Mass Effect: Andromeda Pre-Release Thread

[Blaine]

 

[Galdred]

A 6 from Gamespot

Holy fucking shit

So it's like Mount and Blade?

 

[Falksi]

Andromeda looks like a poor tribute to The Technomancer (which, whilst flawed, I absolutely loved).

 

[Riso]

https://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/20...ew/?comments=1&post=33009841#comment-33009841

I think you're memories of The Witcher 3 are incredibly rose-tinted. It was a *great* game, but the writing was pretty bad compared to...every single Bioware game and the characters outside of the main plot were mostly (but not entirely) pretty shit. It didn't matter too much with TW3 though, because the world was interesting, the core plot superb, the side-quests fun as hell (despite sometimes wonky writing and some pretty awful voice acting) and the gameplay was bloody great.

DA:I has *far* better writing and voice acting (I honestly don't think there's been a game with higher quality overall VO), but was arguably an inferior game (but some will like one, some another, both groups are correct) because the gameplay was not particularly great (although I found playing as an archer fun, I didn't like playing as any other class).

 

[Santander02]

By jove, that has to be the most positive 6 out 10 review I have ever seen. Still gotta suck that publisher cock somehow even when you rate their game mediocre eh Gamespot?

 

[Falksi]

By jove, that has to be the most positive 6 out 10 review I have ever seen. Still gotta suck that publisher cock somehow even when you rate their game mediocre eh Gamespot?

Thought similar. But maybe he thinks it's a 7/10 game, and rating it so low coz of trends & expectations?

 

[Hellion]

"Heh, that thing looks pissed...probably because I shot it in the face!"

(actual line spoken from one of your squad-mates during the intro mission)

It's also pretty telling that during character creation you have more options for your MAKEUP than you do for your facial characteristics, hair, skin or beard. That's incline, right there.

 

[Repulsive]

"Heh, that thing looks pissed...probably because I shot it in the face!"

(actual line spoken from one of your squad-mates during the intro mission)

It's also pretty telling that during character creation you have more options for your MAKEUP than you do for your facial characteristics, hair, skin or beard. That's incline, right there.

Shits sickening really.

 

[vdweller]

Is it as bad as my previous comments on the first few hours suggested? Kind of, yes, but diluted down by sheer volume of busywork. There’s nothing I’ve found that redeems its crappy writing, threadbare companions, moribund story, and ghastly UI. But, well, the best I can say is it occupies time. The driving’s kind of fun, with its own list of annoyances. Um. Some it’s fine.

Which is frustrating, because dammit, I wanted a wonderful new Mass Effect game, and such a huge amount of effort and work has gone into this. For all its cacophony of flaws, it’s a vast and intricate creation, into which many people have clearly poured huge quantities of energy. To see so much achieve so little is dispiriting in the extreme.

Bugs will, I’m sure, be fixed over the coming weeks, and maybe if enough people ask they could ditch the UI and start from scratch on something that works. But it won’t be able to remove that ennui that weighs down so heavily over its formulaic tale, especially after its daft ending.

I’ve a very strong feeling that people are going to buy this anyway, and many will milk from it what they can in order to feel rewarded. That’s great. But as a follow-up to the previous trilogy, it’s a timid and tepid tale too heavily reliant on what came before, too unambitious for what could have been, trapped in a gargantuan playground of bits and pieces to do.

Also, who the hell travels to another galaxy and doesn’t bring the Elcor with them?

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/03/20/mass-effect-andromeda-review/

 

[warpig]

So far, I'm having fun watching this trainwreck. Fuck Bioware xDDD

 

[Thane Solus]

8.0? Fuck you pc gamer, you POS.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

For those of you who can stand it, here are the cutscenes from ME:A.

I haven't been able to see all of it because of the perpetual loading on my side but I can tell you this that there are quite some plot conveniences regarding the whole colonization of the Heleus cluster.
Imagine if the plot device had not existed at all and the colonists had traveled to this parts of the universe and the planets they found were naturally uninhabitable.

Eh I don't want to go to deep into detail about the plot, but it is your usual series of clichés if you have seen the various Star Trek series or played the previous ME games. (oh and Halo)

The sci-fi genre in gaming is a dying one.

Oh and as bonus;



I felt like kicking this guy in the face when he started to talk about how ME:A could have been some sort of critical look at European colonization efforts.

 

[Thane Solus]

Andromeda animation team? (got this from someone, any true to it? ))

 

[Hoaxmetal]

lol 8.3 user score on meta critic, i see they bought 2000 positive ratings. (probably gona go down to 6 in 2 months)

There's no user score available for Andromeda yet, user voting opens in 9 hours.

 

[flyingjohn]

Damn just watched a stream and in less then 20 minutes game is getting hammered in the comments forcing the streamer to have sub mode only.
The streamers are trying so hard to defend this game because they are paid to shill and they are failing spectacularly.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Andromeda animation team? (got this from someone, any true to it? ))

https://www.wpi.edu/news/imgd-students-faculty-alumni-showcase-talents-gaming-conference

Fake news.

 

[vdweller]

Andromeda animation team? (got this from someone, any true to it? ))

NSA Image search shows a match with this:
https://www.wpi.edu/news/imgd-students-faculty-alumni-showcase-talents-gaming-conference

EDIT: Fuck. Ninja'd.

 

[Thane Solus]

lol 8.3 user score on meta critic, i see they bought 2000 positive ratings. (probably gona go down to 6 in 2 months)

There's no user score available for Andromeda yet, user voting opens in 9 hours.

Oh yeah my bad, drugs are bad. It was a different ME.

 

[Taskityo]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/03/20/mass-effect-andromeda-review/

Was just about to post that. RPS goes further into the "bad guys," story, and writing than other reviews, which is what I was looking for. Somehow Andromeda sounds like its more cliche than ME1-3. An interesting accomplishment.

Writing

What unites all these different features is the most unrelentingly dull writing, cliches and aphorisms pouring out like the waterfalls they’d use as an analogy in this sentence. Every chat lasts three times longer than it needs to, and they’re achingly boring from casual encounters to the deepest moments in relationships. I cannot explain this better than by giving a lengthy example from one moment in the first few hours, a chat about the potentially complex and messy subject of faith.

Writing+Side Quests

Let me give another example that’s emblematic of almost every aspect of the writing: there’s one sidequest on Eos where you find a message from a dude who died in the middle of doing a job, planting radio beacons in various hard-to-reach places. So your task is to finish the job for him, out of respect. With each beacon you place, a message automatically plays, an adult woman’s voice saying empty aphorisms about what a good job her dad is doing. Right, you think, so his daughter recorded him these messages, so she’s probably dead – where is this going to go?

Where it goes is the shocking revelation that – oh no! – she’s dead! And from this we’re asked to feel an emotional response, with your companions leadenly explaining that it’s emotional, you see. Meaningless platitudes from a dead daughter playing out as you complete the task of a dead father. It’s an embarrassment, as if saying, “SOMEONE IS DEAD, SO THERE IS SADNESS!” is how it works. It could have been handled delicately, the messages could have been subtle, messages of genuine complicated love between a father and daughter, a short story playing out as you learn of their trials and their grief. That he never got to hear these messages from his dying daughter should have been the hook, should have tugged at the player, played on our own emotional attachments to parents and children. Instead, as with every part of the game’s writing, it was flat, perfunctory and robotic.

No Thinky Sci-Fi

This is endemic, permeating from conversations through to grand ideas. Entire races are still described as having a single personality type. “Quick-minded, sharp” someone says of the Angara, as if that’s going to be a common trait across an entire sentient species. A single philosophy is attributed to the entire species, across multiple planets, as if no one would disagree, ever, across space and time.

Choice and Consequence

Perhaps most significantly, they made the bold decision to remove good/evil responses that have been a mainstay of the developers’ RPGs, but they’ve failed to replace them with anything close to as meaningful. As a result, they’ve essentially removed the majority of choice at all. At one point you’re offered an extremely significant deal that contains an element that’s tantamount to extortion. In any other BioWare game before you’d argue this, perhaps choose it as the lesser of two evils, or reject it based on principle. Here you get two choices: to accept it, or accept it while making a joke. It’s quite bizarre how far they’ve gone in removing the illusion of autonomy, while still seeming to think they’re offering dialogue choice.

The Kett

As if that weren’t drearily inevitable enough, there’s also a race of cartoon baddies called the Kett, whose grumpy gnarled faces ensure you realise they’re bad, who shoot at you on sight for no reason (in fact, against all reason when you learn more of their nefarious plans) wherever you go.

Hard Sci-Fi? Nope

Think about a new galaxy, a whole new potential of life forms, of evolutionary exoticism, of astounding new ideas. Now discard them all and think of intensely familiar bipedal people living in ordinary cities with ordinary thoughts, relationships, educations, jobs, and would you believe it, technology exactly on a par with what you just happened to bring with you. Floating octopuses that think in cascading colours? Societies based on amorphous interaction? Ideas better than the ones I’m throwing out? Nope, not a single thing.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Incline of RockPaperShotgun.

Right now the only point of Andromeda is to show how ME1-3 weren't as bad as the Codex thought. Compared to Andromeda, they are Fallout, Torment, Arcanum.

 

[RapineDel]

Ouch, this is a new low even for Bioware.

Bioware/Mass Effect pages going into full meltdown at the moment, this being one of them:

"And here se go again, game rep destroyed coz of some not so bug bugs and some idiotic kids.....haters gonna hate after all they have to throw their frustration at something, wondering wich title will be next"

Interesting that it's the same people who worship the original trilogy getting 90+ scores. Mind boggling how quickly the press have deserted them in such a short space of time, eagerly awaiting the fallout.

 

[vdweller]

Incline of RockPaperShotgun.

Right now the only point of Andromeda is to show how ME1-3 weren't as bad as the Codex thought. Compared to Andromeda, they are Fallout, Torment, Arcanum.

Yeah sure. It's just like saying "I ate some cake. Then some moldy pudding. Then some shit. And then I drank a diarrhea milkshake with cum syrup and asshair icing. Boy that was awful. I certainly appreciate the moldy pudding and shit right now".

 

[Commissar Draco]

ME:A's romance sex scenes are actual softcore porn:



What happened to taste? I understand a few suggestive clips, but showing my character's muscular buttocks thrusting into our love interest is a bit much.

The Witcher series always did this sort of thing a little tongue in cheek and I expect it from them, but this is kinda gross for a ME game. Yet another step forward in Bioware's long march of degeneracy.

She is white, has decent rack and don't have green or pink hair: 4/10... 6/10 if Tranny.

Spoiler

Still would.

 

[Azalin]

ME:A's romance sex scenes are actual softcore porn:



What happened to taste? I understand a few suggestive clips, but showing my character's muscular buttocks thrusting into our love interest is a bit much.

The Witcher series always did this sort of thing a little tongue in cheek and I expect it from them, but this is kinda gross for a ME game. Yet another step forward in Bioware's long march of degeneracy.

I wonder is someone can upload the lesbian scissoring sex scene from the Kill.Me.Now romance for some extra lulz

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

I wonder is someone can upload the lesbian scissoring sex scene from the Kill.Me.Now romance for some extra lulz

If they actually did different positions for different sexes, I would almost want to give them points for the effort. Almost.