[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[Jastall]

User ratings will be worthless nevertheless. People are mostly projecting their biases there, either beign fans or hatign for hating's sake. Professional reviewers atleast try to maintain somewhat objective ground, though this too depends on the level of exclusivity they want to retain with the publisher.

I wouldn't fully trust either reviewers or users, as both have their own pitfalls. Then again, I think scores are by and large useless and mostly serve to validate people's biases and opinions, but that's another discussion.

All this being said, Metacritic user scores are indeed some of the most useless. They often get bombed, then fanbois counter-bomb so any game that's controversial hovers around 5 because, naturally, it's the average between the 10s given by blind fans (and Andromeda is no 10, much as I personally like it) and the 0s given for all manner of reasons (and the game is no 0, much as some might hate its very existence).

Inquisition is also a good example. Poor showing on Metacritic user scores, but when it comes to player-granted GOTY awards it ran away with them in its year. Yes, yes, it wasn't a year with too many amazing AAA games, but that's still a significant disconnect.

Andromeda's obviously not going to repeat this feat, even if it didn't have animation and dialog problems it wouldn't stand a chance against Breath of the Wild. But I doubt the general public would really rate it so low.

In the end, scores and manufactured internet outrage aren't worthy of the time I sometimes put in them. The best way to judge a game is to see it played for yourself, by people who have no affiliations to the developers. Not official videos, no IGN-esque doctored reviews, and no judging a game based on 4chan gifs and memes. As much raw and uncut gameplay footage as I can find is my policy, hasn't failed me in a long time, and it hasn't failed me for Andromeda either. It's the one thing I actually like about Twitch.

[Cosmic Janitor]

In the intro area you see papa ryder show off what a pathfinder can do. Unlike everybody else pathfinders have access to on the fly different layouts of abilities. So like in multiplayer your guy has 3 main active abilities. That is what a normal person is like where the pathfinders have up to 4 sets of three powers available on the fly to them. So papa ryder was basically a one man squad power wise. So in a lot of ways they are like the master chief a fully trained pathfinder has enormous more versatility than normal troops. Once papa ryder dies he passes the unlock code to his son/daughter that enables the pathfinder skill access abilities. This is done in conjunction with an AI which if you played the first mass effect series was a pretty well kept secret due to how the council feels about AI development let alone integration of an AI and a sentient.

I know I played until the part where you activate the 3 towers but can't open the gate in the trial, but afaik they don't really show that off. At least your team seemed quite surprised by it as well .
Though I do wonder, do we get that power as well? So far I've only seen that you get bonus abilities if you dump enough points into a tree, not saving multiple layouts. The limit of 3 is something that irks me as well. From what I've read you need to pretty much learn almost allspells in a tree to max out the pathfinder thing but that means you can't really use most of them anyway since you can only use 3 in a loadout. With the combo stuff that kinda turns you into a one trick pony :/

[Fojos]

I don't know if Bioware will ever get rid of the retarded swamp-trollers after the end of ME3. Anything they make now these tools come out and ruin any kind of realistic view.

[Puupi]

I haven't played any ME games ever, should I watch some kind of lore video or something before playing ME:A?

[Valeron]

I haven't played any ME games ever, should I watch some kind of lore video or something before playing ME:A?

No. You don't need to know anything of the prior games for this.

[Jastall]

I haven't played any ME games ever, should I watch some kind of lore video or something before playing ME:A?

Not really. You will miss nods to the original trilogy, and may need to hit the Codex to figure out how some of the lore and settings works together, but prior knowledge is not required.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I haven't played any ME games ever, should I watch some kind of lore video or something before playing ME:A?

The intro does summarize it pretty well. Otherwise here is a short summary:

We found some tech on mars that belonged to a race called the proteans, that propelled us forward. To get around the milkyway we used also protean tech called mass relays, they enable long distance travel. We used to be at war with the Turians (the guys with the bone plates on their faces), but are now allies. The Korgans (ugly stone troll guys) are super agressive and warlike, nearly nuked themselves out of existance and breed like roaches. The Salarians are a very short lived race (slender men with huge eyes) that tried to uplift the Krogans but the Krogans got out of hand so they limited their breeding with a genetic disease called the Genophage that drastically reduce the survival chance of their offspring. Salarians are also very smart and scientficly minded. There is race of robot people called the Geth, they are hive minds and were created by a race called the Quarians. They rebelled against them terminator style. Quarians have a weak immune system and can only survive in their special space suits. After their robots kicked them out of their own planet they've become space nomads (Battlestar Galactica). Asari are a very long lived race that all look female and can breed with every other race, hence why they are also called blue space sluts. Most races united on a place called the Citadel (Babylon 5), we humans are also a part of that little place.

That is pretty much all the major races + human part in it. You don't need to know much of the stuff that happened in the previous game, a general understanding of these races will explain most conflicts between milkyway races.

[Deleted]

User ratings will be worthless nevertheless. People are mostly projecting their biases there, either beign fans or hatign for hating's sake. Professional reviewers atleast try to maintain somewhat objective ground, though this too depends on the level of exclusivity they want to retain with the publisher.

The game is a solid 8/10. The only reason the scores are so low is because manchildren whine about the facial animations. This isn't just my opinion, all the low scores I have seen are explained using the facial animation bussiness, not by criticizing any other aspects of the game.

[Lahis]

The game is a solid 8/10. The only reason the scores are so low is because manchildren whine about the facial animations. This isn't just my opinion, all the low scores I have seen are explained using the facial animation bussiness, not by criticizing any other aspects of the game.

They also criticize story, though I can't comment on that because I have only played the Trial so far, and the user interface which is legit concern since it is really terrible, made for form before function.

[Puupi]

Asari are a very long lived race that all look female and can breed with every other race, hence why they are also called blue space sluts.

The blue Shrek girl is a space slut?!

[Cosmic Janitor]

They also criticize story, though I can't comment on that because I have only played the Trial so far, and the user interface which is legit concern since it is really terrible, made for form before function.

So true, only after 5 hours of the beta did I finally realize where the save button was because it was not where the load buttons are.. Not to mention navigating the tech trees, items etc. But shitty menues are a staple of tripple A games these days..

- - - Updated - - -

The blue Shrek girl is a space slut?!

Well usually they are kinda hot. The other ones in your crew (on your ship) or the hub worlds are for the most part. They did everything they could to uglify her though.. but then they did that with almost all of your female crew .

Edit: beta = trial, lol it's already so ingrained in me.. sad.

[Lahis]

[Edge-]

I figured out almost all the general game mechanics. I'm only a bit confused... Are we unable to specify our companion equipment whatsoever, not even weapons? I spent some time crafting some weapons, hoping to give them to Liam and Vetra, but so far I haven't found a way to do that.

As far as I know, nope. This is something that really frustrates me. I get that they want to make these characters more unique, but I'd infinitely prefer to be able to swap their weapon types. It makes a lick of sense in DA:I given the hard-classes that characters are, but at least you can fully customize their armor/accessories/weapons (at least to the types of weapons/armor they can use).

ME3 frustrated me to no end with this, because it felt like I was hamstringing my group by picking the characters I actually wanted in my group. I ran with Edi and Liara, which wasn't that optimal given both of them were short ranged squishies. There just doesn't seem to be much of a reason for this seemingly arbitrary limitation, at least in terms of the story (that I remember).

Kinda disappointing that they're sticking with it in ME:A, I was really hoping they'd open it up (even if it meant that using "off-spec" weapons came with some form of penalty).

[MrTharne]

Fuuuuuu, won't have my 1060 until Friday afternoon. Well, looks like I'll just watch some tv series in the meantime.

[Lahis]

The secret revealed...

[Cosmic Janitor]

These got to be the ugliest titts I've ever seen.

[Archon14]

What's with their torso there? Is that bone?

[Cosmic Janitor]

Could be "The Darkness" trying to get out, I think I see two maws forming somewhere there .

[Derah]

Whelp, finished Habitat 7. So here are my impressions so far.....

Consistent to the impressions I made by watching "lets plays" for the most part, with a few caveats.

For starters, combat is SOOOOOOOOOOOO fucking good. I'm not kidding around, this is hands down the finest bioware game ever made in terms of combat, they seriously refined the gameplay to a mirror sheen here. The jetpack adds a fantastic layer of verticality to the action, the way Ryder moves and glides and veers into and out of cover, and the way you dodge combat feel so smooth and fluid. Weapons feel like they have a kick of their own, and overall it feels like the whole thing is greatly polished. The difficulty is higher too. I am playing on Normal mode because... well... baby steps. Can't really dive into insanity for a game that has an entirely different control scheme than previous ME games.

I've just finished replaying the entire trilogy 3 days ago, and so jumping fresh from ME3 to Andromeda requires some getting used to. I keep pressing Shift hoping to bring the pause menu to assign commands. I keep pressing spacebar hoping to sprint away and get into and out of cover. I keep pressing Q and E to issue orders to my squad, kept pressing X to swap to my last used weapon, etc. I figure its best for me to get my feet wet on normal first, before diving into the deeper end of the pool on Hardcore or Insanity. And so far, after playing on Normal for a few hours, I can say the normal mode here is harder than the normal mode in the other games.

Health doesn't regenerate anymore, shields take a whooping 10 seconds of taking no damage before they start regenerating, once they do start regenerating it takes almost 5 seconds to go from empty to full. Weapon Recoil is a real thing. The Shotgun is almost useless at anything other than pointblank range. Enemies are smart too, they'll use cover, attempt to flank you, will deploy melee units to flush you out of cover, will provide cover-fire to those melee units moving in on you, enemies equipped with kinetic barriers will try to retreat and hide behind cover to regenerate their shields (making them priority targets unless you wanna fight them forever). All in all, I am pleased with the AI in this game.

Also very impressed that even though my installation is currently at 48% (was 42% when I began playing) there were no issues at all at least in the intro stuff. I did the entirety of Habitat 7, and at no point I experienced any of the issues I had with other games that let you play before they're finished (Such as missing textures, audio-files, etc) I don't think I'm gonna have a problem keeping pace with the download. It took me 3 hours to finish Habitat 7, because I'm a very methodical slow-paced gamer. I like to comb every explorable zone with a fine toothbrush before moving on. I refuse to move forward until I've spoken to everyone, exhausted every dialog option, explored every nook and cranny, looted everything that can be picked up, collected everything that can be collected, and explored everything that can be explored. Plus I like to read the codex entries as they unlock, so that too gave me a lot to do. By the time I finished Habitat 7, my download had gone from 42% to 48% at the time of this writing, so yeah, I'm covered.

The graphics look nice, environments look crisp, detailed, and beautifully drawn. No procedural generated crap here. They also seem to have hotfixed the eyes at least. The sclera no longer looks like its made of plastic, it has veins, and tiny details that make them seen more realistic. At least all the NPCs I've encountered so far (Cora, Liam, Alec, Lexi, and that captain of Hyperion) had realistic eyes, instead of the creepy ones I saw in all the previews. Granted, I've yet to meet the unholy queen of the uncanny valley, Addison, god she's creepy, so yeah....

I've also not had any issues with the facial animation, and frankly in my humble opinion, those who say the BODY animations look like crap need to have their eyes checked. And maybe their brains scanned. I love the way Ryder moves, the way she scales cliffs, the way she glides forward and sideways with the jetpack, the way the melee animations play out. Faces are definitely a little stiffer than previous games, and even inquisition, which is a disappointment, they hardly display emotions which is definitely a no-no in this "high-def" obsessed generation. Me, being an old school gamer back from pre-SNES days, I couldn't give two fucks about graphics if the game is enjoyable, regardless if it was produced by a Triple-A company or indie, regardless if it had a budget of 300 billion dollars or 20 cents. If the game is fun, the game is worth the price of admission I say.

But that's just my crazy ignorant peasant opinion.

Now the negative.

I'm afraid I must stick to my statement that despite my undying love for Bioware and Mass Effect, and how much of a hardcore fan I am of this franchise..... this game is definitely not 10/10 material U_U

The first thing I noticed within minutes of starting the game, is a VERY annoying bug that I hope gets fixed soon. It doesn't seem like something that will take too long to fix, but holy shit is it annoying. My mouse cursor has this nasty habit of getting stuck in the center of the screen during cutscenes, with no way to move it. It happens at random intervals, and when I do get a chance to speak by choosing a dialog option, there's a 50/50 chance that it'll go away, or it will pop back up again. Its infuriatingly distracting when I'm trying to admire the beautifully rendered cutscenes, and there's that mouse pointer sticking right there in the middle like a fucking eye sore.

Secondly, holy shit this game has it in against save-scummers like me. Not only you can't manually save, not only you can't quick-save, but I can't find the option to load a game anywhere in the menu. I inadvertently skipped a conversation early on (And being the consummate completionist that I am I wanted to hear it) and I wanted to backtrack to the latest checkpoint...... well I couldn't do it, there was no option to load back to a previous auto-save- I had to find a burning crate, stand on top of it on purpose, and let it kill me before I could backtrack. This is seriously gonna mess up my way of playing bioware games. I'm suddenly playing without a safety net. Any mistakes or fuck-ups I do, are permanent, and there's no way to backtrack and undo a potentially deadly mistake. Can't say I like that. At all.

Speaking of no way of backtracking, the game is also very sneaky with its freedom of exploration. Why? Well, I was having a blast, exploring Habitat 7, ignoring the main objectives in lieu of just exploring every point of interest in my map, because that's how I roll, I always leave the mandatory stuff for last when I've exhausted literally everything else there is to do. I kept scanning stuff but couldn't really get much info as we're separated from SAM at the start of the mission. Then I reach the shuttle with Cora, and link up with SAM. At that point the mission urged me to rendezvous with Alec, but I said "screw it, I'm gonna go back to all that stuff I've explored and re-scan it with SAM to see his analysis". Well guess what? When I tried to pull that shit off, I was fenced off by this blue field that said "leaving mission area, go back..." and when I didn't listen, it forced me back.

Seriously bioware? that's CoD levels of fencing right there. Would have been nice to have some sort of warning "Hey, once you're on this objective, you will no longer be able to explore as you wish, from this point on, stick to the main objective, or else". I certainly hope this sort of thing isn't gonna become common, because there's fewer things that grind my gears in games than a pop-up saying "hey, get back to where WE want you to be". Don't put freedom in a game if you're not letting us really be free. Hallway-style levels are less infuriating to me than this trope.

The last disappointing factor so far, has been the music. Not to say that its bad or anything, but its just so......... unremarkable. Bioware games have always stood out for their spectacular music, which you get to hear as early as the starting menu. I mean Mass Effect 1, 2, 3, Jade Empire, Dragon Age Origins, all of these games had great menu tracks. Andromeda? an okay-ish piano suite. So far in my 3 hours of gameplay, I haven't really stumbled upon a track that made me go "yep, I'm gonna listen to that track on youtube in a loop for the next 3 hours when I'm at work".

These are my impressions so far with the game. Really like it, but sadly it came with quite a few perplexing hiccups and questionable design decisions that make little or no sense at all. Still an enjoyable product by almost every metric imaginable, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys Bioware games.

[rhorle]

I thought everyone is supposed to have the implant, not just the pathfinders.

You are right, only those on the pathfinder team have implants connected to their respective arks SAM. Only Alec, and now Scott/Sara, have the "enhanced" version of SAM though. So our main character is special among other pathfinders because of that . The Leader of the pathfinder team though seems to have control of it so they would naturally be the one to decide things even if there were others.

You have to remember that these people had no hope until the Hyperion arrived. To them it doesn't matter if we are some scrub because we are this idea that the entire initiative talked about finally showing up. Also we are no longer a scrub once we start doing stuff in Andromeda because the story doesn't allow us to be. Even surviving Habitat 7, even if it was mostly Alec, is a cause for us to be vaulted out of scrub standing to the commoners.