Mass Effect: Andromeda

Maximus Alexander

Played two hours or so. Initial impressions are the facial animations are terrible, but apart from that it's Mass Effect. Actually the facial animation were always terrible. So it's Mass Effect.

I for one am excited.

degrassinoel

Some dodgy animations alright - but on the whole it's a lot better than i expected.

Some customisation options just don't work, at all. (may have been a skintone issue with the custom female i made)
Shame the stock Sara Ryder is so awfully animated The custom ones are all fairly ugly too but you can probably see your way through to one that's not too bad.

Some of the dialogue is dreadful, but the story seems fairly interesting.
Some of the voice acting is also dreadful, but generally it's good.

Combat wasn't nearly as bad as the PS stream i watched a few days ago on polygon. Still glitchy, but not so bad that it's unplayable.

Terrain and collision detection in parts are a bit meh, but forgivable when you get used to how it works.
Vaulting and jumping use different keys, cover doesn't seem to work when you want it to, and does when you don't.
The combat friendly AI (Liam) is an abject coward who hides behind rocks waiting for you to kill everything. Whilst Cora attempts to snipe with her Shotgun at long range.. That needs fixing.

Aesthetically the game looks and plays smoothly enough.

One thing that irritated me was the body size of Sara - she looks anorexic. At a few points in dialogue scenes her neck looked as though it wasn't strong enough to support her head. Her waist looks like she's wearing a whalebone corset. And the bony arms..

Lots of minor issues, though. And i'm gonna buy the game anyway. Just not gonna preorder it.
I've definitely made it sound worse than it plays here, but those are the issues i've had with it and they've been addressed by playing it - that being said, the issues are still there but are minor enough that i'd reckon it wont impact so much on actual enjoyment of the game.

That's the 3 hour marker thoughts anyway - subject to change :P

Cina

So basically it's good but make sure you play the male Ryder. Got it!

Varik

Whatever about the look of female Ryder, I can't see how these issue are all found solely with her.

Maximus Alexander

Cina wrote: »

So basically it's good but make sure you play the male Ryder. Got it!

Not sure how that would make a much difference. I haven't tried male Ryder but not one single character has good facial animation so far so I doubt if he's any different. Voice actress for female Ryder is pretty good. One or two of the supporting cast are iffy though.

degrassinoel

Cina wrote: »

So basically it's good but make sure you play the male Ryder. Got it!

Well, yeah kind of - the neck thing was really weird, she looked really unhealthy, or just wrong. The proportions are so wrong at times they look like Something Pablo Picasso did. Hopefully not by intention.
.

You'll notice this issue probably 4 or 5 times in 3 hours if you're anything like myself.
It's off putting and it needs fixing but you could probably live with it, and i'm probably being a drama queen over something that's already been fixed in the full version (i fcukin hope so anyway)

Maximus Alexander

degrassinoel wrote: »

You'll notice this issue probably 4 or 5 times in 3 hours if you're anything like myself.
It's off putting and it needs fixing but you could probably live with it, and i'm probably being a drama queen over something that's already been fixed in the full version (i fcukin hope so anyway)

I only noticed it once. At one point her neck was looking particularly scrawny and it looked like perhaps the deformation caused by the animation when she turned her head was to blame.

It is quite surprising that a studio of Bioware's esteem can be so bad at animating characters... But I think I can get past it because I am finding it fun and so far am engaging with the plot.

I'm looking forward to playing more this evening, which is a good sign anyway.

Gunmonkey

Played a few minutes, already 2 fairly noticeable graphic bugs.

Ryders helmet glass removed the blur effect from everything behind, so it was all blurred out to add perspective but rendered in crisp detail through the glass. A bit minor but still pretty stupid

Even better was Cora glitched out in the hangar cutscene, she was standing stock at attention in the middle of the area, so her lines were delivered by empty space, and then half the cast walked through her as the ships took off, leaving her at attention

Cant say much about the handling of the characters, doesn't quite feel as fluid as ME3. Camera pulls in really far when aiming, and having to scramble for a "switch shoulder" button is also going to annoy me.

Will give the MP a try later, main reason I want to play the game anyways.

Captain Chaos

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Will give the MP a try later, main reason I want to play the game anyways.

You bought a Bioware and Mass Effect game mainly for the MP game modes..... seriously.

noodler

Captain Chaos wrote: »

You bought a Bioware and Mass Effect game mainly for the MP game modes..... seriously.

Its where the majority of my hours went into it last time.

Finished single player in 20 odd hours. Pumped multiples of that into the addictive multiplayer.

FutureGuy

noodler wrote: »

Its where the majority of my hours went into it last time.

Finished single player in 20 odd hours. Pumped multiples of that into the addictive multiplayer.

ME3 MP was absolutely outstanding.

degrassinoel

So 3 hours in, and i'm gonna continue the stream from there if anyone wants to have a gawk
https://youtu.be/tdr9UnW6kI4

Dcully

Watched a stream for a bit there on twitch, multiplayer co-op looks fun.
Ive no real interest in sitting through cutscene after cutscene in story mode, I got bored of all 3 previous games for this reason and never finished them.

DarC_Kn1ght

Doesn't sound good.

The_Valeyard

So, early reports are not good.

Zero-Cool

Official Companion app is live on Irish Android/iphone app stores. If you are playing the early access trial, it looks like there are ingame rewards you can claim through the app, MP Packs.

App is called:

Mass Effect Andromeda: APEX HQ

bigphil2

DarC_Kn1ght wrote: »

Doesn't sound good.

Watched that last night,glad i didnt pre-order now..

Not saying i wont pick it up but it is definitly not sounding like a Day One by any Stretch..

degrassinoel

I gave multiplayer a half hour of my time.

Crashed and Froze on every game.

Always on voice (for some) and no functional mute - although the buttons are there they dont work! Wtf? lol
Apparently you have to actually change voip from off to PTT, then to always on. So that's either broken or i was being trolled by russians in two separate instances.

I didnt even get to play a game because i'd been trying to mute people - failing, host leaves, game freezes, had to end process to terminate the game and start over again. Hosted a game, waited for 5 minutes, nobody joined, literally nobody while it was public. Hosted and played a game solo for all of 2 minutes before it froze and crashed.

Sorry lads, but if that's the par for the course in MP, they've made a right bollocks of it.
I'm actually not surprised they didnt do the MP public beta now with what i've experienced today in 30 minutes.



That's absolutely lousy. Here, if ye dont believe me, a half hour of frustration and 45 more minutes of single player

Icyseanfitz

i cant even get the game to run on pc stuck on a black window on startup ffs

degrassinoel

it takes about a minute to load for me on an SSD, abnormally long loadtime for that

Icyseanfitz

Nope just stuck on an indefinite black window just installed newest amd driver as well, sigh

Gunmonkey

degrassinoel wrote: »

I gave multiplayer a half hour of my time.

Crashed and Froze on every game.

Always on voice (for some) and no functional mute - although the buttons are there they dont work! Wtf? lol
Apparently you have to actually change voip from off to PTT, then to always on. So that's either broken or i was being trolled by russians in two separate instances.

I didnt even get to play a game because i'd been trying to mute people - failing, host leaves, game freezes, had to end process to terminate the game and start over again. Hosted a game, waited for 5 minutes, nobody joined, literally nobody while it was public. Hosted and played a game solo for all of 2 minutes before it froze and crashed.

Sorry lads, but if that's the par for the course in MP, they've made a right bollocks of it.
I'm actually not surprised they didnt do the MP public beta now with what i've experienced today in 30 minutes.

Had some moments like that (start match, everyone bar me stands still -> host migration, everyone standing still -> host migration). Managed to get 3 games in, it does play pretty well once you get into it. had a fierce batch of rubber-banding during one game, it seems its more the people playing have ****e BB more than terrible netcode (but it still has terrible netcode).

Mute function was broke for me too, and needs to be fixed asap, only so many seconds of someone blaring atrocious dance music and screaming in some form of Russian I can take before snapping.

Sound in general seems to be all over the place, can hear gunfire and such from my left but there is nothing but the edge of the map (maybe its trying to do some form of echo but it just falls flat).

Also no bombastic, triumphant music when you extract .....was 80% of the reason I loved ME3 MP

Icyseanfitz

found a fix for my problem, uninstalling the corsair utility program what a weird issue lol

degrassinoel

http://www.pcgamer.com/we-have-mixed-feelings-about-the-first-few-hours-of-mass-effect-andromeda/

http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/16/14944840/mass-effect-andromeda-animations-final

I think RPS have started an avalanche

Icyseanfitz

What's the story/characters like degrassinoel?

J. Marston

Seems like a 6/10 game from the reaction online. Think I might wait for a sale.

CatInABox

J. Marston wrote: »

Seems like a 6/10 game from the reaction online. Think I might wait for a sale.

Honestly, I'm enjoying so far. The writing, the animation, and voice acting, they're all just Bioware to be honest. If you could over look them in any of their previous games, then this will be fine too. You could knock them for not getting better at those things, but they're not detracting from the game so far, at least for me anyway.

Maximus Alexander

CatInABox wrote: »

Honestly, I'm enjoying so far. The writing, the animation, and voice acting, they're all just Bioware to be honest. If you could over look them in any of their previous games, then this will be fine too. You could knock them for not getting better at those things, but they're not detracting from the game so far, at least for me anyway.

Precisely. The 2-3 hours I played last night is more or less exactly what I'd expect if you said "New Mass Effect in Andromeda". I don't understand what people are getting so bent out of shape about; if you like ME1-3, you'll probably like this.

degrassinoel

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

What's the story/characters like degrassinoel?

People are giving out about the story being crap and that - it's not that bad, though it is marred by some NPCs voice acting. The main characters i've seen so far are all fairly decent, even if they are annoying they're voiced well. Cough Jacob Liam Cough.

What i'm talking about is this (specific plot spoilers in that video too, but it's vital to the point i'm making.)
https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/842294985051521024

I could not follow what she was saying because it was spoken and sounded so weird that i actually thought to myself, maybe she's supposed to talk like that to suggest she has some kind of speech impediment or mental disability which wasn't made clear. I actually left the dialogue thinking i hope i don't have to talk to her again..

That's either a good idea implemented wrong - ie: promoting awareness of some nasty illness, or it's bad voice acting. Either way it's entirely unclear and it's the first time in any Bioware game i've seen/heard quality as low as that if it's not been done purposely.

So in that respect, ye'd have to take away from Bioware - they dropped the ball there.

In general, she seems to be the exception rather the rule. The rest of the voice acting is done pretty well, especially by Alex Ryder.

I'll be blunt - ha - the characters are not Shepard, Wrex, Tali, Garrus etc.. and that's a let down. Part of the reason it's a let down is that every character in Andromeda has so much to live up to, but they dont give you a solid reason to care about them and i think this is based on where the game starts off from.
Literally throwing you into a new galaxy. With no background on how or why. This is a literary crime in the same way people seen the Tricolour endings of ME3. If things had been explained and they'd spent the first 2 hours of the game in andromeda bootcamp with the characters then maybe i would personally take some more interest in doing what i'm doing and being a bit more invested in the game, but nope. This is Bioware doing it their way, and it works, just not as well (or deeply) as you'd want it to (well, for me anyway).

That's what i've been thinking about it after 4 hours or so. Which tbf to ME3, i couldnt let go of that game til i'd completed it, only taking the occasional break to get new hankees this game doesnt have the emotion that ME2 and 3 had, and i think a large part of that is/are the sorry way the main character is brought into the fold. I should be made to care about this person within the first few minutes or at least respect him/her - but i dont, and not out of malice, but out of a not so good entrance.

I could liken it to your favorite pet dying, and someone you dont know handing you a kitten and say "here, love this instead".
The game may have a heart, but i've yet to find it.

it's not all doom and gloom - like i said, the story isnt all bad, i just dotn like the way it's written from the entry point, it does get better but it has some faults.

K.O.Kiki

How are you playing this?

EA Origin is still giving me "Windows pre-load date: March 17 @ 5:00PM GMT"

*edit*
Figured it out:
In Origin, find the game on the store & click "Download Trial"