Mass Effect Series Catch-All

NSMike wrote:

You people are all monsters for encouraging skipping the best Mass Effect.

Don't worry! I haven't seen anyone suggest that he skip ME2.

Stele wrote:

On PC you can make a custom me1 save to import into 2 very easily.

I saw on the Live marketplace that there's an add-on for making the previous choices. I'd honestly prefer the XBox version. Mostly for the controller. Plus I already own the DLC. I was going to skip ME1 already because I've played that through like 4 times and mostly just want to play 2 and 3 again.

Dyni wrote:
NSMike wrote:

You people are all monsters for encouraging skipping the best Mass Effect.

Don't worry! I haven't seen anyone suggest that he skip ME2.

ME1's problem is that while it does the whole grand tour of the galaxy better than the sequels, a lot of the gameplay and effects suffer in comparison. If you're already invested for the whole trilogy, you might as well power through the first one if only to hit all the important quests and such. If you're unsure about investing in all three, start with ME2, see if it hooks you, and then go back to ME1 if you're willing to try it.

Dyni wrote:
NSMike wrote:

You people are all monsters for encouraging skipping the best Mass Effect.

Don't worry! I haven't seen anyone suggest that he skip ME2.

For that, I shall rig this year's pizza bill gamble against you!

ME2 is really, really good. I just don't find it better than 1.

ME is extremely underrated. Yes it's repetitive and the inventory system sucks, but it deserves at least one run through if you're serious about committing to the series.
ME2 is the most focused of the series. It has the best character development of all 3, and by far the best final mission (except for the very, very end) I've ever played in a series.
ME3 is my personal favorite. It's bigger, more ponderous, more "epic" (overused word but applies here): and wraps up the story in what I believe is a very satisfying way.

Not really going out on a limb with these opinions, but there you go.

ME1 plays like you are stuck in deep, deep mud. That's my main beef with it. Even with M&KB it's sluggish, movement feels weird, and the cover system's not very good. Its shooty-shooty-corridors stuff is worse than all the other shooty-shooty-corridors stuff in the series and there feels like (though may not actually be) so much more of it that it just kills it for me.

Credit where credit is due, though: the ending mission is pretty great. It's better-paced than the rest of the game and it's evocative of the later stages of ME3 in how hard it just throws you at the problems and expects you to handle them.

Ed Ropple wrote:

ME1 plays like you are stuck in deep, deep mud. That's my main beef with it. Even with M&KB it's sluggish, movement feels weird, and the cover system's not very good. Its shooty-shooty-corridors stuff is worse than all the other shooty-shooty-corridors stuff in the series and there feels like (though may not actually be) so much more of it that it just kills it for me.

Credit where credit is due, though: the ending mission is pretty great. It's better-paced than the rest of the game and it's evocative of the later stages of ME3 in how hard it just throws you at the problems and expects you to handle them.

Agree with all of that, but also between Mass 1 and 2, Bioware really took some leaps forward at scene-staging/blocking and their characters conveying emotion non-verbally. It makes a big difference in how the game presents to the player, I think. Doesn't mean Mass 1 doesn't do *a lot* of stuff right, but I would have loved to see a Mass1 built with the tools/know-how Bioware acquired after making it.

ubrakto wrote:
Ed Ropple wrote:

ME1 plays like you are stuck in deep, deep mud. That's my main beef with it. Even with M&KB it's sluggish, movement feels weird, and the cover system's not very good. Its shooty-shooty-corridors stuff is worse than all the other shooty-shooty-corridors stuff in the series and there feels like (though may not actually be) so much more of it that it just kills it for me.

Credit where credit is due, though: the ending mission is pretty great. It's better-paced than the rest of the game and it's evocative of the later stages of ME3 in how hard it just throws you at the problems and expects you to handle them.

Agree with all of that, but also between Mass 1 and 2, Bioware really took some leaps forward at scene-staging/blocking and their characters conveying emotion non-verbally. It makes a big difference in how the game presents to the player, I think. Doesn't mean Mass 1 doesn't do *a lot* of stuff right, but I would have loved to see a Mass1 built with the tools/know-how Bioware acquired after making it.

The world building and music are the main things I responded to in ME1.

DSGamer wrote:
Stele wrote:

On PC you can make a custom me1 save to import into 2 very easily.

I saw on the Live marketplace that there's an add-on for making the previous choices. I'd honestly prefer the XBox version. Mostly for the controller. Plus I already own the DLC. I was going to skip ME1 already because I've played that through like 4 times and mostly just want to play 2 and 3 again.

It's worth noting this is far from complete and a lot of stuff will be missing in ME2 and ME3 as a result. Best example that can RADICALLY change your game based on how you play through ME2...

Spoiler:

There is zero chance of the Salarian dude from Virmire surviving. It will assume the "renegade" options were taken in combat there, regardless of your other choices leaning paragon or renegade. Depending on your actions with a character in 2, it can create a very different ending to a specific mission in 3.

kuddles wrote:
beanman101283 wrote:

They also revamped the control scheme from the 360 original to be more M&KB friendly.

A note of caution. They actually completely redid the interface and control scheme for a keyboard and mouse exclusively for all three games on the PC. Meaning playing with a controller isn't even an option unless you resorted to some kind of software like xpadder, and even then it might have issues due to the new control scheme using hotkeys for your powers instead of a radial menu.

That might be a consideration if you were planning on playing the trilogy from your couch.

Controller support was actually modded in for ME2 not that long ago

http://me3explorer.freeforums.org/me...

He's currently working on ME3 and then ME1.

ME1 feels like the Bioware RPG that I know and love. ME2 took leaps to make it a cover shooter, and I could not more openly express my disdain for cover shooters more than I already have.

Yes, I'd rather spend 4 hours running around a space station, solving diplomatic incidents and embarrassing rumors and the peculiar question of what the hell are these cyborg half spiders doing to this finders-keepers space station we're all using without questioning than ducking behind crates and shooting guns at a different set of mercenaries or aliens or zombie surrogates.

Gumbie wrote:

Controller support was actually modded in for ME2 not that long ago

http://me3explorer.freeforums.org/me...

He's currently working on ME3 and then ME1.

Man, Bioware needs to pay this guy and release his mod as an official patch.

NSMike wrote:

ME1 feels like the Bioware RPG that I know and love. ME2 took leaps to make it a cover shooter, and I could not more openly express my disdain for cover shooters more than I already have.

Yes, I'd rather spend 4 hours running around a space station, solving diplomatic incidents and embarrassing rumors and the peculiar question of what the hell are these cyborg half spiders doing to this finders-keepers space station we're all using without questioning than ducking behind crates and shooting guns at a different set of mercenaries or aliens or zombie surrogates.

ME2's only superficially a cover shooter in the same way that Portal is superficially a first person shooter. You can play ME2 that way, but it's slow, it's sloggy, and you're missing at least half of the game.

ME2's brilliance is in combining the superficial aspects of Third Person Cover Shooting to add immediacy to the surface layer of the game, while employing a combo-based HP-type-specific squad combat RPG in the back end. The combination of those systems only truly reaches fruition in ME3, but ME2's "cleaner" system is a fun thing in itself.

ME1's whodunit style of RPG could be entertaining for a while, but it's really better for world-building, and most characters suffered from being almost fatally bland as a result. The fact that Saren stand out so much in ME1 is as much him being an effective antagonist as it is nearly the entire protagonist cast being dead in space. Garrus and Tali are notably rather flavorless lore-spouting machines.

Regardless of how effectively you can or can't use the ME2 combat system as a cover shooter, I wanted far less of it than Bioware seemed inclined to put front and center. I wasn't impressed by, nor looking for, that kind of combat from them. The combat still boils down to way more time spent killing random mercenaries, aliens, or the choice stand-in for zombies, rather than fleshing out the world more.

NSMike wrote:

Regardless of how effectively you can or can't use the ME2 combat system as a cover shooter, I wanted far less of it than Bioware seemed inclined to put front and center. I wasn't impressed by, nor looking for, that kind of combat from them. The combat still boils down to way more time spent killing random mercenaries, aliens, or the choice stand-in for zombies, rather than fleshing out the world more.

So is it that you thought too much of the combat was cover shooter combat, or was it that too much of the game itself was combat, whatever the style?

Playing the game with the power combos also quickens the pace of combat by an order of magnitude. An Adept Speed Run on Insanity for the Valves part of the Collector Base runs about 4 minutes. You could obviously run it faster on Hard Core. You might as well be playing Narrative Mode on Normal. The drama that precedes this combat section is 15-17 minutes. Most of the time I spent in ME2 was spent talking, not in combat. The part about playing the back end of the game is about speeding up the combat.

I liked the heat system in ME1. It basically just slowed down your RoF but if you didn't mind waiting a minute or so between shots you could do some very cool stuff. I put a bunch of scram rails on a sniper rifle X and ended up with a one-shot rifle that did about as much damage as the Mako's main gun.

The thought of doing an ME series play-through while skipping ME1 just seems like blasphemy to me. I tried to do it and just couldn't. My last ME1 play-through (late last year or early this year I think) was around 26 hours I think and that was for a 100% run. You could critical path it in half that time probably (in all fairness I have played through ME1 completely like 10 times so I know it like the back of my hand and I use a guide to help with the collection quests).

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

So is it that you thought too much of the combat was cover shooter combat, or was it that too much of the game itself was combat, whatever the style?

Both, for the most part. There was less combat in ME1, and it was much less like a cover shooter. The default, shallow approach to combat in ME2 is cover shooter, no doubt. Yes, it can get deeper, but that's not what I want from the game. My time is best spent in the Mass Effect universe experiencing it, rather than learning how the combat system, if enough time and effort is put into it, can be not-at-all like a cover shooter. On the surface, that's what it is, and that's the kind of gamer they're courting. I play games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Monster Hunter, etc. for my combat system fulfillment. That's what those games are. I don't care for where the ME2 combat system started, so I'm not going to invest time in figuring out where it shines, nor am I looking for that from that game. I want super-cool sci-fi places, ships, planets, stations, and stories.

In fairness to Mass Effect 2's story, it is really damn good. I was going to make a comparison of ME2 and ME3 to J.J. Abrams Star Trek efforts and meaningless romps into action movies with sci-fi trappings, but that's unfair. They definitely don't delve into that, even with ME3's various story sins. My principle complaint with ME2 and ME3 remains the combat systems.

I think it depends on where you think ME2's combat started. As an Adept, you have, like, a pistol and a submachine gun, neither of which were particularly effective by themselves. You have to use the power system unless you enjoy slogging through buckets of HP that you can't handle because your guns are (intentionally) wimpy.

If you're insistent on just playing the worst parts of ME2's game mechanics, you can use a Soldier and blow through the combats with nearly as much speed as an Adept anyway. Most of the game would then still be talking, not combat. I liked it easy so I played all my ME stuff on Hard Core. I was spending more time running through the combat zones (sorry, "Storming") than I was actually shooting and stuff - because you kill mooks that fast.

Or if you don't like cover shooting? Use a Vanguard and ignore cover altogether! Just blast guys in the face with a shotgun.

Guy's using combos, but that's because this is Insanity. On Normal you could just run around headbutting guys like a krogan.

You cannot do this in ME1. None of the classes had that kind of mobility, and none of them were really designed around close combat. If you hate cover-based combat, you should hate ME1 a whole lot more because combats there were a whole lot sloggier, there wasn't as much variety (they were nearly all cover-based shooting segments for nearly every class), and if you used the powers, you could easily stumble on a broken one, since so many of the powers were just straight up broken.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I liked the heat system in ME1. It basically just slowed down your RoF but if you didn't mind waiting a minute or so between shots you could do some very cool stuff. I put a bunch of scram rails on a sniper rifle X and ended up with a one-shot rifle that did about as much damage as the Mako's main gun.

I liked it too, but the way it was implemented was a tad broken in that with the right setup you could fire pistols nonstop, making them the most powerful weapons in the game.

LarryC wrote:

If you hate cover-based combat, you should hate ME1 a whole lot more because combats there were a whole lot sloggier, there wasn't as much variety (they were nearly all cover-based shooting segments for nearly every class), and if you used the powers, you could easily stumble on a broken one, since so many of the powers were just straight up broken.

NSMike wrote:

Both, for the most part. There was less combat in ME1, and it was much less like a cover shooter.

I kinda agree with both of these, and in a weird way, I can see how ME1's not-as-good-as-the-sequels cover based combat added up to something with a unique feel. Almost like its faults had a certain charm.

NSMike wrote:

My time is best spent in the Mass Effect universe experiencing it, rather than learning how the combat system, if enough time and effort is put into it, can be not-at-all like a cover shooter.

I can see that, I'd just say that for some people the hybrid approach of combat+experiencing the universe really worked. The two fed into each other, and made each more than they would be just on their own. Obviously that didn't work for you, but it works for a lot of us. And it's a testament to the game's quality that you could have that complaint and still really like the games.

Ed Ropple wrote:

ME1 plays like you are stuck in deep, deep mud. That's my main beef with it. Even with M&KB it's sluggish, movement feels weird, and the cover system's not very good. Its shooty-shooty-corridors stuff is worse than all the other shooty-shooty-corridors stuff in the series and there feels like (though may not actually be) so much more of it that it just kills it for me.

Credit where credit is due, though: the ending mission is pretty great. It's better-paced than the rest of the game and it's evocative of the later stages of ME3 in how hard it just throws you at the problems and expects you to handle them.

Weird. I got on fine with the controls in 1 while I had no end of trouble with 3. 3 felt like a step back in lots of ways.

Budo wrote:

ME is extremely underrated. Yes it's repetitive and the inventory system sucks, but it deserves at least one run through if you're serious about committing to the series.
ME2 is the most focused of the series. It has the best character development of all 3, and by far the best final mission (except for the very, very end) I've ever played in a series.
ME3 is my personal favorite. It's bigger, more ponderous, more "epic" (overused word but applies here): and wraps up the story in what I believe is a very satisfying way.

Not really going out on a limb with these opinions, but there you go.

What about ME3 makes it your favourite? Are you including the DLC?

strangederby:

Weird. I got on fine with the controls in 1 while I had no end of trouble with 3. 3 felt like a step back in lots of ways.

The controls in 3 are very intentional and deliberate. Movement controls were made to create a character who was supposed to move around a lot while making use of both hard and soft cover while doing so. This made the control scheme relatively complicated and harder to master. ME1's controls were far simpler, which made them easier to master, but also ultimately a much simpler game with a muddled mechanical premise.

LarryC wrote:

strangederby:

Weird. I got on fine with the controls in 1 while I had no end of trouble with 3. 3 felt like a step back in lots of ways.

The controls in 3 are very intentional and deliberate. Movement controls were made to create a character who was supposed to move around a lot while making use of both hard and soft cover while doing so. This made the control scheme relatively complicated and harder to master. ME1's controls were far simpler, which made them easier to master, but also ultimately a much simpler game with a muddled mechanical premise.

i must have been playing it wrong. I remember many frustrating instances of getting stuck to cover or pressing the button to go into cover and Shepard rolling into the path of gunfire instead.

There are specific instances and button presses to control Shepard (which are different between the franchises). Shepard's roll is new in ME3. It's an evasive move that allows you to extend your survival in open ground while under fire. It also allows Shepard to go from cover to cover with minimal exposure, with the press of a single button. To do the same in ME2, you'd have to unattach from cover, move, and then reattach to cover. In ME3, you basically indicate which cover you want to go to, press the spacebar, and then Shepard does the thing.

In general, you want to be running into cover, so you're going to be pressing that spacebar all the way into cover, and double-pressing in case you want to vault over it instantly. This avoids having to gauge the range to get into cover. Getting a feel for the range of the stickiness of cover is good, too. Shepard's a lot less sticky in ME3 because a lot of players, especially Vanguard players, didn't like using the hard cover mechanics relying instead on soft cover to preserve their mobility.

To be clear, my biggest frustrations with cover shooters are:

-Getting forced into cover when I didn't want to get into it in the first place, like accidentally snapping to it because I pressed the wrong button near a cover spot
-Getting glued to the cover and not having the controls respond the way you expect them to when you want to get out of cover
-Taking buttloads of damage if you don't use cover

Those are all present in all three Mass Effect games in one way or another. It's just that ME1 is far less punishing if you don't use cover.

Basically, I've always considered cover shooter controls to be confusing, unintuitive sh*t that provides some of the biggest simple frustrations I've known in recent games. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to just walk forward and end up flipping back and forth between two cover spots over and over because the cover system hijacks the normal "walk forward" controls.

NSMike wrote:

Those are all present in all three Mass Effect games in one way or another. It's just that ME1 is far less punishing if you don't use cover.

Yeah, I can see that. Even the way the the targets moved ("ENEMY IS EVERYWHERE!") made using cover less essential in ME1. Sometimes being in cover in ME1 just felt like "here, come kill me everybody!" or "this is just for waiting for your shield to reset." It did feel like you had to break out of cover in ME1 to get a good angle on enemies while 2 and 3 were more like Gears.

In the end, if you don't like cover shooters you just don't like cover shooters. If the alternate system in place of using powers isn't for you either, then yeah--I can see what you're saying. I just don't know how widespread your complaint of not liking either one of those is, even if I agree there was something special about ME1's combat.

space bar

Ah I was playing on xbox but I take your point.