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

I love it when people cherrypick content in order to promote or bash said game or another game with content picked from another. Face rig GG has made for Horizon is very hit or miss and anyone who has actually played the game knows that. In one scene faces animate very nicely and have expressions to them, but in next they are in MEA territory or all opposite being way overblown and too expressive. Lipsync is all over the map from okay to pure "WTF is that?", just like MEA.

Horizon does a lot right, but to cherrypick moments as attempt to shit on another game? Come on.

Edit: Also eyes. MEA has puppet eye problem for large part when in HZ they are 100% mercury.

I've been enjoying my time with Andromeda so far so this has absolutely nothing to do with wanting to bash the game but I have to say that Horizon is definitely more hit than miss when it comes to the facial animation. Here are two Horizon conversations, the second of which I just grabbed randomly off of youtube. Both of them are from sidequests and both of them look pretty damn good in terms of character model, lip sync and facial animation. I'm not going to deny that there are moments where it doesn't work out quite as well but you really don't have to cherrypick.
 
I was mainly discussing the modelling. Nothing you say contradicts what I said. Also it is ironic that your argument is also highly selective. I have my doubts that you have actually played Horizon, because those screenshots are in no way 'the best the game has to offer'. Character modelling is of near universally high quality...

Martino: That is not what I said. You need better reading skills. I stated that the quality of the modelling only seeks to accentuate the issues with the facial animation. i.e., they are not up to the same standard.

I can assure you Tovarisc has played Horizon ZD.

But hey, it's a ME:A thread so keep up the vitriolic hate party.
 
Eh I've said before that lipsync was bad in Horizon. The faces, the amount of details, the VA was great.
I've seen more questionable things in my time with the trial (so in a limited area) in Andromeda than in the entirety of Horizon and I've platinumed the game. Are you honestly disputing the game is coming in rough as fuck? The lead designer didn't even know if the day one patch was included in the 10 hour trial for fuck sake.

As for being on the "hyperbole", I've never even complained about Sara Ryder's face (her facial animation do bother me thouygh) like most people do. I believe you can like things and still be critical of them.

did i missquote you ? i wanted to reply to the "CM is so good it turns animation bad" comment. Dunno what that is if not blinded devotion hyperbole.
And i don't really care which one is the uncannier when the 2 are to me.
because the feeling is the same
 
Oh, just logged back in to dick around on my single player save before my 10 hours are up. One little thing that drives me BONKERS and seems completely fucking stupid:

Inverting your vehicle controls (which is what any normal person will do) INVERTS THE FUCKING GALAXY MAP. I literally have to move my mouse down to move the galaxy map cursor up. It's nearly unplayable because that's so unintuitive, nobody would ever do that intentionally. On the planetary maps when you're scanning, having vertical reversed is beyond disorienting since you're not even moving the cursor itself, so reorienting your brain is very difficult (at least with the galaxy map, the cursor is moving so youcan kind of correct easily).

Baffling decision on the part of whoever did this, like, has there ever been a single person on earth that wanted their mouse cursor to go up when they press down for literal point and click selection? Someone programmed this into the game.
The best part of this on console is that the left stick does fast movement, while the right stick does slower, fine movement. Not sure why that's really necessary, but there you are.

But the kicker is that the right stick is inverted, while the left stick isn't.

And then there's the difference in presentation/camera movement between the cluster-level map and the system-level map, with the cluster map moving a camera over a 2d plane (where I want standard, 2d-cursor style controls), while the system map pivots a camera to look around a 3d scene (where my brain switches into invert mode). I'm sure I'll adjust eventually, but it's going to drive me insane for a while (especially if they ever fix the bug with the sticks behaving differently and change the way it works after I've already gotten used to one way).
 
model are also too good to lyp sync correctly, then.
hyperbole goes both way here....

in the end they both have missed something others games don't because uncanny reactions appear higher than average for them.

Andromeda is far far far from uncanny, for it to be that it has to actually be convincing and close to real facial expressions first, close enough that it invokes an uneasy feeling in the viewer since it's a digital face that has an uncanny resemblance to real human emotions/expressions...hence the term uncanny valley.
 
Oh, just logged back in to dick around on my single player save before my 10 hours are up. One little thing that drives me BONKERS and seems completely fucking stupid:

Inverting your vehicle controls (which is what any normal person will do) INVERTS THE FUCKING GALAXY MAP. I literally have to move my mouse down to move the galaxy map cursor up. It's nearly unplayable because that's so unintuitive, nobody would ever do that intentionally. On the planetary maps when you're scanning, having vertical reversed is beyond disorienting since you're not even moving the cursor itself, so reorienting your brain is very difficult (at least with the galaxy map, the cursor is moving so youcan kind of correct easily).

Baffling decision on the part of whoever did this, like, has there ever been a single person on earth that wanted their mouse cursor to go up when they press down for literal point and click selection? Someone programmed this into the game.
I have my vehicle Y axis inverted and i didn't notice it change anything in the galaxy map. Maybe that's a PC bug?
 
Andromeda is far far far from uncanny, for it to be that it has to actually be convincing and close to real facial expressions first, close enough that it invokes an uneasy feeling in the viewer since it's a digital face that has an uncanny resemblance to real human emotions/expressions...hence the term uncanny valley.

i know my feelings and definition of the word.
good for you if you don't find it uncanny but it doesn't tell much for others people.
i get the same feeling from the two...and that's a (two)first.
 
I can assure you Tovarisc has played Horizon ZD.

But hey, it's a ME:A thread so keep up the vitriolic hate party.

What can I say? Your response reveals a great deal of irony. But I am done with this. Back to Mass Effect.

The animations don't need any comparison. They speak for themselves without context really.

Martino: Nooblet is giving a more technically correct definition of uncanny valley, since it originated in the work of Mashiro Mori. I do think ME Andromeda looks uncanny though. The default protag has pretty good modelling, so the lacking animation stands out.
 
It seems Bioware has, on the face of it at least, lost sight of what's sci-fi. It's not just stars and laser beams and floating rocks. It's also weaving in an explanation for how these things are possible, a scientific interest in the nature of things.

They used to know how to do it. http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Klendagon

I haven't dug around in the Codex to see if they explicitly explain it (and my trial ran out so I can't go back and check now), but the potential physical principle that might explain the floating rocks was explained back in Mass Effect 1, if we make some assumptions about the composition of the planet and what the out-of-control remnant tech is doing.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Element_Zero

Element Zero, also known as "eezo", is a rare material that, when subjected to an electrical current, releases dark energy which can be manipulated into a mass effect field, raising or lowering the mass of all objects within that field.

So if the planet has substantial eezo deposits, and the remnant tower was causing abnormal electrical currents/charges in the crust/atmosphere of the planet, the floating rocks could just be the result of eezo doing what eezo does.

Of course, I've probably thought about this way more than the artists/designers involved did...
 
I haven't dug around in the Codex to see if they explicitly explain it (and my trial ran out so I can't go back and check now), but the potential physical principle that might explain the floating rocks was explained back in Mass Effect 1, if we make some assumptions about the composition of the planet and what the out-of-control remnant tech is doing.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Element_Zero



So if the planet has substantial eezo deposits, and the remnant tower was causing abnormal electrical currents/charges in the crust/atmosphere of the planet, the floating rocks could just be the result of eezo doing what eezo does.

Of course, I've probably thought about this way more than the artists/designers involved did...
There is quite a bit of element zero in the game so you might not be far from the truth with that
 
did i missquote you ? i wanted to reply to the "CM is so good it turns animation bad" comment. Dunno what that is if not blinded devotion hyperbole.
And i don't really care which one is the uncannier when the 2 are to me.
because the feeling is the same

Oh ok sorry, I didn't get your earlier comment.
The thing is for me the 2 aren't uncanny. Horizon is because the faces look believable but they don't animate like a real human would, Andromeda is just plain bad. Looks more cartoony than anything in my opinion.


For what it's worth I prefer the environments in Andromeda to those of Horizon. Not all things are bad but the bad parts do stand out in this early portion of the game.
 
Of course, I've probably thought about this way more than the artists/designers involved did...

No you didn't, ME devs have always been very thorough to the consistency of the lore and for in game events to be explained through it.

They've not been as thorough as to reflect upon alien's sweat though, there's still uncharted worlds to discover down that path if you need to feel you're thinking more about something than they are !
 
I haven't dug around in the Codex to see if they explicitly explain it (and my trial ran out so I can't go back and check now), but the potential physical principle that might explain the floating rocks was explained back in Mass Effect 1, if we make some assumptions about the composition of the planet and what the out-of-control remnant tech is doing.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Element_Zero



So if the planet has substantial eezo deposits, and the remnant tower was causing abnormal electrical currents/charges in the crust/atmosphere of the planet, the floating rocks could just be the result of eezo doing what eezo does.

Of course, I've probably thought about this way more than the artists/designers involved did...

That is an explanation, and I'd expect similar technobabble from the characters. Combine the lack of such with the weird inklings of Pathfinder mysticism and I don't like it one bit.

Hopefully I'll be proven wrong and it's just an uneven start to the game.
 
So if the planet has substantial eezo deposits, and the remnant tower was causing abnormal electrical currents/charges in the crust/atmosphere of the planet, the floating rocks could just be the result of eezo doing what eezo does.

Of course, I've probably thought about this way more than the artists/designers involved did...

The baffling thing to me is how the characters keep reacting to it - you're a crack recon team routinely fighting enemies with powerful biotics that tosses objects like paper balls.... and floating rocks make you go 'woha, did you see THAT?'
 
Reached the trial roadblock and it really picks up on Eos. Animations and some duff dialog aside, there's a fun game here.

Still have time on the trial so I'll try mp out.
 
The baffling thing to me is how the characters keep reacting to it - you're a crack recon team routinely fighting enemies with powerful biotics that tosses objects like paper balls.... and floating rocks make you go 'woha, did you see THAT?'

Liam was an ex-cop and Ryder an archeologist, even as Shepard you didn't see this kind of scenery in any uncharted world during the trilogy, their reaction was perfectly justified to me (and I completely woaed at the same time as they did)
 
Oh ok sorry, I didn't get your earlier comment.
The thing is for me the 2 aren't uncanny. Horizon is because the faces look believable but they don't animate like a real human would, Andromeda is just plain bad. Looks more cartoony than anything in my opinion.


For what it's worth I prefer the environments in Andromeda to those of Horizon. Not all things are bad but the bad parts do stand out in this early portion of the game.

more than the face themselves it's the head and body animations during dialogs that make things weird for me.
 
Reached the trial roadblock and it really picks up on Eos. Animations and some duff dialog aside, there's a fun game here.

Still have time on the trial so I'll try mp out.

I'm playing it in spurts to drag down the trial closer to the actual european release date but I'm having fun with combat too. Haven't tried multi but probably will through the strike team thingy.

more than the face themselves it's the head and body that make things weird for me.

2017-03-173jrj0u.png


This is my custom Ryder. I'm fairly satisfied with it and wasn't expecting body sliders but can't touch on the eyebrows, the nose, the mouth or eyes type. It's just weak...
But it looks fairly good compared to the horrors you meet on the Nexus. Makes the Krogan/Salarian look good lol

Story wise I also wish Cora or somebody else took over as the Pathfinder and just let me be. Let me do my thing without having to meet expectations that come with the title.
 
so
they built the thing at home then send it + the workforce? Is that in the codex?
I think I missed that and im very interested into it, not for nitpicking, just because I like the lore :)

Is there a mass effect codex online that covers andromeda?

They
built the top section in the Milky Way, which is what made the voyage to Andromeda. It arrived first, 14-18 months earlier and began building the T connector and bottom section with what resources they had and gained from initial colonization. Unfortunately colonization efforts went downhill and the Nexus was never meant to operate solely under it's own power. It was meant to have some or ALL of the Arks eventually plug into it, going from ship to generators.

Also to people saying the Nexus is like the Citadel, well that is both true and false. It is inspired by the Citadel but it is far more streamlined and, most importantly, it is far, FAR smaller. The Citadel is almost 45 kilometers long, with four sections housing a population of over 13 million people. The Nexus is almost 15 and a half kilometers long, with two sections that will house an indeterminate amount of people once fully constructed. Each Ark held 20,000 people, and the Nexus presumably had at least 5-20,000 as well, if not more.
 
Loving the game.

I've beaten ME1 and 2 both about 10 times a piece. 3 about 3 times. Played about 5 hours of two about two weeks ago.

This game is superior in pretty much every respect to my favorite, ME2.

-combat feels tighter. jetpack makes a big difference.
-dialog is more natural.
-generational leap with graphics.
-so much to do and see
-scanning is a nice addition
-like the platforming, makes areas feel more organic and less walled off
-love the setup, seems less forced. you have a legit reason to get out there and explore.
-seems to be the deepest ME game in terms of loot, weapons, equipment, etc

Also worth noting I have completed DA:I and couldn't do it a 2nd time. Was too boring and felt like serious open world busy work. This game doesn't feel this way for me at all. Also enjoying it more than Zelda or Horizon, that's very subjective of course. I do feel like critics will be unfairly harsh, though.
 
I love it when people cherrypick content in order to promote or bash said game or another game with content picked from another. Face rig GG has made for Horizon is very hit or miss and anyone who has actually played the game knows that. In one scene faces animate very nicely and have expressions to them, but in next they are in MEA territory or all opposite being way overblown and too expressive. Lipsync is all over the map from okay to pure "WTF is that?", just like MEA.

Horizon does a lot right, but to cherrypick moments as attempt to shit on another game? Come on.

Edit: Also eyes. MEA has puppet eye problem for large part when in HZ they are 100% mercury.

I am sorry but i think you are the one cherry picking more than you think.

Horizon is far more hit than miss... its not just those 2 screenshots that represent good lip sync...

Now Andromeda on the other hand is leaps and bounds worse from what I have seen of the first hours.

And you should also consider this: GG made their FIRST attempt with Horizon with dialogue options and talking with NPCs. On the other hand, one would assume that if Bioware should be capable of something, is having perfected their character lip sync and animation techniques, because , oh I dont know, every single game they have released is about dialogue wheels and NPC interaction?

I am sorry but I cant simply forget this. If I am expecting something from traditional and experienced RPG developers is to have perfected these things... instead Andromeda seems to be taking steps back in quality as insane as that sounds...

So , no, its not about cherrypicking. GG have never created a 3rd person game and with their first attempt have created some amazing character animation (I swear Aloy's animation as well as the Machines animations are absolutely top tier stuff) and the NPCs are well animated when talking. Some are not good sure, but most of the time its damn fine if you ask me.

Bioware should be ashamed of themselves. This is supposed to be their bread and butter and they just fucked it up. My face is tired... ffs...
 
I am sorry but i think you are the one cherry picking more than you think.

Horizon is far more hit than miss... its not just those 2 screenshots that represent good lip sync...

Now Andromeda on the other hand is leaps and bounds worse from what I have seen of the first hours.

And you should also consider this: GG made their FIRST attempt with Horizon with dialogue options and talking with NPCs. On the other hand, one would assume that if Bioware should be capable of something, is having perfected their character lip sync and animation techniques, because , oh I dont know, every single game they have released is about dialogue wheels and NPC interaction?

I am sorry but I cant simply forget this. If I am expecting something from traditional and experienced RPG developers is to have perfected these things... instead Andromeda seems to be taking steps back in quality as insane as that sounds...

So , no, its not about cherrypicking. GG have never created a 3rd person game and with their first attempt have created some amazing character animation (I swear Aloy's animation as well as the Machines animations are absolutely top tier stuff) and the NPCs are well animated when talking. Some are not good sure, but most of the time its damn fine if you ask me.

Bioware should be ashamed of themselves. This is supposed to be their bread and butter and they just fucked it up. My face is tired... ffs...

Well said. I really hope there is a good game underneath all this, but yeah it's not looking too hot. My face is tired is 100% going to be a new meme in the gaminsphere haha.
 
Do I have to do anything to make the game work with my Dualshock 4? It's plugged in and the lights is blinking slowly but it's not working :/
 
When I get out of the Nomad, all my abilities are disabled (I can't use them) and my running and firing speed are decreased. Anyone else has this problem?
 
Anyone able to give a rotten tomatoes-esque consensus on thoughts from the trial?
The spewing of hate drowns out most of the positives haha. There's a good game here, it just has some issues, which I'm sure will be patched over time.

The game should have had another 6 Mos of Dev time, but EA seemed fed up with how long it was taking Bioware so they locked in the release date and it's being released as-is, with patches to follow.
 
Loving the game.

I've beaten ME1 and 2 both about 10 times a piece. 3 about 3 times. Played about 5 hours of two about two weeks ago.

This game is superior in pretty much every respect to my favorite, ME2.

-combat feels tighter. jetpack makes a big difference.
-dialog is more natural.
-generational leap with graphics.
-so much to do and see
-scanning is a nice addition
-like the platforming, makes areas feel more organic and less walled off
-love the setup, seems less forced. you have a legit reason to get out there and explore.
-seems to be the deepest ME game in terms of loot, weapons, equipment, etc

Also worth noting I have completed DA:I and couldn't do it a 2nd time. Was too boring and felt like serious open world busy work. This game doesn't feel this way for me at all. Also enjoying it more than Zelda or Horizon, that's very subjective of course. I do feel like critics will be unfairly harsh, though.

Glad you are enjoying it. It's hard to believe but there are lot of us who feel the same way. It's just being drowned out by the completely hyperbolic hatred this game seems to be generating on GAF at the moment
 
can we transfer Mass Effect Andromeda saves between platforms ? I mean, If I start the game on PC and want to switch on consoles, could I used my PC saves saved on the cloud or no ?
 
I think it does that but only for Xbox controllers, not 100% sure as I don't own one though

Yup native support for Xbox One controller. Game doesn't pick up my DS4 pad when plugged.

Glad you are enjoying it. It's hard to believe but there are lot of us who feel the same way. It's just being drowned out by the completely hyperbolic hatred this game seems to be generating on GAF at the moment

I see more people laughing at the game and having fun with some gifs than the hyperbolic hatred you claim people have for Andromeda. Also peruse the internet a bit and you'll see the critics and what not are not unique to this place. Hell, just take a look at the Giantbomb stream of the game.
Why do you guys make it seem like there's this conspiracy against Bioware or this game in particular going on on GAF?

From my experience everything gets roasted pre-release when there's questionable footage shown.
 
Glad you are enjoying it. It's hard to believe but there are lot of us who feel the same way. It's just being drowned out by the completely hyperbolic hatred this game seems to be generating on GAF at the moment

I don't see how you couldn't enjoy it, if you enjoyed Mass Effect 2.

If you never enjoyed Mass Effect then this might change some people's minds but I'd say they'd be a rare breed.
 
The spewing of hate drowns out most of the positives haha. There's a good game here, it just has some issues, which I'm sure will be patched over time.

The game should have had another 6 Mos of Dev time, but EA seemed fed up with how long it was taking Bioware so they locked in the release date and it's being released as-is, with patches to follow.

Head over to the community thread if you want to read through good feedback, any other ME:A thread is useless due to GAF being bottomGAF


OK, thanks. I'm slowly working my way through horizon so I'll wait to play ME (even though I pre-ordered)
 
-combat feels tighter. jetpack makes a big difference.
-dialog is more natural.
-generational leap with graphics.
-so much to do and see
-scanning is a nice addition
-like the platforming, makes areas feel more organic and less walled off
-love the setup, seems less forced. you have a legit reason to get out there and explore.
-seems to be the deepest ME game in terms of loot, weapons, equipment, etc

After 40+ hours played for review, I echo all of this, especially the bolded bits.
 
Man let me preface this with: I love mass effect. What the hell were they thinking with the planet scanning. This better not be what its like for the full game. 20+ seconds to go from planet to planet just to press left trigger and maybe get some kind of currency or scrap. I thought it felt like a chore in ME2 but somehow they made it clunkier and more boring. Never anything interesting either.
 
Man let me preface this with: I love mass effect. What the hell were they thinking with the planet scanning. This better not be what its like for the full game. 20+ seconds to go from planet to planet just to press left trigger and maybe get some kind of currency or scrap. I thought it felt like a chore in ME2 but somehow they made it clunkier and more boring. Never anything interesting either.

That's how it is for the entire game, but it feels like the resources you mine with the Nomad are your main source.
 
Man let me preface this with: I love mass effect. What the hell were they thinking with the planet scanning. This better not be what its like for the full game. 20+ seconds to go from planet to planet just to press left trigger and maybe get some kind of currency or scrap. I thought it felt like a chore in ME2 but somehow they made it clunkier and more boring. Never anything interesting either.

Agree with this. Probably one of the few complaints I have. The music is also a dissapointment would love more ME trilogy themes.
 
My hope is that in the full game every so often you can actually find something where a side mission/ something cool actually happens as a result of obsessive scanning.
 
So, can I get some honest takes from people who've made it close to, or to the end of the trial? Setting aside all the animation and jank stuff, I genuinely want to know if people are digging it or not.

I ended up getting the physical from BBY for ~$37 and it'll show up on release day, so if it's decent I'll keep it, but more so than the money, there is just a ton of stuff to play right now and I can always wait on this if it's just "good" and not "great" like 2, and to a lesser extent, 3 were.

Does it "feel" like the older ME titles? The combat appears to be the best version yet.

Are the companions interesting?

I played the first 45 mins with the trial but haven't gotten more time to play yet.
 
I'm enjoying ti so far, with some caveats.

So RPS was spot on it's remarks about the UI. Infuriating is the most diplomatic term I could think of to describe it. It's as though the UI devs working on DA:I were killed in a satanic ritual, their souls shepherded to the 9th level of hell, so as to learn the torturous ways of Belial's UI design, and then summoned for ME:A's development.

Crafting, if you can believe it, is even MORE painful than in DA:I. This game wants me to quadruple double click through tiny list after tiny list just to find out what I need, only to do the same to actually research or craft something.

It's hard and unintuitive to navigate other menus too. I still haven't figured out how to equip my team after 6 hours. And it doesn't look like we're able to remap menu navigation keys.

I shouldn't have to hit escape to back out of a menu. That shit is annoying. And no one ever tells you that you can at least leave the first, main menu screen by hitting tab. I discovered that by happy accident.

Combat is fun, and pretty difficult too (playing on hard). Just had to do a little remapping of keys to make it flow better. Weapons feel good so far, and this really is my favortie part of the game so far.

I didn't know this, and I haven't heard much tlak on it but: The tactical pause from the original trilogy is completely GONE. This is a straight up third person shooter. You CAN send one or the other, or both of your 2 companions to specific spots on the map, but doing that in the chaos of combat is tough, and the AI isn't very good, so unless you aim carefully, they might end up just standing out in the open getting killed. Useless ability in other words.

The animations and models are not up to what I woudl have hoped, that's for sure, but niether have they been super distracting. I can definitely look past them. The dialoguye is still very Saturday morning cartoon, and some of it is cringe worthy, but not all of it is.

Again, I'm still enjoyign it, we'll see how I fare 10 hours in.
 
It's a shame... Basically what I see is the game got maddened. Alot of the stuff we see is what you see in madden and I think Ea has finally just rubbed off on mass effect in a big way.

I'm still lookin forward to playing it but damn the stuff I'm seeing is a bummer, but maybe a patch will fix some things.

My question is how can a company not care about the back lash?

But basically this is the Sci fi version of madden from what I'm seeing. Especially those bent knees walking animations, those are the same legs in madden when they're running but when players walk their knees are bent and locked like that.
What does this even mean?! xD
 
Anyone know if there's a place where people are sharing their Ryder's? I always liked going through those for the previous games to see if I liked one a lot to use in my game.

I do like the default femryder so I'm good going with that one.
 
So, can I get some honest takes from people who've made it close to, or to the end of the trial? Setting aside all the animation and jank stuff, I genuinely want to know if people are digging it or not.

I ended up getting the physical from BBY for ~$37 and it'll show up on release day, so if it's decent I'll keep it, but more so than the money, there is just a ton of stuff to play right now and I can always wait on this if it's just "good" and not "great" like 2, and to a lesser extent, 3 were.

Does it "feel" like the older ME titles? The combat appears to be the best version yet.

Are the companions interesting?

I played the first 45 mins with the trial but haven't gotten more time to play yet.

The character creator is getting more features later on so honestly I'd just wait until they patch the game if you're not going with the default Ryder
 
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