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Okay well I'm on the fence on this issue so instead of arguing and flaming I'll compile a list of things I'd like to see in mass effect three. To get it out of the way right now - I prefered the first one overall I think, but the second one is just a lot more tighter. I'll present them in a concise format and explain why I support them.
In mass Effect Three I would like to See...
- Away missions / Exploration return in ME1 format.
Hoping into the mako driving around encountering sparse alien life forms in a generic mostly featureless rock of a world is infinitely more interesting than the scan feature in ME2, that really drove me off the wall. It was probably the only thing I really raged about in the whole game.
While I admit some of the land scapes in ME1 were dull and featureless some of them were downright breathtaking. I took some screen shots because I honestly didn't know my computer could put out something as awesome looking as a binary star system as seen from the peak of a mountain on a rock dwarf devoid of atmosphere. The mako was a fun toy and while I had my moments of "God damn it, stupid steep mountain, useless jump jets!!!" while trying to get somewhere the experience was an experience rather than "Oh no, I spun the planet too fast with my scanner... where'd that blip go?"
While the mako could be irritating it was an experience worth having and the scanner system was a chore.
Another thing I really liked about the Mako was it harkoned back to the Starflight games (released by EA WAYYYYYYY back, heh I'm sure some of the devs'll get a chuckle or a fond memory of that reading it if they look these threads over). That game was a lot of awesome for its era, really really large and a lot to do in a small package (thinking on it I might have to track down my sega genesis and dig it up heh). Some of my favourite parts of that game were landing the ship and just going around onthe littleland rover thing shootin' aliens and collectin' space minerals. I can't help but think that the mako portions of exploration in ME1 were heavily inspired by that- and it was awesome.
It had it's times where a mountain was irritatingly between you and a plutonium deposit but.... Then you'd get the and survey it and then at random you'd stop, look around and "Holy crap what an awesome vista... Screen shot of a red giant churning on the horizon of the eternal night sky filled with stars." WAY WAY more rewarding than anything than right click and drag left click to fire probes can ever ever produce.
The presence of a shuttle while obviously more technically feasible than the mako was much less unique. The addition of a shuttle into ME2, I felt, made it a little too generic. Every ship in every Sci fi has a shuttle. The Normandy carried a jump jetting APC with mass effect technology - how cool is that!?
Enough on this though
- Star Travel in ME2 format
ME2 did star travel right. I like worrying about fuel between travels, well not the fuel per se, but the act of having to manage something inorder to explore. Also the style of travel in ME2 was very similar to - here it comes again - the Starflight games which was something that tapped into the nostalgic side of things of the games I used to play and watch my dad play better than me (I was like 6 when we got it heh) back in the early 90's on a giant ugly TV.
It did that really well, there were times where I'd look at the distace between star systems and wonder if I'd make it and that offered a lot to the game. I just wish exploring was more fun than planet scanning - once again.
I really enjoyed reading some of the planetary descriptions and it was cool that a lot of imagination went into them but by and large it was wasted effort on behalf of the writers. You couldn't actually fly down and see the impact craters of a 130-kiloton mass accelerator round bombardment responsible for destroying the garden planets biosphere on the ruins of an ancient unrecorded civilization close up. Largely you couldn't see those effects even while scanning either, the planets were just golf balls all the time anyway. That complaint spans both games though, some of the planets are just so damned interesting in their descriptions and you can't do anything with them (like that gas giant rumored to have an ancient dreadnaught of a ship somewhere in its atmosphere - man I'd love to go and see that and find like... A reaper or something, I don't know hell an orginal Keeper ship would be wicked).
Items -
I liked Mass Effect 2's stream lining, I just think they went a little too far. More weapons and armor next time please and thanks. While ME1's inventory was kind of tedious ME2's was... Sparse to say the least, heh.
I liked having fifty million brands to chose from when buying weapons and armour (hell I liked buying weapons why'd that get kicked out the door?). I liked how different brands made different things well. Finding a weapon and seeing a Rosenkov industries stamp on it was like "sweet, whatever this weapon is I need to check the stats on it". You got familiar with certain favourites and that was cool. While I can appreciate the streamlining of ME2's system (after all there's only so much difference in guns in real life - you can only kill a dude so well with a gun before he dies and then its really just a lot of wasted style points heh) I did like the larger array of options in ME1.
Armour was a huge annoyance in ME2, it was basically just there and didn't play that much of a role for how little of it there was. I think that was a mistake and made the game more action oriented than it should have been. Equipment customization should have been more present. I can appreciate what was done - indeed ME2 was a good example of an RPG that can be successful when it isn't gear based and I like that model - but I also like customization options. More options next time, please. Armors don't need to be better than one another per se (and I'm glad the weren't this time around - I rather enjoyed the mix and match benefits setup) but I think they do need to be visually appealing and widely varying in that appearance - at least more sothan was presented. Kudo's on the custom paint jobs though, I liked that.
Modding. I liked weapon mods in ME1 and was a little weirded out they were ditched in favour of a straight upgrade system in ME2. The mod system was fun because it put the choices on you - do you want more damage but with greater heat penalties? Or would you like to be able to unjam scanners better? These were choices I liked making. I didn't much like the mods that were no brainers in ME1 and I appreciate what was done with the ammo system in ME2 - it was a lot better just swapping "modes" with a hotkey in game than it was pausing everything going into my inventory and slapping incendiary rounds into my Thunderstorm VII or whatever to deal with the rachni warrior infront of me. Made more sense too, in a world where the rounds are manufactured and projected from the weaponsystem itself pressing a few buttons to change the properties of the process seems feasable and believable without a clunky inventory screen in the way of it.
So I'd like to see ME2's ammo type solution stay in but I'd also like some mod slots next time around that do... interesting things, not number things really. I don't know, the combat scanner was a nice decision piece I'd like more like that. Maybe you could choose as an example between - a combat scanner, an enchanced scope and sighting systemfor your sniper rifles and hand guns, an undercarage grenade launcher or shotgun for an assault rifle, just... Choices that add little things but don't so much change the boring umbers side of things we don't really get to play with but maybe add features or change things about some of our favourite toys. Fun example -
Slugspray projectile system - Based on geth tech this shot gun modification alters the rounds fired with nano processing technology. Essentially the ammunition construction platform assembles a slug within the shot gun that is designed to split into fragments upon impact.
Effects - Your shot gun now fires a slug rather than a spread. This slug will then travel until it contacts a solid object then fragments into shards that rebound off of the object and can damage otherthings nearby. Clever users can use this system to rebound fragments off of an object and into a target around a corner or behind something.
My poor attempt to describe the effect of the shredder shotgun from Turok 2 on the old N64 - things that do stuff like that would be more interesting than "+10% damage +15% heat buildup." And an assault rifle mod that lets me fire bullets at someone like that gun in The Fifth Element would be fairly awesome, select a designated target, pull the trigger and the bullets take the most direct route to the target regardless of initial facing. Just stuff like that would be fairly awesome to see although in that case probably wouldn't fit with the cannon of Mass Effect - I'll be honest I just really want that weapon system in Fifth element heh.
Combat -
Thermal clips were tedious. Do not like. It was a really transparent attempt to introduce an ammo system to the Mass Effect setting and I didn't like it - it really felt like a step backwards as far as lore goes. Like someone randomly decided (in the universe mind you not dev bashng - look at this purely from an in universe standpoint) "Practically infinite ammo is BS, our troops should struggle with archaic crap notions like that again!"
That's ludicrous. If I walked into the Armed Forces defense contract acquisitions office of any country with a working model of a firearm technology that assembles and projects its own ammunition using working nanotechnology built right into the weapon system itself that uses a simple alloy block for ammunition and assembles each round with instantly acquired specifications for every indiviual shot made on that weapon sytem and explained that the same principle could be applied to weapon calibres of anymake - hell it could even be applied to the weapons themselves with self assembling weapons factories basedo nthe same tech - I'd be THE weapons manufacturer for the world. As an aside that country would immediately be propeled to military superpower status no one else on earth could keep up with that. The second that showed up no one would ever EVER go back to standard combustion amunition based templates again.
And yet here we are. While as far as ME2's lore is concerned nothing has changed in players perceptions something obviously has. The thermal clip set-up leaves a lot to be desired, while it successfully forces players to manage a resource in combat it's very VERY anti-thematic and it really kicked the immersion factor for me.
While ME1's combat was a little too easy at times because of the heat system is too easy to get around with in that game, it at least felt unique. It felt like the pinacle of weapon systems was in my characters hands - it wasn't limited by ammunition anymore it was limited by the laws of friction, thermodynamics, and chemistry (metalurgy - the constuction of the barrel of the weapon to be specific). It wouldn't ever run out of ammo but if I wasn't careful it'd overheat and jam costing me time while the weapon system either had to let heat disipate or (which was never actually shown but would be implied) the nano tech keeping the system intact to specifactions repaired the barrel that began sagging from the molten heat.
ME2 introduced a thermal clip situatio to add a little more resource management to the game, which is fine, but it was just so clunky and transparent that it really sticks out like a sore thumb. I'd rather they have elaborated more on the overheat system of ME1 over the thermal clipping system of ME2.
I'll add that it also makes no sense either that the weapon could just concentrate heat to one foreign component in the weapon system then neatly eject it - especially on the light machine gun in ME2, that clip would most likely be molten goo after the number of rounds I put into some of those collector scum on full auto no stoppages with incendiary rounds to boot. I'm no expert on Mass Effect's technology but common sense dictates the clip isn't the component being heated up through friction or whatever, it'd be the barrel and the nano manufacturing plant's components that got the heat and that can't just be magically redirected somewhere else (well I suppose with mass effect it's possible - but nothing presented so far really supports that heat can be redirected so readily). It's just... a really bad plot hole that's not really a plot hole in the plot of the game but more a plot hole in the presentation of the ME universe as initiated by ME1.
Mellee attacks I hope stay like they were in ME2, it felt cleaner pushing a button for it because I knew when it would happen, much as I like mixing itup in a mellee in ME1 (hell I had talents and armor mods that boosted mellee damage) I never actually knew when they'd occur it, it seemed rather random. ME'2 rifle butt to the face when you press a button was a lot more reliable for one thing and most of all more predictable, I never made a vanguard PC but I took grunts fortitude power and maxed it out on my soldier so I wasthe next best thing heh - I got to be a walking fireteam as a bonus.
Spacebar... Seriously. It's a bioware game, don't make space bar the default action button. Space bar is pause - you know that it started in BG. I had to swap shift and spacebar's functions, I just had to heh. It's not a big thing and it's easily rectified but it departs from a convention I'm really comfortable with and I really doubt I'm the only one that noticed it heh. A small gripe but I thought I'd mention it. Please, next time spacebar is the default pause and strategize button.
Presentation -
I don't know what it was about ME1 but it really outshines ME2 in this department. Now before anyone jumps in with "LoLwut!? ME2 has way better graphics!!!" I agree from a hardware standpoint but that's not what I'm talkign about. ME2 failed in presntation not because it's graphics were bad. It failed to capture the visual feeling of ME1.
The settings in ME1 felt alien and strange, even though they were generic at times it was worth putting up with the generic modular set up of the interiors of some of the planetside bases (though to be fair it made a lot of sense, modular building design is probably the most efficient in terms of terraforming or off earth dwelling - I think nasa has a few concepts on their website of a mars outpost theorycraft and no surprise it's all modular, maybe it was another site but still..) and terrain.
When I hit the planet rolling in my Mako and took around seeing a foreign horizon I had that wizard of Oz moment "This isn't Kansas anymore Toto." Then Wrex would look at Shepard in his faceless space suit and silently wonder to himself "What the hell is Kansas and what the hell is a toto?". I got to look around, see an alien sun shining, or in some cases scorching (probably even blasting with radiation in some cases, though the graphics requirements to display the scale of that would be ridiculous - sand and dust on the ground literally being pressed down while in the distance duststorms storms rage with terrifying seemingly impossible violence).
When I hit the planet right clicking and start rotatin' and then send a probe.... Yeah that's not on.
Scope was a little more awesome in ME1 as well. Thresher maws were giants, it was a true monstrosity that came at you from below the depths, a threat to your armored assault vehicle (just try getting out of your mako and fighting one on foot with Wrex in ME1... The one in ME2 must be like a larval form or something). The prothean ruin on Ilos felt big and complex, as did the mountain ranges on planets. Shuttles just dump you in a generic closed off canyon for the most part and you'll maybe see some tantalizing evidence of life forms on the opening cinematic but you won't get to really encounter or interact with them.
You really lose a sense of how grand and just utterly awesome itwould be to do these things in ME2, visit alien worlds. You get to see a few alien cities in ME2... Yay. I wanted to go out and poke around the alien landscape, you've seen one city you've seen them all regardless of how many strange foreign influences the level deisgners use on cityscapes they won't compare from the cool land scapes they come up with. One's inspired by human design principles and limited by thoughts of practicalliy and safety... Landscapes on the other hand are bound by nature alone and anyone who's seen photos of mesa's in the badlands, giant house sized boulders precariously balanced on a pebble all on top of a needle of rock sticking out of the round for hundreds of years in seeming defiance of logic and reason... That's interesting. A dome shaped building a few dozen miles away you never get to see hardly even sprs the imagination. I want to see mountains and craggy canyons formed from jagged iron that formed like that centuries ago because it was a much younger hotter star hosting the planet once upon a time. I want to look at the stars piercing through a thin green sky of an atmosphere while a purple sun shines through. I don't give a damn about some dude's kiosk in alien city number 4.
Also there was something kind of different about ME1's lighting. I know it could be argued it was more "primitive" hardware wise a bit but that's not entirely it. While it might have been more primitive in those terms it really felt just right. It made the environments seem appropriately sterile and well lit. In ME2 you've got all sorts of impressive varying lightscapes everywhere, the Zakera district is a good example, its inexplicably dimlit with a lot of low ambient light. In ME1 the whole place looked sterile and well lit - which made a lot of sense when you consider an army of keepers is runnign aorund maintaining the hell out of the place. Additionally most places people live and work it in are well-lit - it's just plain easier to see and move around and feel safe in a well lit space.
ME2 got too far into the dark and menacing aspect of it and ended up feeling like too many other games as a result - Unreal, Gears of War, you know any of the other dark future loosely sci-fi games. I can understand the need to do it on Omega station and the Collector ship, one's a seedy scum filled hulk bored into an asteroid, the other is a seedy insectman filled hulk boredinto an asteroid. Neither of those should be well-lit and it serves well to transmit their visual mood, the trouble in ME2 is that the mood is lost because it doesn't really contrast anything - everything looks pretty shady and dark. It's like the whole game is an anti-hero throwback comic from the 80's that's dark and moody for the sake of being dark and moody because it was revolutionary at the time...
It's not now and it seemed a little out of place, my opinion of course. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's a horrible thing, the lighting and prentation of Omega and the collector base was really cool if you stand them alone... But did the C-sec area in ME2 need to be lit like Chlora's den in ME1? I don't think so, I think it lost a lot of presentation value as a result too. My point Contrasts are important and I think with honesty, but not hostile condemnation the art direction dropped the ball a bit there and drew a little to much from pop culture and not enough from ME1 when designing the presentation of ME2.
The games themselves felt too different visually for me and I personally didn't like it.
It's hard to explain that so maybe I'll leave it with: Mass Effect 1 had a lot more interesting area's because of how they looked even though they were often times similar in layout, ME2 had a lot of interesting areas because of how they were setup to be not modular feeling even though they often looked the same because somebody got carried away with the dark lighting theme.
Music -
ME2's mix of classical and synths was done a lot better in ME2 than ME1's which often felt a little too ambient, ME2's was often noticeable and formed a centerpiece for the experience while I find I don't remember most of the music from ME1. The music from the the final collector confrontation in their hive... homeworld... thing, I'll remember that for a long time; it was really fitting and really set the mood. I don't even remember if the Saren fight at the end of ME1 had music - I remember the fight but not the music playing during it there's nothing wrong with the design of the encounter it just lacked audiocandy the collectors got.
Characters and story -
ME2's story was tighter, there's really no arguing that. IT felt more involving and choices mattered. I won't spoil anything here but in ME2 something happened to my crew members towards the end and I was annoyed with it, it felt like the collectors had physically taken something from me and I had an emotional investment in seeing them die at that point. Not a game motivation a personal one. The characters that supplement ME2 are really interesting, sadly I can't say the same for the main characters...
ME2's characters were far too alike for my liking in many ways. Grunt, Garrus, Miranda, Samara, Subject Zero, and to a much lesser extent Thane all felt a little too campy "we're so bad ass... I'm with shepard to kill people. I'm the killiest killer of all the killers. Killing." They really seemed to lack personal motivations and the ones they did have made them feel like two dimensional characters for the most part - I include Thane because he feels redundant given that many killery killers on you crew but he stands off from that pack a bit because his motivations seemed a little more sincere than the rest who felt like theres was pretty tacked on, he was an interesting character and the best of the killery killer bunch as I call them.
Jacob was interesting but a little too generic. I felt he could have been developed a little more. Maybe I just didn't find him interesting enough to dig deep into his character, or maybe the character itself just wasn't that interesting to begin with. The most surprising aspect was probably when I first met him heh, I named my Shepard Jacob back in ME1. Tali's tali... Kinda cool but she felt too... damsel in distress this time. She felt like a woman coming of age in the first game and you got a sense of that, here she felt too subordinate to shepard as an outside influence. Found that a little disappointing.
ME2's redeeming characters were Mordin, Legion and Joker (yes, really). Mordin's inner conflict was really drawing and I find myself really interested in the way he was presented - he wasn't a killery killer on the level of "I kill people" he was a killer on a level the others could never ever in their wildest dreams approach the scale of if you look at him one way, or he's the savior of the galxy if you look at him in another - what makes him so interesting is how adamently in the middle he is about it. He was like a spiritualist and a scientist rolled into one but with mortal uncertainty and yogi's comfort with that uncertainty - in the end things just are, a very interesting character... not unusual if one's ever spoken to an actual scientist (or a good priest or religious leader, it's amazing and sad how many parallels people refuse to see in one another), in all I think he was amazingly portrayed. I won't ruin it with specifics - far to interesting for that. Also he offers a lot of audio input throughout the game some of it was really helpful at times and rather amusing at others.
Legion is a geth... 'nuff said. Talk to them. Just awesome the way they explain themselves. Probalby the most thought provoking character in the game. Easily the most controversial as well - legion exists as a fictional example of a genuine question humanity may, unlikely but then nature has a strange way of making the unlikely happen, have to ask one day: does a self-aware synthetic intellect qualify as a life form or are they still machines and devoid of consideration as equals? Obviously I can't spoil it with an answer heh, I'm no prophet and the question's outside the scope of the game anyway, but it's a really cool character presentation and it's a fun question to ask and play with. Really good at shooting people in the head at stupid long distances too heh.
Joker really shines and has a lot more personality displayed here than in the first one. I won't explain why but you get to play him at one point and you get a real sense of just how frail his condition leaves him and how much he actualy has to go through to do things we'd take for granted. I found I really enjoyed the strength of his character by the end of it - without ruining it he's the unsung hero of the game by the end of it IMO. The other's may get the glory but... Jokers the man who made it possible.
Conclusion - ME1 and ME2 were good experiences for different reasons. They were very different games in a lot of ways and both of them were very good games. Hopefully the third installment is a marriage of the two rather than a reiteration or completely innovative into something unrecognizable. That's my take on the issue anyway. I'd rather not pick a side and flame for no reason.
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