Infiltrator is generally easy mode, but Vanguard is a totally different beast. I just restarted ME3 on Insanity with a Vanguard, and it just feels silly at times. My weapon weight is down so low that I have a +185% power charge, and I can get off a Biotic Charge about every second and a half. Unless I am in an area with turrets, nothing can hit me fast enough before I charge again and rebuff my barrier. Vanguard was not as good in ME1, mostly due to drones, but the only difficulty I had in ME2 was the platform section at the end.

@redwing42: Yeah, they are great! Biotic Charge > Shotgun > Nova > Pull from squadmember > Biotic Charge > Slam all day every day!

@newfangled: I think Garrus + Wrex were perhaps the best combat-focused party members you could put together in the first game. I'm expecting a fair amount of disagreement on this--everyone has their preferences. My heart stopped when you said you made it to the Thorian without your teammates at your side. That sequence can be extremely punishing. Glad to hear things are moving along for you, though.

@probablytuna, @zevvion: RE: Vanguards on Insanity in Mass Effect 2:

Vanguards, in my mind, are the second-best class with which to tackle ME2's highest difficulty, with Infiltrator being the best. Infiltrators have the advantage of being able to execute their offense with little personal risk--their tactical cloak + sniper rifle combination results in some of the highest per-shot damage values in the game. By contrast, Vanguards MUST be hyper-aggressive at all times, in every combat scenario. This requires quick decision-making and on-the-fly risk evaluation, which is subject to greater influence from human error or the class's sometimes-inconsistent powers--there is one important combat scenario in which the Vanguard's Biotic Charge reacts awkwardly to the level geometry. In this specific instance, the Vanguard tends to get hung up on cover and invisible barriers, which leaves the player without shields and completely exposed to enemy fire. A certain, sudden death on Insanity.

That aside, the Vanguard can literally take down some of the game's hardest enemies on its own, without the help of the team. It is, at peak possible skill, the single most destructive class in the game. (Minor spoilers below--this is a relatively major combat scenario, but it is not plot-focused):

At the time ME1 did so many new, exciting things that I looked past a lot of its warts like the controls & jank that ME2 fixed in huge ways. I recently went back to play through it again and couldn't get past the second planet as it just didn't hold up well at all. The story elements are incredible but I was happier watching them on YouTube and then moving into ME2.

I had a similar experience with AC1 where I remember it being something much more than it really is. When I went back to play AC1 I was floored at how different it was compared to my memory. Nostalgia is a fickle thing.

Was i the only one who thought CODifing this game was a bad idea ? Going form ME1 to ME2 is a big step, From RPGeske controls to straight up Gears Of COD controls i absolutely despised it at the time from a rich intriguing story to a Gotta safe the team story that could have being in any Call of Duty game. From weapons that overheat to straight up ammo clips "that's" a devolution IMO. This is probably not a favourable opinion but holly shit was ME1 Way better then ME2. ME2 might be the most casual RPG EVER made. IF Infinity ward would ever make a RPG it would be called mass effect 2.

As I've mentioned a few times already, I fully believe ME1 is the best game in the series. I've never played it on console though (or any Mass Effect game for that matter). I had no major issues with the game on PC and therefore I wholly recommend it. Especially if you're willing to Tweak it a bit.

In terms of classes, I've played many different ones in my runs through the series. In ME1 I had the most fun with the Vanguard class (biotics + shotguns!) and in ME2 I had by far the most fun with the Sentinel class. It was like giving the finger to chest high wall cover shooter nature of the game + the tech armour effect looked great and carried over to the cutscenes. Despite originally playing Vanguard in ME1 and enjoying it the most I never enjoyed the class in ME2 or ME3 because I felt the biotic charge didn't fit the gameplay or the story at all. I was also saddened that they nerfed the Sentinel class a lot in ME3. I guess they must have noticed how godlike it was in ME2 or something.

I tried playing the first ME recently but i didn't like it at all, maybe because i tried ME right after completing Dragon Age Inquisition.

Such a shame because i have the other ME games aswell but never played them.

I agree with the rest. ME1 is super rough to play through, putting it on easy and just enjoying the story is the best way to experience it.

Mass Effect 1 is the best Mass Effect, that is all.

I also forgot to mention, the Tech/Biotic Protection stat only lowers the amount of time you're affected by those abilities, not any damage received from them. As a result, it's a fairly low priority. I tend to use First Aid mods to get every character/class passive health regen if they don't already have it, and stick Damage Protection mods on classes in lighter grades of armor.

Also, if you get the "Rich" achievement (1 million credits), be sure to head back to the Citadel and check with the C-Sec Requisitions Officer, the best guns in the game are available from him. They also show up at the Normandy vendor.

I've always found the base combat to be fine, and then amazing later on with the first game. But then again I played pretty much only Adept so I was tossing around dudes around left and right by the halfway point and literally always had Barrier up (the cooldown ended before it wore off every encounter at a certain point). Also being able to have an infinite pistol / near-infinite shotgun was fantastic.

The introduction of a global power cooldown and ammo in 2 actually soured me a lot on the combat, despite the general improvements to the other bits of it. I played infiltrator and sniped things because it was the quickest way to slog through encounters. I never felt I could control the arena as well as in 1, and I missed throwing down like 8 powers at once. 3 was a bit better and I played that as an Engineer (pop two turret things and then spamming incinerate/slam as often as possible was fun and seemed to work), but I ended up sticking with a pistol and SMG because of the whole weight thing, so I never used any other cool weapons.

I can understand the frustrations people had with the Mako but man, I loved that thing. It was always fun to boost off the top of a mountain and "soar" across the sky like a brick with a cannon strapped to it, and after over a hundred hours I got very used to how it controlled. If they made it control more like a Halo Warthog, or something, then I'd love for it to return. The hoverthing was alright, but never felt as good to me as that unwieldy, heavily armed box.

Out of the whole trilogy, the first game is probably still my favorite.

I mean, it's only intolerable if you're expecting a quick-action cover-based shooter.

I think the combat is far better in ME1 than ME2. I didn't even play 3 because I hated 2 so much; 2 is one of the only games I can ever remember immediately closing and uninstalling as soon as I hit the credits. The story/atmosphere/world-building is also worlds ahead of 2/3 in 1.

I do remember losing progress a few times within the few planets due to combat deaths, but I was playing on PC, so I just started quicksaving after every room (the same way people who like Bethesda RPGs play them, I guess).

@zevvion: In the nicest way possible, I'm going to say you give Mass Effect too much credit and are forgetting the games that have come out before it and heavily influenced the making of this game. Dialogue and choice making have been a Bioware staple since Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, and KOTOR. Maybe they haven't been to this level of interaction with characters, but they still existed and they still more or less did the same thing, just in a less cinematic way.

Saying that it revolutionized the industry is pretty false too when it was riding on the coat tails of what was already established and popular at the time.There's a reason why in ME 1 the controls are mapped so similar to Gears of War and thats because that is what Bioware saw as a current trend that they thought would fit their game. Sure, making a game that combines two of these aspects is a unique thing and it had not been done before, but to excuse its flaws because of how "unique" it was for the time is silly when the influences of these games arguably did everything else much better. Hell, Bioware were going to make a Mass Effect first person shooter which I think shows the powerful influence first person shooters and their popularity had at the time for them to even consider making a game like this.

Look.... I do enjoy Mass Effect. It is probably one of the best science fiction RPG series that also happens to not have Star Wars in the name. The characters in this game are fantastic and the detail of the world building is something that I absolutely love. There are some glaringly obvious problems with the series in the gameplay department that are definitely pretty dated in the same way that non-speaking protagonists are considered outdated. For what it did was pretty fantastic, but that doesn't give it a free pass straight to perfection or being revolutionary. It is just a collection of the "best" gameplay for the time, much in the same the Witcher 3 was.

I really enjoyed Mass Effect. Whilst I haven't gone back to it in a while, it felt like such a loot game. The codex was rich with a ton to absorb. Combat wasn't strong but it was playing second to the world building ad RPG mechanics. I'll say this, as well: I'd rather go planetside with the Mako instead of research farm with space needles.

2 and 3 refine a lot but I don't think that makes 1 unplayable. Just a little more of its time.

@inevpatoria Ashley has turned into a tank, and I really like Wrex, but it would seem he's a biotic specialist, much like I am, and I don't think my party would be as effective with a biotic bias? I'll see if I can spec Garrus up to compensate for Ashley's absence.

@freedom4556 You strike me as someone who has either written an extensive guide on ME1 already, or one mentally catalogued waiting to be published digitally. Thank you once again for the additional perk pointers. I think I'm vaguely headed in the right direction regarding health regeneration, but the tech/biotic protection titbit is very useful to know.

Mass Effect was ahead of it's time in making that kind of storytelling approachable to the average console gamer. I just feel that A. games have gotten better at doing that while retaining what makes this type of game so special and B. that gamers in general have gotten more savvy towards this style of role-playing game. These days ME1 feels too trimmed down to me while ME2, similarly trimmed down, focused more on what made it different from other role-playing games.

They both feel old to me while ME2 feels more kinetic and polished.

@newfangled: I want to add on top of what @freedom4556 said about the 'Rich' achievement, I'm pretty sure you have to surpass 1 million credits at any given point in time and not accumulated over the course of the game for it to count.

Later on in the game you'll get a medical exoskeleton mod which in my opinion is a must have for any squadmate that uses a lot of abilities. Not only do they give health regen but you also get a power cooldown reduction by 15% or higher. I'm pretty sure they stack as well. I have Liara on two medical exoskeletons so her cooldown is +30% faster.

@probablytuna Both points noted. Much appreciated. It's very likely that I'll refer back to this thread as I progress through the game.

Thanks for the tips and lively discussion, all! Some frank reflections on the playability of the first instalment with respect to present-day gameplay mechanics in the genre(s), and rational counterpoints that beg the player to be cognisant of early-generational trends. There's no doubting Mass Effect's charm and scope, and one can only hope that Andromeda doesn't disappoint fans of the franchise. I won't have a word to say on it, considering I'm likely to be playing the first saga for a long time to come, despite its shortcomings (which have definitely been lessened by the many contributions to this thread).

I also think Mass Effect 1 is the best in the series, easily. I think Mass Effect 2 completely lost a lot of what made the first game great and turned the game into mostly corridors.

The Mako wasn't great, but the solution wasn't to remove it, they should have improved it. The mining that replaced it was even worse. And for something claiming to be a space opera 2 felt so claustrophobic at times. I also think the story in the first game is a lot better than in 2.

I didn't say it was perfect and I didn't say it was revolutionairy. It's a fact that more games have been released with dialogue wheels after ME. And you can look up old reviews on ME, which all state the gameplay isn't fantastic but is surfacable for what the game was trying to do. That's what I said. It was easy to forgive it's bad gameplay at the time. The reason that game got high praise and scores was not a mistake. You can't take timeframe out of context.

@gunslingerpanda said:

Let's settle this. Once. And. For. All.

At least until the next time someone decides to settle this.

Oh look, it's a Poll!

I can see the original Mass Effect being uninviting for newcomers. It's sort of a weird middle ground for the Bioware RPGs on the original Xbox and what the Mass Effect series ultimately became in the sequel.

I just started ME 1 for the first time ever as i play the series (replay 2 and finish 3 for the first time) to hype up for Andromeda.

A couple hours in, i find the combat to be the worst part but im already so interested in the plot that i havent even considered quitting. It definitely is far less polished than even the 2nd game, though.

They really did do some good work setting up the narrative for the trilogy. I hope they are equally successful in the new series.

ME1's gameplay may not hold up terribly well, but man, it's just dripping with atmosphere. And while it's obviously setting up the trilogy, it works as a self-contained story - something the sequels don't do.

I need to see if there's a good controller patch for the PC version... play through that again.

I don't know why you bumped this thread, but here you go:

http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect/mods/60/?

That mod makes the game fully compatible with a 360 controller complete with HUD elements (it also breaks kb/m support FYI). It controls exactly like it does on console.

I just started playing through the trilogy again but on PC this time, and holy shit does ME1 play terribly. The weapons aren't even a problem: At first I mix between using pistols and assault rifles and shotguns and sniper rifles in interesting ways because they all have weaknesses. For all those that say it plays like an RPG, I will proclaim this to the heavens as a guy that loves RPG's : This game controls LIKE SHIT. It just feels so horribly clunky I am truly pushing through the interactive parts just to get through the story to ME2, and the ME trilogy is still in my top 5 all time but damn is this game just a chore to actually play through.

The game is pretty tough in spots. Playing on an easier difficulty helps a lot if you're new and just want to get through the story stuff. I eventually got through that game on whatever the ultimate difficulty was and it was a hell of a challenge but a lot of fun.

Saving is the only thing that I thought was particularly bad in that game, and it is pretty damn bad. The Mako stuff is rough when you're doing the optional stuff, but I liked it even if it was a bit wonky when they give you more to do with it.

I still think ME1 has a more enjoyable combat system than either sequel, even if it has aged somewhat poorly in terms of controls.

What would you replace cooldowns with? Mana? It's the same thing. Don't blow your load early because you might need it later. I didn't have any issues what so ever with that in ME1. I never felt like I was or needed to just throw abilities out because they were cooled down. Granted I played on whatever higher difficulties the game had to offer so maybe that made me feel the need use tactics beyond just using all my abilities when they cooled down.

Hell yeah adept on insanity. Half the reason I don't like ME2 nearly as much as ME is because my space wizard was way cooler in the first game.

idk what yall are talking about, ME plays great!

I actually just finished Mass Effect yesterday. First step on my journey to replay the three before Andromeda--provided that game is good and I buy it. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that after 10 or so years the game was still enjoyable. Story and characters are great and enough time had passed that I had forgot most of what happens in the game. Playing the game a second time also allowed me to justify not using default Shep (The Shep) and playing Veteran Renegade. I will, however, echo the majority and admit that I think the combat is kind of a chore; the Mako sections are boring and more annoying that incompetent; side missions on the various planets just reuse rooms over and over; collectibles are too numerous and worthless; and the loot is just uninspired and a hassle to maintain.