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[Rodney McKay]

The Mako sections in ME1 are basically indefensible from a gameplay standpoint. Its controls are comically awful, and in the exploratory sections on random planets the route to your destination is often less than apparent, meaning that you often end up crawling slowly up the side of some jagged formation, slipping, cursing, and repeating. Whatever you think of ME:A, the controls on the Nomad, and the structure of the scenery you navigate, are much improved over ME:1.

Well, I liked the ME1 Mako, wonky physics and all.
(except for the last mission in the game where driving down that hill would sometime be too much for the physics and you'd skid out in weird ways.)

Blasting the larger enemies, boost jumping over their attacks, and platforming/climbing the random planets to get to some point of interest. It was fast and even though the physics were weird, having any physics at all gave the vehicle a unique feel that could be mastered with some practice. The ragdolling when you plow into those Geth spider tank things was always fun too.

I even liked the Hovertank levels that ME2 added as DLC. It was simple and not used much, but like the Mako it focused on combat and platforming which kept it active and engaging to use

The Nomad in comparison is one of the most boring all-terrain vehicles I've used in a video game. The 6WD mode is so slow, and it's required for even the smallest inclines (regardless if the planet is rocky or snowy). It's also slow even with upgrading it, but at least the upgraded boost helps a little. The boost jump is also pretty mediocre and only really useful when you get stuck on something.
And the fact that it doesn't have any weapons makes no sense to me, even if it was an optional upgrade. I get that you came to Andromeda wanting to peacefully settle there, but once the incredibly hostile aliens were discovered, you'd think a cannon or guns would be the first upgrade they'd make to it. Even in the Milky Way there were planets with natural threats like the Thresther Maw that would require some kind of defenses.

 

[BrassDragon]

Let's not forget that everybody zips around these planets in shuttles and flying transports as you trundle around on six wheels.

The Nomad doesn't even make sense in context.

 

[TheUnsunghero26]

The thing I really missed about the Mako, though, was the way it expanded the scope ME1's main-story missions. Typically, you start at one location (e.g., an administrative station on Noveria, a frozen and loosely-regulated world at the fringes of civilization), then get in the Mako and drive seamlessly to somewhere else to advance the story (e.g., through a blizzard to a research center located a few kilometers away from the station, at which certain people have been up to no good). ME2 and 3 just threw this away in favor of interconnected corridors and cinematic transitions, and I thought it was a significant loss. ME:A doesn't really replicate it, either: your travels in the Nomad are mostly in the service of sidequests in MMO-ish playgrounds, not tightly-constructed missions.

Well put. ME1 transitions from exploration to combat to dialogue were seamless. It's one of the reasons why I don't like that you wear casual clothes in hubs like the Nexus and kadara Port, it means you'll never encountered combat there.

 

[valkyre]

There is literally nothing worse than Mako in ME1... i swear the nostalgia goggles with ME1 are insane...

 

[BeauRoger]

Well put. ME1 transitions from exploration to combat to dialogue were seamless. It's one of the reasons why I don't like that you wear casual clothes in hubs like the Nexus and kadara Port, it means you'll never encountered combat there.

Man, I loved Noveria and the peak 15 arch, as well as Feros and the whole Zhu's hope storyline. Its been 10 years, but we havent come a very long way, not with the ME franchise anyway.

 

[TheUnsunghero26]

Man, I loved Noveria and the peak 15 arch, as well as Feros and the whole Zhu's hope storyline. Its been 10 years, but we havent come a very long way, not with the ME franchise anyway.

It's a large part of the reason why ME1 is my favourite. ME2 and 3 shifted away from the seamless world of ME1/KoTor and split sections into excitation and combat. I still love those games, but it feels like a step backwards.

 

[Cornbread78]

...him?

Yeah, that's his bae.

My ideal character would be a Pheebeex Cora x Lexi hybrid as of now, but I just got a full crew and need to learn more abour them all.

 

[bonesmccoy]

I disagree re: TW3, actually. That's a game that *did* take the time to polish its sidequests, and was in fact the game I was thinking of when I started musing about the effects of presentation (I didn't mention this because I think using it to beat on poor ME:A is likely to get tiresome).

One example, of many many choices - did you do the apparently simple witcher contract that unexpectedly spins off into the "Cave of Dreams" sidequest in Skellige? It's not a significant quest, but it was very memorable for me, largely because that entire quest chain was polished to a level pretty close to that of the main narrative. I could rattle off many other examples. In general, sidequests in TW3 are presented to the player in approximately the same way that "important" quests are, and it makes a huge difference (I'm sure there are exceptions, but I think this is generally true).

The other point -- which I tried to clarify with an edit to the line you quoted after the fact -- is that ME:A forces you to do quests in parallel or go insane, while TW3 mostly encourages you to play each one through to its end, so you don't end up back at the questgiver having completed 8 other quests and visited 2 other planets, with no clue why you're even there other than that there's a marker on your map.

Fair points, obeast, and well stated. I certainly rank W3 as the superior game - in almost every way - but don't believe it's sides quests are that much better. W3, for me, does certain things so damn incredibly well that the mudane seems exciting and novel.

 

[ffejeromdiks]

There is literally nothing worse than Mako in ME1... i swear the nostalgia goggles with ME1 are insane...

I think the Mako is infinitely more fun than the Nomad, I could squash geth and rocket off of mountains all day long, the Nomad is so friggin dull and boring in comparison, shit even the Mako from the ME2 DLC was more fun than the Nomad is.

The hivemind is friggin' wrong, the Mako was always awesome, it just required a little bit of mastery, once you came to grips with the controls you felt like a god boost-dodging over rockets and never getting touched.

It's certainly not nostalgia goggles for me either, as I played ME1 WAY after it's release.

 

[Lucreto]

Can you only scan certain planets with the anomaly on it? I went resource gathering thinking it was like ME2 but most of the planets are empty.

 

[Cornbread78]

Can you only scan certain planets with the anomaly on it? I went resource gathering thinking it was like ME2 but most of the planets are empty.

You can scan them all to get general information its history/composition, but there are no "hidden" things to be found by scanning random planets

 

[Lucreto]

You can scan them all to get general information its history/composition, but there are no "hidden" things to be found by scanning random planets

Thanks, so the only way to get resources is getting them from the odd planet and the nomad.

 

[Bisnic]

Thanks, so the only way to get resources is getting them from the odd planet and the nomad.

Actually, you get most of them just by walking around and looting mineral deposits scattered all over the place. You can get get some with cryo pods too, not to mention deconstructing weapons and armors. You can get some of the most common materials over 2000 with all the ways you can get them.

 

[UltraMav]

I think the Mako is infinitely more fun than the Nomad, I could squash geth and rocket off of mountains all day long, the Nomad is so friggin dull and boring in comparison, shit even the Mako from the ME2 DLC was more fun than the Nomad is.

The hivemind is friggin' wrong, the Mako was always awesome, it just required a little bit of mastery, once you came to grips with the controls you felt like a god boost-dodging over rockets and never getting touched.

It's certainly not nostalgia goggles for me either, as I played ME1 WAY after it's release.

ME2's Hammerhead was the perfect evolution of the Mako, sans its tissue-thin armor. They had the right idea and should have stuck with it. I also loved its incorporation into the Overlord DLC.

 

[jamsy]

I’ve always enjoyed the Mass Effect games, and did not get caught up in the hatestorm that the game has received upon launch. Anyways, finally decided to get the game, after Best Buy screwed over my preorder and I was able to get it used relatively cheap.

I started this game a few days ago, and put in maybe 15 hours. Here are my thoughts so far (playing on a PS4 Pro with the latest patch):

- The graphics are definitely underwhelming. Maybe after playing through Horizon my expectations have been skewed, but the game definitely doesn’t look great. Some notable standouts include the horribly plastic looking Asian lady captain and how the skin textures always take a couple seconds to load when they’re showing up close-ups of faces.
- The actual combat is pretty fun! Trying out the different powers and jetpacking and shooting stuff has been pretty engaging.
- The transitions from one planet to another are ridiculously slow. And that’s with being able to skip most of the animations.
- The new (friendly) alien race is just plain ugly. Horribly designed and just plain repulsive in a generic sort of way. WTF were they thinking?
- There’s “jank” all over the place. Weird lip synching issues. NPCs running around erratically. Camera getting stuck in weird angles when speaking with characters. NPCs that end up in weird situations when you speak to them (ie on top of furniture randomly). Characters being animated as if they’re speaking when they’re not. Audio cutting out. Dropships leaving characters levitating in midair. Etc.
- The sudoku glyph bullshit is awful. (Where do I get the items I can use to skip this?)
- The characters have been pretty whatever so far. Not awful, not great, not very memorable.
- Not sure what to make of the story. Kind of just there so far. Maybe it gets better?
- Despite the issues, the game is still strangely addicting.

 

[Revas]

There is literally nothing worse than Mako in ME1... i swear the nostalgia goggles with ME1 are insane...

I've never really had a problem with the Mako. It wasn't that great, but I think the hate for it is a little overblown.

Spoiler

I think I just have a high tolerance for jank in ME1 because it otherwise pressed all the right buttons.

 

[hawk2025]

- The new (friendly) alien race is just plain ugly. Horribly designed and just plain repulsive in a generic sort of way. WTF were they thinking?

"What would Knuckles look like in real life?"

 

[CrichtonKicks]

Yup. The thing that I don't think they've realized is that in order to make sidequests feel less fetchy, you have to polish them to something approximating the same luster as the main quests. Even if you pen narratives and character traits in your quests, if you don't present them to the player in a way that's similar to "important" quests in the same game, the player's brain is going to check out. This includes things like customized camera angles, animation and voice acting, and even cutscenes. The problem is that this is a metric fuckton of work, and Bioware doesn't seem to be up to it.

This is a good point. One of the things that made the first trilogy so special was how every conversation was treated with the same weight (except for Zaed and Kasumi unfortunately). In Andromeda and similar style games you know the moment you talk to an NPC and it doesn't switch to the proper cinematic camera that they are going to be an unmemorable NPC of no importance.

Look at this super simple sub quest from ME2. The level of effort into the camera composition with the Baria Frontiers rep, the body language showing her sorrow over the loss of her daughters, the characterization given to why this women is showing bias against non-Asari:

This cutscene is frankly better delivered and blocked than most of Andromeda's conversations for main characters and it's the eqivalent of an additional task in Andromeda.

 

[Sou Da]

This is a good point. One of the things that made the first trilogy so special was how every conversation was treated with the same weight (except for Zaed and Kasumi unfortunately). In Andromeda and similar style games you know the moment you talk to an NPC and it doesn't switch to the proper cinematic camera that they are going to be an unmemorable NPC of no importance.

Look at this super simple sub quest from ME2. The level of effort into the camera composition with the Baria Frontiers rep, the body language showing her sorrow over the loss of her daughters, the characterization given to why this women is showing bias against non-Asari:

This cutscene is frankly better delivered and blocked than most of Andromeda's conversations for main characters and it's the eqivalent of an additional task in Andromeda.

It's there and DAI too and it's definitely a budget saving technique. Iirc they admitted as much.

 

[Apoptomon]

Finished the main story last night. I had to reload a checkpoint halfway through the final boss 'cause it glitched out and didn't spawn an objective.

Spoiler

Kind of lacklustre, in that it involved gunning down the usual remnant and activating consoles while an Architect shot at you, rather than fighting the actual Archon themself

. I kept putting of the priority missions in favor of getting planets to 100% i.e. vault and outpost, and the crew/ally missions, so I basically only have busywork left (

Spoiler

additional tasks, [disgusted noise]

).
Overall, it's not perfect - e.g. odd dialog, occasional glitches (nothing game breaking, fortunately), clunky UI - but the main cast and the combat was enjoyable enough to sink ~140 hours into the game. I can definitely understand people being turned off by the DAI-in-space aspects ("here's a wide open area, go clear out the quest/landmark map markers and establish camps forward stations"), 'open world fatigue' in particular (hooray for fast-travel). The OT's tighter spaces and encounters are still there in the hubs and 'instanced' missions though.

I'm intrigued by the possible threads for DLC, but for now I'm left wondering about replayability - something that I felt was "easier to do (i.e. differentiate between playthroughs in terms of choices/class/personality)" in the ME OT than DAI.

 

[The JT]

Spoiler

Only got to the part where we enter the vault of Aya

. Played around 30 hours so far. Got Eos, Havarl, and Voeld to 100%. I like it well enough but with Nier and Persona, I'm gonna put it down. Any idea how long the main quest remains. I might just streamline the main quest.

 

[dreamer3kx]

Should I purchase or craft, dislike crafting in anything.

 

[kcp12304]

Should I purchase or craft, dislike crafting in anything.

Craft the particular weapons & armor you know you want and keep researching those things up. Buy stuff you want to try.

 

[prag16]

I think the Mako is infinitely more fun than the Nomad, I could squash geth and rocket off of mountains all day long, the Nomad is so friggin dull and boring in comparison, shit even the Mako from the ME2 DLC was more fun than the Nomad is.

The hivemind is friggin' wrong, the Mako was always awesome, it just required a little bit of mastery, once you came to grips with the controls you felt like a god boost-dodging over rockets and never getting touched.

It's certainly not nostalgia goggles for me either, as I played ME1 WAY after it's release.

That's a new one. "The mako was actually awesome and criticisms of it are wrong because get gud noob." Haven't heard that one before..

 

[Sober]

Any way to get more Milky Way research data? Seems like I'm drowning in the other two categories but MW has way more stuff that could be unlocked for crafting...

 

[Madness]

Spoiler

Only got to the part where we enter the vault of Aya

. Played around 30 hours so far. Got Eos, Havarl, and Voeld to 100%. I like it well enough but with Nier and Persona, I'm gonna put it down. Any idea how long the main quest remains. I might just streamline the main quest.

Spoiler

Kadara is pretty long with some shitty sidequests, same with Elaaden if you choose. Coupled with the loyalty missions, you probably still have half the game to go. Almost as much as you have already played. If you strictly do critical path, maybe another 10ish hours.

 

[SirPinkyNose]

Having 37 hours with this game and not finishing it at all.
I got like 25 hours to 100% ME2.
This game is definitely too long. I think half of the content can be cut and the game will be significantly improved from it.

 

[_woLf]

I decided to fire this game up for the first time since the eye patch to see if it fixed some other bugs I was hitting.

Turns out I literally cannot travel anywhere in the game now and I'm permanently stuck in a system that has no actual content in it. Every time I try to use the galaxy map, it shoots my cursor to the far left and completely locks up. Have to Alt + F4 to close the game.

For fuck sake, Bioware, get your shit together.

 

[arhra]

I loved the Mako, wonky physics and all, and absolutely hated that it was gone in 2/3 (that was one of the changes that lead to me never even getting very far in 2 back at release - I've only recently gone back and finished it, thanks to EA Access giving me the whole trilogy digitally on my XB1).

Was very happy to see vehicle gameplay back in Andromeda with the Nomad, although the performance/handling of it could be a little more... lively (although I was perfectly OK with it once I got all the speed/boost upgrades... but if we get a sequel, strap some damn guns on the thing ffs), and the worlds you drive it around could have been better implemented (I'd love to see ME1-style uncharted worlds make a return in a sequel, even if they're largely empty - the worlds in Andromeda just feel so lived-in already, which doesn't really fit the concept of exploring a new galaxy that they were going for).

It's a large part of the reason why ME1 is my favourite. ME2 and 3 shifted away from the seamless world of ME1/KoTor and split sections into excitation and combat. I still love those games, but it feels like a step backwards.

Yeah, that was another of the things about 2 that just rubbed me the wrong way. Some of those moments where you'd seamlessly go from wandering around a place talking to people to suddenly fighting were some of my favourite moments in the first game (IE, when you go to Chora's Den for the first time, and get jumped by assassins outside it, or the sudden gunfight at Dr. Michel's clinic where you recruit Garrus, or various moments on Feros and Noveria, etc).

I'm finally playing ME3 right now, and it's especially bad in that game, where you know instantly whether you're ever going to see combat in a given area by whether you have your gun drawn or not, since they somehow managed to make the game so you couldn't draw/holster the damn thing without a loading screen.

 

[Wootball]

Well there it is. Thanks for the confirmation.

Further update - I never got the last one.

 

[Dany]

Yeah, that's his bae.

My ideal character would be a Pheebeex Cora x Lexi hybrid as of now, but I just got a full crew and need to learn more abour them all.

Reyes is better imo

 

[prag16]

Having 37 hours with this game and not finishing it at all.
I got like 25 hours to 100% ME2.
This game is definitely too long. I think half of the content can be cut and the game will be significantly improved from it.

You can certainly play it that way if you want. Might even be able to complete the game without ever stepping foot on a "main" planet or two.

If you do ONLY priority and loyalty missions, the game can likely be bum rushed in under 30 hours no sweat.

I'm probably on a ~70 hour trajectory (for 90%+ completion) for my first playthrough, but my NG+ should be glorious... I'll do all the good shit for a much tighter, < 40 hour run.

 

[Rodney McKay]

Having 37 hours with this game and not finishing it at all.
I got like 25 hours to 100% ME2.
This game is definitely too long. I think half of the content can be cut and the game will be significantly improved from it.

Yeah, having the games be shorter but with more substantial story choices is a main reason I played through Mass Effect 1+2 so much (less times with ME3, but I might go back to it a few more times in the future).

I'll probably only play through ME:A one more time once all the DLC is out since I didn't feel like most of the choices were that major and it would take a LONG time to do another full playthrough. I might not even do a 100% playthrough and I've done that with all the other ones.

Getting 100% completion on all the planets didn't seem like it did anything too major (I guess we'll find out in ME:A 2), so maybe I'll just be bee-line the main story and loyalty missions and skip most of the side stuff. It's probably way shorter doing it that way.

 

[Akai__]

Beat the game in the late night yesterday. 97% completion, Level 60 and it took me 90h 11m. Not sure if I want to do the remaining 3% quests. Some of them don't even have markers and are just tedious anyways. I'll just do some random stuff for now, like testing certain builds for NG+ and completing some easy achievements.

I don't know when I will start NG+, though. I kinda want to wait for several more patches and for a potential Scorpio version of the game. Wished all these tiny annoying issues wouldn't exist, because I really had a great time with the game. I'm sure my 2nd playthrough will be pretty fun, too, but I don't want to rush things.

Anyways... That ending

Spoiler

was also kinda disappointing. It felt way too rushed and falls into the ME3 category for me. The best endings are still ME1 and ME2 (in no paticular order) for me. At least they teased the Quarian Ark, but that was also hidden in a random NPC conversation.

 

[valkyre]

I've never really had a problem with the Mako. It wasn't that great, but I think the hate for it is a little overblown.

A lot of things are overblown and in the case of Mass Effect Andromeda there is no exception as well.

 

[Cornbread78]

Reyes is better imo

Gotta be the accent, he didn't give Reyes the time of day, lol

 

[Zakalwe]

There is literally nothing worse than Mako in ME1... i swear the nostalgia goggles with ME1 are insane...

It was bad, but I enjoyed the exploration as much as the frustration.

No goggles here, friend.

 

[Maledict]

It was bad, but I enjoyed the exploration as much as the frustration.

No goggles here, friend.

I just don't understand this.

There was no exploration in ME1. There was nothing to find! You could drive around on a featureless, procedurally generated planet where the only potential items were either a thresher maw, a Lego identikit base or a collectathon item that meant nothing,

It's fundamentelly foreign to me that people count that as exploration. I found the detailed side quests in ME2 that you found by scanning planets to be far more exploration in focus - you actually found unique content and environments if you explored.

 

[TC McQueen]

Getting 100% completion on all the planets didn't seem like it did anything too major (I guess we'll find out in ME:A 2), so maybe I'll just be bee-line the main story and loyalty missions and skip most of the side stuff. It's probably way shorter doing it that way.

Havarl is super easy to 100%, mostly because it's so much denser than the other maps. You only need to do (IIRC) two or three additional tasks on top of the story stuff, the quest you get on Aya, the

Spoiler

finding the Turian camp

mission, clearing the Vault, and the start of Jaal's loyalty mission.

 

[Sterling's_Gold]

I just don't understand this.

There was no exploration in ME1. There was nothing to find! You could drive around on a featureless, procedurally generated planet where the only potential items were either a thresher maw, a Lego identikit base or a collectathon item that meant nothing,

It's fundemanetally foreign to me that people count that as exploration. I found the detailed side quests in ME2 that you found by scanning planets to be far more exploration in focus - you actually found unique content and environments if you explored.

Well, if you're going to judge the effectiveness of a game's exploration only on the significance of things that you can find, that's mostly a subjective argument. A lot of people play Fallout 4 for 100+ hours because of "exploration." I personally didn't see the value of exploring in that game, as none of the aforementioned things felt significant or interesting. I rarely found any engaging quest content. Loot felt meaningless for the most part since I could craft whatever I needed. There were repeating, samey "legendary" enemies I guess.

My point is a lot of people wouldn't even argue with my opinion on those things found when exploring, yet they loved exploring Boston anyway. There are some elements of exploration that cannot be so easily quantified. I thoroughly enjoy the UNC planets in ME1 every time I replay the game, due to what I see as an atmospheric experience. The combination of synth music, beautiful skyboxes, and yes, the very emptiness that you probably don't like all contribute to this feeling. The fact that the worlds were so sparse is what made the "exploration" great for me. ME1 provides a feeling of loneliness that the other games do not. I felt insignificant and isolated. I felt like I was actually discovering something, even if I wasn't finding a lot of quantifiable things.

 

[Zakalwe]

I just don't understand this.

There was no exploration in ME1. There was nothing to find! You could drive around on a featureless, procedurally generated planet where the only potential items were either a thresher maw, a Lego identikit base or a collectathon item that meant nothing,

It's fundamentelly foreign to me that people count that as exploration. I found the detailed side quests in ME2 that you found by scanning planets to be far more exploration in focus - you actually found unique content and environments if you explored.

I preferred ME2 a great deal, but I really enjoyed driving around planets in ME.

Can't explain it. I'm probably mad.

 

[Jumeira]

I’ve always enjoyed the Mass Effect games, and did not get caught up in the hatestorm that the game has received upon launch. Anyways, finally decided to get the game, after Best Buy screwed over my preorder and I was able to get it used relatively cheap.

I started this game a few days ago, and put in maybe 15 hours. Here are my thoughts so far (playing on a PS4 Pro with the latest patch):

- The graphics are definitely underwhelming. Maybe after playing through Horizon my expectations have been skewed, but the game definitely doesn’t look great. Some notable standouts include the horribly plastic looking Asian lady captain and how the skin textures always take a couple seconds to load when they’re showing up close-ups of faces.
- The actual combat is pretty fun! Trying out the different powers and jetpacking and shooting stuff has been pretty engaging.
- The transitions from one planet to another are ridiculously slow. And that’s with being able to skip most of the animations.
- The new (friendly) alien race is just plain ugly. Horribly designed and just plain repulsive in a generic sort of way. WTF were they thinking?
- There’s “jank” all over the place. Weird lip synching issues. NPCs running around erratically. Camera getting stuck in weird angles when speaking with characters. NPCs that end up in weird situations when you speak to them (ie on top of furniture randomly). Characters being animated as if they’re speaking when they’re not. Audio cutting out. Dropships leaving characters levitating in midair. Etc.
- The sudoku glyph bullshit is awful. (Where do I get the items I can use to skip this?)
- The characters have been pretty whatever so far. Not awful, not great, not very memorable.
- Not sure what to make of the story. Kind of just there so far. Maybe it gets better?
- Despite the issues, the game is still strangely addicting.

Seriously, just hideous. Seem absolutely out of place with OG ME creature design, which was some of the greatest design in gaming.

 

[Zakalwe]

Seriously, just hideous. Seem absolutely out of place with OG ME creature design, which was some of the greatest design in gaming.

Really? I think they look really good, one of the best parts of the game.

Easily as good as all the other designs in the franchise.

 

[Ricker]

The quest Journal is a little confusing...they tried to put things together but when you have a lot of quests,its a little hard to get back in there to find and track them...also a level suggested would of been nice but its no big deal...twice now I started a quest where the last part had a ''come back later'' feel to it,like the sidequest on Eos about

Spoiler

The Hammers lol

 

[MagicWithEarvin]

Here's my BioTech Sentinel Build on Insanity against the

Spoiler

Remnant Architect

on Voeld:

https://youtu.be/N326B46ClPk

 

[Steve.1981]

There are some elements of exploration that cannot be so easily quantified. I thoroughly enjoy the UNC planets in ME1 every time I replay the game, due to what I see as an atmospheric experience. The combination of synth music, beautiful skyboxes, and yes, the very emptiness that you probably don't like all contribute to this feeling. The fact that the worlds were so sparse is what made the "exploration" great for me. ME1 provides a feeling of loneliness that the other games do not. I felt insignificant and isolated. I felt like I was actually discovering something, even if I wasn't finding a lot of quantifiable things.

For me, there's an obvious sweet spot between those empty (except for a crashed probe or League Medallion) ME1 worlds and Andromeda's that have Kett/Outcasts/Roekaar/Scavengers/etc... literally everywhere in every direction you head.

Looking at the Bioware games I've played, I think maybe Dragon Age: Origins had the best balance between the size of the maps, and the amount of things to find and do in them.

But like you say, different people value exploration in different ways.

 

[obeast]

For me, there's an obvious sweet spot between those empty (except for a crashed probe or League Medallion) ME1 worlds and Andromeda's that have Kett/Outcasts/Roekaar/Scavengers/etc... literally everywhere in every direction you head.

Looking at the Bioware games I've played, I think maybe Dragon Age: Origins had the best balance between the size of the maps, and the amount of things to find and do in them.

But like you say, different people value exploration in different ways.

Yeah, notwithstanding my paean to ME1's feel on the previous page, I think it would be tough to argue that the game nailed exploration. If nothing else, the level of asset and enemy recycling in ME1 is indefensible: there's no reason that every base should have the same layout, or that the only mobile, interactive lifeforms you encounter are geth, random pirates, and thresher maws (why are thresher maws even present on more than one planet? Do they have thresher maw spaceships?). Also, with rare exceptions, said lifeforms are "interactive" only in the sense that they all want to kill or eat you.

And as you say, ME1's payout for your exploration is rarely on the level of its atmospherics. Many of the worlds are a little too empty, and most of what you find is uninteresting. I think that this puts it well:

Imagine driving through a desolate ice field on a distant planet, picking up some debris on your scan, making your way to it and finding an old crashed probe, and finally, opening it up to find... a sniper rifle, of all things. It just doesn't work that well.

The point, though, is the ME1 got it half-right. Driving through "a desolate ice field on a distant planet" is essential to establishing a certain sort of Star-Trekkian mood. ME1 provides this, but doesn't really provide much payout at the end, for reasons that are almost certainly related to limited time and resources during development (the link above makes exactly this argument). That doesn't mean, though, that its sequels couldn't have improved upon the parts ME1 didn't do so well, rather than ditching the whole exploration gig entirely - or, in ME:A's case, replacing it with DA:I-esque maps that are so dense with activity that you lose any sense of being a true explorer.

 

[Deleted member 752119]

The Mako sections in the first game especially during the story missions sucked. They gave the game a sense of scale, but other than that they sucked.

We bitched about lack of Mako and complained about ME2 turning into a lienar third person shooter but guess what? It made the game better, more focused and allowed the combat to shine. The quests weren't spread across different planets and everything was self contained.

We didnt know this back then but after 4 years of 'Everything was open world' I have come to the realization that we were wrong and devs were right to make everything linear. I know we like to shit on devs every time they get something but maybe it's time for us to admit that we were wrong about asking for Mako to make a comeback and have ME go back to being more open. We did this. This is on us.

Agreed. Though I always did and was never one wanting the Mako to comeback. ME2 has always been my favorite by far and the only ME game I've played through more than once (3 times).

Sandbox games are harder for me to like as time goes on. They need to be well crafted enough to not feel like filler. ME:A did not succeed in that aspect most of the time despie having some cool views.

This is just open world rather than sandbox. Sandbox is having freedom to mess around, do missions differently etc. ME:A is just drive around, find some mission objectives and otherwise spend time going between mission objectives.

Though I agree that I've lost the little interest I have in sandbox games as time has gone on. I just don't like aimlessly messing around in games. Older I get the more I prefer tight, focused linear expreriences--be it narrative driven games or gameplay focused ones.

Open worlds are ok if they're nice to look at and pretty streamlined in getting you through quests without going back and forth all over the place like Witcher 3, Horizon etc. I have much less patience these days for things like ME:A that just have big, empty, boring open worlds with little incentive to explore and quests that have you traversing all over the place just to do simple things and then traverse back to the quest giver to receive some pointless "reward."

Again, not shitting on ME:A, I gave it an 8 overall. But I really disliked the open world planet parts of the game. I just liked the characters and character interactions/relationships enough to still enjoy the game despite disliking the sidequests and planet exploration.

 

[Sterling's_Gold]

Yeah, notwithstanding my paean to ME1's feel on the previous page, I think it would be tough to argue that the game nailed exploration. If nothing else, the level of asset and enemy recycling in ME1 is indefensible: there's no reason that every base should have the same layout, or that the only mobile, interactive lifeforms you encounter are geth, random pirates, and thresher maws (why are thresher maws even present on more than one planet? Do they have thresher maw spaceships?). Also, with rare exceptions, said lifeforms are "interactive" only in the sense that they all want to kill or eat you.

Thresher maws actually reproduce via spores which are able to survive space and even atmospheric reentry iirc. I think that they are supposed to be spread accidentally by explorers or something. I dunno, it's been a long time since I read the codex.

The real answer (and it is also the answer to your other complaints) is budget. The UNC content in ME1 was put together with very little resources (ME1 was pre-EA money). I'm sure Bioware planned to have a lot more variety in terms of creatures that the player could encounter, but the game was a huge undertaking. For example, multiple characters in ME1 reference something called "nathak" which are some kind of hostile alien. Nathak do not appear anywhere in any Mass Effect game afaik.

 

[mbpm1]

Thresher maws actually reproduce via spores which are able to survive space and even atmospheric reentry iirc. I think that they are supposed to be spread accidentally by explorers or something. I dunno, it's been a long time since I read the codex.

hmm, there's cool possibilities there which will not be explored.