What does "cheap combat" mean?

[GamerChas]

I just started playing Mass Effect 1. (having a hard time getting into this game)

 

I was reading some comments about the game and the poster said that it had too much 'cheap combat'.

 

I just cannot figure out what that means ... Too predictable? Too easy?

WTF is cheap combat?

 

 

[Hardwaremaster]

I always understood 'cheap combat' to mean weak Combat Mechanics. However depending on the context it can mean anything from clunky controls, bad artificial intelligence, too easy, too hard, gimmicky, predictable, even boring. It really depends on what the user found cheap about it, or, you can go by the actual definition of the word. Which if that was his intention, he was referencing the concept that he thought, BioWare had a small budget when creating the Games Combat Mechanics. :laugh:

Edited August 16, 2013 by Hardwaremaster

[hoofhearted4]

like Hardwaremaser said, it can mean a bunch of things. i usually take it to mean combat is unresponsive and cheap. as in when you attack, youll find a lot of hits seem to miss even when you clearly hit the person, or the enemy will hit you even when they clearly missed, or you are behind cover. i hear the term cheap combat mostly in reference to action type melee games, where hit boxes and the range of weapons and etc all come into play, and make it for this type of cheap combat to come into play. and in this way the combat feel cheap in that you get cheated out of hits or life respectively.

 

i havent actually played ME! (only ME2) so my guess as to what cheap combat would mean in that game is repetitiveness. fighting the same/similar enemies in similar environments, doing similar things over and over. this would be cheap combat in the sense that they didnt diversify the combat very much (not necessarily in Bioware's case, but in other cases this is due to lack of money or time, or desire) and as such the combat feels cheap, not very thought out.

[hector530]

My definition of cheap is winning by using overpowered easily to do tactics.

[Vindekarr]

Usually "cheap" combat refers to either lazy design, relatively simplistic content, a lack of depth, or a lack of challenge. In the case of the original Mass Effect, many people who played the game as a Soldier came away disappointed by the fact that the class felt "tacked on" and had no real abilities on interest factor. And that's more or less the experience I had with my first playthrough as well. The abilities of the class were very basic relative to other classes, resulting in the game feeling "cheap" meaning it felt like the developers hadn't expended any real effort and just created something workable to fill a vacant space.

 

A more in-depth explanation comes down to the way the weapons in particular behaved. Playing a top-tier soldier meant almost no recoil or overheat, and simply standing in one place and firing at a target until it died. Obviously you could rectify the issue by simply playing a more interesting class or not treating the game like it's Battlefield, but reviewers are paid to find the faults in a game and mention them, so you sometimes see things like this get mentioned.

[vendur]

If it's ME1, they might be talking about a couple boards with snipers. I remember some of them, especially on the harder difficulties, often felt like luck getting past the one-hit kills they could do to you. especially if you didn't take one of the classes that have some kind of ability to survive those things.

[Woggsy]

I would assume that "cheap difficulty" would mean that either the player or AI uses some methods that are unfair in the game. Like, for players, you could abuse one particular strategy (whether glitched or not) to gain a cheaply brought, unskilled victory over the enemy. On the other hand, maybe it's a game inducing Fake Difficulty measures, such as enemies stun-locking the player, which can't be helped no matter how skilled you are.

 

I've yet to play any Mass Effect games though, so I'm not sure if either (or both) are "cheap".