Mass Effect: Andromeda

[HappyTree]

Out next week!!

I was going to sit this "gen" out. Maybe wait for the Xbox Scorpio. But Red Dead 2 and Mass Effect Andromeda are perhaps turning my head.

I loved KotOR, Mass Effect was its spiritual successor. Loved those games. I even didn't mind "the ending". Really looking forward to seeing what this new installment gives.

One bad preview does not a game spoil. But food for thought:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/03/14/mass-effect-andromeda-review-opening-hours/

That said, how will it compare if Jennifer Hale isn't doing the voice?

[Bhazor]

Funnily enough he made it sound exactly how I felt about Mass Effect 1 which I thought was complete arse. So hey, that means its as good as Mass Effect 1.

[Mobius]

Been so excited for this game

Just read that link you posted and now I'm depressed :(

Are there any preview articles that make it sound not shit ?

[Mobius]

Alright this is more like it

http://kotaku.com/five-hours-in-mass-effect-andromeda-is-overwhelming-1793268493

Happy again now.

[Lemming]

Fans and detractors alike [nb]bluntly, I'm a detractor, I think the first Mass Effect was crap and it only got worse over the next two titles[/nb]might enjoy this epic-length retrospective:

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792

Not everything he says is fair and he has a pretty strict and boring idea of how a story "should" be written, but it's a really detailed look at the series and most of his complaints are justified.

[HappyTree]

Well one man's game-breaking tedium is another man's "Oh I don't mind this because I'm caught in the whole world of it".

I mean, I never minded the infamous Mako. Thought it was quite cool. I didn't blink at the planet scanning in ME2. I mean, I'm playing the role of someone in a spaceship who needs to use a scanner to see if there's stuff down there. I quite enjoyed it with the rumble feedback n'all. I don't think there was anything that particularly pissed me off in any of the MEs. Inventory was a bit poor in ME1 but that improved in the next one.

Well, let's see what the actual reviews make of it next week. I'm hoping that if none of this bothered you before in ME then it still won't.

[HappyTree]

Aha ok, great! If you don't like the RPS version, Kotaku is better. Plus, I wonder if the PC version is worse than the consoles.

[Thursday]

Oh thank goodness, I'm not going to have time for it for a while anyway, so it's a relief that it might be a bit shit.

[Penfold]

Looks like there are early access streams on Twitch now so either watch or watch out for spoilers.

Edit: Seems to be 10 hour total access for people with Origin so probably no ending spoilers available.

[brat-sampson]

Very wary of this after both The Ending and DA:I which I put a load of time into before realising that actually, I was bored as fuck. Then Witcher 3 came along and reaffirmed that notion 10-fold.

On the other hand I loved the rest of the original trilogy so if they've made the *right* kind of adjustments and listened to feedback and, fuck it, just played through and understood why W3 was *so* much better than DA:I then this should be great, and I'd love it to be great. But yeah, for now, caution mandatory.

[falafel]

Watching the first twenty minutes or so primed me well for the RPS take. I had a lot of goodwill (still do) but the voice acting was weird, the writing was quite hokey and the protagonist's facial animation made him look like a simpleton. All the weird face twitching when he first appeared on screen, presumably meant to be naturalistic but instead had me wondering whether something had gone wrong during cryosleep.

The Kotaku effusiveness doesn't do much to reassure me, because it's mainly focused on systems and seems to have a fairly unsophisticated take on the narrative and characters (I like them! They have characteristics!) whereas RPS is ragging on the characters having far-too-clearly-telegraphed "traits". Basically both versions could be true at the same time, which would make it a systematically impressive and sprawling world with an interesting story as long as you don't mind the characters being total ciphers and the whole plot being driven by tired sci-fi clichés.

I think it will still be decent but have a feeling it will have suffered from changes in leadership and the writing team. I keep wanting to like it but everything I see of it makes me pull a face.

[Bhazor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxI8RD-Hkdk

The voice work in this game is incredible. That first line might be the best reading I've ever heard. The mocapping looks ancient too compared to Witcher 3.

[Thursday]

Is the twist that everyone is a robot and that's why their animation looks so freakish?

[HappyTree]

Shiny faces! They need a bit of foundation.

[Thursday]

Seriously why do they all look so fucking weird?

[falafel]

It will be fine.

[falafel]

Stop panicking. I'm not panicking, why are you panicking. This will definitely not be disappointing.

[Thursday]

Nah it's fine, I've made up my mind now. I want it to be disappointing so I can sneer from the sidelines and say "hur it's not as good as all these Japanese games I've been playing."

[Bhazor]

With every Mass Effect game I end up replaying Anachranox. Then crying because that wonderful imaginative game died alone and unloved whilst that generic Mass Effect crap is often hailed as the greatest game series ever made.

[Mobius]

I loved the old games (and DA:I) so I think I'll enjoy this in spite of its shitness. Open world travel around space have a laugh with the boys, sounds alright.

Hope it's really big and there's lots of freedom.

Been watching The Expanse lately and laaahving it so well up for a big space adventure.

God I loved Anachranox! That was a really good underappreciated game. Why didn't they ever make a Space Precinct game?

[Barry Admin]

Will likely get it for multiplayer, as ME3 had a wicked Horde mode. Almost bought Gears of War 4 there, as it's finally on sale for 20 quid, but it seems like it's dead, so sod that.

[Mobius]

http://www.pcgamer.com/we-have-mixed-feelings-about-the-first-few-hours-of-mass-effect-andromeda/?utm_content=bufferc6665&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer_pcgamerfb

sounds shit again now

[Bhazor]

God I loved Anachranox! That was a really good underappreciated game. Why didn't they ever make a Space Precinct game?

I will never forgive John Romero for Anachranox. Alot of people hold daikatana as his great travesty but for me its how he ended up ruining Anachranox. His rock and roll lifestyle destroying the company leaving Anachranox half finished. If you think Mass Effect had a bullshit ending it aint got nothing on Anachranox.

[Bhazor]

Enjoyable compilation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-msmx9yW5Q

[Big Jack McBastard]

Oh god it looks so terrible, the models look like plaggy toys, the skin textures are what I imagine the rubber skinned Termintors looked like, the facial animations alone are enough to give pause for concern but then the hideous pop-in, the huge obvious glitches right on the models bodies[nb]what engine did they abuse for this?[/nb], the running animations hahaha and the dialog holy shit, it's mediocre tripe and so shonkily delivered it's painful.

This is gonna be a fucking trainwreck, I hope Bioware don't get away with it, they've pushed the lazy approach to the limit with this.

[falafel]

It's the Frostbite engine, Jack...

I'm not sure it's about getting away with it. I don't think it's about being lazy. I suspect there were financial pressure to get it out (FY16) which will have come from EA, and I have a feeling the many people who will have worked on the animation will be weeping into their breakfast cereal at all these YouTube compilations, knowing that they could have done better and wishing that they had. A company like Bioware isn't like the lazy shill who you sit opposite at work who spends their time playing solitaire and reading FeMail. They are composed of hundreds of people working in a notoriously stressful, insecure and time-intensive industry, and it just seems like they've bitten off more than they can chew. It's possible that sales will be lower because of the publicity, and I'm certainly putting it off, but it feels like an unpleasant and obnoxious extension of consumerism to want a company to be actively punished for putting out a game that doesn't meet expectations. I mean, Ian McEwan has been writing crap books for years, but when he writes his next one I won't call for him to be locked up or actively punished, I'll just hope his next one is better. Alright, maybe I will, he is a bit of a shithead. Hope is a cruel calling.

Just seems a bit... personal.

[falafel]

Aaaaaand here we go

http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/18/14969390/mass-effect-andromeda-lead-animator-harassment

I mean, seriously, nothing better to do? Fucksakes.

[Thursday]

it is unusually bad, although it is a bit odd the comparisons are drawing. Bioware are a relatively small arm of EA and CD Projekt Red had huge budget and development times for The Witcher 3 not exactly a tiny indie game the way people want to claim. It's also obviously not going to compare to the likes of Uncharted 4 and Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Still though, looking as good as previous Mass Effect games would have been a start. But the main problem is they seem to have really pushed the cheesiest aspects of a Mass Effect story, and the characters seem bad.

[biggytitbo]

Maybe it's part of the plot and those characters have space rickets?

[brat-sampson]

Aaaaaand here we go

http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/18/14969390/mass-effect-andromeda-lead-animator-harassment

I mean, seriously, nothing better to do? Fucksakes.

Oh, it was a woman's fault apparently according to this one guy? What a coinkydink.