Yep! All options from ME3 are available from the beginning, plus a few new ones, with a focus on better options for black characters.
Yeah. Who knows, you might even like it. It's always better to form your own opinion about it.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition Official Comparison Trailer
- Thread starter Schlorgan
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I used to dread replaying me 1 due to the long load times in the citadel. Will be great to load it in 4 seconds. Like it won't feel real until I actually experience it.
ME3 is basically 30 hours of pretty good game with 5 minutes of bad ending. If you know the whole time the resolution will be kinda dumb you should be able to enjoy the journey.
That first shot of your Shep in 1 when the camera swirled around and you saw the absolute monstrosity you created. xD
But ME2 was the worst in the sense that you had to go through the entire prologue again if you needed to recreate. So glad face codes became a thing with 2.
In a way it's refreshing that the hero of the galaxy who always ends up with at least one romantic interest can look like a Claymation monstrosity. It's what's on the inside that counts.
I am not even that mad at the actual story ending of ME3, but the last mission. It sucked and was so anticlimactic.
As for the trailer: Some things looks good, some bad, most improtantly, though, I don't think I will notice all that much during my playthrough. Can't wait. Already on a Bioware-binge right now, I truly miss that time between 2009-2014 of back-to-back Bioware games (Obviously the reason we got so many games of varying quality in such a short tim-- well you get my point).
As for the trailer: Some things looks good, some bad, most improtantly, though, I don't think I will notice all that much during my playthrough. Can't wait. Already on a Bioware-binge right now, I truly miss that time between 2009-2014 of back-to-back Bioware games (Obviously the reason we got so many games of varying quality in such a short tim-- well you get my point).
True :) Also maybe the other species think of humans as ugly anyway
I'm struggling to even remember the mission outside of the big four way at the end which was basically a horde battle. Very disappointing. This was one of the only Earth based missions and it just looked so non-distinct and boring.
At least the Cockney guy from the teaser trailer showed up, though him not being a squad mate was disappointing.
To be quite honest the last mission, including the terrible ending, were not as bad as the inclusion of Kai Leng. I even take Javik being DLC as something divine over that guy
Yeah, the character rendering looks rather different as well
I don't know if they changed the bone structure or it's more varied, but I'm thinking the faces are looking a lot better. Specially with how skin reflects light now.
Yeah, the character rendering looks rather different as well
I don't know if they changed the bone structure or it's more varied, but I'm thinking the faces are looking a lot better. Specially with how skin reflects light now.
On this particular case they definitely changed the face 3D model. Its a massive improvement to me.
The Xbox 360 Platinum Hits version of ME1 comes with a bonus disc. One of the features is a concept art gallery you can toggle audio commentary on for.With all this art direction talk I'm honestly wondering more and more how Feros ended up looking the way it did. It just doesn't really match Watts concepts art , hence the change in the remaster.
I can't remember what they said word-for-word, but essentially the early concept for Feroz (before the whole Exo-geni/Thorian story was figured out) was for it to be a war-torn planet. Hence the concept art. As that idea shifted away towards Program ruins, the art changed with it.
Similarly, the majority of concept art for Eden Prime had a blue sky. The red sky was added later to give it a more sinister feeling.
Part of what makes ME3 harder to go back to for me is just the tone of the whole thing. By design, it's extremely oppressive and dour, trying to make that feeling of galactic war an ever-present thing. There's also this sort of quiet unease, especially on the Citadel. Not much music, like to me it feels like the walls are closing in while you're running around there.
In that sense, it's super effective at conveying the dread. Even at their darkest moments, ME1 & ME2 never gave me that kind of feeling.
In that sense, it's super effective at conveying the dread. Even at their darkest moments, ME1 & ME2 never gave me that kind of feeling.
It's definitely one of the downsides to the Reaper story premise.
BioWare created this incredible universe...and then immediately put an expiration date on it.
But it makes "That was for Thane you son of a bitch" one of the most satisfying moments ever
Wtf? Lol. I've had light interest in Mass Effect, but every person who's pitched it to me is always a dude who is very excited about sex with "alien chicks". I'm sure they're great games, its just that its fanbase has me scratching my head. The games tackle interesting topics... right?Their audience cares more about what their sweat tastes like more than boobs or anything that basic lol.
The games aren't pretty much universally lauded just because you can have sex with aliens.
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Hah, my first thought too. Like, why add boob socks to her outfit rather than just making it a tunic?
The entire Cerberus arc -- from Illusive Man going insane, to Kai Leng, to the Citadel invasion -- is poor overall. Every time they showed up it just annoyed me.
One of several problems with ME3 besides the ending and why it's easily the weakest of the three games.
what kind of people are you interacting with lmao
here's the easiest pitch for you: It's like a role playing Star Trek game (with maybe a sprinkle of Babylon 5 and Stargate). And yes, the game does focus on interesting topics (racism, genocide, AI rights, giving second chances).
I've lamented Illusive Man becoming a cartoon villain since the game came out. God he was SO fucking interesting in Two.
I mean I'm sure there are people who are way to obsessed with that sorta thing (as there are with anything), but banging aliens makes up like a 2 minute cutscene in a 40+ hour game. And you can bang "alien chicks" and "alien dudes" at your leisure.
Mass Effect 2 is widely considered one of the best game ever made by critics and fans. But sure it's probably just because banging alien chicks.
Yes that is very true. I hate how they forced you to Cerberus' perspective in 2 and build a more intriguing Illusive man to cartoon villainy in 3.
Well yes, but I don't see how that undermines my point - the 'black crush' was indeed a complaint about the game even back then, and as I said later the technical limitations can indeed inform the artwork whereby the preponderance of effort applied to specific areas are critical in the overall presentation. The stark lighting in ME1/2 was indeed a limitation of processing power with the platforms it targeted, but it also meant they could likely focus the power on other areas. They could have had bounce lighting perhaps, but the overall aesthetic of the game would suffer if that there was less grunt available for the environments.
It's like the horribly low-res textures of the outfits in the series wasn't specifically done for 'style', it was a memory limitation - but that allowed them to focus on the facial textures, where your eye would be focusing on. So it was both.
But, this isn't Wind Waker - that game was going for a very specific style that was clearly not informed by realism. I don't see how you can say that for the Mass Effect series. Have the docking bay of your ship being enshrouded in pitch blackness just makes no sense other than it being a limitation of the lighting engine. You don't see far more games with global illumination now because the majority of developers all got together and decided "This is the style we want to go for", you see it because it's technically feasible and it's more accurate to how light works. In a game that's trying to convey a real world, that matters.
And the 'the original looks better' responses also strike me as a reflexive reaction these days to any lighting changes in an old game that people grew up with and have fond memories of. The large number of people responding to that comparison by that Twitter user (which doesn't even make the point he wants imo) with the Arkham series remaster illustrates that, it's widely regarded as one of the worst remaster jobs ever, and received widespread mockery - it's absolutely not comparable to the screenshots we've seen so far of ME Legendary, in results or the original vision of the team involved.
With playing each game in the series at least 3 times and downloading gigabytes of mods for it over the years (and participating in the ALOT betas and giving quite a bit of feedback wrt improvements & authenticity of it), I certainly am nostalgic of the series myself. I'm also interested to see this great artwork actually being visible now.
We better get some fresh Monster Factory out of this.
JACOB!
Well hello cousin!We better get some fresh Monster Factory out of this.
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but the first mass effect WAS going for a very specific style. it was going for low-budget science fiction television shot on 16mm, and it succeeded wonderfully. That's why the colors are so saturated, that's why there's lens flare everywhere, that's why the shadows are so heavy, and yes, that's why there was the controversial aggressive film grain filter.
Games that have "realistic" graphics still have art direction, just like how films have art direction. Games with global illumination still have lighting artists. The "accuracy" of how light works matters very, very little to good lighting design for video games, just like in film. Natural lighting looks awful in many situations. It's why random videos you shoot outside on your phone don't look as good as a movie.
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I think it was going for science fiction, but 'low budget' is a leap. It was low budget because there was a low budget of resources available in terms of the processing power for the platforms and the development team relative to an established AAA blockbuster property.
Film grain and lens flare weren't 'low budget sci-fi' aesthetics, there were in a ton of games at the time, that was considered 'cinematic'.
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My only issue is that I don't like how brighter the Presedium is in the remaster compared to the original. I didn't like how bright they made it in ME3. Feros will definitely take some getting use to. Otherwise I think I'll get use to it.
I just hope the Wards were not made too bright in ME1. I absolutely disliked that it was made brighter in ME2 and ME3.
I just hope the Wards were not made too bright in ME1. I absolutely disliked that it was made brighter in ME2 and ME3.
There isn't any one source for this because a lot of it is just things people have pieced together through art criticism, but you can find various interviews from Bioware artists singing the praises of classic Trek, the works of Syd Mead, and so on. There's definitely more out there but there's a couple just at a quick glance on google. The influences of Mass Effect's visuals are pretty easy to trace back.
See above. They were very consciously drawing from classic science fiction. Heavy shadows, bright colors, a deliberately "shot on film" look... these didn't come from nowhere. Also the 360 was quite powerful and Mass Effect was a pretty excellent looking game considering its scope at the time, so I don't really understand your second point here. They were certainly working within constraints but the aesthetics were absolutely on purpose. They didn't make stuff look like Mead-designed sci-fi because they had to, they did so because they wanted to.
...those things are considered cinematic because they're an integral part of the cinema mass effect was inspired by. "being cinematic" was a huge stated goal of mass effect's, that you're arguing against
One of my favorite little examples of the sci-fi aesthetic that was present in the original game and got toned down over time is the armor designs. A lot of the armor (especially light armor) in ME1 is a mix of cloth and somewhat-plasticky looking ceramics, which creates a vibe that's a mix of a spacesuit and Star Trek. Jump forward to ME2 and 3 and armor is now bulky, heavily segmented (to convey "tech") power armor that feels more in line with 00s trends like Halo or Batman in TDK.
I emphasize that it was subjective even back then because people seem to be losing sight of some fundamentals. The overall effect of the original lighting could be criticized even if it was the result of technical limitations; the overall effect of the new lighting can be criticized even if it's the result of a more advanced technological context. If someone thinks this or that picture looks cooler, "but dude, were the game made today, it wouldn't have looked like that..." doesn't mean anything. (That's not even getting to other points, such as how redundant that statement is either way.)
And we don't know what went into the lighting decisions. Yeah, no doubt technical limitations, having to prioritize this or that, etc., etc. all went into it, as tends to be the case, but it's not like the end result was predetermined: specific choices were made along the way. You're kinda collapsing the creative process here. Like, that point about global illumination? Devs go for it not because it lends itself to any particular style (aside from some broad-ass "realism" category, I suppose), but for the sake of accuracy? I mean, I imagine that's true to some extent, but being more accurate to real life is never going to take precedence over accomplishing a look.
Just put these two statements side by side: Have the docking bay of your ship being enshrouded in pitch blackness just makes no sense vs. You don't see far more games with global illumination now because the majority of developers all got together and decided "This is the style we want to go for", you see it because it's technically feasible
Personally, I read those, and I think to myself: Which one am I gonna dig more? The look that doesn't make sense except that it reflects certain aesthetic influences, except that it was put together during a time when lighting tech was more limited, except for how it manages to be evocative and weird and kinda neat? Or the look that we see more and more games adopting now, that's more accurate to real life, that I know is just going to become more and more widespread?
I dunno, I see an argument for both. Like, speaking of "trying to convey a real world," there is no one way to do that. That goal is not some singular organizing force that has to move all games in the same direction. It's not even mutually exclusive with stylization - not even close. The idea that you can apply "trying to convey a real world" to ME1 and then linearly work from there judging one aesthetic choice better than the other is one I don't vibe with at all.
Anyway, my bad, got way more verbose than necessary. My TL;DR would be: as I said before, the way people frame technical limitations within remaster discourse is probably my least favorite part about that discourse, because "it wouldn't be made that way today" is just not a good argument against any given creative decision of the past.
No, I'm arguing against it being purposefully a "low-budget science fiction television" look, as you said. To me "low budget science fiction television" and "cinematic" are not two terms I would use to describe the same property. It's like saying "It's very much like the Star Trek TV series, in a Blade-Runner sort of way".
I don't think they were going for a 'low budget' look at all, I think they were going for the most polished experience they could have at the time with the available resources they had - you're implying they were purposefully trying for a pulp-style presentation, and I don't get that.
Heck, in the very Gamesrader interview you cite where Ray Muzyka mentions Star Trek, he doesn't invoke it in the context you suggest where it was part of an aesthetic direction, rather he merely mentions that ST was a part of "all" science fiction in the last 20-30 years he took as inspiration for the series. Where he does allude to actual presentation, he specifically calls out 'cinematic' as a descriptor:
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ah okay yes, my bad for specifically saying television there when a lot of the influences are film-specific. but the rest of my point still stands (and also "cinematic" and "low budget" aren't mutually exclusive). but mass effect was absolutely, inarguably going for "pulp science fiction" as a vibe. that's why the soundtrack sounds the way it sounds, that's why the armor design is the way it is, and that's why the colors and lighting are the way they are. it was very purposefully built to look like classic science fiction.
like, take a cursory glance at reviews from 2007. tons of people were pointing it out. this isn't an outlandish opinion!
Fair enough, I can't really recall the original reviews it's been so long, I tried the links from Metacritic from the major sites but all give me a 404 now. :)
To be clear btw though, it's certainly not like I view 'moar brighter!' as a universal benefit to a remastered version, heck I'm pretty sure I spoke negatively of it in the Darksiders 2 rm. It's just that in ME I found the contrast seemed to be used to try and hide poor-quality assets, again sure - this is supposition. But when I would try to eliminate what I saw as the 'black crush' to even a slight degree, it invariably just exposed more colour banding, low-res textures and lack of ambient occlusion. That, to me, is what spoke to it being more of a technical limitation rather than necessarily going for highly contrasted look as the ultimate end goal rather than an art direction that was at least in part driven by compromise. The fact that Waters is remaking concept artwork for the LE that really requires these features such as volumetrics, ambient occlusion and bounce lighting to actually be delivered in-game to realize his remastered vision leads me to that perspective as well.
Here's an example of the remastered being far more 'cinematic' imo - significantly more depth to the scene, more shadows, more detail - but actually darker to boot. I like contrast! I just also want to see some detail in those shadowed areas too though.
