Bay 12 Games Forum

@NullForceOmega: The entire drive of the game isn't to complete it fast, but to basically grind and gather all the mecha parts and then upgrade them to get through an area.  To put it in the perspective of a rogue-like: LOOT!  CRAFT!  UPGRADE!  LOOT SOME MORE!!  REPEAT!!!

You are supposed to find the enemies weaknesses and then bash them as you can.  For strong enemies, go with speed.  For fast enemies, go with stability and strength.  The weapons too also have their damage types which you need to look at closely.  Some with high elemental damage will actually 'shock' an enemy and cause them to stall for a moment or two.  Perfect for executions and combos.  Heavy bashing weapons can even break an armored segment of a mecha as well, even without an execution if you give it enough damage.

I didn't even leave the first area until I cleared up and gathered everything and got my power supply to 25. >.>''  Not to mention finding the hidden kick-ass weapons scattered around and hidden.

I also believe that they tried to make a great game.  But I also feel that the scale was too big.  The vast open areas in MEA are very empty, in a way.  There wasn't the sheer volume of content or collectables like those found in Dragon Age: Inquisition nor was there the random questing and storylines found in games like Skyrim.  Great open worlds in a sci-fi setting are awesome, but besides running around there's nothing else there.

There are just many things that could have been done differently in order to really express what could have been.  The action of MEA is topnotch, and I personally haven't experienced many of the animation glitches that others have.  Or if I have, they were so minute that I didn't recognize them.  But open-worlds should be grand in both scope and content.  Spending ten minutes driving from one end to another to do a quest is more than a little boring, where it could have been filled with other content.  Direct resource gathering is something that could have been possible, for example.  Scan, find a site, set up a beacon and choose what sort of team or the like could come out and set up an operation.  Something that shows a direct contribution to the game storyline in the form of resources and advancement.

All in all I still enjoy MEA however.  I do wish they'd allow modding though. XD

I've had mine pre-ordered for over two weeks now, and am just waiting around fiddling my thumbs to give it a go once it hits release.  I'm not big into MP anyway, and to be honest I'm not all that good at shooters in the first place.  Heh. I'd probably get slammed with some newbie nickname from the getgo if I tried.

I plan to stick to the singleplayer for the most part.  Even running around can be enjoyable if its done in a reasonable fashion.  I never cared to ride in horses or wagons in Skyrim because of that. I enjoy exploring and seeing the sights.  Lol.

Could the difference be from the consoles?  From the 'previews' I've read all of them seem to be either for the XBox or Playstation, instead of the PC version.  The button-pressing annoyances could be different from the keyboard and mouse input system.

I likewise have Origin disabled on startup, and I only open it up when I'm playing one of the few games I have on it as well.  I'm not too worried about it scanning my harddrive and whatnot.  I keep most of my descriminating content on other harddrives.  Hahaha.

As for ME:A being a great game... I really don't have any hopes.  Then again, Skyrim to me was only a good game, for example.  The Mass Effect trilogy were only good games.  The Witcher games were only good games.  Absolutely brilliant games take massive amounts of time, money, effort and new technology.  Nothing going into ME:A is like that.  It's a high-budget game, but it isn't worldshattering.  Then again, even though technology is advancing and going forward at a rapid pace, having true interactions and the like in a game are still limited.  There just isn't enough HDD space, CPU or RAM speed available to push it that far.  Graphics are even worse, because all those nifty features for ultra-realism are bloody expensive.

Back on a proper note, I haven't even bothered watching the starting gameplay videos for ME:A, because I don't want it to cloud my own decisions.  I'm not part of EA Access or the like, so I'm on the waiting train.  But at least I'll get to jump in with the full experience later.  Not really interested in the online features though.  Just not my thing.

I have the same problem trying to find enough starting resources to get set up.  All starting locations are randomly generated, and thus are not all equal.  I had one with a massive field of energy and compound side by side, but not a speck of resin in sight except down a bloody hole that then dropped into a cave system I couldn't reach cause my energy regenerated too slowly after using all of my backpack slots to carry compound and tethers. @.@''

Cool game though.

So far I've enjoyed it.  Yeah, the reading is somewhat of a chore, but then again not every game can be Skyrim where every NPC has a voiceover to listen to.  I wish there was more lore and history you could find out about the world beyond the Tiers, but that'd be even more reading!  Lol.

On a fatalist note though, I'm stuck with a weird combat bug.  My characters won't drop out of combat at all.  Ugh.