Mass Effect: Andromeda

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Zoombie

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I'm really surprised at how excited I am for ME: Andromeda.

See, I love Mass Effect. And I love the universe and I even love the third game and the ending for it (it worked for me emotionally, even when it didn't make much sense.)

But the Reapers also make any and all plots you do not directly related to the Reapers seem oddly frivilous. It'll be great to stretch my legs without having this omnipresent threat hanging over my head.
 

Matt T.

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I'm sure Andromeda will be good, but right now I'm leaning towards waiting for all the DLC and patches they'll probably put out for it. I kinda hate waiting that long, but I'm going to spend all of my limited gaming time on Persona 5 which launches like right after Andromeda, so I'll be fine.

At least for me, it's really hard to finish a game, put it down for 3-6 months, then suddenly pick it up again for DLC, and that's especially true if it's multiple DLC packs, like Bioware always does. And I remember Inquisition getting multiple significant patches, so that's one more reason to wait.
 

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I'm going to wait until its released and see what the user feedback is like. ME3 was the last game I pre-ordered and was really let down by that. For me ME was all about the story (both main plot and sub plots) but ME3 just dropped the ball (personal opinion only). Not just the ending, the whole thing seemed rushed and off.

But I'll hold out hope for ME:A.
 

Myrealana

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I already bought it for my husband for his birthday this month.

Now, I'm realizing the error of my ways -- I have to wait for him to finish before I'll get a chance to play!
 

Opty

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I'm usually not a big multiplayer person (because most good MPs are 1st person, and I hate 1st person perspective) but ME3's multiplayer was incredible. I still play it now, and it's been out for 5 years now.

So, in addition to my excitement about the main game, the MP alone will likely be worth the cost of the game for me, because I'm sure they've improved the MP even more since ME3.
 

lilyWhite

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I already bought it for my husband for his birthday this month.

Now, I'm realizing the error of my ways -- I have to wait for him to finish before I'll get a chance to play!

Marriage is all about making sacrifices.

(That said, the lilyWife got to play Inquisition first, so TOO BAD FOR HER. :evil)


...actually, I'd burn through the ten-hour trial in one day and be left craving more, so maybe I should let her have that.
 
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Opty

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I've had to force myself accept the fact that Bioware always has and likely always will suck at animating faces. The main issue seems to be that, because they have such a huge amount of dialogue, it'd be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to do "mocap" for every conversation. Games like Uncharted 4 have superb facial animations, but they use mocap and don't have nearly the amount of dialogue.

Facial animations are minor, to me, in the grand scheme of the Mass Effect series. I hate that they suck, but I'm okay with it if the rest of the game is awesome.
 
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Zoombie

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No, I'm EXPLICITLY not watching anything about gameplay, or the plot beyond the most vaguest of hints.

I want to go in as blind as possible!
 

lilyWhite

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I would give very little weight to RPS's "take" on ME:A, given the sheer amount of blatant hyperbole (to the point of outright lies). That, and the part where his "scorching" commentary on the squadmate AI consists of a video where one of the squadmates walks onto and off of a table during a non-combat situation.

(Also the part about a scene the author of the article didn't like should make the writer ashamed enough to "just get up, walk away, and keep walking until they fall off of or into something.")
 
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KateSmash

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Reviews need to be 100% objective, dontcha-know? ;)
 

lilyWhite

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I'm wondering how an opinion piece can be called "lies."

To quote one instance from the article:

"Within seconds you’re apparently the Chosen One, a Pathfinder"

There's a fair amount of plot build-up to this point, so claiming "within seconds" and that the game doesn't explain what being a Pathfinder is about (another complaint he makes) is completely false.

There's a world of difference between "opinion" and saying things that are completely wrong.
 

Opty

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To quote one instance from the article:

"Within seconds you’re apparently the Chosen One, a Pathfinder"

There's a fair amount of plot build-up to this point, so claiming "within seconds" and that the game doesn't explain what being a Pathfinder is about (another complaint he makes) is completely false.

There's a world of difference between "opinion" and saying things that are completely wrong.
Agreed.

I've actually watched a walk-through of the first few hours of ME:A (I really, really tried to avoid spoilery vids, but I couldn't help myself) and I can say with actual certainty that the RPS review is really, really dishonest. Whoever wrote it must either have a huge ax to grind with Bioware or they're living in bizarro world, because there's really not much about the first two hours of the game that matches up well with pure hyperbole of that steaming pile of bullshit RPS is trying to pass off as a review.
 
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Zoombie

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I'm at a bit of a disadvantage, as I've actually not read the article, cause...you know...I'm desperately trying to avoid spoilers. But that does sound pretty silly. Which is good, cause I am excited to play Andromeda.

Just want to have everyone remember that, at the end of the day, people are allowed to not like the same game you do.
 

Opty

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I've pre-ordered it for PS4 Pro however I also have an Xbox One, so I'm gonna play the free trial on EA Access tomorrow.

If anyone has Xbox One, you can purchase just one month of EA Access for only $5. This gives you access to several games (including SW: Battlefront) and free trials. They're offering a free trial of ME:A starting tomorrow. It gives you 10 hours worth of trial access and also access to the multiplayer. It's a pretty good deal if you're on the fence about whether or not you want to get the game. You only have to purchase one month of EA Access in order to access this free trial, and it works out to about 50 cents per hour of gameplay.

I still play a lot of ME3 MP, so I'm probably only going to play the multiplayer on the ME:A free trial and save all my single-player gaming for when the full game releases next Tuesday.

If anyone wants to add me on XB1 or PS4, shoot me a message and we can trade gamertags. If you want a MP buddy for ME:A, then it'll have to be on PS4.
 
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KateSmash

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If anyone has Xbox One, you can purchase just one month of EA Access for only $5. This gives you access to several games (including SW: Battlefront) and free trials. They're offering a free trial of ME:A starting tomorrow. It gives you 10 hours worth of trial access and also access to the multiplayer. It's a pretty good deal if you're on the fence about whether or not you want to get the game. You only have to purchase one month of EA Access in order to access this free trial, and it works out to about 50 cents per hour of gameplay.

That's actually really good to know, since I am on the fence about the whole thing. The first hour or so of footage (without commentary - before someone wants to complain about bias) didn't wow me. And I want it to wow me. So fingers crossed the Montreal studio lives up to what the main studio does.
 

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I will say with all honesty that, so far, it feels like they made the multiplayer a little worse. The MP for ME3 was awesome. This version feels like a not-as-smooth version of it. Yeah, the graphics are flashier, but they made some kind of dumb decisions when it comes to the gameplay mechanics which make controlling the characters less intuitive and a bit more frustrating.

I kept thinking/hoping that I just needed to get used to the new controls - and maybe that's still part of it - but after playing about 10 multiplayer matches, it seems like the issues have more to do with the changes they made (for the worse) than any learning curve I may be encountering.

So far, the ME:A multi just isn't nearly as fun as the ME3 multi. It's not bad. It's still got its plusses, and there was some big shoes to fill when it came to duplicating the success and awesomeness of ME3's multi, but it feels like in their rush to make everything prettier, that they started changing some things just for the sake of changing them and lost sight of what made the MP so great in the first place. I dunno. I'm still gonna play it, because it does have some entertainment value and is kind of fun (like I said; it doesn't totally suck or anything. It's still decent, just not nearly as good as ME3's). But, after waiting 5 years for this, it just seems like this should've been a lot better than it is so far.

YMMV.

I haven't played the single-player yet, so I can't comment on that. But, I still have about 6 hours of the free trial left, so I might give it a go tonight to see how it is.
 
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lilyWhite

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At the lilyWife's insistence, I decided to play through just the first mission of the game (and a bit after that).

So far, it's been great. Very pleased, and it really does feel like a new Mass Effect so far.

One thing first though. If you haven't already, don't watch the Official Launch Trailer. It does spoil part of the beginning of the story, and it's not a major spoiler by any means, but it's still something I would have liked to find out when it comes in-game rather than already knowing prior to playing.

That aside, I'm liking the story so far. It gets the action going at a reasonable rate, there's plenty of dialogue to be explored, and I'm loving the characters so far. (Liam > ME1!Kaidan and Jacob, for starters. :greenie) With how far I've played, it's dangling some interesting plot threads before me, though I imagine all of the answers will come after the cut-off point for the trial.

Gameplay-wise, definitely feels like ME3, which is no problem at all. I'm still getting using to the new cover system, but all of the controls work well, the jetpack's a fun addition to the game, and the toggle-sprint and switching shoulder is really nice. I still have almost no clue what skills I'm going to invest in, but I'm definitely looking forward to expanding my arsenal.

Haven't noticed any game-affecting glitches yet either. The biggest thing I ran into was Ryder's legs going silly at one point, but they fixed themselves after I came to a stop (and I was slightly disappointed that I couldn't make it happen again).

I'll give multiplayer a shot when the lilyWife has her fill of the trial, but to be honest...I really wish I hadn't given it a try because now the wait is killing me even more.

:e2thud:
 

KateSmash

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Just under 3 hours in and it hasn't let me have any real conversation with my squaddies (the two I've got anyway). Which just feels weird for a Bioware game.

The only thing that really bothers me is it doesn't let you save during the main "priority missions". I mean, there's autosave checkpoints, but they're pretty far apart if you like to take your time and wander the map like I do. Sometimes life happens and you have to put the game down in the middle of the story bits. So the choice not to let you save everywhere that's not a cutscene feels wrong.
 

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I'm about to start up the main campaign to see what it's like. The only thing I've noticed from the clips I've seen is that Bioware still embarassingly sucks at facial animations (and are getting rightly mocked for it online right now).

Seriously, they've had a decade to get better at animations and they haven't made any progress at all. Honestly, ME1 face animations were better. Witcher 3 did fine with them. Not sure why Bioware can't catch up to the rest of the industry in that regard. It's not enough to pull me out of the game, but it is a bit of an eyesore.

However, I did just find this article with examples of other crap animations:

http://whatculture.com/gaming/mass-effect-andromeda-10-hilarious-animations-you-need-to-see?page=1

I'm just not sure what to think of a company that has had 5 years to work on their "biggest game ever," even pushing back the release date by several months, and this is what they churn out. Granted, the "Day 1 Patch" that they're releasing on Tuesday wasn't part of the free trial, so maybe some of this has been fixed and we just don't know it yet?

I'm trying to be optimistic, but it's getting tougher.

I've also heard that it takes a while for the story to get going, but that alone doesn't really bother me. ME1 took a while to get going (the opening on Eden Prime was a bit plodding) and the first two or three hours of Witcher 3, in White Orchard, had me nearly bored to tears, but both of those games turned out to be great in the long run.

So, even if the first two hours or so of ME:A aren't as awesome as I'd like, I'll keep an open mind given that those other games were awesome. Not every RPG can have as bad ass an opening as ME2.
 
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