Mass Effect: Legendary Edition!

At last! It feels like it's been an age, but a game I've been waiting for has finally found its way into my eager little hands. 😄

I religiously play this story once a year. It's funny in a way. I've always been more swords and magic and medieval castles, and was introduced to Bioware games with Dragon Age. I loved the hell out of that and thought I'd give their Sci-Fi version a go... and loved it even more. And then Knights of the old Republic.

Turns out story-driven RPGs where you custom-create your character and have a tonne of dialogue options and ending choices and a companion system where they could love or hate you... that style is totally my jam.

commander shepard mass effect looking out window.png

When I first opened this most legendary edition of my favourite game, I was impressed immediately. That's not my rose-coloured-glasses talking either. In the opening scene after you create your character and the higher-ups are talking about your Shepard, Shepard has always gazed out the window at the planet below...

Now she has a reflection in that window.

That's not a big deal, I know. But it's the little things!

Another thing I was very pleased to see was the detail in Eden Prime. In the screenshot above, that particular area almost looks like it could be the area you go to in Mass Effect 3.

It's cohesive now! The planet in Mass Effect 1 looks like the planet you go to later on in the series. In the original trilogy it looked so different, it might as well have been two different planets entirely.

At the same time, while I'm appreciating the upgraded graphics and small details that have been added... it's now completely obvious where they had been lazy.

In Chora's Den, the strippers bar at the Citadel, there are only two strippers that have been copy and pasted across the room. There is one style of Asari and one Human, and apparently they're octuplets and they all chose the same career in life.

Another thing I was disappointed with is something that's probably a good thing. They removed a glitch I used to exploit every time I played!

On Therum, on the way to meeting Liara for the first time, is a bit where you're supposed to hop out of the mako and go in on foot. It used to be that if you angled the mako enough and used a bit of power, you could drive through and completely bug out the geth that are waiting for you.

They'd be frozen solid and you could simply hop out of the mako and shoot them all without danger.

Alas, no more.

And, to be honest, I don't think the game is as optimised as it could be. For me, personally, if it's been open for a substantial amount of time it will start going a bit frameratey and background programs will lag.

I'm a horrible person who alt-tabs a lot to chat on Messenger, especially when my partner is working and he's having a slow day, and after a few hours it was definitely making my Facebook horrible and slow.

Just turn it off and turn it back on though, no biggy.

Anyway. It's time to meet Caelyra Shepard... this is my personal default Shepard that I was so happy to recreate with the new character creator.

And I think she turned out pretty well! Here's hoping she transfers to Mass Effect 2 and 3 without turning into a visual monster. Usually by 3 I'm finding little issues with the player character's face, but that could be a deliberate story mechanic -- changing your Shepard to appear more bug-eyed and gaunt due to stress.

I'm barely a quarter through the first game at the moment so it'll be a while before I find out, unhelped by the fact I keep dabbling in Photo Mode at every possible moment. 😁