Mass Effect Andromeda Hype Thread-GS:6! UPDATE: Improving animations, performance, etc. (Huge improvement for eyes)

After 15+ hours in, id have to say "ME Andromeda is ME1 fully realized"

ME1 attempted to give you the feeling of a large galaxy where you could land on different planets, come and go as you pleased.

It was limited by tech at the time so planets were small areas that were re-skinned.

Andromeda opens up the planets to feel like full planets, each full of stuff to do, even creating settlements.

Each has their own story and conflict but are all tied together by the main plot, which is what ME1 had.

Only difference is there arent many memorable characters. Im finding it hard to remember anyone's name.

If you loved me1 (and space exploration in general) youll love andromeda.

Music, exploration, mystery....amazing!

Bioware did an awesome job here, game is a 9/10 let down by the animations. Bloody shame the reviewers got caught up in the shitstorm over nothing. 6/10 is bullshit and they dont get what mass effect is about.

I was getting worried i was too old for gaming as games these days dont grab me and bore me to death..., but ive been putting massive (for me) hours into this with a huge smile on my face.

That's a valid criticism.

Indeed!

The best combat in the series and easily in a top tier for an action RPG, with stunning visuals and vistas, interesting characters with humans having not so good facial animations, and a promising story which keeps getting better and better

And I'm playing on PC and have barely ran into bugs or technical problems (had only one crash).

I think ME2 and ME3 made ME1 characters memorable.

I ended up getting the game, mainly because I had nothing else to play atm. I can see why it scored so low. Not that the game is complete shit, it just looks dated as hell. Standards for games rise every year, this game seems like its made 10 years ago.

Dosent mean Im not going to enjoy it, but it is not up to todays standards. EA has tons of money, but this looks low budget.

It's only the human facial animations that are subpar, other than that the game is gorgeous!

PC - High

Let's be fair, no way this game is outdated.

How this game has a 74/100 on Metacritic while FFXV has an 81/100 blows my mind. And I doubt Gamespot's 6/10 has anything to do with the reviewer being a hater because this game has a lot of little details put there to pander to the sjw types and the likes of Gamespot lean heavily toward that side. You can't even make a white character in this game because skin shades start at light brown, pretty much every male character is a beta and there's even a shoehorned trans character that during his introduction the first thing he/she says is "I'm trans" like if anybody gave a ****.

@mjorh: I'm playing it on PC as well on ultra, the over all look of the game looks dated to me and almost like alittle out of focus.

Played for most of the night yesterday. Its crazy how my opinion changed since the trial and the first two days of the game's release.

I'm glad your opinion has changed, what's hooking you the most?

@Advid-Gamer:

Ill bite.

You said mea looks like it was made 10 years ago.

Show me an open world game made 5 years ago that looks better.

turn off Chromatic Abberation or whatever its called

I did the same.

Horrible implementation in this game.

The last game that did it reasonably well was Alien Isolation.

Generally, i think it looks terrible in games.

@Evo_nine: Theres nothing to bite on, Im not trolling. Going to try turning off the Chromatic Abberation like teeth26 suggested.

@Advid-Gamer:

So were you able to track down a 5 year old open world game that looks better?

For now, i'd say that the exploration in combination with great combat is what i enjoy the most. I do regret not getting the game on PC, tho. This may be the worst performing game i've played on the PS4 (Reminds me of Blight Town on 360... this bad). My Nexus is only level 2 and simply running near the docking bay makes it seems like the fps is between 20-27fps at all times. On the first planet, there was 2 groups of Kett at once. Frames were so slow i felt like playing Max Payne. Other than the Souls games, this may be the last multiplat i'm getting on the PS4. FB3 may be too much for the Xbone/PS4 to handle, dunno.

after finishing the game I had a lot to say so here it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArAaZa27RB4&t=25s

Lot less angry more I want more of this game

That's a bummer, it's so smooth on PC, I get 60fps with 970 on High.

Will watch it.

One suggestion, you should add gameplay videos and voice over them, this works better imo, which if i recall correctly, your first impression video was like that (voice+gameplay+your own picture in upper right)

Yeah true but I didnt want to put spoiler footage in the video if I do more videos on it I will do it that way, seems easier, But the focus is on what I have to say more so than what I can show.

@mjorh: what's your cpu?

There are some spoilers but this is the funniest Adromeda video i've seen. Trex noise with dat face at 20:12 killed me hah

I5 2320, which if it was better, i could've ran it on ultra

I didnt bother to look, Im not here to argue over pixels anymore. I have the game and it looked like shit, granted it looks 10 times better now that I turned off Chromatic Abberation like teeth 26 suggested. If your looking to bicker look else where, I was just stating my opinion at the time.

Why anyone would add a feature to a game that makes it looks worse, and has to be turned off is ridiculous.

@Advid-Gamer:

You said 10 year old games look better, simple question. Give me one. You cant do in other words youre talking shit like so many other bashers.

If you cant substantiate it, keep your opinions to yourself.

Baahah, really? You want to fight tough guy? Hahah you are a joke. Get out more

@Advid-Gamer:

No dont want to fight. Just pointing out how idiotic your post was.

Your right, it was totally idiotic, to say a game looked dated, when it did look dated, only to find out, it looked better and less dated by turning off a option, that was automatically enabled when starting the game.........

How did the chars look worse than a game that came out 10 years ago?

They nailed the envinroments and planets, they are all gorgeous but you can't help but think they purposely fucked up the facial of characters. Why? They had so much experience and reference material...they really cannot screw this up.

It should be petty tbh but in a game where immersiveness and attachment to chars is one of the most paramount importance, it really affects one's enjoyment of the game. The above video was spot on.

@Advid-Gamer: To be honest yes, your post was idiotic.

Before Day 1 patch, the female Ryder, especially, look different.

This really doesnt help against the "SJW" accusation being levelled at it.

The one of the right looks like a generic lara croft clone, it's just as bad for the opposite reason.

Environments aren't all that hard to land compared to realistic humans. For reference, try to draw a sunny beach and a human face for 2 minutes, and see which one you think is more convincing.

Pretty much any AAA game can have nice environments these days, it's just a matter of simple referencing and copy/paste. And for open worlds like in ME:A, you don't have to worry about whether it looks real or not because every world is techy and sciencey, you can space magic away anything that's a little weird looking in the game's writing. 'What? These rocks look funny? Uh well it's because aliens.' Don't even have to worry about animating, at most you might need some semi-wafting flora, that's about it.

Can't say the same for realistic looking characters. That shit takes time, effort, talent, and a lot of fine tuning. Especially if you hand animate like ME:A does, instead of mo-capping. People know how people are supposed to move, what they're supposed to look like when they talk, so you have to be meticulous and avoid bringing attention to imperfections in the design. Otherwise it will all fall apart like it does in ME:A.

I suspect they probably had a lot of textures and animations half-done but had to cut the finished material because it wasn't going to be ready anywhere near launch.

Also, when thinking of environment vs character art, I immediately think of Demon's Souls. First Souls game. It has beautiful worlds and monsters but shitty human faces that don't animate at all. Yet no one posted hundreds of videos of Demon's Souls mannequins. Why, you might ask if you haven't grown bored of this post yet? Well the difference of course is that in Souls games talking is a minor story element, and everyone wears a helmet anyway. The game is playing to it's presentation strengths and understands that it should take steps to cover for it's weaknesses. ME:A's weaknesses however are front and center all the time. There is no escape, no turning the camera to pretend they're just looking at the ground and not at nothing, no masks or concealing shots when things look particularly rough.

The funny thing too is, even when I look closely at a sad faced Demon's Souls character, barely emoting or looking at me as they talk, I'm still taken out of the experience far less than I am when looking at ME:A footage.

You guys saying ME:A is like a really well fleshed out ME1 are making it very hard for the SP to resist buying ME:A right now. I mean, that sounds like a 10/10 in mah book. :D

Haven't finished it yet but it's close to ME1, If you loved ME1 you're gonna potentially love this one too.

However, it seems that fps is not satisfying on consoles, so it'd be better to wait, on PC it's great tho.

You can read the full top 10 sales chart below, courtesy of sales monitor Chart-Track. Note this table does not include digital sales data, and so should not be considered representative of all UK game sales.

1. Mass Effect: Andromeda

2. Ghost Recon: Wildlands

3. Lego Worlds

4. Horizon Zero Dawn

5. Grand Theft Auto V

6. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

7. FIFA 17

8. Rocket League

9. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

10. Forza Horizon 3

might as well wait for patches and dlc.

Not saying that it doesn't have major flaws, but dear god, a 6 for this (esp considering some of the other scores handed out recently) is madness.

Yeah, no way this is a 6, some websites have given it a 5!

@mirgamer said:

Before Day 1 patch, the female Ryder, especially, look different.

This really doesnt help against the "SJW" accusation being levelled at it.

That's quite the difference. On the right she looks more natural and quite attractive, the left however looks like she has mental issues. Seriously WTF.

@blue_hazy_basic: game is really enjoyable right? A 6?lol.... Destiny was a legitimate 6. It had no content and the content it did have was repeated and recycled. A true 6.

Now apply what Destiny did, offered a piece of a full game for 60 dollars, and compare it to what you're playing in mea right now.

Games not a 6 people. It's not even close.

I agree. I have a lot of little issues with it, but it is an easy 8 to me.

All of the sidequests remind me of Witcher 3 where they actually have small stories behind them, some span multiple planets.

Gamespot was those hits lol.

So I've been able to put in around 29 hours into the game. And am enjoying it so much more despite the early negative press. Granted much of the criticism around facial and motion animations is true, it's just laughable what they've produced. But the environments are fantastic. And that leads to the true strength of this game.

Andromeda is the true realization of the dream of Mass Effect, the promise of exploration finally fulfilled that the series was built on. The planets you can land on (I've only explored Eos and Veold so far) are wide and expansive, conveying a real sense of discovery of uncharted territory with each new mile traversed. The outpost building adds another layer of pioneering to the experience, that the exploration is genuinely a new frontier for humanity and the other Milky Way species. And even exploring space itself is that much more immersive when viewing it in real time from the panoramic windows of the bridge and Pathfinder quarters.

I also really like how the combat is so fluid and responsive. Though I do miss pausing to give out commands to the squad to create power combos, here I have less control over them and they just do their own thing in a skirmish. Unless I missed something? The other limitation of this all realtime combat system is the limitation of active powers at your disposal. As I'm leveling up and beginning to branch out in my power sets, it strikes me how limited the 3 load out slots are, when you have all that diversity of all 3 skill sets, and wanting to experiment with different powers like manage biotics for offensive & crowd control, but also have quick access to overload (or energy drain) and incinerate to be able to deal with enemy shields and armor. Plus lots of other cool looking new abilities to experiment with like flame thrower and cryo beam. I'm still wondering how they compare to the blast powers of those elemental attacks.

But anyway, I do get that you have to set up your 4 favorites, switching them out to access different powers at any given moment, even with that meaning having a build with 12 powers to load (just not all in the same spot), given the cool down reset, that takes some getting used to. But I'll say again, the responsiveness of the combat is refreshing, and even better amplified with the jump jets and boost thrust for added mobility.

Though another area this game seems to be lacking from the original trilogy is charm in the game cast. At least for me so far, the Tempest crew isn't showing themselves to have that quality of being memorable, in the way I still carry with me today Garrus, Liara, Tali, Mordin, among others. They all had such fully fleshed out personalities and convincing effect of self motivated character, the interactions with them were so engaging it was easy to see them as real people; from charisma, to authentic self interest, to conflicting motives. The more I interacted with them, the more I was compelled to get to know them, and saw them as friends I would hang out with.

But so far, not getting that feeling from any of these crew mates. I'm hoping things will develop as the story progresses. I'm also disappointed that the interactions with Dr. Lexi are more limited. There aren't as many social dialogs you can seem to have with her, that it's pretty much just limited to crew status reports, not as many opportunities to have more personal social exchanges. Looks like they put her in the role of Yeoman Kelly from ME2, only minimal interaction for on point status updates. And damn.... that's Natalie Dormer and wanted her to be my first Andromeda romance!! ??

Other than that I wish they would include an inventory stash, on the Tempest or Nexus, or just somewhere. I like that there's an actual inventory again but I'm at a point I'm still experimenting with different weapons and the vast assortment of mods and augments, and some things I just don't want to throw away just yet. Even selling the salvage, that backpack is getting tight. And I hate the idea of spending early AVP points to unlock extra inventory space when it could be put to so much better use like research and military upgrades.

Just take a look at the track record of the guy who's given this game a 5 :

He's given NMS an 8/10 , and AC Unity a 9/10 !

'Nuff said.

This was just one example, I'm sure if you dig enough you can find more.

I think this is accurate, though the main story (at least so far, and I'm quite far in) is not nearly as good as ME1. Its pretty generic sci-fi.

HOWEVER, the side content is the best its ever been in the ME series, and some of the sub-stories on the different planets are great. A lot of the game's best content is optional. And there is a LOT of it. I finished ME1 in like 16 hours whereas I've already dumped 30 hours into ME:A and I'd guess i'm a bit more than half way through but its hard to gauge.

Glad you're enjoying it.

As I said earlier, in this game pausing has been sacrificed for the sake of fluid and fast-paced combat, Imagine if you wanted to pause and give orders, that would've made the game slow and so close to the trilogy, so this is a welcome change in my book, and the squad do their combat quite well, I mean i really feel their presence.

And I think them going with 3 active powers and 4 favorites, is a smart move, you don't wanna be overwhelmed during combat thinking of which powers should you use, and it would've had a negative impact on the balance because you would've been so powerfull and enemies so weak in comparison, now i haven't played as much as you have so my opinion regarding this might change, but overall i think they've nailed combat, simply the best in the series.

And the cast is growing on me, not sure how i'm gonna feel about them by the end of the game but so far they've been promising, and bear in mind that we had three games with those characters hence a lotta time had been spent with them, but these are so new to us.

And I'm in line with you regarding inventory, and i think they should've implemented a training section where you could test out weapons and powers, as there are a shit ton of them.

Encountered an infinite loading screen glitch as soon as i you recruit Jaal. To get passed it, before the loading screen, you'll be having a conversation with him. If you get stuck on the loading screen, reboot the game, load the last AUTO SAVE file, while in conversation, choose all the answers on your left and skip all the conversation.

The only way i fund to get passed it. Otherwise you're stuck and unable to progress the game at all. Now that's game breaking right there.