Mass Effect Legendary Edition release date; Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood and Destruction All-Stars debut! - Renegade Arcade #13

Welcome to another edition of the Renegade Arcade, featuring Brock, Tony, Tyler, Keona, and the newest addition to our RPC family, Mauricio! This time, we chat about the week’s new releases, including the lovably janky Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood and Sony’s PS5-exclusive Destruction All-Stars! We also track down all the Mass Effect Legendary Edition news that dropped last week, which was a ton of info! Let’s get to it!

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Brock, Tyler, Tony, and Keona are joined by our newest co-host, Mauricio, as we chat about our favorite video game characters, the new releases of the past week, including Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood and Destruction All-Stars, and the big news about the Mass Effect Legendary Edition!

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Well, what can I say about Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood? It reminds me of a mid-range PS2 game from the early 2000s. The camera is wonky, combat and sound design is not great at all, and graphically speaking… it’s about as good-looking as its bald meathead protagonist, Cahal. Which is to say, it’s ugly AF. And yet, I kind of find it endearing. They don’t make low-to-mid range, destined to be found in the Walmart bargain bin action titles anymore, so I kind of have a soft spot for it. If the idea of playing as a werewolf sounds appealing to you at all, and you are familiar with the World of Darkness universe, this game could be a fun time. Just wait for it to go on sale.

During the podcast, we also talked about Blue Fire and Destruction All-Stars, which were also titles that saw release over the past week. While the former was an indie 3D action-platformer that featured some very Zelda: Wind Waker-esque elements as well as exquisite character design and art direction, the latter looks and feels like a modern iteration of the old PlayStation One series, Destruction Derby. The major difference is that characters in All-Stars can jump out of their cars and enter new vehicles which have been strewn about the arena. The presentation is more in line with a futuristic game show, as well. Both Blue Fire and All-Stars have distinct character designs and neat cartoony art styles, but the gameplay couldn’t be more different between the two. I recommend checking them both out if you can.

And now for the big story: A new trailer has been released this week for the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and the game is the cover story on Game Informer’s website, as well. We also have the official release date of May 14, 2021, and some details on how the ME trilogy has been updated for modern consoles. I’m going to go through the major points here. First, load times have been drastically shortened across all iterations of the title, including PS4, Xbox One, and PC. While no Switch port has been announced as of yet, and no next-gen version looks to be forthcoming, Bioware has said that performance will be optimized across the board and the Legendary Edition will be backwards-compatible on PS5 and Xbox Series S/X.

Mass Effect 1 looks to be the biggest beneficiary of this remaster, as the developers have spruced up the graphics, character models, art direction, and the UI in order to bring it in line with ME 2 and 3, without fundamentally altering the first title’s gameplay loop. For instance, the game just looks better overall, with more consistent modeling in both the environments and characters, bringing ME1 up to par with its sequels. The canonical version of FemShep (as fans refer to the female version of Commander Shepard) first revealed in Mass Effect 3 will now be playable in all three titles, and the shields/health/squadmate indicator section of the in-game interface will now look like the one we saw in 2 and 3. This all sounds very good to me, as ME1 is the game with perhaps the best RPG systems and storyline, but also the most dated combat and user interface design.

Most of the downloadable content across all three titles will be included in the Legendary Edition, with the exception of ME1’s Pinnacle Station, a set of VR arenas where you could train to fight Shepard’s alien foes. Unfortunately, Bioware could not recover the original source code for this piece of DLC, which has been corrupted over time. Personally, while I lament the fact that a piece of the game is missing, I never actually played Pinnacle Station, so it’s not too big of a loss for me.

What is a bit disappointing is the lack of ME3’s multiplayer in the Legendary Edition. While we can still play it through the older version of the game (the servers are still up), it would have been neat to team up with the new players who are discovering the franchise through this iteration of the game. Still, it’s essentially the same horde mode that you can play through Mass Effect: Andromeda (if you so choose), and I’m certain that the developers will revisit the mode in the next game. Still, I’m going to miss it. I made a lot of random Xbox Live friends just by playing that mode back in the day. It was loads of fun!

Those are the main topics we covered in this edition of the Arcade! Oh, and I neglected to mention that we also talked about our video game crushes in this episode! Which is the kind of mature content you surely expect from us, haha! Anyway, extra-special thanks to Mauricio for joining us and we hope to have him on board more often in the future! Also, be sure to listen to the end of our discussion, as there’s a bit of an outtake that I decided to keep in for your listening pleasure (and yes, we solved the issue). Until next time, be safe out there, my friends!

-Neoplasmic