*WoT Warning*
Just finished up my trial and here's my thoughts (for the 10 hours I played):
Pros:
- She's a Looker: The graphics are actually quite good with good alien environments (though the desert planet is a little pedestrian). Effects are nice and overall ran like butter on my machine, though I'll admit my rig is on the hefty side.
- I Can See My House From Here: World environments are large and very open. Though there's not full verticality, your jump jet/abilities add very nice platforming aspects that don't weigh down the overall experience. The world also feels well-crafted with enough expanse to give scale, but not enough dead space to be boring.
- What's Over There: Exploration is downright fun in this game and they seem to have tucked away quite a bit all over the place on maps for people to find. From mining nodes, to codexes, and more.
- Vanguard4Lyfe: Combat is the best its been in the serious. Fluid, challenging and impactful without being tedious. The biotics design and items like Jump Jet hovering really give a ton of options for a player. One other item I like is that the enemies are very mobile as well. They will disperse, dodge and maneuver giving a much more chaotic feel to the battlefield. This is coupled with a deep skill tree giving you a lot of options and flexiblity in how you develop your character.
- oh shit: Fiend battle was awesome. Who else ran into that one as its not on the 'main' quest path for the trial?
- Oooh... Shiny: The game has some serious crafting and inventory options allowing you to change your armor, pieces of your armor, colors for your overall armor and casual outfit. Mods for your weapons and armor. Augmenting crafted weapons and armor, which then can have mods. Research Weapons, Armor, and Auguments. And its not complete facile either. One mod turns your normal shotgun shot into plasma explosive shots that do less direct damage, but cause splash damage.
- That's Some Freaky Smoke: The overall story arc is pretty interesting, presenting two (three?) different malevolent forces which are at odds with each other as well it seems. There's alot of different narrative threads and direction the game provides, including politics in the Nexus and such. Great setup.
50/50
- Fucking Boneheads: The Remnant look cool and interesting with different kind of enemies. The Scourge is downright creepy as shit and serves as a great elemental force. The Kett? Boring as shit, with a very uninspired look to them. The main Kett villain seemed somewhat interesting in action, but they were VERY un-intimidating. I'd be okay with it, if the Kett wasn't the main enemy right now. I'm just hoping they are more a side item.
- What you say?: Voice acting is somewhat all over the place. Sometimes its great with characters like Alec and Liam. Then, you have Cora, Tannen, and Addison for example. As much shit as Addison gets, I though Tannen was the worst.
- WHAT you say?: Dialogue is very hit and miss. Sometimes its great and flows just like any other Mass Effect game, even eclipsing sometimes. And then... yeah. "My face is tired." I rarely found examples that hampered my enjoyment of the game, aka cringe-inducing, but I did find some.
- Interfacting: I found the UI 'functional', but it could be loads better. I've got a strong tolerance for bad UI though, so I can easily see this slipping into a real negative. The galaxy map is particularly bad in this regard.
Cons
- Who Broke The Mirror?: There are good faces in this game. I think PeeBee looks great, Alec, Liam... and plenty of just fine faces too. But there are way, WAY too many abominations. Luckily, most of them exist on the fringes of the game: random NPCs and such. But then you run into Addison and Suvari and such. They are just goddamn brutal. Good news is that I think its fixable. Makeup removal and eyemaps will make a
huge difference.
- Are You Using Product?: Fix. The. Goddamn. Hair. It looks almost uniformly terrible outside of dark colors and deep browns. Blondes, redheads, etc. Again, this is actually something patchable considering we're just talking textures.
- Animations.: Do I truly need to say anything about this? I will say I never got most of the bugs other people have. Not one t-pose, no moonwalks, etc. And much like the bad faces, 90% of the time they are on the fringes and not in your face. Still, no excuse and sadly I'm not sure Bioware will be able to fix animations outside of outright bugs like Peebee's handle-firing gun. This also hurts the character interactions because there is not enough facial animation, even when there REALLY needs to have some emoting shown.
- Pathfinder?!: I don't mind the Savior concept being used. Its pretty standard in games and we're used to it. What I think most people complaining about here is the WORSHIP characters show you. I know this calms down a bit towards the end of the 10 hours, but the attempts to build up narrative obstacles for the player are undermined by NPC's falling all over you to touch or talk to you. Though some skepticism by a couple of key characters is shown, it is not nearly significant enough or widespread.
- Character Creator: The worst its been in a Bioware game since before Mass Effect 1. Oh, you can make decent looking MCs, but it'll take some time. The male default Ryder, who can't grow a beard, forgot to pack a razor and female default Ryder is the stuff of nightmares. Seriously, its not about looking pretty, they made her look inhuman. The presetss are not much better with severely lacking customization options. Luckily, Bioware specifically mentioned this as an item they will patch with more options.
Trial Judgment: I bought it after the trial.
Look, I know you've all seen the gifs, "My face is tired", and the backwards gun shot. The question is how jarring and degrading is it to the overall game experience. From my opinion, not much. Rough around the edges is a good descriptor as there is a VERY fun game here with alot of promise going forward plotwise and such. The problem is that the mileage you get despite the issues is very personal. I see enough gameplay, experience, and fun to justify the $60, but can understand it being too much, preorder cancelled for others.
In the end, I'm guessing this will be a VERY divisive game. Expect some people giving it 9s and others giving it 5s. Based on what I played, I'd give it an 8.5 or so. But I also can't wait to play more on Tuesday, so if this just growing pains for the overall length of play, awesome.
SDBurton said:
Regarding romances:
If that leak regarding who can romance who is true, then I'll be pretty fucking irritated. I knew it was wishful thinking that Cora could be bi, but for MaleRyder to have access to her as well as PeeBee and Vetra (they're both bi apparently), while FemRyder has access to Liam and Suvi exclusively is such horseshit. I wanted either Vetra or PeeBee to be female only so we could have a unique dialogue with a companion, but alas FeMC players have to take another L. Ugh.
I'm not sure how it all falls out, but I was able to flirt with almost every member of the Tempest crew after we launched. I think only Gil was not included. Playing PenisRyder BTW.
