Larianshill
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You can disable Mass Effect Legendary Edition's improved Mako handling if you 'like pain'
In case you really want to ice skate uphill for some reason.
While Mass Effect Legendary Edition is primarily a remaster, the first game in the series in particular is also getting some gameplay overhauls. As BioWare detailed earlier this year, the contentious Mako is one of the things being altered. The infamously bouncy vehicle will have weightier physics and be less prone to sliding, as well as having a boost, shields that recharge faster, and the ability to touch lava without an instant game over. The XP penalty for kills while in the Mako is also going away.
Not everyone hated the Mako, however, as BioWare knows. Project director Mac Walters and environment director Kevin Meek told PC Gamer earlier today that there will be an option to go back to a floaty version of the Big Trak-inspired truck. "For those people out there who do like pain, we've left the option to leave it back kind of closer to the original controls as well if you want," said Meek.
"You'll never get consensus," said Walters, "whether some people love it, or some people hate it. We're making a big point of it often in marketing, but it's a lighter touch than I think some people might think. And the optional control scheme is optional, so you can drop back and forth."
The new Mako will also have improved camera controls for more accurate aiming at low angles, something Walters was glad to finally be able to fix. "The close aim, that's a big one," he said. "We actually forget to talk about that. Anything that was within probably 20 meters of you was almost impossible to track and hit. And then also things in the distance that were at a different altitude than you were just like, 'It says I'm aiming there but I'm shooting down here? What is going on?' Fixing some of that too makes it a little bit more fun."
"Playing the Mako today versus playing the Mako back in the original, especially on PC, it's like night and day," said Meek. "I don't want to thrash my keyboard and mouse after every encounter with the thresher maw or trying to climb a mountain."
To help you get over that mountain, the Legendary Edition's Mako will come equipped with a boost button, separate from the jump jets that set off its lowrider bounce. "Whether or not you loved how the Mako moved around, I don't think anyone loved almost making it over that hill," said Meek, "then pressing their jump jets buttons and falling back on their back and just never being able to go up."
You'll be able to read our full interview with Walters and Meek next week. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is due out on May 14.
Seeing as how this is probably the most analyzed video game series in existence, he isn't the only one. I personally don't have such an emotional attachment or even intellectual curiosity concerning it, so I can't relate. I suppose it's interesting to know why exactly it failed as a narrative, but I've always thought that was obvious and didn't need terabytes of pixels dedicated to it.Why does Zaeed, a man whose loyalty mission is so fucked up, you can leave him to die, have strong opinions on torture? Why does Archangel, a man who killed a drug dealer by applying drugs to his eyes, have strong opinions on torture? Why does Samara, a character who was using, let's say enhanced interrogation tactics, in the first few seconds we've seen her, have any opinion on torture?
That's incidental, by the way, torture specifically isn't a big deal to me. The companions react to everything else the same way too. See the first video.
Are you seriously trying to make sense of one of the most retarded games Bioware ever diarrhead out?
Wasn't the point of stuff like this that companions would say a more "paragon" or "renegade" opinion depending on which two were brought along? I know that was the case in the original. Not defending it, its decline any way you cut it.I like to cite those two videos when I argue that Mass Effect 2 sucks.
Hopefully this is a poor attempt at trolling and you aren't struggling this much to be creative.But none of them are "fuck yeah! Let's torture the homeless! wohoooooo!". Well, except maybe Morinth, but you get what you deserve with her - you get killed by having sex.We're talking about ME2, brah. It's the game where evil companions would fit the most. There was Morinth, but they barely wrote anything for her (and then they unceremoniously killed her off in ME3).Sure, but only when the context allows for such. Being in a military organization in which you are virtually required to trust your companions 100% doesn't really foster such things.
It is extremely disingenuous to suggest that Bioware has any sort of integrity regarding the authorship of that product. Sidelining the guy who did the world building or the debacle of ME3's ending are enough to dismiss any romantic notions about that.It really doesn't come down to creativity. You can always imagine different opinions about a situation, that doesn't mean all are equally valid or desirable in the eyes of the author. Not to mention some of the opinions expressed don't condemn torture in of itself, Legion and Garrus say it just leads to false information. This is a pragmatic approach, not a moralistic one. Bioware didn't want any of the crew members to openly or implicitly support torture. That doesn't make them bad authors (the narrative being sloppy and incoherent makes them that), it makes them people with an opinion. Having Legion implicitly justifying that torture would be weird and counter to the heroic image of the military/crew members Bioware are trying to portray (which is a whole other can of worms in of itself).
Yes.There aren't many different opinions on this kind of beating, though. Would you like a crew member who says "yeah, let him suffer, regardless of context, I'm lovin' it"?
We need more evil companions in RPGs, dammit.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition used mods as a benchmark for its improvements
They had to be calibrated, of course.
Head over to NexusMods and you'll find mods for each game in the Mass Effect trilogy. Over a thousand of them, with some of the most popular the graphical overhauls A Lot of Textures and A Lot of Videos. BioWare is aware of these mods, and while working on Mass Effect Legendary Edition, used them as a benchmark.
"We actually early on looked at some of those," project director Mac Walters told me, "and said, 'OK, well, this is our minimum bar and from here we have to then go bigger, right?' Obviously they have limited access as a modder to the assets that are in there. We have full access to them."
Environment director Kevin Meek concurred, mentioning while he was initially sceptical of AI upscaling mods, when he looked closer he was impressed. "They're getting these great results with the A Lot of Texture mods and those other up-res ones," he said, "so that actually started us down that kind of the path with some confidence. We knew we could go in and hit base-level AI up-res on all the textures and receive the same amount of visual upgrade or even more than the mods because we have a lot of advantages they don't have. We get to work on the uncompressed source, full-resolution textures. Whereas what they have, it's been crunched down, it's been compressed, it's put onto a disc, and then they up-res off that."
BioWare looked at mods that aren't about improving graphics as well. "There's a lot of really popular mods about adding different types of hairs to Shephard," Meek said, "people who are really popular into wanting some new casual outfits as you're walking around. Things like that, they kind of helped give us again a bit more confidence. Yeah, it is worth it to spend a little bit of time to create some new hair options and some new clothing options."
Other popular mods reinstate cut content and work with unused dialogue to, for instance, add same-sex romances to Mass Effect 2. While the Legendary Edition isn't going that far, will modders still have access to unused assets to recreate those mods? "I don't think any content has explicitly been removed from the depot that we have," Walters said, though he wasn't able to 100% confirm mods like these will be possible. "Hopefully they'll still be able to have access to do all that," he said. "That'd be the hope."
BioWare wants to see the Legendary Edition altered just as eagerly as the original games, and has spoken privately to some modders about what's important to them and how they can work together. "Mods have an advantage," Meek said, "where they don't have to be constrained about certification requirements, and size-on-disc issues, and any ripple effects that come from pushing some effects too far or not far enough, or whatever."
You'll be able to read our full interview with Walters and Meek this week. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is due out on May 14.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition used mods
The great big added value of Bioware compared to modders: "we have access to the uncompressed textures."
Not to mention some of the opinions expressed don't condemn torture in of itself, Legion and Garrus say it just leads to false information. This is a pragmatic approach, not a moralistic one.
If this implies torture works as a way to get reliable information, that's not supported by evidence at all.Not to mention some of the opinions expressed don't condemn torture in of itself, Legion and Garrus say it just leads to false information. This is a pragmatic approach, not a moralistic one.
And inaccurate, which casts doubt on their credentials as commandos.
I like to cite those two videos when I argue that Mass Effect 2 sucks.
12 companions. One opinion on everything to share between them, with only minor differences in how they say it.
This kind of shit never happens even in the worst DA game.
The fuck was up with those links, anyway?My bad, those links were terrible
4chan redirectThe fuck was up with those links, anyway?My bad, those links were terrible