So how bad are Mass Effect 1's driving segments?

[General BrEeZy]

the Mako is a MASSIVELY powerful tool, and you should at least TRY to like it. yeah we all know the handlings horrible, but it makes up for that in pure awesome! i mean, what other vehicle can climb a 70-degree-incline??? xD

 

[hyperdrachen]

The driving isn't bad. People are just bad at it. You can't drive the mako like a tank and rush right into the thick of things. You have to skirt around the edge of battle sniping dudes off. After you get used to the movement controls, you should do just fine if you do as I said and don't rush straight into the thick of combat.

Your discussing tactics, and yes superior tactics will win you the day in the vehicle segments. However even though I was not "bad at it" the mako was annoying as hell. The controls were flat out buggy, at times it would get muddled as to how to re-orient the mako. Not much of an issue on the main story missions but planet exploration required extreme patience to crawl your way at 1 inch a minute up a cliff and if you needed to turn during that climb you may well just lose all traction and slide down to the bottom. The idea of surface exploration of planets is great and the first couple times you do it, it adds a lot of immersion to the game, makes the planet hoping feel more real, than the loading screens of ME2. But the vehicles physics just feel wrong, it's too light bounces all over the place, inexplicably is a 6 wheel vehicle with 2 wheel steering. While i would have really enjoyed these sections returning in ME2 with improved physics and controls, I'd rather spend 3 hours planet scanning than the 10 it took to run the mako to the same bunker 15 times on a different color hell of 130 degree inclines. My thumbs, dear lord my thumbs.

 

[Littaly]

It's pretty lackluster (though some people like it), but they're not so frequent (especially if you discount the side quests) that they should impact your decision to buy the game, even if you don't like them.

 

[stueymon]

It's pretty easy to control the Mako in ME1.

Unless you're me and you forget to try all of the buttons, spending ages trying to kill a giant worm critter with the piddly machine and run away by driving not realising the car has very useful rockets.

 

[destiny_1989]

I see some people say that the console version of the Mako driving is not so fun. I have the PC version myself so I can only say that they're not so bad. After I watched Yathzee's review one more time before getting the game I really dreaded getting to the vehicle parts but it's not that bad. It takes a little getting used to, the Mako does feel very light as someone already said, but, if you find yourself rotating uncontrollably in mid air or going in a completely different direction than the one you want to go because you hit a small bump, all you have to do is take your finger off the accelerate button and it stops.

As far as the boring parts go, this usually happens when you're in a wide, flat field but it doesn't usually take too long until a giant Thresher Maw bursts out of the ground trying to gobble you up. Admittedly, I didn't explore the planets much besides going for what's already marked on your map. There was only one time I got really frustrated but that was because I just couldn't find a debris field no matter what route I took.

 

[Agayek]

I agree with you 100%. I even think Bioware tried to give the driving sessions an Alien feel, with low gravity and such. What really screw things up are the mountain ranges. But vehicle physics have always been Bioware's weakness, ever since Kotor and those swoop bikes. They really should hire someone from Gothan Racing or whatever.

I loved Swoop racing though. That was one of the best parts of KOTOR.

 

[CRRPGMykael]

I'm thinking about giving Mass Effect a try and the only thing that worries me is all of those horror stories about how bad the driving is. Is it something that you do a lot of during the game?

"Horror Stories"= Watched a Zero Punctuation episode about it and immedialty decided to judge it because Yahtzee talks about it like it's some kind of hobo who broke into his house and stole his hat?Don't worry,pal,I ultimately judge games just by watching Yahtzee review them too ^^

 

[Amphoteric]

This, this would solve your problem.