Driving Revisited: Bio vs. Rocksteady and R*

For comparison's sake, another game that invested greatly in driving, yet generated mixed reviews, unable to achieve its highest ambitions, perhaps due to too much driving in its case, was Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham Knight.  AK at least had vehicle battles, and I've noticed that nobody around here ever seems to mention that element as missing from MEA.  Maybe Bio getting out in front of the issue early in development cut off such discussion, but now, especially considering some of the reporting about the game, it seems that Bio's decision to defeat vehicle combat gameplay seems unreasonable and a glaring omission.

Surely, Ryder and Co. didn't have the only vehicle to drive on any of the planets; yet, there's not a single encounter of Nomad vs. anti-Nomad.  There's not even any Nomad vs. enemy shuttle(s) action.  Perhaps that goes along with Bio's decision not to give the Nomad guns, but out of all of its decisions, this one omission has to be one of the most inexplicable.  No guns on the Nomad?  No enemy vehicle encounters?  There's just no logical reason for that beyond a meta answer: development issues.

I wish Bio would've looked to Rocksteady, or the king of open world vehicle encounters, R*, especially in vehicles-without-guns combat (imagine chasing or being chased by exiles on Kadara) or some form of racing (try to imagine that on H-047c).  Having shootouts out-of-vehicle with enemies seems to negate an argument that MEA was about exploration at the cost of having a firing Nomad.  In fact, ME1's Mako and ME2's Hammerhead futher cancel out that argument.  I don't buy the he's/she's an explorer, not a soldier, argument for a second, considering all the shooting in the game.  In fact, wouldn't Gil, seeing all the Kett's firepower, add guns to the Nomad, in response?

MEA could've been more successful if Bio would've added fun vehicle combat in its worlds.  It was a missed opportunity that would've greatly upped the excitement.  And if Bio were more like R*, it would've gotten to work on adding in vehicle combat rather than toiling away at patches.  Oh, well.