Everyone knows that the Mako couldn't control for crap and seemed to have it's own gravity field that just gave no craps about whatever was around it. It'd bounce from canyon to atmosphere if it felt like it. But was it really worth removing? And those elevator rides! Those long, drawn out, elevator rides! But were they really that bad? In my opinion - and I stress OPINION - no, they really weren't. And I think Mass Effect 2 and 3 could've been better if they'd stayed in.
Yes, I honestly believe they would've been better. Let's start with everyone's favourite (or "favourite") vehicle: The Mako. Well, not my favourite. That'd go to the Warthog. Dang I love me some Warthog.
Look at those tow hooks... *ahem* sorry, getting distracted.
MAKO!
The M35 Mako is a 6-wheeled, all-terrain, infantry fighting vehicle. Stored in the Normandy's lowest deck, the Mako sat patiently waiting for you to take it out on a mission. This would be the only time that the silly thing would sit still. The Mako was primarily used for side-quests, as they all pretty much took place on random worlds scattered throughout the Milky Way. You'd have to drop in with the Mako, check out the waypoints on your map, probably kill a few guys, or if you're supremely (un)lucky, fight a Thresher Maw. These are the missions the Mako is most infamous for - tedious point-to-point travel on worlds that look like they were copy-paste, drenched in a new coat of paint and had someone go nuts with the elevation tool from Far Cry's level editor. Or The Sims. Or... well you get the idea. The various explorable worlds weren't exactly designed that well - at least visually. Some would have environmental hazards, meaning you couldn't stay out of the Mako for too long - not that you had any real reason to leave it unless you were hacking into something for all of 5 seconds - unless you had the right armour set (yeah, all those different name brands actually meant something! ...Kinda!).
Each world had a history and a gravity (not that the Mako cared), and some time and effort put into it lore-wise. It's just too bad most of them were really... bleh. There's a few here and there that weren't too bad - especially the one (or ones, I can't remember) that had a HUGE meteor shower in the atmosphere. Man that looked spectacular. Now, so far I've complained about sidequest world design and not the Mako. Well, it's the lead-up. The Mako is annoying because - due to the aforementioned elevation tool - there's a LOT of steep slopes and random elevation changes. Luckily the Mako can pretty much drive up a straight wall, but the issue comes when trying to go down. The Mako does not care about gravity. Like I said, it'll bounce from a canyon to the atmosphere if it so desires. The thing bounces and flips and whirls about as if it has a mind of its own. It can be very disconcerting for some to try and even get the thing from Point A to Point B. This can get more annoying when you bring in combat, because if you hit a bump while trying to aim at a Geth Colossus, that's about to fire a big ol' shot and you're at critical health... well, God help you. Actually, the Mako will probably bounce around enough you'll dodge the shot, so you should be fine. But yeah, its complaints are valid.
So why do I hate the fact they took it out of the game? The answer is simple: AT LEAST YOU GOT TO EXPLORE. Moving from Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2 (and onwards to 3), the game became completely linear. Yes, you could still choose which mission to pick when and whatever, but once you got in, it was Point A to Point B and killing everything that showed up along the way. Yes, a fair bit of ME1 was like that as well, but at least places like Noveria had a hub area that had not only sidequests of its own, but a non-combat "puzzle" to solve (how to get OUT of the hub area, in Noveria's case). There was actually many ways that could play out, with varying levels of success. It is, in fact, one of the best examples of what made Mass Effect 1 so awesome. You didn't really get much of that in the other games - it was only either Option A (Paragon) or Option B (Renegade). No middle ground, no varying levels of success. Maybe a "everyone loses" option if you didn't have enough Paragon/Renegade points to select the "real" option. I'm getting distracted again. My point is, even the sidequests in Mass Effect 2/3 were linear. At least in Mass Effect 1, you could drop down to some unexplored (or at least uninhabited) planet and just cruise around, enjoy the copy-paste view, find random stuff. They completely removed this aspect.
Yes, there were issues with it in Mass Effect 1, but even by my 5th playthrough of the game, I wasn't looking at them in horror, wishing I could get all that wonderful EXP somewhere else. Nah, I dived right in and I hit all those waypoints, because sure the Mako was weird, but it was a lovable weird. Mass Effect 2 tried to bring us back with the Hammerhead DLC, but that just sucked. The combat was lame (seriously, it was worse than the Mako, which is saying something), and once again, it was all still Point A to Point B, kill everyone in the way. Absolutely 0 exploration involved. And you couldn't get out of the thing unless it was scripted (which I think only happened once). And again, it was DLC, which meant sidequests. The Mako was used heavily in the main questline for Mass Effect 1 - and to great effect, I feel. In fact, it was used in EVERY main quest of the game! You didn't just hop on a taxi and go from Noveria's Port Hanshan to Peak 15. Nay! You hopped in your trusty Mako (although not the one stored in the Normandy, as far as I can tell) and drove there yourself! Like a man! Or a woman if you were playing FemShep. My point is, some love and care and tweaking to the Mako and its sidequests would have made Mass Effect 2 a truly expansive game. And would've replaced the crappy mining activity. "Now mining... Uranus..."
Right, so that's the Mako. Next up: Elevators!
That's the first thing you thought of, wasn't it? Guess what? NOT FOR ME! In fact, I was greatly surprised when I found out that the internet almost unanimously (or at least it seemed so, as the internet often makes you believe) hated the elevators in Mass Effect. I mean, look at that pie chart! Considering how much dialogue was in that game, wow! You must ride in a lot of elevators!
SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP! Honestly, you did not spend that much time in elevators. Before you start thinking "Wait a minute, but this guy plays PC games. He probably played ME1 on PC and thus had better loading times!" then I would say yes, yes I did. In fact, I do not own the 360 (or now also the PS3) copy of Mass Effect (or 2, or 3). However, my first two entire playthroughs of the game were done on the Xbox, courtesy of a friend who let me borrow the game. That's right, I played through the game on the Xbox - before you could install the game - twice and never thought the elevators sucked. In fact, I loved them. I still do! I am a firm believer that the game was better with elevators, and I wish elevators were in ME2 and ME3. Screw you internet, this is MY blog. Sure, occasionally it would be annoying to need to jump in one just to go recheck somewhere during my first or second playthrough (like the one to the bar area in Noveria) but apparently even if there wasn't an elevator, we'd get a load screen.
Here's a quote from Dusty Everman, senior level designer at BioWare - or specifically here, the guy who put in elevators (as posted on Kotaku, here, which is the article that inspired this post)
"However, as development progressed, the elevators got slower and slower to cover content streaming, and, by the time we realized they would be so painfully slow, it was too late to replace them with a better system. In ME2 and ME3, the Normandy and Citadel had load screens. Lesson learned."
Oh yeah, lesson learned indeed. Apparently, instead of elevators, we wanted loading screens. Screens like this:
This is static, of course, but you get the idea. It's just this. Some unreadable text scrolls through, maybe the perspective on the mass relay changes, the thing moves around a bit. Sure, it's not static, but gorram is it boring. I mean, after the millionth time of seeing this thing, I was just done. I just wanted to alt-tab and do something else while I waited. And I bet the load times were faster than the original Mass Effect. That should say a lot. Elevators may not have been amazing, and they may have left you stuck standing there as you watch light after light scroll past the window, but it kept you in the game. It didn't rip you out and throw up a loading screen while you went through a door, or took a taxi. No, it kept the focus on Shepard and the people he brought with him. They even said stuff!
Kaidan: Those asari commando units are impressive. Lightly armored, but their speed more than makes up for it.
Ashley: Unless that speed lets them outrun bullets, I’m more inclined to stick with nice solid armor and a big gun.
Kaidan: Point taken.Heh. It's things like this that made the elevator rides - even though most of them didn't have dialogue - worth it. It's stuff like this that makes BioWare RPGs even - just look at Dragon Age's random conversations between your companions! It's the same deal with the elevator banter. Sadly, the complaints continued to stick, and so we got more loading screens with Mass Effect 3. Elevators were left in the dust with the Mako in ME1. Elevators would have made Mass Effect 2 and 3 better because for the simple reason of immersion. They kept you in the game world, they made it connected. They made more sense than looking at the blueprint of the freaking Normandy for the millionth time. I know I'm headed to the captains quarters. I know it's at the top of the ship. What I want is to be able to travel there, not teleport there.
I think this picture captures my feelings quite well, in fact.
You just had to...
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