MGS4 is up there, too.
Mass Effect: Andromeda - EA/Origin Access trial coming March 16th - 10 hour trial
- Thread starter Theorry
- Start date
MGS4 is up there, too.
If FIFA is anything to go by, you should be able to unlock it on US date by going through proxy and keeping your origin offline after activation.
In my experience EA don't care about people using vpns to unlock games early, it's mostly if you use it to bypass regional pricing they get a bit pissed about.
Also, it unlocks on the 20th in east asia, e.g korea, rather than the 21th.
OmegaTreeFish
Banned
Its biggest issue for me is they took a game like the first dragon age, dumbed down everything that made it great and went with the quantity over quality approach.
I loved how in the first dragon age you could set up your entire teams AI to behave exactly as you wanted. For example I had a team where my character acted like a tank so I could control aggro. I had my other characters set up with tons of rules to do healing, spell casting, damage and movement all in reaction to what was happening and my characters actions. It was still like playing an MMO in combat but with a team of people who all were playing there roll as you the party leader commanded. Then in DA:I they dumbed it all down to having like 3 options on how you kinda wanted them to behave to the point it was like having Leroy Jenkins clones as your team.
The side quests all (well apart from about 4) got stripped down to super basic fetch quests as well and they whole thing was just a massive dissapointment.
I am getting the idea that this new ME game is taking the structure of DA:I with regards to missions / quests and dumbing down things as well (hardly any control over team mates). I remember one thing that was so great about ME1 was being able to not only place where you wanted you team mates to sit but set there abilities to manual and you could use them at your command and set up really effective combination attacks. But alas this has been removed.
There will be plenty of people who don't care about this and love these games that are huge time syncs and simply enjoy the exploration and leveling up of your character and item finding. But there are others like my self who prefere other aspects of what the originals offered but have been removed to make them simpler and we find that it takes all the fun out of it.
Jawmuncher
Member
and GTA4
ME1 was 10 years ago. That's like comparing UC4 to UC1, it's not a great line of reasoning. The issue is that Bioware never had improved their animations, and Andromeda from what I've played has somehow gone backwards in that regard.
SCB3
Member
Yea, I preferred a Male Shepard tbh, it seemed to fit a male Protagonist more, Andromeda however, Sara is awesome and much preferring playing as her
For what it's worth, here are my impressions after playing about 6 hours of the single player.
So far I'm really enjoying it. I'm liking the set up of the story, and it seems there are some interesting things to find out about as the game goes on. The set up seems quite solid. I liked the fact that there are big tensions between the major players on the Nexus, and the dialogue choices you could make there were genuinely interesting. It's much better than the old Mass Effect system, you can genuinely choose different ways of speaking with different characters.
The main mission stories have been interesting, and the intial side missions have been quite good. They seem better than the side quests in DA:I. An example of one of the side missions is when you land on the Nexus
There is a plausible reason why this is something that you should investigate, and also a reason why it should be you, and not just some other random.
I've also been impressed by how the side missions in the initial landing on Habitat 7 also feed into the main quest, and like that these missions provoke further dialogue.
The combat is quite different to the original trilogy, much faster paced. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's good fun.
I like the graphics, some of the environments look really good (playing on Xbox One S, 4K screen and HDR). There doesn't seem to be slow down, but I'm not the most sensitive to this. The text on screen is pretty small, it may be the 4K screen, or possibly my age.......
I would say that some of the conversation dialogue is odd in places, "my face is tired" is a particularly strange one. However in other places it is really good, and I would say overall the standard is good.
Again with the animations, there are some bits that look really weird, especially on a repeating 3 second GIF. However, again these bits don't happen that often and are over very quickly.
I haven't done much talking with the companions yet, but so far the incidental dialogue has been good, so I'm hopeful that this will be interesting.
Overall I've really enjoyed my time in single player, and it has grabbed me much more than something like the Witcher 3. Although I'm more into Sci-Fi than fantasy generally.
Can't wait to continue the story when it actually releases next week.
So far I'm really enjoying it. I'm liking the set up of the story, and it seems there are some interesting things to find out about as the game goes on. The set up seems quite solid. I liked the fact that there are big tensions between the major players on the Nexus, and the dialogue choices you could make there were genuinely interesting. It's much better than the old Mass Effect system, you can genuinely choose different ways of speaking with different characters.
The main mission stories have been interesting, and the intial side missions have been quite good. They seem better than the side quests in DA:I. An example of one of the side missions is when you land on the Nexus
there is a suggestion of sabotage, and you have to find some evidence to find who is responsible and challenge the person about it.
I've also been impressed by how the side missions in the initial landing on Habitat 7 also feed into the main quest, and like that these missions provoke further dialogue.
The combat is quite different to the original trilogy, much faster paced. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's good fun.
I like the graphics, some of the environments look really good (playing on Xbox One S, 4K screen and HDR). There doesn't seem to be slow down, but I'm not the most sensitive to this. The text on screen is pretty small, it may be the 4K screen, or possibly my age.......
I would say that some of the conversation dialogue is odd in places, "my face is tired" is a particularly strange one. However in other places it is really good, and I would say overall the standard is good.
Again with the animations, there are some bits that look really weird, especially on a repeating 3 second GIF. However, again these bits don't happen that often and are over very quickly.
I haven't done much talking with the companions yet, but so far the incidental dialogue has been good, so I'm hopeful that this will be interesting.
Overall I've really enjoyed my time in single player, and it has grabbed me much more than something like the Witcher 3. Although I'm more into Sci-Fi than fantasy generally.
Can't wait to continue the story when it actually releases next week.
Skyr
Member
Thanks.
So if it unlocks 0:00 21st in Korea I should be able to unlock it at 4.00 p.m. on the 20th here
Awesome
comshoplesce
Member
I'm wondering what have they been doing for past 5 years?
FrontalMonk
Banned
The thing I *really* liked about this side mission was the lore built into it. By the time I got done I felt like I had a much better understanding of
the mutiny, and how things are screwed up between the mutineers and the people trying to be in charge on the Nexus.
go find the mutineers and see what's up.
Speaking of going backwards, I've no idea how they managed to regress from the inquisition character creator into Andromeda. It makes no sense for things to go backwards with tech they already had in their engine in house for previous games.
We're back to plain sliders after the face sculpting of DA:I, while not having the ability to control shapes of mouth, eye, nose, or complexions independent of the face preset.
MosquitoSmasher
Member
Where can you see how much time you have left?
Ivory Samoan
Member
If the meme wars of the last month hadn't happened, I never would have looked twice at any of the facial animations in game.
For real, it all feels legit to me: I guess I'm not that nit picky regarding animation. Music, Combat and Performance are my go-to nitpicks: all are amazing here, so I'm happy.
Outside of the MMO randomness ("fetch x number of y") and weird blocked stuff that you have to go here and there and do this and that to unlock (which admittedly gets in the way), DA: Inquision is quite good. The main game when given a chance to flourish is amazing. It creates good memories
(like that lol card game for instance and that Winter Ball thing which I forget what it is called).
Palabragrís
Member
DA:I is the second best DA, and comparing it to ME:A makes me have good faith in the game.
But not THAT much faith on it, because while with DA:O and DAII I played multiple playthroughs, I just couldn't bring myself to replay DA:I, even if I considered it a good game. I hope the same won't happen with ME:A, though we'll have to see.
Anyways, the previews from fans aren't good for the game so far. But something similar happened to Final Fantasy XV some months ago, and that game was a blast to play, so I'll hold my cards close to my chest for now and wait for the official reviews on mondey. And more importantly, I'll wait and listen to my own opinion of the game once I get to play it.
But not THAT much faith on it, because while with DA:O and DAII I played multiple playthroughs, I just couldn't bring myself to replay DA:I, even if I considered it a good game. I hope the same won't happen with ME:A, though we'll have to see.
Anyways, the previews from fans aren't good for the game so far. But something similar happened to Final Fantasy XV some months ago, and that game was a blast to play, so I'll hold my cards close to my chest for now and wait for the official reviews on mondey. And more importantly, I'll wait and listen to my own opinion of the game once I get to play it.
FrontalMonk
Banned
Not sure about xbox, but on PC, when you open the MEA Trial page in Origin it'll say right on there how much time is left (mine says less than 7 hours).
MosquitoSmasher
Member
But which cricisms would those be? The derpy faces and expressions? I notice that too but it doesn't ruin it for me. Im on Nexus now and already getting ME1 vibes too.
Agree completely. It felt like it was an important thing to do, and it helped flesh out some of the overarching narrative.
Sodding_Gamer
Member
This is something I'm not able to understand. Even though there are different teams at Bioware you'd think they share the same tech and whatever tech they had with inquisition, would have been brought forward to Andromeda, and perhaps even improved, but yeah nah not the case!
Hari Seldon
Member
DA:I launched prior to W3 which retroactively destroyed it. I can't see this game getting the press hype that DA:I got coming after Horizon and Zelda.
Perhaps not, but I couldn't care less. The game is fun as hell.
GinoFelino
Member
Do elaborate.But which cricisms would those be? The derpy faces and expressions? I notice that too but it doesn't ruin it for me. Im on Nexus now and already getting ME1 vibes too.
What's good about it?
Like, what are this game's redeeming qualities?
But which cricisms would those be? The derpy faces and expressions? I notice that too but it doesn't ruin it for me. Im on Nexus now and already getting ME1 vibes too.
IMO,just awful "why'd they even bother" character creator, funny animations and writing tone that reminds me of an episode of "Saved by the Bell".
*edit*
The positives
The dialogue is a mixed bag, on Nexus I found characters that seemed to fit the universe much better than Liam, Corra and Dad. The problem honestly isn't with the NPCs and really lies with the way Ryder is written. He's too feisty and carefree regardless of the dialogue options you choose, though conversations on Nexus kept him relatively grounded. Combat is really, really fun which was unexpected because it's generally my least favorite part of ME games. On Insanity things feel right, using combos to finish off enemies and ordering squadmates while jetpacking around just really put a smile on my face. So did getting my ship, taking the time to walk around it and speaking with everyone. ME1 is by far my favorite ME, and we all know it was not without issues. Similarly Andromeda has some problems, but it reminds me of ME1 because it doesn't push you too hard in any direction, you can experience the game it your own pace. I don't feel like I'm playing Gears of War, and that's a good thing.
John Petrucci
Member
True, but the game in it's launch state won't be the same exact game 6 months to a year from now or whatever. The people that wait a while for versions with all the DLC's included, etc. I think will play a much more polished game (that the original scores may not be entirely representative of) than those of us too obsessed to wait even a day. It's an unfortunate situation, but maybe some of the early patches will solve many issues. I'm hopeful.
Kinda jealous of those patient intelligent people
At any rate, still am absolutely loving what I've played so far. Feels so good to be back in the ME universe.
MosquitoSmasher
Member
I'll get back to you on that. Timer of trial is running
I went with Sarah for now. Will try creator later. What I don't get is how inconsistent the faces are. Right now it looks pretty decent and in other scenes just bad.
And yeah that running animation can be weird as fuck.
GinoFelino
Member
Thanks. I've played three hours and I'm finding it mediocre at best, so I'm genuinely curious what other people are enjoying about it. Huge fan of ME1 and loved DA:I, for context.I'll get back to you on that. Timer of trial is running
I went with Sarah for now. Will try creator later. What I don't get is how inconsistent the faces are. Right now it looks pretty decent and in other scenes just bad.
And yeah that running animation can be weird as fuck.
texasairhead101
Member
As soon as I saw the running animation I just laughed. Granted it doesn't look as weird on the planet bc of the camera placement but, yeah. It's just a feature now lol
And. I like it bc it so far it has an inspirational motivation that works better in a Sci-fi setting than fantasy. Same reason I love Star Trek. Good ol exploration and arm chair ethics.
And. I like it bc it so far it has an inspirational motivation that works better in a Sci-fi setting than fantasy. Same reason I love Star Trek. Good ol exploration and arm chair ethics.
Freeman76
Member
http://www.pcgamer.com/nine-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-i-started-playing-mass-effect-andromeda/
Posted by someone who found it a bit poor to start with.
NOTE it is aimed at people with "appropriately calibrated expectations" which doesnt apply to a lot of people on the board who just want to hate it.
Posted by someone who found it a bit poor to start with.
NOTE it is aimed at people with "appropriately calibrated expectations" which doesnt apply to a lot of people on the board who just want to hate it.
MosquitoSmasher
Member
Maybe it's a matter of a slow start and becomes a whole lot better from there? I've seen too little to really judge it yet.
Sändersson
Member
Are there any sites where you can already download player made characters? Or see the "stats" how to make them?
I've played for about an hour and a half, and I honestly don't understand why I see people killing this game on these threads. It feels like Mass Effect so far, complete with the occasional flawed animation and awkward line of dialogue.
Maybe these things are less forgivable in 2017, or maybe I haven't really hit the problematic parts of the game proper, but I feel like everyone's remembering the original trilogy (or at least its first two entries) through a nostalgia filter. There were a lot of really sketchy bits in every Mass Effect game; hell, here are a lot of sketchy bits in nearly every action sci-fi game or movie.
Remember the super-damning audio clip you find on Saren? Remember how laughably villainous the actual contents of that clip are ("and more more step... TOWARDS THE RETURN OF THE REAPERS!!!")? That's at least as bad, if not worse, than anything I encountered in my playthrough so far.
Maybe these things are less forgivable in 2017, or maybe I haven't really hit the problematic parts of the game proper, but I feel like everyone's remembering the original trilogy (or at least its first two entries) through a nostalgia filter. There were a lot of really sketchy bits in every Mass Effect game; hell, here are a lot of sketchy bits in nearly every action sci-fi game or movie.
Remember the super-damning audio clip you find on Saren? Remember how laughably villainous the actual contents of that clip are ("and more more step... TOWARDS THE RETURN OF THE REAPERS!!!")? That's at least as bad, if not worse, than anything I encountered in my playthrough so far.
What the hell does this even mean?
That post needs more calibrations.
John Petrucci
Member
FrontalMonk
Banned
That seems to be kind of a trend with Bioware games in general, with games like ME2 as a rare exception. As an example, Baldur's Gate 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, but the dungeon you start in is such a fucking slog that Dungeon-B-Gone is a mandatory mod for me whenever I decide to do a playthrough, so I can skip it.
It reminds me of when a bad comic book movies comes out, gets shredded, then the producer is like "it's not for critics, it's for comic book fans."
- I think the premise is good, even if the amount of exposition they use to get it across isn't.
- I think it controls really well, in combat and out and I love that holstering your weapon has returned and actually makes sense to delineate the difference between your in and out of combat control scheme and FOV.
- The jump jet is a great addition and the environments really play to that renewed set of freedom both inside the more scripted missions and in the open world (one of my favourite things from the trial was how much time I was able to spend in the first mission despite already watching someone play through it, there's a lot of meaty side objectives with fun implications).
- There's also a great thematic harmony between these open to explore environments, your new options to explore it, and the fact that your character is set up as an explorer.
- I think it re-injects some much needed depth and flavor back into the strategic side of the game. You spend a lot of ME3 just buying new weapons from a terminal listing on the citadel, but it felt good to go "I want to try a shotgun, I'm going to craft a shotgun, I'm going to look for this type of thing to scan, so I can research a wierder shotgun" even being able to change my load out at a forward base felt like such a relief considering the rollercoaster of designs that system went through over the course of the 3 original games.
- I think the tempest has a much better layout than the normandy (any version), less time in loading screens, better access to crew members and a better sense that you're in space.
- I think the nomad controls really well, and while I have mixed feelings about the hazard system from the limited window you get into it from the trial, it's already nice to have the variety of some linear missions and some stuff you approach yourself. At certain points in ME2 and 3 the formula of being shuttled in and out of a facility got kind of boring.
- I think the environments look really good, even on my modest GPU.
- 90% of the stuff I already liked from mass effect is still there, just less claustraphobic, a little less forumlaic but unfortunately also a little less production value along the critical path.
If I had to guess I think this was partially a result of wanting to be able to implement character codes like in previous MEs. That was specifically not possible in DAI because of how many different factors were involved with each character face, so generating a face code was pretty much impossible. So I guess going back to limited ranged sliders and reduced options ensured they could create character codes that could be shared across platforms.
DagnastyEp
Member
I'm really early into my trial, 2 bronze MP matches, and 45 minutes in SP, here are some impressions. I loved the ME trilogy, and enjoyed DA:O and DA:I.
-Combat feels a little off from the trilogy, guns feel weak (especially base guns in MP)
-Character creator is not good. I ended up just choosing default
-The visuals are fine overall, but something about the faces looks off. To me, ME3 looks better in this regard.
-Clancy Brown is great as the Pathfinder (your father)
-Item scanning, I feel like I'm going to be walking around with this up all the time, so I don't miss anything
-A feel like the camera is a bit more zoomed out than the trilogy, especially when aiming (though I could be wrong)
-Not sure yet if I like the jump jet, same with boost instead of roll/dodge/evade. I'll have to play more to get a better feel for these things
-UI is not good, and a step back from the trilogy. There's too much on screen, and everything is quite small. I found this especially apparent during character selection in Multiplayer.
-I bought (with in game credits) 3 of the bronze MP crates, and got nothing but crap
-I like the "tone" options in dialogue, those indicators give a better feel or how you want your response to be.
-Dialogue seems ok so far.
-Melee: I know ME:A will have unique melee weapons, I'm interested to see how that changes melee. Initially though, it seems as if a charged melee attack is no longer an option, which is disappointing.
-Performance has been ok, but with some glitches in MP
-I'm interested to see where the story goes, I like the initial premise though.
My gut reaction so far is "youwerethechosenone.gif" and I'm glad I haven't preordered yet, though I think I'll still buy on launch day. I definitely want to (and need to) play more though to really flesh out my feelings about the game. I want to like it. It could turn out to be one of my favorite games. I really disliked the first 2 hours of KOTOR (during my first playthrough), and now it's my favorite game of all time.
-Combat feels a little off from the trilogy, guns feel weak (especially base guns in MP)
-Character creator is not good. I ended up just choosing default
-The visuals are fine overall, but something about the faces looks off. To me, ME3 looks better in this regard.
-Clancy Brown is great as the Pathfinder (your father)
-Item scanning, I feel like I'm going to be walking around with this up all the time, so I don't miss anything
-A feel like the camera is a bit more zoomed out than the trilogy, especially when aiming (though I could be wrong)
-Not sure yet if I like the jump jet, same with boost instead of roll/dodge/evade. I'll have to play more to get a better feel for these things
-UI is not good, and a step back from the trilogy. There's too much on screen, and everything is quite small. I found this especially apparent during character selection in Multiplayer.
-I bought (with in game credits) 3 of the bronze MP crates, and got nothing but crap
-I like the "tone" options in dialogue, those indicators give a better feel or how you want your response to be.
-Dialogue seems ok so far.
-Melee: I know ME:A will have unique melee weapons, I'm interested to see how that changes melee. Initially though, it seems as if a charged melee attack is no longer an option, which is disappointing.
-Performance has been ok, but with some glitches in MP
-I'm interested to see where the story goes, I like the initial premise though.
My gut reaction so far is "youwerethechosenone.gif" and I'm glad I haven't preordered yet, though I think I'll still buy on launch day. I definitely want to (and need to) play more though to really flesh out my feelings about the game. I want to like it. It could turn out to be one of my favorite games. I really disliked the first 2 hours of KOTOR (during my first playthrough), and now it's my favorite game of all time.
Resident_UA
Member
Xbox One version is not running that well... Is it just me? Or is it because it's still installing?
I will be playing the full game on PS4 pro, but its a bit concerning...
I will be playing the full game on PS4 pro, but its a bit concerning...
JeffG
Member
Ran fine for me last night (XBox One)