u/hkf999

I remember being in high school and being extremely excited about Mass Effect 3 coming out. I also remember the discourse online about the ending to ME3 and the expanded ending content coming out. I remember vaguely being quite happy about the ending after the expanded content came out. I also remember having a real case of post game depression after it. I played the trilogy again in anticipation of Andromeda coming out 9 years ago, but didn't play it since. I bought the legendary edition when it came out, but left it sitting in my Steam library. This summer I finally sat down (a couple of times) and spent about 100 hours playing through it. Was it as good as I remember it? I quickly realised this will be too long to fit into one review, so I'll probably upload my review of each game over the course of about the next week.

Mass Effect 1 - The difficult birth of a legend

Mass Effect 1 was rougher than I remembered it. Despite all the improvements the legendary edition brings, it still really hasn't aged well. And yet you have to remember that the game is almost 20 years old. Released in the same year as Bioshock 1 and Modern Warfare 1, for example. The music and atmosphere is good. The main story quests are good as well. The tone is a bit sombre, and just dark enough. There is a lot of mystery in the galaxy. It makes sense for Shepard to not know a whole lot, since humanity is the new kid on the block in space, among species that have explored space since humans discovered that iron is better than bronze.

It doesn't look as bad as it did in the original game, but it isn't just the graphics. Shepard and the squad members feel a bit flat and underdeveloped. I remembered Tali, Garrus and Liara as these strong complex characters since I mainly remembered the last game, but there isn't a whole lot to them in this first game. As a man myself I like to play male Shepard. My romance option of choice was always Liara, and I repeated it this time around. I also remembered her as this strong complex character, but Liara declares her feelings for you after spending probably a grand total of 7 minutes with Shepard. It's a bit hilarious. Especially considering her romance clearly recieved the most attention from developers, especially in ME1 and ME3. It struck me talking to her for the first time on the Normandy how glad I was that ME1 didn't release under gamergate and post-gamergate discourse, since she right away starts explaining how her species don't have gender. This conversation also has a hilarious moment where Shepard can be a real idiot. Shepard can say something along the lines of how he though asari always preferred to breed with other species, where Liara can correct him with informing him that they would have to breed with each other on their own planet before they started exploring space. It's funny since the lore in these games really doesn't make any sense at all if you start thinking about the biology of the species for more than a second.

The gameplay was also rougher than I remembered it. Outside of the main story quests, which are mostly really good, there really isn't a whole lot to do in this game. Driving around planets in the Mako is mostly extremely boring. All of the planets are pretty much the same, with completely pointless collectibles and some side quests set in buildings copy-pasted every time. The gunplay is really janky. The overheating system of ammo is pretty bad. The AI on enemies and squad members is also very bad. The game also delights in flooding your inventory with stuff, weapons and armor that are mostly slight recoloured skins of the others. And mods, loads and loads of mods. The sheer amount of inventory tetris you have to do if you make sure everyone is at their best all the time is insane. You are also locked into bringing a member specced into being able to open all these chests all the time. Yet you still have to go through the same silly frogger minigame for all of them. Every member can have every weapon, even though this doesn't really make sense for them. They mostly stick to the one weapon by default, and the overheating mechanic doesn't really require you to ever switch weapons.

The citadel is a main hub you keep returning to over the course of these games. The seat of the galactic government and therefore also a huge megacity. It's built on a space station that has always been there, nobody knows how it works, maintained by a species of keepers nobody understands or knows really anything about. Again, this is just one of those bits of lore you really should try to not think too much about, since it might make you question why the bloody hell you would choose to make this the seat of galactic civilisation, especially again after the battle at the end of this game. There is loads of content here. Sadly, the citadel in ME1 is such a slog to navigate through that I avoided spending much time there. Sadly, this will make you miss some content that pops up there after you reach certain points of the game.

Despite all of these flaws, you have to recognize that this game was pretty great for it's time. And it started one of the most beloved video game series of all time. Even though the squad interactions are very stiff and bland, there are moments in there. Ashley is a fun character, pretty much because she is the only crew members with opinions on anything. It's also the game where Shepard feels the most like the "daddy" of the team. I especially remember the Garrus companion quest, when you track down a criminal he has been looking for. The paragon route leads to trying to take him in alive. The criminal reacts by starting to shoot, forcing your hand. Garrus understandably reacts in confusion to what the fuck the point to not just shooting him was. Shepard says something like how you can't control what other people's reaction will be, only your own actions. Small moments like these make Shepard feel like not just an empty slate to project yourself onto, but an experienced military officer who has been through some shit. The way in which all the companions gradually show great respect and admiration for you feels really good and well made. The companions are a bit flat, like I said, but they are great at introducing the player to the different species and conflicts between them. The voice acting is good, but doesn't really become great until the next two games. For now, it's a bit stiff.

The morality system itself isn't the best. It gets better in subsequent games, but not much. I love how the game stats shows that basically every single person played paragon in all three games. This again makes sense given how the paragon response is the empathetic reasonable thing to say, while the renegade option is often just needlessly cruel or angry. And yet... a couple of times over the trilogy the renegade option is very tempting. The problem in ME1 and ME2 is that you have to collect enough good guy points to be able to say the good guy thing. If you haven't done that, you might be forced to gun down a crew member on the Virmire mission. The same mission where you're forced to choose which crew member to sacrifice and leave for dead. Like every other situation like this in the trilogy, your good guy/bad guy-points can't solve this.

And yet, it feels rewarding when your sheer god guy rizz is so good that you can force the main bad guy to shoot himself in the end, because he realises he is indoctrinated by the reapers. That brings me to the real main bad guy. This is a really strong element in the series. A lovecraftian race of super powerful ancient AIs is coming to harvest all life, and there doesn't seem like you can do much despite delaying them. And the most sick thing is that Shepard and his crew are the only ones who even know about the reapers, and has to spend the rest of the game, and the next one, raving like a lunatic about how the end of days are coming. The pacing of the overarching story regarding the reapers and the frustration Shepard feels over not being believed is good, since this was always plannet out to be a trilogy. So the end of the game perfectly sets up the next one.

I waited for a while to play it. A couple of months ago it was heavily discounted on Steam, so I finally got around to it. Despite what the title says, I didn't hate Death Stranding, but I didn't love it either. It was ok. I held off on it because I have never been a huge fan of japanese games. There is just something about the sense of humour over there I am not a fan of. I find it often very childish and sexual in a weird way. There is certainly some of that in this game, but it wasn't as bad as I feared. Trying to keep this spoiler free, but for example being able to make pee and poo granades and the very male gaze-y way women are portrayed was a bit cringe sometimes.

The much talked about delivery man game is certainly high production. It looks beautiful and it features a cast full of famous actors. The music is amazing, and some of the writing is pretty good and discusses some interesting ideas. I didn't find the gameplay elements of it very good. Which is why my question at the end was "OK, but why isn't this just a movie?*

I know the experience would have been very different if I played it right after it came out. The game is about a delivery man with a traumatic past who has to reconnect society in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event. Humanity is concentrated in settlements and a few loners in bunkers, but they are not connected. Your job is to connect all these sparse settlements, so humanity can have another go at society while avoiding bandits, terrorists and the ghosts of dead people searching to connect with the living. Playing this in the months after it came out as society shut down in fear of the pandemic must have been an intense experience. Playing it in 2026, when covid is barely a vague memory didn't hit as hard.

Part of the problem for me is that the game really lays it on thick. You are constantly non-stop being told by the NPCs that you are connecting a disconnected world and how profound it is. It lessens the impact of the themes when you are constantly being described the themes and having them shoved in your face. To lay it on extra thick, the MC is afraid of physical touch, which is really on the nose.

You carry out your job by carrying packages people need from A to B. Navigating the open world is dangerous. There are bandits addicted to stealing cargo, terrorists who want the world to burn, dead people still stuck roaming the world and the rain. Rain accelerates time and makes everyone it touches older rapidly. In that world, delivery people, mostly ignored in our world, are suddenly heroes. Literally life savers. This is literally what you do. You deliver stuff from A to B, navigating all these dangers along the way, in addition to uneven terrain and the logistics of having to physically carry it all. Along the way you also carry BB (Bridge Baby). These babies can see the ghosts of the dead floating around, and notify them. If you fall over or get into a lot of danger, BB starts crying and might go into shock if it goes too far. This is an interesting, if sometimes annoying mechanic. The constant loud baby crying got old fast.

There is a progression system to it, so that as you go and connect more places, you gain new gear and also vehicles. This will allow you to carry more stuff easier. There is also a collaborative element to it. Online players who played through what you played might put down a rope to climp down, a ladder that allows you to cross a river, or maybe even put resources into constructing a road that makes travel much easier. You can contribute to this too. Whether this is a cool addition to the themes of collaboration and society, or breaks the immersion when crossing a ladder put down by SkibidiBiden69 with an anime profile pic? This might be subjective and I lean towards the latter.

The gameplay is reliant on immersion and loving the journey. If the player ever becomes aware that they're actually just walking back and forth between A and B, the magic is lost. There is undeniably a satisfaction that comes with completing a long and ardous trip to finally make the delivery, however the game didn't succeed in creating a lot of those experiences for me, and there was instead a certain amount of tedium to going back and forth over the same route over and over. There is certainly a type of gamer/completionist that would get a kick out of completing all the optional objectives, all the additional contracts, reconstructing all the roads, etc. It just wasn't me. I was more driven by the story, so I left regions before they were fully completed. There are a lot of combat scenarios, but the combat in this game is extremely simple. Shoot and punch. There is very little to it.

The map is big, but not huge. This was actually somewhat of a problem for me. The game starts on the east coast of the US, and your end destionation is all the way in the west of the US. In no way did I actually believe that. The game completely fails in creating a sense of scale that makes the player believe they are traversing the entire American continent. You can travel from one end of the map to the other in like 20 mins.

The story has a lot of elements to it. A lot of themes and ideas. Through the game, Hideo Kojima is constantly parading a whole row of Hollywood blockbuster actors out in front of you. To the point that they are actually introduced with "Mads Mikkelsen as...". The star value of the actors feels more important than the actual actors they are portraying. Especially as the realistic art style makes them way more than voice actors. This was the first time I thought that this should just be a movie. The story is interesting, but most of the story is backloaded into massive amounts of cutscenes at the end of the game. It is hard to describe how poor this makes the pacing of the game. When almost the entire story of the game is left in massive cutscenes at the very end of a game, I again thought:

OK, but this should have been a movie.