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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 3898815" data-attributes="member: 8158">So, I played part of the Eden Prime mission last night as an infiltrator. I have about thirty minutes worth of gameplay under my belt. I'll hit it hardcore over the holiday weekend, but while I'm frittering away the work day, I'm interested in seeing how my first impressions match up with other folks'.Traditionally, tutorial missions are sublimely easy, with the opponents doing so little damage that you have to work hard to get killed. The goal is to create the illusion of danger while concealing the primary objective of teaching the player the core elements of gameplay. Not so with ME. I got killed several times, mainly trying to learn how to use the controls at a faster pace than the game's tutorial allows. The first opponents are some little bots that are hard to see without the red markers that indicate their position. They are light work, easily dispatched. Next are some geth bots. They can punch through shields, so they ain't using nerf-weapons, but they're basically sitting ducks. I get tutorial tips on how I can pause the game at any time to switch weapons and use special abilities. This is supposed to bridge the gap between real-time and turn-based combat, but the player has to hold down a shoulder-button to maintain the pause. With the analog stick being somewhat over-responsive when it comes to selecting items on the dial, I really don't need that extra bit of hassle going on with my index finger. It's basically using physical discomfort as a way of keeping the player from spending too much time making choices.I head up the hill, and face the sci-fi version of undead: borged-out corpses. They run up and promptly die, with the goal being to get close enough to catch me in their death-throe blast. I experience my first demise in ME, and honestly it's kind of lame. I just finished playing Clive Barker's Jericho, and that was a game that got really bad reviews for throwing these kamakaze foes at you. Suicide bombers are about as un-fun to fight in a video game as they are in the real world. I hope I won't see much of those in the rest of the game.Time to do some hacking! Unfortunately, the approach to hacking is a real granny shot, as it joins the ever-swelling ranks of games that see some value in incorporating "Simon"-style rapid-fire sequential button-mashing. It's exactly what hacking shouldn't be: a twitch game which doesn't seem to incorporate any benefit for the character's point-based abilities or a player's innate puzzle-solving talents (q.v. Bioshock).Then I get to thr train station, and I start realizing that those red markers are coming and going, not always indicating enemy positions. I guess I'll figure it out for myself eventually, but if anyone can explain why the markers aren't always visible, I'd appreciate it. Without the markers, those geth popping out from cover blend in to the background too easily, since they're basically grey furniture. Some blinking camera-eyes or something would have been a good idea IMO. I basically have to play sitting duck myself and let them shoot to figure out where to aim. So I get the train rolling (or sliding) and arrive at the station. Geth are firing across a bridge, and for whatever reason I can't seem to faze them, regardless of using my marksman, overload, dampening, or sabotage abilities. After a couple of deaths there, I decide it's time for bed. I'll jump back in tomorrow, maybe respec my character from infiltrator, which seems to not really incorporate many of the benefits from the combat tree. And there really isn't stealth in ME, so the title "infiltrator" is kind of misleading. Also, the Infiltrator skillset seems kind of crappy, but I don't know what a "tech mine" is yet, so it's hard to judge.On the positive side, the game definitely feels cinematic, and there are a lot of character options right from the go.So, to sum up my issues so far: Tutorial = teaching you to swim by throwing you into poolCombat = twitch-heavySuicide bombers = unfun foe to fightHacking = granny shot (not worth having hacking if it's going to implemented this way)Enemies behind cover = squinting to find them</blockquote>

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