On video game difficulty, part 1: Mechanics

In my opinion, Mass Effect 2 is the most difficult of the three Mass Effect games.  This is mainly down to two separate but overlapping reasons.

• Excessively long universal cooldowns
• Limited ammunition

The first game is a cakewalk if you are, say, a Sentinel. You have Electronics, which passively boosts your shields, you have Lift and Throw and Stasis, and you have a pistol with unlimited ammo.  Lift, Throw and Stasis are all on separate cooldowns so you can basically always have access to one "instant I-win button."

Now, Mass Effect 3 has a very interesting - and by interesting I mean I really hope it makes a repeat appearance in Mass Effect 4 - mechanic in that, the heavier your weapon loadout is, the longer it takes for your abilities to cool down.  You can subvert this all to hell by, say, grabbing two really really light weapons, getting -200% cooldown time, and then running around spamming Cryo Blast and Overload on everything to wipe everything out.

However, in ME2 and ME3, cooldowns are now universal (and egregiously so in ME2 - even ammo and grenade abilities triggered the cooldown), meaning you can't spam all six/seven abilities at once.

I get that - your omni-tool or bio-amp needs time to recharge (but again, wouldn't Sentinels have separate cooldowns for tech and biotic abilities? And I never understood how the Soldier's abilities fit into this scheme - in what way is Concussive Shot based either on the omni-tool or the amp?)

(I would like to just note that I prefer the Tech Armor mechanic of the second game to the third. But that - and the extremely overpowered Mattock when you have Adrenaline Rush on - are the only two ways in which ME2's gameplay is superior to ME3.)

Now back to ME2. You don't have any way to modify your cooldown times (yes, there's a DLC helmet that gives you +5% cooldown reduction, but 5% is nothing), everything's on one timer, and ammo pickups don't give you as much. This is especially noteworthy if you're playing as an Infiltrator - you're utterly dependent on spamming Tactical Cloak as often as you can for the massive damage boost it gives your sniper rifle, and yet your sniper rifle only carries ten shots and each thermal clip gives you only a shot or two.

Now, even this isn't as bad as, say Half-Life. Dear God, Half-Life. You have no idea how much this generation is just being babied by their games. Tell you what. It's $4.99 on Steam. Stop what you're doing, go buy it, play it on Normal, and come back after the first time you die.

Well, that didn't take long. Where was I?

Right. You're not expected to run out of ammo at any point across the entire Mass Effect trilogy, except perhaps during the first part of the Citadel DLC. (Oh, you were a Soldier who rushed into that DLC the moment it became available and spent all his points on Adrenaline Boost and the ammo powers, so you don't have grenades or Concussive Shot? Sucks to be you.) Even so, the second game - and only the second game - encourages you to save ammunition if you're an Infiltrator (or if you're a Soldier with the Mattock).  You are not required to play the game that way, because there are other classes with different strengths.

Turn around and you've got Half-Life, which is entirely a rail-shooter. There is no leveling up. There is no "other way to play the game." If you suck at dodging tripwires or navigating ledges in a 1st-person POV, you are going to have a bad time. And on Normal difficulty, every enemy turns into a bullet sink. So, uh, aim true.

To be continued...