Mass Effect: Andromeda

degrassinoel

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

How are you playing this?

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

Origin access - monthly sub thing ye can play the free 10 hour trial now

ERG89

Its like the audio is recorded 1 line at a time.
Reviews on Monday like 3 days before our release date, all signs pointing to its reception not being flattering

J. Marston

degrassinoel wrote: »

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

"Hello. Smithers. You're quite good. At turning me. On."

Zero-Cool

I can't remember from ME 3 but is there a clan\squad\crew system in place for multiplayer to make it easier to jump into a game with fwends?

Zero-Cool

From reading stuff on here and other forums, I found this article from Forbes absolutely brilliant.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2017/03/16/this-is-why-its-a-bad-idea-for-games-like-mass-effect-andromeda-to-have-piecemeal-embargoes/#1d1ad662690e

xtal191

Noxin

so just playing for about an hour now on the 10h free trial. Gotta say the game feels quite good. Solid frames in the 90s with everything maxxed out and res scale to 1.1. Game has some serious attention to detail set. Combat feels smooth for the small bit I've had so far. Seems to be a slight motion blur that I can't get rid of which is kinda annoying me, but I can live with it. Imma enjoy this trial and see what happens after. I'll buy it for sure, but dunno if straight away due purely to a backlog of games.,

YouSavedMyLife

The facial animations from ME3 look better than ME:A. The problem with ME:A animations is that they do really wacky **** at inappropriate times. Whereas the animations from the first games seem to have less.....lets say range of motion(?) and it doesn't look quite as bad.

degrassinoel

another RPS pre review review

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/03/16/mass-effect-andromeda-problems/

degrassinoel

Skerries wrote: »

some leaked gameplay and effects

https://vid.me/p41b

When the leaked faces look better than the game

Gunmonkey

So played more of the Single player. There is a nugget of the old ME fun and discovery buried under the terrible presentation/animations, saw a Turian on Nexus standing at an angle as they probably just straight mapped the motion capture to the model and not taken the Turian bent legs into account. Salarians do it too.

Game feels kinda clunky when out exploring, Ryder seems to have caught a bout of "Nathan-Drake sprints everywhere-itis", hard to control when moving slowly and in cramped areas. Very little response when you are taking damage, you just stand there and bars go down, never realised half the time I had lost shield and was down to 1/3 health. Enemies can absorb a lot of damage too (though I am playing on Hardcore diff), even the basic enemies in the first level can take 2 full clips, the stupid dog like things just drink in lead.

I will probably just round out the trial and wait a few months, there is word on a few patches (yes, multiple day#1 patches, GG EA) that fix a few niggles and stuff.

Lone Stone

That facial animation my god its abysmal no way I'll be touching this that would make me rip my animator trained eyes from my head.

Zillah

"My face is tired"....? Who says that?

Also, it's like they're trying to make him look like a dweeb. Just compare the promo shots.

CatInABox

Zillah wrote: »

"My face is tired"....? Who says that?

Also, it's like they're trying to make him look like a dweeb. Just compare the promo shots.

In fairness, he's kinda meant to be. He's young, he's not N7, or any kind of special forces, this is pretty much his first real mission.

Zero-Cool

I read one previewer said he found it very hard to make a white guy, then saw this. What a response! How did that pass testing??




Also there's a 40 page thread on neogaf slagging the animation. 40 ****ing pages!

degrassinoel

Big reviewers avoiding the embargo are going at it surreptitiously with titles like

The internet is brutally mocking Mass Effect: Andromeda's animations

Mass Effect: Andromeda’s character animations continue to be mocked online

CatInABox

Pretty sure that I'm almost finished the part we're allowed play through, and I'm still really enjoying it.

One thing I find hilarious is the fact that the faces in the game can look utterly amazing, more photo-realistic than any other game I can remember, and then in the next scene it's completely shattered by some googly eyes, or a just too vacant expression. It's like they've gotten so close to reality that they've hit another, smaller Uncanny Valley.

Combat is good, but the fact that you don't automatically turn to face the direction your moving in cover is annoying, will take me a while to get use to it.

Storyline/writing wise, is pure Bioware. All that they've ever done is take a few genre books, mash them together, and hey-presto, a Bioware "original" storyline. In other words, it's not going to win any awards, but it does feel suitably epic, at least to me.

The voice acting is good, with some notable exceptions. The woman who says "my face is tired" should be barred from ever doing VO work again. That line can work, but it's like she read it in her head, didn't understand where to put any emphasise, and so just read it out like a weather report on the radio.

All in all, I'm enjoying it so far, it's Mass Effect, it's Bioware. I still think that if you enjoyed the first three games, you'll enjoy this one.

Sephiroth_dude

Have ye done many side quests? Standard fetch quests or witcher 3 quality?

Thargor

I don't think I'm going to be able to play as that Femshep tbh, she's way too off putting, hopefully it'll be patched up a bit by the time I get to it.

humanji

After about 6 hoursd of the trial, I'm really enjoying it. It's got an insane amount of issues, though. I've only come across one bug, but it stopped me gaingin access into a building I needed to get in to advance the story. Andit's a common bug, so it's surprising that that got through playtesting.

The story is fine. It's slow-ish to start and I still don't know where it's going, as it's just taking off. But I've not found myself feeling bored. I'm actually enjoying the (occasional) bad voice-acting and (near constant) bad writing. But I've been watching a lot of movies on the Sy-Fy channel, so may have built up a resistence to them.

My main gripes are that it seems like they designed it on paper and then simply didn't check to see if it works in practice. If I can send a probe to an anomyly to see if there's something interesting there, why can't I send a probe to a planet to check it out instead of having to endure the overlong animation of flying there only to discover there's nothing to see or do?

A couple of times I've had to restart conversations with NPC's because the various quests I had, had independent conversation arcs that only triggered when you start a conversation (as in I can talk to them about one quest, then quit the conversation and start again so that the options for the next quest appear).

Nobody reacts to being hurt. Several times, I've realised someone was behind me punching me, but had little indication that it was happening. All I could tell was something was damaging me.

Why do I have to switch between normal and 6 wheel drive in the Nomad, when modern cars can do that automatically? It just becomes annoying.

There's a few more things like this that are just bizarre to see in the game, when anyone playtesting would have brought them up.

But as I said, I'm enjoying it. I'll most likely pick it up. I think they may have shot themselves in the foot by calling it a Mass Effect game. So far, that hasn't had anything to do with the plot (other than characters occasionally mentioning incidents from before) and has just caused a lot of ME fans to hate it before trying it, by picking up every flaw.

I don't think anyone is missing out by not buying it, and it's also not something you'd regret buying. It's an average to good game.


Edit, oh and two things I just remembered:

1) Surely you should have a badge saying "I'm the pathfinder" on your chest to explain why everyone instantly knows what you are, when you only foudn out a couple of hours before?

2) When you go to your cabin and edit your clothing, you're able to give yourself the Michael Jackson Thriller outfit. Every game needs this ability!

humanji

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Have ye done many side quests? Standard fetch quests or witcher 3 quality?

There's some fetch quests, and a lot of run back and forth quests. And they sometimes give you an option of the outcome, which so far has been "Rules are rules" and "Well, you meant well, so away you go".

K.O.Kiki

Game runs fine for me, though I find the menus a bit fiddly to navigate through - not sure if I'm missing something, or if it's consoleitis.
Loading times between Hyperion/Nexus are almost instant (on SSD) so that's good.
Getting nice Citadel vibes from the hubworld.

Combat... I haven't done enough of it to say. But it's the kind of game I've been craving for a while.
Animations look a bit wonky yeah, but the overall thing is fun & I love the scale of the first level I visited.



Also I bloody knew

that my dad would sacrifice himself for me, nice trope Bioware!

:rolleyes:

K.O.Kiki

Cora looks like utter crap though.

I don't think I could romance her even if she turns out to be an option.

CatInABox

Yeah, I just finished the trial there. I could go on exploring, side-questing and such, but without the possibility of further progress, I'll just wait.

I keep saying that it's standard Bioware, and that's because that's the best way I can think of explaining what it's like. The side quests are ones that you've already done in any of their other games, so no, they're not Witcher 3 standard. At least, that's what I got from the ones I've played through so far, but I wouldn't have any great hope that they'll be CD Project RED standard, just Bioware standard.

Generic Dreadhead

I find the whole "It's Bioware" argument to be weak tbh, akin to "Boys will be Boys".

It's been 5 years. They should have improved.

If a company like Rockstar, Gearbox, Bungie or Naughty Dog took 5 years to release a follow up game, people would not be as evasive in in the face of criticism.

I am happy enough to wait for the game to drop in price a bit and will monitor how the handle patching or updating it.

I can't see a compelling argument to either Pre-Order or Buy Day 1, when there are plenty other options.

Nobody in this thread, nor on review sites hasvebeen "Wowed" in a way I would have hoped.

This looks like another Fallout 4 or Bioshock Infinite instance where runaway hype and fans of the series who drank the cool-aid are stopping it being treated objectively the way they should

noodler

No facial animation changes in day one patch as expected.

"that ship has sailed "

CatInABox

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

I find the whole "It's Bioware" argument to be weak tbh, akin to "Boys will be Boys".

It's been 5 years. They should have improved.

If a company like Rockstar, Gearbox, Bungie or Naughty Dog took 5 years to release a follow up game, people would not be as evasive in in the face of criticism.

I am happy enough to wait for the game to drop in price a bit and will monitor how the handle patching or updating it.

I can't see a compelling argument to either Pre-Order or Buy Day 1, when there are plenty other options.

Nobody in this thread, nor on review sites hasvebeen "Wowed" in a way I would have hoped.

This looks like another Fallout 4 or Bioshock Infinite instance where runaway hype and fans of the series who drank the cool-aid are stopping it being treated objectively the way they should

It's not an argument, at least not from me, it's just descriptive. I wish it was better animated and voiced, and that the side quests were better. If there was ever a game that was going to make me break my "no full price purchase" rule, this was going to be it. The trial has reassured me that I will really enjoy playing through the game, but it's also proven to me that I don't need to break the rule. I'll wait until it gets to 50%, or, if I still have a massive back log, I can wait until it hits EA Access in a year.

ERG89

Generic Dreadhead wrote:

I find the whole "It's Bioware" argument to be weak tbh, akin to "Boys will be Boys".

It's been 5 years. They should have improved.

This looks like another Fallout 4 or Bioshock Infinite instance where runaway hype and fans of the series who drank the cool-aid are stopping it being treated objectively the way they should.

If a company like Rockstar, Gearbox, Bungie or Naughty Dog took 5 years to release a follow up game, people would not be as evasive in in the face of criticism.

Gearbox released Duke Nukem Forever & Aliens Colonial Marines they don't get an ounce of respect off me anyway.
While Mass Effect 1-3 didn't run amazingly day one they were nowhere near as bad as this....its not even close or something I'd say is a trend of Bioware.
It's not a bait & switch but it's hugely embarrassing.

Maximus Alexander

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

This looks like another Fallout 4 or Bioshock Infinite instance where runaway hype and fans of the series who drank the cool-aid are stopping it being treated objectively the way they should

I think that's a pretty unfair or unreasonable way to put it really. I enjoyed Mass Effect. This is more of that, ergo I'm enjoying it. The combat got a fresh coat of paint and some of the animations and dialog are dodgy. That's all there is to it. The idea that there's some objective standard to hold a piece of entertainment to is nonsense.

You're welcome to be disappointed if it's not whatever you imagined it might be, but I don't see why that would lead to disparaging comments towards those who have a different opinion.

The funny thing is that disappointment, not satisfaction, is more likely to be a symptom of runaway hype: people expecting something groundbreaking, new and completely apart from what Bioware have produced in the past. It is what it is, and it's enjoyable. At least if you ever found Mass Effect enjoyable.

Zero-Cool

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

This looks like another Fallout 4...

I ****ing hope not!! There's certain games I'll be getting day one because of my history with the series, fallout 4 was one of them. I don't care what kind of reviews it would have gotten, wouldn't have stopped my day one purchase. That came burned me so bad, they majorly ****ed it up

Mass Effect falls into the same category as the day one purchase and I might be burned again but something I just have to do. I never really pay attention to reviews anyway but I think the reviews will be very interesting for this as they have something (early access) to compare it to.

End of the day, it's all CDPR's fault for raising the bar.