Everyone was excited for this to be in Humble, so I bought the bundle and started playing. But man this game feels horrible.

You run from point A to B to pick something up, but oh, to open the gate you first need to go back to point A. So you go on these boring walks which always have at least one elevator ride between them.

Who knows, you might encounter some enemies. Who just sit there while you shoot them without reacting at all. "Oh I'm getting shot, better not do a thing at all."

I tried following the story/dialogues but after 3 hours of those I feel I'd rather watch a movie? But hey, at least that part I can understand people liking. Not my cup of tea, but that's fine.

Apart from some nostalgia coloring your experience, I feel these games really didn't age well at all. What am I missing?

While you are right that this kind of games are not "modern", I would still argue this aged well/still deserves a decent place.

Just take some time to realize that some genres have gotten "non-existent" and Mass Effect is part of one of those genres.

"Story rich RPG" in an "military science fiction world" where you can form your own decisions (even though limited)? The closest to that is the "Deus Ex" series and that one has more action than rpg elements.

Do you "miss" something? Not at all. It's just something people enjoy playing, nothing more or less.

There is a reason why "Star citizen" is interesting for tons of people, even though gameplay wise it is... "horrible" as it's missing most modern elements and doing tons of bad mistakes seen in older titles (due limiations, and other reasons)

I think one of the biggest problems is that Shepard can't sprint longer than five seconds without passing out from a lack of oxygen. They changed the sprint in Mass Effect 1 but it isn't much better.

Originally posted by Sharples:

I think one of the biggest problems is that Shepard can't sprint longer than five seconds without passing out from a lack of oxygen. They changed the sprint in Mass Effect 1 but it isn't much better.

True. But--as with so many things in the game--that can be fixed by a judicious application of modding.

Originally posted by KriZ:

I tried following the story/dialogues but after 3 hours of those I feel I'd rather watch a movie? But hey, at least that part I can understand people liking. Not my cup of tea, but that's fine.

Then watch A movie, man. Obviously this series isn't for you. No need to convince you otherwise.

Originally posted by KriZ:

Apart from some nostalgia coloring your experience, I feel these games really didn't age well at all. What am I missing?

Mods, may be? I have a button that I press to fast-forward the walks and elevators (in the classic game). The button also works on dialogues and most un-skippable cut scenes. You may want mods that bypass mini-games too.

But otherwise, no. The "walking back and forth" that you described have existed since early RPGs. May be it's this "RPG element" that you don't like?

Originally posted by KriZ:

Who knows, you might encounter some enemies. Who just sit there while you shoot them without reacting at all. "Oh I'm getting shot, better not do a thing at all."

I don’t ever remember passive enemies in the first game. Even in the Mako, when you blast one of their buddies from ten kilometers away, the rest aggro on you. So… I don’t know what to tell you. Verify game cache? Reinstall? Up the difficulty to Normal maybe?

I tried following the story/dialogues but after 3 hours of those I feel I'd rather watch a movie? But hey, at least that part I can understand people liking. Not my cup of tea, but that's fine.

Apart from some nostalgia coloring your experience, I feel these games really didn't age well at all. What am I missing?

I think maybe you’re missing the fact that these games are action-RPGs? The action is pretty weak in Mass Effect 1, and admittedly, the whole game didn’t age well (even with all of its well-intentioned remastering), but it would be a shame to walk away entirely without sampling at least one of the other 2 games first. Fair warning: the intro sequences for both are narrative heavy, boring and unskippable.

Originally posted by Scuba Steve:

<snip> Fair warning: the intro sequences for both are narrative heavy, boring and unskippable.

FWIW someone just put up a new ME2 mod on Nexus that takes you straight to the character screen after the initial sequence on board the Normandy.

Now all we need is one that takes you straight through the equally interminable cutscene in ME3! :-)

it sounds like you just don't like stories in video games, which is understandable