Game Mechanics Appreciation: Citadel DLC isn't just fun, but it's got good means to make it fun too

There's something to be said about how a story is crafted, and something to be said about how it makes you feel, but there's also something to note about how a game mechanics are played. Citadel DLC has been approved for the first, lauded for the second, but it's the third that most impressed me.

Citadel DLC has some good mechanics in its content: mechanics that should fill you with optimism for future Bioware games, be it Mass Effect related or otherwise. There are dialogue and cinematic mechanics, there are combat mechanics, and even content mechanics. What follows is some of what I see as emerging trends for Bioware’s style, some new and some just developing, that should definitely be recognized and encouraged.

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Dialogue/Cinematic

Cinematic is a dirty word on BSN, but I think the narrative components of the DLC have some strengths. I’m not talking about the humor, the in-jokes, or the overall tone, but rather the tools and tricks used to introduce variability and uniqueness in each playthrough. Things that make each playthrough a bit different than the last. Things such as…

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class Interrupts

It’s not a new idea. It’s not even the first of the series: that goes to the previous DLC, Omega and the Engineering Interrupt. But the use of the biotic/non-biotic class distinction for an interrupt in the DLC’s final battle buildup is a welcome strengthening of an emerging trend of modern Bioware games: using the player’s very class selection as a distinction element.

class interrupts offer a welcome bit of uniqueness to your class selection, and without needing to drive the plot they can be a welcome tool in the RPG game arsenal for world or narrative recognition of your playstyle. Compared to most games, in which the playing class is barely if ever recognized, cutscene advantages or narrative differences could yet become a new staple of Bioware games.

Romance Interrupts

It’s like a class interrupt, but with kissing. Literally, in the Specialist Traynor romance. As far as decision-making goes, this one’s only as important as any other character-specific option in a circumstance, but as far as setting the tone of an encounter? Defusing an argument with a kiss is certainly memorable, and rare enough in Bioware games to be a notable addition.

Variable Boss

The Clone is a rather unique Bioware experiment, and one I hope continues: a boss who’s appearance, gender, class, and possibly even character is shaped by the player. Without saying all such bosses must be player clones, the idea of having non-static bosses shaped and influenced by player choices should be encouraged: appearance, cutscenes such as the biotic-interrupt, and otherwise. If this sort of variable-boss concept develops further, we could see enemy characters that show greater reactivity to player choices and player influences in the plot as well.

Player-selection-history Reactions

Remember that scene when you choose to companions to take in the car, and leave the rest alone? Remember how the two least-used companions then looked depressed at how little they were used? That’s a reaction to player selection-history, and that is a device that could be used to great affect. In some games, including ME3, it’s used to help score an affection system: who you help most becomes Character A in a cutscene, while second-most is Character B. But imagine if we took it to other, more narrative, implications: if the least-used member of a party became the one selected for some tragedy, or a jealousy conflict driven between the Most Used and Least Used characters of a team.

Setting Scope

Sometimes we’re told something is bigger than it actually is: the size of the Citadel, worlds in the galaxy, etc. Hubworlds of ME2 were supposed to be great cities or space stations, but were surprisingly small in area and visible space. Citadel’s areas are consistently Big with a capital B, resulting in an affect of reinforcing the position that the Citadel is a massive space station. From Anderson’s apartments to Citadel catwalks to even the multi-level casino, and of course the strip, Citadel used space and the illusion of space (high ceilings, rounded corners, color pallets) to help make the Citadel bigger than ever. That’s the sort of sense of scale that will help in future works as well.

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Combat Mechanics

Combat can help carry a story, and set a tone. It’s one thing to have Shepard and a team of two destroy all enemies: it’s another to have help along the way as you fight new and more varried enemies.

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ME3 Reskins

This is a personal admission, but for the longest time I felt that ME3’s combat balance had been done in such a way that different enemy groups was infeasible: that new enemies wouldn’t be varied enough to distinguish from the vanilla Cerberus/Reapers/Geth, and that all we would have would be re-skins. Well, we did have reskins (Cerberus troopers/snipers/guardians, honestly), but we did have re-mixing of powers and design to make them feel fresh and new.

Enemy Weapon diversity

One of the big differences between the Cat6 mercs and Cerberus analogs was the type of weapons they used: Guardians with machine guns, rather than pistols. In a sense this is a throwback to ME2, when enemy weapon selection was the big dictator for difficulty. People who remember merc armies with Revnants know what I mean. Citadel goes a step beyond this in expanding the diversity of enemy weapon types, and no one goes more into this than the Clone. The Clone’s weapon of choice depends on class, all of which are wielded effectively. Expanding the diversity of enemy weapons in the future will help future games keep their factions distinct not just by the skin on the model or the powers, but the weapon types as well.

Enemy Power diversity

A good strength of Citadel was the strength of its enemies: the strength of its enemies came in the introduction of new types of powers, types and experiments that can be taken into the future as well. Cluster grenades, the newfangled attack drones, the Clone’s use of class-specific powers like warp (and a fast warp at that), these helped keep the enemies distinct and fresh from older foes. Perhaps my favorite re-configuration of old powers are the snipers, who combine visual stealth and smoke screens to good effect: expanding the repetoir of useful enemy power-combos will help future games keep up the challenge and the freshness, especially when enemy powers are quick and deadly: the Clone using warp is no longer one of those ever-slow balls from ME2, but a rapid and immediate threat.

Introducing weapons/challenges

In a surprise for me, the first level of the game turns a nominal ‘but thou must’ weapon restriction into a chekov’s gun plot development. Accompanied by the loss of medigel for the mission, I was pleasantly surprised at both the spike of difficulty and the planning of the sequence of events that give you your new pistol. Bioware doesn’t often mix up the combat style, and the experiment effectively used the cutscene of the attack on the resteraunt to affect both gameplay AND the narrative in a single scene. It flowed well.

Variable Boss

I’ve mentioned the Clone in the context of variability before, but I think it should be noted again: the Clone is unique in recent Bioware games for being both visually and tactically distinct and versatile. In the case of the clone it’s a reflection of class, but this sort of impact on other NPCs can be taken to new heights. Yes, Dragon Age already did something like it with the Hawk siblings and skin tone, but imagine the narrative opportunities if other types of player choices could shape the nature of our enemies, or our friends?

Multi-boss Boss Fight

Brooks and the Clone and a few waves of mercs: it was fun, it had a great visual backdrop outside the cargo bay, and above all it was as close to a three-on-three death match as Bioware has given, which would be about as close to a perfect matchup with Shepard as could be. Multiple bosses don’t just amp the confusion, they also help avoid the three-on-one beatdowns of the Kai Leng sort, while both Brooks and the Clone used powers to effectively prolong the match and pad their health. The Clone using medigel to restore health, or Brooks using invisibility to slink away and hide and restore shields: these are good techniques to equip bosses with not least because it’s what we the players do.

And, above all else,

Non-Squadmate Battle Support

For a galaxy at war, ME has always struggled to make battles with more than Shepard’s own team convincing. Most the time there was never even an attempt, with all potential allies conveniently mowed down before the battle starts. When ME3 had situations where it couldn’t be avoided, it got even worse: Salarians being mowed down by scripted animation in Surkesh, or Turian defenders shooting the same piece of ground during a Reaper attack. Reactivity to enemy attacks must have been difficult…

…but Citadel had your troops on the ground, hurting the same enemies you were, to the effect of really believing there were more forces in the area than just your own. The Citadel Archives are a monumental leap in Bioware’s modern aversion to having anyone help out in the PC’s battles, and a first for Mass Effect. Even in just staying back and casting, the companions (and Glyph) provided real tactical assistance at the same time as interesting commentary.

This, to me, would be a great step forward for future games: imagine a Mass Effect in which you are part of a larger battle, both sides fighting eachother, both sides killing eachother, leaving the player to dominate or slip by as need be. There’s a lot that could be done there, especially in establishing a sense of scale.

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Content Types

On type of the already impressive amounts of dialogue, partying, relationship-specific content, and mutually-exclusive content for variability, Citadel DLC also does something else Mass Effect has been loath to do: more variable companion interaction, and indefinite content.

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-Companion Interaction Paths

Do you prefer a Loud Party, or a Quiet one? It’s a fair question, but also part of a different sort of character interaction than ME is used to. Most of ME, even ME1, follows a pretty set character-interaction rail: the same general conversations no matter your dialogue, whether you’re rude or nice, with little tone change. The difference in partying though, from what I hear, is significant: wild excess versus sober enjoyment.

It’s not a huge thing, but the use of different tones is a good step back (or forward) to more diverse approaches to situations, and more diverse roleplaying styles. Appreciate the distinction, and encourage.

-Indefinite Content

Technically speaking, ME1 and ME2 both had gambling minigames: in that sense, the Casino isn’t that unique. The Arcade and Arena, however, provide opportunities for a much longer game than what usually occurs. Bioware games are often restricted in terms of minigames or infinite battles: you can only fight so many people or so many challenges before they’re all used up. Citadel shows that indefinite content can still be fun, and I encourage the sort to return in future products.

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And that’s it: my rambling thoughts on mechanics I was charmed or impressed by. Post your own thoughts on what you liked (or not) about the ‘how’!

DiebytheSword wrote...

She was bad enough against the soldier Shep I was using, had carnage as a bonus power, which she used on me continually. I'm pretty sure I got a few fire explosions from her too. I'm glad she wasn't rocking my maxed out Valiant.

I'm an Engineer, and the clone wasn't that difficult to be honest (Hardcore difficulty). He had incinerate, and some type of combat drone (different from my own), but they weren't that hard to deal with. His weapon was the Locust, which I'd hardly classify as a very good weapon (now if it was the ME2 Locust, then I would've been in trouble).

If the clone was playing the way I was playing, I would've been dodging flamethrower turrets, had my own drone/turret hacked, and I would've been overload-stunned every few seconds. That (thankfully) did not happen.

Modifié par Dilandau3000, 07 mars 2013 - 12:24 .

#1
Dean_the_Young

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 12:25

#2
DiebytheSword

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:52

#3
Bleachrude

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:58

#4
DiebytheSword

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 02:18

#5
Jesse

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 12:08

#6
Dilandau3000

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 12:22

#7
Han Shot First

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 12:51

#8
AllThatJazz

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:14

#9
Tyrannosaurus Rex

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:19

#10
Dean_the_Young

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:29

#11
Sc2mashimaro

Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:35

Game Mechanics Appreciation: Citadel DLC isn't just fun, but it's got good means to make it fun too

#1 Dean_the_Young Posté 07 mars 2013 - 12:25

#2 DiebytheSword Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:52

#3 Bleachrude Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:58

#4 DiebytheSword Posté 07 mars 2013 - 02:18

#5 Jesse Posté 07 mars 2013 - 12:08

#6 Dilandau3000 Posté 07 mars 2013 - 12:22

#7 Han Shot First Posté 07 mars 2013 - 12:51

#8 AllThatJazz Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:14

#9 Tyrannosaurus Rex Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:19

#10 Dean_the_Young Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:29

#11 Sc2mashimaro Posté 07 mars 2013 - 01:35

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