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[shnurgleton]

RPS is hardly unique about this. Was just listening to Peter Brown on the bombcast and he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about the game.

 

[Jigorath]

Side quests feel like something from a 2004 Korean MMO.

Ugh this again.

 

[thumb]

One dude's opinion.

This is also the same guy that called playing Witcher 3 like, quote, "eating cardboard".

Can someone just link his in-depth Witcher thoughts already so we can read that quote in context?

Someone else claimed he said ME3's ending was "perfect", but hs article on the ending doesn't contain that word, and he acknowledged problems.

 

[thepenguin55]

Different people have different opinions, more at 11

That's the more interesting thing about it. Two dramatically different impressions on the early hours of the game.

Also, Kotaku's preview seemed mostly positive:
http://kotaku.com/five-hours-in-mass-effect-andromeda-is-overwhelming-1793268493

 

[RecRoulette]

A lot of people have said the game is basically Mass Effect: Inquisition, and I can't tell if that's a compliment or not. A ton of people on both sides of the fence on that game.

 

[Banjo-Kazooie]

A lot of people have said the game is basically Mass Effect: Inquisition, and I can't tell if that's a compliment or not. A ton of people on both sides of the fence on that game.

That's fine with me personally since I enjoyed DA:I. I can see why others wouldn't though

 

[Zanzura]

It's almost like two different people playing through different parts of the game and in different settings, could come away two differen impressions....

So weird.

Perhaps the thread title should be renamed to "Early impressions from RPS for ME:A. It's... mixed"

 

[jdmonmou]

Kind of relieved to hear this to be honest. There are too many good open world games at the moment in my queue to play.

 

[sdijoseph]

Can someone just link his in-depth Witcher thoughts already so we can read that quote in context?

Someone else claimed he said ME3's ending was "perfect", but hs article on the ending doesn't contain that word, and he acknowledged problems.

It was a random tweet: https://twitter.com/botherer/status/679412223412969472

 

[Weetrick]

You guys realize that I was just pointing out there are two sets of impressions, right? No idea where you're getting that I didn't realize two people wrote those articles and/or that I "disapprove" of it. It's a response to the thread title and OP.

While I wish there was a demo, I'm glad that I can try this out on EA Access for five bucks and see if it's worth the purchase.

Yeah I guess I misread your post. To be fair you only posted links and an image of a confused man so forgive me lol

 

[Aselith]

John Walker, huh? The most clickbaitish writer of RPS has a negative opinion about the game? Not saying his opinion has to be absolutely invalidated... But his history on the site is quite infamous.

As does the history of calling things "click bait" when people don't like what they hear.

 

[Gamezone]

Weren't there a bunch of positive impressions from sites like IGN and Gamespot?

You mean the sites who obviously got everything first? I don't find them very trustworthy at the moment.

 

[atr0cious]

Anyone going to actually engage with his examples, which match Shinobi's? The main difference seems to be that Walker was expecting something completely new, while Shinobi and others are liking the soft refresh which contains all the old trappings in a new system with new characters. The rest of the preview stems from that, where Walker is over it and everyone else isn't. Didn't make his opinion invalid, as Dragons Age:I was a critical darling and had all these issues.

 

[Orca]

Eh - John doesn't like a lot of games that I - and a lot of other people - like, so MEA is still going to be a day one. I mean I really liked Witcher Wild Hunt, so that's probably a sign our tastes don't completely align.

 

[Catvoca]

You mean the sites who obviously got everything first? I don't find them very trustworthy at the moment.

RPS were a part of that same first wave of previews. So if you don't trust them you don't trust RPS.

 

[Brandon F]

I have yet to be given a reason to even feign the slightest interest in this game, but that writeup was almost absurd in how excessive its critical nitpicking dives. Had to pause every now and again while reading just to wonder if the author is actual being genuine. Really hard to take it seriously, but I equally question the positive preview coverage just as much.

 

[kevin1025]

RPS were a part of that same first wave of previews. So if you don't trust them you don't trust RPS.

Don't break his narrative!

 

[AcademicSaucer]

Mass effect: Inquisition?

 

[Ascenion]

Nah, look at the Witcher. Yes, Geralt is a special character in the world (as a mutant monster slayer) but he's just one guy and people don't fawn all over him at every opportunity - he's often treated like shit and he's typically a pawn when he gets involved politics. Despite that, through the player's action he overcomes all that to become a very crucial (the most crucial?) person in the game world.

And he earns it, it's not given to him. If you had been playing as Ciri, who very much IS that 'Special Chosen One' type character, the game would have been nowhere as interesting.

Cmon man. This is almost objectively wrong. Yeah he earns it but damn sure not in the games. In the games you are Geralt of Rivia, Butcher of Blaviken, White Wolf. The most well known Witcher in the world. The go to guy for problems. You get to shit talk the Emperor, you raised the most valuable princess in the world, the Wild Hunt wants you dead too, your best friend is a well known womanizer and so are you. You're treated badly almost exclusively beacuse you are a mutant.

 

[ItsTheNew]

I don't know if this has been addressed but the writer is a big ME Trilogy fan, and an ME3 ending apologist. He's not someone who just came into the ME:A randomly.

 

[SirPinkyNose]

I don't know if this has been addressed but the writer is a big ME Trilogy fan, and an ME3 ending apologist. He's not someone who just came into the ME:A randomly.

He only apology ME3's ending because it's contradict to the mainstream.
He said playing Witcher 3 is like eating cardboard. If this game is the same then we are looking at goty material right here.

 

[Mr. Phellps]

I don't know if this has been addressed but the writer is a big ME Trilogy fan, and an ME3 ending apologist. He's not someone who just came into the ME:A randomly.

That's true, but people aren't arguing he doesn't like MEA; people are either saying the article is a tad too radical in its wording (as is usual for the author) or that his views are not more representative of the game than the positive previews (which people are quick to question, but accept this one just fine).

 

[Lyte Edge]

Yeah I guess I misread your post. To be fair you only posted links and an image of a confused man so forgive me lol

 

[exmachina64]

A lot of people have said the game is basically Mass Effect: Inquisition, and I can't tell if that's a compliment or not. A ton of people on both sides of the fence on that game.

It's not; the prevailing opinion on GAF currently is that Inquisition is terrible.

 

[Astral Dog]

The other thread sounded more positive

 

[Lorcain]

I appreciate the critical impressions, but take them for what they are, one person's opinion. Some of what he said rings true with my recent Bioware experience trying to slog through DA:I.

I hope Bioware can capture the magic of the ME series, which I really enjoyed. But I'll admit, his very early impressions support some of my biggest concerns for a DA:I Mass Effect gameplay experience. I don't want that.

I laughed when he mentioned the mandatory Bioware murder-wrongfully-accused investigation. It really does seem like it's in every game going back to Kotor 1.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Cmon man. This is almost objectively wrong. Yeah he earns it but damn sure not in the games. In the games you are Geralt of Rivia, Butcher of Blaviken, White Wolf. The most well known Witcher in the world. The go to guy for problems. You get to shit talk the Emperor, you raised the most valuable princess in the world, the Wild Hunt wants you dead too, your best friend is a well known womanizer and so are you. You're treated badly almost exclusively beacuse you are a mutant.

He doesn't even "earn" it in the books he's the badass from the start, except the butcher of Blaviken but that was totally a misunderstanding. The books don't say exactly where they start off but Geralt ought to be in his 70ies at the time.

 

[SomTervo]

Anyone going to actually engage with his examples, which match Shinobi's? The main difference seems to be that Walker was expecting something completely new, while Shinobi and others are liking the soft refresh which contains all the old trappings in a new system with new characters. The rest of the preview stems from that, where Walker is over it and everyone else isn't. Didn't make his opinion invalid, as Dragons Age:I was a critical darling and had all these issues.

Eh, multiple paragraphs are entirely about how Walker expected good writing and got apparently very poor writing.

 

[AWizardDidIt]

I'd recommend people watch this video from someone who has played 20 hours of Andromeda commenting on the author of the RPS article's points. The maker of the video definitely does agree with some of the points brought up in it but overall has come away with a very different perspective. It's a pretty objective run down where he definitely cites issues he's finding with the game but also spends time elaborating on things he thinks the game does well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRA-137jF-4&feature=youtu.be

 

[Doug Heffernan]

Yeah, read this earlier.

Huge Mass Effect fan and yeah, something about this game just looked.. off. Like, I'll still play it, but I'm not confident it'll be good.

I agree. It's as if Sarah Ryder's face is a metaphor for the game... something is off and I can't put my finger on why.

 

[Krisprolls]

It's not; the prevailing opinion on GAF currently is that Inquisition is terrible.

I don't understand the hate about DA : I. As long as you left the first region before finishing the tons of side quests there, it was pretty good in my opinion.

It seems to me people tried to do every filler side quest. If you don't do that, it's a good game.

 

[Heshinsi]

Literally every other impression is positive.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1346773

Barely any of them mention the stuff in the OP. For example, this is the first I'm hearing about how the quest menu is.

 

[sgjackson]

Independent of the broader tone of the article, "side quests feel like a Korean MMO from 2004" is the exact issue I had with Inquisition, and it meshes with the narrative that DA:I is the house style for Bioware going forward. I'll still wait for broader impressions, but I'm out on this one for the moment.

 

[captainnapalm]

I tend to live my human life the way we human beings do: eating, defecating, saying human things. Not a lot of infiltrating the organics' society by wearing a disgusting meat suit.

Heh. The article has actually stumbled on an issue with a lot of RPG writing. Where people don't actually have conversations - they basically just info dump exposition, or concepts, or factions, or character attributes that the writers have created prior to writing the dialogue.

Instead of having those things inform the characters, the characters end up endlessly informing us about them. It's bad writing. DA: I was particularly guilty of this and why it's so boring talking to a lot of the characters in that game.

I also think that's another one of the reasons Witcher 3 stood out, because in that game dialogue was actually used to help tell the game's many stories, and people had real conversations.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

this year has started very well

we haven't had a good bomb to make fun of yet

looks like this one will do the trick

i don't really enjoy bioware games very much so i'd rather it's this one rather than something more interesting

 

[Altairre]

It's not; the prevailing opinion on GAF currently is that Inquisition is terrible.

I don't think it's terrible but it doesn't hold up well in a world where Witcher 3 exists. That game really showed how to do narratively meaningful sidequests, whether you like the on Witcher sense relying quest design or not.

A lot of the areas in Inquisition were pretty but they were mostly devoid of interesting content. Collect shards, set up camps, do the astral projection thingies and go through a bunch of fetch quests like "find this sheep for me" or "get 10 pieces of meat". Most of them didn't even have a narrative throughline. There was one where you had to refill a dried up lake, if I recall correctly, and I remember liking that because it at least showed that you did something but that was literally the only time it happened. That is the trap I hope they don't fall into again.

It's not so much about how much space you give the player, it's more about what you do with it. The first three Mass Effect games, especially 2 and 3 were fairly constrained, even when it comes to the larger hub areas but that also meant that there wasn't a lot of filler. Those games moved and I appreciated that. I'd rather have a 20 - 25 hour experience that is tight and full of highlights than a bloated 100 hour mess where I can't wait for it to be over by the end.

Of course that doesn't mean narrative and open world can't work together, I think games like Red Dead, Witcher 3 and most recently Horizon do a really good job of making that open world an integral part of said narrative. It's just that Bioware hasn't proven to me that they can do that for their franchises. I sure hope they learned their lessons for Andromeda, because in a year that has delivered a bunch of exceptional games up to this point it would really suck for a game with Mass Effect in the title to be the first big disappointment.

 

[nynt9]

Giant Bomb's opinions seemed pretty negative on the most recent podcast too. Both from series veteran Brad and newcomer Jason.

 

[Strakt]

this year has started very well

we haven't had a good bomb to make fun of yet

looks like this one will do the trick

i don't really enjoy bioware games very much so i'd rather it's this one rather than something more interesting

that sums up your entire post right there. op posted this in a separate thread for a reason.. wheres theres already an early impressions thread posted. theres just some people who had no intention of playing it in the first place who just feed off the negativity i guess (aka u)

 

[WarrenD]

All the posts about what does this deserve it's own thread. I thought I'd clicked on an Angry Joe review for a moment.

 

[Omega Kirby]

We'll see on monday I guess, I'm expecting lots of 8s.

Man is it so hard nowdays to get some amazing space exploration game.

 

[TheChillyAcademic]

Wasn't mass effect known to have relatively well received graphics and animation? What the fuck happened?

 

[martino]

It's not; the prevailing opinion on GAF currently is that Inquisition is terrible.

Seems more a vocal loud minority...but yes, they do appear more and more prevalent with mass effect release date nearing

i need this mod to happen on pc

 

[Vire]

What he describes doesn't sound that unreasonable actually. It sounds exactly like Inquisition was.

 

[jtb]

Sounds like a BioWare game.

Really sounds like Dragon Age: Inquisition.

It is funny how with each game, BioWare somehow finds a way to up the player worship ante. It'd be more impressive if it weren't so annoying.

(Also, BioWare writing has been terrible for at least a decade)

 

[obeast]

Heh. The article has actually stumbled on an issue with a lot of RPG writing. Where people don't actually have conversations - they basically just info dump exposition, or concepts, or factions, or character attributes that the writers have created prior to writing the dialogue.

Instead of having those things inform the characters, the characters end up endlessly informing us about them. It's bad writing. DA: I was particularly guilty of this and why it's so boring talking to a lot of the characters in that game.

I also think that's another one of the reasons Witcher 3 stood out, because in that game dialogue was actually used to help tell the game's many stories, and people had real conversations.

Yeah, this has been a glaring issue for the entire Mass Effect series. Per my memory, ME1 in particular has a number of absurd info dumps - are we really to think that an human soldier is ignorant of, say, Asari mating practices or Quarian culture, decades after humanity made extraterrestrial contact? Isn't that the kind of thing that you would know as part of being an educated person?

That said, I would imagine introducing a new setting to a player gracefully through naturalistic dialogue is an extraordinarily difficult thing to pull off in practice.

 

[SummitAve]

What he describes doesn't sound that unreasonable actually. It sounds exactly like Inquisition was.

Yeah it seems pretty much in line with where Bioware games and development has been trending.

 

[TwoDurans]

Everything that was described seems okay to me. Sounds like they were expecting an action RPG, but ME:A sounds like it's more ME1 than ME2.

You don't have all the information from the game and need to read the Codex is really a complaint? In a Mass Effect game?

 

[Lingitiz]

Not sure if posted yet, but here's a summary of Peter Brown's of Gamespot's first impressions.

He's having a hard time getting into it because of the feel of the combat, animations, and AI. Thinks the basic shooting system is really unsatisfying and soft cover sucks. It has very simple encounters, unresponsive base movement and slow animation startup. It sounds like he thinks overall that the mechanics are dated and that other people in the office with past series experience are willing to overlook these things, whereas he isn't because he hasn't played the past games. He says the UI and menus are really overwrought and hard to get anything done in an efficient manner.

Says the story is totally uninteresting to start. He also said the early setup is poor, predictable, and the stakes are really unearned, although the dialogue and typical Bioware structure seems fine.

Last note is that other people he's talked to say PC is the way to go, unsurprisingly.

 

[Zyae]

That's the more interesting thing about it. Two dramatically different impressions on the early hours of the game.

Also, Kotaku's preview seemed mostly positive:
http://kotaku.com/five-hours-in-mass-effect-andromeda-is-overwhelming-1793268493

The vast majority of previews have been positive

 

[Kawngi]

I'll be playing because I'm a ME junkie but reallyyyy hope its not another DA: I