Review
Played on: Xbox Series X
Released: 2021
Released: 2021
Introduction
There's no denying Bioware's huge impact on gaming with it's sci-fi action RPG series Mass Effect. Beginning it's life on PC and Xbox 360 back in 2007, the world was introduced to Shepard and the Normandy crew. 14 years later we get to experience this great journey once again!
If you're interested in my reviews of the originals, here is my combined ME1 & ME2 one and here is the ME3 one.
Previously, Electronic Arts have been sceptical to the remaster scene, but the past years have seen the company warming up to the idea with their Burnout Paradise and Need For Speed Hot Pursuit remasters. This year, sees the Mass Effect trilogy enter the program. Not only are the three games remastered and released in one massive collection, with all their DLCs included, there's also a plan for a Mass Effect 4. So, for long term fans and newcomers of this wonderful sci-fi series, there's a lot to be excited for!
For this review, I'll break it into separate parts for each release. A small write up on the actual game and my opinion on the remastered improvements. Finally, I'll do summary score for the package as a whole, spoiler: it's fantastic!
For the tech heads out there, I played this game on a Xbox Series X, running at either a super sharp, native 4K@60fps, or, if you accept some resolution drop, 1440p@120fps for silky, smooth framerate. All around, there's more focus on a heavy usage of depth of field. It's well implemented and does a good job at blurring out backdrops in such a way that makes areas feel more spacious and hide simpler polygon models far away.
For console players, I strongly recommend playing this on the new generation of consoles, to get a distinct jump in both image quality and framerate, compared to the old releases.
So, let's jump onboard the Normandy and space travel to each title!
The everlasting discussion of whether ME1 or ME2 is the best in the series, is a whole chapter in itself. For me, the story and uncovering of what lies ahead makes ME1 the best narrative to follow and the most interesting. What brought ME1 down, back in the day, was it's more crude and experimental approach to gameplay elements. Being a fairly early shooter on the Unreal Engine 3, it didn't quite hit the refined notes of third person shooters like Gears of War.
Going back in this remaster and wandering for a good two hours around the Citadel, before even embarking on your journey of hunting down Saren, reminded me how unique an experience ME1 is. A massive and vast undertaking task lies ahead of you, the feeling of being fresh in your job as a Spectre and just wandering about at a relaxed pace, learning about the lore in the Citadel through character interactions.
ME1 continues it's brilliance once you get travelling, in your beautiful Normandy spaceship. Discovering planets and cities, with lots of visual and atmospheric variation, building this incredible underlying intensity of vastness and importance to your task. For new players, unaware, be prepared to play something that really is unlike most.
The first game set the bar high for the series, and sci-fi gaming in general. With clear influences from popular sci-fi TV shows and movies throughout. Perfectly keeping itself within the boundaries of quality presentation and believable dialogue, never feeling cringe worthy or cheap. The camera work in dialogue and action scenes still hold up very well.
There's also this sense of loneliness and it's vast sense of massive scale in locations and an underlying creepiness, that somehow makes ME1 the most memorable journey of the three. While the shooting mechanics felt rudimentary in hindsight, it let you delve far into a larger selection of ability powers within it's leveling system.
So, what has improved? For the three games in this collection, ME1 has had the most significant changes to graphics and gameplay.
Clearly apparent, are the visual upgrades. Unlike ME2 & ME3 in this collection, ME1 is closer to a remake, rather than just a remaster. Character models, facial animations and eyes have had an upgrade to put it on par with the sequels.
From the moment you land on Eden Prime, ME1's famous introductory encounter with a creepy foresight of the journey ahead, you realise a lot of work has been put into upgrading the landscape. Dense foliage, air particles, more rocks and trees have been added, likewise the textures have been massively upgraded in detail.
This remake approach, is indeed a neat way to fill the visual gap that used to be present between ME1 and it's sequels. However, this is not all that's been improved.
Gameplay has received an overhaul too, while they couldn't just shoe-horn in ME2s action styled, third person view, the clunky and awkward shooting and covering in ME1 has been improved substantially.
Add to this, the fluidity and responsiveness of locked 60fps to fix ME1's frequent framerate drops on Xbox 360, that suffered sluggish controls as a result. Combined this version helps players enjoy the first game, and vital part of the trilogy, so much better when it comes to gameplay. The driving sections have also undergone large improvements, with a much less erratic behaviour of the infamous Mako six-wheeler vehicle.
There's no better way to play ME1 than in this collection and Bioware have done an excellent job in remaking it. Giving players the best experience, while at the same time retaining the slight difference in gameplay mechanics and leveling system it originally had.
Some will paint visual alterations in colour and presentation in a negative light, through screenshots, but playing the actual game it all felt like improvements to me. I never felt scenes or atmosphere was changed drastically in any way.
Enjoying a stable framerate, with easier controls and more consistent cover system in battle, helps make the already fantastic, but technically varying original release, to an even greater experience.
Truly one of the classics of sci-fi in gaming and a title you really should experience the atmosphere, vastness and building tension within. It's about taking your time to delve into a fantastic lore.
Building upon the story and premise of the first game, Bioware really outdid themselves with ME2. The gameplay was heavily updated, getting closer to the feel of a typical third person shooter. The cover system became as consistent as Gears of War and the abilities easier to grasp and utilise.
While the actual leveling system is downgraded in its sheer amount of abilities at disposal, they're more straight forward to level up with unique combat styles for the given class. As such, you have to team up more cleverly with characters, so you can take benefit of a broader set of abilities across your teammates. Fully covering your attack and defence style options, as you encounter enemies that require various attack methods.
ME2 also ramps up the amount of variation in locations and the sheer number of them. There are so incredibly many places along your way. From tropical to snowy landscapes, from cities to barren planets. It's an amazing variation, almost unrivalled in this genre and should please many.
Even outside of it's sci-fi setting, it appeals heavily to third person action fans or just players that enjoy a large scale adventure, exploring atmospheric locations. What struck me on this replay, was how I was reminded of the size of the locations too. Some are just small areas to get a specific item, while others are large places you stay for lengthy side stories.
Gameplay and visuals have remained mostly untouched in ME2, with the added comfort of better framerate and high resolution to bring out more detail. Console gamers can finally enjoy the higher textures from the PC version. There are some added touches, like volumetric lighting and particles flying around the air, giving depth to rooms and corridors. Areas of foliage or grass have also been improved, with better 3D models and density.
Going straight from ME1 as a remake in this collection, to ME2, which is mostly a resolution boost at first glance, almost seems slightly underwhelming. But as you progress, you encounter so much variety in locations and understand that ME2 still is a visual splendour to behold, albeit with far less work done and remains clearly as a remaster job.
ME2 is a massive game, perhaps the largest of the three in the collection, added too are a great handful of chunky DLCs. One of them even adds a vast planet surface to roam about in a flying vehicle, with sub-areas to explore within! If you want to get all upgrades on weapons and the Normandy, you're in for a long run, scanning each planet along the way! I ended up doing it all and had a great time, even though I'd done it alle before.
As I played all these titles back to back, I relived the splendour of this sequel and can truly say it's one of my top ten games of all time. While it perhaps doesn't quite reach the tense and shocking story of the first game, it's just a large, perfectly balanced game that succeed both in story, presentation, music, atmosphere, variation and entertaining gameplay. It's these types of games that reach the top scores, when they do all their elements incredibly well.
Perhaps the black sheep of the trilogy, although Andromeda has since taken away the negative light. ME3 was often considered a bad ending to the trilogy. Bioware had let the story branch into seemingly two very different directions by the end of ME2: you were either with or against Cerberus. Two distinctly different choices in terms of goals, behaviour and overall politics in the lore.
ME3 then, just shoe-horned you into being negative to Cerberus. From the beginning they're presented as an evil corporation, versus their questionable and unknown motives in ME2. It felt back then, and even now, like a clear cut in ambition, by a developer that probably was facing strict deadlines.
That said, wrapping up such a massive saga is no easy task and pleasing everyone is extremely difficult. Perhaps the most obvious complaint is the similarity between the three endings you can accomplish.
In this version, we're treated to the expanded director's cut endings, they were added as free DLC post-launch back in the day, although they still they feel underwhelming. The endings are what they are, not bad, but not memorable in any way.
Going back to ME3, I remember it feeling shorter than ME2 and more of a constant rush towards it's end. Replaying it, I went from what I would consider a four out of six rating, to a five. I had never experienced the extra DLCs, which are included from the get go in this collection, blending and expanding into the main story seamlessly. They generously give you many hours of extra content and bring out some really interesting settings to explore.
One of them is a return to the Omega station in ME2, in a help to recapture the place. Battling it out in the more unknown places and back alleys of the station. While the other DLC, is a casual shore leave at the Citadel, which turns into a murder mystery! Both give you a lot of extra insight into their locations and unseen areas of them both.
They're indeed fantastic DLC additions and to think newcomers will enjoy it to it's full potential, without knowing they used to be added additions, is a wonderful way to preserve these games for newcomers.
ME3, just like ME2 in this collection, is clearly in the remaster camp when it comes to visual enhancements. Resolution and framerate upgrades are what you're getting. However, being a later ME title than the others, I did notice that the textures look really nice here. Especially, on planet surfaces with rock and sand showing up in sharp detail.
I'm guessing they're using the PC textures, which at this point back in 2012, had moved far from the ageing hardware inside the X360 & PS3 consoles. I also noticed that the Omega 3 and Citadel DLCs, really push the visual department with some beautifully designed areas.
Gameplay builds heavily on the foundation of the second game, leaning even further into the third person action style, with rolling mechanics added. Combined with some of the enemy design, I felt a heavy presence of Gears of War influence.
The leveling system branches out somewhat on the simplified ME2 model, where you have to choose between what abilities do, when upgrading them. An ability's higher levels increases some stats, but not others. It's about weighing up the positives and negatives, giving more depth to your choices.
These choices are also present with weapon modifications, allowing you to add gadgets to them. Weighing up stats like weight, bullet power, accuracy etc.
I went into ME3 knowing it just wasn't going to quite reach the excellence of the first two titles, but ended up truly enjoying myself! The lack of having to micro manage planet scanning and finding individual unique parts for characters weapons and ship armour, used to feel like a step back. But playing the trilogy, as a whole, it feels nice to be able to only focus on building the alliance with various species.
Each title brings something new to the experience, without repeating itself when playing the trilogy as one massive game.
The added DLCs, and their many hours of extra gameplay, really filled out ME3 to a longer journey before engaging into the final end battle. I love that my memory of ME3 now leaves on a more positive note.
If you're interested in my reviews of the originals, here is my combined ME1 & ME2 one and here is the ME3 one.
Previously, Electronic Arts have been sceptical to the remaster scene, but the past years have seen the company warming up to the idea with their Burnout Paradise and Need For Speed Hot Pursuit remasters. This year, sees the Mass Effect trilogy enter the program. Not only are the three games remastered and released in one massive collection, with all their DLCs included, there's also a plan for a Mass Effect 4. So, for long term fans and newcomers of this wonderful sci-fi series, there's a lot to be excited for!
For this review, I'll break it into separate parts for each release. A small write up on the actual game and my opinion on the remastered improvements. Finally, I'll do summary score for the package as a whole, spoiler: it's fantastic!
For the tech heads out there, I played this game on a Xbox Series X, running at either a super sharp, native 4K@60fps, or, if you accept some resolution drop, 1440p@120fps for silky, smooth framerate. All around, there's more focus on a heavy usage of depth of field. It's well implemented and does a good job at blurring out backdrops in such a way that makes areas feel more spacious and hide simpler polygon models far away.
For console players, I strongly recommend playing this on the new generation of consoles, to get a distinct jump in both image quality and framerate, compared to the old releases.
So, let's jump onboard the Normandy and space travel to each title!
Mass Effect
Originally released: 2007The everlasting discussion of whether ME1 or ME2 is the best in the series, is a whole chapter in itself. For me, the story and uncovering of what lies ahead makes ME1 the best narrative to follow and the most interesting. What brought ME1 down, back in the day, was it's more crude and experimental approach to gameplay elements. Being a fairly early shooter on the Unreal Engine 3, it didn't quite hit the refined notes of third person shooters like Gears of War.
Going back in this remaster and wandering for a good two hours around the Citadel, before even embarking on your journey of hunting down Saren, reminded me how unique an experience ME1 is. A massive and vast undertaking task lies ahead of you, the feeling of being fresh in your job as a Spectre and just wandering about at a relaxed pace, learning about the lore in the Citadel through character interactions.
ME1 continues it's brilliance once you get travelling, in your beautiful Normandy spaceship. Discovering planets and cities, with lots of visual and atmospheric variation, building this incredible underlying intensity of vastness and importance to your task. For new players, unaware, be prepared to play something that really is unlike most.
The first game set the bar high for the series, and sci-fi gaming in general. With clear influences from popular sci-fi TV shows and movies throughout. Perfectly keeping itself within the boundaries of quality presentation and believable dialogue, never feeling cringe worthy or cheap. The camera work in dialogue and action scenes still hold up very well.
There's also this sense of loneliness and it's vast sense of massive scale in locations and an underlying creepiness, that somehow makes ME1 the most memorable journey of the three. While the shooting mechanics felt rudimentary in hindsight, it let you delve far into a larger selection of ability powers within it's leveling system.
So, what has improved? For the three games in this collection, ME1 has had the most significant changes to graphics and gameplay.
Clearly apparent, are the visual upgrades. Unlike ME2 & ME3 in this collection, ME1 is closer to a remake, rather than just a remaster. Character models, facial animations and eyes have had an upgrade to put it on par with the sequels.
From the moment you land on Eden Prime, ME1's famous introductory encounter with a creepy foresight of the journey ahead, you realise a lot of work has been put into upgrading the landscape. Dense foliage, air particles, more rocks and trees have been added, likewise the textures have been massively upgraded in detail.
This remake approach, is indeed a neat way to fill the visual gap that used to be present between ME1 and it's sequels. However, this is not all that's been improved.
Gameplay has received an overhaul too, while they couldn't just shoe-horn in ME2s action styled, third person view, the clunky and awkward shooting and covering in ME1 has been improved substantially.
Add to this, the fluidity and responsiveness of locked 60fps to fix ME1's frequent framerate drops on Xbox 360, that suffered sluggish controls as a result. Combined this version helps players enjoy the first game, and vital part of the trilogy, so much better when it comes to gameplay. The driving sections have also undergone large improvements, with a much less erratic behaviour of the infamous Mako six-wheeler vehicle.
There's no better way to play ME1 than in this collection and Bioware have done an excellent job in remaking it. Giving players the best experience, while at the same time retaining the slight difference in gameplay mechanics and leveling system it originally had.
Some will paint visual alterations in colour and presentation in a negative light, through screenshots, but playing the actual game it all felt like improvements to me. I never felt scenes or atmosphere was changed drastically in any way.
Enjoying a stable framerate, with easier controls and more consistent cover system in battle, helps make the already fantastic, but technically varying original release, to an even greater experience.
Truly one of the classics of sci-fi in gaming and a title you really should experience the atmosphere, vastness and building tension within. It's about taking your time to delve into a fantastic lore.
Mass Effect 2
Originally released: 2010Building upon the story and premise of the first game, Bioware really outdid themselves with ME2. The gameplay was heavily updated, getting closer to the feel of a typical third person shooter. The cover system became as consistent as Gears of War and the abilities easier to grasp and utilise.
While the actual leveling system is downgraded in its sheer amount of abilities at disposal, they're more straight forward to level up with unique combat styles for the given class. As such, you have to team up more cleverly with characters, so you can take benefit of a broader set of abilities across your teammates. Fully covering your attack and defence style options, as you encounter enemies that require various attack methods.
ME2 also ramps up the amount of variation in locations and the sheer number of them. There are so incredibly many places along your way. From tropical to snowy landscapes, from cities to barren planets. It's an amazing variation, almost unrivalled in this genre and should please many.
Even outside of it's sci-fi setting, it appeals heavily to third person action fans or just players that enjoy a large scale adventure, exploring atmospheric locations. What struck me on this replay, was how I was reminded of the size of the locations too. Some are just small areas to get a specific item, while others are large places you stay for lengthy side stories.
Gameplay and visuals have remained mostly untouched in ME2, with the added comfort of better framerate and high resolution to bring out more detail. Console gamers can finally enjoy the higher textures from the PC version. There are some added touches, like volumetric lighting and particles flying around the air, giving depth to rooms and corridors. Areas of foliage or grass have also been improved, with better 3D models and density.
Going straight from ME1 as a remake in this collection, to ME2, which is mostly a resolution boost at first glance, almost seems slightly underwhelming. But as you progress, you encounter so much variety in locations and understand that ME2 still is a visual splendour to behold, albeit with far less work done and remains clearly as a remaster job.
As I played all these titles back to back, I relived the splendour of this sequel and can truly say it's one of my top ten games of all time. While it perhaps doesn't quite reach the tense and shocking story of the first game, it's just a large, perfectly balanced game that succeed both in story, presentation, music, atmosphere, variation and entertaining gameplay. It's these types of games that reach the top scores, when they do all their elements incredibly well.
Mass Effect 3
Originally released: 2012Perhaps the black sheep of the trilogy, although Andromeda has since taken away the negative light. ME3 was often considered a bad ending to the trilogy. Bioware had let the story branch into seemingly two very different directions by the end of ME2: you were either with or against Cerberus. Two distinctly different choices in terms of goals, behaviour and overall politics in the lore.
ME3 then, just shoe-horned you into being negative to Cerberus. From the beginning they're presented as an evil corporation, versus their questionable and unknown motives in ME2. It felt back then, and even now, like a clear cut in ambition, by a developer that probably was facing strict deadlines.
That said, wrapping up such a massive saga is no easy task and pleasing everyone is extremely difficult. Perhaps the most obvious complaint is the similarity between the three endings you can accomplish.
In this version, we're treated to the expanded director's cut endings, they were added as free DLC post-launch back in the day, although they still they feel underwhelming. The endings are what they are, not bad, but not memorable in any way.
One of them is a return to the Omega station in ME2, in a help to recapture the place. Battling it out in the more unknown places and back alleys of the station. While the other DLC, is a casual shore leave at the Citadel, which turns into a murder mystery! Both give you a lot of extra insight into their locations and unseen areas of them both.
They're indeed fantastic DLC additions and to think newcomers will enjoy it to it's full potential, without knowing they used to be added additions, is a wonderful way to preserve these games for newcomers.
ME3, just like ME2 in this collection, is clearly in the remaster camp when it comes to visual enhancements. Resolution and framerate upgrades are what you're getting. However, being a later ME title than the others, I did notice that the textures look really nice here. Especially, on planet surfaces with rock and sand showing up in sharp detail.
I'm guessing they're using the PC textures, which at this point back in 2012, had moved far from the ageing hardware inside the X360 & PS3 consoles. I also noticed that the Omega 3 and Citadel DLCs, really push the visual department with some beautifully designed areas.
Gameplay builds heavily on the foundation of the second game, leaning even further into the third person action style, with rolling mechanics added. Combined with some of the enemy design, I felt a heavy presence of Gears of War influence.
The leveling system branches out somewhat on the simplified ME2 model, where you have to choose between what abilities do, when upgrading them. An ability's higher levels increases some stats, but not others. It's about weighing up the positives and negatives, giving more depth to your choices.
These choices are also present with weapon modifications, allowing you to add gadgets to them. Weighing up stats like weight, bullet power, accuracy etc.
Each title brings something new to the experience, without repeating itself when playing the trilogy as one massive game.
The added DLCs, and their many hours of extra gameplay, really filled out ME3 to a longer journey before engaging into the final end battle. I love that my memory of ME3 now leaves on a more positive note.
Summary
A solid remaster collection, giving you three incredible titles, tied together by a massive arching story, with a very reasonable price tag, complete with all it's DLC included. We're talking hours and hours of content here. It's an amazing experience if you've never tried this series before and it's a great way of playing them back to back. Even more so for new console owners, playing it on current gen hardware running at 60fps.
Seeing the weaker parts of the trilogy getting reworks, ironing out typical complaints, made me very happy. The clunky gameplay in ME1 is improved and the thin story in ME3 is fleshed out. Bringing it all together with consistent quality overall.
As a collection of classics, you'll have a hard job finding a better one. Collected, this package gets a top score from me. Amazing trilogy, that you really need to experience or replay. Sci-fi brilliance.
Collection rating:
Seeing the weaker parts of the trilogy getting reworks, ironing out typical complaints, made me very happy. The clunky gameplay in ME1 is improved and the thin story in ME3 is fleshed out. Bringing it all together with consistent quality overall.
As a collection of classics, you'll have a hard job finding a better one. Collected, this package gets a top score from me. Amazing trilogy, that you really need to experience or replay. Sci-fi brilliance.
Collection rating:
