragon points, unlock charm conversation
options, use those options and unlock more paragon points than you would have otherwise
which in turn gets you more charm conversation options. Compare that to renegade, where many of the
intimidation options you unlock are actually worse options in the long run when it comes
to building up more renegade points. Take the situation with Wrex on Virmire. This is one of the more extreme choices you
can make in the game. If you talk to Wrex on the Normandy he’ll
tell you about the Krogan Genophage. The genophage is the name given to a plague
created by the Salarians and distributed by the Turians during the Krogan rebellion. The plague causes most Krogan young to be
stillborn which will eventually lead to the extinction of the species. Saren appears to have developed a cure for
the genophage and is using it to create a krogan army. An army of krogan would be nigh on unstoppable
so you need to effectively destroy the cure while attacking the base. As you can imagine, Wrex isn’t too keen
on this. Playing as a paragon you can easily talk him
around, however your renegade options are a little more extreme. The default is to execute Wrex, in full view
of your crew, which nets you a huge 25 renegade points and no one else bats an eyelid. However, if you’ve unlocked the intimidation
ability you can talk Wrex down but doing so only gets you nine renegade points. The intimidation option is a reward in that
it lets you keep Wrex alive while still offering some benefit however you risk not having enough
intimidation points to talk Saren into executing himself later on. After completing my renegade playthrough,
I couldn’t help but feel that it’s the clearly inferior way of playing compared to
paragon. My paragon playthrough let me develop a consistent
version of Shepard’s character. It was usually clear which quests I shouldn’t
do and it’s generally fairly easy to avoid renegade points. That said, I picked up a few just from my
choice of background which was a little weird. Certain selections like being a sole survivor
make you more likely to be a renegade apparently. The decision right at the end of the game
is also odd. I choose to save loads of humans over protecting
the council which seemed like the decent thing to do, but that is actually the renegade option. Apparently protecting the political elite
is the moral thing to do in this world. To defend this, it does make more sense later,
because renegade Shep can use the destruction of the council to advance the alliance cause. Compare all that to my renegade playthrough
where Shepard’s character bounces from strict to ar$ehole to petulant child on a regular
basis. It was a constant struggle to avoid picking
up paragon points while also getting to accept quests which were necessary for XP. Some missions involve destroying communications
satellites but doing this gives you paragon points even though you’re only doing it
for the good of the mission. Combined with the many ways other characters
just gloss over your renegade comments and too many of the choices feel like they are
just there for the sake of it. Most choices but not all. You can still make some absolutely huge decisions
which is why I’m going to keep multiple playthroughs running in this series. My renegade executed Wrex in cold blood, didn’t
save the galactic council and pick Udina for the council instead of Anderson. These major choices should have huge ripple
effects throughout the series and yet I can’t help but think of Renegade Shepard as the
inferior version and I found it much harder to be immersed in him as a character. To round off on a positive, not all of the
decisions are quite as extreme as executing a teammate. While on Noveria, you have the option to free
a rachni queen or kill it. Rachni were thought to be extinct after the
rachni wars a few thousand years ago which threatened to wipe out most other races in
the galaxy. The queen asks you to let her live and promises
that there will be no more conflict. Paragon Shep can let her live, much to Ashley’s
annoyance, and Renegade Shep can kill her. The choice isn’t quite as obvious as it
sounds. The rachni were only stopped in the last war
thanks to the krogans and since then the genophage has drastically reduced their numbers. If you make the wrong call, then you genuinely
put the galaxy at risk. Of course, we know that’s unlikely to happen
in a game, but the decision to kill the queen was rational enough that it didn’t feel
inconsistent with my Renegade Shep. Similarly, when leaving Feros, the human colony
there starts to attack you because they are being controlled. You’re given the option to use poison grenades
to put them to sleep and avoid killing them, but if you want to rack up loads of renegade
points then you should kill them outright. The grenades are fairly easy to use however
you don’t have many and given that the humans were shooting at me, it didn’t feel completely
inappropriate to kill them in the name of saving the galaxy from a wider threat. The choices could certainly have been improved,
however overall I’d say there were enough good ones to make two playthroughs worthwhile. I heard all about Mass Effect’s supposedly
terrible combat system long before playing. It didn’t exactly set the world on fire
back in 2007 and having subsequently played the two sequels and Andromeda, I went in with
incredibly low expectations. However, the internet has been known to exaggerate
things once in a while, so I did my best to keep an open mind. Besides, I never expect much with regards
to combat in story heavy RPGs. It’s why I’m always mystified when people
describe the combat in The Witcher 3 as bad. I mean, it’s certainly not great, and the
harder difficulties show up its deficiencies, but I’m not playing The Witcher to get an
experience akin to a Soulsborne game. When I’m playing an RPG, I want the combat
to serve the narrative and keep me immersed in the story. It can’t be so bad that it constantly frustrates
or breaks the experience, but it doesn’t need to be so great that it becomes the reason
I play the game in the first place. This sounds a lot like I’m making excuses
for RPGs and begs the question of how much we should take expectations into account when
judging a product. One point I see raised again and again when
people bang on about a desire for objective reviews is “judge the game for what it is,
not what you want it to be.” As with most discussion around objective reviews,
it’s largely nonsense and is only raised to defend games from criticism. A classic case is with remasters of old games
like 2017’s Crash Bandicoot N’Sane Trilogy. A lot of people genuinely believe it should
have been given a near perfect score because it’s a high quality reboot of an old game
and that any criticisms related to the actual experience of playing a Crash Bandicoot game
in 2017 were irrelevant. After all, nothing can be done about the quality
of the originals. It’s just trying to be a remake and it does
this well. Following this logic presumably means that
a perfect remake of Superman 64 is a ten out of ten. I mention that argument to point out my own
hypocrisy when I suggest giving RPGs an easy ride when it comes to combat because that’s
not what they are meant to be about. Following that logic, you could say that Andromeda
is a good game so long as you go into it expecting a wet turd of a story, cardboard cut-out characters,
terrible glitches, and boring quest design. After all, the combat meets expectations,
so therefore it’s a good game, right? What we expect from games will partly define
our experience and the sooner we accept that the sooner we can try to understand why. If all you want is a decent reboot of the
first three Crash Bandicoot games, then what does it matter if one reviewer didn’t appreciate
just how brilliant Crash Bandicoot Warped still is in 2017 and still will be in 2117
for that matter. With regards to the Witcher 3, I believe part
of the blame lies in how nearly every game has RPG elements now. It’s getting harder to distinguish between
action games with open worlds and skill trees and RPGs focused on storytelling and world
building. People picking up The Witcher 3 might usually
buy the likes of Assassin’s Creed and think Witcher is similar and to be honest, I don’t
entirely blame them. They have a lot in common. The contrarian in me would love to conclude
this little diversion by telling you that Mass Effect actually has a complex and rewarding
battle system which shines the longer you spend mastering it. But no, the combat in Mass Effect is bad. As an action game, Mass Effect is not a lot
of fun. Fortunately, I wasn’t expecting any better
so, in this case, my preconceived expectations helped. The crucial thing is that while the combat
is not enjoyable, it never took me out of the experience. To start with a positive, the biotic powers
can be fun to use. You can throw enemies, suspend them in mid-air,
knock-out shields, and slow them down. If it sounds a lot like the force then you
would be right. The only drawback is that using them often
leaves you exposed while Shepard goes through the slow animation before getting the move
off. They can also be a touch unpredictable. Occasionally, you’ll do a throw which sends
an enemy flying and another time they’ll just collapse on the floor in a heap. It’s also hard to defend against biotics. These abilities have a tendency to go through
cover so one second you’re safe and the next you’re ragdolling on the floor. Still, biotics have their uses and when they
work they make you feel appropriately badass. Your biotic powers depend on your choice of
class. For my first playthrough I went with a Vanguard
which is kind of half-soldier and half biotic. Even playing as a pure soldier, you forced
to take the the throw ability which makes me think that Bioware didn’t want players
to miss out on this stuff completely, given that without the biotics, Mass Effect is just
a bad cover shooter most of the time. Difficulties are well-balanced, although I
never tested Insanity, the hardest of the five settings. An initial playthrough on Veteran was challenging
enough that I didn’t take any encounter for granted and died enough that I made sure
to quick save often. I found a few moments to be frustrating, especially
where there were enemies who could wipe you out in one hit. Thresher Maws are best fought while in the
Mako but can still kill your entire party instantly even when the attack lands nowhere
near you. Later sections of the game have drones which
shoot missiles that are again one hit kills. When there’s only a couple of them, the
missiles are fairly easy to dodge or avoid by hiding behind cover but there are small
rooms with more than ten of them flying all over the place which can make surviving more
down to luck than anything. Splash damage is also a touch unreliable so
it’s hard to know when you’re in proper cover. Any encounter where you get attacked from
multiple sides is a problem due to how slowly you move and the seeming randomness with which
you attach to cover and when the game will let you properly peek around it. When things get chaotic, you have to hope
your companions pull their weight and good luck with that. They run all over the place and will happily
keep shooting at an enemy in the distance even when they are taking heavy damage from
someone close up. To be fair, this problem is countered slightly
by the enemies being just as stupid. They would often run right past me to try
and get at a companion and then stand there while I take them out. You can mitigate some of the randomness by
using squad commands which is useful in situations where you desperately need healing or a shield. It’s just a shame the companions don’t
have the common sense to do any of this themselves, even with this option turned on in the menu
settings. You can do your best to micro-manage your
team and line up commands but fortunately it never got to the stage where I had to do
that regularly. Perhaps you do on insanity difficulty, but
definitely not veteran and probably not hardcore from my testing. The guns aren’t particularly fun to shoot
which could be considered a drawback. Bullet spread is insane early on. Some inaccuracy is to be expected when holding
down the trigger but the bullet spread gets so wide you often shoot directly into your
cover. I like using sniper rifles but the scope shakes
so erratically I didn’t drink coffee for a week afterwards. Mass Effect wasn’t Bioware’s first attempt
at real-time 3D combat--that honor belongs to Jade Empire--but I have to assume that
they had separate teams working on those two games. Mass Effect feels like the next nervous step
forward from Knights of the Old Republic. An inevitable move away from turn-based combat,
but likely a reluctant one. I appreciate it this sounds like I’m making
excuses for the game--something I’m often critical of others for doing--however the
poor combat genuinely didn’t take away from the experience for me at all. The combat was so unengaging that all it did
was remind me that I was playing for the story and nothing more. And that story is damn good, in my opinion,
and it’s aided by the side quests which offer a lot more depth than the now-typical
go and speak to three people or download some email nonsense that featured in Andromeda. There are side quests that tie in with people
and corporations that we met in the main story and some significant interactions with a major
player from the two sequels. It’s yet another example of how well-planned
this series was from the very start and it makes playing this first entry incredibly
rewarding even for people like me who skipped it on initial release. Despite that, these missions became a chore
to get through for two major reasons: first, the mako, and second, the copy and paste environments. Side quests pop up in a couple of different
ways. You might get contacted while on the Normandy
and asked to investigate a situation on another planet or perhaps just pick up a distress
call while exploring the various solar systems. You’ll also get some that can be dealt with
entirely on the Citadel or on the planet that you’re visiting as part of the story, but
I want to focus on the ones that send you to new planets. While the stories are all varied, each side
quest follows a near identical pattern. You land on a new planet in the Mako, spend
ten minutes trying to get the damn thing to the objective marker, and then enter one of
three identical structures, before clearing out waves of enemies. The first time I dropped onto a barren planet,
I couldn’t understand why people were so critical of the Mako. Sure, it’s a little awkward to move around,
especially on the keyboard, but it’s enough to get from A to B. I also loved how barren
the planets were. You land, look around, and see nothing but
mountains and maybe a moon or distant planet in the skyline. There’s a refreshing lack of clutter and
only around three to five points of interest per planet. It makes a refreshing change from modern maps
where there’s so much on screen that developers seem scared that players will lapse into a
coma if they don’t have a shiny thing to head towards at all times. Some planets have a scattering of wildlife
on them as well, which you appreciate all the more for how rare it is. The lack of stuff on the planets isn’t the
problem with these side quests. The first thing you’ll notice is that controlling
the Mako is a nightmare, or more precisely, controlling the Mako on any land that isn’t
perfectly flat is a nightmare, which in the case of Mass Effect’s planets is nearly
all of it. When you’re on planets for story missions,
you will typically follow a clearly defined path and while the Mako still has a tendency
to get stuck on objects occasionally, it’s bearable. Compare that to the side quest planets which
have seemingly no effort put into their design at all. They look like they were randomly generated
in a failed attempt at developing a game like No Man’s Sky for the N64. Everywhere you look there’s huge mountains
made from a random mish mash of polygons. I initially assumed these mountains represented
the edge of the map and were a somewhat lazy, but acceptable, way to stop the player going
outside the designated zone. However, you actually have to cross these
mountains to get where you need to go. They look impassable at times, however the
Mako can go up nearly every slope so you’ll make it eventually. It’s certainly not fun though. Combat in the Mako is fairly janky and yet
strangely enjoyable. You get taken out quickly on the harder difficulty
settings so you can’t just charge in and soak up damage. Instead, the best method is to hang back and
shoot from afar while dodging the missiles that come at you. The Mako isn’t particularly fast, but the
missiles move slower than than a comcast internet connection so you can just move around and
watch them glide past. There are some issues with enemies not popping
into view until you get close enough however I found that if I fired in the direction of
the enemies I would still get hits in even if I couldn’t see them. Once you arrive at the destination, you’ll
enter one of three facility types, each as dull as the other. There’s a cave system and two slightly different
pre-fab facilities. All three are just a collection of a couple
of rooms with some bad guys to fight and maybe a mini boss or NPC at the end to resolve the
story line. Often you’ll have to go to multiple locations
on each planet to complete the quest. Each of the three types of facility are basically
the same every time. Some crates get moved around, but all the
doors are in the same places and lead to the same room types. There are no discernible differences in color
pallette either so you’d be forgiven for thinking you were returning to an area you’d
already explored. Some repetition is perhaps expected. You could argue that if humans were setting
up bases on colonies they would use similar materials, but couldn’t the room placement
have been mixed up a bit? And it’s unlikely that underground caves
would be built the same way each time. It quickly becomes apparent that the side
quests were done on the cheap. Even putting the repeating environments to
one side, there’s also an over-reliance on text pop-ups to explain what’s going
on instead of conversations with NPCs or cutscenes. It’s a little disheartening when your reward
for completing a side quest is a short paragraph of text describing something that would be
spectacular if you could see it. This is a real shame because the side quests
contain some noteworthy content. There’s another quest involving ExoGeni,
one of the large corporations that runs human colonies that we met in the main quest. ExoGeni was trying to create a slave army
of Thorians which didn’t go to plan. Corporations have played a huge part in the
spread of humanity throughout the galaxy with many of the colonies run by corporations that
focus on profits over human life. Hard to imagine such a thing, isn’t it. Another major player is an organization called
Cerberus, which at this stage doesn’t stand out all that much from the other faceless
entities, although we know that will change soon. You first discover Cerberus after investigating
a distress call. Cerberus lured some marines into the lair
of a thresher maw and then kidnapped and killed a Rear Admiral after he got a little too close
to the covert group. If you have the DLC you can stop the Batarians
from sending an asteroid straight into a human colony, potentially killing billions of people. The Batarians are one of the many minor races
that don’t play a huge part in proceedings but they are around to make the galaxy feel
even more populated and contribute to the overall insignificance of humanity. The Revelation novel features batarians in
a larger role if you’re interested in reading more about them. They are another species that has a bit of
a grudge against humanity for being too quick to expand and seek power. One easily missable side quest contains a
fairly major story revelation told simply through a text pop-up. First you need to complete a side quest on
the Citadel for the asari consort. She then gives you a mysterious device which
you can place in a piece of Protheon technology on another planet. A text pop up tells you that fifty thousand
years ago, before they disappeared, Protheans were watching over early humans but decided
they were too primitive to contact at this stage. As far as I can tell, this is the only mention
that Protheons discovered humanity in the entire game or the books and comics that I
read. It seems like a fairly big deal to me. This also means the reapers would have known
about early humans and decided not to wipe them out because they weren’t deemed intelligent. Kind of makes you wonder whether humanity
is still safe from the reaper threat and can just sit this one out. Another important side quest is a visit to
Earth’s own moon where a VI has gone rogue. Completing the moon quest grants Shepard a
specialization ability. I’ve no idea why this is tied to a random
side quest, but it’s worth doing anyway. The VI’s last message is in ASCII and translates
to Help. And yes, I did have to look that up. Unlike artificial intelligence, virtual intelligence
shouldn’t be able to achieve sentience which means someone was likely experimenting with
this VI. That’s hardly unprecedented. After the quarian war with the geth, the galactic
council banned all AI research however the alliance continued doing it anyway which forms
the basis of the Revelation novel. All in all, the side quests were cheaply made
but not without love. As a result, they can be a bit of a chore
to play, however the reward is often worth it. I really enjoyed Mass Effect and intended
this video to be a bit of a celebration of an excellent game that still holds up eleven
years after release. As I started outlining this script I realized
there were huge parts of the game that were either middling or flat out terrible. The implementation of the paragon renegade
system is disappointing which mitigates a huge part of the role-playing aspect and the
characters serve more as information repositories for their species than they do personalities. The combat is genuinely terrible and the side
quests take place in copy and paste environments. Inventory management is dreadful and makes
selling and buying new items a chore. Those are some substantial flaws and yet I
still highly recommend playing Mass Effect. The story and worldbuilding are strong enough
to have me overlooking all those flaws. Nearly everything was designed as part of
a collective. In many modern games you feel like side quests,
and even main quests sometimes, are simply left to developers to implement some basic
go here go there structure with little thought for how it fits into the whole. In Mass Effect, it feels like a writer contributed
to all the side quests before asking a developer to implement them. Before playing Mass Effect, I had no intention
of reading the books and comics. I’ve had some bad experiences with licensed
spin-off books in the past when they were frankly absolute garbage. Even when the books themselves are half-way
decently written, I don’t find this sort of side content adds all that much. For example, I’ve read a lot of the new
Star Wars novels that are officially canon and it’s remarkable how little interesting
information is contained in them. That’s not to say the stories are always
bad, just that they don’t add quite as much as you’d hope because they can never step
on the toes of the major form of media, which in that case is the movies. None of the new canon star wars books comes
close to being as interesting as Darth Plagueis, for example. After completing my first playthrough I had
a quick look at the book summary and realized I wanted to know more about the history between
Captain Anderson and Saren. I ruled the comics out though. I wasn’t going to go that far. Well there were a couple of comic stories
that sounded intriguing so I started to list the ones I wanted to read and eventually I
just bought the whole lot. Regardless of what happens in the next two
games, Mass Effect brilliantly establishes an entire galaxy of races, with complex histories,
and a scattering of inter-planetary politics. You’re given enough information to care,
but not so much that you start skimming it or skipping it entirely. The first Mass Effect game I played was two
because I didn’t have a PC or Xbox. If I recall correctly, the sequel does a good
enough job of catching you up on those major events but the short summaries failed to do
justice to Mass Effect’s quality storytelling in the same way my own summary at the beginning
of this video didn’t. If you skipped Mass Effect back in 2007, I
highly recommend playing it now. I gave Andromeda a hard time for all its bugs,
so to be fair, I will point out that Mass Effect has a fair few of its own. It’s also impossible to avoid how cheaply
produced this was compared to subsequent games. In addition the bugs and other niggles I’ve
mentioned, the cutscene transitions are often incredibly jarring and it often feels like
scenes have been cut down or removed completely. On the other hand, the hacking mini game is
actually vaguely fun. Okay, as for future content on this channel:
The current plan is for two videos in October. A short one on Siege of Dragonspear and a
longer one on Planescape: Torment. I may also start doing a few shorter video
reviews. I review games for my website anyway, so it
wouldn’t be too much work to make a short video review to go alongside it. I hope that won’t be too annoying for those
of you who only like the longer content. It really does seem a bit silly not to put
some of these reviews on the channel bearing in mind most of the work is already done. The Mass Effect 2 video should be in either
November or December. You’d be doing me a huge favor if you could
give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already. You’d be doing me an even bigger favor if
you were to contribute a dollar to my Patreon, which gets you into the credits as you can
see on screen now. As you might already know, YouTube ad income
is not great and it’s ridiculously unstable. I disclose my income on my website--there’s
a link in the description--so you can see just how bad it is for yourself. I also stream on Twitch about five times a
week. Early October’s stream will be Assassin’s
Creed Odyssey. I might try and slip in Guacamelee 2 as well
before Red Dead Redemption 2 at the end of October. Please do come by if you get the chance. There’s also a discord now, because that’s
something youtubers do these days. And that is about it from me. In case you want to read along with this Mass
Effect series, then the reading list for the next video is the Ascension novel, together
with the following comics: Redemption, Evolution, Incursion, Homeworlds issue 3, and Foundation
issues 5 to 13. Yes, I did just set you homework. Please let me know in the comments if you
recommend any changes to this planned reading list. The books Retribution and Deception together
with a couple of comics are being saved for Mass Effect 3. Also, to improve my analytics and prove you’ve
listened all the way through to the end, drop a comment and let me know the name of your
first pet and your mother’s maiden name. Cheers.
I liked it up until he started saying he was disappointed in Shep
The more exposure the og mass effect trilogy the better. May even boost chances that EA will make a half decent remaster of the trilogy later down the line