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Mass Effect: Andromeda


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Mods are for gamer nerds who don't appreciate the sanctity of the narrative confines they've been presented with! Mods are the fan fiction of the gaming world. ;)

 

I already pre-ordered and told my reps I'm unavailable for work in March.

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  • 1 month later...

BTW if you haven't yet, log in there with your EA account to earn some starter level DLC stuff.

 

https://www.masseffect.com/andromeda-initiative/training-hub

 

I think it's just a helmet, but free is free. If you're avoiding spoilers like me and concerned with knowing too much, then you can just "watch" the videos by skipping right to the last second of the vid... it still counts for your progress towards the DLC item.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yeah, Wildlands will be pretty much only played when my friends who have it are online and want to play, Andromeda will be my life for the next few months.

 

Also, turns out I went to school with the voice actor for Liam Costa. Small world.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Walking seems fine. Face stuff-- you mileage may vary. I've been saying from the first images released that Bioware character faces are always kind of meh. Maybe it's the super detailed work I've done with wWe2k17 CAWs or looking at the character work in Last of Us or Horizon, but Bioware characters-- especially the eyes, always look kind of soulless to me.

 

Andromeda is no exception. Honestly it's about the same as ME3.

 

That said it hasn't really interfered with my enjoyment.

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Did the tutorial (Eden Prime-ish) mission, established myself on the Nexus, and headed off to the first system to explore. Here's how I feel so far:

 

 

Good:

 

-- Love my Ryder. I went with Sara. There's a lot of subtle detail in her character that's animated, and performed really well. She can be no-nonsense, but she's also young and has a sense of wonder. I'm glad they didn't compete with the Professional career military angle of Shepard. And at the same time, I can see coming to like her as much as Shep too.

 

-- The open skill system. I wasn't sure if this would work, but I love it. Basically, the character classes from the ME trilogy are still there, but they are considered "training." As in. what you did before joining the initiative. That gives you a base, and from there you can build your own skillset. It works with the story as most characters are motivated by why they joined the initiative, but it also allows you to specialize in way that I always wanted to with Shepard but couldn't. For example, I took the "operative" background, which is basically recon/special forces/Infiltrator. It gives you the Infiltrator Tactical Cloak to start with and some other bonuses.

 

From there, you can actually go different directions. You could gear up on Sniper Rifles and combat drones to be a classic Shepard-style Infiltrator sniper-- or you could focus on melee weapons and pistols and other close range attacks to make an assassin/thief/Katsumi type character.

 

Once you get connected to SAM, you also have the option of him jacking skillsets into your brain-- which is a very cool cyberpunk scifi trope that is fun to see with actual mechanics in a game. Called "profiles" they are basically the classic ME character classes that give you perks/buffs/modifiers that you can swap out at any time to fit the situation you are in.

 

-- The dialog options. Instead of just Paragon or renegade, you have a variety now-- is your response logical, sarcastic, heartfelt, or cold? Not every option is available at all times, but when you add this to the skill system it makes for really being able to roleplay your Ryder a very specific way.

 

-- The Tempest. It gives just the right amount of a Normandy vibe to make you feel at home, but is unique as well.

 

Bad:

 

-- the graphics aren't as good as they could be on a current gen console. The game doesn't look all that better than ME3. The environments are beautifully designed and rendered, but there are a lot of luminance, texture, and rendering issues. I had to turn the game brightness setting almost all the way down because cut scene character closeups were just too fuzzy and bright.

 

-- similarly, like I said above, the facial designs are not as good as they could be

 

-- no sens of urgency. At its heart, this is an exploration game, and I knew that going in... but I do miss the "running against the clock to save the galaxy" vibe that each of the original games had.

 

 

Obviously, this could all change once I get a little deeper in.

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The graphics problems probably have to do with the limitations of current gen console hardware, rather than the frostbite 4 engine that ME:A uses

 

I mean, PS4 still gets frame rate dips and problems with Skyrim SE which is a lot less glossy than than ME:A.

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Guest Robin

The problems with MEA are self inflicted by Bioware. Even Bethesda, level 99 glitch masters, created models with better expressions than MEA. On top of that Bioware games are pushed along by extensive dialogue and they still shipped the game with Thunderbird marionettes. Bioware delayed this game several times and worked on it for five years and it is about equal to ME3 but with marionettes.

 

In many ways this feels like a really, really good overhaul mod for ME3. Like if this was amatuer it would win all the awards for "wow on your free time, dude?!"

 

The Marionettes are the worst sin, but there are others like boarding the Tempest for the first time and then going right back to home base and boom... everything is pretty. Hahahahaha. That is some stupid shit on Bioware's part.

 

Story wise I have one issue, one of the first lines of dialogue should have been something like, "We're here, but we're late." If the PC's vessel arrived late then all other little mumbles I have about the story disappear.

 

All that said, I'm going to be playing again forseveral hours today because I love Mass Effect and this is totally Mass Effect. And I got up early to get all my Mr.Mom chores done.

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I thought they did say they were late once they got to the Nexus. Or rather, the Nexus was early. I think a little more time than a bit over a year should have passed given how spread out people are and how much has happened. But it technically works.

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Guest Robin

They could have, I could have missed that because when I got to the Nexus I was pretty sleepy, crashing hard from my Peppermint Mocha and double chocolate donut breakfast. lol

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Not sure it's entirely Bioware's fault, some of it sure, but... EA pushing Bioware to have a game release ready before it actually was probably caused them to rush certain things.. like character animations.

 

As a developer, you want to make the best product possible because you love the craft and have a reputation of quality to uphold. As a publisher, all you care about at the end of the day is money. Publishers crush Devs with time constraints and content cutting and all sorts... So I wouldn't lump all the blame for ME:A's shortcomings squarely at the feet of Bioware.

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Guest Robin

It's Bioware's fault. The buck stops at the dev, they had Triple A funding and five years of development time. EA has a multitude of gaming sins under their belt, but how much more money and time were they supposed to give this project? Half a decade of dev time, man.

 

Anyway, on Eos now. The Nomad is a both a sexy bitch and a bitch to drive. lol But I have heard it's upgradable, so that's neat. Remnants are right arseholes, seriously, shielding plus flight plus the ability to destroy cover and the ability to generate Melee bots that blitz. Technically these jackbutts are in a location I am supposed to visit prior to another on the same planet, so I suppose that means easier, but I wiped out the Kett at the third location with no worries and these second location robodicks destroy me. ugh. lol

 

Also Cora is stupid at least right now. She's supposed to essentially be a Vanguard class, but she uses her powers like an ME3 MP noob. Cora! Dammit, you charge then punch, it's a built in combo. Ugh! LOL

 

BTW re: Thunderbirds Marionettes... I turned on Helmets at all times and this resolves that issue, at least when you're suited up for combat.

 

Much later edit in:

 

I beat those mothers.

 

I cheaped it. I used the Nomad to park up on a mountain right by the zone, close enough to the zone's shields that I could pop in and out to regenerate my life support. I then took out each robodick at leisure. Up yours, Bioware. LOL

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Man, you cant just put money and time and expect things to go perfectly. Creativity isn't like that. A magic equation doesn't mean things are going to go perfectly. While 5 years seems like a long time, for a game like Mass Effect Im not so sure. Fallout 4 took 7 years to make. But then the Witcher 3 took 3 and a half years. But then the Witcher 3 was made by 240 odd people in a Polish Dev company (CDPR)...and Polish people have a work ethic that is kind of superhuman. But those games were both Published by the same company that was developing the game too. Therefore they had clarity of vision, and no need to make compromises to make a publishing company happy.

 

I remember about halfway through the development of Mass Effect Andromeda the creative director (I think or writer maube?) from Bioware quit, after being fully committed to the project. I think we even discussed it in this thread. But for the head of a project to go, mid development, there must've been huge conflicting opinions within the two companies, trampling of ideas etc..

Blaming Bioware for all the shortcomings is a very blinkered view of how things are made, and how things go wrong.

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Guest Robin

Oh. Sorry. It's not Bioware's fault. Madame Fate did it. ;-) Come on, Dude. You just described ways Bioware screwed up. It's okay to say Bioware screwed up, it's not hateful to acknowledge this. :-) Hounding employees off or online, yeah that is.

 

That said, there are several people in my circle that really did not like the Eos mission. I loved it. Granted Cora just is OMG stop charging those peaceful things!!!! But otherwise it was good. Finishing my coffee now and squeezing some gametime in before everyone is up... it's 5am in my locale.

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