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7/7/2017 7:23:46 AM
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Let's talk about Mass Effect Andromeda
So before we begin I would like to say that I realize the difference between liking something and it being good. Also Mass Effect is one of my favorite game series, if not my favorite, I haven't spent as much time on any game as I have the Mass Effect games. I've played through the first two games over ten times each, played through the third three or four times, and I've just finished my third run-through of Andromeda. So with that out of the way.
It's been almost four months since Mass Effect Andromeda has been released and boy what a release it was, it received pretty negative reviews from both the community and the reviewers. It wasn't nearly as loud as the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle (or maybe it was, to be fair I haven't been keeping up with game news in a long time) either way Mass Effect Andromeda has been blasted hard for having bad facial animations, plenty of glitches, poor writing, etc. It's probably the worst received Mass Effect game to date and that's saying something.
Still with all that Mass Effect Andromeda is my favorite Mass Effect game. Now that doesn't mean it's the best Mass Effect game, that honor goes to the original ME with ME2 being a close second. I just enjoyed ME:A more than any of the others, it really brought back the magic and the wonder I experienced playing through the first Mass Effect game.
After ME the next two games became much more cinematic and much more action packed. It became the clash of the unstoppable force of Commander Shepard vs. The unstoppable force of the Reapers. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing it just wasn't what attracted me to the game. Honestly I almost didn't get Mass Effect 2 because of that change and I love Mass Effect 2 but I just didn't get the same feeling as I did from Mass Effect that got me addicted to the game. [spoiler]Literally addicted too, there are times I have "Mass Effect Cravings" and I spend a weekend or two plowing through all the the games back to back[/spoiler] The eerie feeling of the unknown, the sensation of being a small person exploring a large universe while bonding with a diverse cast of characters...That's what made Mass Effect so entrancing to me. And while the next two games kept and expanded upon the cast of characters they simultaneously watered down the sense of exploration and the feeling of being small.
Mass Effect Andromeda brought this feeling back to me and that no amount of glitches or poor facial animations could ruin for me. I love Mass Effect Andromeda and it makes me sad that we won't being seeing any meaningful expansions to it's story.
I see a lot of potential in Mass Effect Andromeda, potential that if EA gave it the right amount of time and resources could make it one of the best games ever. Unfortunately the corporate side of Bioware and EA (As well as some fans) don't see that potential. Choosing instead to commit everything, at the expense of Mass Effect, to Anthem in what will probably be a futile attempt to kill Destiny.
Hopefully over time people will see that Mass Effect Andromeda isn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be. And hopefully EA and Bioware will come back and pick things up where they were left off. I hope all of that happens sooner rather than later too. Mass Effect Andromeda may not be the most polished game, but it is still a good game. It's a game that I recommend to any fan of the series as well as any fan of RPGs.
This was a small rant about Mass Effect that I just needed to let out. I hope that it gave you some new perspective on the game or at the very least you found it entertaining.
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I thoroughly enjoy the multiplayer in ME:A
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It's trash
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I thought the combat system for andromeda was much more enjoyable, with the fast-paced vertical gunfights and the fluid cover system being excellent improvements. While the noise of the jump-jets became annoying over time, the actual ability to jump and dodge was more valuable than this. The laser emitter and vintage heat sink augmentations were wastes of time, but otherwise the crafting system was good.
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And now we got rumors saying there is not going to be story dlc.
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Edited by Vicex: 7/10/2017 4:06:56 AMThe story of andromeda suffered because people expected a Shepard 2.0. An epic space opera which defined Mass Effect 1-3. Instead, we got a new taste of the universe with a new, blank slate for which to cast ourselves in. It was an ambitious project that had too many spots of poor communication and conflicting views to make it the success we demanded from Bioware. This was to be expected when Bioware gave it to the second-string team, but had they a unified vision they have succeeded. Part of the problem, however, is the community that supports Mass Effect, and Bioware in general. Unfortunately it is a toxic wasteland of keyboard warriors that demand that they be recognised, be it there gender, sexual orientation, etc. This, in theory, is a great idea to be more inclusive and make a, exaggerated, but representative game. However, because of the community, even the smallest failure of execution results in massive backlash- be it the assumption of a lesbian character from a hair style, a transexual character telling the playable character about his/her past gender, or even fewer options for same-sex individuals. All of these are incredibly small details, and in some cases are absurd to be angry over given the demand for overrepresentation (i.e. same-sex romances) and result in a small, but very vocal minority of the community to take offence, get sympathetic 'journalists' from gaming websites to amplify their views- and thus do needless damage to a game already suffering from legitimate issues such as animation- even though these issues where very much exaggerated, and the highlighting of a substandard, but not game-breaking bug, thus destroying the projects reputation and future. TL;DR While Mass Effect Andromeda was far from a perfect game, it was a complete and decent enough title that was killed though the combined efforts of a toxic, over-demanding, and unrealistic community.
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1 ReplyThe story makes me believe the writers played a lot of No Man's Sky and this is the fan fiction they came up with to cope.
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MEA went back to Gamestop after about 10 days. I didn't think it lived up to the original ME games.
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ME is my favorite series by far, got MEA and then pretty much just stopped playing after reaching Eos. The action is just so stale to me. I also find outpost building very boring and unrewarding. You don't get anything other than a bunch of BS sidequests and a crappy general merchant. I recently picked the game back up after a few more updates and I'm having more fun with it, but it's still such a disappointing game. None of the charm of the "orig trig" was in this game. I don't care about the protagonist, I don't care about the side characters, I don't care about anything. Just the basic premise is meaningless, because we already know that the Reapers were defeated, so sending colonists to a different galaxy isn't about survival of the Milky Way species, it's just a space mission that went wrong. It's Apollo 13 the video game, basically. No matter the scale stakes can seem high with good writing and interesting characters, but Andromeda lacks both, so...
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I didn't play much of the game, I stopped mostly because I felt like I had to look for the action when I was playing. Maybe that changed as the game went on, but I definitely just got tired out and bored by the time I was done with the first sand planet you can explore
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Meh, I loved it. That's all I care about. Character faces never really bothered me and I didn't get many glitches either.
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6 RepliesIf this was a standalone game without the words "Mass Effect" in it, it would be a fine game. Problem is the bar was set high with the ME trilogy, therefore expectations were very high. In my opinion, they just didn't deliver. The clear lack of polish that the game released with goes to show that it was rushed. I still wonder about how awesome this game could have been if it was delayed another 3-6 months instead of rushed.
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2 RepliesThere is a difference between a game with technical problems....and a BAD GAME. Lets not kid ourselves. Mass Effect: Andromeda had a lot of problems during development, was rushed out the door before it was really ready...and its animations had a lot of bugs and the faces were poorly modeled. But that doesn't make it a bad game. The core game was actually one of the better open-world, TPS games I've ever played. The shooting and movement were crisp. The story and missions well-designed. Especially if you took the time to do the side missions and loyalty missions and didnt' just rush through the campaign. Bottom line? Expectations are powerful. The vast majority of ME fans wanted Mass Effect 4....and Bioware gave them a game that wasn't what they had had 5 years to hype themselves up into a frenzy about. Bioware basically snuck the game onto the market sight unseen (knowing that they had a lot of problems during development)...and because there wasn't any management of community expectatiions....they got crucified. over the animation problems.... ...as a Trojan Horse for the community being given a game that they weren't expecting. In the end, it wasn't fair to the game itself. It is a VERY good game, beset by minor technical problems. But these things often aren't fair...and fans often aren't reasonable when it comes to game series where there is this much emotion invested in. (Its why I believe we will NEVER see a Half-Life 3. No real game could ever live up to what player expectations are at this point). Imo, had ME: A been released as its own game and new IP....it would have likely been much better received. I think it would have been treated like Watch_dogs . A flawed game....but one with a lot of potential and solid core. But the problem is that is was given to the Mass Effect Community...and thrown to the wolves of 5 years of community self-hype with no means to defend itself. ...and the technical problem it had on release just made matters that much worse.
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1 ReplyI just hope the rumors are false and we eventually see a quarian dlc. I kinda burned out on the campaign but I'm enjoying the multi player side of it lately.
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1 ReplyLike you said, liking something=/= it's good. I played Destiny for 2 years, but it was by no means a quality product.
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1 ReplyAndromeda is probably my least favorite.
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8 RepliesThe first Mass Effect game is favorite, followed by the 2nd. I don't talk about ME3. And imo, I wish they stopped with ME3. Because ME:A is trash. The writing is subpar, the open world feels open for the sake of openess and is largely empty, and then there's the facial animations and glitches. Mass Effect Andromeda is a boring game, but more than that it's a trash Mass Effect game
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I just started playing in the past week or so. My wife has already done two playthroughs, and gotten all the achiements, but I managed to avoid seeing anything about the story, so nothing has been spoiled. I know I have the benefit of coming in several patches into the game, so I've missed some the issues that were present at launch, but all I know is I'm enjoying it. I liked the original three, but I did miss the exploration aspect that seemed to go missing after the first game, so it's nice to have that back.
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1 ReplyLike many other games... if it is not 100% the same crew, you already have bashers. Then you have the crowds that either cant afford it... or they rent it but still cant afford so they just say its eh when deep down they want it. That is how the avalanche started. Then... you have people posting videos of all the little things. The blonde chick's "gorilla" walk? Really? Then youtubers get in on the popularity and scrutinize every detail just to get views. Unless you were intentionally looking for problems, nobody would have noticed the flipped pistol. Then game reviewers get in on the action. Still snowballing.
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4 RepliesEdited by Tlaloc___: 7/8/2017 2:13:51 PMI like andromeda, too, but one thing that really stood out to me as I started my second play through was that the early writing, particularly that in the prologue on Habitat 7, was atrocious. It gets drastically better within an hour or so of starting, but for those people without that level of patience, they'd only experience a bland set of characters spewing lines of hokey dialogue. Examples: Ryder's cookie-cutter relationship with his/her distant father, which is only fully fleshed out by the end of the game. Liam and Cora's exchange over him shooting the dead Kett. Liam's fake-sounding yell, combined with the unimaginative dialogue itself, made the scene painful to watch. Cora and Liam aren't bad characters, but it takes time for them to develop into something more than 'the happy one' and 'the soldier'. If someone were to drop the game before that time had passed, they would never see all the squad mates in full.
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1 ReplyLot of people forcing it with the opinions.. Andromeda was a pretty good game. I still don't get people who bitch about facial animations and related shit. We live in a time where companies don't just release games and leave them as they are. Have any of you salty people ever heard the term "patch"? I mean really. I also see a lot of "subpar writing" comments but these are never accompanied with examples of said subpar writing. It's almost like people aren't formulating their own opinions.. what else is new? Andromeda took the clunk out, took the focus on Shepard out, and basically made the game series what it was trying to focus on since it's inception; the struggle of the inhabitants of the Milky Way against impossible odds. Now we are away from Shepard and the Reapers, now we have fresh perspective and a much more team focused story. It isn't just Ryder and his squad, it is all the Pathfinders and the Initiative.
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Played all 4 and thought Andromeda was the worst by far. Should have stopped with the trilogy.
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7 RepliesI keep noticing that people who loved the first the most tend to love Andromeda, myself included. I really like Andromeda and definitely feel much of the hate was unwarranted and/or blown way out of proportion. Is it the best ME? No cause like you said ME1 gets that spot. Yet i still think it's worthy of being an ME title.
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You know OP, I'm really glad you like the game, but with that said Andromeda was an utter embarrassment for a AAA game and Bioware specifically. The tons of animations weren't utterly game breaking, but they did destroy any sense of immersion since it wasn't just femRyder (she was just the most obvious). My understanding of ME:A's status is that it has been shelved indefinitely after Montreal had its staff slashed down to a team that is handling just balance patches (no, i'm not referring to that false info drop from a company claiming to work for Bungie).
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You can pick up ME:A at GameStop for $20 now if you've been holding out for a good price.
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I really enjoyed the mass effect trilogy but mass effect 2 is hands down the best one imo I found MEA lacking it felt like a chore rather then fun
