With Microsoft’s Game Pass Ultimate now costing $30 a month, up from $20, plenty of subscribers have had to crunch some numbers and determine if holding on to the subscription is right for them. Game Pass may not be the best deal in gaming any longer, but it does provide a library of hundreds of games to play. For Ultimate subscribers, some of those games come via EA Play, the publisher’s own subscription service that includes some of the best space operas ever made. That’s right — we’re talkin’ Mass Effect.
With Friday being N7 Day, this week’s recommendations focus on one of the greatest trilogies in gaming. There’s no better time to experience Shepard’s adventures for the first time or join up with the Normandy crew for your 15th jaunt around the Milky Way. Both the remastered Mass Effect Legendary Edition compilation and the original individual entries can be found on Game Pass.
Mass Effect
Mass Effect is the original trilogy at its most flawed, yet also at its most endearing. The cover-based shooting wasn’t quite refined yet like in later games, and scaling a mountain in the Mako was a chore, but those nocks can’t get in the way of its eternally captivating mystery. Flying around the galaxy, learning the world’s lore, getting to know the Normandy’s crew — the lower stakes allow for more time to breathe. Sure, chasing down rouge Spectre Saren demands your attention, but colonists aren’t being kidnapped and a war isn’t being fought like in the later games. So, yeah, go spend some time scanning all 21 Keepers on the Citadel in between getting to know your future sexy Turian boyfriend. The galaxy isn’t ending quite yet. —Austin Manchester
Mass Effect 2
The original Mass Effect trilogy shares some structural commonalities with superhero movie trilogies. Think Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies. The first film has to act as an origin story, setting the necessary groundwork so we can get to the fun stuff later without the weight of exposition dragging it down. That’s why superhero sequels historically shine (not you, Iron Man 2), as they have more flexibility to play around with a stable foundation established. Mass Effect 2 is the Spider-Man 2 of games in that sense. It tightens up Mass Effect’s choice-driven RPG systems and drops its cast into a suicide mission that’s only as effective as it is because we know the world and its characters. To this day, the middle entry is still the one that resonates with me most and stands as a testament to BioWare’s ability to give players tough choices with real consequences. —Giovanni Colantonio
Mass Effect 3
You might think of the Roman Empire every day. I think about a random four-year-old comment about Mass Effect on a GameFaqs forum, thanks to how succinctly it described the original trilogy. The first game is a novel, author Snakebone99 posited, and the second game is a TV show. The third game, then, is the summer blockbuster action flick. There is no better way to describe Mass Effect 3. From the jump, it is nonstop go go go, carting you from place to place around a war-torn Milky Way galaxy, with stakes only as low as, oh, all life in the galaxy. The action is tighter than both of its predecessors, but not without ignoring the character relationships that defined those games. Some of Mass Effect 3‘s most memorable moments involve little more than shooting the shit with your crew (like the well-regarded Citadel expansion), and seeing three games’ worth of narrative choices pay off for character who’s stuck with you across the galaxy is unlike anything any game series has pulled off yet. —Ari Notis
