Mass Effect 3

[Freya]

Wtf are you talking about? The first one was so incredibly repetitive. They just copy pasted the zones. Every Compound or whatever was the same thing just maybe a door was opened in this one instead of being closed like in the last 5 you visited.

[Vyk]

Why do you keep bashing Xbox in that statement? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the first ME an Xbox exclusive? So if they ruined stuff in the sequel it was to cater to PS3 people. Not to mention, for some reason most Xbox players are bred on FPS games for some reason. So they don't need things dumbed down. Most people need more challenge

[Jiro]

Oh yes

[Loony BoB]

Both ME & ME2 had their ups and downs.

ME was terrible for the equipment/inventory system. Basically the UI was utter crap. Everything else was pretty good if not great, although the Mako exploring could have been improved. It just needed a bit more thought to the presentation of the planets, I felt.

ME2 was terrible for the scanning system. Basically the way you made money (or 'resources') was utter crap. Everything else was pretty good if not great, although the battle areas could have been more varied. It just needed a bit more thought to the variation of the battlefields, I felt.

For the ME battle areas, I think it was a bit better in that it had more opportunity to do different things, such as that one area where you drove the Mako around a sort of obstacle course planet, shooting bots and turrets and whatnot, and then nearer the end you have to hop out and start sniping over a vast distance before you would charge in. There wasn't anything remotely like that in ME2. Overall I really enjoyed both games, though, despite the parts that could have been done better.

[kotora]

Why do you keep bashing Xbox in that statement? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the first ME an Xbox exclusive? So if they ruined stuff in the sequel it was to cater to PS3 people. Not to mention, for some reason most Xbox players are bred on FPS games for some reason. So they don't need things dumbed down. Most people need more challenge

PS3 = Xbox360 for people with more money. I'm not gonna make distinctions between the different console crowds. Point is, this generation of games has been super dumbed down (aka made "casual" or whatever they like to call it) in gameplay and presentation and that smurfing sucks. It has nothing to do with challenges.

[Ouch!]

The rampant elitism is staggering.

In my day, we had to trudge uphill killing zombies both ways!

[Vyk]

Damn casual gamers lol?? Its a double-edged problem though. Everyone expects grade A presentation in games. Which costs a lot of money. To make that money they have to cater to a larger (moronic) crowd. The companies are just as much to blame as the mass of console-owning idiots. The companies need to realize at some point that gameplay, story, artistic style, and general substance are more important than pretty graphics. I'll always argue that it'd be better to take a cut away from trying to be leading/bleeding edge and make something cheaper and yet better. Then they don't have to spend as much, can be more creative, do it right, and also not have to please so many people

[Shiny]

I hope they won't screw up the battle system like they did in 2 and make it more interesting instead of just shooting your way through rooms with conveniently placed boxes.

Kotora, what are you on about? Did you never play through 1? The combat in ME has always been shooting your way through rooms with convieniently placed boxes. Frankly, having done nearly the entire game on insanity for the first one I can safely say the "shoot everything til it dies" works in every situation bar none. The only time the combat got different is when the Mako was involved and well in 2 the Mako was gone (though I loved the DLC Hammerhead! Awesome times zipping round worlds in that wish we had the choice of doing old school ME1 planetary exploration or the scanner stuff, personally would never use a single bloody probe!!)

as usually you seem to be rather unable to make distinctions between things

sure combat was similar in ME1 and 2, but the areas were much less repetitive in the first one, they were more open and there were much less cover boxes and we got a smurfload more equipment customization. While there was too much equipment lying around in the first one, in the second they screwed it up by oversimplifying everything to cater to the XBox audience. I thought the system with the weapon overheating was better than having to pick up the "heat" (ie ammo) clips lying around the battlefield.

They were supposed to improve upon the combat system of the first one, not cater to the lowest common denominator and turn it into another cheap TPS. But then again I guess all the Xbox kiddies loved it.

also I never understood why people were bitching about the Mako. I thought those parts of the game were pretty cool.

Good to see you work there or have some sort of telepathy as it seems you know what they were trying to do. I doubt highly they were trying to oversimplify it for the Xbox audience. What does that even mean? Makes no sense and it's condescending. The Mako DOES suck. Quite simply, it's the only thing I didn't enjoy in the game aside from something else you mentioned -- which was the fact that there WAS too much equipment lying around. They improved on that in the sequel. Less is more in video games. When you have too much of something it becomes either tedious or too easy.

Also, I can't believe people are still having the PS3 vs. Xbox 360 argument. That's so ridiculous. If the games are dumbed down then play on harder settings or don't play the game at all instead of complaining about the gamers who play them as if that makes any sense. If you have a problem it's obviously because it's either you or the game.

[kotora]

Nobody's having a PS3 vs. Xbox argument. stop putting up straw men.

Vyk: they've been at the limit for graphics in the current consoles, especially the xbox, for a few years now. Graphics are only getting just a little better. It's another really valid point and i'm impressed by your thinking. argument. Companies aren't making games retarded because they're putting all their money into some evil graphics department that's leaving the other parts of the game underdeveloped.

[Ouch!]

So many people shouting out about straw men, and yet no Raistlin to be found. Seriously, knock it off.

The weapon "customization" in Mass Effect wasn't particularly anything special, and the cluttered inventory and poor UI to manage it made it hardly worth the effort of going through. So Mass Effect 2 went in the opposite direction towards minimizing the options. I'm with Shiny in so far as I don't necessarily think that more is better.

If you want an RPG with a gun, go play the Fallout games so you can pause and get your 95% hit rate for the body shot. Mass Effect has always been a third person shooter with RPG elements, and I think Mass Effect 2 was just being honest about that. Would I have liked a couple more options for each character than just four places to put stats? Sure. At the same time, I appreciated the way the limited skills encouraged you to use different allies depending on the situation and type of enemy you expected to be facing.

Also, the Mako was . World exploration in Mass Effect was an absolute joke and by far the biggest disappointment about the entire game. Mass Effect 2 has a greater sense of a fuller universe because of the diversity of environments which was absolutely lacking in the first game. The sequences with the Mako only served to emphasize how one world was copy pasted from another with a color palette swap.

[Madame Adequate]

Exploration in ME was , but that had nothing to do with the Mako and everything to do with the fact that nowhere was very interesting.

The Mako itself was fine. No idea why people hate it. ME was a better game overall and ME2 certainly lost something in their streamlining efforts.

[Mirage]

I have no idea what you're talking about, I loved the exploration in ME1, even if many structures were copypasta.

Actually, I think that for many of the structures, it made sense that they had similar interior. I just thought of it as if you had a good design for a mining plant, several organizations would buy that same thing and use it several places. Same with freighters, and various other structures.

I loved driving around in the Mako too, finding debris, ancient artifacts, destroying the odd tresher. Heck, I even loved surveying planets and just reading their description. I am also a huge astronomy nerd though.

[Shiny]

straw men.

I don't even know that is, but it also sounds ridiculous. I think there's too much complaining going on for something that has nothing to do with the game. We don't know what the cut off point to graphics will be, but they have been getting progressively better and most games nowadays looks amazing on HDTV. So that's just nitpicking. Seriously again, if you don't like it don't play it. No one is holding a gun to your head saying you have to play a game you dislike only to complain about it and some how mix in a Xbox gamers argument because you're obviously bias to another console.

Also, I loathe the Mako because it's controls were crap and I hate having to explore a mostly empty landscape with the occasional alien for too long. It would be different if there was more diversity in the worlds like there is when you go to places like The Citadel. There should be just as much diversity in unexplored worlds.

[Iceglow]

Exploration in ME was , but that had nothing to do with the Mako and everything to do with the fact that nowhere was very interesting.

The Mako itself was fine. No idea why people hate it. ME was a better game overall and ME2 certainly lost something in their streamlining efforts.

I don't know if I would rate ME1 as better than ME2 but it is certainly different, the planetary scanner for some people gave a sense of a bigger universe, to me it merely got tiresome especially since resources couldn't be sold off and even if you did sell them off what would you buy? There was a grand total (excluding medigel upgrades) of around 20 - 30 decent items to buy whereas in ME1 I would often spend time selling off redundant equipment to purchase newer, better gear such as SPECTRE gear (through multiple playthroughs it's possible to equip 3 party members with this elite equipment, more if you kept importing the same character over and over) It seemed to me that ME1 certainly offered a better more evolved trade system than ME2 but I'm going to agree the UI was terrible.

The weapon "customization" in Mass Effect wasn't particularly anything special, and the cluttered inventory and poor UI to manage it made it hardly worth the effort of going through. So Mass Effect 2 went in the opposite direction towards minimizing the options. I'm with Shiny in so far as I don't necessarily think that more is better.

You're right more items doesn't generally mean more diversity, lets face it if you have a weapon class, for example a handgun/pistol. For arguments sake I'm going to use Imperial technology weapons from the Warhammer 40k universe:

You begin with an Automag pistol (basically a current tech level pistol), you move up to the Laspistol (though you can argue these are the same tech level as automags), you then go to the Bolt Pistol (automag firing highly explosive rounds, big, bulky, awesome, most powerful conventional handgun out there) after that you get the speciality pistols such as the Seraphim's hand flamers (flamers which have limited range but can be twin carried, effective on light infantry or unarmoured targets or for clearing a bunker I'd imagine) or a Melta pistol (limited range, superheated air is used to melt anything in the way, cutting your way through something like a tank with these puppies is easy) or Plasma pistols (unreliable as hell but when they work dear god, best of both worlds, plasma will cut through heavy armour and smoke the flesh inside in one shot just be sure to pack something as a backup to go with) Now disregarding the fact that in the literature of 40k there is millions of variants of automag/laspistol/hand flamer/melta pistol/plasma pistol/bolt pistol you have 6 weapons. Except where the enemy is going to be entirely mechanical (melta pistols here we come) for example Necrons or entirely exposed to the effects of a flamer (hello chaos cultists) who if they have either the armour piercing bolt pistol or boil away anything plasma pistol is going to use a laspistol or automag ever again?

A better solution to the huge amounts of guns found in ME1 was kinda there too but because of poor UI and thinking through became a bit pointless, the slots for weapons, ok so top tier weapons got 3 slots and bottom tier get 1 slot makes the number of weapons become a bit more justifiable but mix in the ME2 upgrade system for the guns to gain slots and power and then the ME1 buying your upgrades and fitting them in to slots is better. Far better to offer many different addons what can combine in interesting ways (worst thing was they'd allow you to double up an add on for stacked effects or use two addons like "stabilizer IV" and "stabilizer V" if only one stabilizer could be used but an enhanced stock could be fitted to eat more stability it'd be awesome) than to offer too many weapons which barely make any sense (though really they did, the guns when you look at them came in about 6 or 7 different series, the series would have a similar look and some guns would fire less frequently but more powerfully, thus overheating more and others would have high rates of fire and low damage per shot last type was the balanced gun where damage, ammo and shots before overheat would be averaged out)

Still theres a lot of things that could happen, frankly I expect we'll see more of the ME2 combat in 3 than anything else.

Both ME & ME2 had their ups and downs.

ME was terrible for the equipment/inventory system. Basically the UI was utter crap. Everything else was pretty good if not great, although the Mako exploring could have been improved. It just needed a bit more thought to the presentation of the planets, I felt.

ME2 was terrible for the scanning system. Basically the way you made money (or 'resources') was utter crap. Everything else was pretty good if not great, although the battle areas could have been more varied. It just needed a bit more thought to the variation of the battlefields, I felt.

For the ME battle areas, I think it was a bit better in that it had more opportunity to do different things, such as that one area where you drove the Mako around a sort of obstacle course planet, shooting bots and turrets and whatnot, and then nearer the end you have to hop out and start sniping over a vast distance before you would charge in. There wasn't anything remotely like that in ME2. Overall I really enjoyed both games, though, despite the parts that could have been done better.

I'm going to agree with BoB on most of this, which is a shock, I didn't believe we would agree on this. I personally, wasn't impressed with the use of the Mako on Noveria because once you take the game of the more casual settings the only real way of dealing with the mission was to drive 20ft and then get out and snipe at ridiculous ranges using the Mako in that mission to fight became sheer suicide because the enemies AI became too good at predicting how you'd move in an enclosed space so evading the damage you took became all but insurmountable.

as usually you seem to be rather unable to make distinctions between things

sure combat was similar in ME1 and 2, but the areas were much less repetitive in the first one, they were more open and there were much less cover boxes and we got a smurfload more equipment customization. While there was too much equipment lying around in the first one, in the second they screwed it up by oversimplifying everything to cater to the XBox audience. I thought the system with the weapon overheating was better than having to pick up the "heat" (ie ammo) clips lying around the battlefield.

They were supposed to improve upon the combat system of the first one, not cater to the lowest common denominator and turn it into another cheap TPS. But then again I guess all the Xbox kiddies loved it.

also I never understood why people were bitching about the Mako. I thought those parts of the game were pretty cool.

I sure can make a hell of a lot of distinction here, the thing is you're plain wrong. ME1 combat zones aside from the main missions (Noveria, Virmire, Feros ect) were very repetitive even the Citadel combat zones were the same textures as every other coridor you fight in. ME2 was more of the same very much literally so. There were not more cover provided, maybe you just wasn't using the cover right in the first game or maybe you had invested in shield armour generating addons meaning you weren't at risk of having them taken down so often but, there was an equal amount if not greater amount of convienient cover on the first game as the second game.

Pandering to the Xbox community, wow...ok way to go off on your high horse there pc gamer. Frankly I gave up on pc gaming because pc gaming constantly requires me to rebuild my computer with the latest upgrades and components. I don't happen to have 3 - 400 quid laying around to build my computer anew every year to get new parts to keep on playing games. Even though you claim in later posts that you're not having this argument your argument here is either a really valid point and i'm impressed by your thinking. where you could not adequately refute my point about ME1 and ME2 both being exactly the same when it comes to how combat works and so decided to use the fact that I play and advocate playing games on the xbox over other formats to create a diversion or well, well Raistlin in a bikini is not one of the scariest most mentally scarring images you could ever be forced to masturbate to, though seriously? Oh catering for the xbox gamers huh huh is a weak argument because frankly the fact is compared to the latest 3rd person shooters I played on PC...oh wait sorry they don't really produce games purely for PC except for MMO's and RTS' anymore so the game would've been about 10 - 15 years old and more dumbed down than the average halo, killzone or call of duty game of today. (not speaking from experience here kids but the thought of raistlin in a bikini is eww, the thought of being made to wank madly to it would make me comit suicide)

[Shiny]

On a side note, I think I'm screwed for this game. Cheated on Liara with Jacob. SHE MIGHT FIND OUT.