Mass Effect: Andromeda - EA/Origin Access trial coming March 16th - 10 hour trial

Enjoy the game, just needs patching a LOT. Seems like EA rushed it out of the door after saying "no more delays".

Barring some weird scripting choices, "my face is tired", "he didn't like that cause I shot him in the face" the story's premise is interesting so far. I want to find out more.

Character creation is bad and eyes look weirdly lifeless.

Side quests seem decent so far, no find 10 ram meat to progress bullshit around anymore. There's an actual narrative purpose to doing the ones I found, giving you interesting lore and pieces of information. It feels more meaningful.

This post, plus the really positive multiplayer impressions kicking around, have me back in!

Looking forward to checking out the ten hour trial this weekend, but I may keep it quite brief, and just check out how it's running on my rig.

Think I'll save my proper start until a few weeks after release.
 
People on GAF here were pretty positive about ME3's multi, so I thought I'd give this trial a shot. It's not very good.


  • The matchmaker has so far only managed me to place in games with distant and unstable hosts. Out of (I think) 10 games, I've only had 5 really stable ones (but even then there was at least a 100 milisecond delay on shots registering). For the others, there was no indicator the game had gone to shit aside from seeing my teammates slowly animation-loopingly ascend into space, at which point you're forced to quit to the main menu (which by the way, doesn't make the somewhat long loading screen any better);

  • The audiomix in MP is straight up broken, with sound effects playing at max volume regardless of direction and distance to the source. Will no doubt be fixed, but very annoying nonethless;

  • 5 Maps, and they all feel really small. I don't know if the Silver or Gold difficulties switch up mission structure significantly, but if they don't I see a lot of variety here. Certianly less than in other Horde-likes like Gears, Killing Floor 2 etc.;

  • I don't think I can really judge the gameplay mechanics fairly given the low amount of time invested and the impact the connection issues had, but I was put off by the sponginess and lack of feedback of even the generic soldiers (melee in particular was just wonky).
    The jetpack is cool, but you seem to have very little air control aside from initial direction making it more for traversal rather than something you can really blend into combat. And in all other aspects it seems to be a fairly straightforward cover-based shooter

The selection of unlocks looks to be extensive, but I don't know if it's balanced fairly without spending dosh (apparently Bio nailed it with ME3).

Overall, don't get it for the MP. I'd recommend just playing Warframe if you wanna shoot spacethings with friends



*Cough* Destiny *Cough*


Too bad I'm a filthy PC pleb :P but yes, that looks like an infinitely more fleshed-out than this
 
It's from this hideous preset.

3c4d9fabe39cec6b9202dc65f8392c59.png


By tweaking his facial features you can shape his face to be pretty decent.

c117a5ed3c28d87b4c5c6195b6d689cd.png



Now here's the trick. The engine only tolerates a total of 3 colors for the skin tone, hair and eyes color. You have to experiment until they blend properly with the lightning.

Anything too dark / too light is gonna look like vomit. The ideal picks are not perfect either but they're tolerable.

Saving for later, you're a lifesaver.
 
I'm not saying people can't enjoy a product if they have one or even many issues with a game. Just that when it comes to a AAA 2017 extension of a huge franchise people should just simply expect a hell of a lot more. If you enjoy the gameplay (I think I will) then maybe that's enough for some to purchase the game and feel justified. I just feel from what I've seen the gameplay on its own wouldn't be near enough to make up for the horrible dialogue and animations.

This reads like you're acknowledging that the game might be really fun, but you're trying to come up with reasons not to enjoy it anyway.
 
I think it's fair to expect more, and I'm not going to say my experience has been perfect, but it's just been frustrating to see everything so hyperbolic around here. Like, I went through the first mission in the game, I dicked around in the Nexus some, and I played some multiplayer.

My negative takeaway was that narratively it felt a little too much like the devs went "okay, so let's make Mass Effect 1 again". My positive takeaway is that the game generally speaking, just worked. The jetpack and the evades worked a lot better than I was expecting in adding verticality to the environments, the scanner felt closer to Metroid Prime scanning than your usual "add a codec entry, read it later" lore building, and frankly, a couple bad lines of dialog aside, the game all feels very cohesive and very mass effect, in terms of how the dialog choices shake out and how your character interacts with the others.

I'm not going to sit here and fellate the game all day, but it's not this absolute garbage pile that people keep trying to make it out to be. It's not Horizon, and it's not Zelda...it's Mass Effect, and if you go into it expecting Mass Effect, that's what you're going to get, with all the good and the bad that comes with it.

This is a wonderful post.
 
People on GAF here were pretty positive about ME3's multi, so I thought I'd give this trial a shot. It's not very good.


  • The matchmaker has so far only managed me to place in games with distant and unstable hosts. Out of (I think) 10 games, I've only had 5 really stable ones (but even then there was at least a 100 milisecond delay on shots registering). For the others, there was no indicator the game had gone to shit aside from seeing my teammates slowly animation-loopingly ascend into space, at which point you're forced to quit to the main menu (which by the way, doesn't make the somewhat long loading screen any better)

  • The audiomix in MP is straight up broken, with sound effects playing at max volume regardless of direction and distance to the source. Will no doubt be fixed, but very annoying nonethless

  • 5 Maps, and they all feel really small. I don't know if the Silver or Gold difficulties switch up mission structure significantly, but if they don't I see less variety here than in other Horde-likes like Gears, Killing Floor 2 etc.

  • I don't think I can really judge the gameplay mechanics 100% fairly given the low amount of time invested and the impact the connection issues had, but I was put off by the sponginess and lack of feedback of even the generic soldiers (melee in particular was just wonky).
    The jetpack is cool, but you seem to have very little air control aside from initial direction making it more for traversal rather than something you can really blend into combat. And in all other aspects it seems to be a fairly straightforward cover-based shooter

The selection of unlocks looks to be extensive, but I don't know if it's balanced fairly without spending dosh (apparently Bio nailed it with ME3).

Don't get it for the MP. I'd recommend Warframe if you wanna shoot spacethings with friends

The matchmaking will be better when more people are playing beyond EA Access people, there is small community, and its P2P.

The audiomix is broken. The spatial location of sounds is inaccurate (XB1).

The maps are larger than ME3, especially considering the verticality. The Devs designed the maps to be small because they want constant action. This is the point.

The sponginess should be expected when you have zero unlocks and based guns haven't been leveled up. When you have better weapons with mods, the enemies will be less spongier, just like ME3. The Jet Pack reaching elevated platforms was challenging for me, but otherwise, worked good. Use juke in midair in any directions for instant direction change. Hold aim in mid-air to hover and aim at enemies. I think it's well done.
 
This reads like you're acknowledging that the game might be really fun, but you're trying to come up with reasons not to enjoy it anyway.

I can understand that, I'm just being cautiously optimistic. I don't doubt that when I boot up the game ill have a good time. My main issue is I just wish EA went all in on making sure everything across the board from top to bottom was done with the highest care. This feels similar to where I ran wild with expectations for FO4 and while I beat it and got my moneys worth it just simply wasn't what I expected the current Gen debut of a major franchise to be. This feels like its gonna be the same, just stings a little more cause I love Mass Effect as a whole.
 
I can understand that, I'm just being cautiously optimistic. I don't doubt that when I boot up the game ill have a good time. My main issue is I just wish EA went all in on making sure everything across the board from top to bottom was done with the highest care. This feels similar to where I ran wild with expectations for FO4 and while I beat it and got my moneys with it just simply wasn't what I expected the current Gen debut of a major franchise to be. This feels like its gonna be the same, just stings a little more cause I love Mass Effect as a whole.

That makes sense. For what it's worth, in my experience anyway, it's very different to watch videos of a game like this than to actually play it. It's very easy to get distracted by the subpar facial animations and weird tics in a video. When you're holding the controller, driving the conversation yourself, inhabiting the character... you get lost in this world and that stuff doesn't really register. At least for me! :)
 
It's from this hideous preset.

3c4d9fabe39cec6b9202dc65f8392c59.png


By tweaking his facial features you can shape his face to be pretty decent.

c117a5ed3c28d87b4c5c6195b6d689cd.png



Now here's the trick. The engine only tolerates a total of 3 colors for the skin tone, hair and eyes color. You have to experiment until they blend properly with the lightning.

Anything too dark / too light is gonna look like vomit. The ideal picks are not perfect either but they're tolerable.
Is there an easy way to share faces? I thought Bioware mentioned that people will be able to upload their Ryder for others to download.
 
Just saw this in the community thread. I've never played ME:3 MP so I never got to see what all the fuss was about...

Vej2VfJ.gif


Gonna have to give this MP a try for sure.
 
What I can't understand is these devs get 5-6 years to make a sequel, yet by the end of it you ask wtf were you doing all this time when the game eventually comes out...

Its like with MGS5 - for all the swanky presentations etc, by the end of it you find it had next to no -plot, a barren run game, and you think for a series that had the story as a key focal point what happend in the 5 years of development, (and then in the end it has been said the plot doesn't actually go anywhere..)

Now with this game, 5 years to build upon the success of the trilogy, yet all these issues with the engine, dialogue, audio etc....how long does it take to address these issues? I don't buy that EA might of rushed the developer to get it out asap, no-more delays etc, they have had 5 years, not as if they had to go to Mars and get real-life photography for it...

I'm holding out for the reviews as a big mass effect fan (for me in some respects it is the modern day BABYLON 5!) I am definitely interested in getting the game...my initial play-test with the 10 hour trial was a mixed bag as the game was chugging when it got to planet-side, (it was in the 50% download region) so I quit while I was ahead....

But hope remains that despite this tsunami of (albeit valid in some respects) criticism there is a game that all mass-effect fans will love just as much as the previous entries...
 
Fuck this.

The character creator is dogshit. The default Ryder and the preset faces suck and you can't even change them much. Eyes up or down.... nose up or down, in or out... Blah. And the scars. Oh boy those scars are dumb as hell. Look like makeup. Hair also sucks as well. Do they notice that the sideburns don't connect to the hair when making these games? All the styles stunk so I just went shaved head space marine but I can't even put a beard on it because it looks so bad. Also the beards are just various forms of stubble really but I guess it's better than the disasters that were DA:I beards? I guess. I never wear face tats in game but the ones here are just ugly.

I had to leave before I could get into combat but the way your character runs left a real bad taste in my mouth. I pre-ordered so I could have it downloaded and ready to play early on EA Access but the character creator, awful animation and the fact that it's a Bioware game so the story will stink means I'm cancelling. I'll play my remaining time but just out of morbid curiousity.
 
People on this forum expected this game to be 100% perfect i don't. you people don't understand they're people creating this game not some Ai. of course they're going to be mistakes in this game we're human For god sake.

Not when it has been underdevelopment for 5 years. Some of the dialouges and animations are horrendous and pretty obvious to notice, but they didnt bother to go through and fix it?
 
[*] 5 Maps, and they all feel really small. I don't know if the Silver or Gold difficulties switch up mission structure significantly, but if they don't I see a lot of variety here. Certianly less than in other Horde-likes like Gears, Killing Floor 2 etc.;


[*] I don't think I can really judge the gameplay mechanics fairly given the low amount of time invested and the impact the connection issues had, but I was put off by the sponginess and lack of feedback of even the generic soldiers (melee in particular was just wonky).
The jetpack is cool, but you seem to have very little air control aside from initial direction making it more for traversal rather than something you can really blend into combat. And in all other aspects it seems to be a fairly straightforward cover-based shooter
[/LIST]

1. Maps have to be small to make enemies be really dangerous.

2. Gameplay is amazing on higher difficulties, because it forces really high level of team play to finish all waves.

3. You can actually manipulate jetpack a lot with aiming, because you hover then and with dodge move.
 
Fuck this.

The character creator is dogshit. The default Ryder and the preset faces suck and you can't even change them much. Eyes up or down.... nose up or down, in or out... Blah. And the scars. Oh boy those scars are dumb as hell. Look like makeup. Hair also sucks as well. Do they notice that the sideburns don't connect to the hair when making these games? All the styles stunk so I just went shaved head space marine but I can't even put a beard on it because it looks so bad. Also the beards are just various forms of stubble really but I guess it's better than the disasters that were DA:I beards? I guess. I never wear face tats in game but the ones here are just ugly.

I had to leave before I could get into combat but the way your character runs left a real bad taste in my mouth. I pre-ordered so I could have it downloaded and ready to play early on EA Access but the character creator, awful animation and the fact that it's a Bioware game so the story will stink means I'm cancelling. I'll play my remaining time but just out of morbid curiousity.
Why did you have it preordered in the first place?
 
So yeah like other already saying.

The 5.1 Audiomix in Multiplayer is straight up broken, did someone ever test this? (XboxOne Version)
As a Host you still get lag lol
My Game froze when too much shit was going on in MP.
 
Man, people get really worked up about character creators, huh? I chose default Fem Ryder (which I think looks fine) and started to enjoy the game right away. I wouldn't be surprised if some people used up all 10 hours of the trial making their character. lol

Trial is done, ended up doing some things on Eos. Can't wait to play again on Tuesday.
 
Multiplayer felt worse for me than ME3, which I absolutely loved. Lots more lag, enemies are more bullet-*****-y. Also the grind is real because they changed it from class-XP to per character XP, no more boosting with one sentinel race you're good with to level up the shittier races to make them playable.
 
The Forbes article is reasonable, but just because something starts off slow doesn't mean it also has to start off poorly, too.
 
Not a whole lot of meaningful side missions but the one about the murder is interesting, so that's nice. There are also plenty of people to talk to on the Nexus but I don't know what it is, even though you can visit several places it really isn't like the Citadel from the first Mass Effect. That was something else.
 
I like the jetpack movement so much that I sorely miss it when running around on the Nexus.
And just like Fallout 4, the gameplay became better but now the original hook, the story and role play seems missing.

Uninstalled the game for now, could totally see myself getting into it again for a lower price and more bug fixes.
 
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