NOT WOKE SHOWS: Mass Effect (2007)

Dan Reilly

+13 clout

Sep 13, 2026

I still hum that opening brass swell when I'm standing at the stove waiting on leftover chili to reheat. Dun-dun, then the big string push that makes the kitchen feel bigger than it is. First time I fired Mass Effect up was on the old 360 after school, living room half-dark, controller already sticky from some other game. I was just a kid who liked space stuff and didn't know what a paragon or renegade bar even meant yet. Twenty years later I still boot it sometimes when the house gets quiet and I want that same first-contact itch again. You wake up as Commander Shepard on the Normandy and right away the ship feels lived-in. Kaidan and Ashley trading jabs, Joker smart-mouthing from the pilot seat, that big window looking out at stars that somehow felt closer than they do in newer games. The plot kicks in with Eden Prime and the beacon and Saren and you instantly get that this isn't just shoot the bad guy. There's this whole ancient machine race sleeping out there and the Council doesn't want to hear it and you spend half the early game bouncing between human colonies and the Citadel trying to make them listen. I remember my mom yelling dinner was ready while I was still trying to talk my way past that C-Sec officer and I just waved her off. The Citadel itself is pure candy. Wide hallways, people of every species arguing over nothing, the Presidium lights, the little side quests where some salarian needs you to find his missing data pad. It never felt empty even when the side planets later did. Combat was always the part that made me groan a little. Cover system from that era, power cooldowns, ordering your squad around with the d-pad while bullets bounce off your shield. Inventory management turned into a second job. I would spend twenty minutes on the ship comparing shotgun damage numbers and weight values and still end up overloaded and slow. The Mako drives me crazy every single replay. That giant wheeled tank on rocky moons where the physics are just drunk. You bounce over a ridge and the camera spins and suddenly you're upside down arguing with the game about gravity. Yet I'd still climb back in because the uncharted worlds had those weird Prothean ruins or Thresher Maws that made the whole trip worth the headache. Exploration never felt polished but it felt yours. You parked somewhere, hopped out, scanned a rock, found a little story fragment, and kept going. The crew is what stuck hardest. Garrus behind that visor already complaining about rules, Wrex stomping around looking for a good fight, Tali with her mask and that soft voice talking about the Flotilla. Liara pops in later and the whole asari thing felt genuinely strange in a good way, not like a checklist. Conversations branched forever. You could be a straight-arrow hero or a sarcastic hard-ass and the game remembered. I once kept a save just so I could reload and see what happened if I punched that reporter. Little choices that later games would polish but here they already felt heavy. Romance paths were quiet and earned. You spent missions talking first. No billboard moments, just two people stuck on a long mission learning each other's scars. Some nights the jank wins. The leveling is shallow once you figure the formulas. Money piles up with nowhere smart to spend it. Loading screens between every little zone. Certain missions drag until you want to skip straight to the finale on Ilos. Still I finish it every time because the last stretch hits so clean. The Conduit, the Citadel under siege, the choice that actually changes what happens next. I remember sitting there after the credits the first time just staring at the menu, already itching for the sequel even though I didn't know one was coming. That galaxy felt open and dangerous and full of people who had their own agendas. No one was pure, not even you. The story never lectured; it just let you walk the decks and decide who lived. I know the remaster cleans a lot of this up and maybe someday I'll run that version properly. For now I still like the original glitches, the way High Explosive ammo could ragdoll an entire room, the way your character model would clip through a crate if you stood wrong. It is dated and grindy and the vehicle sections still make me swear out loud. But when that theme comes back and the Normandy drops out of FTL and you hear the crew chatter again, I forget the complaints for a while. This one started something big. I keep the disc in the cabinet next to the old Dragon Age and pull it when I want that specific kind of space adventure that doesn't feel like it was built by committee. Just me, the squad, and a whole lot of stars that still look better than most of what came after.

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A review is on the record even before the verdict. The title still needs 90% of members not labeling it woke before a review can put it in the catalog.

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Dan Reilly
+13 clout
Sep 13, 2026
I still hum that opening brass swell when I'm standing at the stove waiting on leftover chili to reheat. Dun-dun, then the big string push that makes the kitchen feel bigger than it is. First time I fired Mass Effect up was on the old 360 after school, living room half-dark, controller already sticky from some other game. I was just a kid who liked space stuff and didn't know what a paragon or renegade bar even meant yet. Twenty years later I still boot it sometimes when the house gets quiet and I want that same first-contact itch again. You wake up as Commander Shepard on the Normandy and right away the ship feels lived-in. Kaidan and Ashley trading jabs, Joker smart-mouthing from the pilot seat, that big window looking out at stars that somehow felt closer than they do in newer games. The plot kicks in with Eden Prime and the beacon and Saren and you instantly get that this isn't just shoot the bad guy. There's this whole ancient machine race sleeping out there and the Council doesn't want to hear it and you spend half the early game bouncing between human colonies and the Citadel trying to make them listen. I remember my mom yelling dinner was ready while I was still trying to talk my way past that C-Sec officer and I just waved her off. The Citadel itself is pure candy. Wide hallways, people of every species arguing over nothing, the Presidium lights, the little side quests where some salarian needs you to find his missing data pad. It never felt empty even when the side planets later did. Combat was always the part that made me groan a little. Cover system from that era, power cooldowns, ordering your squad around with the d-pad while bullets bounce off your shield. Inventory management turned into a second job. I would spend twenty minutes on the ship comparing shotgun damage numbers and weight values and still end up overloaded and slow. The Mako drives me crazy every single replay. That giant wheeled tank on rocky moons where the physics are just drunk. You bounce over a ridge and the camera spins and suddenly you're upside down arguing with the game about gravity. Yet I'd still climb back in because the uncharted worlds had those weird Prothean ruins or Thresher Maws that made the whole trip worth the headache. Exploration never felt polished but it felt yours. You parked somewhere, hopped out, scanned a rock, found a little story fragment, and kept going. The crew is what stuck hardest. Garrus behind that visor already complaining about rules, Wrex stomping around looking for a good fight, Tali with her mask and that soft voice talking about the Flotilla. Liara pops in later and the whole asari thing felt genuinely strange in a good way, not like a checklist. Conversations branched forever. You could be a straight-arrow hero or a sarcastic hard-ass and the game remembered. I once kept a save just so I could reload and see what happened if I punched that reporter. Little choices that later games would polish but here they already felt heavy. Romance paths were quiet and earned. You spent missions talking first. No billboard moments, just two people stuck on a long mission learning each other's scars. Some nights the jank wins. The leveling is shallow once you figure the formulas. Money piles up with nowhere smart to spend it. Loading screens between every little zone. Certain missions drag until you want to skip straight to the finale on Ilos. Still I finish it every time because the last stretch hits so clean. The Conduit, the Citadel under siege, the choice that actually changes what happens next. I remember sitting there after the credits the first time just staring at the menu, already itching for the sequel even though I didn't know one was coming. That galaxy felt open and dangerous and full of people who had their own agendas. No one was pure, not even you. The story never lectured; it just let you walk the decks and decide who lived. I know the remaster cleans a lot of this up and maybe someday I'll run that version properly. For now I still like the original glitches, the way High Explosive ammo could ragdoll an entire room, the way your character model would clip through a crate if you stood wrong. It is dated and grindy and the vehicle sections still make me swear out loud. But when that theme comes back and the Normandy drops out of FTL and you hear the crew chatter again, I forget the complaints for a while. This one started something big. I keep the disc in the cabinet next to the old Dragon Age and pull it when I want that specific kind of space adventure that doesn't feel like it was built by committee. Just me, the squad, and a whole lot of stars that still look better than most of what came after.
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Mass Effect (2007)

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