10 Amazing Games (With ABYSMAL Combat)

Before Mass Effect, developers BioWare were best known for the tactical, pause-heavy isometric combat of Baldur's Gate. While the developers would eventually learn how to deliver a great action game - to the point where Mass Effect 3's combat formed the backbone of a genuinely fantastic multiplayer experience - it's fair to say the first entry in the series felt like a (very) rough draft for what was to come.

The biggest offender in Mass Effect's rogues gallery of combat grievances is the game's infamously wonky physics engine. Biotic attacks would cause the player character to collapse like a rag doll, enemies would randomly speed towards the player like they'd been suddenly magnetized, and there was an almost total lack of feedback from any of the game's weapons (except on the rare occasions when the physics would wig out and cause enemies to blast into the stratosphere like vanquished members of Team Rocket).

When combined with the sort of decisions made by a team inexperienced in action game development (like having Shephard automatically melee enemies up close instead of shooting them, which was a bit of a pisser when you were trying to blast them with a shotgun), Mass Effect's combat is something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Fortunately, Bioware's writing team carried the load and delivered a fantastic story, filled with weighty decisions and charismatic characters (and also Kaidan).