Hey, to each their own!

Honestly, as much as people - myself included, obviously! - complain about the first one, it’s not THAT bad. The narrative and characters of Mass Effect have always been the main draw, anyway (for me, at least), and if that’s what works for you in 2 and 3, I’d say it’s probably worth checking out the first one.

It is pretty awesome how certain games can stick us like that, right? Like the first time you read a great book, or heard that one song, or saw a film that ‘changed your life’ for the first time.

Probably fair; it would also explain why I was ‘the lone voice in the wilderness’, comparatively speaking, on Dragon Age: Inquisition not being nearly as good as its reputation - I’m one of the few weirdos who absolutely loved Dragon Age II (I think its easily the best of that series, and the only one of the three…

I like a lot about the first game - the narrative, the structure, the characters - but the basic gameplay to me, the shooting and the inventory mechanics, just... isn’t fun. I can see how you might like the inventory stuff - especially coming at it from the ‘it should be an RPG first and foremost’ perspective - and I…

‘Forced’ is probably too strong a word; back when ME3 was originally released - prior to any of the DLC except the Javik stuff - you couldn’t get the highest ranking on the ‘preparedness’ table without playing the multiplayer, and the game made it pretty clear that the preparedness ranking would have a direct impact…

You’re right, of course; it might just take something a little more than ‘slightly prettier!’ to make me actually shell out the cash for a remaster, if only because I still own the originals (on disc!), and so far on my replays, ever few years or so, I haven’t particularly been ‘put off’ by the aging graphics.

I honestly think, as far as structure, they all had something to offer: I did really, really like the more ‘open’ exploration of ME1, and as much as 2 was a great improvement in the basic gameplay and did a fantastic job deepening the narrative and the characters, its pacing was always just a little... off, to me -…

You’re not wrong, and I wouldn’t necessarily want them to completely change the general pace or the approach of the game - I wouldn’t trade the more ‘open’ non-mission-critical planets for anything, as an example - but I still think you can make the basic fundamentals of the gunplay a lot more fun without losing some…

I’ll always have a great deal of fondness for the first game, just because I did play it first, so to me the gameplay was less ‘not nearly as good as the sequels’, and significantly more ‘a mind-blowing upgrade to KOTOR!’.

I’m actually one of the few who really, really liked the MAKO (especially in comparison to the other vehicles introduced in the series); if they’d just lessened the grade on some of the DAMNED MOUNTAINSIDES, it would have been the perfect vehicle!

Yeah, as far as strategy goes, I’m fine with them leaving it more or less the same; my issue is much more with, as you say, the ‘feel’ of the controls, the movement but also (primarily, even), the shooting. The assault rifle always just felt like a fire hose, with no sense of precision at all, and while the sniper…

Which, I mean... fair to say, it needs it.

Right on; that’s exactly what I’d want, as well. Every time I replay the trilogy, I have the same two thoughts: there’s more daylight between the structure of 2 and 3 than I remember (3 really is paced, just, perfectly, in my own opinion), and the gameplay of 1, after you’ve played the other two, is actively un-fun,…

Always happy to get remastered versions of games I love (though how happy might depend on the price point, as I still own all the originals). Won’t lie, though: I was hoping for more of a ‘remake’, at least as far as the first game is concerned, as I would have loved for BioWare to tweak its actual gameplay to be more…

Which does make it kind of hilarious that they abandoned that naming convention almost immediately.

To your first paragraph: that’s probably all true, but I think it’s also fair to point out - as the review itself does - that it’s not as though they didn’t know the release and the election were going to hit pretty close together.

I think you’re making interesting points there - a lot, actually, but I want to focus on one: your friend who had to take off work because the political considerations were so all-consuming. I completely understand; it’s overwhelming enough to me, who’s privileged enough to belong to a demographic that won’t be…

I don’t mind Kotaku writing about that sort of thing - at all! - I just find it a little weird as the summation of the entire review; it’s like the last few paragraphs basically read ‘hey, you know the entire rest of this article? None of it really matters, because everything’s trivial right now, anyway; in fact,…

Again, I think your viewpoint is absolutely relevant - but from my perspective, I think saying Fahey’s review was filled with ‘more general fluff’, just because he didn’t feel the need to tie his review into the current (and I mean very current, as in ‘immediate’) political environment is selling his work a little bit…