Mass Effect 1 may have the best combat in the series.

[TakeyB0y2]

I feel like I had the most fun with ME1's combat more than the others despite the flaws that others have pointed out. I actually liked how I didn't have to rely on cover and felt like I had more options when it came to abilities to use.

Mako combat was really bland though. I wish you could upgrade the Mako or something, because you just use the same two weapons the thing has in the same way (missile, fire the rapid-fire gun until the missile recharged, missile, repeat) throughout the entire game.

 

[King of Asgaard]

According to Occam's Razor, the simplest solution is often the best.

In light of this, while ME1 may have had the most potential and depth in its combat, it had more than enough flaws to hold the experience back considerably. The crappy balancing meant that certain party compositions and classes were far superior to the rest. To make an example of myself, I played as an Adept my first time round, and I found it to be a plodding experience because I didn't have the firepower to deal insane damage, nor the armour to tank oncoming attacks. It got to the point where I had to lower the difficulty to continue. Let's get one thing straight: I've done multiple SL1 runs in Dark Souls without breaking a sweat, yet ME1 forced me to lower the difficulty to proceed. Why's that? Because ME1 rewarded dumb luck instead of finesse and proper planning. Oh, and the inventory was bollocks.

Therefore, the simplification of ME2 was more than welcome, as it cut out the chaff of its predecessor and made the experience more fluid and enjoyable. Gone was the shit inventory management and asinine upgrade system, which were replaced my tighter controls and combat which flowed beautifully. Powers had more versatility, and weapons packed an appropriate punch, instead of the nerf guns in ME1, aside from shotguns which were OP.

As far as its 'potential' goes, potential does not a good game make. Case in point, Brutal Legend. A combination of hack-and-slash and RTS, but it caters to neither genre's following, as it didn't have enough finesse in combat of the former and not enough micromanaging and precision strikes of the latter. While my overall impression of it was positive, it was mostly due to the soundtrack and the dialogue that did it, and not the gameplay or story.

 

[The Headcrab Farmer]

You are not alone Dansen, i thought it was the best one too. ME 2 was dull.

 

[Loonyyy]

According to Occam's Razor, the simplest solution is often the best.

In light of this, while ME1 may have had the most potential and depth in its combat, it had more than enough flaws to hold the experience back considerably. The crappy balancing meant that certain party compositions and classes were far superior to the rest. To make an example of myself, I played as an Adept my first time round, and I found it to be a plodding experience because I didn't have the firepower to deal insane damage, nor the armour to tank oncoming attacks. It got to the point where I had to lower the difficulty to continue. Let's get one thing straight: I've done multiple SL1 runs in Dark Souls without breaking a sweat, yet ME1 forced me to lower the difficulty to proceed. Why's that? Because ME1 rewarded dumb luck instead of finesse and proper planning. Oh, and the inventory was bollocks.

Therefore, the simplification of ME2 was more than welcome, as it cut out the chaff of its predecessor and made the experience more fluid and enjoyable. Gone was the shit inventory management and asinine upgrade system, which were replaced my tighter controls and combat which flowed beautifully. Powers had more versatility, and weapons packed an appropriate punch, instead of the nerf guns in ME1, aside from shotguns which were OP.

As far as its 'potential' goes, potential does not a good game make. Case in point, Brutal Legend. A combination of hack-and-slash and RTS, but it caters to neither genre's following, as it didn't have enough finesse in combat of the former and not enough micromanaging and precision strikes of the latter. While my overall impression of it was positive, it was mostly due to the soundtrack and the dialogue that did it, and not the gameplay or story.

Using Occam's Razor deductively? You're gonna have a bad time.

 

[octafish]

I don't know about any of that, I just know when I finished ME1 I wanted to keep playing more and more Mass Effect, and when I finished playing ME2 I never wanted to see it again in my life. I have about 14 characters in ME1 and I finished it at least five times, I played ME2 once and didn't buy ME3...

 

[Dansen]

According to Occam's Razor, the simplest solution is often the best.

In light of this, while ME1 may have had the most potential and depth in its combat, it had more than enough flaws to hold the experience back considerably. The crappy balancing meant that certain party compositions and classes were far superior to the rest. To make an example of myself, I played as an Adept my first time round, and I found it to be a plodding experience because I didn't have the firepower to deal insane damage, nor the armour to tank oncoming attacks. It got to the point where I had to lower the difficulty to continue. Let's get one thing straight: I've done multiple SL1 runs in Dark Souls without breaking a sweat, yet ME1 forced me to lower the difficulty to proceed. Why's that? Because ME1 rewarded dumb luck instead of finesse and proper planning. Oh, and the inventory was bollocks.

Therefore, the simplification of ME2 was more than welcome, as it cut out the chaff of its predecessor and made the experience more fluid and enjoyable. Gone was the shit inventory management and asinine upgrade system, which were replaced my tighter controls and combat which flowed beautifully. Powers had more versatility, and weapons packed an appropriate punch, instead of the nerf guns in ME1, aside from shotguns which were OP.

As far as its 'potential' goes, potential does not a good game make. Case in point, Brutal Legend. A combination of hack-and-slash and RTS, but it caters to neither genre's following, as it didn't have enough finesse in combat of the former and not enough micromanaging and precision strikes of the latter. While my overall impression of it was positive, it was mostly due to the soundtrack and the dialogue that did it, and not the gameplay or story.

Thats too bad. Maybe you should have brought Garrus or Tali along to round out the tech side and Ashe or Wrex to tank. I rofl stomped everything on my first play-through as a sentinel once I realized the importance of abilities. I had a simaler problem with ME 2 actually. I played on hardcore I believe and I eventually had to reset the difficulty. It was just so boring. You couldn't do anything with out losing all your shields. While the same could be said of ME 1 you could eventually overcome this by getting better armor and leveling up. Yes, ME 2 flows better than ME 1, but thats because it has way less going on than its predecessor. It is no longer an attempt to fuse an RPG and tactical shooter into a single genre, its just a decent third person shooter with a minuscule RPG element. ME 2 was a much more shallow experience.

Abilities versatile? What? Tech was only good for shields and synthetics, while biotics was only good for armor and barriers. You had to constantly switch between the two and its rather boring and repetitive after a while. Same thing for the guns, you had your anti shield guns and your anti armor guns. There isn't that much going for it. Was combat in ME 1 as good as it could have been? Certainly not, however it could have been something amazing.

 

[Dryk]

I feel like I had the most fun with ME1's combat more than the others despite the flaws that others have pointed out. I actually liked how I didn't have to rely on cover and felt like I had more options when it came to abilities to use.

Mako combat was really bland though. I wish you could upgrade the Mako or something, because you just use the same two weapons the thing has in the same way (missile, fire the rapid-fire gun until the missile recharged, missile, repeat) throughout the entire game.

I never used the Mako unless I had to, you got way less experience for kills with it

According to Occam's Razor, the simplest solution is often the best.

No it says that the simplest model should be used as long as it predicts what you are attempting to model with the required accuracy. It's also not always right.

 

[Zhukov]

Oh God no.

The weapons had no weight. You shoot a guy (with a silly 'pewpewpew' sound) and all it does is lower his health bar. No other reaction. Unless you use hammerhead ammo in which case it goes to the other extreme and ragdolls him against the wall like he's been hit by a train. Same with abilities, come to think of it. They either have no visible effect beyond lowering health bars or they result in ridiculous ragdolling.

Compare to ME3 where enemies will stagger and flinch depending on where they get hit, how hard and whether they have extra protection. They panic if they get set on fire. They convulse if they're being hit with electricity. They're heads pop on a successful headshot. Actual visual feedback.

In ME1 biotics were stupidly overpowered. You had multiple abilities that could instantly ragdoll any enemy, rendering them helpless. Play a biotic Shepard, take Liara and Wrex with you and you can ragdoll anyone who looks at you funny. Tech abilities on the other hand could... lower enemy shields a bit? Hack an enemy synthetic who would be useless because the AI sucked? Yay.

Once again, compare with ME3 where the abilities have varied uses against different enemies, biotic abilities don't automatically render enemies helpless and tech abilities actually help. Also, you can combine abilities for added effects.

ME1 had bugger all enemy variety. In terms of mechanics there were enemies that melee you (husks, varren), enemies that shoot at you (almost everyone else), the occasional biotic that can ragdoll you in an incredibly annoying fashion and Krogan who regenerate (and shoot you).

Compare with ME3. Enemies can lay down smokescreens. Enemies have shields that require them to be disarmed or flanked. Enemies can spawn turrets or repair allies. Enemies can cloak. Enemies can spawn smaller enemies when injured or killed. Enemies can use drones. Enemies can buff one another. Enemies can consume their own dead to gain armour. There are mechs that you can hijack if you kill the pilot. Even the basic shooty enemies can throw grenades to flush you out of cover. Variety!

Hell, even the level-up system in ME3 was better. You can diversify each skill a bit and add extra effects to the basic one. Plus the difference between each level is actually enough to be noticeable. In ME1, levelling up just made the numbers slightly larger in tiny increments. You levelled up! Now the 'warp' skill does +2% damage and has -%5 cooldown. Thrilling! Deep!

So yeah, it is my view that the combat in ME3 shits all over the combat in ME1.

 

[Jandau]

Oh God no.

The weapons had no weight. You shoot a guy (with a silly 'pewpewpew' sound) and all it does is lower his health bar. No other reaction. Unless you use hammerhead ammo in which case it goes to the other extreme and ragdolls him against the wall like he's been hit by a train. Same with abilities, come to think of it. They either have no visible effect beyond lowering health bars or they result in ridiculous ragdolling.

Compare to ME3 where enemies will stagger and flinch depending on where they get hit, how hard and whether they have extra protection. They panic if they get set on fire. They convulse if they're being hit with electricity. They're heads pop on a successful headshot. Actual visual feedback.

In ME1 biotics were stupidly overpowered. You had multiple abilities that could instantly ragdoll any enemy, rendering them helpless. Play a biotic Shepard, take Liara and Wrex with you and you can ragdoll anyone who looks at you funny. Tech abilities on the other hand could... lower enemy shields a bit? Hack an enemy synthetic who would be useless because the AI sucked? Yay.

Once again, compare with ME3 where the abilities have varied uses against different enemies, biotic abilities don't automatically render enemies helpless and tech abilities actually help. Also, you can combine abilities for added effects.

ME1 had bugger all enemy variety. In terms of mechanics there were enemies that melee you (husks, varren), enemies that shoot at you (almost everyone else), the occasional biotic that can ragdoll you in an incredibly annoying fashion and Krogan who regenerate (and shoot you).

Compare with ME3. Enemies can lay down smokescreens. Enemies have shields that require them to be disarmed or flanked. Enemies can spawn turrets or repair allies. Enemies can cloak. Enemies can spawn smaller enemies when injured or killed. Enemies can use drones. Enemies can buff one another. Enemies can consume their own dead to gain armour. There are mechs that you can hijack if you kill the pilot. Even the basic shooty enemies can throw grenades to flush you out of cover. Variety!

Hell, even the level-up system in ME3 was better. You can diversify each skill a bit and add extra effects to the basic one. Plus the difference between each level is actually enough to be noticeable. In ME1, levelling up just made the numbers slightly larger in tiny increments. You levelled up! Now the 'warp' skill does +2% damage and has -%5 cooldown. Thrilling! Deep!

So yeah, it is my view that the combat in ME3 shits all over the combat in ME1.

This guy. Everything he said here. End of story. I'd elaborate, but I see no point as everything I came here to say is covered in the above post.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Although I prefer the streamlined nature of me2, me1's combat really grew on me. It's awkwardness gave it grit

 

[frpzxvaa]

It made them all feel like nerf guns and none of the enemies reacted to being shot until they died.

 

[Doom972]

I think Mass Effect 1's strongest point was exploration: Scanning planets on the Mako, rather than scanning from orbit, made the game world (or galaxy) feel bigger, and the game as a whole more epic.
I also liked the heavier use of RPG elements - You had to choose if you'd rather develop in combat, powers, utility, or diplomacy and how much you would develop in each.

As for the combat - I didn't like it as much as I did in ME2. The cover mechanics are useless and fighting melee enemies is much more frustrating than it should be.

I liked the combat in ME2 better than ME1 because of the improved cover mechanics and heavy weapons, and better than ME3 because of the heavy weapons. The way heavy weapons were implemented in ME3 made them mostly useless.

 

[satsugaikaze]

There were a lot of wrong things about Mass Effect 1's gameplay, to be sure, but like a couple of people here have said, the game had so many novel concepts as a hybrid RPG-shooter and a metric ton of potential that Bioware simply dropped completely in favor of the easy Gears of War route.

In fact 1's gameplay is so far removed (and I'm not just talking in terms of quality/polish) from the rest of the games I don't really like comparing them. For me, it's like a gardner whose initial apple tree didn't bear proper fruit, so instead of persevering with the concept he grafted all the branches to grow oranges.

Mass Effect 1's wonky balance was simply a matter of the numbers being too easily manipulated. By the endgame you had all kinds of crazy ragdolling from shotgun Hammerhead rounds, or assault rifles that never generated heat, or Explosive Round sniper rifles that you could use to kill thresher maws on foot.

Let me restate: Explosive Round sniper rifles that you could use to kill thresher maws on foot. Insanity difficulty.

But at the same time that's the lulziness of the game for me! That's what an RPG can be like, when you have a (admittedly very easy) mastery of the figures to manipulate your character to become some sort of demigod.

I would concede that visually feedback wasn't all that great and that in terms of enemy AI, variety and behaviour the later games refined it to a tee. I'd argue that sound feedback was passable enough, though. People complain about the whole pew-pew-pew thing; they kinda recycled half those gun noises for 2, just under various filters - and there was certainly an impact noise in 1 that sounded ridiculously fleshy.

Also, environments in 1 felt far more organic and open (perhaps because in ME2 you spent the greater part of the game indoors lolol), which is something I feel they brought back in 3, thankfully enough. If there was one thing I truly missed from Mass Effect 1 it was those incredible sweeping, grand vistas and skyboxes.

Spoiler

Just find this planet in the game, land and then just look up at the sky. It's almost dead silent in the game.
I don't think I've ever had a game give me such a tangible feeling of the hugeness of space as I did when I looked up at that skybox.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Snip

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree.

The way your weapons and armor progressed wasn't well balanced at all, and created a difficulty curve that just turned on a dime halfway through the game. The first half, it's practically impossible to hit anything more than 10 meters away. The second half, on the other hand, is a laid back stroll down piss-easy street, where your guns are so powerful, accurate, and efficient, and your armor so beefed up, that using powers, cover, and squad tactics just becomes a detour.

Speaking of powers, cover, and squad tactics, using them was finicky as fuck. I don't even bother trying to take cover in Mass Effect 1, because it's completely useless. Powers have to be aimed with pinpoint precision to be any use, and if you miss, you've just wasted that power for the entire fight because they take so long to cool down. This makes hot-keying useless (and even if it wasn't, only being able to hot-key one power in the first game, on console anyway, is a joke) because you can't trust it. Therefore, whenever you want to use any power, either your own or one of your squad's, you have to break the flow of the combat by going into the power wheel, and painstakingly selecting every last target (which is particularly annoying if the thing you wanted to target has taken that last second to move behind a rock).

AI, both enemy and friendly, is pants. Enemies only have two battle tactics, 1) Run right at you, or 2) Stand still. Every biotic enemy spams stasis everywhere, and every tech enemy spams sabotage. These are the two 'stun lock' attacks in the game, and stun locks are always bullshit. On the other side of the battle, your allies don't do anything useful unless you specifically direct them to, and that's just when they're not actively getting in your way, or getting themselves killed in 3 seconds so I have to waster medi-gel reviving them (Garrus, I love you and all, but in ME1 you were by far the worst for this).

Last, but not least, the frame rate goes to shit whenever anything more than a minor scuffle occurs.

Not to say ME2's combat was perfect. I still think it was way better than the first game's, however, it did indeed rely too much on cover, and there wasn't a great enough sense of progression. For all its other faults, I'd say ME3 had by far the best combat in the trilogy. With a much greater variety of enemy classes, all of whom had their own clearly defined roles on the battlefield, and all of whom had AI that actually worked. Cover based shooting still underpinned the system, but it wasn't your only option. It had more weapon variety than the previous two games, and powers were an essential and fluid component of the system.

 

[deathbydeath]

I admit that it had potential, but sadly potential does not create a good game.
Most RPG/shooters have potential but I've yet to see one that really perfected the mixture. Probably the closest I can thing of it the Borderlands series, but even that's most loot based, not character based combat.

Yeah, but potential creates great sequels, which ME2 wasn't. It seriously irritates me that Bioware failed to recoup on their experiment, and instead we got the GOTY-winning back-alley abortion that everybody knows and loves.

Seriously, though, imagine what a proper sequel to Mass Effect would look like, assuming Bioware learned from their mistakes. Makes me want to see them take on Jade Empire 2.

 

[verdant monkai]

the heating system is actually a good idea.

I totally agree with you there, but without wanting to be a dick..... I think you were a bit confused when you played ME1. It is universally accepted as the least functional and most awkward to play game in the trilogy. Just think about the cover interface for a moment, most of the time I couldn't get it to work. Also the cross-hairs didn't work very well either, and I've played it like 8 times and I still have no idea how to use grenades.

I think your alone on this one mate. In my opinion ME3 is the best game functionally, but with the worst story. I love no. 1's story whilst hating the combat. ME2 I just plain love, a great story with great combat, it's in my top ten games of all time.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Mass Effect 1 wasn't a samey, boring corridor shooter and chest high wall frenzy so yeah, I'm inclined to agree about best combat.

 

[BrotherRool]

It's not as bad as people make out, and maybe, just maybe it's close to ME2, but it's nowhere near as good as ME3.

*Busy work upgrade system with little strategical depth and lots of numbers that really don't matter (I get to improve my accuracy by 1%? Is that better than reducing my cooldown for one power by 1.5%? sort of thing). Doesn't have the tactical options of complexity of 3

*Horrendous AI. You know whats not fun? Having 20 mercs bum rush you every time you enter a sidequest mission room. It encouraged sitting in the tunnel outside taking cheapshots

*Abilities that take minutes to recharge but can be spammed. Combat consisted of throwing all your powerful abilities on the biggest target you could reasonably take out (or spread across all the rest of the targets) and then playing an ordinary shooter for the next two minutes whilst they recharged.

*The playstyles weren't nearly as distinctive as in 2 and 3, no charging heal-by-attacking Vanguards, Adepts couldn't combo and their ability cooldowns were long enough that they spent most of the game shooting etc. In ME3 each class is a noticeably different way to play the game (with the exception of sentinel maybe) all with their unique strengths and strategies.

*Adequate use of many powers effectively required stopping time, ruining flow and just annoying menu-based work for something that is a button press on 2 and 3

*Awful party AI that frequently led to teammembers taking cover on the wrong side or getting stuck. (Admittedly this one didn't get a huge amount better as the series progressed)

*Lack of variety of enemies. This didn't get solved till 3 but 3 blew it away with all sorts of mooks that required various strategies to take down.

*Less distinctive weapons than 3 (and whilst upgrading cryo etc was fun, it stretched it too far and required a lot of time inventory sorting. 2 went too far in the other direction)

(Also Saren was the stupidest boss fight of the series, narrowly beating out ME2's baby Reaper and ME3's cutscene cheating Kai Leng. The only forgivable thing is by this point balance has gone to pieces in ME1 and a good build should be able to kill the final boss so quickly you don't have time to register the frog-jumping scooby-doo villain with glowing eyes)

The shields and recharging ammo I'm more on the fence about. ME1 definitely had a sense of continuity with the health, on the other hand after the first level I don't believe I ever healed my health again, so it wasn't massively different. I don't think waiting for cooldowns was particularly fun, but neither was running out of ammo so it sort of balanced out. The different ammo did encourage use of multiple weapons more often though and created gameplay challenges where you needed to push forward to an ammo point, or separate the enemies enough to use melee.


So I may give you that it was on par with 2, but 3 blows it out of the water