It's strange, looking back, how much of a relic of the late 00s/early 2010s the Mass Effect games really feel like. They come from an era where "meaningful choices" was really the big selling point in the industry, hell they partly created it. There's something magical about that old modular BioWare formula surviving long enough for the lip synching to work and the faces to look right, and they never got bigger or better than this.
The best way I've ever heard ME2 described is as if it's a full season of your favorite TV show, full of little 20-30 minute side missions, larger multi-hour main missions and little areas of focus on each of your 12 squad members. There's a mysterious, sort of nebulous main foe that you'll eventually have to deal with, but for the most part, the week to week threats are isolated and self-contained. It's really just a series about this strange, broken family unit you end up forming, with just the hint of galactic genocide backing things up to give it that extra kick. It's really hard to explain to someone raised on more immediate, visceral games like CoD or Apex or more open-ended, creative games like Minecraft just how effecting and exciting a game like this can really feel. It hits that exact sweet spot between introducing and building a fictional world and having to actually wrap up the concerns of a fictional world, to where it's just cool to hang out for a while. And despite all the violence and murder, the Mass Effect world works so well because it really does seem like you'd want to be there sometimes. It's hard to capture that feeling in any game, and when you do, it's something you have to savor every drop of .
The best way I've ever heard ME2 described is as if it's a full season of your favorite TV show, full of little 20-30 minute side missions, larger multi-hour main missions and little areas of focus on each of your 12 squad members. There's a mysterious, sort of nebulous main foe that you'll eventually have to deal with, but for the most part, the week to week threats are isolated and self-contained. It's really just a series about this strange, broken family unit you end up forming, with just the hint of galactic genocide backing things up to give it that extra kick. It's really hard to explain to someone raised on more immediate, visceral games like CoD or Apex or more open-ended, creative games like Minecraft just how effecting and exciting a game like this can really feel. It hits that exact sweet spot between introducing and building a fictional world and having to actually wrap up the concerns of a fictional world, to where it's just cool to hang out for a while. And despite all the violence and murder, the Mass Effect world works so well because it really does seem like you'd want to be there sometimes. It's hard to capture that feeling in any game, and when you do, it's something you have to savor every drop of .