The story of Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy working to stop the rogue Specter Saren from jumpstarting an ancient cycle of galactic genocide hasn’t missed a step in the past 14 years, and neither have its unforgettable alien companion characters. (The new photo mode is a nice addition, though I don’t know if the original Mass Effect – even after its 4K upgrade – is a good-enough looking game to inspire a lot of photographers who could just as easily be practicing their craft in a game that originated in this decade.) However, the nice thing about aliens is that they’re immune to the uncanny valley effect because for all we know that’s how their faces are supposed to look – so they mostly look excellent. It’s not terrible but it definitely stands out next to current games. Sometimes those eyes have an uncomfortable, unblinking gaze. In contrast to their detailed and well-lit skin, a lot of human characters look like their faces are paralyzed between their upper lip and their eyes. Its biggest weakness – visually – is its facial animations, which are hard to ignore considering how much you see of them.
(I played on Xbox Series X.) Environments are a tad on the sparse side when it comes to how spread out everything is, but textures are sharp and detailed and the lighting effects look respectably modern. In general, Mass Effect looks good at 4K. Revisiting an RPG I hadn’t played since 2008 turned out to be a fantastic refresher on one of gaming’s best original science-fiction universes, and also a reminder of the mechanical weaknesses a lot of us were willing to overlook at the time because of how revolutionary Mass Effect was back then. But to find out how this famed but notoriously uneven game plays in 2021, factoring in the gameplay tweaks in the Legendary Edition, I spent 30 hours on a full playthrough. One look at a side-by-side comparison tells you most of what you need to know about this upgrade: textures, character models, and effects have been retrofitted and everything runs at 60 frames per second or more, though animations show their age in places, especially on human faces. Unsurprisingly, EA’s 4K remaster of the first Mass Effect is a night-and-day difference from the 2007 original.
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