Mass Effect Andromeda

[Ormorof]

Anyone else been taking a peek at the Andromeda Initiative? It seems like a nice way to build hype

I do laugh at all the "not actual gameplay footage" signs everywhere tho, guess they dont to end up slammed like ubisoft were after watch dogs

 

[Raven]

I might have to break a golden rule and buy EA, have to say it looks quite excellent.

 

[Moriath]

Looks good. Models are a bit simplistic which i am sure gfx fans will jump up and down about but from what i hear its optimized and the story is good.

 

[Scouse]

I might have to break a golden rule and buy EA

Yarrrr?

 

[Raven]

Neg.

Not done that since HL2 (then bought it anyway)

 

[Scouse]

Neg.

Meh. It's EA.

 

[Moriath]

I earn enough not to worry about buying games on a financial point. And its just such a pita to pirate them or at least it used to be

 

[Raven]

It's getting panned by pretty much everyone respectable.

Will leave it I guess.

 

[Ormorof]

hmm bit dissapointed in reviews had high hopes, well not gonna buy it until ~april anyhoo no time to play it

 

[Gwadien]

I earn enough not to worry about buying games on a financial point. And its just such a pita to pirate them or at least it used to be

I think respectable people usually torrent games to test them out, it's not a financial issue it's a 'throw money at something which might be shit' issue then you legitimise the creation of poor games.

Seems to be the case on this one.

 

[Ctuchik]

Played a couple of hours of the free 10 hour trial and so far the story seems like fun, but oh my GOD do this game have some horrible voice actors! You can almost hear the director sighing in the background as he/she gave up trying to improve them...

Also does anyone else that have played it noticed a performance issue? More specifically every time the game switch over to and from a cutscene?

 

[Moriath]

I think respectable people usually torrent games to test them out, it's not a financial issue it's a 'throw money at something which might be shit' issue then you legitimise the creation of poor games.

Seems to be the case on this one.

Its soo much hastle to do that. Its not worth my time with the work arounds for steam or origin and all. I value my time more than the 40 quid to buy a game that might not be as good as it was supposed to be

 

[Raven]

Then you are part of the problem

Soooo many shit games about lately. They look pretty but are riddled with faults and poor design choices.

People lap them up regardless so there is no incentive for devs/publishers to put in any effort.

 

[Moriath]

I look at the reviews before i buy. But i dont torrent to try. Not part of the problem. Part of the way you can legally buy games.

Oh i do watch a bit ontwitch first usually.

 

[Talivar]

So do you actually go out and pay for a game after you pirated it if its good? (To the pirates)

 

[Raven]

I used to but these days there are so many sources for good independent reviews there is no need.

 

[Ctuchik]

Its soo much hastle to do that. Its not worth my time with the work arounds for steam or origin and all. I value my time more than the 40 quid to buy a game that might not be as good as it was supposed to be

And how do you determine if a game is as good as it was supposed to be?

 

[Moriath]

And how do you determine if a game is as good as it was supposed to be?

If i dont like it as much as the hype says it is

 

[Scouse]

So do you actually go out and pay for a game after you pirated it if its good? (To the pirates)

I used to (did that a lot). Nowadays I don't bother pirateing games - the games I want to play are few and far between. (Unless they're EA games - they'll never get my cash again and if I want to play one of theirs... - last one was Mass Effect 3 I think)

In this case I won't bother. Not reviewing well enough for me to spunk my time on

 

[BloodOmen]

Havent read the thread! (sorry, feeling lazy today)

How is it though? I heard the game itself was good but the animation quality has been taking a real hammering, people are basically saying the animation quality is really really bad.

 

[Ctuchik]

If i dont like it as much as the hype says it is

So never then?

 

[Moriath]

Some times i like it a lot like i wouldnt say horizon zero dawn was over hyped

 

[BloodOmen]

 

[Ctuchik]

So i bought it and beat it, it's an ok game but i don't think it was worth the price i paid for it. There's so many bugs and glitches that royally screws me over at all the worst possible moments.

The romance system even managed the impossible feat of being even MORE shallow and uninspired then in any of the previous games, but hey we get TITS so who gives a fuck right *sigh*? It's also really confusing if you try to have 1 serious relationship and a few casual ones because the game can't keep track of who is who at the end. Somehow halfway through the playthrough the game lost track on who my serious and casual love interests were and started to treat all 3 of the ones i flirted with as my serious one and at the end it had switched my serious LI for a casual one..

And then we have the other stuff, randomly tripping over and getting stuck on nothing, my jet pack being hilariously inaccurate and unreliable, Ryder doing his or her best at breaking her own neck when talking to the alien AI onboard the tempest (think of that one scene with Liara after meeting that broker bot and turn that up to 11), and of course the facial animations, or should i say the lack of it?

Then we have the conversation choices. They ditched the black and white paragon and renegade system and implemented grey and gray choices where almost nothing have a consequence that matters or even at all... Even less so then in any of the previous 3 games, which is also a feat i didn't think possible.

Yes SOME choices (4 or 5 total in the entire game i think) have an impact on the outcome of the final mission, but usually it doesn't matter what you chose. 2 of the choices determine if a side character you hardly ever speak with dies or not, the rest is basically just down to who will come and help or which names you get to choose from after the last mission..

And then there's the ever present awkward and badly written guy, Kaidan Alenko in ME1, Jacob Taylor in ME2, Kaidan again in ME3 and Liam in ME:A.. And why are two of those three characters black? Sure Cora in ME:A has her moments as well but nowhere near enough to get on that "list", at least she has some personality... Kaidan, Jacob and Liam almost seems like they were added in as a paniced afterthought a week before the game had to be sent to certification.

It's certainly a decent mass effect game that does a lot of things really well, but if you haven't bought it already, wait for most of the bugs and glitches to get ironed out. Or even a sale.

 

[Zarjazz]

That's an excellent summation of my feelings too. Everything you'd expect from a ME / Bioware game - tactical RPG with good characters & some decent writing and stories is gone. It's not even what I'd call an RPG anymore. Frankly it doesn't even matter which characters you pick on your team as you can't even control them in combat now or even customize their armour or weapons. They only exist for the sake of ... well .. that's what the older games had. It's basically an FPS game now.

The graphics are a weird mix of amazing world views and environments and great looking aliens but oh god the human characters look awful. It's not even uncanny valley, they are simply bad. The UI is also worth a note for being clumsy as fuck. It's not even the fact it's designed for consoles, it's just clunky as hell and makes no sense.

I can't deny the combat is definitely fun with all the possible build paths and power combos but that's about the only really great thing I've encountered so far. Though since that's what you'll spend most of the game doing it could be worse. It's not a terrible game, and the bugs that do exist haven't been game breaking for me (yet), but it certainly feels like it was rushed to release and still needs a lot of polish. It's probably a 6.5/10 game in its current state but even with some cleanup it would still be far from ME3, let alone the series pinnacle of ME2.

 

[Ctuchik]

I just thought of something, it's pretty obvious that the Quarian arc arriving is gonna be a DLC, but since that ship left before the Geth was freed from the Reapers to help them adapt without the suits they will most likely still be in those god damned things. Meaning we probably still won't see them without it unless they managed to code together something for their immune system while in stasis...

Also i saw a vid on Youtube about the female presets, apparently the day one patch the game got made default Sara Ryder even more ugly, and it couldn't have been anything other then deliberately... Prepatch Sara looked pretty ok compared to what she looked like after. Was male Shepard so unpopular that they felt like they actually needed to make the male character in this game so much better looking trying to "fix" it?