What is Mass Effect to you ?

For me Mass Effect (MET&MEA) is part of my life ( Dragon Age too ). Fantastic future world in which I can forget about my problems and enjoy adventure, world where I find danger,discoveries, enemies, battles, new and old friends, love, disappointments and victories! It's so cool!!

I loved Star Wars as a kid, still kinda do (rip Leia :"( ).

I write sci-fi myself and love Philip K. Dick. Scanner in the dark is probably my favorite. I also enjoy reading my local scifi writers so I am kinda into it.

Player I have always been and a strong escapist. Before Mass Effect my favorites where from the Rockstar games: first San Andreas with all that hip hop and free roaming was golden. Second favorite was Red Dead Redemption.

When I first discovered MET there was simply nothing better. Everything was just right. The universe fulfilled me more than Star Wars had done being a bit campy for my tastes lately.

But something about the aesthetic of Mass Effect world made it. The atmosphere is... just right. When I first entered Noveria I thought I could truly spend the rest of my life at Port Hanshan as Gianna Parasini.

Also love the fact that you can be a badass woman in a game. Guys don't probably understand how huge, huge deal it is (don't want to be mean here). I was blown away that I could be the militant boss lady voiced by one of the best VA's in gaming.

There is so much more I could detail about the game. MET is a masterpiece in many level. Thank you from ruining almost every other game .

Pure unadulterated escapism.

Mass effect 1: rpg with shooter elements.
Mass effect 2: action rpg.
Mass effect 3: shooter with rpg elements.
Mass effect 4: Action adventure with rpgs elements.

Mass effect is one of the few good rpgs out there.
1: It doesnt play in the medievil times(god knows we have to many of those)
2: People are sinners and saints(to many games is good vs bad, me vs them, etc(atleast mass effect acknowledge how all spieces got good and bad people)
3: Dialog isnt as bad as other biowhere games(you got a 75% chance of the dialog accauly saying what you select instead of the 25% chance you get in other games)
4: Mass effect universe is believeable.(nowhere nearly as much deus ex machina(biggest flaw of mass effect 4 is deux ex sam) as in other settings, there still there just less of them)

From my point of view:
Mass effect 1 is an rpg because it has inventory mangement, the ability to equip everyone, biotic's would also effect sheilded people.
It replaced boring turn based dice rolling combat with active skillbased combat.

Mass effect 2 is an action rpgs because it lacks the freedom of a true rpgs (Control of your squad specilization, skills, gear, strenghts and weaknesses etc.)

Mass effect 3 is a shooter with limeted dialog or choice's.
You can tell the focus when into the combat and not into the story(the multiplayer only comfirm this believe)
Worst of all shapherd talks all the time without me so much as picking a respons(this is a problem of alot of biowhere games at the time. play mass effect 2 mains story line then play arrival dlc) it makes me feel like i am playing eagames shapherd not malaficus shapherd.
Our charaters are suppose to be our avaters.
Not people we guide/posses.
Not to mention that stupid kid.
Constantly dreaming about some random kid.
My shapherd is the most ruthless person in the galaxie.
(colonie&ruthless background) Some random kid's death woudnt effect him in the slightest.
It illistrate's a point.
They take away control and make you charater into something it is not just to fit the story.
You shoud never tell a player what there charater likes and dislike.
That is godmodding.
We want to deside our charaters mindset.

Mass effect 4 is an action adventure with rpgs elements.
It has several things in its favor:
Removeall of the class system(any game that still uses classes shoud be shot)
Charaters are more alive(Or atleast less serious)
The kett are an enemy that isnt overpowered(there just a large empire)
Conversation is more enjoyable, tho it still suffers from bioware wield of inaccurate dialog(the dialog is always compleetly different then the option you pick and my charater still talks without me telling him too.)
The pacing is just fine(you wont believe how many game get pacing wrong)
Worlds are interesting to explore.

Unfortantly you have no control of your companions gear or when they use a skill(Not even there weapons).
You cant give tatic's(like dragon age origin) to make them fight less dumb.
You dont even get the ability to control your squad outside move there or attack that.
It suffers from deux ex sam(Try counting every time sam solves the problem, from escaping archons trap to translating allian ruins to enhancing you to super human levels....honestly why do games insist of using deux ex machina. is it so hard to write a story where you solve things on there own?)
Doesnt allow for smart choices.
For example: i cant have sam overload the archon ships and get it to detonate(not even the option to ask and be refused)
Or get reforcemence from the tempest/ark despite the fact we have been slaughtering the defenders.
No ability to suggest changing murder to attempted murder(Nope is is supress the thruth or letting an attempted murderer go free)
I cant blow up them temple after i free the agara for some reason.
Biotic's are still nerfed to death.(both weapons and tech can deal with shield's and armor but biotic cannot. engineering ability go straight through defendses/rocks for crying out loud. atleast in mass effect one biotic's where worth a damm but every one mass effect game seems to want make everyone immune to biotic's)
They expect us to care about a random npc because there family.
Unlike dragon age origin and neverwinter night 2 where you spend some time with charaters before there taken from you alot of modern games simply tell us to care about npc without giving us an accauly reason to care.
They shoud have had us spend half the game with the family before hurting them.

Mass Effect kept me sane after a long hospital stay. More important than just a video game to me.

To me, it was just about everything that the ended up changing in MEA. A fun, focused space romp to an unfocused, poorly written mess.

The dialogue system for Shepard with paragon and renegade, the prompts, etc. That stuff was and still is a big reason I replay the trilogy. In MEA, people would fuck with you and you couldn't tell them to fuck off. I never could put any pepper on a line of dialogue. I never got the option to shoot someone. Almost everything came off too jovial.

I liked the linear level design. It kept you moving forward and you felt like you were progressing. It helped make your goal focused. And I'm sure made the writing more focused because it made it easier to follow a 1-2-3 formula. Where in MEA, I kept asking "What am I doing?" and a lot of time my answer came to be "really boring, time wasting dog shit".

Squadmates that hated each others guts but got along enough to pal around. Sometimes you got Miranda vs Jack, or Tali vs Legion. Friendships like Garrus and Tali and Liara. Guys that were just perfectly amicable like Zaeed and Grunt. Guys that were kinda assholes who came around a bit like Javik and Wrex. But they all had defined characters and the butting of heads and friendships they shared amongst each other helped make them feel real. Collecting a bunch of randoms in a new galaxy where everything has gone to shit and everyone is all "Sup fam?! We pals. We agree on all stuff. But we're all the best pals!" made it feel like the characters in a kids cartoon.

Mix in that you have no more squad control anymore and the AI was dumber than tomato. Now my friendly AI dictated my playstyle, and I hated that. I couldn't set my own combos. I couldn't reliably trigger them. I couldn't even experiment with one of my powers and a squadmates. I could just shoot, and perform an action every 15 seconds. I couldn't tell them which weapon to use. *Upgrade AR, still uses unupgraded shotgun from long range*. There was no tactical pause for basically no reason.

I didn't even like the X-Y-Z axis for combat because above baby difficulty, you couldn't dish out enough damage for a god damn age to actually have fun flying around and stuff. Enemy AI was pretty dumb too.

Also, SAM and the lore breaking writing around every corner didn't help my experience. A lot of info is in the codex of prior games. And in this one it was like "is ____ a thing?" "idk, i assume not. lets make it this."

It was just so messy and unfocused.

A game I enjoyed.

The trilogy containing two of the best video games I've ever played (never played ME1)

You can read my quote below if you want the short version but here is the full song:

Well, i could say a lot of wonderful things about why they are my favourite games but ill keep it to just one.

The trilogy is closest thing to a Babylon 5 game ill ever get, which is pretty important to me.

Please please please do. I started playing from 2 and continued to 3 first. And then realized I have to play the first game. 
First try was a confusing and stressful one. Labs in Noveria were the worst, maps were really messy. But the story itself is the best, the ending shines even over ME2 and you got to meet and hang with the best character in the series: Wrex. After the first playtrough after I learned the combat and remembered the maps... I have no words how great the experience was. It has also a great variety of responses in the discussion wheel, it is the game that made me laugh the most of the series. I also enjoyed hanging so much around with Anderson and Hackett. The citadel wards are beautiful. You will discover new things in every playtrough. You get to know more about Shepard's past. It is simply the best game in the series overall.

Is the physical copy needed? You can still install the first game for PS3 and 4. 
If you don't have wifi acces just remove your console to a location where you have a good connection (I did this when the Citadel dlc got out and my connection was too bad). 


www.playstation.com/en-us/gam