With three games, countless downloadable expansions, millions of copies sold worldwide, and a huge merchandising effort letting you buy everything from action figures to a Mass Effect themed hoodie, it's safe to say the Mass Effect games have become something of a phenomenon. With their unique blend of sci-fi space opera and role playing taking players on an epic journey across entire galaxies, wrapped in a great story, told by a vast array of characters, the Mass Effect games were like no other, with the third instalment, released early this year, having been the most popular yet. But if you've yet to jump into a Mass Effect game, it seems EA are doing their best to try and twist your arm, by announcing the Mass Effect Trilogy - a collection of the three games for one price, on the 360, PS3, and PC (but sadly, not the Wii U).
Seeing as this is intended to be a bumper collection (complete with a fancy box), you could be forgiven for assuming that the Mass Effect Trilogy would be an easy, one stop way to have access to the entire Mass Effect story - including the whole raft of extra downloadable missions, side quests and stories that are currently available to download separately - especially given that some of these extra quests bridge the gap between two games. Sadly, though, it seems this isn't the case, as you'll need to purchase at least some of the remaining extras on top - and things aren't quite as straight forward as they should be.
Booooooooooooooooooooooooooo. You can tell they're the baddies, can't you.
Jut to make things as complicated as possible, it seems each platform will be coming with a different selection of downloadable extras, with no one version getting every little bit of content - so if you want the complete Mass Effect experience, you'll still have to shell out more cash. The Xbox 360 disc features no add-ons from the original game, nor any of the other extra bits and bobs you can download for either of the sequels - but you will get access to the Cerberus Network, which includes a handful of extra missions for Mass Effect 2, as well as an online pass for playing Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode. PC players get the original game's 'Bring Down The Sky' and 'Pinnacle Station' downloads included on disc, plus the same Cerberus Network as above. At the time of writing, there's as yet no news about what'll be included in the Playstation 3 version, but we wouldn't be at all surprised if it's given yet another different mix of add-ons...
With no European release dates given as of yet, we can only really go by the American dates of the 6th of November for the Xbox 360 and PC versions - again, the Playstation 3 has been left out of in the cold, with a date yet to be revealed. The new release date of the 6th has actually been bought forward by a single day from what was originally confirmed, as the original plan was to hold a special 'N7 Day' (N7 is the number shown on Commander Shephard's space ship, the Normandy) on the 7th of November, with all sorts of crazy events and promotions both in-game and in real life, planned - with the date now having shifted, we can't help wondering what's happened to those? Either way, with hundreds of hours of drama, plot turns, and romances awaiting, the Mass Effect Trilogy still looks set to offer at least a nice place to begin your journey in Mass Effect - make sure you check back soon for the final verdict.
