Mass Effect Andromeda [split topic]

[Lost Oliver]

Not sure where to put this but this seems as general as any.

Just bought Mass Effect Andromeda. Haven't played any of the previous Mass Effects as I'm just a PS Prick.

My question: Does it matter?

Secondly, I'm very excited to play it as it looks ace.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

It's largely self contained, but there is one character from the previous games that makes an appearance, well her voice does anyway. There's also a big reveal towards the end, where knowing what happened in the trilogy might be beneficial. Just Google it if you don't understand what somebody is going on about.

[Lost Oliver]

Thanks ESP. I've always admired it from afar from watching top 10 shite on the youtubes. It looks like so much fun with a fascinating story. Can't wait to start.

[Ferris]

...download a PS2 emulator?

Stupid question - how do I do that? Has to be on a PC (don't have one)?

[bgmnts]

epsxe

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Thanks ESP. I've always admired it from afar from watching top 10 shite on the youtubes. It looks like so much fun with a fascinating story. Can't wait to start.

I'd strongly recommend maybe getting hold of an old 360 and playing the originals though. Andromeda is alright, but the trilogy is great. I don't think the first one came out on PlayStation.

[Inspector Norse]

I'd strongly recommend maybe getting hold of an old 360 and playing the originals though. Andromeda is alright, but the trilogy is great. I don't think the first one came out on PlayStation.

Or you could skip the first one, which is decent but probably massively dated now, and even at the time had tiresome bits like the rubbish jeep and the mining, and play the second and third which, despite the "controversial" ending, are both fantastic best-of-all-time calibre games that I imagine still hold up now, and are available backwards compatible on the XBox One.

Andromeda was alright, I enjoyed some of it at the time, but it was mainly out of series loyalty I think. You might get something out of it as there's certainly a lot to do, but a lot of what there is to do is unimaginative rehashes of elements of the first trilogy, or endlessly traipsing around rote sci-fi planets, which was one of my biggest issues with it: the first trilogy had much more streamlined and plot-driven exploration yet still managed to pack in a hell of a lot; here, they go down the Dragon Age route of having four or five really big areas that get pretty fucking boring after you've done your umpteenth fetch mission.
The overall story held my attention, despite being oversimiliar to the original trilogy, but they seemed to have painted themselves into a corner with regard to how to build their world: a generation ship arrives in a new galaxy and within months the galaxy is seemingly full of thousands of fucking space pirates who all want to kill you. It also makes your First Contact storyline a bit of a bust when the space pirates turn out to have got there before you.

Some news has trickled out recently that a new game in the series is in the works. They have hopefully taken on board all the criticism of Andromeda (and not just the meme about the bad facial animations, which didn't actually bother me as they'd patched it by the time I got hold of the game) and will make something more alike the originals. They did do that after Mass Effect 1, for example, by ditching the jeep and fine-tuning the mining (so that it was actually easy and comparatively enjoyable in the later games rather than a tedious necessity like most crafting stuff is).

[bgmnts]

Its fucking shite, same as Dragon Age Inquisition. Just boring shit content forever.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I found a lot of the dialogue in Andromeda quite corny. It was like some bad American film. Also Liam. I don't know what the fuck Liam even was.

[Inspector Norse]

I found a lot of the dialogue in Andromeda quite corny.

Yeah but they're all a bit like that. They're video games set in space, we probably can't expect Ibsen.

[Bazooka]

It's just boring after having played the others especially 3.  Also you can't be a wanker in it, so what's the point.

[The Culture Bunker]

They did bring out the original Mass Effect for PS3 eventually, and fixed it so that your decisions carried over to the sequels. But it does play a bit ropey these days, a lot more so than 2/3.

Andromeda? It wasn't terrible, just a huge let down. None of the character were as interesting as Garrus/Tali/etc, the bad guy is pretty boring and it was buggy as fuck at first. I got the impression it had been rushed or sent out incomplete. I think I've played ME2/3 about three times each, but I've no interest in going to back to Andromeda.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I do plan a replay at some point, but only to play as the other twin. I played Lady Ryder first time, so this time I'll play as her brother, who I've just decided to call Shaun. You can even start a new game plus and import your save, so the twin you don't play will look exactly the same.

Actually, I wonder if you could get a passable Shaun Ryder in the character creator.

[Jerzy Bondov]

It's just boring after having played the others especially 3.  Also you can't be a wanker in it, so what's the point.

Yes this is the killer. Mass Effect never had real 'dark side' options, you were just choosing between being an endlessly patient, empathetic best friend to all or a rude prick who nevertheless gets the job done. I liked taking against characters for petty reasons and being really short with them all the time. Didn't seem to be able to do that in Andromeda so I sacked it off quickly.

[MojoJojo]

The writing went to shit after the first Mass Effect game. Well OK, some of the character dialogue was good (Mordin), but the plotting and characters doing stuff that made sense became a distant memory.

[Inspector Norse]

the plotting and characters doing stuff that made sense became a distant memory.

80% of the characters are aliens and robots, who are we to judge their motivations and behaviour?

[MojoJojo]

The second game starts with you joining a terrorist organisation.

[Inspector Norse]

I can see that that might feel a bit far-fetched after the kitchen sink realism of the first game's plot following an interplanetary soldier battling genocidal robots and sentient spider aliens in his attempt to foil a renegade agent's plan to unleash a genetically-engineered army across the galaxy in order to wipe out all life and please the ancient AI controlling his mind, yeah.

[Thursday]

80% of the characters are aliens and robots, who are we to judge their motivations and behaviour?

This is just... what?

[Inspector Norse]

This is just... what?

I was trying to make a tongue-in-cheek point about people getting overserious in their analysis of the plot of a video game set in space.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Does this unit have an arsehole?

[Mobius]

There was too much shagging

[Thursday]

I was trying to make a tongue-in-cheek point about people getting overserious in their analysis of the plot of a video game set in space.

Yeah but it's fair to discuss whether the first game had better writing since it's a big part of why people play the games instead of being flippantly dismissed because it's just a silly space video game.

[Inspector Norse]

Yeah but it's fair to discuss whether the first game had better writing since it's a big part of why people play the games instead of being flippantly dismissed because it's just a silly space video game.

It's ten years since I played the games and I remember the second one being a big improvement on the first technically, and don't recall noticing that the dialogue was significantly worse; the number of video games in the world that have genuinely good dialogue is about two so it's not a major consideration (I said earlier in the thread that all the games have corny dialogue).
The characters were nevertheless memorable and I really don't think you can complain about the plot being in any way unbelievable when the first is already (very entertaining and involving) nonsense.

[Pdine]

The third one had the problem (for me) that it started with a catastrophic situation that you were urged to resolve as quickly as possible, then opened up into a 'choose your own path' open world in which - if you did hurry as it suggested - you'd miss most of what you'd paid for. Breath of the Wild has a similar problem, but the atmosphere somehow made it less jarringly poor in terms of writerly tone.

[tourism]

Joe Estevez was in one of them iirc

[H-O-W-L]

The second game starts with you joining a terrorist organisation.

Worse, an ethnocentric fascist-extremist terrorist organization. It's not like you're bombing clinics to free Humanity from oppressors like XCOM 2's brand of terrorist, you're literally siding with the Apple Store branded Nazis.

[The Culture Bunker]

You let these things slide after they bring you back from the dead. Show a bit of gratitude, people!

[H-O-W-L]

Speak for yourself. In the forty minutes of Mass Effect 2 I played I went out of my way to call them cunts at every turn

[Thursday]

I can't remember now, Cerberus weren't mentioned that much in the first Mass Effect were they? They're more of a side thing. And when you're introduced in 2, you kind of don't know a huge amount about them other than they're supposed to be bad, and people speak badly of them, but you get a few pragmatic people telling you they're not that bad. Then in 3 they're cartoon villains and any nuance is gone.