MASS EFFECT 2

[Copter400]

Anyway, awesome game, and as AngryMan said "may it build on the original's success while eliminating its predecessor's few flaws". I hope they especially tighten those Mako sections. I didn't find them overly annoying but they did get a bit tedious at times. Also, how the hell can it climb almost vertical cliffs and not be affected by the different gravitational levels of the individual planets.

Argh, the Mako. After a particularly bad acid trip, I came up with the following:

Imagine that you've got a cow, and you need to take it to market. But the cow can't move, y'see, so you have to push it along in your wheelbarrow. But then, right, these people start firing heavy ordnance at you, because they don't want you to take your cow to market. So you fire back, but all you've got is a water pistol and one of those Australian Geographic foam rockets that misses half the time.

That's what driving the Mako is like.

 

[wilsonscrazybed]

MASS EFFECT 2 has been annonced but will be ariving soon

Think you might have misinterpreted.

"Well, the first one took three and a half years, but because we've got a lot of the tools and a base level now, it's not going to take that long. I'd say soon, but not real soon."

Soon, but not real soon. That could be pretty much Christmas until mid 2008 or even later. I wouldn't count on Christmas release considering the developers have some titles in the works for this year. I would guess somewhere around q1 or q2 next year is a realistic "Soon, but not that soon." Be ready for me to bump this post in 12 to 14 months.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Everybody complains about driving the Mako... so I find it odd that I didn't have much trouble at all, even in really heavy terrain. The odd time I'd get stuck, yeah, but better than 99% of the time I could get the Mako out of the ditch myself. Got to some really odd locations, too, courtesy of those kick jets. And if anything the main cannon with its zoom sight was just too good; if I had any opportunity to maneuver and bombard from long range, the rest of the fight tended to be stepping over corpses to get to the objective.

(Then again, I've played a lot in tank sims.)

For me, the real "cow in a wheelbarrow" experience was HL2's airboat. Admittedly, that may be because I was playing it on the 360... I get the feeling that the airboat's physics were tailored for mouse-and-keyboard controls, leaving us thumbstick guys a bit adrift. But in comparison, the Mako was a lithe and precise predator.

-- Steve

 

[Easykill]

Everybody complains about driving the Mako... so I find it odd that I didn't have much trouble at all, even in really heavy terrain. The odd time I'd get stuck, yeah, but better than 99% of the time I could get the Mako out of the ditch myself. Got to some really odd locations, too, courtesy of those kick jets. And if anything the main cannon with its zoom sight was just too good; if I had any opportunity to maneuver and bombard from long range, the rest of the fight tended to be stepping over corpses to get to the objective.

(Then again, I've played a lot in tank sims.)

For me, the real "cow in a wheelbarrow" experience was HL2's airboat. Admittedly, that may be because I was playing it on the 360... I get the feeling that the airboat's physics were tailored for mouse-and-keyboard controls, leaving us thumbstick guys a bit adrift. But in comparison, the Mako was a lithe and precise predator.

-- Steve

I agree, although it was a bit annoying before I found out it could zoom in so much. And I don't play tank sims.

 

[Rath709]

I have no problem with the Mako as a vehicle, but I have a problem with the fact that clearly BioWare forgot to write the one Codex entry that would have cleared up the greatest mystery of the game - the one for the technology section, where it explains how the Mako projects some sort of subspace field around it like a sort of skin that changes the gravitational constant of the universe in a highly localised area around the vehicle, thus explaining why every planetary body in the game seems to exert exactly 1G of downward force against you.

And also, how they managed to miniaturise such technology to the point where it could fit inside ceramic armour-ply suits to keep your every step on the surface of Luna from sending you seven feet off the ground.

 

[Saskwach]

Anyway, awesome game, and as AngryMan said "may it build on the original's success while eliminating its predecessor's few flaws". I hope they especially tighten those Mako sections. I didn't find them overly annoying but they did get a bit tedious at times. Also, how the hell can it climb almost vertical cliffs and not be affected by the different gravitational levels of the individual planets.

Argh, the Mako. After a particularly bad acid trip, I came up with the following:

Imagine that you've got a cow, and you need to take it to market. But the cow can't move, y'see, so you have to push it along in your wheelbarrow. But then, right, these people start firing heavy ordnance at you, because they don't want you to take your cow to market. So you fire back, but all you've got is a water pistol and one of those Australian Geographic foam rockets that misses half the time.

That's what driving the Mako is like.

To be fair the foam rocket does have some tricks to hitting things. Like fire slightly in front of the target (as in imagine the rocket has the momentum your vehicle has-which I'm guessing it does) and you will spot on hit targets while strafing around them. Unless of course you're on uneven ground like half the goddamn surface area of any goddamn planet.
The water pistol still sucks though.

 

[AngryMan]

I have no problem with the Mako as a vehicle, but I have a problem with the fact that clearly BioWare forgot to write the one Codex entry that would have cleared up the greatest mystery of the game - the one for the technology section, where it explains how the Mako projects some sort of subspace field around it like a sort of skin that changes the gravitational constant of the universe in a highly localised area around the vehicle, thus explaining why every planetary body in the game seems to exert exactly 1G of downward force against you.

And also, how they managed to miniaturise such technology to the point where it could fit inside ceramic armour-ply suits to keep your every step on the surface of Luna from sending you seven feet off the ground.

uhmm... it's all right there in the Codex.

Armour suits are absolutely laced with Element Zero micro-cores - millions of them. These cores do things like preserve the suit's integrity, project the kinetic barriers, or kinetically adhere you to the nearest flat surface of your choice.

The best demonstration of this is

Spoiler

when, near the end of the game, Shepard blows out the side of the elevator so that the team can fight their way up the side of the Citadel Tower. it's an absolute zero-gravity scenario, in a vacuum. Not only do the suits project a Mass Effect field that keeps the team firmly attached to the side of the tower, it also self-anneals whenever damaged so that the occupant doesn't explosively decompress out of a bullet hole in their own armour.

Those suits are capable of projecting some very sophisticated Mass Effect fields for the sake of preserving their occupant in a fighting state - up to and including a local artificial gravity field (hence why you can walk, rather than float, on the Normandy). The same is true of the Mako - its hull is laced with Eezo cores that allow it to generate its own local artificial gravity field as well as projecting its own kinetic barriers, and adjusting its own mass so that it can be dropped from a low-flying frigate, or can "jump" using those little retro-thrusters on the underside.

The problem is that Mass Effect fields have no effect whatsoever on the laws of thermodynamics, which is why it's still possible to boil or freeze to death if you go to a really hot or cold planet, why your guns overheat, and why the Normandy's stealth equipment is time limited.

Eezo is the Mass Effect universe's "Unobtanium" - it neatly solves all of those little problems that are preventing us from doing things like travelling faster than the speed of light right now.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

@Angryman - Well colour me informed. Thanks for that. It's taken care of those nagging questions, which while they didn't affect my enjoyment of the game, had me thinking WTF?