I just got done watching the latest video released from the official Mass Effect channel on Youtube. This one focused on combat (weapons/talent trees/abilities). And holy hell, did they look good.
You can watch the full gameplay video right here.
My favorite things (so far) are the Jumpjet (looks pretty solid for how fast-paced the combat is in the series, and a really fun toy to play with to my advantage) and the new Bionic ability to use an enemy as a human shield..or as a projectile. Fucking. gold.
However, there are a few things that I didn’t like about it. One is this ‘dynamic cover system’. With the guy explaining how the player can use “almost anything” as cover, of the way the tester was moving the player character, it looked like ‘press button, receive random hiding spot closest to the player character’. Then again, it’s still too early to tell if this got flushed out before release.
The second more pressing thing, is allowing all classes have all skills. As much as I want to say “OMG BEST GAME EVAR!!!”…it feels wrong. What’s the point of a class if there’s no restrictions to make each class feel unique? I hate to say this..and it’s even surprising me to say it, but at this time it feels it’s “tailored to casuals”. If I can’t even get over that feeling that this feels unbalanced, something is seriously wrong here with the design of this game mechanic.
“YOU get the same skills! And YOU get the same skills! EVERYBODY gets the same skills!! :D”
Last, the weapons don’t feel all that interesting. It feels copy-paste from the previous series. Sure, there are new experimental weapons made by humans in the Andromeda Galaxy’s ‘Helious Cluster’ (that are only available from the Tech skill tree), but they feel.. underpowered to me. Not to mention, enemy movement feels uninteresting. Running infront of the player isn’t the way to flank, the last time I looked. 🙂
Again.. well, I’m at least hoping all of this is still subject to change (at least balance the classes, please). There’s going to be a Part 2 of this gameplay series of videos (dunno when), getting more in-depth with the new squad system and other stuff.
Let me know what your comments are about this video, or about my words by shooting me some emails. 🙂