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Mass Effect: Andromeda | Review Thread

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Maledict

Member

'Bring back exploration'
'More rpg focus'
'The MAKO is back'

One of the big consistent critics of this game in the interviews is that it's full of busy work - vast amounts of things to do, but backed up by poor writing and characterization.

The highest reviewed game in the series is the one which stripped out *all* the busy work and so called 'RPG mechanics' to focus purely on character writing and well crafted combat encounters. Where every single mission was unique, with a plot and detail that made it interesting, and a unique aspect. Even killing mercs in a swamp had a graphic effect and mechanic that didn't occur anywhere else in the game.

There's always been a vocal crowd of people who preferred ME1 to the others, and miss the 'exploration' that offered. Bioware tried to give us exploration in this game, and so far it doesn't seem to have worked that well as a complete package.
 

kc44135

Member
You can play all 3 on PC and Xbox One.

I agree with him, an ME trilogy is a must. Andromeda is a letdown, there's no way to play any of the ME games on PS4 (the most popular platform), and there are actual benefits to a remaster. Chief in point, better visuals/performance, and all of the DLC bundled in with the games (this has never happened with ME, and the DLC is still ridiculously expensive to buy separately. No Season Pass either). It's definitely something that needs to happen, especially now that Andromeda has seemingly shit the bed.
 

Principate

Saint Titanfall
I mean, does everything need to be open world now?

The most successful games these days are open world's outside of Uncharted 4. It's definitely the in thing right now.

I do wonder how the next Bethesda rpg reviews though, the bar ha certainly been raised and I'm not sure if they're up to par anymore.
 
So from what I'm reading...

This would be like if Sony decided to give the Uncharted franchise to Sony London Studio -- creators of The Getaway and SingStar.

I'm kidding, well, not really.

Well, Sony did give Uncharted to SIE Bend Studio (Responsible for Syphon Filter, Days Gone...and Bubsy 3D) for Golden Abyss.

But that wasn't nearly as disastrous as when they literally gave Resistance to fucking Nihilistic Software, holy shit lol.
 

Lifeline

Member
Well someone had to break the "every game is surprisingly good streak" this year has been having. I don't think anyone expected it to be Mass Effect though.

Weird seeing the latest Tales Of game with a higher MetaScore than the latest Mass Effect.
 

prwxv3

Member
I know Bioware's writing has gotten worse but who would have guessed that Horizon would have better writing then this lol. Honestly the sci-fi stuff in Horizon reminded me of mass effect (minus aliens)
 
Here's my list of pre-ordered games:
Rock Band 3 - out way too early
Street Fighter V - same
Mass Effect: Andromeda - same
Persona 5 - OH NO

Persona 5 is already finished and reviewed well in Japan.

If there were any issues the game has, it won't be anything other than localization issue.

From the devs mouths it's not even an open world game. I mean I cannot take my ship and seamlessly go from Habitat 7, to the Nexus to Eos right?

The zones to explore might be larger than DA : I but I see no difference in the system at large.

There's different kinds of open world. It's not seamless like GTA, Skyrim, and Horizon. But as I recall games like DA Inquisition and The Witcher 3 are also considered as one.
 

saskuatch

Member
75 for a triple a title is pretty much total garbage. That's killzone shadow fall level which the studio did bounce back from, but killzone was just rushed for launch what's bioware excuse.
 

Iceternal

Member
Even the new races have no imagination to them...

Angaras are basically Twileks from Star Wars.

And Ketts are redesigned Protheans with bony armors.
 

Patryn

Member
I know Bioware's writing has gotten worse but who would have guessed that Horizon would have better writing then this lol. Honestly the sci-fi stuff in Horizon reminded me of mass effect (minus aliens)

Guerilla poached some of the writers from Obsidian who worked on Fallout New Vegas. If you were paying attention, the good writing wasn't that surprising.
 

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
You want the next one to be even buggier than this one?

Not Obsidians fault the one game where they were actually given enough time which is Southpark wasn't the same bugfest mess as their other titles. Still their writing was generally so good that one could overlook the bugs.
 

Audioboxer

Member
No way in hell that this is anything but a crushing disappointment for Bioware.

From three 90+ rated games to a 75 game....

77 on XB1! (http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/mass-effect-andromeda)

Less reviews than PS4.

It could get worse, I don't see Jim Sterling's review yet for one. Even on PS4 there is only 28 reviews so far. If it could hit 74 reviews like ME1/ME3 above, who knows where it will be sitting. It could go higher to be fair, but some of the smaller review sites are more savage than the bigger ones.
 

Tecnniqe

Banned
I saw a prototype almost two years ago that was super promising.

It had something really cool in there that unfortunately has not made it into the final game :/
Seems like they released a prototype
giphy.gif
 

Kinyou

Member
Just give the next Mass Effect to Obsidian. Then it would still be janky as hell but at least it would have a fantastic story and characters
 

cripterion

Member
'Bring back exploration'
'More rpg focus'
'The MAKO is back'

One of the big consistent critics of this game in the interviews is that it's full of busy work - vast amounts of things to do, but backed up by poor writing and characterization.

The highest reviewed game in the series is the one which stripped out *all* the busy work and so called 'RPG mechanics' to focus purely on character writing and well crafted combat encounters. Where every single mission was unique, with a plot and detail that made it interesting, and a unique aspect. Even killing mercs in a swamp had a graphic effect and mechanic that didn't occur anywhere else in the game.

There's always been a vocal crowd of people who preferred ME1 to the others, and miss the 'exploration' that offered. Bioware ride to give us exploration in this game, and so far it doesn't seem to have worked that well as a complete package.

This seems to have even less rpg focus, choices don't really matter, you can't do jack shit with your squadmates, character creator is even worse than ME 1 in both roleplay aspects and looks.
 

oneils

Member
Yikes. I haven't tried the single player campaign but the reviews have confirmed my worst fears. Press "y" for lore.
 
77 on XB1! (http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/mass-effect-andromeda)

Less reviews than PS4.

It could get worse, I don't see Jim Sterling's review yet for one. Even on PS4 there is only 28 reviews so far. If it could hit 74 reviews like ME1/ME3 above, who knows where it will be sitting. It could go higher to be fair, but some of the smaller review sites are more savage than the bigger ones.

It will be higher than Zelda and people will lose their shit.
 

prwxv3

Member
Guerilla poached some of the writers from Obsidian who worked on Fallout New Vegas. If you were paying attention, the good writing wasn't that surprising.

Even with those writers I remember a tone of people being cautious with the story before it's release.
 
Watched a few reviews I was pleasantly surprised by Gamespots review. Despite the 6/10 score the review was mostly praise and there is clearly a lot to like about the game when you really get into it, it just has issues.

Honestly it seems like a fair score based off that review, no this game isn't super amazing and it isn't really Mass Effect 4, its something different for better and worse. I know people are disappointed that its not any better then what these reviews are saying (after 5 years after all) but knowing the issues that the game does have it could be a LOT worse then what were seeing in reviews.

I guess it helps I never got hyped for this game at all, it didn't look good to me from the beginning and it clear it was rushed out too early but despite that there will be some fun to have with this game and considering this is clearly from a 'B team' it could've been a massive unplayable train wreck.
 

emag

Member
I hope fans of filler are happy. More shitty fetch quests, more unnecessary scanning/mining/looting/crafting, more purposefully clunky UI ruined ME for the rest of us.
 

Kill3r7

Member
It will be interesting to see how well it sells. I guess the low review scores won't help with legs. My favorite series last gen. I'm still excited to start playing tonight. Hoping the review scores are more Destiny than Unity.
 

cripterion

Member
Persona 5 is already finished and reviewed well in Japan.

If there were any issues the game has, it won't be anything other than localization issue.



There's different kinds of open world. It's not seamless like GTA, Skyrim, and Horizon. But as I recall games like DA Inquisition and The Witcher 3 are also considered as one.

I agree with you but

BioWare insists they've learned a lot from Dragon Age: Inquisition's mistakes, especially when it comes to vast open areas that have the size of an ocean, but the depth of a puddle. Now the devs affirm that Mass Effect: Andromeda isn't really an open-world sandbox game--but it will retain the series' distinct feel.
"I definitely wouldn't call Andromeda an open-world game,"
BioWare's Mike Gamble told OXM in a recent interview.

"We like to use the term 'exploration-based game'. You still have the concept of tight story deliverance and all the great things you come to expect with Mass Effect. The layer on top of that is a layer of exploration. Sometimes that happens in open spaces, but not always. You can cruise around some of these planets in the Nomad, but it's not the traditional sandbox-type game."
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
I've had a bad feeling about this game since the first reveal. Looks like I had reason to.

Nothing about this game has ever once struck me with confidence, from the strange and anticlimactic way it was announced to the feeling that Bioware seemed to be stuck in 360/PS3 gen whenever gameplay and cinematics were shown.

That in itself isn't a terrible thing but 75% is a massive disappointment. With the length of time spent on this game and the huge backlash to ME3, this game needed to be something special.
 

120v

Member
kind of torn on this one... played ME1 and loved it. never got around to playing the rest for whatever reason so i don't think i'd be as critical over its shortcomings, and i'm in the mood for a 'big' rpg

if i need something to play this weekend i'll pick it up i guess.
 

Audioboxer

Member
Reviews seem coming out slowly. Some AAA games received 100+ reviews so it's still a long way to go.

Maybe it's because it's a pretty long game. Any info on game's length?

Yeah I'd think it's dependent on when EA sent out review copies and how long people have had to review.

It will be higher than Zelda and people will lose their shit.

Wut? That's not possible :p Unless you mean JS reviewing higher than Zelda? Doubt it, he's a gameplay man, sure, but he doesn't like sloppy writing or bugs and glitches galore either. I'd expect a 6~7.5 from him and probably a Jimquisition video memeing some of the GIFs.
 

Peroroncino

Member
I was half expecting reviews to be good despite all this animation-gate, but I guess that was a bit foolish of me. 5 years I've waited for this... watched all EA conferences during E3 hoping for something [usually getting nothing], some gameplay, trailers etc. I thought if they're not showing the game and it takes them this long, it's gonna be awesome, they're not in a hurry, they wanna make this the best they can...

Well shit, I was wrong.

And 75 is not GOOD, especially when it comes to a franchise like that, because yes, like it or not, we live in a world where 7 is average. ;)
 
kind of torn on this one... played ME1 and loved it. never got around to playing the rest for whatever reason so i don't think i'd be as critical over its shortcomings, and i'm in the mood for a 'big' rpg

if i need something to play this weekend i'll pick it up i guess.

You will be disappointed if you are looking for a RPG, the entire series has been getting worse in RPG design overall and Andromeda is the lowest yet.

I could never really say I liked the series, I liked the first game, the latter has been pseudo RPG design that Bethesda thought was a good idea in Fallout 4 too.
 

Deku Tree

Member
Me1 91
Me2 96
Me3 93

Me:A 75 ?

What happened to the original Mass Effect Development Team? How could EA let this happen to such a big franchise?
 

darklin0

Banned
I am glad I did not preorder. I have been very tepid about this release and the reviews pretty much confirmed my fears. Might get it on sale but I will most likely skip it.

Here's my list of pre-ordered games:
Rock Band 3 - out way too early
Street Fighter V - same
Mass Effect: Andromeda - same
Persona 5 - OH NO

I don't think you have to worry about P5. lol
 
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