Exactly.
Seriously, just viewing the animation and everything is eye opening. For a series as renowned as this with the type of budget it has? It's fairly inexcusable.
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Mass Effect: Andromeda | Review Thread (READ MOD POST)
- Thread starter kubus
- Start date
Exactly.
Seriously, just viewing the animation and everything is eye opening. For a series as renowned as this with the type of budget it has? It's fairly inexcusable.
The last three missions of Mass Effect 1 are gaming euphoria for me and while I do love my Bioware games in general, this has a pure high I doubt I will ever experience again.
First you have Virmire where the art direction starts kicking it up a notch with the tropics everywhere. There's the choice between Ashley/Kaidan and Wrex. You get background on the genophage and have to make galaxy-wide decisions. They then end the mission with the discussion with Sovereign where he tells you, "You ain't shit" directly to your face. The fact that the Reapers were SHIPS is smarter than anything I've seen from Andromeda's writing and is more alien to boot.
You then have Ilos afterwards which is the calm before the storm where the art direction probably peaks along with the music. The world is haunting, which reflects the legacy of the Reapers. You get the second twist from Vigil then it's off to the races. This mission ends with you ramming the Mako through a big ass Geth blockade in which everything is firing at you. Everything is firing at you.
Finally the rush on the Citadel is straight up perfection. You're literally climbing a tower in zero gravity while the Geth throw everything and the kitchen sink at you while a huge ass space battle takes place directly above you. You're literally perpendicular to the building while fighting a mini army. Finally ending with a fight with Saren in which you can make him commit suicide.
That is a fucking peak and why I goddamn play videogames. Bioware hasn't touched that since and prior.
First you have Virmire where the art direction starts kicking it up a notch with the tropics everywhere. There's the choice between Ashley/Kaidan and Wrex. You get background on the genophage and have to make galaxy-wide decisions. They then end the mission with the discussion with Sovereign where he tells you, "You ain't shit" directly to your face. The fact that the Reapers were SHIPS is smarter than anything I've seen from Andromeda's writing and is more alien to boot.
You then have Ilos afterwards which is the calm before the storm where the art direction probably peaks along with the music. The world is haunting, which reflects the legacy of the Reapers. You get the second twist from Vigil then it's off to the races. This mission ends with you ramming the Mako through a big ass Geth blockade in which everything is firing at you. Everything is firing at you.
Finally the rush on the Citadel is straight up perfection. You're literally climbing a tower in zero gravity while the Geth throw everything and the kitchen sink at you while a huge ass space battle takes place directly above you. You're literally perpendicular to the building while fighting a mini army. Finally ending with a fight with Saren in which you can make him commit suicide.
That is a fucking peak and why I goddamn play videogames. Bioware hasn't touched that since and prior.
UncleMeat
Member
Gettins some pretty big open world whack-a-mole vibes from these pics and I thought ME3's galaxy map was cluttered:
Witcher 3 map looked similar and I love that game but this just looks like way too much shit was tacked on. Hope I'm wrong but this game seems to have taken a pretty heavy quantity over quality approach.
Witcher 3 map looked similar and I love that game but this just looks like way too much shit was tacked on. Hope I'm wrong but this game seems to have taken a pretty heavy quantity over quality approach.
oneils
Member
I want anachronox 2!
Frankly, the fact that everyone is shitting on the game means it's way likelier that I'll enjoy it. The gaming press hates RPGs and player agency, while overvaluing "cinematic" on-rails linearity.
Just genuinely confused as to how they thought stuff like timers and scanning would bring in anyone. Like others have said, it does seem like this game was developed in a dimension where time didn't pass and games didn't grow at all. In a world with Horizon, W3, Zelda, etc., that shit doesn't fly anymore.
I've not even thought about the first game in ages so until now I only vaguely remembered the very ending cinematic...
Good lord, you're both right it was excellent, I forgot so much. I'm genuinely tempted to try replaying it now.
SchrodingerC
Member
I'm certainly going in with my expectations dramatically lowered, which might be a good thing all things considered.
Still hoping to enjoy a Mass Effect game regardless of the scores.
Still hoping to enjoy a Mass Effect game regardless of the scores.
To each his own I guess. I don't personally like them, but we were told that wasn't going to be the case for this game, that it would have its own unique feel gameplay wise. So you telling me it's fine because every game does it too is not really encouraging.
Dr_LucienSanchez
Banned
Will probably wait and pick it up when it's cheaper in the summer (and the onslaught of games slows down).
Never thought I'd actually say that about a Mass Effect game. Quite a shame.
Never thought I'd actually say that about a Mass Effect game. Quite a shame.
Yabberwocky
Member
What the hell happened to the facial animation?! The 2016 facial animation looks great - the character model looked much better, too.
Holy shit, this is a great post.
Now I need to replay ME1 and don't have time for that.
I'd rather have no choices than pretend make meaningful choices.
The DA:I maps of sheer emptiness were far more fun than the maps where you had tissue-paper-thin writing telling you to do X and Y and Z fetch quests. The Hissing Wastes is the shit (and, iirc, totally optional). The Hinterlands is shit.
I'm okay with this. It would be nice if it reached the top-tier of ME at its peak, but I managed to enjoy Dragon Age: Inquisition, since I've always been more of an explorer type anyway. If this game is uneven, but lets me wander around strange alien worlds and poke around at stuff, then I'll enjoy myself, even if it's not a top-tier, GOTY experience.
On the other hand, as an older gamer that grew up during glory days of the JRPG from the SNES era onwards, I find it weirdly uplifting that Persona 5 may just end up being the RPG of the year for 2017. Hadn't seen a JPRG with a legitimate shot at that spot in quite some time, and I'm actually okay with that as well.
Primethius
Banned
Man, I have to say I'm really kind of surprised. I know it's kind of buggy and formulaic and stuff, but I mean, DA:I somehow got an 88 or 89 and I wouldn't say that's a great game by any stretch of the imagination.
It's a shame. I hope this doesn't bode poorly for the franchise going forward.
It's a shame. I hope this doesn't bode poorly for the franchise going forward.
I'm just as surprised as you are.
I didn't know that three studios worked on it, i thought only montreal is doing the major work
Montreal
Edmonton
Austin
Wait a min.... you know guys they really are ME:A
This makes me think of Murray's letter right before No Man's Sky was released.
The face animations are rough and bizarrely worse than Inquisition out of Edmonton. Conversely the gameplay is fucking sublime.
Primethius
Banned
Diablohead
Member
ME1 is a game that will never leave my heart, it was so good and the ending hour or two is spot on to what you said. Walking up the outer walls towards sovereign while the citadel is closed around you, surrouning you in red city lights is something the ME series peaked with.
People learned that DA:I was not that good in retrospective.
While BioWare closed itself in an echo chamber and only left that chamber 5 years after.
EventHorizon
Member
Actually I don't think that elevator pitch writes itself. It's not an inherently bad place to start but on its own it's pretty neutral. All the amazing stuff you mentioned could easily be done without leaving the galaxy. As you point out, the game never earns the fact that it is taking place in another galaxy. From the motivations to go there to what it's like when you're there, it never makes for a compelling story. It's like at every turn when the designers had a choice, they went with the most boring option.
One thing I want to know is why go to Andromeda in the first place. Surely not all the star systems in the Milky Way have been explored. I might be wrong on this, but haven't only the planets near the Mass Effect relay network been explored? Doesn't that leave most of the galaxy a mystery? Why is exploring an unexplored planet in another galaxy more desirable than exploring an unexplored planet in our own galaxy? To launch such an expedition, something really unusual and important must have been detected on long range scans. Saying what that was and why it was important enough to launch such an expedition would be a movie elevator pitch that would get me to watch.
Before the reapers
Before the Citadel
Humanity discovered the first mass relay orbiting Pluto
For 3.47 minutes before power was connected during startup sequence
The impossible happened
A gate formed
Through it fell a dead half crystallized man
On his body was a map of a star cluster in the Andromeda galaxy
His name was Alec Ryder
Like what the fuck you like and don't worry about anybody else. Even if what you like is shit and people are shitting on it, enjoy it the best you can because you enjoy it. That's all that matters at the end of the day and more power to you.The gameplay looks completely badass:
I know that I am definitely going to have some fun there, at the very least.
The Dear Leader
Banned
Seems like an okay game, not great. I don't think it's the death of the franchise, just a misstep as they transition to what they want to make the series into. I'm still buying it and keeping my expectations in check. The best you can hope for is they learn from their mistakes and make Mass Effect II: The Andromeda Strikes Back into a better game.
It doesn't seem like you can be even a mild dickhead going by what's been shown so far. Kicking a guy out of a skyscraper and barking out a shitty one liner, punching a reporter, or inexplicably killing a minor NPC despite all narrative sense is what made those games what they were and gave the series the longevity and replayability it had. Even ME3 had that kind of stuff in it.
semiconscious
Member
...The press rewards linearity, polish and flashy presentation.
I plan to. Is there a problem with me posting those gifs, or should everyone who thinks they might enjoy the game leave?
Primethius
Banned
?
I wasn't saying you shouldn't post them. I'm trying to say I'm happy for those who can enjoy it.
Apologies if that didn't come through.
What's wrong with talking about gameplay in a review thread? Jeez...
So what exactly are you defending here? The gaming press? Linear bullshit?
Ah, I see. It's difficult to tell sometimes. It's all good.
I am wondering whether if i should cancel my pre order or not, however that is very dependent on how the game treats length and side content.
Anyone that has played it could tell me how long the main story is? Also are "side quests" worth doing or are they similar to "tasks"?
For those that played Horizon Zero Dawn, how would you compare these quests to say the errands on horizon?
Thanks
Anyone that has played it could tell me how long the main story is? Also are "side quests" worth doing or are they similar to "tasks"?
For those that played Horizon Zero Dawn, how would you compare these quests to say the errands on horizon?
Thanks
Primethius
Banned
What the fuck happened to this game?
I haven't played that far into Andromeda obviously so I don't know if this is the case all the way through but I feel it doesn't take advantage of its setting. ME1 at its core is kind of weird. A lot of the alien species are really different from humans and so it actually feels like a galaxy in that regards. We had the Ranoch, Elcor, Hanar, Keepers, and the Reapers. When you stop and think about the Reapers as a villain, it's actually fairly clever. The Reapers are ships. Before ME1 who would have assumed that the villains would be ships? It's been done before in scifi so it wasn't a totally new concept or anything but it is of the out box in a way most game writing isn't. The main villain wasn't something you could actually fight or even shoot at. ME1 felt alien. Even ME2 had that at times with the Collectors, who are essentially a hive-mind race. There was also a broadening of that universe from different sectors. You were going into the underbelly for a lot of that game.
Instead of using Andromeda as a clean slate in which the player gets to see a lot of really weird shit, we're seeing only two new races that are both humanoid. There doesn't even seem to be a big political aspect to the two races either. This doesn't feel like they're doing anything interesting with the setting. That doesn't mean you have to jettison the old races but the game doesn't even look to be doing anything noteworthy with them either.
Instead of using Andromeda as a clean slate in which the player gets to see a lot of really weird shit, we're seeing only two new races that are both humanoid. There doesn't even seem to be a big political aspect to the two races either. This doesn't feel like they're doing anything interesting with the setting. That doesn't mean you have to jettison the old races but the game doesn't even look to be doing anything noteworthy with them either.
The events in the trilogy, mainly ME3, was galactic wide. The aftermath affects everything in the galaxy not just the known area. The control ending was a shepard AI controlling the reapers to control and protect the galaxy. The synthesis ending all life in the galaxy was transformed into machine\organic hybrid. The Destroy ending, anything reaper related (tech) was destroyed (mass relays, citadel, etc). The do nothing ending, Reapers win and the reaper cycle continues. The destroy ending could have been used as canon ending with a 100 year or more time jump but that is not what they wanted to do.
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
We also had the Thorian in ME1