Remastered Games Thread: Classic Edition Redux (Now with widescreen support)

[Vandelay]

Is ME2 one of those Spec Ops / Gears of War style shooters? I only just tried those for the first time this year… and yeah… they’re amazing for about 20 minutes and then the fun wears off.

It is still a Guns & Conversation game, as the first was and as Bioware are now known for. I would say they dial back on the RPG elements with the combat, so it does move closer to those games you mention. Personally though, I would say ME2 doesn’t have the weight or feedback of the combat in those games, so it feels far less satisfying. Being sci-fi, you also encounter lots of enemies that have shields, so many of them are bullet sponges.

ME1’S combat isn’t great either and may well be technically inferior, but it is much easier to just blast through and get to the more interesting story bits, so it feels far less intrusive than it does in 2.

[Skalpadda]

The correct way to play ME2 is as a vanguard teleporting into people every 5 seconds and shotgunning them in the face.The cover shooter mechanics aren’t all that great.

[LexW]

I would say they dial back on the RPG elements with the combat, so it does move closer to those games you mention.

I feel like this is potentially misleading. For anyone who hasn’t played ME2, it’s actually better on conversations, missions and NPC interactions than ME1, particularly dramatic ones (ME3 is a more complex issue - it’s kind of worse than ME2 on this). The stuff that I’d consider to the core of what makes a role-playing game a role-playing game, not merely a game with a lot of numbers.

It puts the focus on these elements and the combat.

Whereas ME1 has a fairly poor weapon/armour system, with a dreadful inventory system, where most weapons are either unusable or merely linear upgrades of other weapons (similarly with armour), which mostly just acts to cause you a problem, by either forcing you into tedious inventory management, or making you overpowered or underpowered. It’s very easy to break the game at higher levels, or to have a companion character (particularly Tali IIRC) become significantly disadvantaged (on harder settings) at lower levels, because decent armour won’t drop or be sold for them.

ME2 also simplifies the character upgrade/level-up system into a smaller number of more significant decisions, rather than spending lots of points which just give +2.5% damage with X weapon or the like. I don’t really see that as “dialing back” an RPG element, though.

Personally though, I would say ME2 doesn’t have the weight or feedback of the combat in those games, so it feels far less satisfying.

Obviously YMMV but I couldn’t disagree more re: weight/feedback, and I think a side-by-side comparison with Spec Ops or, say, GoW2 would show that this isn’t right on a more objective level. It’s also definitely misleading to suggest enemies are more “bullet sponges” than, say in GoW games or most cover shooters. Even on Insanity that is demonstrably not the case. It is more the case than Spec Ops, I think though. The sound design for combat is superb, too, waaay ahead of Spec Ops (which isn’t shoddy here).

However, there is one big difference that may be significant here: ME2’s combat is pretty shallow/crap unless you’re on the top two difficulties. Whereas GoW/Spec Ops play decently on the default difficulty. I’m pretty sure this is a sacrifice to being a CRPG - I can actually see what you’re saying re: it merely slowing you down more on the normal difficulty as compared to ME1. You don’t really have to play it very well or really use your abilities or anything on normal on either, but combat tends to be more mindless in ME1, and you can get to be overpowered much more easily, and thus blow through it - which is a failure of design on one level, but as you say it means you can almost skip the combat.

ME3’s default difficulty is a bit higher, and it’s also better-designed in terms of weapons/guns than ME2, so it can be more engaging. However, the combat arena/level design for ME3 is distinctly inferior to ME2 I’d suggest overall it’s a wash. It does play even better on higher difficulties though, as all classes work well (whereas in ME2 that’s not the case). Interestingly ME3 adds an extra setting to make the combat completely trivial, Story Mode.

[Vandelay]

I feel like this is potentially misleading. For anyone who hasn’t played ME2, it’s actually better on conversations, missions and NPC interactions than ME1, particularly dramatic ones (ME3 is a more complex issue - it’s kind of worse than ME2 on this). The stuff that I’d consider to the core of what makes a role-playing game a role-playing game, not merely a game with a lot of numbers.

Let’s not get into a semantic argument over what an RPG is, for that path leads to madness!

I should be more specific though. Yes, I was referring to character stats having an effect over your combat ability, rather than just player skill. The conversations, missions, NPCs and player agency over those are improvements on the former game (of course, these are equally subjective, if not more so).

In ME1, plug loads of points into your pistol ability and you will be one-two shotting your standard enemy grants without any difficulty. Does that make the combat significantly better? Not necessarily, but it makes it less of an inconvenience to getting to the bits that you are actually interested in. ME2’s combat in some ways can be considered better, but it is certainly still mediocre to poor compared to other games that it is emulating and it takes up much more of the game than it did in the first one. Both put too much focus on combat, but ME2 put even more emphasis on it.

Confession, I haven’t actually played GoW, so can’t really make much comparison. That series is known for its meaty combat though and ME certainly isn’t. Checking some videos of GoW2 and, yeah, that description seems to hold up. Spec Ops The Line was never particularly known for having great combat, but my memories of it hold up better than ME2. Again, glancing at videos, it seems much more visceral and far less stilted.

Pretty certain my recent play was on Vanguard difficulty. I don’t remember it being particularly challenging, other than being mostly grind down the enemies. I did have multiple cases of a single rocket coming out of nowhere and wiping me out from full health. More frustrating things like that rather than actually being a challenge.

[Internet]

I found the combat and rpg elements of ME2 to be utterly ignorable on normal. Every couple hours I would die in combat and realize I should probably be using abilities or stuff. I always viewed ME2 as less of an RPG and better for it. Many RPGs frequently, but not always, give you many gear choices. ME2 narrowed it down and the weapons were more distinct and meaningful. Many RPGs give you many dialogue options some consequential, others less so with many options for characterization, especially based on class and stats. ME2 gave you a good/bad and sometimes neutral wooden responses but these choices are recorded for future games (and Frog Fractions 2). Many RPGs give you open worlds to explore. ME2 gives you choices on corridors to fight in.

If it sounds like I’m being critical, I’m really not. ME2 was far more tightly focused on what it was; the merger between a minimalist rpg and a corridor shooter. It was distilled over time. The opposite of that would be Dragon Age, which always felt like more of an RPG to me but is wildly inconsistent from game to game as to what game it wants to be and what story it wants to tell.

[Naramsin]

I’m grumpy and old but I don’t like the look of that ME:Legendary Edition, especially to ME1, one of my favourite game of all time. On PC it still looks decent, in some way it looks better and is more taxing then ME2. From that trailer it is not just better resolution and sharper textures, it sports different looks. I don’t like it at all. Good we still have orginal.

[LexW]

I don’t think it’s just you.

I mean, to be fair, they brought in the original lead artist and got him to do paint-overs, and based the new looks on that, so there’s a level on which perhaps it reflects the original vision, which was hampered by what you could do back in the mid-'00s, but yeah, like, no red sky on the first planet? That was so tone-setting. Likewise Feros now looking like a warzone instead of a forgotten city. Hopefully it’s all just a bit misleading and the in-game look is closer. The one part they did show video of did look closer than I expected.

I mean, I’m just really made they cut ME3’s multiplayer. It was absolutely superb. If they brought it back with up to date graphics and so on, it would have a huge audience, I guarantee it. But they decided it would take nearly as much effort as the extra “improvements” they’ve apparently made to ME1. It’s like, I’d rather have had ME3’s MP than those “improvements”, frankly, much as ME1 is deeply outdated. They did allegedly fix my #1 bugbear with ME1 though, which is that Shepard can’t shoot straight in ME1 unless they put a ton of points into weapons, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

[Skalpadda]

The ME games still look okay to me. It might just be me being old and thinking anything from the tail end of DX9 is basically fine. I get that the main market is consoles where things are a little different, but most remakes of modern 3D games feel wasted to me, and far too often border on vandalism of the original art.

Still, might grab the ME remaster just as an excuse to finally play the third game. I still have no idea why I haven’t, I properly loved ME1&2 at the time. What little I’ve seen of the remake at least doesn’t look sacrilegious, though you have to wonder why they felt the need to make drastic changes to planet weather and lighting. That feels a lot like changes for the sake of changes.

[Naramsin]

I get that the main market is consoles where things are a little different, but most remakes of modern 3D games feel wasted to me, and far too often border on vandalism of the original art.

But it is also true, especially to PC games or some PC ports. ME1 is one of these games that there are pretty signifcant differences between X360 and PC port, because port was more of a “real version” of the game. Whereas ME2 and ME3 all versions are pretty much of the same level.

All that was shown, how ME1 is remastered is pretty much terrible: Eden Prime, Feros, Virmire, Shephard etc.
A lot of visuals of ME1 along with music creates this earie vibe that was absent ME2 and in ME3, so it looks for consistency it will be gone here as well.

I will leave gameplay changes to personal taste but personally I am appaled as well.

I mean Black Mesa is real but I can’t imagine Valve doing something like this to HL or HL2. Sure Source got upgraded and HL2 looks a bit different then in 2004 but this whole spiel of console driven remasterd version rubs me the wrong way.

[LexW]

All that was shown, how ME1 is remastered is pretty much terrible: Eden Prime, Feros, Virmire, Shephard etc.

A lot of visuals of ME1 along with music creates this earie vibe that was absent ME2 and in ME3, so it looks for consistency it will be gone here as well.

I think I’ll wait to see the actual levels rather than pre-judging it as vandalism and “terrible”. The Virmire stuff certainly didn’t look “terrible” to me. It didn’t look much changed at all.

I don’t like the look of some of the changes, but we shall see how much they actually impact it. No doubt there will be footage in reviews and so on when the actual release date is nearer. If it is bad, people will kick up a fuss. But I suspec the eerie vibe of Feros, for example, will probably survive just fine.

I’ll be particularly interested to see how the outdoor/Mako sections look on the non-main worlds - those were the most eerie parts of the game. We’ve only seen mission/main world stuff so far I think.

The main reason to get this is the way the DLC and so on worked anyway. I got ME2 set up with all the DLC a while back, and it required intense work and possibly even finding an special launcher or something for the game. Just having a version of the ME games which has all their DLC, no questions asked, no messing around, and works right, would be a big asset. Anything else is a bonus. The ME1 visual changes don’t look great, hopefully they look better in practice, and the lack of ME3 MP is a crime, though.

It is ironic that the DLC which was all attempt to make money way back when is kind of a good reason to re-buy the whole thing now. I guess those grasping policies are still paying off (to be fair most of the DLC which is hardest to get working was cheap/free though).

[Naramsin]

I’ll be particularly interested to see how the outdoor/Mako sections look on the non-main worlds - those were the most eerie parts of the game. We’ve only seen mission/main world stuff so far I think.

Absolutely, these were most earie parts of ME1 (and maybe Ilos if not plethroa of combat) but also there quite a number of suprisingly different looking planet with different skyboxes. I very curious if thay went the same route with them as with Feros, Eden Prime and Virmire. I also wonder what changes will be made Ilos, it has such a good vibe.

[Skalpadda]

But it is also true, especially to PC games or some PC ports. ME1 is one of these games that there are pretty signifcant differences between X360 and PC port

I meant there’s more of a case to be made for remasters or reissues on consoles than on PC. You have bigger leaps in resolutions and other graphics capabilities between console generations and old games just become unavailable/unplayable as people get new hardware.

On PC you can pretty much always get old games running on your new PC at your native resolution (ultra widescreen is sometimes an issue but that’s still a small chunk of PC gamers), and popular games often have fan patches and mods to fix them up further. There just isn’t as much impetus for remasters on PC. Like, I’m aware there are fanatics who go into anaphylactic shock at the sight of a blurry texture or edgy polygon, but it has to be a much smaller market than console players.

All that was shown, how ME1 is remastered is pretty much terrible: Eden Prime, Feros, Virmire, Shephard etc.

A lot of visuals of ME1 along with music creates this earie vibe that was absent ME2 and in ME3, so it looks for consistency it will be gone here as well.

Is there a good preview somewhere? All I’ve seen is the teaser/trailer and some screenshots.

The main reason to get this is the way the DLC and so on worked anyway. I got ME2 set up with all the DLC a while back, and it required intense work and possibly even finding an special launcher or something for the game.

Oh god you just reminded me of that horrific Bioware site you had to make an account on to buy and download the DLC and the damned thing never worked properly. Have they not baked the DLC into the games still?

[LexW]

Have they not baked the DLC into the games still?

No. This will be the first time. And the sad thing is that Bioware website wasn’t even that bad by the standards of the time. It was pretty bad though. I think Origin now knows any DLC you bought through there at least.