Vyse_Fina wrote...
I never claimed it'd be a bad idea to bring them back, but that people wanted it that way when they gave their feedback to ME1. I remember a lot of posts in the old forum where people made suggestions for ME2 saying "Throw the Mako into an exploding sun" and similar stuff about the elevator rides.
(Nearly) Nobody wanted them to be improved, they wanted them gone, so that's what they got. Now they want improved versions back. I'm curious what'll be said about planet scanning after ME3
I personally remember a mix of both. Yes, some people did say they just wanted these things gone, but I also remember a lot of people saying that they simply wanted elevators to be faster and that the issues related to The Mako were more about the samey planets and terrain than the vehicle itself. There were a lot of complaints about control, but when the PC version came out almost everybody agreed that it had vastly superior controls and that it was no longer much of an issue in that regard. About the only common actual complaint about The Mako itself I've seen that was pretty much universally agreed on was it being a tad bouncy. Fine... then tighten the suspension a tad. Problem fixed.
There was even a poll and discussion topic mid last year or so where it was thoroughly discussed and most people came to the same conclusion: that there was far more fault with what The Mako had to drive on than the vehicle itself. As for elevators being replaced by loading screens, when BioWare first announced they were ditching them and putting in loading screens instead for ME2 I recall a lot of fans kind of going "Uh... no thanks. Elevators were slow, but we'd rather have them faster than a silly loading screen" and then BioWare trying to reassure us that the loading screens would have interesting info and retain immersion, etc. (which I have to say, they really didn't in the end).
In either case, I think a lot of people wanted them fixed so they worked better rather than completely removed. Which was a common issue with ME2 overall actually.
I also want to point to this particular sentence.
Delerius_Jedi wrote...
The problem with both of these issues is that they decrease the world integrity of the Mass Effect setting.
I personally think this is a brilliant way of putting this type of thing across: that it "decreases the world integrity of the Mass Effect setting."
I and many others have repeatedly brought up things being immersion-breaking, reminding you that this is a game and the fact that ME2 seems to be more of a game and less an experience, while also adhering to the "rule of cool" a little too much and being less of a great 1980's sci-fi throwback homage and more of a modern Hollywood blockbuster, etc. but I think this phrase sums up all this particularly well. Things like squaddies running around in PJ's, the loading screens and pop-ups, the plot holes, the design choices like thermal clips that suit gameplay but not lore, the slightly more over-the-top style, the slightly less mature approach to it all, things like the Renegade scars, over-hologramification, etc. are all linked to this.
Now that's not to say ME1 was absolutely perfect, but in some ways it's in its imperfection that it does a better job. ME1 seemed to be far more about the universe and the setting and almost considered gameplay an afterthought, while ME2 almost seems to be the opposite: putting gameplay first, but at the expense of "the world integrity of the Mass Effect setting" to use Delerius' brilliant phrase yet again. It's like the Mass Effect universe in the original said, "we've got a round hole in our universe, but that's a square peg, so we need to make the peg rounder" while ME2 kept saying, "we've got a round hole in our universe, but that's a square peg, so we'll just keep smashing it through until it goes through, damage be damned!"
To me after the original game the Mass Effect universe was something wondrous that transcended the game itself and thus rose above its weaknesses. The univere is still great in ME2, but it seems often that the people behind it were far too willing to let it take one for the team in order for it to be more popular and reach the common man. It's a bit like a beautiful lakeside view in the middle of nowhere that's absolutely fantastic, and then somebody comes along and dumps a hotel casino on the edge of it, and it just kind of ruins the whole thing. Again, ME1 wasn't absolutely perfect in this regard, but you had to look carefully and kind of know where they were to see the cracks that showed. ME2 was more like the same thing for the most part, but there's two burly guys with "BioWare" jackets on whacking the thing with sledgehammers.
And that's
exactly what The Hammerhead is like as a vehicle compared to The Mako. The Mako seems like a bunch of people got together and looked at the Mass Effect universe and said, "let's come up with a logical machine that would realistically suit this universe as an exploration vehicle for strange, unknown worlds across the far reaches of space" and then The Mako was born. The Hammerhead feels more like a bunch of people got together and looked at Mass Effect 2 the game itself and said, "let's come up with a fun, gamey vehicle for players to speed around in in our gamey game environments that are designed specifically for it."
Even the levels have suffered for it, because as repetitive and sometimes frustrating as the original UNC worlds could be, they at least resembled actual planets out there in space. The Hammerhead's locales really just seemed like levels designed for it specifically, as if the designers came up with a place with platforms, flat rocky outcrops, perfectly leveled rock planes and unnaturally smooth, gradual, sometimes curving slopes and then said, "let's make a vehicle to go on this." The UNC planets in ME1 felt natural, if a bit sparse... the Hammerhead levels felt about as natural as a carnival or a racetrack. In some ways they felt a little like both of those things directly in fact.
And that's why The Hammerhead so miserably fails as a vehicle, IMO: because as Delirious put it, it "decreases the world integrity of the Mass Effect setting."
Modifié par Terror_K, 05 avril 2011 - 11:39 .
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