I never understood why so many people got their panties in a twist over the Mission Complete screen. In PnP we handwave away routine stuff like heading back to base all the time.
I didn't mind the mission over screens, I'd actually like them to come back as it felt like a good way to show that Shepard at that point is just one cog in motion.
Bad storytelling.
I'm looking at you Synthesis
I never understood why so many people got their panties in a twist over the Mission Complete screen. In PnP we handwave away routine stuff like heading back to base all the time.
This is one my greatest pet peeve complaints. ME2/3 were not dumped down, they switched the system and the focus. Actually ME3 system and encounter design are by far the most complicated in ME trilogy and perhaps in Bioware history. That fact that you liked ME1 system more means nothing in regard was the system dumped down or not. Personal preference does not equal compiex system. No matter how many times it's dragged up for DAO and ME1.
ME1 was an amazing RPG-FPS hybrid, again, maybe not quite as tightened and diverse and meaningful as System Shock 2, but still quite good.
Mass Effect 2 was a competent cover shooter, but it was marred by considerable simplification in the skill systems to the point where you simply had to press the right action button to win. It's basically the button you buy at Staples (Easy button). The only area it did better was sniping which was relatively hamfisted in ME1.
Mass Effect 3 was essentially Mass Effect 2 minus the pretense of being a competent cover shooter with RPG elements.
The Mako was masterful, one of the best side mission gimmicks in major AAA gaming in some time.
ME1 was an amazing RPG-FPS hybrid, again, maybe not quite as tightened and diverse and meaningful as System Shock 2, but still quite good.
Mass Effect 2 was a competent cover shooter, but it was marred by considerable simplification in the skill systems to the point where you simply had to press the right action button to win. It's basically the button you buy at Staples (Easy button). The only area it did better was sniping which was relatively hamfisted in ME1.
Mass Effect 3 was essentially Mass Effect 2 minus the pretense of being a competent cover shooter with RPG elements.
The Mako was masterful, one of the best side mission gimmicks in major AAA gaming in some time.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it was a train wreck, though it was messy.
It's been a long time but the technical issues on consoles may push it that far. The game ran like **** if you were in the console trenches.
Alas, there are still familiar weak points; drops to 15FPS are commonplace during sequences filled with transparent alpha effects, plus major hiccups down to 10FPS are possible when entering the Mako buggy. There also seems to be an issue with simply starting idle dialogue with squad members, which often causes a sharp stutter on each platform.
To really bring the frame-rate crumbling down though, we need to move towards more action-orientated slices of gameplay. We see huge gains in the first fight on Eden Prime with the electrified Husk enemies, for example, where Sony's hardware pushes out close to 30FPS throughout, while the 360 constantly hits the 20FPS line. This performance deficit on 360 is matched by equal amounts of tearing, which once again remains absent from the latest release on PS3. A very promising start overall.
However, a gunfight in the Chora's Den night-club soon shows us there's little to celebrate on the performance side, where we experience a sustained stretch of play at 15FPS on both platforms. In practice, this choppy level of feedback makes aiming at enemies very tricky indeed, though the PS3 does offer some respite by not tearing through the frames it does render out. This goes from bad to worse during a shoot-out in the Mako buggy, which sees us stuttering down to 10FPS at the sight of snow trails, rocket explosions and artillery fire.
http://www.eurogamer...ct-PS3-face-off
ME1 was a train wreck of a game. Everything about it from the stupidly designed combat, badly handled and implemented skill system, lousy enemy and squad AI, awful inventory, bland UCWs, a difficultly curve that flattened out so fast that the second half of the game could be played with your eyes shut... the only thing that saved it was the writing. Oh and the Mako was a pointless badly implemented transparent time waster. ME1 is the only game I really loved when I played it that I just cannot stomach playing again because it is such a bad game to play.
2 and 3 were leaps ahead in terms of gameplay but faltered on the writing end.
Pretty much.
The evolution of the series makes sense when you see the dilemma Christina Norman and others faced when making Mass Effect 2. ME1 left them to deal with not only a combat system that was complete garbage but also RPG systems that were trash as well. Obviously what they did was prioritize getting the combat to something that was actually playable this time, albeit at the expense of some RPG features. The third game then improved the combat further while increasing customization from the overly-streamlined ME2 as well as adding combos and requiring the player to balance equipment weight against recharge time.
I never understood why so many people got their panties in a twist over the Mission Complete screen. In PnP we handwave away routine stuff like heading back to base all the time.
I actually liked them in ME2, personally- not only were they a useful summary of the end-mission loot, but 'TIM's Comments' were a nice and interesting bit of introspection and alternative viewpoint. It played up the ME2 vision of Cerberus as an amoral player that would still seek to maximize advantage out of whatever Shepard did- even in cases when Shepard was anti-Cerberus. It was amazing how many of the 'Comments' weren't 'good or bad,' but framed Shepard choices in terms of 'what does this mean going forward?'
On the other hand, I find ME2's N7 missions some of the weakest in the series because they're bloody tedious and annoying to find. ME1 had better use of news reports and the hacket Phone Calls. ME3 had better use of alerts by call and using the galaxy map. But in ME2, most of the missions you have to hunt down by going from system to system, planet by planet- and even then it's not clear why you care in some cases.
ME1 was a train wreck of a game. Everything about it from the stupidly designed combat, badly handled and implemented skill system, lousy enemy and squad AI, awful inventory, bland UCWs, a difficultly curve that flattened out so fast that the second half of the game could be played with your eyes shut... the only thing that saved it was the writing. Oh and the Mako was a pointless badly implemented transparent time waster. ME1 is the only game I really loved when I played it that I just cannot stomach playing again because it is such a bad game to play.
2 and 3 were leaps ahead in terms of gameplay but faltered on the writing end.
ME1 was slated as a slow burner and it worked well, each mission and sub mission was built steadily on the one before in a sensible manner, consider, for example the tunnels when you are first ambushed by the hordes of geth after having established the basics of combat on the first planet. The boss encounters were also much better from the standpoint of layering them with unique complexity, such as the mission on Noveria against the Asari hive queen spawning thing, or even the fight against Benezia, or really just about every other fight in ME1 save Saren who you could overpower to death with just about any spec save Sentinel or a poorly constructed biotic.
Or consider the extremely well balanced intricacies of each of the squad members in ME1 having a corresponding specialization to balance out other specializations, or your own specialization, as well as the diversity of having each specialization match well against different campaign environments. If you landed on Noveria and thought you could just use a Sentinel tank approach with Garrus and Wrex backing you up well you would be wrong because the heavy biotic emphasis in that mission would force you to re-prioritize. On the other hand, if you used a biotic and other spell heavy approaches you might be ok there, but in trouble on Feros.
ME2 and 3 were taken directly from just about every other FPS out there, along with weaker balancing and tuning, and as I stated before, vast oversimplifications of fairly engaging systems.
Consider, for example in ME2, the abyssmal overtuning of the target on the first engagement with the collectors, or the end fight against the extremely cheap flying robot thingies that I don't remember what they're called. There is also the extremely over-wrought fight against the Kroga berserkers on Jedore.
I do not recall enough of the rest of 2 except to say that it was, as I said, a straightforwardly competent cover shooter, none of the missions or designs on bosses or systems were any more unique than that. I do remember the re-design of the main ship being fairly irritating compared to the elegance of the original Normandy.
ME3 in particular had weak combat design on for example the boss fight such as against the giant reaper with your laser gun which played like pong if your tiny bar was slathered in molasses.
In ME2 and 3 it doesn't really matter what your spec is or what squad mates you have, you just press the amazing button.
The biggest issues in each game were alternately the level design or also parts of systems design, there isn't one thing or another to single out.
Honestly, between Robo-Saren, Benezia's entire encounter, amongst others, I'm gonna take a shot here and claiming the boss encounters have "unique complexity" is overstating ME1's benefits quite a bit.
Even the whole idea of using a tank approach with squad-mates backing me up is kinda amusing period, since ME1 has such terrible AI. Part of the reason why ME2 and 3 are far superior in this regard is that they emphasized squad abilities with direct impact, barring ammo powers. If I tell Garrus to perform Concussive Shot on an enemy, he does it instantaneously. This works better than telling Garrus to use Overkill in ME1 and praying that he's actually able to hit something.
The reason ME1 had "terrible AI" is because the encounters and fights were more complicated to begin with, it's sort of like how the pathing in BG1 was always "You must gather your party before gathering forth," because you were always in some crazy mixed up cavern or dungeon or town with massively inorangic design.
The use of squad abilities and such improved from a technical standpoint marginally but that isn't a function of core design. Overkill as a whole was a more potent and unique ability (more damage temporarily), whereas concussive shot is the amazing button (kill on sight).
You are mixing up an overpowered ability with good design.
The reason ME1 had "terrible AI" is because the encounters and fights were more complicated to begin with, it's sort of like how the pathing in BG1 was always "You must gather your party before gathering forth," because you were always in some crazy mixed up cavern or dungeon or town with massively inorangic design.
The use of squad abilities and such improved from a technical standpoint marginally but that isn't a function of core design. Overkill as a whole was a more potent and unique ability (more damage temporarily), whereas concussive shot is the amazing button (kill on sight).
You are mixing up an overpowered ability with good design.
The reason ME1 had "terrible AI" is because the encounters and fights were more complicated to begin with, it's sort of like how the pathing in BG1 was always "You must gather your party before gathering forth," because you were always in some crazy mixed up cavern or dungeon or town with massively inorangic design.
The use of squad abilities and such improved from a technical standpoint marginally but that isn't a function of core design. Overkill as a whole was a more potent and unique ability (more damage temporarily), whereas concussive shot is the amazing button (kill on sight).
You are mixing up an overpowered ability with good design.
So good design is the result of developers not being able to program their AI correctly? Well, I guess points for a creative argument. That's not one I hear often, I will admit. I could do with less of that good game design, though. If I die in an encounter, it should be in spite of the Squad AI, not because of it.
The reason ME1 had "terrible AI" is because the encounters and fights were more complicated to begin with
Please explain how the same 10 maps repeated plus a few specially-made corridors for story missions made the encounters more complicated than later games.
ME1 is a great lesson of what NOT to do with anything connected to gameplay. Boss fights, level deisgn, leveling up, inventory, AI, weapons, powers, armors, customization etc. Looking back, it kind of extraordinary how bad ME1 was on all that.
On the other hand, I find ME2's N7 missions some of the weakest in the series because they're bloody tedious and annoying to find. ME1 had better use of news reports and the hacket Phone Calls. ME3 had better use of alerts by call and using the galaxy map. But in ME2, most of the missions you have to hunt down by going from system to system, planet by planet- and even then it's not clear why you care in some cases.
I didn't find this to be a problem because I don't really go looking for the N7 missions in the first place. I stumble across them by mining, or I don't.
Out of sight is out of mind for the player, but I suspect it's a waste for the devs. Put all the N7 missions together that you might never stumble upon, and you might have the level-building resources to make another story mission (if you could get the dialogue budget to support).
Out of sight is out of mind for the player, but I suspect it's a waste for the devs. Put all the N7 missions together that you might never stumble upon, and you might have the level-building resources to make another story mission (if you could get the dialogue budget to support).
Just because an N7 mission isn't found in a certain playthrough of a certain player doesn't mean it's never found by another player and besides, it's a nice surprise for players who randomly find it, and allows for people to get together to talk online about this weird random mission they found that no one else did.
Just because an N7 mission isn't found in a certain playthrough of a certain player doesn't mean it's never found by another player and besides, it's a nice surprise for players who randomly find it, and allows for people to get together to talk online about this weird random mission they found that no one else did.
Exactly. A lot of game have content that a lot of player misses. It goes right there with giving options to the player... if you make sure the player does everything, you're also making sure you're not giving space for him to have his own pace. The right thing here is to make sure you give the exact tool for the player to realize what he has to do and what is optional. And the rewards and consequences of the latter.
I thought the trilogy did a very good job with those, ME1 missions were boring and repetitive, but the narrative behind them were good. ME2 improved that by keeping that strength and making them take place in unique scenarios. ME3 tackled it differently. It's secundary missions were massive and greatly integrated to the core narrative, to the point they didn't even feel optional. (the fetch quests being another thing entirely).
I actually really liked the way ME1 did it, because there were multiple ways to get wind of a new mission. Other than the news report for the missing survey team, you also had the ability to hack terminals and come across notices of a person or point of interest, so you didn't just have to stumble into a system. While it was ultimately a lot of the same roving about and exploring the identical dank mine or prefab bunker, the setup was still good.
I actually really liked the way ME1 did it, because there were multiple ways to get wind of a new mission. Other than the news report for the missing survey team, you also had the ability to hack terminals and come across notices of a person or point of interest, so you didn't just have to stumble into a system. While it was ultimately a lot of the same roving about and exploring the identical dank mine or prefab bunker, the setup was still good.
It was a cool idea, but ultimately poor in execution (because you lost the conversation with hacket).
It was a cool idea, but ultimately poor in execution (because you lost the conversation with hacket).
How? You could be a total insubordinate arse to him, ignore the missions and he could do nothing about it.
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