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Mass Effect Andromeda Graphical Downgrade

A Youtuber named xletalis did a comparison of dialogue animations yesterday contrasting ME1 to Andromeda.

5qOu2Zd

And people thought I was crazy for saying I thought ME1 looked generally much better.
 

b0uncyfr0

Member
Yes the game is no doubt pretty when cranked up but coupled with
-Standard FPS combat
-Potential Crap writing
-Bad animation

If you're buying this for the SP ; like i was, thats a big chunk of the damn game. The only thing i have to lean on is the story ; so not very enticed atm.
 
lol there's not even animations for getting resources off the planet? you just stand there and it says you collect it and nothing changes. That's worse than the space map just loading static backgrounds that you move through
 

Lucius86

Banned
The thing that gets me is that in the earlier Mass Effects the characters were constantly referred to as 'digital actors' by the developers to represent their cinematic quality. It seems like this concept is suddenly lost.

Admittedly I have not played the game, but these videos and gifs are pretty worrying.
 

Coreda

Member
I'm not sure who was talking in the GiantBomb stream I watched, but he described the characters as being 'dead', lacking a life force that is present in a lot of other games' characters.

The Witcher 3 (2015)

Facial animations really help sell a performance, and CDPR did well with it. Despite being an open world title with countless dialog scenes a it still could frequently convey a character's inner thoughts through their faces alone. Not even sure if their eye rendering was particularly cutting edge either but it was effective.

CSbEThY.gif


That ME1 comparison GIF posted earlier seems to show BioWare had a better understanding of how things like that add to the dialog at the time.
 

aravuus

Member
The other thread makes me want to wait for a sale, this one makes me want to buy the game just for the absolute fucking comedy gold it clearly is
 

eot

Banned
I mean that's because UE4 is a powerhouse and is insanely flexible with different game types.


It's a completely different one actually.


Yea I just watched the romance video and surprisingly they're reusing a shit ton of animations from the original trilogy:

PneUqGe.gif


that's pretty surprising to see actually.

The fingers!!!
 
https://webmshare.com/Dm0Nz

What the actual fuck. None of that makes any sense. How did anyone okay this? WHO WROTE THAT, AND HOW DID IT GET PAST HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE.

Now the comment from the RPS guy suggesting the writer walk off a cliff doesn't seem so hyperbolic.

This singlehandedly took the game from Day 1 to "On heavy sale after several patches" for me

That's just sad. Good thing I have Horizon, Nier, and Overwatch taking up all of my time for now.
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
Sorry, but your face look tired
9JbO9w0.gif

Lol, I seriously don't understand why they left the 'shot' on her face instead of Ryder's when waiting for a response.

Her mouth just....twitches. Like she's trying to say something but is waiting for you to talk first.

Embarrassing. A decade apart and using one of this generation's top engine, and this is what they produce?

It's the closer-up shots with the dead eyes (that IMO, might be a bit too big for the face). Combined with the lack of tracking and other facial movements, it makes the face feel lifeless.
 
It is even harder to imagine that ME:A runs on an updated and technically superior version of that same engine.

Wha'ts dumbfounding is the fact that it has been five years in the oven. Five years to put out a product that would be comparable to a small indie project, embarrassing.
 

RuhRo

Member
What on earth is going on with this game? BioWare must be in crisis mode, right? They have to be aware of the word of mouth this thing is starting to generate.

Really baffling - they were one of the most promising developers out there circa KOTOR, and even ME1 was very special.

What went wrong? New team? Troubled development cycle? Not enough oversight? Too many departures of key people?
 

Grewitch

Member
Everything's fine. They're in a new galaxy, so of course the natural forces will affect them differently. You're all judging this game from human galaxy perspective, we're now in another galaxy which affects all foreign aliens in different ways. So what you percieve as poor animation, is just the new gravitaional pulls in play. Those pouty lips when speaking is just because the skin is loose and is being pulled slightly by the gravity there, same with other aspects of animation like walking and such.

As for graphical down grades, please. i'm an independant scientist, and believe me all that's happening is that their skin is reacting to the light of alien suns, which is different from the light from orginal galaxy of origin suns, so of course it will look strange.

You can't judge this game from a human galaxy perceived notions, what Bioware have done is stay true to science, and represented how things will truly look. Trust me, you need to broaden your world view to a universe world view.

This game is as close to a documentary a game can get to depicting human and alien life in a foreign galaxy. Bioware should be applauded for their strength of dedication, not be ridiculed by small minded thinking of sheep afraid of electric dreams.

I'm a passenger, and I'm strapped in for the ride. Good golly Miss Molly, they should be charging me to play this game.
 

Slaythe

Member
What on earth is going on with this game? BioWare must be in crisis mode, right? They have to be aware of the word of mouth this thing is starting to generate.

Really baffling - they were one of the most promising developers out there circa KOTOR, and even ME1 was very special.

What went wrong? New team? Troubled development cycle? Not enough oversight? Too many departures of key people?

That's the thing.

It's NOT Bioware. EA fucked us all. They renamed a shitty studio "Bioware Montreal" and tricked us all.
 
https://webmshare.com/Dm0Nz

What the actual fuck. None of that makes any sense. How did anyone okay this? WHO WROTE THAT, AND HOW DID IT GET PAST HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE.

Now the comment from the RPS guy suggesting the writer walk off a cliff doesn't seem so hyperbolic.

Wow, that's actually a lot worse than I imagined it could be. It's not just the writer though, the VA is awful too, then the animations. It just comes together into one awful package. There's no way I could try to get into the story in this state.
 

SilentRob

Member
This game looks and feels like a Mass Effect knock-off developed by Spiders (the studio, not the animal :p), the makers of Mars War Logs, Bound By Flame and Technomancer. What happened? I know that it comes from a different Bioware Studio than the previous games (Montreal instead of Edmonton)...but, still. Jesus.
 

platina

Member
leaked.gif


Can we stop saying this is pre-rendered/cg footage now please?? How much more realtime can this get. If it wasn't obvious already, yes, the game did get a downgrade.

mea.gif

smoke31a5c.gif
 

platina

Member
Everyone's face looks so derpy for some reason. *sigh* I hope those are just isolated cases.
Apparently it's all through the game. I just don't see the face animations getting a massive overhaul through just a patch, don't they have to start over with the motion capture?
 
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