Mass Effect: Andromeda

Cina

I liked Andromeda too.

It was a 7, maybe 8 out of 10 marred by some sh*tty technical issues.

It also didn't help that it came out in the same year as OWG's like Zelda and Horizon.

Gbear

Kiith wrote: »

It's only a matter of time before they do a remaster of the original trilogy. Might be a few years, but all "classics" will get that treatment at some stage.

I'd love to see another one in our universe, but it is tough if they want peoples choices to matter from the original trilogy. Unless it's a prequel, set during the First Contact war or something like that.

In time people won't give enough of a ****e about just picking an ending.
They'll whine on twitter about it but ultimately they'll buy the game because they don't actually care about retcons about things they can barely remember anyway.

I think there's massive scope to just continue the story post-Reaper war.

The galaxy will be in a heap, Relays might be damaged, wild west everywhere, governments to put back together, salvage, left over bits of reapers.

It's probably a more interesting setting than the galaxy was at the start of ME1. The only thing to solve is who the big bad is.

K.O.Kiki

Deleted User wrote: »

The combat in ME:A was so well done. It was on par with (and even surpassed with how fun it was) that seen in ME:2 & 3.

The combat mechanics were close, but IMHO none of the weapons had the charm & heft of ME3's, and the move from designed arenas to boring open-world made every encounter forgettable.

jones

Andromeda worth it on the pro with the double discount psn sale? Loved the original trilogy but reviews turned me away from this

Mitch Connor

RopeDrink wrote: »

On the other hand, in response to the chap who claims people will forget eventually - you do realize people to this day are still debating things like Logain at the battle at Ostigar from DragonAge Origins (2009)? Even if it were true, it'll take a long, long time, especially for a series like Mass Effect that almost everyone has played.

I think the fact it wasn't the same Dev team could be played upon.

If I was going to try get Mass Effect going again I would...

1. Get the original team back on it, or at least original project leaders (they came back to Bioware, didn't they?).
2. Get the word out that the original team are back in charge.
3. Get the original trilogy remastered and back on the shelf.
4. Give it the time it needs to be developed.

The fact it was a different dev team means if you get most of the important players back you can say that ME:A suffered from whatever problems, but they were not problems designed and dev'd by the people in charge of bringing it back.

As an aside, it sounds like ME:A went through a lot of the problems Viceral went through with their Star Wars title. EA shipped one, and cancelled the other.

Mordin was one of the people that died in the suicide mission at the end of ME2 for me, so he was replaced by a random character, which removed so much of the emotional impact in my run-through.

Mitch Connor

RopeDrink wrote: »

Tis true, though people have a habit of resorting to the label. It has Mass Effect slapped on it? Then it's Mass Effect, albeit of [insert different quality here]. Having played ME:A extensively from day one, it didn't feel exactly like the classic ME's, but it did feel like Mass Effect. It can't compete with ME2 or ME3, but it was enjoyable and ticked a majority of expected boxes.

None of it stood out like some moments from, say, ME3 did (example of "Logain" effect being the death of Mordin/Wrex depending on your choices, man did those videos get a lot of emotional comments), but on the same token this was (assumed) to be a fresh-start - it's not like they can craft the mega-memorable stuff in game one when ME2/ME3 already had 1-2 games backing them up, story wise, to pull at peoples strings.

Ultimately, sure, it'd have been nice to get the original squad back, though assuming it maintained all the bugs and animation drivel that it started with, I'm not sure this 'fresh start' would have done overly better - people are picky these days. Fab story? Yes, but, eh, these models look like they're on crack, yo!

I would assume the original squad (and I was refering to dev team, not Shep et al) given time simply wouldn't have made the same ambitious mistakes the new dev team attempted, but didn't have the talent to do in the time they had - which resulted in a lot of shonky stuff we got.

To be honest though - my biggest problem with ME:A was that I simply didn't like the non-focused nature of the open world. I missed the stronger narative and scripted set pieces of the OT.

I played through the OT loads, even once again in the months before ME:A and nothing about ME:A made me want to try a second run through of it.

I'm still pissed with Liam for never organising the movie night.... I never got that piece of the story for some reason.

Nody

RopeDrink wrote: »

Tis true, though people have a habit of resorting to the label. It has Mass Effect slapped on it? Then it's Mass Effect, albeit of [insert different quality here]. Having played ME:A extensively from day one, it didn't feel exactly like the classic ME's, but it did feel like Mass Effect. It can't compete with ME2 or ME3, but it was enjoyable and ticked a majority of expected boxes.

None of it stood out like some moments from, say, ME3 did (example of "Logain" effect being the death of Mordin/Wrex depending on your choices, man did those videos get a lot of emotional comments), but on the same token this was (assumed) to be a fresh-start - it's not like they can craft the mega-memorable stuff in game one when ME2/ME3 already had 1-2 games backing them up, story wise, to pull at peoples strings.

Ultimately, sure, it'd have been nice to get the original squad back, though assuming it maintained all the bugs and animation drivel that it started with, I'm not sure this 'fresh start' would have done overly better - people are picky these days. Fab story? Yes, but, eh, these models look like they're on crack, yo!

There is a good summary of all that went/was done wrong here:

But a few major points were:

• Inexperienced studio that only done DLCs previously getting to much money & time wanting to do insanely big scope (hundreds of worlds to be generated at random ala No mans sky before it was even announced) which turned out not to be possible wasting three years of dev time out of five years on it
• Forced to use an engine not made for RPGs but FPS
• Story & dialogue written in 1 year rather than the normal 3 - 5 years
• Limited devs to look at face animation leaving a lot of it to be computer generated only

Temptamperu

I dont think this game is half as bad as people say. I only paid twenty quid for it and had no expectations for it after all the bad reviews and the memes. But i'm after having a great week playing this. Apart for the alien sudoku but i found a work around so i can just skip that.

All in all if you can get it cheap it might be worth your time.

Kiith

I didn't even realise you get replacements for Mordin, Tali and Legion. Knew about Wraev, but who doesn't keep Wrex alive...that's just crazy talk.

Or Mordin for that matter. Or Tali for that matter. The original trilogy really did have some fantastic characters.

And all of them were the non-humans

Zero-Cool

Kiith wrote: »

I didn't even realise you get replacements for Mordin, Tali and Legion. Knew about Wraev, but who doesn't keep Wrex alive...that's just crazy talk.

Or Mordin for that matter. Or Tali for that matter. The original trilogy really did have some fantastic characters.

And all of them were the non-humans

Really cannot like this post enough.

pixelburp

I didn't know that either; IIRC I kept all of my crew alive during ME:2, if only because the completionist in me wanted to do all the 'loyalty' missions anyway, so I was already in a good place without knowing it.

Never got around to Andromeda, partly because of the bad press, but also after reading that it was an offshoot from the main trilogy & that none of the previous group would be returning; I just didn't have the interest in taking a detour to follow a bunch of new people I wasn't that pushed about - especially knowing that somewhere else in the galaxy Garrus, Tali & co. were knocking around and whose stories didn't get a fantastic capper.

Agree also that the non-human characters were more more interesting and rounded than the bland, squaddie types in the human roster; in fact, that just reminds me that I tell a lie from above: I DID lose a character in Mass Effect 2, the black guy whose personality was so memorable I had to google there now to remind myself of his name :rolleyes:

Kiith

Ahh Jacob. You tried your absolute best to be likable, but you just couldn't figure it out :P

Kiith

Kiith wrote: »

I didn't even realise you get replacements for Mordin, Tali and Legion. Knew about Wraev, but who doesn't keep Wrex alive...that's just crazy talk.

Or Mordin for that matter. Or Tali for that matter. The original trilogy really did have some fantastic characters.

And all of them were the non-humans

Mordin was the only one like that that died for me. Both Tali and Legion were alive and, thus, helped me solve the Geth crisis between their people (yup, I managed that -- thank f*ck!)

I didn't even know they had a stand-in for Mordin, so I legitimately thought he was just a random character that arrived and then died.

pixelburp

Kiith wrote: »

Ahh Jacob. You tried your absolute best to be likable, but you just couldn't figure it out :P

Honestly, the only human characters (squad ones that is, so sorry Joker) I can remember are Ashley & Miranda; the former 'cos she was a bit of a racist, the latter because her arc basically consisted of a digital Yvonne Strahovski lamenting how perfect she was lol. To be fair her story was intriguing enough from what I recall of it.

I'm not sure I even ever spoke to that jarhead in ME:3, as soon as we met I mentally just told him to get stuffed. How does Andromeda fare in that respect; are there any actual human characters this time who AREN'T generic military tropes?

pixelburp

pixelburp wrote: »

Honestly, the only human characters (squad ones that is, so sorry Joker) I can remember are Ashley & Miranda; the former 'cos she was a bit of a racist, the latter because her arc basically consisted of a digital Yvonne Strahovski lamenting how perfect she was lol. To be fair her story was intriguing enough from what I recall of it.

I'm not sure I even ever spoke to that jarhead in ME:3, as soon as we met I mentally just told him to get stuffed. How does Andromeda fare in that respect; are there any actual human characters this time who AREN'T generic military tropes?

The jarhead, Carlos (I think?) had an interesting story - essentially his husband had been killed during the conflict.

So in that regard, he seemed like a generic military character, until you talked to him.

Edit: His name was Cortez, not Carlos.

Edit edit:

Right, I'm getting my characters mixed up. Cortez was somebody else. Vega was the companion. But I got the husband part right.

Though, I guess this is proving pixel's point, since I'm getting him confused.

Kiith

pixelburp wrote: »

How does Andromeda fare in that respect; are there any actual human characters this time who AREN'T generic military tropes?

Andromeda's humans were ok. Cora was there, and i didn't hate Liam. That's about as much praise as i can give them to be honest.

Gbear

Deleted User wrote: »

The jarhead, Carlos (I think?) had an interesting story - essentially his husband had been killed during the conflict.

So in that regard, he seemed like a generic military character, until you talked to him.

Edit: His name was Cortez, not Carlos.

Edit edit:

Right, I'm getting my characters mixed up. Cortez was somebody else. Vega was the companion. But I got the husband part right.

Though, I guess this is proving pixel's point, since I'm getting him confused.

It was a bit cack-handed in the way they handled it - the relationship lacked authenticity and it made him feel like the token gay.

The comms officer lady (Traynor?) was far better handled because they didn't treat her like her defining characteristic was "gayness".

That said, it's hard to integrate a more realisitc spread of sexualities in a way that doesn't feel jarring after not doing it in previous games.

Corra (she sounds like they lifted her out of Team America World Police) and Liam (incompetent moron) are terrible in ME:A but the non-combat human characters and the aliens are all fine.

Drack and the new cat guy with electric skin were just about as good as anyone else in the ME universe.

I don't think the issue with the story in ME:A was down to writing or voice work for the most part.
They integrated squad interaction better as well.
I think the issue is that the plot, UI and mission structure worked to make you not want to spend time in the world with those characters.

Some of those were legacy issues that have always been there to some extent. Some have been made worse. Some were added.

K.O.Kiki

pixelburp wrote: »

Honestly, the only human characters (squad ones that is, so sorry Joker) I can remember are Ashley & Miranda; the former 'cos she was a bit of a racist, the latter because her arc basically consisted of a digital Yvonne Strahovski lamenting how perfect she was lol. To be fair her story was intriguing enough from what I recall of it.

I'm not sure I even ever spoke to that jarhead in ME:3, as soon as we met I mentally just told him to get stuffed. How does Andromeda fare in that respect; are there any actual human characters this time who AREN'T generic military tropes?

Lieutenant Commander James Vega is a good character, he just happens to be a slightly hot-headed guy who has big muscles.
And he's nearly as good as Shephard; watch Mass Effect: Paragon Lost to see what I mean.

(bonus fact: he's voiced by Freddie Prinz, Jr.)

Gbear

Gbear wrote: »

It was a bit cack-handed in the way they handled it - the relationship lacked authenticity and it made him feel like the token gay.

The comms officer lady (Traynor?) was far better handled because they didn't treat her like her defining characteristic was "gayness".

I don't think he was portrayed as the "token gay" at all. The only way to actually know he was, outside of romancing him, was to actually talk to him.

Now - I am basing my opinion on just Mass Effect 3 vanilla - I haven't played any of the DLC nor have I watched any other media in which he might have featured.

I also felt like it had a degree of authenticity - we have a soldier in wartime, who is deciding not to focus on his lost love.

Now - I already proved that I am likely not remembering all of Vega, so I could be wrong.

Dare I say after all the patching and stuff I'm tempted to pick this up.
Does this use Dynamic Res scaling? Uncapped FPS?
Trying to figure out how it will play on the Xbox One X

Might be worth waiting for a few weeks yet - or at least until this weekend. We're coming up to Sale season, so it might pop up across a few different places. And it's Black Friday/Digital Monday (or whatever it's called) in a few days.

Kiith

Isn't it on Origin Access? Just pay €3 and you can get it for the month. Also a bunch of other games. It's actually really good value.

Kiith

Kiith wrote: »

Isn't it on Origin Access? Just pay €3 and you can get it for the month. Also a bunch of other games. It's actually really good value.

Is that available on PS4/Xbox?

K.O.Kiki

Deleted User wrote: »

Is that available on PS4/Xbox?

PC & Xbox One only.

K.O.Kiki

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

PC & Xbox One only.

Goddamnit.

Kiith

Ah, didn't realise that.

Why isn't it on PS? Seems like something EA would want. Sony being weird about their online service again?

K.O.Kiki

Kiith wrote: »

Ah, didn't realise that.

Why isn't it on PS? Seems like something EA would want. Sony being weird about their online service again?

Probably Sony being weird, yeah.

CatInABox

From what I remember, when EA Access came out, it wasn't on PS4 because "it didn't offer good value". I remember thinking that was mental.

Anyway, EA Access now has the deluxe version on there as well, not sure what it's got over the base game, but €3 for a month or €25 for the year, it's hard to argue with the value of EA Access now.

Kiith

It's one of the few things EA is doing right at the moment. I got 30% off Fifa because of it as well.