I also miss ME1’s absolutely beautiful skyboxes. I’d just chill in the mako, on a random beautiful planet, just looking at the sky before going to bed.
And then reading the little planet lore texts, like "this planet here is a popular tourist location because it is projected to collide with its neighbouring planet in just 50 years".
@@sev9597 yeah ME1 has by far the best and most distinctive music of the series. Sure I can recall tracks like the suicide mission, Illusive Man's theme or the Citadel DLC combat track, but in ME1 I can remember about every place, from Eden Prime to the Citadel and every planet, to the love track to the final battle.
@@MrAbgeBrandt Music is one of the biggest keys (pun not intended) to creating strong atmosphere. The sequels had great soundtracks too (even some tunes from Andromeda I admit), but ME1's tracks were truly iconic. The planet ambiences and Virmire combat (and MAKO) music really transport me to another world.
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT: The feeling of Sovereign on Eden Prime and Sovereign revealing he, a living ship, is the actual villain and not Saren, is an experience I will never ever forget in my lifetime.
The conversation with Vigil touches on this terrifying emptiness, too. I'll never forget the feeling when Vigil said the keepers didn't answer this time, and I realized that but for the grace of a handful of forgotten acts of courage 50k years ago and the fragile, unplanned grasp by my Shepard of their light flung forward, the galaxy would already have been destroyed in Shepard's lifetime.
Holy fuck I don't usually mind spoilers at all but I do regret reading the first sentence of you comment. I'm on my 1st playthrough and wasn't ready for this revelation lol no problema thought I'll save this vid for later
ME1: setting up a universe. ME2: getting to know that universe. ME3: trying to save the universe. Seriously, very few fictional media can match the quality, consistency, & realism of the Mass Effect Trilogy!
I can’t even count how many times I played through ME1 before ME2 came out. The game is just a masterpiece and does such a good job of establishing the universe.
Interesting. When ME2 and ME3 came out I never touched ME1 again and just used character creators/save editors because it was just so...painful to play. Even with LE I only played once. ME3 though I can play over and over again.
@@mbogucki1 I get you. Even though ME1 is an excellent game that sets up the world extremely well, it is arguably the least fun of the trilogy. The game is a bit of a slow burn when compared to the relatively fast-paced sequels.
@@maskednil That's spot on for me as well. I played ME at -least- 11 times. 3 or 4 full 100% playthroughs on the Xbox 360, maybe more (it's been 15 years lol), and then 3+ full playthroughs on PC before ME2 came out, and then another set of 3 again before I did a full playthrough that culminated in Mass Effect 3's playthrough.
This is exactly what I enjoy most about mass effect 1, that feeling cannot be replicated on mass effect 2 and 3, that's what makes ME special as well, excellent video!
That’s my biggest complaint about ME2 and 3. It’s really dropped off the rpg elements that ME had in favor of more action sequences and linearity. It’s why I love the graphical improvements and story of the latter games, but ME will always be my favorite game in the franchise.
Usually feel the same way. When I play me1 I do EVERYTHING possible all the boring crap to lengthen my playtime, one of the few games that I will willingly grind thru because I enjoy it.
Literally 100% completed mass effect 1 and 2 Two times each, with all the side missions. The 3rd mass effect was my only one who I didn’t complete 2 times. I think it is because I want it to be a one-time experience, you know why
I never got that quote. If we're alone, the worst that can happen is we ruin ourselves, and even that's temporary, thanks to the Sun cooking the planet in 5 billion years. Plus, I won't live to see it, anyway. If we're not alone, that might be a bit scary, but we're well fortified by sheer distance, so the chance of anything bad is low. And again, if it doesn't show up in my lifetime, it doesn't count.
@@stevenscott2136 I think it meant like if either was proven somehow we’re not that well off We find out probably gonna lead to conquest or enslavement We don’t find out we realize the burden and or isolation of being the only sentient beings alive
What made Mass Effect feel so terrifying and large while exploring the other planets and moons was the lack of civilization ANYWHERE. The fact that youd land and the terrain was difficult to traverse, unforgiving, no clear paths, thats what made you feel so alone. The level design in Andromeda was carefully crafted to give you pathing, Mass Effect 1 didn't care about your path. You really felt like you weren't supposed to be there, like you were the first, alone. So when you did come across the giant worms it genuinely terrified you. Or coming across an ancient structure, you wondered what happened and how long its been there.
The thresher maws! I remember my first encounter with one. I was driving across a barren desert wasteland, and I was jokingly saying, "Arrakis. Dune. Desert planet ..." I drove straight onto the spawn point for one with out even knowing it existed and it popped up under the Mako and took me out, and that right there had me completely hooked on the game.
Mass Effect did a better concept of "exploring the unknown" without being the main theme, compared to Starfield where the exploration WAS SUPPOSED TO BE the main theme of the game, only to be incredibly disappointing and predictable
Driving around the desolate worlds might have been boring to some but I really loved how empty and alien everything felt. Hoping Starfield makes me feel that way tenfold
@@apesibe6972 That’s what we say every time. First It was Skyrim. Fallout 4 Then Fallout 76. Somehow they get worse over time, and we just need to Get used to it. I have more self respect I will wait and actually see if Bethesda has tried to improve.
Totally agree. I LOVED this about Mass Effect 1 - i.e. the feeling it gave you of being a tiny human in a huge galaxy. I spent so much time exploring desolate planets and reading the information about these planets. Really did a nice job of keeping human insignificance in perspective. Great video!
@@jknott1509 True, but it IS a hero fantasy, after all. What I like about that is that even your fuzzy moments and great victories are hostile. Nobody trusts humans, really; many actively despise them; the council only very grudgingly supports you in the face of overwhelming evidence, because politics; even though you are a Spectre you're pretty much on your own...And when you finally dig up the terrible truth, everyone dismisses it yet again. And your final victory, while a great one indeed, is only the prologue to more insanity and hostility on all fronts; including "Space Nazis" (well, not really, but kind of) and effin' UDINA, that SOB!
One of my favorite planets in all of ME was the one that is on a collision course with a nearby planet that is supposed to happen in a few years and when you are on its surface, you can see this massive fucking object in the sky bearing down on you through the clouds as high winds blow all life away and leave nothing but a dark desert and broken mountains. It's far more unsettling and existentially scary than anything else in the series.
iirc, there are no such planets in ME1. There is Roche World, basically 2 planets flying very close to each other, but they are not colliding. Planet that are supposted to collide in 100+ year is introduced in DLC Overlord.
@@CepbIuLOL Mass Effect 3 when you go to meet the Krogans at the Salarian special project. As the shuttle is lifting off and you introduce Wrex to Javik.
Yeah that period between 2007-2013 truly was a golden age. We got amazing games like ME trilogy, Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, the Bioshock trilogy, Uncharted 1,2,3, Last of Us 1, Assassin's Creed 1 and all the way till Black Flag, Far Cry 3, Dragon's Age series, LA Noire, Alan Wake, Max Payne 3, GTA 4 and 5, Prototype series and more. The PS3 era saw some really great games that will be remembered for years to come. Good single player stories that didn't overstay their welcome. No microtransactions and paid add-ons. No live service shit lol
Funny thing... Online discourses back in your golden age used to say the same about games released in the late 90s and early 2000s. Nostalgia sure is a bitch...
@@flowerthencrranger3854I would say that the Golden age of videogames spans from the moment Nintendo saved the industry in the late 1980s until the always online DMR and perpetual live service became technically possible with the Xbox One and PS4, which also contains the wild wild west era of internet in the late 1990s and 2000s, before everything became corporate sanitize bland crap.
Overall its alright but the lighting is kind of off in the LE. unless you can mod it the OG version is still better IMO. also preferred the old HUD system for shields and health
I've never had any Xbox, so I couldn't play ME1 until the Legendary Edition came out on PS5. One of the greatest games ever imo, the story, world building, the relationships with everyone, the missions etc. My favorite one in the trilogy. Also it was awesome playing all three back to back with all the DLC.
I would have loved the LE of Mass Effect 1, but the messed with they lighting which killed all the cold, dark, melancholic atmosphere it had. Really wish there was a mod to bring back the old lighting effects and the blue tint.
I do remember this feeling of loneliness while you were dealing with rogue AI (EDI) on the moon. And mostly because of music and sound during interior exploration… same music by the way was on peak 15 mission and as I found later on the all abandoned bases…
@@ProjectFraz yes, at that time it was just an AI, but later in ME3 while you are assaulting Cerberus base during “Priority Earth” if I do remember correctly, you can find short video logs on different screens, where Cerberus staff discusses development of EDI prototype on moon. And Shepard himself after watching it, says to EDI who’s companion on this mission, something like: “So it was you back on the moon” and she responds that “she” was not fully developed at that time and “she” had no self awareness. Sorry for not quoting everything correctly, I’m sure you can find this scene somewhere on TH-cam :)
and that Sovereign encounter, I swear no other character in any other game made me feel more insignificant. Yeah, you get other villains be dismissive of hero, however Sovereign was completely indifferent to your existence, because to Reapers, someone like Shepard is basically just bacteria.
Agreed so much! While they were certainly better in terms of gameplay polish, they never truly captured the feeling of isolation and astronomical horror that ME1 did ❤
I kinda like how both sequels did their own thing instead of capturing the empty unexplored wonder of ME1. What ME1 did was lightning in a bottle that couldn’t easily be replicated in a sequel. We had already explored, we already knew the lore. ME2 explored the “civilized” parts of the galaxy a lot more than 1 did and was a grimy and dark introduction to the underbelly of galactic civilization. Unlike in ME1 where you kind of fix problems everywhere you go, ME2 you have time to fix SOME problems when they impact your mission but overall you are just passing through on your way to more important matters. The tension it creates for the coming Reaper invasion, building off of the Sovereign twist in ME1, is great. The shock of discovering the “harvest” and realizing how the Reapers reproduce is the piece of the puzzle that clicks with the unanswered questions Sovereign left us with. The arrival DLC is a rushed weak point of that story though and tbh didn’t really need to exist. ME3 immediately slaps you with the reality of Reaper invasion. You bought the galaxy time, but even that seems meaningless as you see planets on fire and entire civilizations (the Battarians) are snuffed out before anyone even knew what was going on. Your only true consolation prize for any of your prior actions is the Citadel being beacon of peace in the sudden and violent war taking place across the galaxy. It’s a desperate and dreary story, space exploration is now dangerous with scanning revealing your location to swarms of insta-kill reapers chasing you out of systems with their horrific sound design. Say what you want about the ending, but ME3 was an absolute masterclass in creating a sense of dread. Watching earth and then Palevan burn at the start of the game, you’re left wondering what hope you could possibly have to win a war like this. The consequences for the Galaxy brushing off Shepard’s warnings as delusion are immediately apparent as it is attacked on all fronts. In short, 2 and 3 had their own flaws but also did their own things that expanded and carried on the lore in interesting ways. I like that each game in the trilogy feels completely unique instead of following the typical sequel route of “do the exact same thing the previous game, but bigger and better”. That being said, ME1’s atmosphere and execution just feel special and was a perfect introduction to the world, it’s still my favorite in the trilogy even though I enjoy the other two for different reasons.
@@TeenageMutantZuckerTurtleyup so true and I'll even go as far to say say what you will about mass effect 3 but 3 gave me a sense of all out dread that our Galaxy is doomed of we can't stop this enemy aside from the ronnich mission vibe you get this feel of dread of the Galaxy is F@#$ right at the beginning of the game you get this feeling again when seeing paladin on fire while seeing them getting there A$$ handle to them on there moon aka the greatest alien military army aside from the krogen You get this feeling again seeing what the reapers are doing to the Liara race in the monastery in very creepy horror fasion And again at thesea And especially by the end with the final assault on earth which gave me terminator hopeless vibes Oh and to top it all off the ending before it was patched of everyone F dies was the ultimate cherry on top of this empty doomed feeling really going poetically well with the word MASS EFFECT aside from the relays being called that For a game that everyone hates for it's ending it really was the one game out of the whole trilogy to give me this ultimate vibes like I have never seen before in Any ANY OTHER Entertainment EVER. ME1 has the best feeling of isolation of being a person in a big universe ME2 has this feeling of your about to find out more about the lore and cosmic society ME3 as I said above has the best doom and gloom hopelessness vibe of trying to save a galaxy going against all odds while it's going to SH$#.
@@TeenageMutantZuckerTurtle I think you make some pretty good points actually. And of course, it's good when sequels try to experiment with different ideas. I personally don't think it warranted removing open maps entirely though, which seemed like an extreme over-correction to me and more of a downgrade than a fix for the MAKO's flaws. Regarding ME2, the game still had some exploration (in that you could check out different solar systems for detectable anomalies to investigate) despite its premise; only the maps were now small (or linear), and the MAKO was gone. Yeah, there was the Hammerhead which was nicer to control, but that wasn't really for exploration. Although the combat was much improved, the corridor shootouts were extremely tedious and many dragged for longer than necessary, and the planet scanning also got boring quite quickly. Some of that filler time could have definitely been exchanged for chances of open exploration (with more polish than in ME1 of course). Even with a Reaper invasion like in ME3, the Reapers themselves are barely micro-ants compared to the vastness of space so it's never completely impossible to explore. The only constraint would perhaps be time, since well... Earth is getting torn apart more and more every second, of course. But there would always be more to explore, perhaps for resources to help against the Reaper version, and a period of time to do it. I think doing that would have made the war-asset building feel much more rewarding too. Regarding the dread in ME3, I do almost agree. The attack on Earth was massively intense, and the Citadel scenes with refugees was heavy. But a lot of the time, the dread simply drifted away for me. Probably because the game spent less time dealing with Reapers, and more time corridor-fighting Cerberus. A bit more of the former would have been much more preferrable imo. Perhaps a good example I can give would be KOTOR 2. While it was rushed in release, it was a sequel that actually built on its predecessor in a way I expect: going darker and more mature than before, without taking away the good elements (far as I could see) that already were there. In some ways, the story was even more complex than KOTOR 1's award-winning plot too. I hoped for similar with the ME trilogy, but didn't really get that. I suppose when ME2 was announced, my presumption was it would go for a much grimier route like KOTOR 2 did. Which made sense to me, given you just barely succeeded in overcoming a terrifying, almost-invincible threat (AKA Sovereign) and that was just supposed to be the beginning. Though after playing the sequel that did not feel like the case. That said, I'm still like you in that I enjoy all 3 games for different reasons. But there'll always be a part of me that wonders how the series would have turned out if Bioware developed things differently from what turned out lol
Mass Effect 1 is my favorite of the series and the first time it hit deep within me was coming upon the planet Klendegon and its Great Rift valley. The evidence of a mass accelerator weapon 37 million years ago causes a horrible realization to wash over the soul like a cold wind. It's an inevitability that someone else, somewhen else can be traveling the cosmos and find absolutely no evidence that we ever existed.
Inevitability? What, aliens are literally a fantasy thing. They're made up for movies and games. There aren't no sentient civilizations before humans in real world, nor someone else that can travel and find us. It's just we. No quarians, xenomorphs or blue skinned babes in deep space.
When I first played Mass Effect as a kid, I was still learning English as a language so I couldn't understand much of what was going on and was quite incompetent, often needing my older brother's assistance to complete certain missions. Hence, it was the space exploration aspect that really drew me into the game, with my favourite activity being the exploration of the uncharted planets. So when ME2 first came out, I initially didn't like it because they stripped away the exploration aspect to focus more on the characters and narrative, so the game felt too complicated for me. It was only years later that I came back to replay the full trilogy now that I could grasp complex topics. For this reason, the original Mass Effect is my favourite because it has that unique atmosphere of exploration and awe that the sequels went away with.
The Mass Effect series is dead, despite EA saying otherwise. The smart people who worked on the first game aren't there anymore. Let's just be happy with what we got.
What unnerved me about the 1st game came from the realisation that because the cycle has been repeated over millions of years then its highly likely that the dead and baron worlds we can explore were most likely once the home worlds to species that were entirely wiped out to the last and all traces of their existence has been utterly erased by both the Reapers and the relentless march of time before Dinosaurs even roamed our planet.
I was nonplussed by ME1's minimalist and repetitive exploration mechanic, until I got to Earth's moon, and suddenly it felt real and grounded. And then I found a human space probe - a named, real one, from actual history, and suddenly I went, "oh f***, I GET it now". I suddenly completely bought in to the incredible thrill of setting food on strange worlds, feeling like Buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong every time I landed the Mako somewhere new.
With time and after countless hours playing both the original and remaster, Mass Effect 1 ended up being my favorite game in the trilogy and what you describe in the video is one of the reasons for that. And yes, the exploration is very basic and most of the assets are re-used when it comes to ennemies and structures, but it's that sense of loneliness and nothingness that makes it so good in my eyes. This feeling is incresead with the knowledge that there's something sinister lurking around in the galaxy that caused the extinction of the advanced Prothean, this cosmic horror that is still unkown. Not to forget the sound in most uncharted planets in ME1, it reinforce this sense of loneliness because the only thing you hear are the wind or celestial objects crashing down. They captured that perfectly imo Edit : more content like this is always welcome 😁😃
I actually thought ME2 was the best, but after a re-run of ME1 and ME3. ME1 has the best story and groundwork, and ME3 felt like a true continuation of ME1 because of the Reaper threat, and my goodness I never felt so small and insignificant fighting 1 Reaper ship. ME2 was really hard, but had the best supporting cast. I know Andromeda isn't as good as the original trilogy, but it has its own charm. But as I was playing Andromeda, I felt that it's potential of being a great game is going to be in the new Mass Effect. I liked all of the Mass Effect games equally. But ME1 has the most compelling story. Andromeda has the best gameplay.
For me the empty planets were a grim reminder of what will happen if Reapers were to win. Planets with no life, but some random ruin here and there. It especially felt this way on that planet with a single building-thing and a sphere with cryptic message on it.
When ME1 came out I had absolutely no interest in Sci-Fi. I loved realistic shooters and the idea of running around shooting lasers and such just felt lame. A friend of mine kept nagging on me to give it a try. It took him almost a couple of years before i finally gave in. I fell instantly in love. ME1 is the only reason I´m a Sci-Fi buff today.
@@camrynduplessis2743 SW is more fantasy than sci-fi. Mass Effect is more sci-fi than Halo, what makes ME more attractive is that all it's sci-fi (at least in 1) is consistent. Kinda like The Expanse, it's so detailed and well thought that it doesn't leave too much to hand waving or space magic.
@@sainkanzaki Indeed, ME1 paid quite a lot of attention and lip service to various sciences. The doctors that started it were, well, doctors, after all. Halo's 'realism' goes no further than 'bullets and physics don't suddenly stop working in space.'
I describe the difference between 1 and the two sequels, especially 2, as such. 1's cover is blue. Calm. Collected. Mysterious. 2 is red. Fiery. Angry. Action. Focus tested.
The creepy space ambience is the perfect backdrop to this video. The emptiness of some of the environments paired with the ambience always gave me an unsettling feeling. I think you articulated it very well.
I love and agree with the premise of this video. I think what adds to that feeling of insignificance in ME1 is that it’s the only game in the series where Shepard isn’t a galactic hero and celebrity. He becomes a Spectre, sure, but the only people who have any actual clue what he’s up to don’t believe him when he warns them about the Reaper threat. He’s on his own. And the vastness of space offers little solace or comfort over this lonely feeling.
I've always felt that had they added slight variety to the side mission levels on desolate worlds it would have been a perfect experience. The bases used the exact same template over and over again which kills me, even back then. Always felt it made sense though, military would likely provide a DIY base kit provided to explorers and that would not be very imaginative.
Mass Effect is a game with the Morrowind vibe. Mystery, atmosphere, exploration and some cosmic horror. It maintains it throughout the whole game. ME2 begins pretty strong but wastes no time in ruining the mystery of The Collectors and then it becomes a pretty bland third person shooter with "who do you wanna smash?" as it's big decision. Then Shepard became less of a conduit to investigate the world of ME and more of a standalone character you watch do stuff until it is time to shoot stuff. It was quicker to make a sequel to a Mass Effect 2 style game than Mass Effect. I think everyone just wanted Andromeda to be the sequel or spiritual successor to Mass Effect.
The recording of the Prothean's final warning actually hit me hard, very eerie imagining the very end of the species *CANNOT BE STOPPED.... CAN NOT BE STOPPED.*
I absolutely loved my first playthrough. I knew that as soon as the credits started rolling and m4 part 2 started playing that I had just played one of the greatest games ever made
The first time I played ME1 was with the Legendary Edition. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it compared to the other games. I feel like it has deeper RPG mechanics, which I prefer. If only Andromeda was more like ME1.
I never played the original trilogy, and my first time playing the franchise was through the Legendary Edition on January 2022. I unlocked all the achievements for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, by the way. I remember being four to six hours into the first game and just being entranced by it. I had a hard time playing anything else until I unlocked all the achievements for the first game. There is something about the first game that really makes me gravitate toward it, even though Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 have better and more refined gameplay and mechanics. I deeply suspect it's because it sets up this amazing world masterfully, and the threat of the Reaper invasion is primarily kept in the background. You can focus on the politics and affairs of the galaxy without this nigh God-like nihilistic cosmic horror awaiting the harvest of sentient life without feeling or remorse like it has done countless times before.
Andromeda, apart from too much repetitevness, weakest aspect was story and writing. I don't think even a single person apart from the Pathfinders father felt like a competent person. It felt like Milky Way loaded their respective races village idiots on the arcs and launched them in the direction of the closest galaxy away from them.
@@chillax319 it's easier to make the main cast seem smart by making everyone around them idiots, as opposed to actually making the main cast smart. The OT suffers from the same problem but it's easier to justify because our governments are a bunch of idiots IRL too, whereas the leadership of the Initiative were supposed to be handpicked and tight-knit.
I've seen a few games handle empty space well (AC Origins and RDR2 spring to mind) but I never knew Mass Effect did this too, since I've never played these games and was under the impression they were entirely linear. Glad to see they nailed the emptiness of space.
Optional. I did not know how much there was todo outside the mainstory elements. By common vernacular, I rushed the story and the game was awesome, but then years passed and I learned that what I thought was pretty much the entire game, was prehaps only 30-40% of all content.
Mass Effect 1 is my favourite of the series because of the mastery with which they handled the space exploration. The dangerous atmospheres, the desolate planets filled only with enemies, the size and scope of the Citadel, the various people milling around the Citadel living their lives unaware of what's coming, the peeks of the long dead Protheans...and how tiny we humans are in comparison to everyth It's so layered and diverse, and the atmosphere and music created in the game has not been replicated in any of the sequels. It delivered everything about space faring that I as a child imagined looking up at the stars late at night. The Mass Effect series is one of the few series I feel a major emotional connection to, and ME1 is integral in establishing that connection. The game is flawed, but it is a masterpiece in world building and an awesome RPG.
It was this feeling that made me fall in love with the first game, and it was the lack of it that made me disappointed with its sequel. I'd also add that ME2 feels a lot more gamified and less like a new world. Streamlined shooting, linear level design, end of mission screen, tiny citadel space etc. ME3 was a sequel to ME2, but I still argue that no game is a proper spiritual sequel to ME1.
Me and my roommate too, well originally he was gonna play DA:O but he tried everything, every launcher, every setting, he has a bug where the text won't load, I'm pretty sure it's a video card error. But yeah very epic game ME1
I still remember the first time I came across a Thresher Maw. My Shepard was several planets deep, he had easily beaten smugglers, slavers and merc groups. Fielded numerous expeditions, marked mining nodes and completed several side quests. Then we heard the scream, the Thresher Maw rising the the ice several meters away, the size of it and the quickness it submerged. The mako still, waiting to line up a shot, the sound of a a blizzard barely muffling the rumbling terrain beneath the wheels. Then it emerged, directly underneath us, Mako sent flying, on fire admits a raging blizzard, shields gone, only one part of the thing undamaged. Then came the acid, instantly melting through the hull. Commander Shepard, Liara and Wrex, half melted corpses freezing solid admits melted slag. That was my moment of terror, that at any point one may emerge on any planet at any time. Reading their lore after getting revenge solidified this fear for the rest of the game.
The moment Sovereign first speaks on Virmire, the moment it declares what it is and its purpose, I get chills from how impossibly ambiguous, imposing, powerful and ominous this entity feels. I felt more intimidation and dread from the concept of the Reapers in that scene than I did any other time in the trilogy, including when they arrived at Earth in ME3. An honourable mention is the most intriguing scene of expository dialog of any game I have ever experienced; The conversation with Vigil. The voice of Vigil, the music, the setting, all of it was such a perfect moment in gaming for me. These two moments were never captured in the sequels.
@@Blox117 I gathered that the Reapers didnt harvest organics for survival, but to historically archive each advanced species that emerges from every cycle and I do find that concept fascinating. My only complaint about the Reapers is how they were personified as a one-line repeating boss voice in ME2. The third installment fixed that tremendously and made the Reapers unsettling again, especially with the introduction of the Banshees (Asari indoctrinated).
@@Blox117 that is an excellent question. I would assume that the initial reaper is the physical manifestation of the specific race it archives, but the actual historical and base genetic template is share amongst all of them. I factor what Sovereign stated on Virmire where it is said that there are no individuals. Where Andromeda should have explored would be the Reapers beyond dark space and the discovery of an entirely synthetic and massive world that functions solely as their main archive. Where after the creation of a new reaper, it returns to this world to perminantly archive what it assimilated, then return with the harvesting fleet to await the next cycle. So much about the already massive ME universe could have been expanded upon with ME:A that was completely abandoned, unfortunately.
The vastness of space really hits you when you get out of the mako and walk around on foot for a bit. It makes you feel incredibly tiny and insignificant. Mass Effect 1 is my favorite because the terrifying feeling of loneliness and desolation isn’t matched by anything else, I love it.
The creepiest part of this game for me was the Rachni "singing" in the distance of soke of the uncharted worlds we explore. The other was that giant Prothean orb on one planet that shows the story of protheans observing ancient humans.
i completed mass effect 1 after having given up on it years ago and got the legendary edition and it became one of my favorite addictions! i cant wait to play ME2 once i have time
I find how infinitely small humanity is compared to the rest of the universe comforting, actually. No despair no sadness no terrible thing, no matter how big, is actually all that significant in the cosmological sense. The thought comforts me, at least.
Like others here have mentioned, mass effect 1's eerie atmosphere is also one of things i love about it. The music, some of the locations and characters all had this dark, strange vibe them. I've played through this game many times, man. I love it. They had a hard time replicating the vibe the first game had for the next two entries to the point where it never happened, but maybe bioware wasn't trying for that with 2 and 3. I'm not sure.
I totally agree. I personally always feel a little apprehensive and creeped out when exploring the barren planets in ME1, I get the sense that I’m millions of miles from nowhere and utterly alone.
There is another game from 2003 called Freelancer that does this except with whole systems instead of planets. There are dozens of systems you can fly through in that game, and I refuse to pass through most of them due to a sense of fear and dread. What makes it worse in Freelancer is that some systems are downright dangerous just flying around. Some of them have radiation that eats away at your ship, some have mine fields spanning half the map, explosive pockets of gas, etc. I don't know what it is, just something about the vastness of the nebulas and the empty pockets of space outside of the main trade lanes unnerves me.
I think that's what made Mechwarrior 4 so much better than Mechwarrior 5. The planets themselves just seemed big and empty. That and the missions made a lot more sense, but yeah. Everywhere you went felt like somewhere new that humans had just begun to inhabit.
You put in words my feelings of ME1. It's one of the games with such unique atmosphere, unduplicated by any other. So many mysteries when I first played that game and so many unique planets. Noveria? Or Ilos? Thanks for the video.
I wish I could go back in time and play Mass Effect 1 with a blank mind. The way the plot evolved as you learn more about the mystery and eventually understand the majestic scope of the Reaper threat... by the end at the conclusion, my heart was pounding and I honest to god, had a lump in my throat. This was story telling at it's best. And no other game, movie or tv series has ever come close since, in all my 50 years of gaming. Mass Effect is something special.
I play through the trilogy about every year or 18 months. The music, the atmosphere, that lived-in feeling and reality of each location just strikes true every single time. Sad that they just don't make games like that anymore.
This is a great take. I like 2 the most overall, but 1 vibed the hardest for reasons that I perhaps didn't truly understand or appreciate but I think you have articulated well here.
But they didn’t, sovereign nearly single handedly manipulated their way into fulfilling their role as the harbinger of death. Throughout the campaign you discover that sovereign has meticulously gained positional advantage. They use a spectre to hide their identity as the true enemy, the geth to defend their body. Only in the end does the galaxy finally simultaneously realize and react to the threat. Only by having a vast majority of the alliance does sovereign BARELY get defeated. If sovereign didn’t fall, none of the reapers would have.
Me3's ending was meant to be about dark energy. It was touched on at various times during me1 and 2. Company greed was just starting to be a thing within computer games development world. The game ended up being rushed and the ending changed. We unfortunatly never got to see the intended ending, I wish I could have seen the intended plot.
What ME1 did was well balance freedom with restriction. Using the illusion of choice very effectively so that the world feels massive and you feel like a speck in the landscape, while in reality you always had a limited number of choices from the start.
Curious, how did you feel about H-047c in Andromeda? Personally while I was doing the side quests on that asteroid and Vetra's loyalty mission I was having serious ME1 Uncharted world nostalgia. That's the feeling I wanted, having a couple hub worlds is cool and all but they needed more "abandoned moon with a criminal gang operating illegally on it" kind of locations to explore/mine/fight on.
H-047c was my favorite in Andromeda. It gave me a similar feeling to the Luna mission in Mass Effect 1. The lack of atmosphere just gave both a silent sense of awe at the universe. In a way, it kinda makes sense that you would have the ability to explore empty worlds in ME1 but not in Andromeda. In ME1, the Reaper threat hasn't made resources scarce yet. While in Andromeda, you don't have the time/resources to land and explore every uninhabited world in each system - you needed a society that could be productive a year ago.
@@indigo4afbry701 The Pathfinder was intended (in-universe) to basically be Magellan, but everything had fallen apart so badly that he ended up having to be Wyatt Earp instead.
One of the best moments of ME1 for me was landing on the moon, seeing the Earth floating overhead, and sitting in awe at the feeling of just being on the moon. It captured a sense of genuine wonder more than any other game I've played. Utterly fantastic and you captured it perfectly here.
Absolutely. I have a love-hate relationship with the Labs 2 song that plays whenever you explore another lifeless prefab that had no business being on a planet out in the middle of godforsakened nowhere. Funnily enough, the song itself is even _missing_ from the soundtrack, which is the most ironically fitting thing. You won't find it in it's home along with the other tracks, you have to go out and look for it. It's mysterious, terrifying, and ultimately humbling.
As a Star Trek fan Mass Effect captures the "strange new world's and "civilizations" motto to the core. Think of each planet in ME1 as an episode and Hacket delivers the premise for that episode like a TV show. The later games don't have that same awe as the others. ME2 is more Star Wars, Trek is about the unknown and serialized, Wars is a lived in narrative based story. ME2 and ME3 do not have that same emotional drive ME1 does.
I recall first playing ME1 back in 2007 on my crappy laptop and being totally enthralled by the codex entries for hours on my first playthrough! I also loved the pointless exploratory missions on those desolate worlds too, you articulated it brilliantly, a skill I do not posses - thanks for this video!
I really appreciate the essay. ME1 really set the tone. The expanse, isolation, and emptiness of space contrasts the limitations and finite nature of humanity. All the species in ME are limited by their evolutionary biology. The Reapers, on the other hand, are so powerful and intelligent, they have become a force of nature unto themselves. "Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls, and ask the ghosts if honor matters. Silence will be your answer." - Javik
Man if I could just relive my first playthrough of mass effect…my first time in the citadel. The game had been out for about five years at that point, but not having internet at home back then I didn’t get spoiled by anything or anyone. So I went in totally blind and no matter how much of a break I take these days I can never capture that feeling again…
IMO ME1 is the best ME game because its a complete self contained story that isn't bogged down by being bound to address baggage from prior games. The gameplay is a bit rough due to its age, but in terms of world building, characters and narrative its the tightest and most compelling. ME2 to a lesser extent, and ME3 to a much greater extent end up getting weighed down by the prior games as well as their own mistakes that make them less tightly told.
Mass Effect 1 was AMAZING for what it offered - exploring deep space with mates, choices which shaped the world AND it was the first. What it offered was impressive. The way it offered them thankfully improved in later games. The bad thing is that no other game - even Andromeda (!) - didn't try to offer an even better experience....Andromeda was even worse than 1 so...
Its hard to believe this game was released 11 years after Super Mario 64... 3D games really weren't that old, yet it's such an achievement in immersive gaming.
I loved Mass Effect 1 when I started playing it at the beginning. When I got to Ilos and listened to Vigil speak, I knew this game became my favorite. I wish I could experience the sense of loss and wonder as he explained the Reapers for the first time.
One of the aspects o ME1 that never repeated in the next games (logically because we get to know more about the reapers and so) was that Lovecraftian feeling of the unknown. When you first talk to the sovereign in Virmire, the beginning of the game when you see the transmission from Eden Prime, the husks, the vision from the prothean beacon... Then almost at the end you finally meet the sovereign but even after that conversation you still know nothing, and the way the reaper talks to you as if no living being could ever grasp or understand the reapers, where they come from or what they really are... Loved that atmosphere and like you said, the feeling of the inmensity of space and all the unknown things in it.
Mass Effect 1 is definately the best of all 3 in my opinion. The way it introduced the lore, explained most important things, builded the world, created unique atmosphere and universe. I like everyhing about it, including gameplay, combat, and even Mako rides and planets exploration. Half of me time playing i spent reading Codex, descriptions of the planets, or simply roarming the map and listening to the great music and ambient. I like it so much, in fact, this time, at my 6th playthrough, i tried to do unique thing - started exploring planets... WITHOUT MAKO! On foot! And in my opinion, this unique experience - is how planets were designed to be explored from the beginnig. But obviously playtesters said that it was too long, boring, and empty maps didnt create enough fun. I agree with them. But for me it was definately interesting - slowly advancing through the map, searching for points of interes, trying to climb the highest mountain to scout everything around me with a sniper rifle. On some maps terrain made it actually difficult and challenging to find a route through mountains and buggy textures that keep throwing you off or simply getting stuck on them. And some maps and POIs cannot even be accessed without Mako. And when you suddenly hear rachni song after an hour of wandering the map - truly chilling feeling. Or when thresher maw suddenly ambushed you - a screamer. But it definately added roleplaying, wearing white camouflage at snowy planets, slowly getting behind the enemy outpost, and then snipe them from the best hill that you scouted. Or using enviromental protected suits on planets that can damage you. I truly enjoyed it, but have to admit, it got a bit repetitive after 7-9 planets, so now i only do it occasionally on the most interesting planets.
Thank you for this love letter to Mass Effect 1 and its space exploration! I no longer feel weird for taking the Mako out for planet exploration even when I've already done everything on a planet. I just love to drive around, gaze at the horizon, and feel that sense of beautiful, lonely empty space. As annoying as some planets are to navigate, I actually love that most of the planets aren't designed for the Mako. They just exist out there, and we can explore them, but they're not meant for Shepard. Even while I'm raging on Casbin or Nodacrux, I'm grudgingly appreciating them, too. I even do some planets like Nepmos on foot for roleplay reasons, and it never feels like a slog to me. Each planet is just a wonderfully immersive experience with its own story.
The music, the empty planets dotted with hidden Cerberus initiatives, a prothean orb that tells a tale of ancient humanities run-ins with the protheans and reapers. It was very well done. X-57 was a great add on as well
I have always had ME1 as my favorite of the 3. I played them when they first released (except ME3, which I played a year after it's release via bought 'used' copy), but never played the LE (Boycott of EA that I refuse to break). And ME2 to me, represented the story of EA taking over BioWare; A small company of people (BioWare/Shepard and team), being sold out by a larger company ((can't remember their name)/The Alliance), only to seek 'refuge' within an notably 'untrustworthy' company (EA/Cerberus).
I really love the Mass effect series. Especially when you are talking about these planets as I have a fascination with other worlds and its moons and how empty but beautiful these worlds can be. Everspace 2 also scratches this itch with seeing the planets and areas of space which are designed very beautifully! Thank you for this vid 😊
Let's not forget the amazing, sombre soundtrack that always accompanied you! It's not over the top, it's not orchestra, it's not that iconic actually. It's calm, sombre, tranquil, almost boring. When you are out on a world void of life feeling just how insignificant you are, the score is there in the background. It doesn't take the scene, it just understands, it shares what you feel and amplifies it. Vigil has to be the best moment in the game for me. It's an AI that tells you how hopeless the relentless persecution of it's creators was, how it had to shut down many life pods to preserve the few. Those in it reawoke to a galaxy without hope. A world where they had lost not all they own, but all their entire species had ever strived to be and hoped for. They travel to the Citadel and I cannot even begin to imagine how absolutely terrifying an empty Citadel would even be! They go there to give the next cycle a chance, fully knowing they will find no sustenance nor life there and slowly die off absolutely alone in the galaxy they once knew as prosperous. Now that's where I would like to see a dead space like mass effect sequel, just putting the idea out there Bioware!
When I think back to my first and only playthrough of ME1, I remember it being *quiet*. And the detail in the environments being beautiful. I didn't feel rushed to finish it, and I was never bored. It was truly something you were meant to experience and savor.
OH, the atmosphere, OH the soundtrack! Also I remember being totally lost in the citadel when I started the game x'D In my first run it took me like 4 hours to leave the citadel, I was so brainmessed with that map. Still, I LOVE the trilogy. And I simp Kaidan. I loved my trilogy ending with Kaidan. Period. 🙃
So basically Mass Effect 1 is terrifying because it shows how small and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things? I agree with your conclusion, but a topic like that should be really expanded on in a series of videos. You could even bring Lovecraft into the equation to really hammer in the nihilism.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 Finally somebody says it! I was very disappointed in Lovecraft, after hearing about him for years. He had his good points, of course, but he just did NOT know when to shut up. "Here's an ancient, horrible, incomprehensible thing that will break your very soul -- and which I will now describe in exhaustive detail until you sympathize with it more than with the inbred hicks that it's eating."
What hooked me to the series was the fact that the lore and events in the game (besides been incredibly interesting) have lots of grey areas. Right and wrong blur and everyone has a different perspective on what should be done and why. Ambiguous morality has always fascinated me and when you throw characters you deeply care for, you become biased when making decisions whether or not you're aware of the consequences.
Mass Effect 1 was in a wierd sweet-spot for this effect to occure. The technology was far enough to provide those "empty" worlds, but not far enough to really populate those same worlds. This resulted in lightning in a bottle and few things represent this better than Mass Effect's music, particularly the tracks you used in this very video. Vast, mysterious, largely empty space and yet all that is exciting, important and life-changing is in that nothingness at the same time. Modern games lack this ability to both be large and empty at the same time, because somehow we convinced ourselves, that we must keep the players extremely busy for 115% of the time they play.
Consoles held games back, and are still holding games back. The emptiness is a byproduct of developing for consoles. As long as games continue to be developed for consoles first and then ported to PCs, they will be lacking detail that should have been part of the game.
After the 1st Thresher Maw I encountered, I was like wtf was that. Then I find a few more unmarked Maw nests. That second one made me leave that planet in my 1st playthrough.
I remember my first play of me1 was quite magical in your description of those almost void worlds. I had moved into a flat with a bunch or dudes with piles of games. I looked threw their library or 360 games, it was about 09 and I'd heard of me but never really played it. Once my buddy told me it was made by bioware I was intrigued. He told me it was like an rpg he'd just watch me play, way before twitch but hey sounded good at the time, the other flatmates had played threw it too and everyone promised not to spoil anything, but act as experienced idea guys for my playthrough. The best part of the game was hitting every single side quest planet, gathering all of the lore and that loneliness didn't sink in the same way, because they were part of my crew in a sense together with me and our ideas trapped in the mako driving around exploring. I just started my second playthrough last night after all these years, I can't wait to feel lonely this time in my room alone, without my flatmates
I have experienced exactly what you're describing in this video. I had a full blown panic attack when I realized that in my lifetime I am trapped on this (comparably pretty decent) rock, and pretty much everything I see in the night sky is already dead or dying, and I have no chance of ever reaching and exploring any of it.
I also miss ME1’s absolutely beautiful skyboxes. I’d just chill in the mako, on a random beautiful planet, just looking at the sky before going to bed.
It's amazing how the skyboxes still slap after all this time.
And then reading the little planet lore texts, like "this planet here is a popular tourist location because it is projected to collide with its neighbouring planet in just 50 years".
Don't forget the soothing sci-fi ambient music!
@@sev9597 yeah ME1 has by far the best and most distinctive music of the series. Sure I can recall tracks like the suicide mission, Illusive Man's theme or the Citadel DLC combat track, but in ME1 I can remember about every place, from Eden Prime to the Citadel and every planet, to the love track to the final battle.
@@MrAbgeBrandt Music is one of the biggest keys (pun not intended) to creating strong atmosphere. The sequels had great soundtracks too (even some tunes from Andromeda I admit), but ME1's tracks were truly iconic. The planet ambiences and Virmire combat (and MAKO) music really transport me to another world.
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT: The feeling of Sovereign on Eden Prime and Sovereign revealing he, a living ship, is the actual villain and not Saren, is an experience I will never ever forget in my lifetime.
Yep. I think that scene was one of the first things I ever uploaded to TH-cam.
And Sovereign's character was perfect in its coldness of manner. They ruined it with Harbinger in 2.
@@urlauburlaub2222 this is so true. I'm planning to show Mass Effect to someone who never played any KOTOR, so I'll know for sure after.
The conversation with Vigil touches on this terrifying emptiness, too. I'll never forget the feeling when Vigil said the keepers didn't answer this time, and I realized that but for the grace of a handful of forgotten acts of courage 50k years ago and the fragile, unplanned grasp by my Shepard of their light flung forward, the galaxy would already have been destroyed in Shepard's lifetime.
Holy fuck I don't usually mind spoilers at all but I do regret reading the first sentence of you comment. I'm on my 1st playthrough and wasn't ready for this revelation lol no problema thought I'll save this vid for later
ME1: setting up a universe.
ME2: getting to know that universe.
ME3: trying to save the universe.
Seriously, very few fictional media can match the quality, consistency, & realism of the Mass Effect Trilogy!
Absolutely nailed it.
And Andromda sucks
Mass Effect 3
Grunt + Rachni = Seriously bad ass moment.. and for a moment.. sad.
Grunt + DLC = Pure joy.
@@skipper4126 so how were the noodles
@@skipper4126 amogus
I can’t even count how many times I played through ME1 before ME2 came out. The game is just a masterpiece and does such a good job of establishing the universe.
Interesting. When ME2 and ME3 came out I never touched ME1 again and just used character creators/save editors because it was just so...painful to play. Even with LE I only played once.
ME3 though I can play over and over again.
Played ME eleven times, ME2 nine times, and ME3 only once.
Mass Effect is my Star Wars. Just absolute art
@@mbogucki1 I get you. Even though ME1 is an excellent game that sets up the world extremely well, it is arguably the least fun of the trilogy. The game is a bit of a slow burn when compared to the relatively fast-paced sequels.
@@maskednil That's spot on for me as well. I played ME at -least- 11 times. 3 or 4 full 100% playthroughs on the Xbox 360, maybe more (it's been 15 years lol), and then 3+ full playthroughs on PC before ME2 came out, and then another set of 3 again before I did a full playthrough that culminated in Mass Effect 3's playthrough.
This is exactly what I enjoy most about mass effect 1, that feeling cannot be replicated on mass effect 2 and 3, that's what makes ME special as well, excellent video!
Always remember your first 🫡
The only ME1 felling of loneliness and insignificance I got was in ME2 on the dead reaper
That’s my biggest complaint about ME2 and 3. It’s really dropped off the rpg elements that ME had in favor of more action sequences and linearity. It’s why I love the graphical improvements and story of the latter games, but ME will always be my favorite game in the franchise.
I still get goosebumps at the end credits, like wow, what an adventure.
@@nikik5567 ppppp
Mass Effect gets me emotional every time I'm getting towards the end because I just don't want it to end
Usually feel the same way. When I play me1 I do EVERYTHING possible all the boring crap to lengthen my playtime, one of the few games that I will willingly grind thru because I enjoy it.
played ME2 and I could never go back to 1, probably will come back to do my Liara run other than that
Literally 100% completed mass effect 1 and 2 Two times each, with all the side missions.
The 3rd mass effect was my only one who I didn’t complete 2 times. I think it is because I want it to be a one-time experience, you know why
I always wish I had more to ask or say to my crew mates lol
Did you too get all choked up at the end of ME3 when you're in the final mission saying goodbye to everyone?
One of my favorite quotes:
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” -Arthur C. Clark
We are indeed not alone, and the thought is very comforting to those who believe.
I never got that quote.
If we're alone, the worst that can happen is we ruin ourselves, and even that's temporary, thanks to the Sun cooking the planet in 5 billion years. Plus, I won't live to see it, anyway.
If we're not alone, that might be a bit scary, but we're well fortified by sheer distance, so the chance of anything bad is low. And again, if it doesn't show up in my lifetime, it doesn't count.
@@stevenscott2136 Yeah you missed the meaning lol. It's purely short sighted.
thats nothing, try this for terrifying:
"Mass effect andromeda was the best game in the series"
@@stevenscott2136 I think it meant like if either was proven somehow we’re not that well off
We find out probably gonna lead to conquest or enslavement
We don’t find out we realize the burden and or isolation of being the only sentient beings alive
I FUCKING LOVE MAKO
I FUCKING LOVE DRIVING THROUGH KILOMETERS OF NOTHING ON SOME GOD FORGOTTEN PLANET
I HATE ANGLES STEEPER THAN 60 DEGREES
What made Mass Effect feel so terrifying and large while exploring the other planets and moons was the lack of civilization ANYWHERE. The fact that youd land and the terrain was difficult to traverse, unforgiving, no clear paths, thats what made you feel so alone. The level design in Andromeda was carefully crafted to give you pathing, Mass Effect 1 didn't care about your path. You really felt like you weren't supposed to be there, like you were the first, alone. So when you did come across the giant worms it genuinely terrified you. Or coming across an ancient structure, you wondered what happened and how long its been there.
The thresher maws! I remember my first encounter with one. I was driving across a barren desert wasteland, and I was jokingly saying, "Arrakis. Dune. Desert planet ..." I drove straight onto the spawn point for one with out even knowing it existed and it popped up under the Mako and took me out, and that right there had me completely hooked on the game.
Mass Effect did a better concept of "exploring the unknown" without being the main theme, compared to Starfield where the exploration WAS SUPPOSED TO BE the main theme of the game, only to be incredibly disappointing and predictable
Driving around the desolate worlds might have been boring to some but I really loved how empty and alien everything felt. Hoping Starfield makes me feel that way tenfold
Totally agree, that feeling of unsettling loneliness was amazing
Think Andromeda and make it buggier. That will be Starfield most likely.
Especially considering the Creation 2 engine is not that great at all.
@@devildolphin2102 cmon let's give them a chance, let's see the state of the game after 2-3 weeks, I'm sure they learned from their mistakes...
@@apesibe6972
That’s what we say every time.
First It was Skyrim.
Fallout 4
Then Fallout 76.
Somehow they get worse over time, and we just need to Get used to it. I have more self respect I will wait and actually see if Bethesda has tried to improve.
@@devildolphin2102 fallout 4 was better than Skyrim by a mile, change my mind
Totally agree. I LOVED this about Mass Effect 1 - i.e. the feeling it gave you of being a tiny human in a huge galaxy. I spent so much time exploring desolate planets and reading the information about these planets. Really did a nice job of keeping human insignificance in perspective. Great video!
Yet youre the first human spector and save the universe
@@jknott1509 True, but it IS a hero fantasy, after all. What I like about that is that even your fuzzy moments and great victories are hostile. Nobody trusts humans, really; many actively despise them; the council only very grudgingly supports you in the face of overwhelming evidence, because politics; even though you are a Spectre you're pretty much on your own...And when you finally dig up the terrible truth, everyone dismisses it yet again. And your final victory, while a great one indeed, is only the prologue to more insanity and hostility on all fronts; including "Space Nazis" (well, not really, but kind of) and effin' UDINA, that SOB!
One of my favorite planets in all of ME was the one that is on a collision course with a nearby planet that is supposed to happen in a few years and when you are on its surface, you can see this massive fucking object in the sky bearing down on you through the clouds as high winds blow all life away and leave nothing but a dark desert and broken mountains. It's far more unsettling and existentially scary than anything else in the series.
Yeah, I remember that. I don't remember a giant dildo in the sky, but I do remember the rest.
iirc, there are no such planets in ME1. There is Roche World, basically 2 planets flying very close to each other, but they are not colliding. Planet that are supposted to collide in 100+ year is introduced in DLC Overlord.
@@CepbIuLOL He might be talking about Bring Down the Sky DLC.
"Sometimes I'm not sure if the Normandy's a warship, or a traveling freak show." ~Urdnot Wrex
When does he say it?
@@CepbIuLOL Mass Effect 3 when you go to meet the Krogans at the Salarian special project. As the shuttle is lifting off and you introduce Wrex to Javik.
To quote the adorable little girl: "Porque no los dos??"
Mass effect 1 was made back when games were made with love and care and not just money. The golden age of games
Yeah that period between 2007-2013 truly was a golden age. We got amazing games like ME trilogy, Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, the Bioshock trilogy, Uncharted 1,2,3, Last of Us 1, Assassin's Creed 1 and all the way till Black Flag, Far Cry 3, Dragon's Age series, LA Noire, Alan Wake, Max Payne 3, GTA 4 and 5, Prototype series and more. The PS3 era saw some really great games that will be remembered for years to come. Good single player stories that didn't overstay their welcome. No microtransactions and paid add-ons. No live service shit lol
Old school cods
Every age is the golden age if you are playing the bangers
Funny thing... Online discourses back in your golden age used to say the same about games released in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Nostalgia sure is a bitch...
@@flowerthencrranger3854I would say that the Golden age of videogames spans from the moment Nintendo saved the industry in the late 1980s until the always online DMR and perpetual live service became technically possible with the Xbox One and PS4, which also contains the wild wild west era of internet in the late 1990s and 2000s, before everything became corporate sanitize bland crap.
ME1 is definitely terrifying... space is a hostile place, and this game displays it so well. ME1 was soooo good.
The first one is such a awesome experience, and i think the legendary edition did a good job of revitalizing it
Overall its alright but the lighting is kind of off in the LE. unless you can mod it the OG version is still better IMO. also preferred the old HUD system for shields and health
I've never had any Xbox, so I couldn't play ME1 until the Legendary Edition came out on PS5. One of the greatest games ever imo, the story, world building, the relationships with everyone, the missions etc.
My favorite one in the trilogy.
Also it was awesome playing all three back to back with all the DLC.
@@nextgenkilla2140 agreed, i also prefer OG ME1 over LE ME1
I would have loved the LE of Mass Effect 1, but the messed with they lighting which killed all the cold, dark, melancholic atmosphere it had. Really wish there was a mod to bring back the old lighting effects and the blue tint.
And it fixed that super annoying texture bug on Noveria that turned you and every NPC into a blocky, black mess
I do remember this feeling of loneliness while you were dealing with rogue AI (EDI) on the moon. And mostly because of music and sound during interior exploration… same music by the way was on peak 15 mission and as I found later on the all abandoned bases…
edi wasnt in the first game. thats a different ai
@@ProjectFraz It wasn't named yet, but later in ME2, I think, we find out it was, in fact, EDI on the moon.
I believe it was a... prototype? Or if not that, Cerberus used the fragments of the AI to create EDI
@@ProjectFraz yes, at that time it was just an AI, but later in ME3 while you are assaulting Cerberus base during “Priority Earth” if I do remember correctly, you can find short video logs on different screens, where Cerberus staff discusses development of EDI prototype on moon. And Shepard himself after watching it, says to EDI who’s companion on this mission, something like: “So it was you back on the moon” and she responds that “she” was not fully developed at that time and “she” had no self awareness. Sorry for not quoting everything correctly, I’m sure you can find this scene somewhere on TH-cam :)
Fun fact: The binary code when you destroy the AI translates to HELP
Mass effect 1 is easily the best sci-fi rpg. It’s settings and worlds and lore made me want a space rpg
Ok bucko, stay in your damn lane. Best space RPG, MAYBE. You don't want this argument.
@@toe_sucker_4165 nice bait
@@toe_sucker_4165 A footf@g and a pretentious redditor douche? Damn dude, you really rolled snake eyes in life
and that Sovereign encounter, I swear no other character in any other game made me feel more insignificant. Yeah, you get other villains be dismissive of hero, however Sovereign was completely indifferent to your existence, because to Reapers, someone like Shepard is basically just bacteria.
@@toe_sucker_4165 literally what is even number 2? Besides the other mass effects of course
Cosmic Horror hits ya like nothing else. I love ME1, much, much more than its sequels.
Agreed so much! While they were certainly better in terms of gameplay polish, they never truly captured the feeling of isolation and astronomical horror that ME1 did ❤
I kinda like how both sequels did their own thing instead of capturing the empty unexplored wonder of ME1. What ME1 did was lightning in a bottle that couldn’t easily be replicated in a sequel. We had already explored, we already knew the lore.
ME2 explored the “civilized” parts of the galaxy a lot more than 1 did and was a grimy and dark introduction to the underbelly of galactic civilization. Unlike in ME1 where you kind of fix problems everywhere you go, ME2 you have time to fix SOME problems when they impact your mission but overall you are just passing through on your way to more important matters. The tension it creates for the coming Reaper invasion, building off of the Sovereign twist in ME1, is great. The shock of discovering the “harvest” and realizing how the Reapers reproduce is the piece of the puzzle that clicks with the unanswered questions Sovereign left us with. The arrival DLC is a rushed weak point of that story though and tbh didn’t really need to exist.
ME3 immediately slaps you with the reality of Reaper invasion. You bought the galaxy time, but even that seems meaningless as you see planets on fire and entire civilizations (the Battarians) are snuffed out before anyone even knew what was going on. Your only true consolation prize for any of your prior actions is the Citadel being beacon of peace in the sudden and violent war taking place across the galaxy. It’s a desperate and dreary story, space exploration is now dangerous with scanning revealing your location to swarms of insta-kill reapers chasing you out of systems with their horrific sound design. Say what you want about the ending, but ME3 was an absolute masterclass in creating a sense of dread. Watching earth and then Palevan burn at the start of the game, you’re left wondering what hope you could possibly have to win a war like this. The consequences for the Galaxy brushing off Shepard’s warnings as delusion are immediately apparent as it is attacked on all fronts.
In short, 2 and 3 had their own flaws but also did their own things that expanded and carried on the lore in interesting ways. I like that each game in the trilogy feels completely unique instead of following the typical sequel route of “do the exact same thing the previous game, but bigger and better”. That being said, ME1’s atmosphere and execution just feel special and was a perfect introduction to the world, it’s still my favorite in the trilogy even though I enjoy the other two for different reasons.
@@TeenageMutantZuckerTurtleyup so true and I'll even go as far to say say what you will about mass effect 3 but 3 gave me a sense of all out dread that our Galaxy is doomed of we can't stop this enemy aside from the ronnich mission vibe
you get this feel of dread of the Galaxy is F@#$ right at the beginning of the game
you get this feeling again when seeing paladin on fire while seeing them getting there A$$ handle to them on there moon aka the greatest alien military army aside from the krogen
You get this feeling again seeing what the reapers are doing to the Liara race in the monastery in very creepy horror fasion
And again at thesea
And especially by the end with the final assault on earth which gave me terminator hopeless vibes
Oh and to top it all off the ending before it was patched of everyone F dies was the ultimate cherry on top of this empty doomed feeling really going poetically well with the word MASS EFFECT aside from the relays being called that
For a game that everyone hates for it's ending it really was the one game out of the whole trilogy to give me this ultimate vibes like I have never seen before in Any ANY OTHER Entertainment EVER.
ME1 has the best feeling of isolation of being a person in a big universe
ME2 has this feeling of your about to find out more about the lore and cosmic society
ME3 as I said above has the best doom and gloom hopelessness vibe of trying to save a galaxy going against all odds while it's going to SH$#.
@@TeenageMutantZuckerTurtle I think you make some pretty good points actually. And of course, it's good when sequels try to experiment with different ideas. I personally don't think it warranted removing open maps entirely though, which seemed like an extreme over-correction to me and more of a downgrade than a fix for the MAKO's flaws.
Regarding ME2, the game still had some exploration (in that you could check out different solar systems for detectable anomalies to investigate) despite its premise; only the maps were now small (or linear), and the MAKO was gone. Yeah, there was the Hammerhead which was nicer to control, but that wasn't really for exploration. Although the combat was much improved, the corridor shootouts were extremely tedious and many dragged for longer than necessary, and the planet scanning also got boring quite quickly. Some of that filler time could have definitely been exchanged for chances of open exploration (with more polish than in ME1 of course).
Even with a Reaper invasion like in ME3, the Reapers themselves are barely micro-ants compared to the vastness of space so it's never completely impossible to explore. The only constraint would perhaps be time, since well... Earth is getting torn apart more and more every second, of course. But there would always be more to explore, perhaps for resources to help against the Reaper version, and a period of time to do it. I think doing that would have made the war-asset building feel much more rewarding too.
Regarding the dread in ME3, I do almost agree. The attack on Earth was massively intense, and the Citadel scenes with refugees was heavy. But a lot of the time, the dread simply drifted away for me. Probably because the game spent less time dealing with Reapers, and more time corridor-fighting Cerberus. A bit more of the former would have been much more preferrable imo.
Perhaps a good example I can give would be KOTOR 2. While it was rushed in release, it was a sequel that actually built on its predecessor in a way I expect: going darker and more mature than before, without taking away the good elements (far as I could see) that already were there. In some ways, the story was even more complex than KOTOR 1's award-winning plot too. I hoped for similar with the ME trilogy, but didn't really get that.
I suppose when ME2 was announced, my presumption was it would go for a much grimier route like KOTOR 2 did. Which made sense to me, given you just barely succeeded in overcoming a terrifying, almost-invincible threat (AKA Sovereign) and that was just supposed to be the beginning. Though after playing the sequel that did not feel like the case. That said, I'm still like you in that I enjoy all 3 games for different reasons. But there'll always be a part of me that wonders how the series would have turned out if Bioware developed things differently from what turned out lol
Halo CE is basically the same but for very different reasons.
Mass Effect 1 is my favorite of the series and the first time it hit deep within me was coming upon the planet Klendegon and its Great Rift valley. The evidence of a mass accelerator weapon 37 million years ago causes a horrible realization to wash over the soul like a cold wind. It's an inevitability that someone else, somewhen else can be traveling the cosmos and find absolutely no evidence that we ever existed.
Duuude, well said
Inevitability? What, aliens are literally a fantasy thing. They're made up for movies and games. There aren't no sentient civilizations before humans in real world, nor someone else that can travel and find us. It's just we. No quarians, xenomorphs or blue skinned babes in deep space.
When I first played Mass Effect as a kid, I was still learning English as a language so I couldn't understand much of what was going on and was quite incompetent, often needing my older brother's assistance to complete certain missions.
Hence, it was the space exploration aspect that really drew me into the game, with my favourite activity being the exploration of the uncharted planets.
So when ME2 first came out, I initially didn't like it because they stripped away the exploration aspect to focus more on the characters and narrative, so the game felt too complicated for me.
It was only years later that I came back to replay the full trilogy now that I could grasp complex topics.
For this reason, the original Mass Effect is my favourite because it has that unique atmosphere of exploration and awe that the sequels went away with.
The Mass Effect series is dead, despite EA saying otherwise. The smart people who worked on the first game aren't there anymore. Let's just be happy with what we got.
I think it really shows the talent of the devs when literal nothingness becomes a cherished aspect of a game.
What unnerved me about the 1st game came from the realisation that because the cycle has been repeated over millions of years then its highly likely that the dead and baron worlds we can explore were most likely once the home worlds to species that were entirely wiped out to the last and all traces of their existence has been utterly erased by both the Reapers and the relentless march of time before Dinosaurs even roamed our planet.
I was nonplussed by ME1's minimalist and repetitive exploration mechanic, until I got to Earth's moon, and suddenly it felt real and grounded. And then I found a human space probe - a named, real one, from actual history, and suddenly I went, "oh f***, I GET it now". I suddenly completely bought in to the incredible thrill of setting food on strange worlds, feeling like Buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong every time I landed the Mako somewhere new.
With time and after countless hours playing both the original and remaster, Mass Effect 1 ended up being my favorite game in the trilogy and what you describe in the video is one of the reasons for that.
And yes, the exploration is very basic and most of the assets are re-used when it comes to ennemies and structures, but it's that sense of loneliness and nothingness that makes it so good in my eyes. This feeling is incresead with the knowledge that there's something sinister lurking around in the galaxy that caused the extinction of the advanced Prothean, this cosmic horror that is still unkown.
Not to forget the sound in most uncharted planets in ME1, it reinforce this sense of loneliness because the only thing you hear are the wind or celestial objects crashing down. They captured that perfectly imo
Edit : more content like this is always welcome 😁😃
I actually thought ME2 was the best, but after a re-run of ME1 and ME3. ME1 has the best story and groundwork, and ME3 felt like a true continuation of ME1 because of the Reaper threat, and my goodness I never felt so small and insignificant fighting 1 Reaper ship. ME2 was really hard, but had the best supporting cast. I know Andromeda isn't as good as the original trilogy, but it has its own charm. But as I was playing Andromeda, I felt that it's potential of being a great game is going to be in the new Mass Effect. I liked all of the Mass Effect games equally. But ME1 has the most compelling story. Andromeda has the best gameplay.
For me the empty planets were a grim reminder of what will happen if Reapers were to win. Planets with no life, but some random ruin here and there. It especially felt this way on that planet with a single building-thing and a sphere with cryptic message on it.
When ME1 came out I had absolutely no interest in Sci-Fi. I loved realistic shooters and the idea of running around shooting lasers and such just felt lame. A friend of mine kept nagging on me to give it a try. It took him almost a couple of years before i finally gave in. I fell instantly in love.
ME1 is the only reason I´m a Sci-Fi buff today.
nice thing about mass effect is its also not exactly to heavy on the sci-fi aspect of things like say halo or star wars
@@camrynduplessis2743 SW is more fantasy than sci-fi. Mass Effect is more sci-fi than Halo, what makes ME more attractive is that all it's sci-fi (at least in 1) is consistent. Kinda like The Expanse, it's so detailed and well thought that it doesn't leave too much to hand waving or space magic.
@@sainkanzaki Indeed, ME1 paid quite a lot of attention and lip service to various sciences. The doctors that started it were, well, doctors, after all. Halo's 'realism' goes no further than 'bullets and physics don't suddenly stop working in space.'
I describe the difference between 1 and the two sequels, especially 2, as such. 1's cover is blue. Calm. Collected. Mysterious. 2 is red. Fiery. Angry. Action. Focus tested.
The creepy space ambience is the perfect backdrop to this video. The emptiness of some of the environments paired with the ambience always gave me an unsettling feeling. I think you articulated it very well.
I love and agree with the premise of this video. I think what adds to that feeling of insignificance in ME1 is that it’s the only game in the series where Shepard isn’t a galactic hero and celebrity. He becomes a Spectre, sure, but the only people who have any actual clue what he’s up to don’t believe him when he warns them about the Reaper threat. He’s on his own. And the vastness of space offers little solace or comfort over this lonely feeling.
I've always felt that had they added slight variety to the side mission levels on desolate worlds it would have been a perfect experience. The bases used the exact same template over and over again which kills me, even back then. Always felt it made sense though, military would likely provide a DIY base kit provided to explorers and that would not be very imaginative.
"JENKINS! NOOOO!"
"It's okay! He just needs a new neck transplant."
*"And we've got one to spare!"*
(Abominashep)
Mass Effect is a game with the Morrowind vibe. Mystery, atmosphere, exploration and some cosmic horror. It maintains it throughout the whole game. ME2 begins pretty strong but wastes no time in ruining the mystery of The Collectors and then it becomes a pretty bland third person shooter with "who do you wanna smash?" as it's big decision. Then Shepard became less of a conduit to investigate the world of ME and more of a standalone character you watch do stuff until it is time to shoot stuff.
It was quicker to make a sequel to a Mass Effect 2 style game than Mass Effect.
I think everyone just wanted Andromeda to be the sequel or spiritual successor to Mass Effect.
The recording of the Prothean's final warning actually hit me hard, very eerie imagining the very end of the species
*CANNOT BE STOPPED.... CAN NOT BE STOPPED.*
I absolutely loved my first playthrough. I knew that as soon as the credits started rolling and m4 part 2 started playing that I had just played one of the greatest games ever made
The first time I played ME1 was with the Legendary Edition. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it compared to the other games. I feel like it has deeper RPG mechanics, which I prefer. If only Andromeda was more like ME1.
I never played the original trilogy, and my first time playing the franchise was through the Legendary Edition on January 2022. I unlocked all the achievements for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, by the way. I remember being four to six hours into the first game and just being entranced by it. I had a hard time playing anything else until I unlocked all the achievements for the first game. There is something about the first game that really makes me gravitate toward it, even though Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 have better and more refined gameplay and mechanics. I deeply suspect it's because it sets up this amazing world masterfully, and the threat of the Reaper invasion is primarily kept in the background. You can focus on the politics and affairs of the galaxy without this nigh God-like nihilistic cosmic horror awaiting the harvest of sentient life without feeling or remorse like it has done countless times before.
Andromeda, apart from too much repetitevness, weakest aspect was story and writing. I don't think even a single person apart from the Pathfinders father felt like a competent person. It felt like Milky Way loaded their respective races village idiots on the arcs and launched them in the direction of the closest galaxy away from them.
@@chillax319
I never played Mass Effect: Andromeda, and just about everyone says it's the weakest of the four games.
@@chillax319 it's easier to make the main cast seem smart by making everyone around them idiots, as opposed to actually making the main cast smart. The OT suffers from the same problem but it's easier to justify because our governments are a bunch of idiots IRL too, whereas the leadership of the Initiative were supposed to be handpicked and tight-knit.
@@efteron5342
What's an OT?
not sure why so many ppl hated on exploring planets and driving around in ME1, the game blew my mind when it came out.
I've seen a few games handle empty space well (AC Origins and RDR2 spring to mind) but I never knew Mass Effect did this too, since I've never played these games and was under the impression they were entirely linear. Glad to see they nailed the emptiness of space.
Optional. I did not know how much there was todo outside the mainstory elements. By common vernacular, I rushed the story and the game was awesome, but then years passed and I learned that what I thought was pretty much the entire game, was prehaps only 30-40% of all content.
Mass Effect 1 is my favourite of the series because of the mastery with which they handled the space exploration. The dangerous atmospheres, the desolate planets filled only with enemies, the size and scope of the Citadel, the various people milling around the Citadel living their lives unaware of what's coming, the peeks of the long dead Protheans...and how tiny we humans are in comparison to everyth
It's so layered and diverse, and the atmosphere and music created in the game has not been replicated in any of the sequels. It delivered everything about space faring that I as a child imagined looking up at the stars late at night.
The Mass Effect series is one of the few series I feel a major emotional connection to, and ME1 is integral in establishing that connection. The game is flawed, but it is a masterpiece in world building and an awesome RPG.
It was this feeling that made me fall in love with the first game, and it was the lack of it that made me disappointed with its sequel. I'd also add that ME2 feels a lot more gamified and less like a new world. Streamlined shooting, linear level design, end of mission screen, tiny citadel space etc. ME3 was a sequel to ME2, but I still argue that no game is a proper spiritual sequel to ME1.
ME2 is actually my least favorite of the series
I’m loving the Mass Effect content Fizhy, started playing the trilogy again myself.
I recently did a run with the expressed purpose to grab the last platinum trophies on psn. So I guess now I need to go play properly 😅
Do the Legendary edition, it's better.
@@eodyn7 I am playing the legendary edition.
Me and my roommate too, well originally he was gonna play DA:O but he tried everything, every launcher, every setting, he has a bug where the text won't load, I'm pretty sure it's a video card error. But yeah very epic game ME1
I still remember the first time I came across a Thresher Maw. My Shepard was several planets deep, he had easily beaten smugglers, slavers and merc groups. Fielded numerous expeditions, marked mining nodes and completed several side quests. Then we heard the scream, the Thresher Maw rising the the ice several meters away, the size of it and the quickness it submerged. The mako still, waiting to line up a shot, the sound of a a blizzard barely muffling the rumbling terrain beneath the wheels. Then it emerged, directly underneath us, Mako sent flying, on fire admits a raging blizzard, shields gone, only one part of the thing undamaged. Then came the acid, instantly melting through the hull. Commander Shepard, Liara and Wrex, half melted corpses freezing solid admits melted slag. That was my moment of terror, that at any point one may emerge on any planet at any time. Reading their lore after getting revenge solidified this fear for the rest of the game.
I avoided the big flat open areas like the plague after the first time I ran across a thresher maw.
The word you are looking for is 'amidst.'
That ominous scary music that plays in all the research scientist centers scared me as a kid playing back in 2008 on Xbox 360. Still is pretty creepy.
The moment Sovereign first speaks on Virmire, the moment it declares what it is and its purpose, I get chills from how impossibly ambiguous, imposing, powerful and ominous this entity feels.
I felt more intimidation and dread from the concept of the Reapers in that scene than I did any other time in the trilogy, including when they arrived at Earth in ME3.
An honourable mention is the most intriguing scene of expository dialog of any game I have ever experienced; The conversation with Vigil. The voice of Vigil, the music, the setting, all of it was such a perfect moment in gaming for me.
These two moments were never captured in the sequels.
how did you feel when you found out the reapers were killing organics to save them from being killed.
@@Blox117 I gathered that the Reapers didnt harvest organics for survival, but to historically archive each advanced species that emerges from every cycle and I do find that concept fascinating. My only complaint about the Reapers is how they were personified as a one-line repeating boss voice in ME2. The third installment fixed that tremendously and made the Reapers unsettling again, especially with the introduction of the Banshees (Asari indoctrinated).
@@DANRYX if thats true, then why are they putting valuable archives on the front lines to be destroyed?
@@Blox117 that is an excellent question. I would assume that the initial reaper is the physical manifestation of the specific race it archives, but the actual historical and base genetic template is share amongst all of them. I factor what Sovereign stated on Virmire where it is said that there are no individuals.
Where Andromeda should have explored would be the Reapers beyond dark space and the discovery of an entirely synthetic and massive world that functions solely as their main archive. Where after the creation of a new reaper, it returns to this world to perminantly archive what it assimilated, then return with the harvesting fleet to await the next cycle. So much about the already massive ME universe could have been expanded upon with ME:A that was completely abandoned, unfortunately.
@@DANRYX me:a was a mistake altogether
The vastness of space really hits you when you get out of the mako and walk around on foot for a bit. It makes you feel incredibly tiny and insignificant. Mass Effect 1 is my favorite because the terrifying feeling of loneliness and desolation isn’t matched by anything else, I love it.
Well that’s just great! Now I HAVE to replay the whole trilogy again for the 17th time. Thanks, ya bloody Pom!
The creepiest part of this game for me was the Rachni "singing" in the distance of soke of the uncharted worlds we explore. The other was that giant Prothean orb on one planet that shows the story of protheans observing ancient humans.
One think I love the most about ME trilogy is the eerie music, it's both calming and frightening at times.
i completed mass effect 1 after having given up on it years ago and got the legendary edition and it became one of my favorite addictions! i cant wait to play ME2 once i have time
I find how infinitely small humanity is compared to the rest of the universe comforting, actually. No despair no sadness no terrible thing, no matter how big, is actually all that significant in the cosmological sense. The thought comforts me, at least.
Like others here have mentioned, mass effect 1's eerie atmosphere is also one of things i love about it. The music, some of the locations and characters all had this dark, strange vibe them. I've played through this game many times, man. I love it. They had a hard time replicating the vibe the first game had for the next two entries to the point where it never happened, but maybe bioware wasn't trying for that with 2 and 3. I'm not sure.
I totally agree. I personally always feel a little apprehensive and creeped out when exploring the barren planets in ME1, I get the sense that I’m millions of miles from nowhere and utterly alone.
There is another game from 2003 called Freelancer that does this except with whole systems instead of planets.
There are dozens of systems you can fly through in that game, and I refuse to pass through most of them due to a sense of fear and dread.
What makes it worse in Freelancer is that some systems are downright dangerous just flying around.
Some of them have radiation that eats away at your ship, some have mine fields spanning half the map, explosive pockets of gas, etc.
I don't know what it is, just something about the vastness of the nebulas and the empty pockets of space outside of the main trade lanes unnerves me.
I think that's what made Mechwarrior 4 so much better than Mechwarrior 5. The planets themselves just seemed big and empty.
That and the missions made a lot more sense, but yeah. Everywhere you went felt like somewhere new that humans had just begun to inhabit.
You put in words my feelings of ME1. It's one of the games with such unique atmosphere, unduplicated by any other. So many mysteries when I first played that game and so many unique planets. Noveria? Or Ilos? Thanks for the video.
I love the trilogy as a whole, but ME1 certainly is something special.
I wish I could go back in time and play Mass Effect 1 with a blank mind. The way the plot evolved as you learn more about the mystery and eventually understand the majestic scope of the Reaper threat... by the end at the conclusion, my heart was pounding and I honest to god, had a lump in my throat. This was story telling at it's best. And no other game, movie or tv series has ever come close since, in all my 50 years of gaming. Mass Effect is something special.
I play through the trilogy about every year or 18 months. The music, the atmosphere, that lived-in feeling and reality of each location just strikes true every single time. Sad that they just don't make games like that anymore.
At 6:35... man... I had forgotten how haunting that background music was! Very simple... but it always gave me the chills.
Just contemplating how vast the galaxy is, let alone the universe, can really put things into perspective
This is a great take. I like 2 the most overall, but 1 vibed the hardest for reasons that I perhaps didn't truly understand or appreciate but I think you have articulated well here.
The rachni singing on some of the uncharted worlds is extremely unsettling with headphones
But they didn’t, sovereign nearly single handedly manipulated their way into fulfilling their role as the harbinger of death. Throughout the campaign you discover that sovereign has meticulously gained positional advantage. They use a spectre to hide their identity as the true enemy, the geth to defend their body. Only in the end does the galaxy finally simultaneously realize and react to the threat. Only by having a vast majority of the alliance does sovereign BARELY get defeated. If sovereign didn’t fall, none of the reapers would have.
Fkn amazing series man! Not long played through the trilogy again! Brilliant.
Me3's ending was meant to be about dark energy. It was touched on at various times during me1 and 2. Company greed was just starting to be a thing within computer games development world. The game ended up being rushed and the ending changed. We unfortunatly never got to see the intended ending, I wish I could have seen the intended plot.
What ME1 did was well balance freedom with restriction. Using the illusion of choice very effectively so that the world feels massive and you feel like a speck in the landscape, while in reality you always had a limited number of choices from the start.
Curious, how did you feel about H-047c in Andromeda? Personally while I was doing the side quests on that asteroid and Vetra's loyalty mission I was having serious ME1 Uncharted world nostalgia.
That's the feeling I wanted, having a couple hub worlds is cool and all but they needed more "abandoned moon with a criminal gang operating illegally on it" kind of locations to explore/mine/fight on.
H-047c was my favorite in Andromeda. It gave me a similar feeling to the Luna mission in Mass Effect 1. The lack of atmosphere just gave both a silent sense of awe at the universe.
In a way, it kinda makes sense that you would have the ability to explore empty worlds in ME1 but not in Andromeda. In ME1, the Reaper threat hasn't made resources scarce yet. While in Andromeda, you don't have the time/resources to land and explore every uninhabited world in each system - you needed a society that could be productive a year ago.
@@indigo4afbry701 good point.
@@indigo4afbry701 The Pathfinder was intended (in-universe) to basically be Magellan, but everything had fallen apart so badly that he ended up having to be Wyatt Earp instead.
One of the best moments of ME1 for me was landing on the moon, seeing the Earth floating overhead, and sitting in awe at the feeling of just being on the moon. It captured a sense of genuine wonder more than any other game I've played. Utterly fantastic and you captured it perfectly here.
Absolutely.
I have a love-hate relationship with the Labs 2 song that plays whenever you explore another lifeless prefab that had no business being on a planet out in the middle of godforsakened nowhere.
Funnily enough, the song itself is even _missing_ from the soundtrack, which is the most ironically fitting thing. You won't find it in it's home along with the other tracks, you have to go out and look for it.
It's mysterious, terrifying, and ultimately humbling.
I love that track for the same reasons I hate hearing it hahahaha
Link please :D
As a Star Trek fan Mass Effect captures the "strange new world's and "civilizations" motto to the core. Think of each planet in ME1 as an episode and Hacket delivers the premise for that episode like a TV show. The later games don't have that same awe as the others. ME2 is more Star Wars, Trek is about the unknown and serialized, Wars is a lived in narrative based story. ME2 and ME3 do not have that same emotional drive ME1 does.
I recall first playing ME1 back in 2007 on my crappy laptop and being totally enthralled by the codex entries for hours on my first playthrough! I also loved the pointless exploratory missions on those desolate worlds too, you articulated it brilliantly, a skill I do not posses - thanks for this video!
Yes i remember just reading those entries and getting immersed into the world
It’s very ironic that one legendary Sci-fi game trilogy began the exact same year as an even better Trilogy had just ended.
I really appreciate the essay. ME1 really set the tone. The expanse, isolation, and emptiness of space contrasts the limitations and finite nature of humanity. All the species in ME are limited by their evolutionary biology. The Reapers, on the other hand, are so powerful and intelligent, they have become a force of nature unto themselves.
"Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls, and ask the ghosts if honor matters. Silence will be your answer." - Javik
Man if I could just relive my first playthrough of mass effect…my first time in the citadel. The game had been out for about five years at that point, but not having internet at home back then I didn’t get spoiled by anything or anyone. So I went in totally blind and no matter how much of a break I take these days I can never capture that feeling again…
IMO ME1 is the best ME game because its a complete self contained story that isn't bogged down by being bound to address baggage from prior games. The gameplay is a bit rough due to its age, but in terms of world building, characters and narrative its the tightest and most compelling. ME2 to a lesser extent, and ME3 to a much greater extent end up getting weighed down by the prior games as well as their own mistakes that make them less tightly told.
Mass Effect 1 was AMAZING for what it offered - exploring deep space with mates, choices which shaped the world AND it was the first. What it offered was impressive. The way it offered them thankfully improved in later games. The bad thing is that no other game - even Andromeda (!) - didn't try to offer an even better experience....Andromeda was even worse than 1 so...
Its hard to believe this game was released 11 years after Super Mario 64... 3D games really weren't that old, yet it's such an achievement in immersive gaming.
I loved Mass Effect 1 when I started playing it at the beginning. When I got to Ilos and listened to Vigil speak, I knew this game became my favorite. I wish I could experience the sense of loss and wonder as he explained the Reapers for the first time.
yuuuuuuuup
One of the aspects o ME1 that never repeated in the next games (logically because we get to know more about the reapers and so) was that Lovecraftian feeling of the unknown. When you first talk to the sovereign in Virmire, the beginning of the game when you see the transmission from Eden Prime, the husks, the vision from the prothean beacon... Then almost at the end you finally meet the sovereign but even after that conversation you still know nothing, and the way the reaper talks to you as if no living being could ever grasp or understand the reapers, where they come from or what they really are...
Loved that atmosphere and like you said, the feeling of the inmensity of space and all the unknown things in it.
Mass Effect 1 is definately the best of all 3 in my opinion. The way it introduced the lore, explained most important things, builded the world, created unique atmosphere and universe. I like everyhing about it, including gameplay, combat, and even Mako rides and planets exploration. Half of me time playing i spent reading Codex, descriptions of the planets, or simply roarming the map and listening to the great music and ambient. I like it so much, in fact, this time, at my 6th playthrough, i tried to do unique thing - started exploring planets... WITHOUT MAKO! On foot! And in my opinion, this unique experience - is how planets were designed to be explored from the beginnig. But obviously playtesters said that it was too long, boring, and empty maps didnt create enough fun. I agree with them. But for me it was definately interesting - slowly advancing through the map, searching for points of interes, trying to climb the highest mountain to scout everything around me with a sniper rifle. On some maps terrain made it actually difficult and challenging to find a route through mountains and buggy textures that keep throwing you off or simply getting stuck on them. And some maps and POIs cannot even be accessed without Mako. And when you suddenly hear rachni song after an hour of wandering the map - truly chilling feeling. Or when thresher maw suddenly ambushed you - a screamer. But it definately added roleplaying, wearing white camouflage at snowy planets, slowly getting behind the enemy outpost, and then snipe them from the best hill that you scouted. Or using enviromental protected suits on planets that can damage you. I truly enjoyed it, but have to admit, it got a bit repetitive after 7-9 planets, so now i only do it occasionally on the most interesting planets.
Thank you for this love letter to Mass Effect 1 and its space exploration! I no longer feel weird for taking the Mako out for planet exploration even when I've already done everything on a planet. I just love to drive around, gaze at the horizon, and feel that sense of beautiful, lonely empty space. As annoying as some planets are to navigate, I actually love that most of the planets aren't designed for the Mako. They just exist out there, and we can explore them, but they're not meant for Shepard. Even while I'm raging on Casbin or Nodacrux, I'm grudgingly appreciating them, too. I even do some planets like Nepmos on foot for roleplay reasons, and it never feels like a slog to me. Each planet is just a wonderfully immersive experience with its own story.
Try no mans sky! Don’t look at it as a game though. Look at it as an experience, esp n VR
To be fair to ME Andromeda. It was the remnants who made the planets habitable. This explains the high density of life-sustaining planets.
Title: Mass Effect 1 is Terrifying
The thumbnail: the Mako
Me: "Yeah, that checks out"
Despite its flaws, ME1 is an absolute gem; and still my favorite game in the Mass Effect franchise. Great video! Keep up the good work.
Literally just finished my first play through ever and god damn where has this game been all my life
I played Mass effect 1 so much before mass effect 2 came out I had to get another disc because I burned it out Ah good times and memories
The music, the empty planets dotted with hidden Cerberus initiatives, a prothean orb that tells a tale of ancient humanities run-ins with the protheans and reapers. It was very well done. X-57 was a great add on as well
I have always had ME1 as my favorite of the 3. I played them when they first released (except ME3, which I played a year after it's release via bought 'used' copy), but never played the LE (Boycott of EA that I refuse to break).
And ME2 to me, represented the story of EA taking over BioWare; A small company of people (BioWare/Shepard and team), being sold out by a larger company ((can't remember their name)/The Alliance), only to seek 'refuge' within an notably 'untrustworthy' company (EA/Cerberus).
I really love the Mass effect series. Especially when you are talking about these planets as I have a fascination with other worlds and its moons and how empty but beautiful these worlds can be. Everspace 2 also scratches this itch with seeing the planets and areas of space which are designed very beautifully!
Thank you for this vid 😊
Let's not forget the amazing, sombre soundtrack that always accompanied you! It's not over the top, it's not orchestra, it's not that iconic actually. It's calm, sombre, tranquil, almost boring. When you are out on a world void of life feeling just how insignificant you are, the score is there in the background. It doesn't take the scene, it just understands, it shares what you feel and amplifies it.
Vigil has to be the best moment in the game for me. It's an AI that tells you how hopeless the relentless persecution of it's creators was, how it had to shut down many life pods to preserve the few. Those in it reawoke to a galaxy without hope. A world where they had lost not all they own, but all their entire species had ever strived to be and hoped for. They travel to the Citadel and I cannot even begin to imagine how absolutely terrifying an empty Citadel would even be! They go there to give the next cycle a chance, fully knowing they will find no sustenance nor life there and slowly die off absolutely alone in the galaxy they once knew as prosperous.
Now that's where I would like to see a dead space like mass effect sequel, just putting the idea out there Bioware!
When I think back to my first and only playthrough of ME1, I remember it being *quiet*. And the detail in the environments being beautiful. I didn't feel rushed to finish it, and I was never bored. It was truly something you were meant to experience and savor.
OH, the atmosphere, OH the soundtrack!
Also I remember being totally lost in the citadel when I started the game x'D
In my first run it took me like 4 hours to leave the citadel, I was so brainmessed with that map.
Still, I LOVE the trilogy. And I simp Kaidan. I loved my trilogy ending with Kaidan. Period. 🙃
You really hit the bullseye with this video. Excellently done.
So basically Mass Effect 1 is terrifying because it shows how small and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things? I agree with your conclusion, but a topic like that should be really expanded on in a series of videos. You could even bring Lovecraft into the equation to really hammer in the nihilism.
Lovecraft was a bad author, and his work is insignificant compared to Steven King’s development of what became Cosmic Horror.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 Finally somebody says it! I was very disappointed in Lovecraft, after hearing about him for years. He had his good points, of course, but he just did NOT know when to shut up.
"Here's an ancient, horrible, incomprehensible thing that will break your very soul -- and which I will now describe in exhaustive detail until you sympathize with it more than with the inbred hicks that it's eating."
What hooked me to the series was the fact that the lore and events in the game (besides been incredibly interesting) have lots of grey areas. Right and wrong blur and everyone has a different perspective on what should be done and why. Ambiguous morality has always fascinated me and when you throw characters you deeply care for, you become biased when making decisions whether or not you're aware of the consequences.
Mass Effect 1 was in a wierd sweet-spot for this effect to occure. The technology was far enough to provide those "empty" worlds, but not far enough to really populate those same worlds. This resulted in lightning in a bottle and few things represent this better than Mass Effect's music, particularly the tracks you used in this very video. Vast, mysterious, largely empty space and yet all that is exciting, important and life-changing is in that nothingness at the same time.
Modern games lack this ability to both be large and empty at the same time, because somehow we convinced ourselves, that we must keep the players extremely busy for 115% of the time they play.
Consoles held games back, and are still holding games back. The emptiness is a byproduct of developing for consoles. As long as games continue to be developed for consoles first and then ported to PCs, they will be lacking detail that should have been part of the game.
I get you. I enjoy me andromeda but so many side quests on side quests, feels like busy work for its own sake.
After the 1st Thresher Maw I encountered, I was like wtf was that.
Then I find a few more unmarked Maw nests. That second one made me leave that planet in my 1st playthrough.
Man..the memories of just driving the MAKO around with a cold beer, those were the days.
I remember my first play of me1 was quite magical in your description of those almost void worlds. I had moved into a flat with a bunch or dudes with piles of games. I looked threw their library or 360 games, it was about 09 and I'd heard of me but never really played it. Once my buddy told me it was made by bioware I was intrigued. He told me it was like an rpg he'd just watch me play, way before twitch but hey sounded good at the time, the other flatmates had played threw it too and everyone promised not to spoil anything, but act as experienced idea guys for my playthrough. The best part of the game was hitting every single side quest planet, gathering all of the lore and that loneliness didn't sink in the same way, because they were part of my crew in a sense together with me and our ideas trapped in the mako driving around exploring. I just started my second playthrough last night after all these years, I can't wait to feel lonely this time in my room alone, without my flatmates
I have experienced exactly what you're describing in this video. I had a full blown panic attack when I realized that in my lifetime I am trapped on this (comparably pretty decent) rock, and pretty much everything I see in the night sky is already dead or dying, and I have no chance of ever reaching and exploring any of it.
0:44 oh boy he was so right.
I think what made Part 1 a little unsettling is the background music that went along with hallways that gave off a liminal feeling.