[360, PS3] Mass Effect 2 *(Spoiler Warning)

[Arwin]

I'm actually wondering now - there's a lot of games that my wife would care to play, if she could skip the shooter parts. Heck, even I feel about some of these games that way sometimes. I don't see it happening soon, but it would be a real treat if you could have that option in games in the future. I know it seems silly, but it could bridge a gap from very casual to very hardcore.

 

[AlNom]

mm... fair enough. While casual is pretty easy, there still is a fair amount of combat and I'm guessing your wife wouldn't have the patience to go through all that on her own. The alternative would be for you two to sit down and she gets to make all the choices while you play the rest. XD

Still, for a game heavy in dialogue it would be neat to have a mode similar to Bayonetta's where you just go through the combat with an instant-win button. Call it the movie experience for Mass Effect.

 

[patsu]

I tried playing the ps3 demo, first part is kinda choppy on performance and it tears a bunch, second part seems to perform better. They should have locked it to 30fps as fps will jump high when you look say at a wall, then drop right back down once you see more stuff which makes movement seem uneven. If you try it, skip the second part as it has spoilers.

I'll wait for the real game. I'm probably impervious/oblivious to framerate jump, but spoiler is a no no.

 

[Arwin]

I've played through the demo now, both the non spoiler and spoiler bit, and while I can appreciate the scope of this quite a bit and the underlying story, I really, *really* don't appreciate the crappy shooting at all, and no special powers can redeem that (they're not all that hot either). And there is way, way too much of it too. Also, the dialogue system seems so pointless. The demo does not do the game much good if all it manages to do is give the impression it's a very, very bad corridor shooter!

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I have no problem with the shooting at all... you just have to take cover, otherwise accuracy goes down a lot.

And there's some cool depth in the powers. I'm playing on insanity now and warp detonations are cool, makes it worth to have Jacob in your squad (incendiary ammo for everyone + pull). It really feels like the squad's dominating everyone.

 

[Neb]

Shooting is great in ME2. Using cover to move ahead tactically while pausing to use powers both for you and your teammates to win the fight. Flanking works quite nice to.

 

[Arwin]

I don't have a problem with it, it is easy and predictable. I just find it boring and clinky compared to other shooters, first or third person. And there's too much of it for me as a result.

 

[AlNom]

Play on the harder difficulties then? With all the powers, I'd hardly call it boring..

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I can understand Arwin's view. While the shooting aspects are ok and much better than in the first game, it's still some ways off from regular shooter games. I think it played pretty good, but I never even complained about the first game

I think demos in general have hard time to impress people. I think that while playing a demo it has to convince the people much faster than when playing the full copy and it often leads to disappointment.

Food analogy. A good game is like a great meal, but when you make a demo, you have to take that meal and condense it into a tasty sugary cookie. It's really hard to condense a meal into a cookie! :smile:

 

[sham63]

Looks like he wants $10 for Xpadder Sure looks nice on pc though.

You can always try JoyToKey. I have used it to map joysticks, but haven't tried it on gamepads.

 

[Arwin]

I can understand Arwin's view. While the shooting aspects are ok and much better than in the first game, it's still some ways off from regular shooter games. I think it played pretty good, but I never even complained about the first game

I see plenty of similar complaints from other people over at Eurogamer. However, I will say that trying the demo on PC just now with my new GPU (5570 - stuck with low-profile in my small casing) was enlighting. The game controls and runs much better, and I never even saw the hacking mini-games in the PS3 version - were they even there?

This demo had a different second mission, which gave a slightly better impression in that you could do stuff like argue with a guard over torture and gain paragon points for talking him out of it, stuff like that. When he gave in though, it was very suspect. In general, everything is layed on really thick, and every bit of the demo seems to strongly push you in a certain direction, but I guess there is freedom here and there too.

It feels a lot like an American version of Final Fantasy XIII ... Is that a strange thing to say? There's still way too much fighting in here. Also, whomever wrote this game should steal from better examples. For instance, the opening medical emergency thing - why not just steal some stuff from House for that instead of just sticking with 'higher dose' as the culmination of that completely unexciting moment. Maybe even give control to the player to help save yourself.

Ah well. At least I can see why people will like this game. Still don't think I do, but I'm more interested now than I was before.

Oh, and this game is WAAAAY better with the mouse. I can't imagine why anyone would want to play it with a pad on PC (well , maybe the couch thing).

 

[AlNom]

I see plenty of similar complaints from other people over at Eurogamer. However, I will say that trying the demo on PC just now with my new GPU (5570 - stuck with low-profile in my small casing) was enlighting. The game controls and runs much better, and I never even saw the hacking mini-games in the PS3 version - were they even there?

Yeah, they were there, but mostly in the second mission. For some reason they removed them in the intro level. I can't see any reason for that unless it was for pacing.

This demo had a different second mission, which gave a slightly better impression in that you could do stuff like argue with a guard over torture and gain paragon points for talking him out of it, stuff like that.

Can't say the demo is particularly good, but they have to cram in what they can (and I don't agree with their decision to switch up the second level. It's like they were afraid that PS3 players would care if it were the same ). No, what's really disappointing is that they don't include the new intro comic sequence they have been discussing. Had they done that, PS3 players would have at least been able to import the character and results of the first mission into the full game - they wouldn't have to sit through the entire bloody sequence all over again.

Oh, and this game is WAAAAY better with the mouse. I can't imagine why anyone would want to play it with a pad on PC (well , maybe the couch thing).

Depends on your proficiency with the gamepad I suppose. They do play differently certainly - I found myself pausing battle more often on console whilst using the hotkeys more on PC. I don't mind either format.

 

[Arwin]

Depends on your proficiency with the gamepad I suppose. They do play differently certainly - I found myself pausing battle more often on console whilst using the hotkeys more on PC. I don't mind either format.

Well that's the irony of it - I have been playing on consoles almost exclusively for maybe two console cycles. I can't even remember when I last played a shooter on PC, though I guess I kept things warm by trying a demo here and there occasionally. The ratio of having played stuff on gamepad vs PC/mouse in the last ten years is probably 99.5/100 in favor of the gamepad. But particularly for this game, it just works soo much better with the mouse. At least, again, that's my experience.

 

[joker454]

Well that's the irony of it - I have been playing on consoles almost exclusively for maybe two console cycles. I can't even remember when I last played a shooter on PC, though I guess I kept things warm by trying a demo here and there occasionally. The ratio of having played stuff on gamepad vs PC/mouse in the last ten years is probably 99.5/100 in favor of the gamepad. But particularly for this game, it just works soo much better with the mouse. At least, again, that's my experience.

Using all the powers I find to be much easier on gamepad, as well as picking conversation options, changing weapons, etc. I'm slowly getting used to it on key+mouse though. The visuals on pc are just too good to pass up, so my second play through will be on pc. I'm starting to sound like Nebula I'm going renegade this time with my hottie commander, what's odd so far is that the renegade conversation choices seem really harsh in the dialog wheel, but then when she talks it's never quite so harsh. At least not yet anyways. So far the dialog wheels makes it seem like she will be a total bitch, but then when she speaks your option she seems more hardened commander. I was hoping for more bitchy though, as everyone needs to fear Celene Shepard! Especially the dumbass Krogan, hate them. I wish the game was more like Fallout in that respect where you can kill everyone. If I could then I would eviscerate planet Krogan.

 

[AlNom]

One thing with keyboard/mouse that's more difficult is trying to maneuver whilst storming/running.

 

[KKRT]

Yeah, they were there, but mostly in the second mission. For some reason they removed them in the intro level. I can't see any reason for that unless it was for pacing.

They are in intro scene in PS3 Demo.

 

[AlNom]

Most were removed.

 

[Neb]

One thing with keyboard/mouse that's more difficult is trying to maneuver whilst storming/running.

Dont know about 360 pad but with mouse and keyboard I find the stick to wall function a bit slow to react in some situations. It can happen that you dont stick to wall or that when in cover you press zoom/fire and nothing happens. Not sure if control related or crappy visibility checking.

Also cutscenes that are videos look worse than ingame except a few which are CGI and/or jawdropping artwork based (Omega landing cutscene). Not just lowres but also worse visuals and effects.

 

[nightshade]

Volumetric light shafts were about the only graphical advantage that I found the videos had...everything else looked poor cause of being lowres.

 

[Neb]

Yeah the dynamic sunshafts was nice in cutscenes. I hope their new engine has UE3.5 code or their own code to add things like SSAO, sunshafts and more like UE3.5 powered games.