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Mass Effect: Andromeda | Review Thread

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Anno

Member
This seems about right if you watched or played through the trial portion. I'll probably still get it because the combat and multiplayer is quite fun and there is so little competition in terms of space rpgs, but I hope EA takes this as a wakeup call for what is a very important franchise to them.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
Jim Sterling will no doubt bless this with a 10/10.

(I kid)

But Damn 75, that's a series low, not sure what Bioware is doing. Even with some people divided on Dragon Age: Inquisition, it reviewed well, won multiple game of the year awards and sold well. Hell even Dragon Age 2 reviewed better >.>
Which in regards to Inquisition means absolutely nothing. This game does not deserve GOTY awards it was given.
 

Tecnniqe

Banned
Both games are sitting at (very similar) metacritic ratings, so the comparison is wholly relevant in terms of reviews.

Obviously in terms of GAF hate, the fact one was Ubi didn't help, but the point stands that a 75 metacritic rating won't hurt sales.
You're missing my point.
This is a space opera which was focused on storytelling.

GRW is a coop shooter which caters very much to the market.

Disregarding GAF and the arbitrary score, one is obviously more catered towards the masses than the other?
Thus more sales. And it won't help this game is surrounded by negativity and poor writing.
 
I already got Horizon and yes, I really want a sci-fi game set in space. That's the pain of it.

I also don't consider Nier in the same ballpark as Mass Effect. Two wildly different genre's.

Yeah I understand. Why I wanted Mass Effect Andromeda to be good as well. Right now I'll just be waiting for a sale and even then, if they managed to improve it before.
 

Floody

Member
Damn that's a bummer because the first and third DLCs are really good. Second one is pretty bad up until the end IIRC.



Dorian is definitely awesome can't wait to see what he does in the 4th game. I really like Bull and Cole as well. Vivian may have been my fav.


I'm a little further than you but so far other than 2B being bland as hell i really like the characters, writing, and dialogue. That issue in the 2D mode sounds like a minor hiccup at worst.

I've heard they're good, so might give it another try in the future when I don't remember much of it anymore, just hard for me to push through the grind when I know what's coming next. I do really like all the companions for the most part though, only really Sera I wasn't too fond of, the rest I thought were mostly good-great and I enjoyed the story.
 

psychotron

Member
Even if the game ends up just being decent, as many reviews are implying, I'm still really sad to see the series not elevated back to greatness.
 
Not surprised it's been so poorly received.

I have a serious lack of time to play all the games i want and there are so many stellar games on the market this will be a miss.

ME1-ME3 were my teenage obsessions. It's sad that a huge franchise was handed to a B-studio and the main Bioware studio didn't handle what is arguably the biggest sci-fi franchise in gaming.
 

Renekton

Member
I'm actually damn curious what he's going to give this game. His tolerance for game tedium is non-existent. Pretty sure we're going to get exactly what we're expecting: a panning following by a 4 or a 5.

Watch me be totally wrong about this :p
Should be a very low score.

But last I checked he is behind on review backlog so it might be awhile before we see it.
 

danowat

Banned
You're missing my point.
This is a space opera which was focused on storytelling.

GRW is a coop shooter which caters very much to the market.

Disregarding GAF and the arbitrary score, one is obviously more catered towards the masses than the other?

I'll be honest, I am not sure what your point is.

You responded to my point that reviews won't necessarily drive sales (for an established franchise), is that point moot?
 

Slaythe

Member
Exclusive footage of the Bioware team upon seeing the reviews :

66NDRV.gif


This isn't a fan made source video. It's the game. . .
 

Tecnniqe

Banned
I'll be honest, I am not sure what your point is.

You responded to my point that reviews won't necessarily drive sales (for an established franchise), is that point moot?
Most people don't read reviews or anything, those are the majority. We are the minority when it comes to score and fights for it.

All surrounding this game have been how bad everything is, how buggy and so on it is.

GRW was always promoted as the next coop with your friend dudebro shooter thing in a GTA style fashion.

It's clear that one already hit the right notes more than the other regardless of its critic score.

I'm not saying this can't sell well, but I think the comparison only based on score don't exactly work either.
 
I'll be honest, I am not sure what your point is.

You responded to my point that reviews won't necessarily drive sales (for an established franchise), is that point moot?

My interpretation is that s/he is saying GRW more naturally skews towards casual audiences who are less influenced by reviews. Conversely, MEA targets a more dedicated core market who are more likely to pay attention to reviews.

Personally I don't agree with the statement, but I don't think it's particularly obtuse or impossible to argue in good faith
 
Well, this is so disappointing. I love Bioware RPG's but there are too many high quality games out at the moment. I can't justify spending money on this.
 

danowat

Banned
Most people don't read reviews or anything, those are the majority. We are the minority when it comes to score and fights for it.

Agreed

All surrounding this game have been how bad everything is, how buggy and so on it is.

Yes, there has been a fair bit of pre-release anti-hype, I'll give you that, but, as with point 1, we are in the minority

It's clear that one already hit the right notes more than the other regardless of its critic score.

I don't agree, but I guess we'll see in due time!
 

Audioboxer

Member
Mass Effect: Andromeda spends a lot of time not really feeling like a Mass Effect game. If anything, it feels like a spin-off -- the sort of thing created by another studio that's unsure about what direction to take it. Like in the game itself, there are problems with the atmosphere. But Andromeda is very clear that it doesn't aim to be like the other Mass Effects. New beginnings, not funerals -- for better and for worse.

Damn, that is a painful blurb from destructoid.
 
Are there any reviews that really go into depth about the music?
ACG does. He says he really likes the soundtrack though it's the weakest of the series but the main problem is half the time it never plays so you're traveling around on planets in silence....
 

Tareskog

Member
Meh. The scores still don't scare me away from the game. I am more sceptical against a game who receives 10s all across the board. I was kinda expecting this when reading the first impressions. I kinda feel pity for the animations team which has received way too much crap over the last week, and especially shit kids targeting female animators on the team. Yeah the animations are bad at times, but it doesn't stand out as the worst AAA animations ever... still they are hilarious at times.
Playing ME3 now, and especially the running animations doesn't seem to have changed much.

6-7/10 is still not a BAD score...well at least it shouldn't be considered as a bad score.
 

Slaythe

Member
Agreed



Yes, there has been a fair bit of pre-release anti-hype, I'll give you that, but, as with point 1, we are in the minority



I don't agree, but I guess we'll see in due time!


It's not the minority when the accumulated views of all the videos trashing the game reach over 5 millions.......
 
Look, just chill, man. This is not that serious.
My post took seconds to write because I think your claim that the writing and characters were just as bad in the previous entries was hilarious. Didn't attack you or say anything super serious.

It's a forum. We can discuss and debate about games and when you get called out you don't have to freak out.
 

Tecnniqe

Banned
Yes, there has been a fair bit of pre-release anti-hype, I'll give you that, but, as with point 1, we are in the minority
But question is if that's true in this matter. When people like Pewd with millions of followers of all types starts bashing it like that it's bound to spread more than it otherwise would.

Even people I know who usually I am the one to tell about games is sending me gifs of how broken the game is laughing. Those are what I call casuals.

I think this games brokenness breached our bubble long ago, for better or for worse.
 
Disaster for EA and the bioware team.
Red flags had been building months in advance and now proof is in the pudding.

Sad because I was so looking forward to it but will get it down the line at a cheaper price. There's also just too much to play atm.
 

danowat

Banned
But question is if that's true in this matter. When people like Pewd with millions of followers of all types starts bashing it like that it's bound to spread more than it otherwise would.

Even people I know who usually I am the one to tell about games is sending me gifs of how broken the game is laughing. Those are what I call casuals.

I think this games brokenness breached our bubble long ago, for better or for worse.

You may be right, I guess we'll find out when we know some sales figures.
 

True Fire

Member
Pretty pathetic performance for a five year development cycle.

The Dragon Age team managed an 89 Metacritic and 134 Game of the Year awards (101 critic, 33 reader) with a 3.5 year development cycle, cross-gen limitations, and having to build out all the RPG functionality for the engine. They even spent a non-trivial amount of their cycle on a canceled Dragon Age 2 expansion pack, and had a much worse base to work from.

Mass Effect: Andromeda on the other hand follows up three 90+ games with what will be in the bottom 25-30% of $60 games by Metacritic score this year, and assuredly getting zero (or at least very close to zero) Game of the Year awards, despite having 1.5 more years for development and all the groundwork the Dragon Age and original Mass Effect teams laid for them.

The problem is AAA studios thinking they can still get away with last gen game design.

Bethesda did it with Fallout 4. Ubisoft did it with Assassin's Creed and Far Cry. The industry has moved on from cookie cutter western games.
 

Lime

Member
Are there any reviews that really go into depth about the music?

Karak's review on ACG mentions that there is a gaping lack of music. It seems to me that either Bioware didn't contract enough tracks to fill out the game or they didn't have enough time to implement the music into the game.
 

Jarmel

Banned
Karak's review on AVGN mentions that there is a gaping lack of music. It seems to me that either Bioware didn't contract enough tracks to fill out the game or they didn't have enough time to implement the music into the game.

ACG does. He says he really likes the soundtrack though it's the weakest of the series but the main problem is half the time it never plays so you're traveling around on planets in silence....

Thanks I'll check both of those.

Edit: NVM lol guess it's the same review.
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
I read that almost none of the choices you make in Andromeda has pretty much zero consequences. Very weak if true.
 
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