Video Game Review: Mass Effect 1: Legendary Edition
Release Year: 2007/2021
Reading Year: WI2023
Developer/Publisher: BioWare/Electronic Arts
Time to Beat: 18 Hours
Thoughts: In 2008, I was listening to the Sarcastic Gamer Podcast and was amazed that three adults could talk for hours week-after-week about this game called Mass Effect. I was entranced by how invested they were in their stories, each unique to each person. It was endlessly entertaining, but felt too difficult and mature for me at the time. After a false start in 2014, I dusted off Legendary Edition to give Mass Effect a go to begin clearing out my decades long backlog.
I am so happy I played this game. Just open this game and play the first mission – trust me!
In many ways, Mass Effect is perfect for me. It is primarily narrative driven with combat that is a means to an end. Pretty good for the chatty child of Half-Life and Halo. I played on the default difficulty and never felt challenged by the FPS elements (pro tip: learn to use the talents ASAP). I usually struggle with open-world games, but Mass Effect uses its size not to get lost in, but to fill with shorter, lighter content to breakup the intensity of its story. Actually, it uses everything else to fill in the story. To make the stakes higher, to get you further invested in the characters and your choices. The loop of chasing down politics in the Citadel, running one-off missions in the Traverse, chatting up your crew, or pushing the main story forward satiates many tastes. It is no wonder then that I beat it in 18 hours over just 3 days.
There is little to show its 16 years of age. Sure, the combat is a bit clunky and controlling your squad is a recipe for insanity. But, this game is as fun, engaging, and artful as any AAA game today. My heart was pumping with each encounter with Saren, a fantastic villain. How the narrative rolls through multiple plot twists and revelations is masterful – I was had many times! And I wanted to be. I was so immersed and so excited at my next opportunity to make a choice.
If I look at my list of gripes, it is short and forgivable. There is not a single issue I encountered that would bar my giving a recommendation. The unexplored worlds are sparse and are really the only part of this game that blatantly shows its age and limitations. There are still quite a few (minor) bugs. Dialog sometimes repeats itself, my game crashed a few times during FTL scenes, it is maddeningly slow to run around the Citadel, and dialogue can be exceedingly tedious to do simple things like buy weapons.
Yet each of these is met with equally small, but mighty positive examples. I love that some of your side-quests will become broadcast during your elevator rides – a clever way to mask those loading screens. I genuinely enjoyed clicking through planets and surveying or just reading about them. And the side-quests! I chased monkeys around a small, forgettable planet! I killed a Thresher Maw, which led to revealing an Alliance conspiracy. I stopped a rogue AI on the moon, was tasked with taking about rival space bandits, and so much more.
There was never a moment in those 18 hours that I felt was wasted. The writing is some of the best in video games, and at a scale unmatched by most studios. The story is a full-blown space opera and I am deliriously happy there are two more of these games to explore. Even with a 16 year industry deficit, this game stands the test of time. The world is beautiful and unbelievably large for 2007.
Now, the only decision is: should I restart ME1 or start ME2?