Game: Mass Effect
Type: Graphics Improvement
Total Score: 100%
Website: http://www.moddb.com/mods/mass-effect-1-new-texture-updatesimprovements-mod
So, at the request of my friends (so they could talk about the series without giving me spoilers), I recently started my first ever playthough of the Mass Effect series. Released in 2007, the game has held up relatively well from a graphics standpoint, but one thing that particularly caught my eye was that, while the faces very well modelled, the uniforms and armour were noticeably poorer. Even on the highest graphics settings, the uniforms were terribly blurred. So I went in search of a HD textures mod, and what I found was this: the New Textures mod.
The praise I have for this mod is very high: if you had never played Mass Effect before, and then did for the first time using this mod, you would honestly mistake it for a near-new game. The updated graphics are simply stunning, with the game now utilising 8 times the resolution available to the vanilla game textures and a HD textures pack to make full use of it - the level of detail is fantastic. To quantify just how much work has gone into these textures: the vanilla game is ~7 GB on your hard drive whereas the HD textures alone are ~20 GB!
Using the Steam version of Mass Effect, there is an additional step to the install, but that and other troubleshooting topics are covered in the readme, although I've not encountered any other issues.
This mod is seriously impressive and well worth getting if your planning on playing Mass Effect in the future.
