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[FinaruDensetsu]

I don't really get the logic of this argument.

Wouldn't the class clown aspect of Twitter and the internet in general apply to all games? If BOTW and Horizon let's say, also had multiple, but relatively few instances of weird animation and jank, wouldn't we see that also disseminated throughout the internet?

 

[Calm Mind]

"article"

 

[thechristoph]

It's almost yellow on Metacritic. Every other game in this series is 90+.

"Generally Favorable". That's good.

 

[- J - D -]

EA and Bioware decided that the animations as shown in the final retail product was deemed presentable. They dug their own grave.

 

[Mifune]

They also screwed with a lot of core gameplay, which left my wife bewildered and disappointed. She's a huge get ME fan, and avoided reading anything about the game to avoid spoilers. Last night was sad to watch, because I really wanted her to be overjoyed about having a new game. But instead I watched her frown and point out all the weird missteps and inexplicable bad decisions surrounding the game. I think we both almost felt like crying a little. Some mean things got said about EA ruining another franchise, and we went to bed.

She's still determined to give the game a chance, but if my wife is struggling to love a ME game then they screwed up, royally.

Yeah I'm pretty much heartbroken at how they threw away everything that worked about the series and decided to do something completely new. I applaud the ambition but so far the execution just isn't there.

I do question why you would toss aside the hook of Mass Effect - exploring a futuristic CIVILIZED universe - in favor of tasking you with investigating uninhabited planets. It's like they took the wrong things from Mass Effect 1 (planet exploration) and built a story on top of that.

 

[nynt9]

As there are articles negative about the game supposedly doing it for the attention, there will also be articles trying to harness the persecution complex of the fanboys saying "don't worry all this hate is overblown and those haters are wrong" for the clickbait, so good job on capturing the second wave, I guess, waypoint.

It's not there are a few bad moments that occasionally happen in the game, these are hilarious and massive animation mishaps that happen all over the game for everyone, because the game is just poorly realized in that fashion.

 

[joe2187]

Series has game that doesn't appeal. Walk away and play something else, because it's not like there aren't a million other things to play. Not really sure why this is such a thing, honestly.

I loved the ME and DA games when they first started, i watched them mature into a franchise. And just like watching a child grow up, ME3 was watching that child drop out of college. DA2 was like watching that rebellious teen hang out with the wrong group of people. And andromeda is watching that teen turn to smoking meth.

 

[Captain Zyrain]

The sheer number of weird glitches I ran into during the trial/demo was unsettling.

The facial animations were also bad enough to pull me out of the narrative, which was ungood.

The 'open' world of Eos wasn't very fun, didn't look amazing, and wasn't engaging to me.

Ultimately, while I think the story seems like it will be good, and I am sure I'll revisit it at some point (on sale or free w/ EA Access), it was not worth $60 at launch and didn't feel to me to be a proper AAA game in this day and age.

I loved the ME and DA games when they first started, i watched them mature into a franchise. And just like watching a child grow up, ME3 was watching that child drop out of college. DA2 was like watching that rebellious teen hang out with the wrong group of people. And andromeda is watching that teen turn to smoking meth.

+1!

 

[Strakt]

But also hugely disappointing.

Its a game with mixed reviews. There are some people who give it a 85+ and others who give it 75 and below. Opinions. We get it, you dont like the game.. you were shitposting in the other thread all day yesterday.

 

[Version 3.0]

What would even be the negative focus on Zelda though (at least that can be gif-ed)? That'd be reaching to dramatic proportions. And even if that's the point, it's an unrealistic expectation.

Easy. Bad framerate drops. It's been exceedingly rare for me, but I've had a couple of half second freezes or few seconds of bad stutter. Other people have reported them happening more frequently.

Shown in isolation, they'd look pretty bad.

 

[serenewarfare]

As there are articles negative about the game supposedly doing it for the attention, there will also be articles trying to harness the persecution complex of the fanboys saying "don't worry all this hate is overblown and those haters are wrong" for the clickbait, so good job on capturing the second wave, I guess, waypoint.

It's not there are a few bad moments that occasionally happen in the game, these are hilarious and massive animation mishaps that happen all over the game for everyone, because the game is just poorly realized in that fashion.

The article, again, is in no way defending the game.

Where is this perception coming from that the article is trying to defend or "justify" the game? It's not at all. It's just an examination of the dissemination of the reaction.

 

[True Fire]

is ME:A disappointment of the year?

Yes, I've been calling it for months.

This has been the year of 9/10 games, so it was very obvious that the first game to make a mistake would be punished extra hard.

 

[Palette Swap]

They did it with the Order: 1886...

Spoiler

Spoiler

Please don't thrash me lol

I remember initially passing on it because everyone complained it was too short and shallow. I picked it up later on sale, and it turned out that consensus about length wasn't an issue for me.

Spoiler

I found the game so terribly paced and uninteresting that I dropped it after an hour and never looked back.

 

[chogidogs]

I'm kinda enjoying the game.

Spoiler

By not looking at the faces while people are talking. Scratch that. By not looking at the faces.

 

[RedAssedApe]

:shrugs:

if people are disappointed by your product you're leaving yourself open for this kind of criticism. just off the top of my head:

- no man's sky (false advertising...not sure about this one as i didn't play it)
- me: a (bugs, crap animation, writing)
- sfv (lack of modes)
- every cod game every year
- Assassins creed unity (bugs, performance)

its also not a phenomena specific to games. ironfist comes immediately to mind.

Most of the reviews are good.

average compared to the best games released in 2017 and average compared to past games in the series. which unfortunately equates to "bad" to people if they haven't played it

there is a bit of mob mentality to it...but at the same time its not necessarily unwarranted if there are aspects of the game that standout as being egregiously bad (i.e. people are in the right to call out stuff like ironfist's fight scenes and ME:A bugs and animation)

 

[Admodieus]

The unspoken fact in all of these reviewers and threads and articles is that if this game did not have the "Mass Effect" prefix, it wouldn't even be reviewing as favorably as it is.

The game is a legitimate 5 on a 10 point scale, but it earning two points out of nostalgia for the original trilogy and the history of the lore that each reviewer has in mind. Would love to see a subset of review scores from people where Andromeda is their first Mass Effect game.

 

[kiguel182]

The animations look terrible and some of the writing seems atrocious (and insulting at parts).

It's not a witch hunt, the game just looks bad.

 

[Hyrule Warrior]

Can I be honest ?

I think many of us got fucked hard by DA:I.

Andromeda was their last chance.

It's kind of how FFXIII took everybody hostage at first, then the resentment came.

I also don't think anybody was looking for a perfect game, or glitch free experience. But the amount of amateur writing, animations, modeling, and the lack of polish in the game, is just undeniable and a deal breaker for many that cared about immersion in Mass Effect.

Well it's also like someone else pointed out last page, this game is coming years after the massive train wreck that was Mass Effect 3. This game needed to be good to get fans back on board. You can't have problem after problem stack up like this, and just think everyone will be fine with it, especially after the reaction to 3.

Every part of this game I've touched just feels like the developers had no respect for the player. It insults my intelligence with it's weak plot and set up so far. They think they can make so many inconsistencies with the rest of the series all okay by throwing in a single piece of dialogue that barely makes sense. All the technical screw ups show a lack of polish that makes me think that they thought their audience wouldn't notice. The dialogue is mediocre even when it doesn't sound completely robotic, so boring and by the numbers that I feel like I know exactly what's going to be said before spoken.

Looking back on Mass Effect 1 by comparison, the set up for that game felt like true science fiction, with an intriguing set up. This game starts up like "yo dude, we're gonna set up in this new galaxy, and if there are aliens already there, only shoot if they don't play nice, even though we're the invaders"

 

[thechristoph]

But also hugely disappointing.

I'll give ya that.

I've only played a few minutes of it; it's too hard to go back and forth from Zelda to, well, anything else. Right away I encountered a weird audio hiccup. There was a line that made no sense at all; Cora (I think) goes "it doesn't even look the same" when they look at the planet through the window. What doesn't look the same? The planet? The same as what?

So yeah, I've had a few weird experiences with this game already and I'm not feeling very optimistic about it, but I do agree with the premise of the article that people really wants to tear this game down. I have this (nonsensical) urge to white knight for it, and I don't know why.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

The game doesn't handle it's trans character or it's gay male characters well at all.

They fucked up but I don't see that as them backpedaling. It wasn't intentional to hurt someone and it's still better than the average game that doesn't even try to be inclusive.

 

[Strakt]

I don't know how you can spin a 75, a disappointing score for a B-tier game, into anything other than a massive failure when all previous games in the series got 90+. It's just dishonest.

Who cares about scores though? I mean if you base your opinion ESPECIALLY on a game with mixed reviews solely off others opinions, then feel free to think its a disappointing game. I could name so many games recently that got high scores but after playing them, they deserved to be much lower. Some people like the game, some dont. If it was a game with all 60s, 50s, etc.. then sure the game has a "general" idea of it sucking.. but the scores are pretty much everywhere for this game. Its more of a "try it first" before buying.

 

[MadClacker]

Mass Effect Andromeda can't afford to just be adequate or "ok" what with all the other fantastic titles we've had recently, and soon to be released. It just makes its shortcomings all the more clear and open to attack. And seeing as its presentation is one of the most notable and obvious flaws, its not hard to see why the game is being received by some in the way that it is.

 

[Zukkoyaki]

The unspoken fact in all of these reviewers and threads and articles is that if this game did not have the "Mass Effect" prefix, it wouldn't even be reviewing as favorably as it is.

The game is a legitimate 5 on a 10 point scale, but it earning two points out of nostalgia for the original trilogy and the history of the lore that each reviewer has in mind. Would love to see a subset of review scores from people where Andromeda is their first Mass Effect game.

I feel like the pedigree of past games is hurting it if anything. Reading through review scores, most of them even the 6/10 ones agree that it's a fun RPG with strong combat and open-world gameplay. It's the polish and characters/storytelling that don't live up to the original trilogy that seem to be docking the points.

 

[Ushay]

This game is good, it just wasn't great. I imagine if the animation quirks and technical issues were ironed out, thing would have been a lot different.

Placing a magnifying glass on some problems the game had, while necessary, isn't constructive when you flat out ignore the good too. I'm still of the opinion thus game needed more time to cook.

In a way I'm glad this kind of feedback has surfaced, that way the dev team can stay on their toes.

 

[RedAssedApe]

not to mention...before this stuff came out...i'd argue that a majority of people WANTED this game to succeed. if we liked the trilogy do you think we really wanted this game to fail? pls...

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

It's good to have criticism on a game as long as it's healthy, not "Well the game was ruined cuz they hired a bunch of SJWs to work on it."

 

[Strakt]

These aren't mixed reviews though, they are reviews that universally say this is the worst Mass Effect game. It's not like it's a really abstract thing. The score just represents those sentiments.

Once again, feel free to think that. The people who did buy the game , which there are plenty of, actually form opinions on their own rather than relying on somebody elses

And if you do rely on opinions, why ignore the positive feedback huge streamers are giving towards the game? You got Lirik, cohhcarnage , goldglove, etc with thousands of viewers... all saying that the game is not as nearly as bad as people are making it out to be.

 

[brawly]

Inquisition sits at 89% metacritic. It was past time BioWare got a wake up call. Hopefully Bethesda is next.

 

[VegiHam]

They fucked up but I don't see that as them backpedaling. It wasn't intentional to hurt someone and it's still better than the average game that doesn't even try to be inclusive.

I agree with you on the inclusion of a trans character. I was more referring to the gay romances. After two mass effect games with no gay male options; the third one finally lets us romance one of our squadmates (even if it is the most boring man in space) but with Andromeda we're back to no non-hetro men on the squad. Kinda disappointing.

 

[Aaron]

not to mention...before this stuff came out...i'd argue that a majority of people WANTED this game to succeed. if we liked the trilogy do you think we really wanted this game to fail? pls...

I think people still do and it's colored the reviews. People need to realize it was made by an almost entirely different dev team than the past efforts, and gauge their expectations accordingly. The bar has been raised a lot since ME1-3 came out, and while it's not a disaster, ME:A definitely doesn't deserve to hang with ME2.

 

[Rodney McKay]

For instances like this I'd call it less of a "Snowball effect" and more of a "natural accumulation of snowfall."

I mean that even without someone rolling a ball down a hill (initial bad impressions of the game), the game would naturally be getting snow dumped on it from as a result of the quality of the game. Put every reviewer and player of the game in their own box separated from the outside world, and a lot of them would run into the same issues being discussed at length (bad animations, weird glitches, mediocre writing/voice acting, etc).

The Snowball effect can definitely happen like with assholes who take things too far like the ones who bullyed that employee for the animations, but so far I'd say the vast majority of the response to this game has just been pretty fair and reasonable.

I don't even think the backlash is nearly as bad as No Man's Sky, but mainly because I don't know if expectations and hype were anywhere near what that game had going.

 

[AmyS]

I've never played the Mass Effect series, and don't feel like starting now with this game.

 

[Muchi Muchi Pink]

What could be worse? Mario Odessey is bad maybe?

Nah. If it was Paper Mario or something, sure it would be possible. But Mario is done by the best team Nintendo has and produced by Yoshiaki Koizumi.

 

[Cartho]

I do feel like Andromeda is getting an unfair roasting to be honest. Take the dodgy animations out and it's a great fun game. It's not a masterpiece but still very solid fun.

Fallout 4 had worse graphics and its animations and faces are total steaming ass shit and yet that didn't get anything like the kind of backlash that Andromeda is getting.

In fact Skyrim is hugely acclaimed and loved by many despite having truly hideous facial animation. Bethesda always seems to get a free pass on stuff like that though because you can pick up totally useless crap and pile it up in a store room.

 

[nynt9]

This game is good, it just wasn't great. I imagine if the animation quirks and technical issues were ironed out, thing would have been a lot different.

Placing a magnifying glass on some problems the game had, while necessary, isn't constructive when you flat out ignore the good too. I'm still of the opinion thus game needed more time to cook.

In a way I'm glad this kind of feedback has surfaced, that way the dev team can stay on their toes.

Considering the problems are pervasive, constant and highly visible, no one is placing a magnifying glass on them. They're straight up intrusive and are harming a big part of the game.

I do feel like Andromeda is getting an unfair roasting to be honest. Take the dodgy animations out and it's a great fun game. It's not a masterpiece but still very solid fun.

Fallout 4 had worse graphics and its animations and faces are total steaming ass shit and yet that didn't get anything like the kind of backlash that Andromeda is getting.

In fact Skyrim is hugely acclaimed and loved by many despite having truly hideous facial animation and animation. Bethesda always seems to get a free pass on stuff like that though because you can pick up totally useless crap and pile it up in a store room.

Perhaps the point of bethesda games isn't the story and characters.

 

[Peltz]

What could be worse? Mario Odessey is bad maybe?

Oh no! Please don't say that. I want Mario to rule!

 

[Tinfoilhatsron]

I loved the ME and DA games when they first started, i watched them mature into a franchise. And just like watching a child grow up, ME3 was watching that child drop out of college. DA2 was like watching that rebellious teen hang out with the wrong group of people. And andromeda is watching that teen turn to smoking meth.

And DA:I is like that teen getting into a cheap suit with a plastic tie for an interview and getting the job because every other applicant was worse in comparison, and then the teen is trying so hard but he has an alcoholic problem and drinks on the job and anyday now the manager's going to notice if they haven't already...

Wait where was I going again?

 

[Jamesac68]

Because the gifs are funny

This is absolutely true. Those things are funny as hell. I'm not really sure how that translates to "Lets abuse people", though.

 

[Sakura]

I don't really think it is a snowball effect of just some people happening to stumble upon a strange glitch or quirk. The shit is there in the forefront. Like, these are the animations in these certain scenes. Even the official trailers they've put out has had this shit.
Also people like funny things.

 

[atr0cious]

Never finished 3 so I didn't really know about the ending thing till the internet blew up, still don't care, though i liked the multiplayer and spent many hours in it. But MEAs writing is really bad, maybe I'm just older and jaded, but it's more noticeable than an episode of scandal. Was watching a twitch stream and it was during the point when the Turian? woman sweet talks some dude. So cliche, the whole scenario and even the scenario the characters say to each other, and so then you focus on the visuals and they have the same walk animation some how, the weird shoulder swing, and I turned it off.

 

[Strakt]

Because even those people aren't saying it's anywhere near the original trilogy in terms of quality, so why bother in this year of non-stop amazing games?

Idk about you, but I play games to have fun.. not to sit there and compare it to other games in the trilogy. Mass Effect is the only game for a while that will create a good open world sci-fi game.. and its fun with a decent story and amazing graphics (on PC). There are flaws with the game for sure, but it is no way, shape or form.. terrible. If you think that, thats fine also. I just don't understand why the same few people post in every mass effect thread talking about something they don't like or will never play continuously bashing it lol.

 

[pablito]

I mean we've been waiting for a game from Bioware that didn't piss off a bunch of people since Mass Effect 2. Makes sense that people are going to lose patience with them and pick on them.

 

[Lime]

not to mention...before this stuff came out...i'd argue that a majority of people WANTED this game to succeed. if we liked the trilogy do you think we really wanted this game to fail? pls...

Exactly. Of course people want the best for a video game to succeed.

Thinking that people are holding a grudge or wanting a highly anticipated game after 5 years of development and waiting to fail is ridiculous and childish view on other people and their disappointment with a new game.

 

[a916]

What could be worse? Mario Odessey is bad maybe?

I really don't see the blow back being that big as say...

I imagine Destiny 2 launching in a similar state as the first would be the worst blow-back we've seen since Diablo III

This. Destiny 2 launching in a worse state.

 

[Strakt]

You can't have fun when you're spending all your time thinking about how much better this all was the first time you played it ten years ago. This is nonsense.

Or people could stop living in the past

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

Perhaps the point of bethesda games isn't the story and characters.

Hmm, that's debatable. I personally don't think Fallout's gameplay is all that compelling.

 

[i-Lo]

After 5 years the fans weren't eagerly waiting for a "flawed but good" game, rather a great one. While no one reasonable, decent and sane would condone any sort of personal vilification (gamergate shit), criticism of the product for all the flaws and queries for the root causes should never be invalidated.

The expectation for a great product only exist because of what came before it. As a paying customer and more so as a fan who is invested in the franchise (depending on what you're looking for) the new game fails to deliver on quite a few fronts. IMHO there aren't review outlets with malicious intent who have bonded together to ensure that the game does not get ratings akin to its predecessors.

 

[Sakura]

I do feel like Andromeda is getting an unfair roasting to be honest. Take the dodgy animations out and it's a great fun game. It's not a masterpiece but still very solid fun.

Fallout 4 had worse graphics and its animations and faces are total steaming ass shit and yet that didn't get anything like the kind of backlash that Andromeda is getting.

In fact Skyrim is hugely acclaimed and loved by many despite having truly hideous facial animation. Bethesda always seems to get a free pass on stuff like that though because you can pick up totally useless crap and pile it up in a store room.

There is a difference in expectations I think.
When has a Bethesda game had good animation etc? The newest Mass Effect is arguably worse in this regard than the one released a decade ago.

 

[Principate]

Considering the problems are pervasive, constant and highly visible, no one is placing a magnifying glass on them. They're straight up intrusive and are harming a big part of the game.



Perhaps the point of bethesda games isn't the story and characters.

Yeah but that's not what the majority of the discussion about ME:A is about. It's about bugs and glitches and Bethesda games have them in spades. Sometimes even game breaking.

 

[peanutbutterlatte]

Oh precious little snowflake. A few people really aren't a fan of the game. The best you can do if you like it is to play and enjoy it. No multi-million dollar production needs defending.