305 réponses à ce sujet

[Beerfish]

I liked the Mako alot actually. There were only a few places where it gave me real problems. I also liked fighting with it.

[sinosleep]

Terror_K wrote...

This is particularly evident when you look at what they tried to replace it with (in this case planet scanning combined with the dreadful Hammerhead) and see how spectacularly they failed and the point was missed. Overlord gave me small hope with its main hub world that perhaps more epic and interesting worlds could make a return in ME1, but the continued use and implementation of The Hammerhead doesn't give me much hope where that's concerned.

Except that the dreadful hammerhead actually completely nailed most of the big issues with the mako. People complained about having to scale mountains in a dreadfully slow wheeled vehicle that had ridiculous reactions to the physics engine. Hammerhead is a fast hovercraft (look at that two birds with one stone, no stupid physics and the vehicle is fast) that is used in relatively flat levels where anything resembling mountain scaling is easily handled by simply jumping. If you want to take issue with the combat that's fine, but sometimes it really seems like you take issue with ME 2 simply to take issue with ME 2.

Modifié par sinosleep, 28 septembre 2010 - 04:05 .

[Sable Phoenix]

Part of the weakness of the vehicle sections in ME2 is the weakness of the overall game design, that is, tiny little discreet areas that can only be accesed once in order to complete a single mission, divided by loading screens.  It makes everything feel less intergrated and much smaller in scale than the first game.  ME1 really did feel like you were exploring a whole galaxy with entire planets or space stations.  ME2 usually felt like a series of rooms, which is death to any real vehicle exploration.

Honestly, if they'd kept the design philosophy of RPG exploration intact, they could have taken the wheels off the Mako and replaced them with eezo cores so it was an unflippable anti-grav vehicle, designed every planet with the amount of care they put into X57 for Bring Down the Sky, and all the complaints would've vanished.

They could call it the Mako-head.

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 28 septembre 2010 - 04:33 .

[JG The Gamer]

Firepower - Mako has the machine gun and a powerful mass accelerator cannon. Aiming is done manually and the machine gun can overheat but can alternate between the cannon and the gun easily. Great for short fights. Hammerhead only has a mass accelerator cannon, not as powerful as the Mako but it homes in. Great for long fights.



However, the Mako relies on precision aiming which can take time to set up, making it vulnerable. And the Hammerhead still requires some degree of aiming to make its weaker cannon connect. Can be frustrating when you can't hit your target.



Edge: Mako



Traveling - The Mako crawls along the ground and moves at a slow but steady pace. Has difficulty with steep mountains. Little to no lift. The Hammerhead can travel at astounding speeds and has a very high lift. Can easily get over higher obstacles. Retreat for the Mako is difficult due to speed and maneuvering. The Hammerhead can flee easily due to its speed.



Edge: Hammerhead



Defenses - Mako has considerable bulk and powerful shields. Can take a lot of abuse before it goes. Hammerhead needs to be blown on for its shields to give out. However, the Mako's barriers take a lifetime to recharge (longer than a bathroom break). The Hammerhead's shields recharge very quickly. In a long battle of attrition, the Hammerhead is likely to finish the battle quicker due to quick recharge while the Mako user will have to dig in and brace for a marathon of a battle to win.



Edge: Hammerhead



Survivability - The Mako can survive in harsh environments due to its bulk and perhaps insulating. And can also be evacuated immediately in case of critical damage. The Hammerhead cannot deal with harsh environments that well, nor can it be evacuated in case of emergency easily.



Edge: Mako



End Result: Tie (comes down to a point of view. If in a battle and I can get away easy, I choose the Hammerhead. If not, I want the Mako. Point is moot if on a planet with difficulty traveling.

[Lvl20DM]

The Mako's turret would often not fire where you were aiming, but it did have one thing over the Hammerhead - Durability. In ME 3 if they include the Hammerhead it should be more durable, we should have some sort of hud display informing us of damage taken, it should be upgradeable, and it should have multiple weapons (machine gun and a more powerful seeker missile on a recharge timer, perhaps).

[ezangrando]

 Agree, i love the mako! Most of us were upset with planet exploration just because the planets and the outpost on them were all too similar... but it was my favurite part of first chapter going around and explore with mako, wonderful landscape, ancient prothean remnants here and there, hidden rachni and geth  everywhere, giant worms to kill!!! we need some more variety but it was amazing!! there should be some forests, rivers, small and big citys, ruins of great ancient race... give us some fantasy and mystery on this science, like ME1 did! 

[ezangrando]

Sable Phoenix wrote...

Part of the weakness of the vehicle sections in ME2 is the weakness of the overall game design, that is, tiny little discreet areas that can only be accesed once in order to complete a single mission, divided by loading screens.  It makes everything feel less intergrated and much smaller in scale than the first game.  ME1 really did feel like you were exploring a whole galaxy with entire planets or space stations.  ME2 usually felt like a series of rooms, which is death to any real vehicle exploration.
.

This was one of the worst thing in mass effect 2 (i love it but not as first chapter) ,  is a non linear list of mission! A lot of things were improved like graphics, battle system and player control... but it ha lost too much Role Play mechanics.. with the 3rd chapter they should keep battle system ( without termic Clip and restoring the power/life bar) and the graphical improvements of the 2nd  and the main structure on the 1st.... improving them, that would be not perfect, but a better ME

[eldav]

After watching some you tube videos i gotta say that damn the mako is so much more realistic.

The hammerhead feels like a toy commpared with mako.

And i also like the handling of mako, you gotta a real feel that you aint in a sunday trip.

In you tube comments some kid stated that he hated the handling of mako and wished that it was more like gears of war, i think that this generation of gamers is lost.

[kalle90]

eldav wrote...
In you tube comments some kid stated that he hated the handling of mako and wished that it was more like gears of war, i think that this generation of gamers is lost.

I guess that explains why I dislike the Hammerhead so much - I also hated the driving sections in both GoWs.

With Mako sure some planets were tedious and that, but my only real problem was that it wasn't squad based action anymore. It was just me, Shepard, driving, shooting, repairing and navigating with my teammates having only a few mission specific lines and some rare mumbling. If Bioware really tried to mimic games like GoW I don't think that will change either. At best ME3 will have Hammerhead with a bit more health

If you have to mimic something - mimic the Warthog of Halo, which I think Mako already did in many ways. The thing that makes Warthog the best is that my teammates are actually doing something on it though. Alone I can't do jack****.

[Iosev]

I think the Lair of the Shadow Broker is a good example of what type of direction I'd like to see in future missions and side quests in the Mass Effect series. Rather than having one all-around vehicle to explore planets in, design each mission to incorporate its own unique vehicular gameplay, interspersed with other gameplay elements, such as exploration, shooting, and so on.

For example, one mission could involve an air car chase through Illium. Another mission could involve using a Tomkah on Tuchanka in a more combat-oriented scenario. And then another mission could involve exploration with the hammerhead. This way, planets and locations have very unique environments and feels, instead of making a single vehicle and tuning the environments to suit the vehicle.

Modifié par arcelonious, 28 septembre 2010 - 06:33 .

[yslee]

Mako had terrible handling, but the Hammerhead had terrible gameplay. If they put the Hammerhead into ME1-style exploration maps, I'd be happy!

[JowyXXV]

Maybe the people who hated the Mako were most vocal and all the fans (me!) didn't make a big deal of it.

[Quething]

yslee wrote...

Mako had terrible handling, but the Hammerhead had terrible gameplay. If they put the Hammerhead into ME1-style exploration maps, I'd be happy!

Actually you'd be utterly boned on ME1 maps with the Hammerhead - for instance, it would be incapable of getting to the Prothean artifact on Eletania. The Hammerhead has limited jump-jets that can elevate you to a set distance which is honestly not that high off the ground (hence all the air-jet platforming stuff in Overlord). The Mako, while slower, had ultimately far more elevation control, and could get up an 89-degree incline of any height whatsoever with sufficient zig-zagging and patience. Which is part of, I suspect, why the Mako feels more like a "real" vehicle to some people; there's nowhere you can be in the Mako and not be able to move freely in any direction you like, while the Hammerhead is limited to a single linear path everywhere it goes, with much of its movement clearly supported by blatantly artificial game conceits like convenient ramps and pressure pipes. It seems pretty clear which one you'd want if you were actually landing on a hostile world and not playing a prerendered video game.

Honestly, I thought the Mako handled fine (admittedly I'm a PC player). It did take some getting used to but it does actually give you an enormous amount of control and makes circle-strafing really easy and effective. I do, for the most part, agree with the contention that the bulk of the problem with the Mako was the poor design of the UNC maps (many of which damaged immersion while they were at it by being crazily spiky in utter defiance of high gravity, continual extreme weather, local flora, or any other factor that one would expect to prevent that kind of thing).

That wasn't the whole problem, though. The Mako's physics were horrific, and it was just waaaaaaay too slow for the size of most of the UNC maps. A booster key that doubled forward speed, and the addition of enough weight that running over a corpse didn't flip the damn tank, would have been an enormous improvement even on the most crappily built uncharted worlds. The Hammerhead does manage to be an improvement on those counts (it's still way more vulnerable to bumpy terrain than a hovertank has any right to be, but it's leagues ahead of the Mako). Shame it was such a huge step back on everything else.

[Felfenix]

"Exploration"... lol

Wow, it's amazing, seeing the same desolate mountain planet in 3 colors, for dozens of hours!!!

Mako's "gameplay" sucked too, even on worlds like Virmire.

Modifié par Felfenix, 29 septembre 2010 - 12:35 .

[Aedan_Cousland]

As bad as some of the more mountainous maps were in ME1, I miss the Mako. It was a great concept that wasn't always executed well, but it did have some great moments. A few of the worlds you travelled to on side missions did manage to 'wow' with stunning vistas. How many people didn't take a moment to stop and look up at Earth while on the moon? I also loved the uncharted world tha was tidally locked to massive red giant star, the planet that was on a collision course with a moon it had catpured, and Aramanthine, which was bathed in an eerie blue light from it's weak star.

[Terror_K]

sinosleep wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

This is particularly evident when you look at what they tried to replace it with (in this case planet scanning combined with the dreadful Hammerhead) and see how spectacularly they failed and the point was missed. Overlord gave me small hope with its main hub world that perhaps more epic and interesting worlds could make a return in ME1, but the continued use and implementation of The Hammerhead doesn't give me much hope where that's concerned.

Except that the dreadful hammerhead actually completely nailed most of the big issues with the mako. People complained about having to scale mountains in a dreadfully slow wheeled vehicle that had ridiculous reactions to the physics engine. Hammerhead is a fast hovercraft (look at that two birds with one stone, no stupid physics and the vehicle is fast) that is used in relatively flat levels where anything resembling mountain scaling is easily handled by simply jumping. If you want to take issue with the combat that's fine, but sometimes it really seems like you take issue with ME 2 simply to take issue with ME 2.

I take issue with ME2 so much because so much of it is filled with bad design decisions, poor presentation, and overall gloss of oversimplication where it's embarrassed to be an RPG, and a whole bunch of things that come across as style over substance to the point of it no longer seeming to take its own universe seriously anymore.

The Hammerhead is a comination of all these things in some way or another. The main issue I have is that it's such a poorly designed vehicle that it completely ruins immersion for it to even be there. Unlike The Mako, there's absolutely no way this thing could seriously be an exploration vehicle in the world its been put into. The Mako is a big, strong and heavy vehicle with decent armour and a deadly arsenal. It's basically a Mars rover combined with a tank, and that makes sense for exploring worlds such as the ones it does. It feels like it's designed for real exploring, and feels combat capable and tough.

The Hammerhead is pathetically weak on the other hand, and poorly equipped and designed to deal with exploration. It's pretty much got no shields, goes from being shot once to being on fire and exploding in only a few seconds, which would be death on the largely open worlds that more realistic planets would be (such as the UNC ones in ME1). The Mako may be slow at climbing mountains, but The Hammerhead wouldn't be able to climb anything beyond 40 degrees incline with its design, and it hides this by making sure it never has to. It can turn its turret independently of its own direction either, meaning one can only shoot in the way you're travelling, as opposed to The Mako's full 360 roof-mounted turret. The Mako's weapons were far better too, which can all hit their mark almost instantly, while The Hammerhead is limited to slow-moving missiles that can often miss their targets, especially moving ones. The Hammheread also has problems with extreme temperatures, catching on fire almost instantly when it's too hot underneath and its engines prone to freezing up when it's too cold (there are planets in ME1, including Noveria, that The Hammerhead wouldn't be able to even be used on). The Hammerhead is faster, but it's a little too fast for it's own good, and realistically speaking a turbo boost like that on all but the flattest surfaces is a reckless thing on an unknown world.

Other that that, it's implemented poorly too. There's no HUD with it to provide the player information, with no map at all and the only way to tell how damaged you are is via beeping and flames. It somehow magically heals itself which is kind of stupid, and you can't even get out of it unless you're at key areas, nor can you save while in it either. It also shakes like mad when you scan things for some silly reason. The worlds you actually use The Hammerhead on are also so manufactured, rather than being natural. They're so clearly artiticial and obviously designed to be levels first and places second. They don't feel real, and just feel like an overly-designed playground with ubstubtle platformy areas for you to play with in your new toy (and it really does feel more like a toy than a real vehicle).

You say that it nailed most of the issues with The Mako, well I won't disagree there, since the only real issues with The Mako were speed, suspension and handling. The problem is that while The Hammerhead may fix these issues, it does so at the expense of everything else that made The Mako great. It's no longer tough and combat capable, it feels like you're pushing around a hollow tin can rather than a weighty, strong vehicle, it doesn't encourage exploration so much as silly little platform collection games.

With ME1 it was like the developers made a bunch of realistic, mostly
dead worlds and then said "what would make a logical and appropriate,
yet still cool vehicle to explore these places with?" With ME2 is was like they designed The Hammerhead first as this vehicle for a game rather than a vehicle to suit the universe, and then said "what kind of planets can we design to take advantage of this new vehicles platformy action-packed little games?" And that's why it feels like a vehicle designed for a game, rather than a vehicle designed for the universe, and why it feels like another case of style over substance, along with things like thermal clips, squaddies running around in pyjamas with only breathing masks in hazardous places, holograms on everything including things that don't make sense and would be counterproductive, etc.

[sinosleep]

Terror_K wrote...

I take issue with ME2 so much because so much of it is filled with bad design decisions, poor presentation, and overall gloss of oversimplication where it's embarrassed to be an RPG, and a whole bunch of things that come across as style over substance to the point of it no longer seeming to take its own universe seriously anymore.

I disagree with that entirely, and I do believe you were posting in the threads where I posted a bullet point by bullet point break down of the game content into what I thought were pretty clear RPG/TPS segments and the totals were fairly equal. I'm not going to get that far into it again since it's wildly off topic but if you want we can back to PM (we didn't finish that conversation btw) to expound on that.

The Hammerhead is a comination of all these things in some way or another. The main issue I have is that it's such a poorly designed vehicle that it completely ruins immersion for it to even be there. Unlike The Mako, there's absolutely no way this thing could seriously be an exploration vehicle in the world its been put into. The Mako is a big, strong and heavy vehicle with decent armour and a deadly arsenal. It's basically a Mars rover combined with a tank, and that makes sense for exploring worlds such as the ones it does. It feels like it's designed for real exploring, and feels combat capable and tough.

Most of this I agree with believe it or not, in fact you perfectly nailed the exact thought I had when I first saw the Mako, a combat ready Mars rover. I WANTED to love it, but unfortunately the vast majority of that is lore related. And I think that is where you and I run into our differences on many of these points. You seem to want gameplay to be far more closely attached to the lore while I've got no problem with a shaky lore solution to a good gameplay addition.

The Hammerhead is pathetically weak on the other hand, and poorly equipped and designed to deal with exploration. It's pretty much got no shields, goes from being shot once to being on fire and exploding in only a few seconds, which would be death on the largely open worlds that more realistic planets would be (such as the UNC ones in ME1). The Mako may be slow at climbing mountains, but The Hammerhead wouldn't be able to climb anything beyond 40 degrees incline with its design, and it hides this by making sure it never has to. It can turn its turret independently of its own direction either, meaning one can only shoot in the way you're travelling, as opposed to The Mako's full 360 roof-mounted turret. The Mako's weapons were far better too, which can all hit their mark almost instantly, while The Hammerhead is limited to slow-moving missiles that can often miss their targets, especially moving ones. The Hammheread also has problems with extreme temperatures, catching on fire almost instantly when it's too hot underneath and its engines prone to freezing up when it's too cold (there are planets in ME1, including Noveria, that The Hammerhead wouldn't be able to even be used on). The Hammerhead is faster, but it's a little too fast for it's own good, and realistically speaking a turbo boost like that on all but the flattest surfaces is a reckless thing on an unknown world.

I'm actually in agreement with the bolded sections. I'm not going to debate the pretty weak defenses or lack luster offense of the hammerhead, which is why I said go ahead and complain about the combat, as that's definitely a legitimate issue. But making comparisons about how the Hammerhead would have handled the planets in ME 1 is completely moot based on the fact the just like you said it doesn't have to. Temperature is also a largely moot point since the missions where that's an issue were designed with that in mind. The cold temp one is a straight line race that there's no way you could possibly fail, and when it comes to heat the Mako was just as vulnerable to lava (the only heat that hurts the hammerhead) as the Hammerhead is.

Other that that, it's implemented poorly too. There's no HUD with it to provide the player information, with no map at all and the only way to tell how damaged you are is via beeping and flames. It somehow magically heals itself which is kind of stupid, and you can't even get out of it unless you're at key areas, nor can you save while in it either. It also shakes like mad when you scan things for some silly reason. The worlds you actually use The Hammerhead on are also so manufactured, rather than being natural. They're so clearly artiticial and obviously designed to be levels first and places second. They don't feel real, and just feel like an overly-designed playground with ubstubtle platformy areas for you to play with in your new toy (and it really does feel more like a toy than a real vehicle).

HUDS are going the way of the dodo whether you want them to or not. More and more games come out each year with sparser and sparser huds and inventories (Dead Space, Gears, COD) so it doesn't bother me or surprise me that Bioware has jumped on the bandwagon. I think the chirps, smoke, and fire, are a plenty clear indication that you've taken damage and so for me it's not an issue. Heck, color me surprised that Shepard has a health bar at all considering the lengths they went to to include the rather invasive low health indicator.

The bolded section is something that frankly doesn't bother me and is IMO one of those good gameplay decisions where I can live with a higher requirement of my suspension of disbelief so long as the vehicle works well, which it does. The best solution of course to have both beautifully rendered worlds that hide the gameplay design and a vehicle that provides frustration free gameplay, but if it's got to be one or the other I'll take the frustration free gameplay.

You say that it nailed most of the issues with The Mako, well I won't disagree there, since the only real issues with The Mako were speed, suspension and handling. The problem is that while The Hammerhead may fix these issues, it does so at the expense of everything else that made The Mako great. It's no longer tough and combat capable, it feels like you're pushing around a hollow tin can rather than a weighty, strong vehicle, it doesn't encourage exploration so much as silly little platform collection games.

I can deal with that because the things that are fixed are what should be the priority on any vehicle in any game. You hop in a vehicle to get to point a to point b. You might do cool things in between, but at the end of the day getting from point a to point b is the most important thing a vehicle can do. The hammerhead does this well while the Mako didn't.

With ME1 it was like the developers made a bunch of realistic, mostly dead worlds and then said "what would make a logical and appropriate, yet still cool vehicle to explore these places with?" With ME2 is was like they designed The Hammerhead first as this vehicle for a game rather than a vehicle to suit the universe, and then said "what kind of planets can we design to take advantage of this new vehicles platformy action-packed little games?" And that's why it feels like a vehicle designed for a game, rather than a vehicle designed for the universe, and why it feels like another case of style over substance, along with things like thermal clips, squaddies running around in pyjamas with only breathing masks in hazardous places, holograms on everything including things that don't make sense and would be counterproductive, etc.

Except that that's clearly not what they did. See, what you are acusing ME 2 of doing is precisely what ME 1 should have done because it is, in fact, a game. Yeah, it might hurt the lore that the levels are designed with the Hammerhead in mind, but it also boosts gameplay. It's just like you said "The Hammerhead wouldn't be able to climb anything beyond 40 degrees incline with its design, and it hides this by making sure it never has to."

That sir is good game design. If you are going to have a vehicle in a game it should be designed to excel on the levels on which you are going to place it. The Hammerhead does this. Steep inclines don't matter because they aren't in the game.  I'm of the opinion that the Mako and the planets were designed by two different teams because while you've given a lot of lore reasons as to why the Mako seems like it was designed to explore planet, many other people in this very thread have given tons of gameplay reasons why it clearly WASN'T designed to be used on the levels it was placed in ME 1. The affect of physics and the placement of many minerals and artifacts in areas that forced you to continually have to deal with the garbage physics makes this clear.

Modifié par sinosleep, 29 septembre 2010 - 01:59 .

[Aedan_Cousland]

Full of awesome:

[Julie the bogan]

After I realized that driving over mountains wasn’t the quickest way I actually enjoyed the Mako, when I land on a planet it was a simple matter of popping open the map and working out the best way to get somewhere, sure you could drive over the mountains but taking the long way around was easier or I suppose you could say less annoying. The problem was the planets were kind of boring to look at sure they were huge and some of them had great ascetics but mostly it was sky related but landing on a planet with nothing but an old crashed probe or the odd mercenary base wasn’t worth it in the long run and was a huge time sink.
 
I loved the story missions because they were more linear and you knew you had to drive somewhere, Therum was interesting because there was a lot of wasted space in fact there seemed to be a lot of wasted space in ME1 not just on the random planets you could explore but also in the story missions.
 
The Hammerhead level design is far more free flowing as there isn’t much distance to get to your next objective but there is still a lot of interesting things to look at, both vehicles where fun side missions and I didn’t dislike either I think they both fit into the games nicely.
 
I was thinking it might not be a bad thing to create hub worlds with different mission’s in ME3 say you land on Earth or Pallavan (sp?) or even the Asari home world Thessia or maybe some random remote colony where you’d could get different mission’s to complete some may relate to the reapers and some may not, but some of the mission’s might take you out of the colony/city where you’d need to decide to take either the Hammerhead or Mako or perhaps even a skycar to get to destinations to complete your mission’s, I’m not suggesting make a Mass Effect GTA I’m just giving an idea on how they could go about it.

[Fr3nch ToAst]

What's better than riding on a awesome tank on wheels? I mean hammerhead was just lame, no planet exploration, finding signals that earn you some upgrades, finding good materials, finding quests, killing colonies of monkeys?

[Terror_K]

@sinosleep

I believe that I can cover pretty much everything you said with this following response, so I hope you'll forgive me if I don't go into specifics.

You prefer gameplay over lore, and that I believe is where we mostly disagree. But I also still consider The Mako gameplay better than The Hammerhead stuff, which for the most part comes across as rather silly and pointless for the most part, though this relates also to the lore and the universe itself.

The thing is, I object to the fact that ME2 has become more of a game than the first. You say that some of these factors are good game design, but in the case of Mass Effect I don't believe that's the case. To me the original game wasn't so much a game as an experience, and it was something I could lose myself in thanks to its presentation, style and it's deep, rich universe. One of the reasons I miss The Mako most of all is because I can no longer go down on these immersive, unending barren worlds and feel part of the vast emptiness any more. They had such a simple beauty and you could forget for a moment that you were playing a game just gazing out and taking it in.

ME2 fails in a lot of areas because it fails to immerse any more, and is just another game. The Hammerhead is a classic case of this, as are the levels its designed for. The Mako felt real and where you took it felt real, while The Hammerhead and the places you take it just feel so fake and designed for a game. It's like being in Super Mario World or something. When much of the point of the game is to try and draw you in and forget that you're in a game, then doing this just defeats the purpose. And the same goes for any and everything else that's done for gameplay reasons that clashes against the lore and universe. I don't play Mass Effect to play a game, I play it to lose myself in another universe. But ME2 doesn't let me do that, and The Hammerhead is even worse for this.

One can improve gameplay without having to sacrifice immersion and cohesion with the universe to do it. You don't need to push the fact that this is a game in the players' faces to do this. It's ironic considering that BioWare stated that they wanted to try and make ME2 more immersive and make players forget they were playing a game by taking out a lof of the inbetween stuff, but instead they did quite the opposite by constantly reminding us that we're playing a game, going for this whole "style over substance" BS and making a mockery of their own once solid lore and universe.

Sorry, but making the levels as obvious levels just pulls me right out of the universe, just like squaddies running around without proper protection does. I can't immerse myself in a world that can't even remain consistent and only serves to constantly remind me I'm in a game. People also exaggerate the Mako's problems: there were only about 5 planets that really were a problem mountain-wise, most were mostly flat with a few semi-steep hills here and there. If they were all flat and easy, it would be completely pointless. But at least the places felt real. Playing ME2 is like watching a serious movie and suddenly seeing a microphone swing out into view or seeing the cameraman or director reflected in a mirror behind the main actors.

I will give one bit of credit to the one exception: the main hub world in the Overlord DLC. That was great. But then, it was a place The Mako could have largely navigated as well. Unfortunately the branching areas off from it were more "Made for the Hammerhead" designed nonsense, with silly platformy lava bits and shooting up into the air with exhaust fans and the like. At least the main area looked and felt like a place that could really exist though.

Modifié par Terror_K, 29 septembre 2010 - 03:15 .

[lazuli]

Terror_K wrote...

You prefer gameplay over lore, and that I believe is where we mostly disagree.

Thanks for posting this, Terror_K.  Now I know why I disagree with basically everything you say.  And I mean that respectfully.  I appreciate that you spelled that out.

[Terror_K]

lazuli wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

You prefer gameplay over lore, and that I believe is where we mostly disagree.

Thanks for posting this, Terror_K.  Now I know why I disagree with basically everything you say.  And I mean that respectfully.  I appreciate that you spelled that out.

Thanks... I guess.

Don't get me wrong, I think gameplay is important too. But I don't see in many cases why improving gameplay has to come at the expense of the lore and overally style of the universe as it's been set up. The thermal clips are a bit of a gray issue, but The Hammerhead is just a joke IMO, and I personally don't find the gameplay that good either, mainly due to it being pathetically weak, the platforming stuff not really being that much fun or adding much, and the lack of a HUD, ability to save in it or leave it when I choose too limiting.

Gameplay regarding The Mako was admittedly flawed, but they still should have tried to improve what was there rather than replace it with something that just doesn't really satisfy in any real way. If I want to play a platforming vehicle game, then I'll play one that is dedicated to it. It kind of defeats the aspect of having an exploration vehicle that doesn't really explore at all really, and just has you performing these pointless little tasks. Overlord did this better of course, but even then there were too many annoyances, and The Hammerhead really was the one thing that let that DLC down.

The most annoying ones are the things like your squaddies running around unprotected, because that's not even something that affects gameplay, which makes it purely pointless and a pathetic joke. Would having them with some decent armour and a friggin helmet really throw a spanner in ME2's gameplay works at all? But, that's another issue.

To me the gameplay being good or bad is completely irrelevant if I can't get into the game itself. if I can't immerse myself in the setting and universe and take what I'm doing seriously any more, then it doesn't really matter if the game has the greatest and most flawless gameplay ever. On the other hand, if the material surrounding the game is good enough, then I can accept the flaws of the gameplay far more. And, yes... I will admit that this is why I can accept ME1's gameplay a lot more in many cases. But that said, I do find ME2's gameplay lacking as well, and the material surrounding it isn't strong enough to excuse it. And I actually managed to roll around on those UNC worlds in The Mako in ME1 without being as bored as I get in most of the combat sections of ME2. The Hammerhead parts in ME2 may not be tedious, but they aren't that fun, immersive or rewarding, and tend to be more annoying and pointless to me than anything else. Again, with the exception of the main area of Overlord.

Modifié par Terror_K, 29 septembre 2010 - 04:02 .

[HCS01]

Daewan wrote...

I loved the Mako. The terrain was often hard, but never impossible. There was always a way. But going in a straight line was more fun, and it usually worked. Eventually.
Traveling in the Mako gave the game a sense of scale that is utterly lacking in ME2. It was also easier to grasp than all the artificial restraints of the Hammerhead - the Mako is a tank, built like a tank, hits like a tank, and of course, flies like a tank. Unlike the Hammerhead, a hovertank which has no armor, doesn't hover very much, and does less damage than the handguns that Shepard carries.
Somewhere, there is an awesome Motivational of the Mako proclaiming, "I HAS A PHYSIX!" I feel that totally sums up the Mako travel process. That, and screaming "SCREW YOU, NEWTON!"

+1

I could not say it better myself.

[Sable Phoenix]

Just have to say, Terror_K is hitting everything totally on point. Ignoring the fact that I don't find ME2's combat sections boring (although there are other problems related to shared power cooldowns and ammo, er, I mean "thermal clips"), I agree with everything else said in all three posts I've seen on this page.

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 29 septembre 2010 - 07:10 .