playing ME1 as well and I remembered why I hate Ashley so much...

Yup. She was a bitch. Always complaining, trying to divide Shepard from the rest of the squad (except perhaps Aidan because he was human) and she had no great skills either except for being the soldier squadmate.

Mass Effect 1 is definitely good, but it's combat is clunky and a bit outdated. It isn't an issue for me since I still managed to have a lot of fun with it, but it's frustrating when getting some of my pleb friends to play the series because they can't get over the first games combat system.

I'm disappointed. I thought you had found some secret story information or something. I got really excited.

the combat in ME1 for me sucks.

Could someone tell me what was bad with ME1's combat? I played it 5 or 6 times on the PC and did not feel that anything was wrong.

i share these sentiments.... but meh only thing i miss from me1 in the next two games is the power had individual cool downs and more varied armor and weapon options

I used to think the guys over at the Bioware fourms that complained about ME2 and ME3 losing its RPGness were just being hipsters....oh how I look foolish now

What's there to complain about? They removed a couple of pointless and badly implemented rpg elements and the games were all the better for it. Bioware's rpgs were great (with the exception of DA2 which wasn't that bad, really, but it's easily the worst game from Bioware) but ME1 had an identity crysis. It either had to be like kotor style gameplay or just do what they did with ME2 and 3. In 1 the characters were slow and unresponsive, the equipment levels and customization options useless (since the enemies level with you and drop tons of appropriate equipment so if you just mindlessly upgrade your weapons and armor you'll be perfectly fine) and the difference in skill levels not noticable (except for the 2-3 key upgrades for every skill that were retained in later games).

OK, so I started ME1 again and my opinion hasn't changed. Easily the worst combat system in the trilogy and some of the worst shooting mechanics in any modern game. Good story still.