VIDEO Can anyone recommend Mass Effect?

I don't think that the final five minutes of ME3 erase all the good found in the trilogy before that.

 

I still think the second one is by far the best.

 

I think ME2 will probably endure as the most popular of the series as they refined a lot of things from the first one and probably had the overall best cast of playable characters (certainly the largest selection), as well as probably better combat. However, they also stripped away a lot of the RPG elements of the first game, and ME2 is where you start seeing how little your choices really matter.

ME2 combat is more conventional, with regular ammo (and I hated having to find tiny ammo refills in big areas), but I still missed the unusual no ammo system of ME1 (instead going for a overload system).

There are plenty of things in ME1 I miss, but they refined the basic ME mold from the first game for ME2, and kept most of it for ME3. ME1's story remains my favorite though, some quite epic moments (and possible parallels with KotOR), and honestly, ME2 is a sidestory in the trilogy. A very entertaining one, but still, sidestory.

ME3 had great character moments, and great graphics, but I'd rank the story as the weakest of the trilogy. And that's not even going into the regular or Extended versions, which I just do not like, but that's a long and tired debate by now. ME3 was a disappointment, partially due to all the hype, but also for not following up on a few fan favorite characters (though that was part of the hype too). Certain comments in ME2 indicate they probably had a different ending in mind originally too. The Citadel DLC though makes up for it somewhat, especially to everyone who played from the beginning.

Though what I hated most about ME3 was how multiplayer (or a cheap app) was required to reach more ending choices. I think they've changed it since (lowered the requirements so the "better" endings are possible without MP required) and blundering through a few matches isn't that bad, but just hate how it was forced into what had been a singleplayer trilogy. Also, despite ME2's quest log working fine, for some reason ME3's quest log is near useless. Doesn't help that you don't have unlimited time to scan systems or keep track of whether you completed a quest yet or not.

Its fun to replay through certain scenes, and certain quests or scenes or romances are only possible with different backgrounds or gender, but replaying through entire games can be tiresome. The mining/scanning timesink in ME2 was really annoying. And we all hated driving around in the Mako tank from the first game, but there was something... nice about exploring worlds like that. The tank itself handled horribly, but I liked wandering around, as well as stumbling onto quests like that. As well as just looking up at the sky sometime, they had some really nice scenery here or there. And ME1 had some of my favorite characters.

So ME1 or ME2 would probably be my favorite of the trilogy, and the trilogy is overall really good, and ME3 is still worth playing, preferably after having played through the first two though. Its the characters that really shine. As well as seeing a few things from ME1 pay off in ME3.

 

yeah they could have kept the exploration theme for the second and third game, but made it more diverse and enjoyable. sadly they did not.