The Return of The Mako

Some details from this weekend's MASS Effect Panel at ComicCon are beginning to appear

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/07/26/details-from-comic-con-39-s-mass-effect-panel.aspx with the biggest reveal being the first look at the new Mako, kinda looks more like a Remote Control Toy to me...

:)

 

Bioware teases new project

I find it hard to be excited by anything they do these days. Not even the return of the mako for the next ME title gets me excited.

 

Does the Mako Have Zoom?

I've switched entirely to the PlayStation 3, and I've noticed that the Mako now has zoom. Hold down whatever you normally hold down to zoom a firearm, and the camera will close in and sit right above the Mako while zooming in. Clicking the appropriate
thumbstick allows you to cycle between three different magnifications.

.

I don't remember this being in the Xbox 360 release. Does anyone know?

 

yeah, looks kinda plastic...also the picture says "your mako", so might we see some vehicle customization? also doesn't really look a whole lot like the mako, they could've given it another shark name and we wouldn't have noticed...maybe great white or bull?

 

As much as I hate to say it... this does absolutely nothing to take me off the fence I've been on.

I hated the Mako missions. It always seemed (to me) like those missions just slowed everything down... and that was when you landed in an area that was fairly close to the objective(s) and said objectives weren't on the other side of a mountainous / craterous
obstacle course. Not that I hated the concept, it was fun enough when you finally got to the place you needed to be. Although to be fair, the issues I had with the Mako could be easily addressed. Overall I would be confident enough that they could deal with
the Mako's shortcomings.

The 'Your Hero' pics don't have much appeal to me though. The armor configurations look a little Halo(ish) IMO. I also have to wonder why they have the helmets and no pics without? Makes me wonder... do they just not want us to see the default character's
face yet for some reason? Or is it because they're perhaps working on the so long ago promised [albeit not by BW] ability to scan your own face with Kinect and put it on your char? In either case, a faceless character behind a helmet doesn't do much to draw
me in.

Bungie did a masterful job of making us feel connected to MC despite his being hidden behind a visor, but IMO that's because he is more of a man of action and few words. We could all pretend we were the MC and through our actions (read as the way we liked
to play the game) we became him.

BW, on the other hand, took an almost completely opposite approach. We had full customization of our Shepard... and through our choices, S/he became ours.

Oh well, that's just my first impression from seeing this info. It most certainly has room to evolve. I still remain firmly on the fence though, so I guess time will tell.

 

I have a bit of that "on the fence" feeling about future prospects for this franchise as well, although it'll no doubt be a Day-One EA/Origin purchase for me, for BioWare have yet to aggravate me to the extent that they have others. The news of The Mako
reappearing should be pretty exciting for me, after all, I'm a big fan of the original design and the Mako Missions of the first game are still one of the biggest draws to me when I start another playthrough, yet somehow I'm a little apprehensive about this
latest reveal. The good thing is that it tells me that BioWare are likely making good on delivering us some more exploration options, something that was noticeably phased out over the last two installments of MASS Effect. I would've much preferred the original
Mako design for it's all ready excellent, in my opinion, and this picture looks to be an inferior design to me upon first glimpse. If they changed the look so much then it's likely that it
plays considerably different as well which for some may be a good thing, but not me.



The N7 Armours are very unspectacular to me as well, but that in itself could be a good thing too, for it may suggest that BioWare are gunning for more
realism and less flash. If the articles hadn't of mentioned that they are male/female versions then I probably wouldn't have even made the connection, but again, maybe a more militant than flamboyant direction is part of their new directive.
I think the biggest damper that they've put on generating any excitement for me is the continued absence of any real details on the story/characters, I mean, is this it now until E3 2015?! I plan to be well immersed into RockSteady's 'Arkham Knight'
game by then and could really care less about a new MASS Effect game if this is all that we have to chew on until next summer. C'mon BioWare, surely you can give us a trailer sometime this year, and no the E3 video was NOT a trailer, there was no title, release
date, story dialogue or ANY setting/timeline indications for the new game, it was more like a "Director's Cut" of the BioWare Studio footage that we saw last November on N7 Day, I wanna get excited about the future of this franchise but you're really not giving
us a whole lot to get excited about, or even talk about for that matter...

 

Hello everyone

Please don't get mad / angry at me but I'm glad that the "Mako Missions" were replaced by the "planet scanning" mechanic because it (Mako Missions) are annoying / needlessly time cosuming when all I want to do is get the resources in a planet; just imagine
how long it would take to fully explore a planet if you had to use the Mako every single time.

Have a nice day or afternoon or night everyone

 

Just to add to the thread, the full video panel from ComicCon that the above images were pulled from.

Not sold on the early design of this new Mako, it does look like a toy with that rendering. Nonetheless, if this means a return to an emphasis on exploration aspects that originally pulled me into the series with Mass Effect 1 instead of an emphasis on combat
that the later titles are geared towards, then it doesn't bother me all that much. After all anything is better than the Hammerhead imo.

In the video starting at 7:28 it shows off conceptual prototype footage of the new Mako in action on a snowy world. Exploration of places like that intrigues me. Environments like the ones below from ME 1 sold me on that game from the moment I touched down
on my first uncharted world, and I can only hope this new exploration aspect implemented with the Frostbite engine can do the same.

 

I see that the images I linked did not work as I'm assuming this new forum doesn't allow them. But you've all seen the Mass Effect 1 environments countless times that I would've shown anyhow so no big deal. Also the video linked doesn't start from the beginning
some reason so just click to the start.

In my opinion, I hope the entire premise of exploration does not revolve around gathering resources like it does in ME 2 & ME 3. It just feels extremely shallow scanning a planet with probes using a mini-game mechanic. I would much rather be able to see
what a planet has to offer on foot than sit aboard the vessel playing target practice.

I get that some environments in ME 1 that the original Mako was utilized in could be annoying or tedious, but where's the sense of wonder of looking at a planet from far away in a ship as opposed to traversing an unknown world where you don't know what will
be around the bend, crevasse, valley and any other impasse?

Then of course you have the side quests that were gimped as a result of this planet scanning mechanic. Instead of actually doing a side quest and interacting with interesting NPC's on uncharted worlds, you instead scan a planet for valuables and receive
bland e-mails in return for your efforts. Sure it may take less time to be rewarded, but I just don't see the intrigue of that.

That's just me though.

 

^^ As I suggested in my post, I think it would be fairly easy to overcome the short comings (IMO) of the Mako missions. In fact, I think it quite easy and wonder why they didn't do it to begin with. Simply combine Mass Effect's Mako with Mass Effect 2's
'solution' to it.

Scan an uncharted world a la ME2, have your areas of interest pre determined, then find a suitable landing zone (even if it's predetermined) that has a 'central access' point of sorts. That way, you can have settable waypoints, thus you don't have to wander
around lost if you don't want and you can head straight for your objectives. Actually, if memory serves, they did have a waypoint you could set in Mass Effect... didn't they? It just didn't work all that well and it didn't work for the one thing I really wanted
it to work for. The Minerals/elements. You had to wander aimlessly, or comb each map pixel by pixel until they showed up nearby. They can put plenty of things on the maps that may be old enough or shrouded in some way that it didn't show up during the scan
to scratch that exploration itch as well.

 

Hello everyone

I would rather that Bioware / EA completely forget about the resources collection thing and use the Planets for exploration instead.

I understand the need for collecting resources, but this should be handled with a simple push of a button & all of the resources that can be salvaged from this Planet is now collected.

As far as the Mako Missions go, I would welcome it back if the map to explore is smaller so that you can find the point or points of interest much faster

Have a nice day or afternoon or night everyone

 

Mako coming back is awesome. Being stuck with another human main character? NoooooooooOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOooooooooooOOOOOOOOOooooo. Super lame Bioware, way to be cowards.