Early impressions from RPS for ME:A. It's... not good

Chinner said:
What a time to alive. Some people suggesting that you should skip single player and play multiplayer instead.
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Combat seems to be the good part about this game

The narrative...well, impressions are lukewarm and underwhelming from Giant Bomb, Gamespot, PC Gamer, and RPS. Still haven't encountered people who praise the first 10 hours of the game's narrative. And then you have this nugget of course: https://webmshare.com/Dm0Nz
 
Tagg9 said:
I'm so confused about why they decided to push the game out in March. I don't think anyone was even expecting the game to come out in Q1 (or at least not be delayed). They could have easily pushed it to fall and I doubt there would be much of a fuss.
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As opposed to competing with a new Destiny, a possible new Red Dead, Battlefront 2, a new Cod, Assassins Creed, possible South Park, a possible new Bethesda title, Far Cry 5 etc etc. vs competing with Ghost Recon, Horizon, and some Jrpgs? Nah, this was the better bet. It was either this Spring or next Spring.
 
Sanctuary said:
Except they didn't really? The story and characters were all weak in Horizon, and the "RPG elements" were as light as they come. Good game still, but calling it an "open world RPG" is pushing it.
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Omg... nobody ever said Horizon has "RPG elements". It's a straight up Role Playing Game.

You play the role of an adventurer named Aloy. On a quest to find some killers, I don't want to spoil. The story in that game is great. Easy to follow and not convoluted with hours of crap filler, like some other "open world rpgs" you can name. Hell, it actually ends stories.

I don't see a difference in what you perceive what a RPG is if you are comparing games. Dragon quest 8 is the epitome of what I call an RPG. If we are comparing, none of these games are rpgs to then, imo.

It's sad ME is getting a bad rep with these previews, but I'm still getting it cause ME2 is one of my favorite games of all time. But mentioning HZD's weak points are gonna make this game better.
 
Lucreto said:
I am getting this vibe from this thread.

uZC5fF9.gif


A good amount of positive reviews but the one or two negative ones get the most attention and a lot of "I knew it" going on.

A lot of the complaints seen to be on the Inquisition elements which for me are the positives. Inquisition is my favourite game this generation and the 300 plus hours can attest.
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This was a fair thing to say back when we had two or three cherrypicked awkward GIFs and only one negative preview. But now we have whole streams that show off a lot of character animation and writing, and boy... Oh boy.
 
Chumley said:
PC graphics look waaaaaay better than what I was seeing in the PS4 pro videos

Still holding out some hope
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In what comparison? I've seen some better HBAO and obviously higher Resolution/AF/AA/Framerate that is standard on PC, but otherwise it looks pretty close?


I'll be playing it on my PC and XBO/XBO S today, but buying on Pro. I'll be interested to see the DF analysis.
 
Tertullian said:
This was a fair thing to say back when we had two or three cherrypicked awkward GIFs and only one negative preview. But now we have whole streams that show off a lot of character animation and writing, and boy... Oh boy.
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The Access thread seem pretty positive tbf.
 
Nielm said:
One thing that was mentioned in the GiantBomb stream:

Apparently the game doesn't touch much on the 'heading to a new galaxy' plot point. They're 'pathfinders', explorers who were born to do it. I thought it would be like Interstellar - the world is under threat, so a group of people head out to a new galaxy to find a new home. The plot isn't like that for some reason.
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This has been known for awhile though. They launch before the events of ME2 conclude, so there's never any mention or discussion of the Reapers.
 
Lime said:
Combat seems to be the good part about this game

The narrative...well, impressions are lukewarm and underwhelming from Giant Bomb, Gamespot, PC Gamer, and RPS. Still haven't encountered people who praise the first 10 hours of the game's narrative. And then you have this nugget of course: https://webmshare.com/Dm0Nz
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I'm generally fine with all the animation jank and such, it's about the dialogue anyway, but the eyes in this game are so, so weird. Why are they continuously darting all over the place, why do they light up. It's really unsettling. Maybe I will just focus on the subtitles. I hope it's Bioware being inclusive by having all the major characters have autism, but I don't think it's that.
 
GankzyMcfly said:
So i guess youve just ignored all the positive impressions people have posted in this thread... Or your just focusing on the negative opinons..
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I watched the streams. It looked bad.

In terms of whether or not I'm going to enjoy it that's going to trump positive impressions people are posting in here with sparse details.
 
It's one game, I'll play it and see what's up. Even if the game doesn't turn out amazing it's still just one game and what a shame if not but hopefully it'll be alright..

I been here before with some games, then I get it and it's apparent how dramatic the gaming community can be when they're writing reviews and shit.
 
The Dude said:
It's one game, I'll play it and see what's up. Even if the game doesn't turn out amazing it's still just one game and what a shame if not but hopefully it'll be alright..

I been here before with some games, then I get it and it's apparent how dramatic the gaming community can be when they're writing reviews and shit.
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We're big on drama
 
thumb said:
You realize that two amazingly well-reviewed open world games, Horizon and Zelda, just came out? Open world is not the problem, IMHO, and it's not going anywhere.
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It seems like every time something goes open world, something has to suffer.
 
Lucreto said:
I am getting this vibe from this thread.

uZC5fF9.gif


A good amount of positive reviews but the one or two negative ones get the most attention and a lot of "I knew it" going on.

A lot of the complaints seen to be on the Inquisition elements which for me are the positives. Inquisition is my favourite game this generation and the 300 plus hours can attest.
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nxMBqb4.gif
 
Well that confirms exactly what I was worried about with this game.

I was really hoping they might avoid the whole "you are the chosen one" thing this time around but obviously that isn't the case.

God damn you Bioware.
 
The Mass Effect games have always been slightly above average crap that consistently gets high praise because it's a competent game in a woefully under-served market.

They've never been particularly good RPGs.
They've never been particularly good shooters.
They've never had particularly good writing.

But... they haven't been terrible, they've been entirely and completely playable and there's basically no other game competing with them in their space opera rpg-shooter sub-genre.

And we all really want more space opera rpg-shooter sub-genre games.

90/100
 
ScatheZombie said:
The Mass Effect games have always been slightly above average crap that consistently gets high praise because it's a competent game in a woefully under-served market.

They've never been particularly good RPGs.
They've never been particularly good shooters.
They've never had particularly good writing.

But... they haven't been terrible, they've been entirely and completely playable and there's basically no other game competing with them in their space opera rpg-shooter sub-genre.

And we all really want more space opera rpg-shooter sub-genre games.

90/100
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Humbug.

Only Mass Effect 1 doesn't stand up to scrutiny outside of the theme. Mass Effect 2 is a masterpiece irrespective of the genre trappings. Mass Effect 3 is a really competent game too.
 
The Dude said:
It's one game, I'll play it and see what's up. Even if the game doesn't turn out amazing it's still just one game and what a shame if not but hopefully it'll be alright..

I been here before with some games, then I get it and it's apparent how dramatic the gaming community can be when they're writing reviews and shit.
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GAF is renowned for such hyperbole. So many members just want to shit on this game. Its simple, if they liked the other ones they will like this. If they didn't like the other ones, why even bother getting involved at all lol.
 
Freeman76 said:
GAF is renowned for such hyperbole. So many members just want to shit on this game. Its simple, if they liked the other ones they will like this. If they didn't like the other ones, why even bother getting involved at all lol.
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What is with so many posts like this?

I liked the original ME's (except for last 15 mins of ME3) I have andromeda preordered. But the videos and gifs coming out is disturbing. It's one thing to say people ar blowing things out of proportion and another to let the game speak for itself. The videos I have seen have me more worried about the game than what people are saying.
 
The most disappointing thing imo, shitty graphics / animations / writing aside, is that the premise feels wasted going by the early sections.

New galaxy, what did I expect? A whole bunch of new races, civilizations, politics etc. I wanted the Milky Way races to arrive to an Andromeda that was already going through its own shit, but now has your crazy refuge asses to deal with. I wanted the pathfinder squad to literally be the pathfinder squad and not be late to the party.

But going by all the previews its a whole bunch of "you are teh chozen one", ancient dead civilizations, the first contact with an andromeda race is 0 words and just a bunch of shooting, a whole bunch of talking to more humans / turians / salarians and shooting shooting shooting shooting scan scan scan minerals crafting. The fact that you only have like... 1 new race as your squadmate is wasted potential already.

Feels like a waste. God please let this just be a case of "this large chunk of the game at the beginning is actually just shit" and the actual interesting sci-fi stuff is backended (which usually never the case, in fact games mostly frontload the good parts these days), because at the moment this game just looks like a sci-fi game.
 
From streams and stuff the dialogue at many times in the game is as if someone wrote something in another language and used Google translate to English such as the structure of sentences. Some of what they say is so weird? And the voice acting is really bad.
 
staticneuron said:
What is with so many posts like this?

I liked the original ME's (except for last 15 mins of ME3) I have andromeda preordered. But the videos and gifs coming out is disturbing. It's one thing to say people ar blowing things out of proportion and another to let the game speak for itself. The videos I have seen have me more worried about the game than what people are saying.
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You are only allowed to be positive about upcoming AAA games. To be otherwise is to have a capital A Agenda.

Or you know be reasonably skeptical about a £59.99 purchase.
 
I just don't feel like playing a game with large maps. I'd love to explore every area of this game of it had smaller more path driven areas with things worth seeinf. Something about big worlds and wanting to explore all areas and missions end up clashing here where I can't explore all case it's too big and spread out going from the videos. So I'll just skip it for now and buy it for ten dollars or less much later

I barely see the point to pay money for something that will likely frustrate me more than seem like entertainment


The last batman game was how you do it. World wasn't that big and didn't have that much to do in the world itself but had plenty of actual levels built into that world. Most of the game isn't even in the world honestly and that allows me to feel less compelled to skip or ignore what is there. It's easier to do the extra stuff or ignore it cause it stands out well as to what it is in that manner. The game has its faults in the car design and some of the missions vitbkvweqll the way the world is handled it isn't that tedious to play the game.
 
Joco said:
Forget the impressions, I'm really taken aback by the level of jank in the animations. I seriously don't remember Mass Effect 2 and 3 looking like this. Some of this is like Bethesda Gamebryo level of bad.
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At least Skyrim rained mammoths and had backward flying dragons. Will we get mako storms?

KainXVIII said:
Nope, ME1 is only good rpg in series.
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Yet ME2 was still the superior game, whatever genre you want to classify it as.

phantasmic_glaive said:
Omg... nobody ever said Horizon has "RPG elements". It's a straight up Role Playing Game..
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Yep. No one said that. Ever. Including the developer.

While Horizon's RPG elements aren't super complex, they are there. Various quests are scattered throughout the world and you can upgrade Aloy in various ways. As she levels up, you earn points, which can then be used to purchase upgrades for her. Furthermore, Aloy can equip modifications to her weapons and armor that can increase your attack power or resistance to certain attacks.

Because the game is more of a hybrid of the action and RPG genre, Guerrilla didn't want to leave anyone behind. "What we wanted to avoid is complicated menus," de Jonge says. "We also didn't want to go too deep with the RPG features we were developing. We wanted to have a certain level of accessibility and understandability for players. We also didn't want to go too hardcore with stats, so at some point we just cut it off and said we weren't going to go any further because it would confuse players."
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http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...ur-biggest-fears-about-horizon-zero-dawn.aspx
 
spekkeh said:
Humbug.

Only Mass Effect 1 doesn't stand up to scrutiny outside of the theme. Mass Effect 2 is a masterpiece irrespective of the genre trappings. Mass Effect 3 is a really competent game too.
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Honestly, I think ME2 is the worst of the series by a significant margin. ME1 is the superior RPG, ME3 is the superior shooter with better overall level design. ME3's plot was a disaster but at least it had one, unlike ME2.
 
The Fatal Englishman said:
Honestly, I think ME2 is the worst of the series by a significant margin. ME1 is the superior RPG, ME3 is the superior shooter with better overall level design. ME3's plot was a disaster but at least it had one, unlike ME2.
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Yeah I enjoyed Mass Effect 2, but it was definitely the awkward in-between game & the plot was non-existent.

The human reaper thing was fucking bullshit too.
 
Mikeside said:
The human reaper thing was fucking bullshit too.
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Everybody bitches about the ending of 3, but that final boss almost retroactively ruined 2 for me. What, we are playing bloody contra now are we? Seriously poor design in an otherwise excellent game.
 
Morat said:
Everybody bitches about the ending of 3, but that final boss almost retroactively ruined 2 for me. What, we are playing bloody contra now are we? Seriously poor design in an otherwise excellent game.
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Must agree with this one. A reaper humanoid seems like a really stupid thing to build. Enter Galactus!
 
Played it for an hour or so. The companion AI is definitely... special. One of them decided that instead of taking cover, he would stand ON the chest high rock formation instead and got himself killed in short order.

And then you get a scripted "is everyone OK" moment. No, things are not OK.

On the plus side, it runs pretty well. My 970 is holding above 30 FPS at 1080p and with everything on high.
 
Sanctuary said:
Yet ME2 was still the superior game, whatever genre you want to classify it as.
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It was superior in that it was a better action game than ME1 was a RPG. But by that measure ME3 shits all over ME2 as well because it was even better with the shooting.

The impressions are disappointing but absolutely no surprise. We have all seen the descent of Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Dead Space, Mirrors Edge and ever other EA series descending into the same pit of mass market A for awesome mediocrity.

No surprise, but still if it had turned out differently it would have been nice.
 
Tacitus_ said:
Played it for an hour or so. The companion AI is definitely... special. One of them decided that instead of taking cover, he would stand ON the chest high rock formation instead and got himself killed in short order.

And then you get a scripted "is everyone OK" moment. No, things are not OK.

On the plus side, it runs pretty well. My 970 is holding above 30 FPS at 1080p and with everything on high.
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That's why people were complaining that you can't direct the AI more specifically.
 
Tacitus_ said:
Played it for an hour or so. The companion AI is definitely... special. One of them decided that instead of taking cover, he would stand ON the chest high rock formation instead and got himself killed in short order.

And then you get a scripted "is everyone OK" moment. No, things are not OK.

On the plus side, it runs pretty well. My 970 is holding above 30 FPS at 1080p and with everything on high.
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Contrast this with Bioware's reasoning for removing the power wheel and control of the AI's powers:

We decided to be way more dynamic and globally have much faster combat - you have the jump now, and the areas are more open. We felt like [the power wheel] was slowing down combat - it was an interruption we were trying not to have," he said.

[...]

So we decided to take these things which were actually the best and the worst," he continued, referring to the jump and evade on the one hand and the power wheel on the other, "and just remove [the latter]. Also, because we wanted to go more open and diverse in our combat spaces, the level of the AI increased considerably - including the squad. So it was less needed."
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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ed-the-power-wheel-from-mass-effect-andromeda
 
Well.. My expectations for the game are now at - 10 so anything half decent will be a bonus

Going in with no hype hopefully i'll be pleasantly surprised
 
toddhunter said:
It was superior in that it was a better action game than ME1 was a RPG. But by that measure ME3 shits all over ME2 as well because it was even better with the shooting.
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ME2 was so much better balanced though, ME2 on insanity is a great experience and challenge with every class. ME3 insanity is simultaneously too easy and a slog to play through. They straight up broke the Vanguard class in 3, only in multiplayer is that class balanced again. Slightly better feeling guns alone doesn't a better action game make.
 
This honestly feels like an unnecessary 4th sequel that should have been released in 2012 or 2013 for last gen systems done by another studio that gets bad reviews and is called unnecessary.

Mass effect was a good trilogy. The only reason to create another one is to cash in.

Mass effect: judgement
Mass effect: Ascension
 
Don't mean to pile on but after watching that Giant Bomb live look at the early parts of the game I'm more down on this than I ever thought I would be... The animations and faces, woof. Everything from the voice acting, to the story (I know early), to the mission structure all seem to take a step back. Then again maybe I'm just over fondly remembering 1 - 3.
 
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