alexanderftw
Banned
What hate? Can you give some examples? Everyones complaints are legitimate issues with the game. Obviously I'm talking about gaf, not the stuff thats on metacritic.
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Mass Effect: Andromeda | Review Thread (READ MOD POST)
- Thread starter kubus
- Start date
What hate? Can you give some examples? Everyones complaints are legitimate issues with the game. Obviously I'm talking about gaf, not the stuff thats on metacritic.
This is crazy talk. Bioware have created some of the greatest RPGs ever.
That they have fallen so far from grace should in no way invalidate or diminish what Bioware has done for the RPG genre.
The true disappointment of Andromeda is how far below it sits what has come before.
JimmyRustler
Gold Member
78% is good, not average. Also, people here acting like it's the biggest crap ever. lol @ none said it's bad. No, that's literally what is said here.
What makes it worse is that the old ME are painted so great. Please put down your rose tinted glasses, all ME had their fair share of problems and from what I read Andromeda's problems aren't necessarily any worse, just different.
FallenGrace
Member
I genuinely don't know what a SJW is but i see it thrown around here occasionally. Can someone explain?ah yes, all those wonderful user reviews
thepenguin55
Member
ah yes, all those wonderful user reviews
That guy should probably check out this thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1354052&page=8
Yes, because highly toxic metacritic trolls have always been such a reliable measuring stick.
GinoFelino
Member
So, any big reviews we're still waiting for? Jim Sterling, anyone else?
AngryJoe I think. He's a big BW fan, gave DAI GOTY in 2014, so curious to see how he feels. I'm guessing 7/10
MegaSackman
Member
Audioboxer
Member
Major issues with script, story telling, choice weight and choice consequences is a kiss of death for ME. It's like having a puzzle game with no puzzles and saying but the graphics are pretty.
Sure, it looks like they've improved combat, but as a lead of this project you'd have to be woefully equipped to lead if your take away was the most important thing fans liked in ME1-3 was combat. Heck, the outrage at the ME3 ending showed just how intensely passionate fans were of the journey, their decisions and how it was all going to come together. Most friends talking about ME were talking about all the decisions they had made and what their story was like.
GinoFelino
Member
That's true, but they were initially so intriguing because they were part of alien races we'd never seen before, with customs and mannerisms unknown to the player. The characters in Andromeda look exactly like the old characters, just not as endearing/interesting.
I find it hilarious that many initially worried that the game will have a general map layout and quest design to DA:I. The devs said, "No, we learned from DA:I and it will not be like that." The game releases and the map and quest designs appear to be a lot like DA:I...
One of the quest designs I truly hated about Inquisition, other than the severe collectathon nature of all the quests, was how almost every quest and side quest often sent you repeatedly back an forth across large zones. I hate getting a side mission that sends me across a large mostly barren map, content wise, in order to talk to a person or collect an item; then to receive another quests that sends me all the way back across the map again ad nauseum.
Anyway, it looks like many of the issues this game is suffering from have very clear paths to rectification. It stinks that it will be years before we'll probably see the best version of Mass Effect this new team has to offer. Hopefully, this game sells well enough to warrant an immediate sequel.
One of the quest designs I truly hated about Inquisition, other than the severe collectathon nature of all the quests, was how almost every quest and side quest often sent you repeatedly back an forth across large zones. I hate getting a side mission that sends me across a large mostly barren map, content wise, in order to talk to a person or collect an item; then to receive another quests that sends me all the way back across the map again ad nauseum.
Anyway, it looks like many of the issues this game is suffering from have very clear paths to rectification. It stinks that it will be years before we'll probably see the best version of Mass Effect this new team has to offer. Hopefully, this game sells well enough to warrant an immediate sequel.
I think we should start a betting pool on whether he starts the video with, "You done fucked it up!"
This is pretty much like any other major release except this game got roasted extra cause of them janky ass animations/bad writing. This is nothing new nor surprising. And it doesn't make overblown reactions OK. It's just the nature of the beast and is what it is. Every single game will get crucified one way or another by someone in some form. I find the complaining over the overblown reactions as useless as the overblown reactions themselves personally.
Nervous Sausage
Member
From Wikipedia, "Social justice warrior" (commonly abbreviated SJW) is a pejorative term for an individual promoting socially progressive views, including feminism, civil rights, multiculturalism, and identity politics.
Basically, the people who are always throwing the term around as an insult are as delicate and easily threatened as the supposed 'SJWs' they're seemingly obsessed with. They're pretty much opposite sides of the same coin they claim to hate and they're too dumb to realize it.
JimmyRustler
Gold Member
Did you finish the game? All I read in the 4players review is that the quality of the dialog is fluctuating - meaning there is good and bad. I didn't read anything about a botched script so what the fuck are you talking about?
I'm actually looking forward to the bad dialog at this point and hope for some good lol along the way. The main story itself seems to be already from what I gathered.
alexanderftw
Banned
For a mass effect game, for a unique sci fi opera rpg that everyone waited for so long, after 3 arguably amazing games, its pretty damn average in comparison. Folks around here are mentioning specific things beings bad, not the whole package and saying, for example the facials, are anything but bad is nonsense after all the facts and pics and gifs and gameplay thats been thrown around here, and again in comparison to previous games.
jacksepticeye
Member
The game is reviewing a lot better than I expected, I'm genuinely curious about it now
FallenGrace
Member
Ah ok thanks. So it's meant as an insult at anyone fighting for equal rights and diversity etc if i'm understanding that correctly? Claiming they're pushing a personal agenda or whatever?
Everytime I think the world has progressed stuff keeps pointing out to me how wrong I am.
Got it, thanks for the explanation
JimmyRustler
Gold Member
Debatable. According to 4players MEA is better than ME3 at least. So, now what?
Audioboxer
Member
I'm not buying it till it comes down in price. Quite a few reviews lambasting poor script, choices having any meaningful consequences, poor supporting cast and overall writing not being up to par.
Hence the review scores. Better gameplay than 1-3 was not the one thing that "everyone" wanted. If it were this would be scoring higher. Hence my points, and "what the fuck" I'm talking about.
Primethius
Banned
Yep, it's meant as an insult to deflect from the actual issues.
Welll in General, pretty much 99% of other reviewers rated ME3 above MEA
alexanderftw
Banned
cjtiger300
Member
I understand the criticism, but I'm enjoying the game. They really should have stuck to Unreal Engine.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Huh? The only thing those have in common with ME is being shooters and having a Sci Fi setting.
Many/most people loved ME for the character interactions, player agency in dialogue and choices, the epic story told over 30-40+ hours, the romance options etc. etc.
The shooters are short, linear, give little player agency etc. They hardly fill the void left by not having a good mass effect game.
We simply lack a good narrative and character space RPG. RPGs are stuck in fantasy settings for the most part, or Anime type settings with things like Persona or a mix there of with things like Final Fantasy. For now ME:A is the best we can get. It would be great to get something as good as Witcher 3, or the old ME games, to fill that void.
Man Called Aerodynamics
Member
"Major issues with script" etc. is super subjective and there are just as many reviews praising the story and characters as criticizing them.
For sure there will be people who don't like the story and characters (just like every BioWare game) but you can't lump that in with the animation and technical issues like it's some objective, universally recognized complaint.
I don't. Mass Effect 2 is where I stopped liking most of them.
Garrus became a miserable mess and I fucked him out of pity. Liara molested me because the game assumed that making a threesome joke in the first game meant that we were in a relationship and Wrex was just a throwaway NPC in that game.
They were interesting from the start because they were your primary source of information about their species and the world around them, and every new member of their species will always live in their shadow because that's just the way it goes with sci-fi species defined by a single archetype. Andromeda needed new species and lots of them.
Audioboxer
Member
Of course not, but as it isn't a new IP many will be comparing it to the script and range of characters of the previous games. My point largely rides on you do not write a script, story, supporting characters and gamer choice (decisions/consequences) as good as if not better than the previous games and then end up with outlets that gushed over the first 3 dropping off a cliff for this one.
Expectations of calibre of quality is high for Bioware games, sure, but that's only because Bioware has reached lofty heights in the past. Reviews even read like the whole paragon/renegade system has been gimped. Even if ME had nothing on KOTOR, it was still decent enough for consequences for evil/negative decisions. They still pushed you into being a "hero", just a hero that does horrible shit to get to the end goal. Whereas KOTOR actually allowed you to be a bonified villain, and end the game with a genuinely evil ending.
DA:I was the start of Bioware gutting their own diversity and trying to largely homogenise everything. It's just lazy writing/effort when it comes to a "choose your own adventure" RPG that is suppose to be varied and in-depth like Bioware has done with prior games/series, but ends up feeling like TellTale levels of choice illusion. Even TellTale games get blasted for it, but everyone now tends to have expectations that a TT game will be a very linear experience simply with an illusion of choice.
Expectations for Bioware and ME were never that defeatist around choice/consequence. If anything it's what had the ME3 ending debacle kick off. Bioware should have learned from that, not take the easy way out and further nuke everything into just being an illusion. Even their own PR was up on its high horse about "learning" from TW3... Hence I go back to many ME fans do not "give a shit" about cheering around "better combat". It can be appreciated if the overall package retains its level of quality and writing. Like say, Nier! All Platinum did there was say to Taro and Co, leave combat to us (you're quite sucky at it), you do your writing and what the fans loved (which you're good at!). Whoever was lead on the writing/script/choices for ME:A clearly didn't do enough homework, or was just waaaaay out of their depth.
I'll never say it's easy to handle branching paths, multiple takes in VA for options and keep it all together, but as I said above ME1~3 still had a good balance, even if it wasn't quite KOTOR levels. ME:A seems to be further taking what DA:I did and doing it more. Further eroding the sense of a choose your own adventure RPG, and leaving you with basic binary choices that seem like you should just flip a coin, as what does it matter?
Highly doubt that, to be honest. Quickly scanned through some of the reviews in the OP cause I was curious, and even most of the reviews on the top said something to the extent of "there's awful writing, but there's some good writing too", which hardly sounds like praise.
If we counted, I'm pretty sure negative and more neutral/critical (like the example) opinions story/writing/dialogue/character etc wise would vastly outnumber the praise.
Tranqueris
Banned
I feel like the only way I'll be getting this game this week is if they put out a statement saying they're gonna work to fix the issues in multiplayer and also whatever the hell this is.
https://twitter.com/Pepipopa/status/843815610333237255/video/1
Off topic but I love how people who use sjw unironically whine about Bioware but still show up all over SWTOR and support said company with their money.
https://twitter.com/Pepipopa/status/843815610333237255/video/1
Off topic but I love how people who use sjw unironically whine about Bioware but still show up all over SWTOR and support said company with their money.
Alter_Fridge
Member
This tweet must be intentionally ironic, surely
DAI and ME trilogy have the same sense of illusion of choice. I don't get how you can think any differently. KOTOR choices are more binary in good vs evil, but they all lead to the same path with only the ending scene being different. DAI is not any lazier than ME trilogy or KOTOR in that department.
thepenguin55
Member
Personally, I've always wanted Mass Effect to borrow the Dragon Age thing of you being able to piss people off in your squad so bad that they abandon you. Except where in Dragon Age it spells out your relationship with people I want that stuff to be super nebulous. If something like that were in ME and it worked like the suicide mission from ME2 that would be awesome.
Shifting to Unreal 4 would've brought problems too... but DAI should have mitigated that since they've done work on the Frostbite engine. Arkham Knight kept Unreal 3 and evolved their own engine (might have been the ideal situation but it really showed it's age/limitations in the ME games)
For the record, I wasn't excusing ME:A
There's something going on that's hogging the resources (whether fairly or unfairly). That's taking away memory that could be allocated to shaders/animation bones/etc... without dev tools we have no idea. It could be something in the background that's overly expensive and not optimised... it could be anything.
The only way this game makes leaps in quality is if that's addressed and it most likely won't post launch. Even then, that's if it's one clear issue... it could be a lot of things that add up.
I know this is super naive for me to say but I wish that Bioware were as good with Frostbite as DICE. How they manage to achieve 60fps with their games looking the way they look versus Bioware making broken games that run in low resolution and frame rate.
They made the engine and made it specifically for Battlefield games.
It's easier to do when you're the one who created the engine, know how to break the rules on said engine, and most importantly (ties into the first point) you can get them to change the engine to suit your needs easier.
Also the scope plays into things here too.
I don't understand the praise for the combat. I mean, yes, combat is where the game comes to life, but the encounters are poorly designed with no sense of pacing or tactics - enemies just swarm you from everywhere.
The mechanics are okay if a bit floaty. The jump is nice and improved mobility is nice but again the sequences feel barely designed. Plus there is like zero strategy involved since no more weapon or power wheels or teammate commands. So just spam your three powers and fire away. It's competent shooter stuff but doesn't hold a candle to like any FPS out there. And compared to the old Mass Effects? More freedom of movement doesn't equal better. In my opinion design trumps all and those games had great combat design.
The mechanics are okay if a bit floaty. The jump is nice and improved mobility is nice but again the sequences feel barely designed. Plus there is like zero strategy involved since no more weapon or power wheels or teammate commands. So just spam your three powers and fire away. It's competent shooter stuff but doesn't hold a candle to like any FPS out there. And compared to the old Mass Effects? More freedom of movement doesn't equal better. In my opinion design trumps all and those games had great combat design.
Audioboxer
Member
DA:I pretty much nuked a morality system completely, and just left it to some minor companion approval system. If you ask me it was homogenising the experience further than any Bioware game before.
I think my comparisons were quite apt. In ME1~3 you were still a hero, albeit it a proper good hero, or an asshole who done anything they wanted to get to their goals (collateral damage along the way could lead to companion deaths/deaths of others or bad endings for quests). DA:I neutered that experience a bit. KOTOR had the dark/light side tilts, and it's ending was a culmination of the overall experience. It had a proper "fleshed out" bad ending, though, that's my point. Follow the dark side, get a dark side ending.
The dark side wasn't just used to get to the same cookie cutter ending as the light side, albeit done with evil actions, and maybe one or two minor differences at the end.
Either way, all that arguing and debating from us and our opinions aside, the ME:A experience seems neutered from that of ME1~3 let alone other Bioware games. That's disappointing.
Really? You expected lower than average scores?=O
Again the same DA:I you are still the hero, but you can still be an asshole about it. It has effects on how quests ends. Ex. Turn Cassandra into an alcoholic, get Cullen addicted to Lyrium again. I just don't see how it's that much different than what DA:I did.
I'll agree to this.
Audioboxer
Member
Well, for what it's worth I'm not really bashing DA:I, I still enjoyed it. I just felt it was another indication of the way Bioware was heading. Less complexity, more unification.
VincentMatts
Member
lol yeah i was just thinking the same thing. Why even have user reviews if people will just use it to hate on a game?
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
A 5?
VincentMatts
Member
Its a decent ME game that just doesn't live up to expectations from what ive played. But in no way is it a 3.2 or even close to that.