10 Best Video Games Ever Made (Until You Played Them Again)
2. Mass Effect
The original Mass Effect is, like the rest of this list, a classic. No question about it! But the quality of life improvements made in its sequels have rendered this entry a hard one to go back to.
While nowhere near as obtuse and archaic as BioWare's older titles, Mass Effect is missing a lot that fans have come to take for granted.
Very sloppy implementation of the cover system is a big one. Cover systems are the sort where you can't really go halfway, you either commit to it or you don't have it at all. With how stiff it is to get into and out of cover in Mass Effect 1 as opposed to 2 and 3, they'd have been better off just not using it at all.
Also, no romancing the alien characters. It's Kaiden, Ashley, or Liara. Given the characters of those three, that's basically like choosing between cardboard, getting punched in the face, and... okay Liara's great, but the point still stands!
The fact that it took them until the second game for them to realize people WANT to smooch the cute purple helmet girl and the badass raptor sniper man says a LOT about Mass Effect's team... and not a lot of it's good.