ME Andromeda

[Logan]

Anyone gonna play it? Can't help but have a soft spot for it. Played the original trilogy far more than I'd care to admit. (Pretty sure I beat ME1 like 20 times, ME2 like 20+) I actually beat ME3 on the PC about a year ago with about a billion mods to make it more palatable. It was ok, a shame that the ending was so bad it forced the series to a new galaxy and 600 years into the future (lol).

Still, gameplay for this new one looks really good, dunno if story or characters are gonna be any good and I'll miss good ol Shepard, but mite b cool.

 

[Dave]

I'll definitely be getting it. Looks very good. It'll be different handling an entire new line of characters and some new alien species. One thing the ME trilogy did an awesome job of is creating a relationship between the player and the characters around him.

I am interesting to see the new paragon/renegade system. It takes more of a gray area approach, making your decisions in conversation and actions more realistic instead of "Hey, you're an asshole if you say or do this!" That was one of my factors to improve on once the trilogy was over, so I'm excited to see how that works.

 

[Tarvis]

Paid the $5 to EA so I could download the trial yesterday. Played a bit and IDK, I wasn't too impressed. The graphics for the area and world are pretty good, but good lord do the character models look weird. I think it's their eyes, they all are wide eyed or too big or something. Their facial expression don't move right and just seem wooden.

STORY SPOILER (I guess?) in vid


Characters and dialogue are kind of meh. Oh yeah, and you can't even really edit your character. You are pretty much locked in to using default preset characters.

The controls and movement are also fucked, I'm not sure how to describe it. Input lag? Cornering like a tank? Really got to play yourself to see.

Killing enemies is a pain because the guns seem weak and just spray bullets all over the place - hopefully that gets better as you upgrade weapons or get better ones.

Really the only reason I have to play is the story, and so far its been pretty slow going. I didn't try the multiplayer.

I realize this is all negative, but I don't know, I see this game getting like a 72/100 on metacritic. I really love the Mass Effect series and want this to be good, and maybe the game gets a lot better after a few hours and you can upgrade your shit. I believe hardly any of the people who worked on ME1-3 were involved with this one, and isn't this the first game by this studio? I really recommend trying the trial first before buying this game as to me it was only Mass Effect by name.

 

[Logan]

lmao that last gif gettin me

yeah, i uh, im seeing the 70/100 as well. I can see reviews for someone who really wants to do the story, like me, being high, but i will not be surprised at all to see some really scathing ones. I think the facial animation stuff is typical "knock on bioware game #3333" stuff, nothing too jarring. The eyes don't look natural though. There's a worrisome lack of polish though, based on the multiplayer at least. I think getting used to the game is gonna be a hassle and I think the early access is going to be a mistake. It's definitely different from ME2 and ME3 combat wise.

I'll still play it but it looks like they really are going back into the series roots, where this might be a mass effect 1 sized mixed bag.

 

[Logan]

EARLY GAME SPOILA

Ok lmao, apparently the female Ryder is so weirdly animated at times that when she tells the Nexus people that her father is dead, shes just smilin away.

 

[Logan]

But kinda like me and Travis talked about the other night, this stuff doesn't bother me as much cause the uncanny valley makes it all kinda weird and stiff anyways. I think thats why the Zelda games are such good examples of expression. Remember Half Life 2? That shit blew my mind back then, works good in the lower quality stuff. Compare it to like LA Noire when they tried super realistic and it just doesn't look right.

 

[Logan]

 

[Dave]

The pics/gif in Travis' post are cracking me up.

Oh well. I've emotionally detached myself from Mass Effect after the blunder of ME 3. If I have some fun playing it and get some laughs out of it due to shit like that, It'll be alright.

 

[Tarvis]

Remember Half Life 2? That shit blew my mind back then, works good in the lower quality stuff.

Half Life 2 has better facial animations than this one.

Oh well, all can be solved by putting helmets on everyone and making sure you turn that option for helmets in cutscenes on. Doesn't fix the weird walking tho.

I tried to play last night and in like 5 minutes the game crashed, booted it back up and the game crashed again. I took it as a sign and gave up.

Confirm/Deny: Mass Effect 3 while having the worst ending ever, has the best opening of the series.

 

[Tarvis]

This is now mainly a ridiculous animation thread.

Play the game of how many things you see wrong

 

[Tarvis]

The pics/gif in Travis' post are cracking me up.

Oh well. I've emotionally detached myself from Mass Effect after the blunder of ME 3. If I have some fun playing it and get some laughs out of it due to shit like that, It'll be alright.

If you hated ME3, good news! I believe the only guy who worked on any of the previous Mass Effect games and that worked on this game is: Mac Walters. He would be the one responsible for ME3's god awful ending lmao.

Drew Karpyshyn was the lead writer on ME1 and ME2, though on ME2 he already served more of an advisory function. He stepped down entirely for ME3, and put Mac Walters in charge.

Walters, prior to ME2, had only been responsible for writing Garrus and I believe Wrex, as well as some side missions. This was the full extent of his writing experience, he had never managed the story of a full game or novel or TV series anything of the sort before. All other Bioware writers had stronger writing credentials, but for some reason Walters was put in charge of the ME3 story.

The result is as we know it. There are a lot of interviews Walters did around the game's release, creating behind-the-scenes videos and all that stuff to give us a glimpse into the creation of what Bioware was pretty sure would be their masterpiece. They all demonstrate the same picture: a pretty smug Mac Walters who in no way, shape or form anticipated anything other than total success. He's brazenly admitted that the planning ahead that went into the series was never anything more than "stakes in the ground", that they had no real idea what the Reapers were as late as ME3 rough drafts, and that all sorts of ideas for the Reapers' motivations were considered and rejected. So here's me wondering: how the hell do you write a story without knowing what the main villain's motivation is?

Don't get me wrong, a lot of the responsibility falls to Bioware in general. Casey Hudson is just as responsible for a lot of the nonsense we were fed about how they'd never give us an "ABC ending" or something similarly lame. And if Karpyshyn had done a better job at creating a more comprehensive vision of what Mass Effect was supposed to be, it wouldn't have fallen to Walters to pick up the pieces.

Be all that as it may, the fact remains that Walters was grossly underqualified to write anything more than minor, let alone the final instalment of a choice carry-over trilogy. From the image he expressed to the outside world, we can gather that he never seemed to fully appreciate the responsibility he was shouldered with, and appeared to figure that anything would fly with the fans so long as EA's production budget was slapped onto it. Final rewriting for the ending happened as late as February 2012, a month before the game's release, and the game had already been delayed once before, precisely due to Bioware struggling with this issue. They had absolutely no idea what they were doing.

What with the fallout surrounding the ending, you'd think that Bioware knew to can this guy and not let his name stain what is effectively Mass Effect: Attempt Two. Instead they promoted him to project director. I wanna be tentatively excited for Andromeda because they apparently understood their failure with the first trilogy well enough to relocate the entire setting to a different galaxy, but Walters is still involved. So I'm just worried as to what that means.

 

[Logan]

That ashley/Addison compare gif keeps goin around and, while main character vs location character ain't really a good comparison, I think it shows that the eyes just don't look right and aren't focused on the right spot.

 

[Logan]

Half Life 2 has better facial animations than this one.

Oh well, all can be solved by putting helmets on everyone and making sure you turn that option for helmets in cutscenes on. Doesn't fix the weird walking tho.

I tried to play last night and in like 5 minutes the game crashed, booted it back up and the game crashed again. I took it as a sign and gave up.

Confirm/Deny: Mass Effect 3 while having the worst ending ever, has the best opening of the series.

Yeah, im just saying that half life 2's animations wouldnt look as good on more realistic looking characters. Its like this game has either dead eyes or its like overly tuned motion capture.

Ya good beginning to ME3, ME3 had great moments, but was pretty damn sloppy. Awful ending, unless Citadel DLC is your ending with mod on PC, then best ever.

 

[Logan]

After playing the trial, the game seems fine. Combat takes getting used to and you're just so weak at first, frankly, it's jarring. It is literally Mass Effect 1 all over again. That's ok with me as a die hard fan, but I doubt this game will court skeptics. Mass Effect 1 is still one of my favorite games ever, so many memorable moments, which maybe this one can provide, but its obvious they've double downed on some systems and let other ones fester.

 

[Dave]

As the averages come in this seems to be a 7.5-8.0 game. Which, considering the trilogy it's based off, is a disappointing entry. It's been 5 years since our last trip into space, and I think the Bioware formula is finally starting to show its age. Add that to a new development team in Montreal and I think Bioware is getting what they deserve. From the multiple reviews I've read it seems Mass Effect just lacks a ton of polish.

I still plan on picking this up, as I enjoyed my time in the trial, but I can't help but feel let down. Mass Effect is one of my favorite series. I just hope Bioware sees this and takes it as a kick start to get back to where they were. They've fallen a long way since KOTOR.

 

[Logan]

Yeah its about where I expected to be, however, these are some of the most polarizing reviews I've ever seen. The consensus is that its a decent game with some bugs and lacking animations. Ive seen a complete split on story, characters, gameplay, and combat. Its bizarre. I love the combat so far, its a blast, its different and I think its jarring people, its not a refined ME3, its totally diff. The animation gripes are warranted, but becoming an echo chamber of pure ignorant drivel. Like that stair run glitch, you can't replicate unless you remap the default controls in an attempt to. Remember back when Assassin's Creed was a good and polished game? Remember how you if you want you can still make things look silly if you want?

The facial stuff is a mixed bag, I still think its mainly an eye problem, obviously should've been called to attention a long time ago, but it is what it is. Mass Effect the trilogy had a ton of stuff like this. Remember this? How about the bug in Mass Effect 2 that made you appear behind Mordin like you were going to rape him? I think its blown a bit out of proportion, but its clear that this game lacks polish. A shame, but it can be attributed to a development studio whose only claim to fame outside of mass effect is BOOGIE, the EA dancing game. I'm personally having a lot of fun with it, but I can see people not liking it. If anything, my only real gripe is that the characters and world are gonna land flat. Mass Effect 1 had so many great Sci-fi ideas. Humans were new, great science-fiction with mass relays and mass effect fields, great politics with the genophage, and an awesome arking story involving robot gods who created everything in the galaxy just to harvest you as a surprise twist. There isn't that great world being shown to us here to break the fall of the shaky mechanics.

And on a side note, I'm sick of this game being prepared to The Witcher 3. It's all I see, it gets old.

The Witcher 3 is one of the best games I ever played, but its a game with

• A bigger team
• A Bigger budget
• More development time
• A studio who has worked on one IP for 10+ years with all of the source material already laid out.
• And it was a game that had all of its problems before and during launch as well.

TL DR version! The games reviews are all over the place, its gonna be a to each their own game, but the internet "le bad animation joke" memes are getting kind of out of hand. If you loved Mass Effect or even liked Dragon Age Inquisition, I think this game will be worth playing.

 

[Dave]

 

[Dave]

I mean the facial animations are bad, sub-par at best, but the combat animations are solid. The jumping and jet pack animations look good to me. The gunfighting is the best the series has ever had. The combat is open and fun to play.

But there's something off about the facial animations. I believe they attempted to set into a more realistic emotion system then before, and it's just not up to snuff. Really caused an uncanny valley effect, especially in the eyes.

Finlly finished, at least to the best of my knowledge, everything that can be completed in the 10 hour trial. I did a lot of the crafting but not all of it because that would just take absurd amounts of time. Here's my thoughts:

The complaints of facial and animation are warranted. There's times when they really break the immersion. I believe it has to do with them swapping to the Frostbite engine and not having a ton of experience with it.

The story has me hooked. It's a much more hopeful mission and it allows the story to flow a little better without you constantly worried the Galaxy will explode. It also allows you to complete side quests without feeling guilty that you're ignoring some massive galactic threat.

The combat is a good mix of action and RPG. I'm enjoying what we have access to currently.

I love the exploring element to the game. Can't wait to grab this today.

 

[Tarvis]

From what you have played, what is your opinion on the music?

I see a lot of people say this game is awful just like Inquisition was, but I loved that game. A large part of that was the awesome music. The time I've played in the trial didn't seem to have much in the way of music, but I didn't play a whole lot.

 

[Dave]

I only played about an hour of the real thing last night, and it's all material that I've already played. The music has been good so far. It's hard to get a large sample size with the little I've played, but the main screen music is very, very good (sit and listen to the whole thing for about five or so minutes).