Being Combative

Today a new trailer detailing the combat in the upcoming and highly anticipated Mass Effect:  Andromeda made it's way onto the interweb.  There's ton's o' fighting and plenty of smaller details that serious fans will want to delve into.  Here is the video:

The beginning re-iterates the whole Andromeda mission but after about thirty seconds the good stuff starts.  There is plenty to dish about and I like to make lists so I'm going with that.

1.) Combat fluidity.  I have noticed from this video and from an earlier one that combat looks much more focused and less interrupted.  There hasn't been any sign of pausing to issue commands or switch weapons.  When I look at the UI it seems like you still have the ability to command your followers--there are two buttons with little faces on them that have to be for your squadmates.  This fluidity could be a welcome change from repeatedly mashing the spacebar to set up different combinations.  One worry I have with this more focused system is that follower abilities will be considerably diminished and the whole idea of building a squad of complimentary powers is going to be less important.

In the previous games I always enjoyed configuring my squad for each situation.  Taking EDI and Tali on missions that were synthetically oriented or grabbing Liara and James to blast some reapers.  Are squadmates going to be important in combat or are they simply story elements?  I still don't feel like there has been any solid information about that.

2.) There's going to be less rolling around on the ground.  This is something that is thrilling as I always found the combat rolls and movement to be slightly jerky and odd.  The jump jet seems to make Ryder glide around and there's even the option to briefly hang in the air.  Shooting from above could provide a unique way to pick off enemies in cover.

3.) "A new dynamic cover system that allows you to use almost anything for cover."  Umm...like we all didn't secretly hide behind weird stuff in the previous games.  I would regularly park the Mako and dart back and forth behind it in Mass Effect.  The addition of a better cover system is welcome as it provides players with more freedom to operate and choose how they navigate different encounters.

4.) The oodles of weapons.  Not only do we get to choose from an almost traditional list of guns (did anyone else notice that submachine guns were missing from the list?  That's probably a good thing.) but we also get to choose melee weapons.  For the most part I try to avoid melee, but there are some classes where I could see having a sword or hammer equipped as being beneficial.  Biotic charge + a hammer swing or some stabbing action could be highly enjoyable.  My brief jaunts into the co-operative multiplayer of Mass Effect 3 usually saw me playing a Krogan biotic with biotic charge and crazy high melee skills.  It was so much fun to run around the map punching things to death!

5.) Guns, guns, guns!  Weapons now come in different classes and in a very wide variety.  I found it particularly interesting that one class of weapons uses the same overheating mechanic as in the original Mass Effect.  No ammo to collect...but shooting too much results in an overheated weapon and downtime for cooling.  Overheating was never one of my favorite mechanics but it does lend itself to the more futuristic/sci-fi aspect of weaponry.  The plasma based abilities of one of the classes means that you don't have to aim.  I can't say I am thrilled with that option--I like aiming and find it more accurate when I do it myself.

Another nice feature that is being added is that all weapons are available to all classes.  They seemed to really do away with the class specific loadouts in ME3 and I am glad that they are sticking to it.  I wonder if there will still be a weight limit or some sort of limitation on the number of weapons you can carry?  I'm guessing yes even though it wasn't directly referred to in the video.

6.) No class restrictions but open skill trees.  The ability to choose talents at will is very exciting.  It was always a little frustrating to be pigeonholed into a very specific set of talents.  I do wonder about the effectiveness of randomly picked abilities.  I have a feeling that even though there is the option of picking and choosing that sticking with a more specified class make up will be more effective.  I will admit that the possibility of creating your own combination abilities looks extremely fun.  There's one shot cryo abilities used in concert with biotic charge to set up a nice combo.

The skill trees themselves look fairly similar to those from the previous games.  The branching options from ME3 are still integrated into the talent system.  The biotic abilities do look significantly different--the part of the video where Ryder is lugging around the limp, captive body of an enemy soldier and then slams it into another group of soldiers is an interesting new twist on the old Pull ability.

There's just the right amount of new and familiar to make the combat of Andromeda look like a lot of fun.