[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[zealo]

Yeah except plenty of (very successful and iconic) game series change settings and eras, e.g. Battlefield, Bioshock, Call of Duty, Assassins Creed.

While Bioware fails to innovate with Mass Effect.

Gamers are speaking out, e.g. with the Infinite Warfare trailer dislikes. We don't want everything to be sci-fi!

If you're looking for huge amounts of gameplay innovation, most AAA games will likely disappoint you.

Especially after the shitstorm that ME3 sparked, it's in their interest to not diverge too much from what fans expect of it before they've regained their trust, but rather evolve what worked in previous entries.

[May90]

I don't see any issues with animation and graphics. Combat, however, resembles DAI combat too much, and not in a good way. :/ I really enjoyed the mix of FPS and RPG elements in ME games, it is one of the things that made me replay the series over and over and something I don't think any other game, aside from Fallout series, got right. MEA combat, however, looks overly "sticky" to my taste, same problem I had with DAI, Oblivion, Witcher 3 and many other games.

Or is it just Vanguard gameplay, not necessarily reflecting the general combat?

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Yeah except plenty of (very successful and iconic) game series change settings and eras, e.g. Battlefield, Bioshock, Call of Duty, Assassins Creed.

While Bioware fails to innovate with Mass Effect.

Gamers are speaking out, e.g. with the Infinite Warfare trailer dislikes. We don't want everything to be sci-fi!

Actually, the vast majority of series are always set in one slightly varying setting. Games you've listed (aside from Bioshock, I don't know anything about it) are basically what I call "pop games", they have very simplistic gameplay, they are very repetitive as they are; the only way to add any variety is to change setting, and even so the overall setting stays the same, just historical eras change.

Your criticism would be valid if, say, Battlefield suddenly changed from military/proto-sci-fi game to fantasy, or horror, or, I don't know, medieval setting. As it is, the games are just set in different places/times, and same is with Mass Effect.

---

Bioware has made such games as KotoR series (sci-fi), Baldur's Gate series (fantasy), Dragon Age series (dark fantasy), SWTOR (sci-fi), Jade Empire (fantasy/oriental)... There is no need to change their current trademark sci-fi series into something completely different, as their product line is more diverse than that of almost all other developers as it is.

[zealo]

Or is it just Vanguard gameplay, not necessarily reflecting the general combat?

To a degree. A lot of what was shown in that trailer draws inspiration from things first introduced in ME3-MP, and there sitting in cover constantly was a pretty bad idea no matter the class.

[May90]

Thanks for the warning, i did not know about this. Im still debating if i preorder or not. I did not preorder DAI and it turned into a solid 8/10 for me and i much prefer scifi settings. After that and the citadel DLC actually kicking ass, i want to be optimistic about bioware games again, it is just very hard.

I still don't understand why it is hard. Every single Bioware game impressed me (I've played them all, yes), and even though I couldn't get into Jade Empire, and Baldur's Gate games were too much about combat and too little about the story to my taste - those were all stellar games. What are people exactly unhappy with? One ending in one game, and lazy DA2 copy-pasting? Deus Ex HR had essentially the same ending, and copy-pasting is pretty much a feature of all open-world games (not to this extent, of course, but still), and everybody seems fine with those...

Negativity towards Bioware is one of those Internet phenomena which don't seem to have any rational explanation, beyond the fact that nowadays being negative about something is cool. *shrugs*

To a degree. A lot of what was shown in that trailer draws inspiration from things first introduced in ME3-MP, and there sitting in cover constantly was a pretty bad idea no matter the class.

I've noticed that as well. Somehow it feels to me that this is not in the ME spirit. We will see.

[I Push Buttons]

it's almost 2017 and Bioware still can't into animation and mocap. And they are using Frostbite which is also used in Battlefield games and those have great animation for both movement and facial. Just outsource it to Dice if you are this incompetent bioware, jesus christ.

Whats even more disconcerting is that the terrible animations of that conversation were what they decided to showcase/advertise the game with :P

So its probably worse in general.

Still buying the game though.

[minteK917]

I still don't understand why it is hard. Every single Bioware game impressed me (I've played them all, yes), and even though I couldn't get into Jade Empire, and Baldur's Gate games were too much about combat and too little about the story to my taste - those were all stellar games. What are people exactly unhappy with? One ending in one game, and lazy DA2 copy-pasting? Deus Ex HR had essentially the same ending, and copy-pasting is pretty much a feature of all open-world games (not to this extent, of course, but still), and everybody seems fine with those...

You realize thats part of ME3 ending problem its deus ex ending rip off from 1999. ME series never set up such ending, deus ex did. ME3 is the only game in the series that vouch for control. Synthesis is never even a theme until the last 10 minutes. Deus ex take its entire story to flesh out your 3 possible outcome and the phylosophy behind all 3. Me does none of the leg work for this, because we know the original ending was scrapped and the official ending was secret written on a piece of napkin which even said it was taken from deus ex.

[Omians]

im sure this video got posted a long while ago but i didnt see it

makes me sorta want to buy a 4K monitor. but i also know i dont need it lol

[Witchblade77]

I still don't understand why it is hard. Every single Bioware game impressed me (I've played them all, yes), and even though I couldn't get into Jade Empire, and Baldur's Gate games were too much about combat and too little about the story to my taste - those were all stellar games. What are people exactly unhappy with? One ending in one game, and lazy DA2 copy-pasting? Deus Ex HR had essentially the same ending, and copy-pasting is pretty much a feature of all open-world games (not to this extent, of course, but still), and everybody seems fine with those...

Negativity towards Bioware is one of those Internet phenomena which don't seem to have any rational explanation, beyond the fact that nowadays being negative about something is cool. *shrugs*


I've noticed that as well. Somehow it feels to me that this is not in the ME spirit. We will see.

bioware has multiple teams. so far the only team that haven't disappointed me severely was the Dragon Age team (yes, that includes DA2, although, to be fair, by the time I got around to buying it, my expectations were very low, but even so, its a much better game that people give it credit for). meanwhile Austin team seems to be bound and determined to run SWTOR into the ground and we will agree to disagree on ME3, but that game is an equivalent of Batman vs Superman for me. it has its occasional good moments but even director's cut (modders changing things around) cannot fix some of the glaring issues with it. of course, plenty of people out there who loved both, but I'm not one of them. and no, its not just ending. its soooo much more than just an ending.

so yes, for those of us who saw Mac Walters take over an awesome franchise and mess with it, seeing that he is still in charge? hearing that all three of the teams are working on andromeda, while seeing that mess that's swtor has been turning into lately... yeah, its hard to trust bioware. its it absolutely DOES have a rational explanation, its just becasue it doesn't match your opinions? you dismiss it as blind hatred of something cool. its not blind. its well earned distrust.

but. the game does look good. so I'm cautiously optimistic and I daresay even a fair bit excited. I guess we'll see.

You realize thats part of ME3 ending problem its deus ex ending rip off from 1999. ME series never set up such ending, deus ex did. ME3 is the only game in the series that vouch for control. Synthesis is never even a theme until the last 10 minutes. Deus ex take its entire story to flesh out your 3 possible outcome and the phylosophy behind all 3. Me does none of the leg work for this, because we know the original ending was scrapped and the official ending was secret written on a piece of napkin which even said it was taken from deus ex.

technically it WAS a theme. just not as a best solution but rather a horror that we really REALLY want to avoid at all costs and one of the main reasons we are fighting reapers in a first place - to prevent it from occurring..

you know, what happened to protheans, husks, the loss of individuality, identity, becoming drones. this is what we have been shown the synthesis is. and then suddenly in the last 10 minutes of the game.. its a desired solution? uh. what? and the best part - the horror is STILL there in ME3. if nothing else - Lessus mission reinforces it with a VENGEANCE. but then somehow in last 10 minutes with a use of shep... its changed and all better now? eh... yeah, no. but again, not the only issue with the game. I can go on and on and ON about all the issues with the narrative in ME3 (legion's turn about when it comes to reaper code ALONE is as bad as the ending coupled with his... pointless sacrifice, which in retrospect is the biggest foreshadowing moment for the ending, but it doesn't make it any more palatable, because it goes against everything that we establish in the first two games), but... meh.

[zealo]

technically it WAS a theme. just not as a best solution but rather a horror that we really REALLY want to avoid at all costs and one of the main reasons we are fighting reapers in a first place - to prevent it from occurring..

you know, what happened to protheans, husks, the loss of individuality, identity, becoming drones. this is what we have been shown the synthesis is. and then suddenly in the last 10 minutes of the game.. its a desired solution? uh. what? and the best part - the horror is STILL there in ME3. if nothing else - Lessus mission reinforces it with a VENGEANCE. but then somehow in last 10 minutes with a use of shep... its changed and all better now? eh... yeah, no. but again, not the only issue with the game. I can go on and on and ON about all the issues with the narrative in ME3 (legion's turn about when it comes to reaper code ALONE is as bad as the ending coupled with his... pointless sacrifice, which in retrospect is the biggest foreshadowing moment for the ending, but it doesn't make it any more palatable, because it goes against everything that we establish in the first two games), but... meh.

The biggest mistake with ME3 was introducing a plot device like starchild in the last 10 minutes of the game completely out of the left field. For what the game had been building up to it would have been better to just have the giant space laser just fire and remove the starchild section. There's a storytelling lesson about overly much exposition sometimes not being preferable in there, especially poorly done exposition.

[May90]

You realize thats part of ME3 ending problem its deus ex ending rip off from 1999. ME series never set up such ending, deus ex did. ME3 is the only game in the series that vouch for control. Synthesis is never even a theme until the last 10 minutes. Deus ex take its entire story to flesh out your 3 possible outcome and the phylosophy behind all 3. Me does none of the leg work for this, because we know the original ending was scrapped and the official ending was secret written on a piece of napkin which even said it was taken from deus ex.

I see it differently. The synthesis theme has been going through the whole game, and pretty much the entire story of EDI, as well as Legion, was hinting at that being one of the outcomes. The control ending was asked for all the way since Illusive Man's ideas from Mass Effect 2, such as "Don't destroy the base, we need to use it to our advantage". And the destruction ending was just the initial plan of the Citadel races.

ME3 ending made me think a lot about my values and morals. Sure, it is similar to Deus Ex and Deus Ex: HR ending, but then there have been many endings like this, where you make your final choice at the last few minutes. Hell, even Planescape: Torment, probably the most praised RPG ever, has a similar ending, in which a few dialogue choices define the outcome.

As for the original story, I think it was lame: "Booooo, dark energy is dangerous, better wipe you guys out before you start wielding it". Making it a result of some random property of the Universe and not the inherent properties of organics.

I don't know, it seems to me that people hate ME3 ending for the sake of hating.

bioware has multiple teams. so far the only team that haven't disappointed me severely was the Dragon Age team (yes, that includes DA2, although, to be fair, by the time I got around to buying it, my expectations were very low, but even so, its a much better game that people give it credit for). meanwhile Austin team seems to be bound and determined to run SWTOR into the ground and we will agree to disagree on ME3, but that game is an equivalent of Batman vs Superman for me. it has its occasional good moments but even director's cut (modders changing things around) cannot fix some of the glaring issues with it. of course, plenty of people out there who loved both, but I'm not one of them. and no, its not just ending. its soooo much more than just an ending.

so yes, for those of us who saw Mac Walters take over an awesome franchise and mess with it, seeing that he is still in charge? hearing that all three of the teams are working on andromeda, while seeing that mess that's swtor has been turning into lately... yeah, its hard to trust bioware. its it absolutely DOES have a rational explanation, its just becasue it doesn't match your opinions? you dismiss it as blind hatred of something cool. its not blind. its well earned distrust.

but. the game does look good. so I'm cautiously optimistic and I daresay even a fair bit excited. I guess we'll see.

I had a lot of fun even with SWTOR. Even given me not being a big MMO player, I enjoyed the stories and think it was well worth the time, especially given that the game was F2P. To think of it, I've never played a game that I would be severely disappointed with; I guess I just know what to expect, in general, and never expect a masterpiece from every new project. There were games I didn't like, but it wasn't like "The game is bad, and the developers should feel bad", rather "Okay, this game isn't for me, but there are probably people who would like it a lot".

[NoiseTank13]

That trailer was awful, holy shit.

She looks like she's in a constant state of hysteria brought by the Joker's Laughing Gas.

What the FUCK IS THIS EVEN

[Nazrark]

Well we would quite literally have to wait at least 7-8 years in order to know if it is as epic as the original. Since we will have to wait for 4-6 plus all DLC. After 8 years we can pass judgement on the new trilogy. That's at least 9 years longer than most people can wait to pass judgement on a game.

Man this still applies to everyone joining this thread with doom and gloom. This was June.

[Ilikegreenfire]

Her face is a bit stiff but it is still early. Face creation will 99% still be a thing so there is that. Besides we all remember rapeface bro Shep fondly.

[Deleted]

That trailer was awful, holy shit.

She looks like she's in a constant state of hysteria brought by the Joker's Laughing Gas.

What the FUCK IS THIS EVEN

Everytime they release a game, I hope that they fix it this time... but they never do, conversations and cutscenes are going to be awkward as fuck and immersion will be impossible.
I hated talking to people in DA:I because they'd do the most awkward shit while talking to them.

[Witchblade77]

I see it differently. The synthesis theme has been going through the whole game, and pretty much the entire story of EDI, as well as Legion, was hinting at that being one of the outcomes. The control ending was asked for all the way since Illusive Man's ideas from Mass Effect 2, such as "Don't destroy the base, we need to use it to our advantage". And the destruction ending was just the initial plan of the Citadel races.

ME3 ending made me think a lot about my values and morals. Sure, it is similar to Deus Ex and Deus Ex: HR ending, but then there have been many endings like this, where you make your final choice at the last few minutes. Hell, even Planescape: Torment, probably the most praised RPG ever, has a similar ending, in which a few dialogue choices define the outcome.

As for the original story, I think it was lame: "Booooo, dark energy is dangerous, better wipe you guys out before you start wielding it". Making it a result of some random property of the Universe and not the inherent properties of organics.

I don't know, it seems to me that people hate ME3 ending for the sake of hating.


I had a lot of fun even with SWTOR. Even given me not being a big MMO player, I enjoyed the stories and think it was well worth the time, especially given that the game was F2P. To think of it, I've never played a game that I would be severely disappointed with; I guess I just know what to expect, in general, and never expect a masterpiece from every new project. There were games I didn't like, but it wasn't like "The game is bad, and the developers should feel bad", rather "Okay, this game isn't for me, but there are probably people who would like it a lot".

again, while synthesis is something that we have seen before - it was always as a body horror, EVEN in a third game. the whole Geth civil war happens because half the geth do not want reaper code and even in 3 they are showing them gain sentience long before reapers were in a picture. Edi starts becoming sentient back in ME1 actualy, and even in ME3, we are given wonderful conversations where we can basically conclude that EDI doesn't need to be organic to be alive. you are oversimplifying Dark matter plotline, but its STILL better then... shooting the tube to activate a function? or hell melting your body down for some reason into an energy stream that makes ZERO sense. and all of it requires throwing away EVERYTHING that was established before - strength through diversity, NOT sameness, I mean ME3 keeps contradicting itself, there -they show that protheans lost becasue they were too much of the same, this current cycle has a chance becasue of how diverse it is, and then suddenly the best solution is to make everyone the same? WHAT?

and it wasn't. just. an ending. ending just gets the most flak, becasue it was the last straw, but it makes no sense thematically, it makes no sense given the rules of the universe of mass effect and established storylines, it makes no sense as an ending to this specific game, its a jesus allegory taken to macabre conclusion, becasue developers wanted Shepard to die.

as for swtor, I didn't say original swtor was bad. I said what they are turning it into LATELY. is bad. we went from 8 personal varying degrees of awesome stories (everyone has their own preference, but every story has their fans), to slightly different 2 faction story to unified single storyline that doesn't really fit anyone but a light side jedi really, preferably knight. we went from getting variety of content updates, to several completely abandoned game modes. we went to microtransactions of such magnitude, grind of such ridiculousness that it makes asian mmo's look like amateurs. they took a great premise, a great foundation... and ran it into the ground, JUST like they did with mass effect.

The biggest mistake with ME3 was introducing a plot device like starchild in the last 10 minutes of the game completely out of the left field. For what the game had been building up to it would have been better to just have the giant space laser just fire and remove the starchild section. There's a storytelling lesson about overly much exposition sometimes not being preferable in there, especially poorly done exposition.

yep. which is why mehem mod for all it cliches - STILL works better then original ending. doesn't fix other issues in the game, but at least it fixes starchild madness and trying to claim that synthesis is a good thing.

[Dezerte]

Since we're on about the ending again... to me it took me right out of the game when it happened - to me it broke the lore and the universe of Mass Effect, and it was incredibly "gamey" (it ruined my immersion completely).

[Elim Garak]

Since we're on about the ending again... to me it took me right out of the game when it happened - to me it broke the lore and the universe of Mass Effect, and it was incredibly "gamey" (it ruined my immersion completely).

And the fact that it was that fucking kid from the intro who appeared in all the unskippable nightmare sequences didn't help either.

[ramjb]

That trailer was awful, holy shit.

She looks like she's in a constant state of hysteria brought by the Joker's Laughing Gas.

What the FUCK IS THIS EVEN

Just admit it. When people say "bad animations", they're actually complaining that Ryder is ugly and has a butter face. I think it's hilarious that ALL of the girls in my sports club are way hotter than her.

[NoiseTank13]

Just admit it. When people say "bad animations", they're actually complaining that Ryder is ugly and has a butter face. I think it's hilarious that ALL of the girls in my sports club are way hotter than her.

.. Except this is actual terrible animating in that .gif?

Not to mention:

"Put it down!"

"You first!"

Girl you have three other guns pointed in different directions at you. Are you kidding me?

[Poppincaps]

.. Except this is actual terrible animating in that .gif?

Not to mention:

"Put it down!"

"You first!"

Girl you have three other guns pointed in different directions at you. Are you kidding me?

Putting your gun down in that situation isn't necessarily smart. You lose all power over the situation. If you keep your gun up then you can at least take out the leader before you die. That fact makes the situation more flexible.