Mass Effect: Andromeda | Review Thread (READ MOD POST)

MartyStu said:
I would agree that the writing is not much worse than that of the original trilogy. At the same time though, I think standards have increased quite a bit.
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Higher standards most assuredly but at times it seems like Bioware has a time machine and managed to talk the twelve year old version of me to write parts of their dialogue for Andromeda. I simply don't remember ME 1 or ME 2 being so awkward so often.
 
alt27 said:
So you thought the NPC interactions were ok , not a bug? If not a bug , then really fucking sloppy game Dev , no ?
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No, I never said that. What I did say was that I didn't experience any animation bugs like the one shown in the Giant Bomb review. In my 64 hours of playing, not once did I get a cut scene where it had missing dialog or people being frozen in weird positions.
 
bigdaddygamebot said:
No. Just certainly not at bad as Andromeda. It feels/looks rushed. There is a level of finish that some games have and Andromeda doesn't have that finish or polish...
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yep. why are people mentioning last of us, when the rather obvious problem is that andromeda isn't even up to dragon age: inquisition standards! :) ...
 
I'm about 20hrs into the game(a bit main quests and some side quests) and I must say, although I'm having fun, it feels very unpolished, almost that it was hurried to meet a deadline.

The Division is a much better "Mass Effect" than Mass Effect Andromeda.
 
Vidal said:
I'm about 20hrs into the game(a bit main quests and some side quests) and I must say, although I'm having fun, it feels very unpolished, almost that it was hurried to meet a deadline.
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I would wager it is not "almost".

It was rushed out the door after a lengthy development cycle because EA or Bioware or both didn't want to pour more money into their budgeted development cycle for 2017.
 
Vidal said:
I'm about 20hrs into the game(a bit main quests and some side quests) and I must say, although I'm having fun, it feels very unpolished, almost that it was hurried to meet a deadline.

The Division is a much better "Mass Effect" than Mass Effect Andromeda.
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Yup. They need to make a pass at inventory management in an update. Too many crating materials taking up inventory slots. I effectively have 15 inventory slots since every Metal, tech material, bio material etc takes up space. But I have a ship with cargo space...but can't use it....
 
faridmon said:
Can someone explain to me how come some places have give this game 90+ with all the poor writing, bad animation, terrible facial rendering, bugs, unfulfilling story and overall disappointing game?
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Sit down, I have a secret to share with you: people can feel differently about different things. The obvious answer to your question is that either they don't think all of the things you said are true, or they liked other aspects of the game so much that the listed factors become less important.

Some people like this game a lot. I'm sorry if that is hard for some of you to accept.
 
Mammoth Jones said:
Yup. They need to make a pass at inventory management in an update. Too many crating materials taking up inventory slots. I effectively have 15 inventory slots since every Metal, tech material, bio material etc takes up space. But I have a ship with cargo space...but can't use it....
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This. It is giving me nightmares from No man's sky inventory system. :|
 
abundant said:
No, I never said that. What I did say was that I didn't experience any animation bugs like the one shown in the Giant Bomb review. In my 64 hours of playing, not once did I get a cut scene where it had missing dialog or people being frozen in weird positions.
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Wow , I had too many to count . Game on PS4 is a total shit feat
 
Mammoth Jones said:
Yup. They need to make a pass at inventory management in an update. Too many crating materials taking up inventory slots. I effectively have 15 inventory slots since every Metal, tech material, bio material etc takes up space. But I have a ship with cargo space...but can't use it....
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They definitely do not take up space. The things that take up inventory space are weapons, mods, armor, and consumables. If they did take up space there is no way I'd have only 20 slots taken up. I had more than 20 in just crafting materials alone.
 
Mammoth Jones said:
Yup. They need to make a pass at inventory management in an update. Too many crating materials taking up inventory slots. I effectively have 15 inventory slots since every Metal, tech material, bio material etc takes up space. But I have a ship with cargo space...but can't use it....
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You're not carrying them in your inventory, it's the ship. It's actually carrying thousands of materials.

And anyway, after I upgraded the cargo I rarely have any problem with full capacity anymore.
 
Aeana said:
Some people like this game a lot. I'm sorry if that is hard for some of you to accept.
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That's normal, but in most cases there's usually some sort of consensus regarding the good parts and the not so good parts. Quite a few people like Dragon Age 2 but most of them acknowledge the low production values and the heavy recycling of environments and enemies. They just don't consider them detrimental to their enjoyment of the game. This is a point of view that I can understand and respect.

It's the same with Mass Effect: Andromeda. The game's environments look great, it has enjoyable combat, tons of content and an interesting story premise. I can see why people who don't care about glitches or bad writing would love it, especially as the quality of the writing is largely subjective.

Sadly, there are others who refuse to accept that a game they enjoy might be considered mediocre, bad or even awful by some, attributing these opinions to blind hate of the game. Respecting differing opinions is a two-way street and the degree to which some a game's issues annoy you doesn't mean that these issues don't exist.
 
faridmon said:
Can someone explain to me how come some places have give this game 90+ with all the poor writing, bad animation, terrible facial rendering, bugs, unfulfilling story and overall disappointing game?
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There is one review at 90 and that's the highest one.
I guess they liked the game?
 
geordiemp said:
So do we expect top range TLOU type facial animations and writing in all RPG;s now ?

Zelda did not have it, neither did Fallout 4.....so why the high bar for mass effect ? Do some games get a pass ?

MEA is great combat, enjoying it more than most games this year.

I agree with the bugs, it needed more time.
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I expect an RPG where a significant part of the appeal is the dialogue system to have above average writing, yes.
 
The metacritic score is pretty spot on.

It's an average game at best, and average just doesn't cut it when it's the Mass Effect IP that was developed by two major BioWare studios for 5+ years. As a big ME fan, I'd go so far to say it's one of the most disappointing games I've ever played.
 
Fat4all said:
So mod bot finally put their robo-boot down, eh?

It was fun while it lasted.

RIP in peace angry joe threads
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I doubt this will apply to all future Angry Joe threads. It's​ probably just that the mods don't want another shit on Mass effect Andromeda thread. The last few ones have gotten pretty toxic.
 
It'd be weird for one mod to say they allow angry Joe threads and for another to close them all from now on.

I gotta agree it seems more like the timing of the review and the audience reaction towards the game itself warranted that we didn't need yet another thread for folks to shit on it
 
I'm finding myself not really agreeing with the reviews the longer I play it.

The animations are jarring and really put you off and the bugs are annoying, but this still feels like a Mass Effect game and it's pulled me in.

The story hasn't really hit anywhere interesting yet (I'm only 15 hrs in), but I'm finding myself connecting to the characters more than when I played 2. Jacob and Miranda didn't do it for me, but I'm finding myself invested in my crew especially the non-human crew like Vetra, Jaal and Peebee. So far, the side stories have really made this Mass Effect more personal for me and it grounds the rest of the characters in the world.

I'm hoping Bioware takes lessons from this game when making the sequels.

I'm playing pretty much on max settings on PC plugged into my KS8000 65' Samsung HDR TV and the HDR in this game is glorious. The game has its pretty moments. That's for sure..
 
Saucycarpdog said:
I doubt this will apply to all future Angry Joe threads. It's​ probably just that the mods don't want another shit on Mass effect Andromeda thread. The last few ones have gotten pretty toxic.
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I made a duplicate topic after not noticing the previous locked one. Sorry!
 
Aeana said:
Some people like this game a lot. I'm sorry if that is hard for some of you to accept.
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There's a difference between liking this game while acknowledging its problems and liking this game while handwaving all of its faults and pretending to be blind of them and that they don't exist.

It's mindblowing what some people chose to ignore just because they think that they like a game.
 
The metascore is completely justified in my opinion. I enjoyed portions of the game, but I found that any quest that falls in the 'additional tasks' log wasn't worth pursuing: they consist of busy work that had no context. In terms of more substantial quests, I didn't appreciate having to complete a task on one planet only to be told that Ryder has to fly to another previously explored planet to talk to an NPC to continue the quest. Why can't I communicate via a terminal or a transponder which everyone and their mother have apparently. I have to sit through several loading screens while taking off in the tempest, exiting the cluster, traveling to the designated planet within a different cluster, initiating a landing, then finally finding said NPC to have a 'conversation' with to recieve a clue on where to go next. A complete waste of time.

Harvaal and Eos were my least favorite planets to explore, especially with the plethora of meaningless additional task quests that litter Eos' map when you visit it second time round. Find six lost drones, plant five beacons, scan minerals...all pointless task that adds absolutely nothing to the story. Thankfully Elladen and Voeld kept those types of quests to a minimum; thus, were much more enjoyable to attain 100% planetary viability. Throughout my first playthrough, I managed to skip a ton of those 'additional task' quests and still hit level 60. Good to know that I can just ignore those during a second playthrough.
 
Joe voicing what i've been feeling for years with Bioware games. He's getting tired of picking and option and the character isn't saying that option. He's saying it makes it feel disconnected to his character and i couldn't agree more.
 
Staf said:
Joe voicing what i've been feeling for years with Bioware games. He's getting tired of picking and option and the character isn't saying that option. He's saying it makes it feel disconnected to his character and i couldn't agree more.
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Haven't played Andromeda, but I started noticing that problem cropping up with DA2. Mass Effect I mainly noticed the problem of it giving you multiple options that say the same thing a decent bit.
 
Laughing Banana said:
There's a difference between liking this game while acknowledging its problems and liking this game while handwaving all of its faults and pretending to be blind of them and that they don't exist.

It's mindblowing what some people chose to ignore just because they think that they like a game.
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If it doesn't bother them, it is not a problem.
 
Laughing Banana said:
There's a difference between liking this game while acknowledging its problems and liking this game while handwaving all of its faults and pretending to be blind of them and that they don't exist.

It's mindblowing what some people chose to ignore just because they think that they like a game.
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Thinking that you like a game is liking a game.
 
C8cwzd7VoAEjKKl.jpg

Best thumbnail ever, Other Joe is a national treasure.
 
Renekton said:
If it doesn't bother them, it is not a problem.
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moondoggerr said:
Thinking that you like a game is liking a game.
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The fact that the problems don't bother them do not mean that it is alright to just handwave them off, especially considering that they are reviewers whose job is to review a product as objectively as possible.

"Oh I don't care if the game is buggy, full of glitches, has terrible animations, etc etc, I'd still give them a perfect 10 or 9!"

Like, I love many trashy movies, but I wouldn't exactly preach that they are 'perfect' of any kind or at the same level of movies like Schinder's List or something. Giving 10s or 9s to a game riddled by problems and issues as a reviewer just because you "like them" is disingenuous and only provide gamers that read/watch them a disservice.

Just my opinion tho.
 
Laughing Banana said:
The fact that the problems don't bother them do not mean that it is alright to just handwave them off, especially considering that they are reviewers whose job is to review a product as objectively as possible.

"Oh I don't care if the game is buggy, full of glitches, has terrible animations, etc etc, I'd still give them a perfect 10 or 9!"

Like, I love many trashy movies, but I wouldn't exactly preach that they are 'perfect' of any kind or at the same level of movies like Schinder's List or something.
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How certain aspects or problems affect a unique individual is still very subjective. They will lie if they say the problems don't exist or certain aspects fall short of a clear benchmark or metric, but their language is usually "seems okay to me" or "not bother me as much" or "I enjoy the writing" so it falls under subjectivity.

So bad it's good movies are not the correct analogy imho. This game is controversial/mediocre and the aggregate score reflect it quite well this time, even if the reviewers have wildly different experiences.
 
I convinced myself the negative impressions were sensational, what a mistake. About 10 hours into the single player(PS4), 6 hours into Multiplayer(PC and PS4).

I have never experienced so many game-breaking bugs in a "AAA" game. Had to restart from old saves several times, because of getting stuck in terrain, abilities/weapons not working, or NPCs not spawning/interacting.

Squadmates are boring and insufferable. Especially in combat, where their AI is dumb as a rock. Also the quips. Every. Fucking. Fight. Its like a reddit thread, they're all full of 'witty' banter trying to out sarcasm each other.

Combat is repetitive. Even multiplayer. ME3 had a really fun horde mode, and they pretty much copied it. Then they tried to add thing, and every addition is worse. Enemy variety is non-existent. I'm fighting the same 5 variants of same factions. Most are reused from ME3. Theres a teleporting biotic that spams nukes and has a one-hit death move. The slow armor heavy tank. Then a bunch of fodder in different colour schemes.

I don't need to mention janky animations/writing.

There is nothing Bioware can do that will convince me to buy their future games. There is nothing that can redeem this, short of Bioware giving me a refund.
Fuck this game.
 
MotionBlue said:
I convinced myself the negative impressions were sensational, what a mistake. About 10 hours into the single player(PS4), 6 hours into Multiplayer(PC and PS4).

I have never experienced so many game-breaking bugs in a "AAA" game. Had to restart from old saves several times, because of getting stuck in terrain, abilities/weapons not working, or NPCs not spawning/interacting.

Squadmates are boring and insufferable. Especially in combat, where their AI is dumb as a rock. Also the quips. Every. Fucking. Fight. Its like a reddit thread, they're all full of 'witty' banter trying to out sarcasm each other.

Combat is repetitive. Even multiplayer. ME3 had a really fun horde mode, and they pretty much copied it. Then they tried to add thing, and every addition is worse. Enemy variety is non-existent. I'm fighting the same 5 variants of same factions. Most are reused from ME3. Theres a teleporting biotic that spams nukes and has a one-hit death move. The slow armor heavy tank. Then a bunch of fodder in different colour schemes.

I don't need to mention janky animations/writing.

There is nothing Bioware can do that will convince me to buy their future games. There is nothing that can redeem this, short of Bioware giving me a refund.
Fuck this game.
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*basing this on your avatar*

Take a time off from ME:A and play Persona 5 instead dude, hehehe.

I am a huuuuuuuuuuge fan of Mass Effect--the trilogy games are the only games where I bought all the DLCs and bought them all twice for 2 different systems--and to be frank though I am not as mad as you, at least probably not yet, I am also quite disappointed by it, and Persona 5 is quite an anger-cleanser so far.
 
Laughing Banana said:
*basing this on your avatar*

Take a time off from ME:A and play Persona 5 instead dude, hehehe.

I am a huuuuuuuuuuge fan of Mass Effect--the trilogy games are the only games where I bought all the DLCs and bought them all twice for 2 different systems--and to be frank though I am not as mad as you, at least probably not yet, I am also quite disappointed by it, and Persona 5 is quite an anger-cleanser so far.
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I've been alternating between Horizon Zero Dawn, Zelda and Nier. They're a hellva palate cleanser.
 
Renekton said:
If it doesn't bother them, it is not a problem.
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moondoggerr said:
Thinking that you like a game is liking a game.
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That isn't what laughing banana is pointing out.

There's a difference between saying:

"I love/like this game, there are no flaws or issues with it at all"

Versus

"I love/like this game, despite the flaws in it"

the former is not addressing or at least not mentioning the existence of flaws or detriments of the game, whereas the latter actually acknowledges that there may be flaws, but it was still an experience that he or she liked or loved.
 
Lime said:
That isn't what laughing banana is pointing out.

There's a difference between saying:

"I love/like this game, there are no flaws or issues with it at all"

Versus

"I love/like this game, despite the flaws in it"

the former is not addressing or at least not mentioning the existence of flaws or detriments of the game, whereas the latter actually acknowledges that there may be flaws, but it was still an experience that he or she liked or loved.
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For context, the post he first replied to was not denying hard objective observations either.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=233212166&postcount=1408
 
Damn 71 MC, no one saw that coming before the game released, it's pretty funny that the more questionable games turned out to be awesome and the "sure thing" is a flop critically.
 
Gurish said:
Damn 71 MC, no one saw that coming before the game released, it's pretty funny that the more questionable games turned out to be awesome and the "sure thing" is a flop critically.
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Nier 2, Nioh, Horizon... Even Persona 5 to a degree, all way exceeded my expectations. I can't believe Andromeda dropped the ball this hard.
 
Laughing Banana said:
especially considering that they are reviewers whose job is to review a product as objectively as possible.
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Why do people still say this?

A review is inherently subjective. They should of course point out notable aspects they think their audiences should pay attention to, but in no way is a review objective. They're not reviewing washing machines.
 
Maledict said:
1) Might well be the case. As a gay guy, I'm viewing things differently, and to my eye the male Ryder just looks...wrong. right from the start, his eyes aren't right. Also, his actual head isn't the right shape compared to his model.

I honestly don't get how we went from Shepherd, who is practically a picture perfect representation of his model, to male Ryder who at best we could say is inspired by his face model. At best. Tenuously.
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Yeah, I think both Ryders look terrible. How we got some of the worst faces in a game full of bad faces for the main characters is baffling.

I'm still enjoying the game, but a 70ish average seems fair the more I play and get bored by the open worlds and hit more warts. The good parts are very good, but there's a lot holding it back. At least that means it shouldn't be a huge task to make a much better game for a sequel if it sells well enough to get one.
 
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