Since I had never played the Mass Effect series at all, I chose to go all the way back to the beginning. Picked it up on Steam for $20.

Mass Effect 1 - Introduction with a female Sheppard character. Includes the early briefing on the Normandy with Nihlus Kryik and the initial landing party on Eden Prime. ME1 starts out as mostly cut-scenes and dialog until you get down on the planet's surface.



(Recorded at 1600x900, sized down to 720p, which helps smooth out some of the jaggies. All of the graphical options are turned on, textures are at "super-high", except that "motion blur" is turned off. The dynamic shadows in ME1 are only so-so, but I have left them on. The "film effect" is slightly distracting, but I've also left that in as it hides a lot of the flaws of the old game engine.)

If you have a choice of playing ME1 on the console or the PC, choose the PC as the porting to the PC reportedly cleaned up a lot of small annoyances with the console version.

One of the interesting things in Mass Effect is the use of cover mechanics in combat and how your character automatically "sticks" to available cover, then lets you peek out and paste a few shots down range before getting back behind cover. Unfortunately, your squad mates are not always as good about taking cover, so you have to babysit them at times.

As you get near enough to investigate Nihlus at the first platform, you'll discover the survivor, Powell. He fills you in on a few things to the tune of "he went that-a-way". Then you have to fight through half a dozen Geth in order to reach the train controls. There are lots of good places where the squad members can take cover and they do a good job of using them.



And as much as the game wants you to have Kaiden use "Throw" on the Geth Destroyer, don't bother. Doing so will result in it being pushed down the platform far enough that you can no longer see it from above. Better to stand up top where there is good cover and just keep shooting.