Firewalker Mission pack with the Hammerhead vehicle coming Tuesday March 23
#1226
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 01:08
#1227
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 01:12
#1228
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 01:14
You said it all dude. The Hammerhead is friggin awesome, the controls are perfect, add the Hammerhead in with ME1's exploration, and ME3 would be the perfect game. Only problem is its weak as hell. Everytime i got into a fight with a geth trooper (yes, a regular foot soldier) i felt like he was shooting me inside the tank, like my foot was hangin out or somethin. Cause on insanity, it doesnt take much for an enemy to take ur shields down (like one or two shots). Thats what it felt like in a firefight, it felt like i was fightin these dudes on foot, with the Missile Launcher. I had one little incident with a particular geth soldier (yes, 1 geth soldier) where i jumped into the air hoping to escape his awesomely powerful Geth Pulse Rifle, but instead it made it easier for him to kill me. On my end it looked like f**ckin Duck Hunt, only i was the duck. I mean dont get me wrong here, i love the thing, cant wait to see what u do with it in ME3, i just hope u make it a tank, not a unarmored Humvee.McBeath wrote...
Hammerhead really needs survivability. It's an APC/Tank, it's entire purpose as such is to protect the crew/soldiers and pack some added firepower, of if indeed a tank to engage and defeat enemy armour/spearhead assaults... and in this regard it fails.
It's fast, though you can't get anywhere near your enemy for fear that an assault rifle can kill you. I died so many times on insanity yesterday that I just got annoyed and left it alone. Modern battle tanks are immune to small/medium arms fire, so should the "high tech" Hammerhead.
The MAKO's only real flaw was it's manuverability. It otherwise was a very realistic APC. Now, the Hammerhead COULD actually be good and on par if it had the following:
Increased survivability, either in armour or shields. A passive defence mechanism, like a recharging chaff launcher/smoke grenades, ect like on modern tanks-> which could easily use the power wheel to recharge and would require some skill on the players part to use "powers" correctly to deflect enemy attacks. This would make "frontal assaults" a viable choice, and lets face it I'm sure that's what we want out of our tank. Secondary firepower, like a co-axial machine gun(tanks often have these as well). Multiple weapons systems exist on all modern combat systems, both for infantry supression and redundancy.
While it's a good start, I truly think that the designers need a crash course in armoured combat. A high tech tank is cool, but it needs to be a tank. It should be able to go toe to toe with Collusus, Praetorians, ect and win. Frankly, somebody could break into some alliance/earth museum, "borrow" themselves a 21st century tank and kick the crap out of the Hammerhead.
#1229
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 01:16
#1230
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 01:20
#1231
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 01:25
#1232
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 02:07
Chazbop wrote...
Go to the downloadable content page via the in game menu, when the appearance pack pops up, click on the MASS EFFECT 2 LOGO at the top of THAT page and it will list all available content you can download, i am downloading it now as i have also just found this out, good luck, enjoy!
Thank you!!!!
#1233
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 03:13
and i already playing it like 20x already...
poor me.
#1234
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 05:23
leezhanwei wrote...
mastercommander are u from sg?
YES I AM. I am a singaporean
#1235
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 08:30
It made the combat need a little more effort than just pointing the gun somewhere and launching
a barrage of omgwtfhaxbbq seeker rockets. I voluntarily drove into close range.
Though in a confrontation Hammerhead vs Mako it would only take mouse controls for the Mako
to blow that thing to smithereens. A graceful escape would be to make a patch for ME 1 and nerf
the hell out of the Mako instead of fixing Hammerhead. xD
#1236
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 08:58
#1237
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 09:01
If Bioware is going to add more hammerhead missions, I just hope they put some kind of "checkpoint" though.
#1238
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 09:38
#1239
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 01:04
1, smaller areas with (in)visible barriers the Hammerhead navigates through
2, You can't leave the vehicle to do reconnaissance on your own
3, The vehicle's shoot mechanics are kind of lame and do not equal those of the Mako. Having an unlimited amount of guided missiles and no ammo-limited machine gun is not fun
4, Resource gathering is really odd plus resources are highlighted so you can't miss them
5, Jumping with and flying the Hammerhead almost feels like an old 2d arcade game or a relaxing mini-game, definitely not like an important full-featured part of the game
The bottom line: All the aforementioned points seriously diminish the feeling and joy of exploration, of exploring new, potentially interesting areas in the vast ME universe. How can we explore with the new ME2's level design that has shrunk its exploreable areas to tunnel-like, straightforward levels? What we really need for ME3 is ME-like planets with different design and settings with interesting quests and plots and unique items worth investigating. What we do not need is flying a hovercraft with no possibility to leave, confined areas, lame shooting, resources that can be obtainted through scanning planets so why bother collecting them with a vehicle etc.
Bioware, please note that you need to motivate people to explore, you need to give them a good reason to go investigate an uncharted planet. This motivation lies in giving people what they can't otherwise get elsewhere. It can be intriguing quests, unique items/loot, interesting people to talk to, simply anything that would make us keep coming there forth and back.
The problem with the Mako was not the vehicle itself but the monotonous planet settings with nothing special or unique worth discovering. You just go, find an enemy base, shoot 'em all and that's about it. There were actually no side quests in ME, the more there is enough room for improvement and creativity! UnfortunateIy, I have such a feeling that Bioware still misinterprets why exploration in ME was tedious and monotonous. Else they would not have come up with the current level design that "reliably" hinders any sign of exploration. Too bad Bioware seems to have picked up an "improve=remove" formula for ME2. Maybe next time with ME3...
#1240
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 01:30
nckeo wrote...
Just got Firewalker downloaded and install, play the first mission. Found a bug, where it said press Right mouse button to collect resource, it don't work, rather press V (supposedly deploy mines) instead.
Same here. and while checking the key bindings, the right mouse button is suppose to control the camera or something like that. (Although I had changed them a little a while back...)
Modifié par ShadowFox4, 25 mars 2010 - 01:40 .
#1241
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 02:47
I quite like the weak armour, makes it a bit more challenging, but had some problems with the missile guidence. They seem to want to hit what they want, not what you aim at. At one point trying to shoot a single trooper, but the missiles would pull away at the last moment and hit the ground (there was no other target to lock on to, they just didn't want to hit the geth trooper. Sympaphy maybe?)
This DLC can be extreamly fun, or extreamly fustrating.
#1242
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 03:20
#1243
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 05:17
Had to remap keys to get the scanning thing to work. Not bad for free DLC but not great either. I appreciate Bioware anyway and this was a decent diversion from the main campaign.
#1244
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 08:15
The Hammerhead (aka Firewalker pack)
I’ve never hidden the fact that I was (and still am) a Mako fan. Yes, there were problems. The levels got repetitive, there was a lack of anything to do except find minerals on a lot of worlds, etc, etc. Despite all that, I enjoyed the underlying idea behind the Mako: find an uncharted world, explore it, meet interesting characters, and blow s%^t up while doing so. Some of the levels in ME1 displayed the potential behind this design: one in which you respond to a distress signal, land to find a besieged marine base under attack by rachni, and have to help hold off waves of enemies. Bring Down the Sky added variations to vehicle combat (moving turrets) that made vehicle combat fun.
What made the Mako weak were two things: the first were the controls (which I personally didn’t have a problem with, but many did). Even so, I will admit that bouncing around mountains and falling upside-down in ditches to reach a downed space-probe would become irritating. The second major problem with the Mako is that while the idea was sound as a whole, they separated divided it into pieces and scattered them among the different worlds. Landing on a planet, exploring, meeting characters, fighting is a great idea, but each one on its own is boring. During Mass Effect 1 you would land on one planet and there would only be exploring and fighting, on another there would be just exploring and characters, on a third planet it would be just the first two again, then another planet would be the last two. The few planets were all 4 ingredients were combined were when the potential of the Mako would shine.
So, the question with the Hammerhead is: did Bioware “get it”? Sadly, after spending a few rounds with the new tank, I must report that the answer is no. Unfortunately, Bioware fell into the trap of improving the individual aspects of the vehicle gameplay and forgot to address the larger issue: combining the elements into a impressive whole.
Before you stop reading this review: WAIT! All is not lost! Yes, the Firewalker pack is disappointing, but I do not think the Hammerhead should be abandoned. “Why bother?” you may ask? My response is simple: Bioware can still release further DLC missions, and these new missions, if made properly, can be extremely good. Thus, while the maiden voyage of the Hammerhead has crashed and burned, I still think this idea can soar.
Combat
I’ll begin by saying that the Hammerhead controls fine. Moving the vehicle felt completely natural. Additionally, the fire-and-forget missile system works well. But, there is one teeny, weeny issue: the tank feels like its made out of cardboard. So it’s a fast, aggressive, in-your-face vehicle... but you can’t actually get fast, aggressive, or in the enemies’ faces with it. Say what you will about the Mako, the the lil’ bugger was a tough SOB. She could run headfirst into a squad of geth primes, colossi, and come out the other side looking pretty. The Hammerhead feels like it’ll explode if you sneeze too hard. On the first planet with combat, I was shot down in thirty seconds by three geth with assault rifles. I honestly found myself wondering “did they actually test this thing above Easy difficulty?” If someone inside a several-ton battle tank with unlimited missiles meets three ground troops with small arms and the guy in the tank is pissing his pants, something-has-gone-horribly-wrong.
Solutions for future DLC? Easy - give the Hammerhead a pair. Take off the plywood armor and give the tank a chance to survive in a fight. If the idea of the Hammerhead is to make it a faster, more intense Mako, then it needs to be able to engage in faster, more intense battles. Hiding behind rubble and firing over cover from a mile away because you’re afraid of two ground troops is not fun, nor fast, nor intense.
Level Structure & Story
Oh Bio, Bio, Bio. You know, for being the company famous for its deep characters, story, and plot, how could you not get this? Let me restate the problem with the Mako levels in the first game: you would land on a planet and all there would be to do was drive to mineral deposits or probes. You would go an entire cluster without meeting one person, and just picking up probes or minerals. So for the Hammerhead, what did Bioware think was the solution? Make several levels were all you do is run around and pick up minerals, crashed spaceship parts, only now you can fly and there’s a timer on the screen.
Yeah, doesn’t really look that exciting on paper, does it? It’s only somewhat more exciting playing it.
Bioware, you still don’t seem to get that with vehicular combat and the uncharted worlds, we want characters, plot, combat, and exploration simultaneously. Instead, the Firewalker pack is five worlds, each only supporting one of these gameplay types. On their own, they just don’t work. The sum is greater than the whole of its parts. Furthermore, the lack of a cohesive, independent story hurts immersion. I am Commander Shepard, greatest human in history, the galaxy’s biggest hero, fighting for humanity’s survival. Why should I divert my time and efforts into visiting the backwater worlds? Shepard’s story is epic, thus, anything he does has to have an epic or important feeling. When designing a level, you need to ask the question “Is this something the most famous person in history would do?” Does flying through canyons collecting iridium fit that bill? Nuh-uh.
My One Hot-Headed Complaint
I pride myself on being a fair person. I’m not one of those hyperactive, ultrasensitive gamers that thinks the end of the world is coming if something doesn’t live up to my expectations. Sometimes, sometimes, there is one thing that will push me over the edge, some flaw or design choice that makes me loose all hope in humanity. There is one such problem in firewalker: the utter lack of being able to save mid-mission. Remember how I mentioned earlier how the Hammerhead was made out of construction paper, and a well-aimed rock could blow it up? Well, imagine my shock after being blown up for the fifth time, that I saw I would have to restart the mission from the very beginning. There are NO savepoints, and no option to manually save during the mission.
Allow me to express my emotions calmly: I wanted to find the person in charge of the save system, tie them to a chair, and beat them to death with my xbox.
Add saves.
Future DLC
I will restate the key to solid Mass Effect DLC: add missions that combine story, characters, combat, and exploration into one solid mission. I don’t want to play an arcade shooter, or a racing minigame, or prospector with my Commander Shepard, I want to be a hero. When I land on a planet, it should present some type of challenge that makes me feel that I accomplished something extraordinary. There should be fully-voiced characters with difficult decisions in every mission. When I get back to the Normandy after a hard day’s work, I need to feel like the galaxy is a better place with me around.
Allow me to give some examples of DLC that would live up to my expectations.
Sample 1: The Normandy receives a distress signal from a small border colony. Upon arrival, the colonists inform Shepard that thresher maws have been attacking, and they are desperate. Shepard and crew climb into the Hammerhead and fly bravely into the thresher nest, destroying the hive and saving the colony. The people come out with thanks.
Sample 2: Shepard arrives at a backwater world, chasing down a lead regarding a dangerous criminal warlord. He fights his way to the base with the Hammerhead. Once inside, Shepard and company battle mechs to the warlord. There, Shepard must decide whether to accept the warlord’s bribe or kill him.
Sample 3: Shepard arrives at another small, independent colony. The colony is brutal, wild-west type place. There is a brutal gang war occurring. Shepard must side with one of the gangs, or neither. At the end, a brutal shoot-out occurs in the colony center. Shepard must then chase down the fleeing gang members in the Hammerhead.
Every mission should feel like a miniature game in itself. Fully developed plot, people, and action, that fits within the context of exploring the galaxy with Commander Shepard.
I’ve got my fingers crossed for the future.
#1245
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 08:37
#1246
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 09:56
#1247
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 10:05
Good review. Although i do have some problems with your samples there at the end, though very interesting and well thought out, it would not work. For the simple fact that as u stated, the Hammerhead cannot surivive a single shot to its wing. Before they can even try to do something remotely as u said, they need to create a new DLC (free if possible) in which u upgrade the Hammerhead (kinda like how u upgrade your weapons/armor etc.) to the point to where its an actual tank. Or even better they can put it all into one giant DLC, with a crap load of missions with a story (and dialogue obviously) and an actual sandbox level to explore. Now that, is something i would s**t my pants for.Darth Sithari wrote...
Fair and Level-Headed Review
The Hammerhead (aka Firewalker pack)
I’ve never hidden the fact that I was (and still am) a Mako fan. Yes, there were problems. The levels got repetitive, there was a lack of anything to do except find minerals on a lot of worlds, etc, etc. Despite all that, I enjoyed the underlying idea behind the Mako: find an uncharted world, explore it, meet interesting characters, and blow s%^t up while doing so. Some of the levels in ME1 displayed the potential behind this design: one in which you respond to a distress signal, land to find a besieged marine base under attack by rachni, and have to help hold off waves of enemies. Bring Down the Sky added variations to vehicle combat (moving turrets) that made vehicle combat fun.
What made the Mako weak were two things: the first were the controls (which I personally didn’t have a problem with, but many did). Even so, I will admit that bouncing around mountains and falling upside-down in ditches to reach a downed space-probe would become irritating. The second major problem with the Mako is that while the idea was sound as a whole, they separated divided it into pieces and scattered them among the different worlds. Landing on a planet, exploring, meeting characters, fighting is a great idea, but each one on its own is boring. During Mass Effect 1 you would land on one planet and there would only be exploring and fighting, on another there would be just exploring and characters, on a third planet it would be just the first two again, then another planet would be the last two. The few planets were all 4 ingredients were combined were when the potential of the Mako would shine.
So, the question with the Hammerhead is: did Bioware “get it”? Sadly, after spending a few rounds with the new tank, I must report that the answer is no. Unfortunately, Bioware fell into the trap of improving the individual aspects of the vehicle gameplay and forgot to address the larger issue: combining the elements into a impressive whole.
Before you stop reading this review: WAIT! All is not lost! Yes, the Firewalker pack is disappointing, but I do not think the Hammerhead should be abandoned. “Why bother?” you may ask? My response is simple: Bioware can still release further DLC missions, and these new missions, if made properly, can be extremely good. Thus, while the maiden voyage of the Hammerhead has crashed and burned, I still think this idea can soar.
Combat
I’ll begin by saying that the Hammerhead controls fine. Moving the vehicle felt completely natural. Additionally, the fire-and-forget missile system works well. But, there is one teeny, weeny issue: the tank feels like its made out of cardboard. So it’s a fast, aggressive, in-your-face vehicle... but you can’t actually get fast, aggressive, or in the enemies’ faces with it. Say what you will about the Mako, the the lil’ bugger was a tough SOB. She could run headfirst into a squad of geth primes, colossi, and come out the other side looking pretty. The Hammerhead feels like it’ll explode if you sneeze too hard. On the first planet with combat, I was shot down in thirty seconds by three geth with assault rifles. I honestly found myself wondering “did they actually test this thing above Easy difficulty?” If someone inside a several-ton battle tank with unlimited missiles meets three ground troops with small arms and the guy in the tank is pissing his pants, something-has-gone-horribly-wrong.
Solutions for future DLC? Easy - give the Hammerhead a pair. Take off the plywood armor and give the tank a chance to survive in a fight. If the idea of the Hammerhead is to make it a faster, more intense Mako, then it needs to be able to engage in faster, more intense battles. Hiding behind rubble and firing over cover from a mile away because you’re afraid of two ground troops is not fun, nor fast, nor intense.
Level Structure & Story
Oh Bio, Bio, Bio. You know, for being the company famous for its deep characters, story, and plot, how could you not get this? Let me restate the problem with the Mako levels in the first game: you would land on a planet and all there would be to do was drive to mineral deposits or probes. You would go an entire cluster without meeting one person, and just picking up probes or minerals. So for the Hammerhead, what did Bioware think was the solution? Make several levels were all you do is run around and pick up minerals, crashed spaceship parts, only now you can fly and there’s a timer on the screen.
Yeah, doesn’t really look that exciting on paper, does it? It’s only somewhat more exciting playing it.
Bioware, you still don’t seem to get that with vehicular combat and the uncharted worlds, we want characters, plot, combat, and exploration simultaneously. Instead, the Firewalker pack is five worlds, each only supporting one of these gameplay types. On their own, they just don’t work. The sum is greater than the whole of its parts. Furthermore, the lack of a cohesive, independent story hurts immersion. I am Commander Shepard, greatest human in history, the galaxy’s biggest hero, fighting for humanity’s survival. Why should I divert my time and efforts into visiting the backwater worlds? Shepard’s story is epic, thus, anything he does has to have an epic or important feeling. When designing a level, you need to ask the question “Is this something the most famous person in history would do?” Does flying through canyons collecting iridium fit that bill? Nuh-uh.
My One Hot-Headed Complaint
I pride myself on being a fair person. I’m not one of those hyperactive, ultrasensitive gamers that thinks the end of the world is coming if something doesn’t live up to my expectations. Sometimes, sometimes, there is one thing that will push me over the edge, some flaw or design choice that makes me loose all hope in humanity. There is one such problem in firewalker: the utter lack of being able to save mid-mission. Remember how I mentioned earlier how the Hammerhead was made out of construction paper, and a well-aimed rock could blow it up? Well, imagine my shock after being blown up for the fifth time, that I saw I would have to restart the mission from the very beginning. There are NO savepoints, and no option to manually save during the mission.
Allow me to express my emotions calmly: I wanted to find the person in charge of the save system, tie them to a chair, and beat them to death with my xbox.
Add saves.
Future DLC
I will restate the key to solid Mass Effect DLC: add missions that combine story, characters, combat, and exploration into one solid mission. I don’t want to play an arcade shooter, or a racing minigame, or prospector with my Commander Shepard, I want to be a hero. When I land on a planet, it should present some type of challenge that makes me feel that I accomplished something extraordinary. There should be fully-voiced characters with difficult decisions in every mission. When I get back to the Normandy after a hard day’s work, I need to feel like the galaxy is a better place with me around.
Allow me to give some examples of DLC that would live up to my expectations.
Sample 1: The Normandy receives a distress signal from a small border colony. Upon arrival, the colonists inform Shepard that thresher maws have been attacking, and they are desperate. Shepard and crew climb into the Hammerhead and fly bravely into the thresher nest, destroying the hive and saving the colony. The people come out with thanks.
Sample 2: Shepard arrives at a backwater world, chasing down a lead regarding a dangerous criminal warlord. He fights his way to the base with the Hammerhead. Once inside, Shepard and company battle mechs to the warlord. There, Shepard must decide whether to accept the warlord’s bribe or kill him.
Sample 3: Shepard arrives at another small, independent colony. The colony is brutal, wild-west type place. There is a brutal gang war occurring. Shepard must side with one of the gangs, or neither. At the end, a brutal shoot-out occurs in the colony center. Shepard must then chase down the fleeing gang members in the Hammerhead.
Every mission should feel like a miniature game in itself. Fully developed plot, people, and action, that fits within the context of exploring the galaxy with Commander Shepard.
I’ve got my fingers crossed for the future.
#1248
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 10:15
#1249
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 10:36
#1250
Posté 25 mars 2010 - 11:09
Eh..i assume u havent played this on Insanity, please stop me now if u have, not tryin to be mean here, but ANYONE who has played this on Insanity will tell u that the Hammerheads "health" is way too low. And i was under the impression that the Hammerhead was a fighting vehicle (as in tank/apc), not a recon vehicle. Youre on par with exiting the Hammerhead but, i just think it needs a bit more armor, maybe go back to the Normandy Crash Site and take apart the Mako's armor, and slap it on the Hammerhead. Because all the crap the Mako has gone through, im pretty sure the armor is still in tip top shape.KDOG246 wrote...
The enemies were too easy in the DLC. No close quarter combat necessary and no ability to get out of the vehicle like ME1. The Hammerhead had the right amount of health since its portrayed as a recon vehicle, however, the ability to camp all day with homing missles and kill everything with two rockets is kinda lame. I never died once during this "mission" (kinda a scavenger hunt to me). If they added on foot combat, more enemies (except the rocket drone one which was fun.), and the ability to exit the vehicle at any time, I would of loved it, but it was kinda meh.




Ce sujet est fermé
Retour en haut




