14 DAY TRIAL // The launch of Mass Effect 3 has prompted many, many of my gamer friends to go back to the first and second games in the BioWare-made action and role-playing mixing series and try to see the versions of the universe that they could create via their own choices.
And playing the two older games has been in many ways a frustrating experience.
The first Mass Effect suffers from poor graphics quality (after all it was launched back in 2007) and it is the game that asks players to reacquaint themselves with the concept of overheating weapons, which was later abandoned.
The game also asks gamers to complete planetary exploration using the much-hated Mako.
Mass Effect 2 is easier to play and seems less different, but the lack of some important role-playing elements is clearly felt, and there’s clumsiness to the conversations, a fact that I noticed after returning from the third game in the series.
So, given the clear superiority of Mass Effect 3 both in terms of gameplay and of graphics, I believe that BioWare and Electronic Arts should task a team with remaking the first two games in the new engine, with the ultimate aim of releasing all the trilogy in a single package, priced like a new game at some point during 2013 or 2014.
Dedicated players of Mass Effect might be persuaded to pick up the new release, but the main target would be those who have refused to get into the series because of the fractured nature of the three releases.
There’s clear sales potential in such a product for publisher Electronic Arts to take advantage of, and it would also give the development team at BioWare a perfect platform to make changes here and there and to increase the overall quality of the entire trilogy.
They could even deliver a better ending for the third game in a simple and non-intrusive manner.