• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Mass Effect: Andromeda | Review Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
I never read any HZ reviews, but did it get shit on fort its mind numbing detective vision side quests and very uneven quality of face animations? Curious in general considering how well game scored.

Nope and the facial animations are excellent.

They are actually the best I have ever seen for side quest NPC

Hozion has set the bar for Open world games in nearly every respect. I feel bad for Mass Effect coming out after it
 
Mixed as I expected. I'm still optimistic after playing the early parts, but it seems as divisive a title as there's been in recent memory.
 
that...would explain a lot actually.

And apparently there actually is a French idiom that does roughly translate to having a 'tired face'.

Again, this tells you a lot about the game, if they're making mistakes like this. Everything about it points to troubled development and EA saying after five years 'The bank is closed, get this game out now'.
 

robertoci

Member
A bit disheartened about the scores to be honest but I think I'll still get it anyway, 75 isn't too bad when I remember loving DA2 and that had a similar score, just can't believe they managed to bugger this up still...
 

tbm24

Member
Hearing some of the complaints are a bummer. Really wanted to lose myself in a space opera again. I've been replaying mass effect 1 I'm preparation. My copy just shipped today so I'm excited to still dive in. See what's there to appreciate, hoping that's a lot of space exploration.
 

Lime

Member
I think the problem could have been that this game is mostly developed by fans (I mean a new team fans of the franchise leaded by some veteran) and you get an inferior product when fans are involved. Happened to The Simpsons.

I'm sure there's still an enjoyable title in this but it'd be sad to know that this wasn't a priority title to EA, Mass Effect isn't a franchise to dump and leave it forgotten so I have to believe they had confidence in this.

I'm not sure that "being a fan" means releasing an unfinished and unpolished product that needed at least another 6 months in the oven.

This was a case of bad project management and maybe a lack talent (at least in the writing department).
 

JBwB

Member
Disappointing result. I was expecting a meta of 80 at the least.

Ah well, at least I can go into it with low expectations. On the plus side it means I can take my sweet time with Nier before I play it.
 

ArmGunar

Member
Someone speculated that as this game was made in Montreal, this line could have originally been written in French, using a French idiom, which was then poorly translated into English. Which is just... yeah.

No it's false
The same scene in french is " Sorry, it's the tiredness "

Unfortunately, the game is just poorly written :/
 
I don't see how patches will fix the major issues of this which include bad writing and quest design.

Yep, it would need some major work for that to happen, best we can hope for is a lot of bug fixes and maybe DLC with better quests and writing, not that it will help the main game though.
 
Just when I thought nothing could be less inspired than DA:I. I will probably buy the game after it hits 20 bucks but after ME3 and DA:I I think 20 is still too much for me. Looks like Bioware needs a refresh.
 

Lime

Member
This actually saddens me a bit, because from what I played, MEA is actually trying to bring back some RPG elements to the series that have been sorely missed since ME1. The EA suits are going to look at these scores and ask for the next one to be more like the overrated ME2&3 (i.e. Uncharted In Space).

On a side note, I can't believe I'm thinking of a Mass Effect game in a positive light in the year 2017, considering my disdain for the series since 2.

Yeah this is also what saddens me - that higher-ups will see this as an indication that the ME1 formula of exploration and wonder isn't marketable when in fact the flaws of the game has more to do with technical aspects, quest design, and shitty writing.
 

Ont

Member
At least it beats Wildlands! (Albeit by 1 point)

Wildlands has its problems but I don't think it deserves the really low scores given out by Destructoid and some other sites. I have been playing more Wildlands than Zelda and I would not do that if it were an average game.
 

Bedlam

Member
Fuck the reviewers (gamespot, giantbomb). I cannot wait to play this as ME 1-3 are my favorite games...heck, I double dipped (Xbox one and pc) so I can play it on my laptop if I go out.
This is why publishers get away with milking franchises with mediocre games. A true fan should be more critical instead of sucking up everything with the franchise name on it.
 
Overall, the review scores don't look bad. I don't get all the room and gloom.

Playing the trial, it seems fine. No worse than the previous ones with the exception of not having a prior history with any of the characters like 2 and 3 had...
 
Overall, the review scores don't look bad. I don't get all the room and gloom.

Playing the trial, it seems fine. No worse than the previous ones with the exception of not having a prior history with any of the characters like 2 and 3 had...
No worse?

If it wasn't worse it wouldn't be scored where it is.
 

prwxv3

Member
So EA went to EA Montreal. Hey you are Bioware now.

Make a new Mass Effect trilogy, kkthxbye?



Horizon got shat on pre-release. Everything it does may not be new, but it does it very well. Execution is king. Facial animations are mostly great, with some exceptions and the lipsync is sometimes off. The game has been really well received by the player base.

In retrospect that pre-release pile on was hilarious.
 

Tovarisc

Member
Horizon got shat on pre-release. Everything it does may not be new, but it does it very well. Execution is king. Facial animations are mostly great, with some exceptions and the lipsync is sometimes off. The game has been really well received by the player base.

I know it's good game, I put 70h into on V. Hard and Platted it. I still find it weird how people keep claiming how side quest design is basically best in industry and how there is next to zero flaws in facial animations, when both parts of the game clearly have flaws and issues.

I would give Horizon solid 8.

Seeing MEA score this bad is shame for sure, I expected low to mid 80s. Still will be jumping in hard in 3h and seeing for myself how game is overall.

It's not nice to make shit up.

Yeah. After playing HZ for 70h and seeing it for myself I'm just making shit up.

Piss off :D
 
This is why publishers get away with milking franchises with mediocre games. A true fan should be more critical instead of sucking up everything with the franchise name on it.

Too many of the latter on social media for me, unfortunately for some things I care about
 

Staf

Member
At best EA didn't protect their own franchise by seriously vetting the hands it was going into and/or having a bit more of a hands on sit down with some of the leads to say they were fucking things up.

As much as this is Bioware's baby, it's EAs too. EA know what made ME 1~3 critical successes, and will have been or should have been keeping close eyes on this during development.

I agree. But the mentality that when a game is good the developer is great, when a game is bad the publisher fucked over the developer needs to die.
 

prwxv3

Member
I know it's good game, I put 70h into on V. Hard and Platted it. I still find it weird how people keep claiming how side quest design is basically best in industry and how there is next to zero flaws in facial animations, when both parts of the game clearly have flaws and issues.

I would give Horizon solid 8.

Seeing MEA score this bad is shame for sure, I expected low to mid 80s. Still will be jumping in hard in 3h and seeing for myself how game is overall.

Not many people are saying it has the best side quests in the industry. The total package however is a different story.
 

Bedlam

Member
Overall, the review scores don't look bad. I don't get all the room and gloom.

Playing the trial, it seems fine. No worse than the previous ones with the exception of not having a prior history with any of the characters like 2 and 3 had...
"Ones" as in all previous ME games? Because nope. Only if you talk about ME3 maybe.That game's writing was already trash.
 
I think it's a bit early to say it's dead. Probably won't sell too well but if it even hits EA sales targets then we will probably get another.

I don't think the game is bad either, but I get the criticism. On any other scale a 7.5 would be pretty solid, yet gamers continue to amaze me with their collective perception that "less than 8.5 and it's utter garbage!"

Not utter garbage, just mediocre.

If the industry could actually use the full 1-10 scale, on a consistent basis, 75 would be a "good" score. But since they don't anything in the 70 range is pretty Average.

With the games out this quarter, Average won't cut it, let alone it being in the series where there was at least one Game of the Year contender.
 
I'm not sure that "being a fan" means releasing an unfinished and unpolished product that needed at least another 6 months in the oven.

This was a case of bad project management and maybe a lack talent (at least in the writing department).

Yeah I'm not making an eco of technical problems, I don't judge games based on that but that's on me.
 
I know it's good game, I put 70h into on V. Hard and Platted it. I still find it weird how people keep claiming how side quest design is basically best in industry and how there is next to zero flaws in facial animations, when both parts of the game clearly have flaws and issues.

I would give Horizon solid 8.

Seeing MEA score this bad is shame for sure, I expected low to mid 80s. Still will be jumping in hard in 3h and seeing for myself how game is overall.

I don't think many would claim the side quests are the best in the industry. Witcher 3 still has the best side quests in an open world game by far and that probably won't change until CDPRs next game.
 
Not utter garbage, just mediocre.

If the industry could actually use the full 1-10 scale, on a consistent basis, 75 would be a "good" score. But since they don't anything in the 70 range is pretty Average.

With the games out this quarter, Average won't cut it, let alone it being in the series where there was at least one Game of the Year contender.

Accepting a AAA game as average is not good.
 
I've never cared about the story of the Mass Effect games so the fact that Andromeda seems to focus more on the moment-to-moment combat and exploring than the overarching narrative is fine by me. I just hope the characters are better than they seem from the stuff I've seen so far.

Also, some of favorite games of this gen got less than favorable reviews so I don't let that shit sway me. I actually want to have the complete experience myself before I give a final verdict.
 
This actually saddens me a bit, because from what I played, MEA is actually trying to bring back some RPG elements to the series that have been sorely missed since ME1. The EA suits are going to look at these scores and ask for the next one to be more like the overrated ME2&3 (i.e. Uncharted In Space).

On a side note, I can't believe I'm thinking of a Mass Effect game in a positive light in the year 2017, considering my disdain for the series since 2.

I agree, the reception disappoints me, because I was getting some quite high hopes that the game would push the exploration factor, which it seems to have, but a poor story and writing diminishes my interest. I don't rate the ME series as high as its meta, and if this is getting universally panned in comparison with predecessors, then...I am not sure...I cancelled my preorder anyway...
 

Catdaddy

Member
Well, I’m glad I got the 10 hour trial, it actually sold me on the game. Now maybe once I get deeper in the game it’ll become a stinker, but so far I like it. If I read the reviews without the trial probably would have held out.
 

prwxv3

Member
I don't think many would claim the side quests are the best in the industry. Witcher 3 still has the best side quests in an open world game by far and that probably won't change until CDPrs next game.

I think the amazing combat is doing wonders for horizon. If it was Witcher 3 level combat I think the sidequests would have been blasted more.
 

TheMan

Member
OP needs to come correct, ACG review should absolutely be listed in the OP. Makes no sense he would make room for garbage like Forbes instead.
 

BigAl1992

Member
Fuck the reviewers (gamespot, giantbomb). I cannot wait to play this as ME 1-3 are my favorite games...heck, I double dipped (Xbox one and pc) so I can play it on my laptop if I go out.
Buddy, I own ME 1-3 on PC and 360, and own ME2 and 3 on PS3, and that's BEFORE I talk about all the multiplayer packs I bought in ME3 with real money somedays. The reviewers, on this occasion, are totally in the right on this game. I am not buying this game, because these issues with the animation, glitches, technical problems, writing and story are a complete deal breaker for me. I've put more than enough money in this franchise to make my own decision on ME:A, and after everything I've seen and read over the last two weeks, I will not support this game, and neither should anyone who feels the same way I do. Am I disappointed about the choice I'll have to make here? Yes, but I stand by my decision.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom