Mass Effect - Nitpicks #2 @ Twenty Sided

Shamus Young wraps up his complaints list for Mass Effect, looking at combat, weapons, loading screens, the mako and loading screens. On combat:

Combat is mostly satisfying, but marred by the enthusiastic retardation of your teammates. They constantly stand in front of you during combat, forcing you to move. Or they’ll take all the cover and leave you to stand in the open like a target dummy. Or, if you do find a good bit of cover and they don’t, they will stand right beside you, in the open, and “catch” incoming rockets so you can enjoy the blast radius. On higher difficulties, this is an express route to the game over screen. But even when they’re not in your way, they have cover, and they aren’t trying to bring about total team explodification, they’re still of limited usefulness. The AI on both sides will often shoot even when they don’t have a clear line of sight. I’ve seen teammates facing nose-to-the-wall, drilling the scenery in a vain attempt to hit the guy on the other side.

More information.

This guy obviously hasn't figured out that you can use the arrows to position your team, and that you can use space -> select skill to get them to use their powers on specific enemies. Their accuracy tends to be very good, so giving Ashley Williams a snipers rifle and Urdnot Wrex a shotgun will give you tons of extra firepower. In quite a few fights they'll instantly kill several of the enemies if you position them right (and lure the enemy into their line of sight).

Of course, unless you're playing at higher difficulties there's no need to do this, as you can just steamroll everything on your own. However, on Hardcore and Insane you definetly need to use the teammates wisely, or you'll end up reloading all the time.

That was the same thing I was thinking - there definitely *is* a squad shooter element, and you need to treat it as such … left to its' own, most squad AI will shoot trees.

Originally Posted by Maylander
This guy obviously hasn't figured out that you can use the arrows to position your team, and that you can use space

Xbox360 is the answer.

Aah, good point. I use keyboard + mouse, maybe the controls on the Xbox360 is more clumsy when controlling teammates and their powers. On the PC it's certainly easy to control them, and it adds a tactical element to the whole shooter experience.

Originally Posted by Maylander
Aah, good point. I use keyboard + mouse, maybe the controls on the Xbox360 is more clumsy when controlling teammates and their powers. On the PC it's certainly easy to control them, and it adds a tactical element to the whole shooter experience.

I agree. As many 'nitpicks' I have about ME, use of companions is not one of them. I never got to the micro-management of selecting their skills to use, I usually just positioned them somewhere and let them do their stuff.

Originally Posted by wolfing
…I never got to the micro-management of selecting their skills to use, I usually just positioned them somewhere and let them do their stuff.

I tried telling them what to do at first but it just made combat take too long. I did try out new powers and such when they got them sometimes.

But, yeah, just position them and let them do their stuff.