And some info in here:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...omeda-details/
And some info in here:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...omeda-details/
I loved everything Mass Effect all the way up to the end of the 3rd game. I'm not sure I can get burned like that again.
I am extremely excited about this.
The ended of the 3rd game has been wiped from my memory, they won't do that again.
Must have for me. Loved the trilogy.
I hope they're just holding back the more interesting stuff in terms of races and things because if I'm travelling to a new galaxy just to mix it up with Krogans and Turians again that's a bit of a shitter. Also the default not-Shepard they had in that conversation bit in the trailer looks like a melty-faced plasticine tosser rather than the badass they wanted her to look like when she disarmed that Turian.
Also trying to decide whether to play as manNotShep or femNotShep based on the voice actors.
Character: Scott Ryder
Voice: Tom Taylorson
Best known as: Octodad in Octodad: Dadliest Catch
Character: Sara Ryder
Voice: Fryda Wolff
Best known as: Narrator in Civilization: Beyond Earth
Er...
Just be glad they didn't bring Troy Baker in.
That looks a bit meh to me, but then I could never get into the first two games either. The character model seemed weird too.
I've just finished my third run of the second game. Still love the final mission. Also Mordin is one of my favourite video game characters ever.
I was surprised by how little that trailer did for me.
Just read a thing confirming that the first two squadmates will be human. I assume, if it's true to BioWare form, that you'll never want to use them again as soon as you get at least two others to choose from.
Humans, Salarians, Turians and Asari all send an Ark to Andromeda for colonizing. Krogans didn't send an Ark, but some went along with the other races (I presume not with the Salarians for obvious reasons). So you'll be seeing those races for sure.Originally Posted by Ian
There have also been named two races specific for Andromeda, The Remnants and the Khet (which seem to be the antagonists). I've also read that one of you squadmates will be of a species specific for Andromeda. Haven't seen it named, though.
And you starting the game with two human squadmates does seem logical, you're send to find a new home for humanity, after all.
And I always liked Ash. Kaidan on the other hand, died a lot in my games.
Yeah I knew those were confirmed for the game, it's just a touch uninspiring to focus the trailer on those.
As I say, I just hope they're making a point of holding back the good stuff.
RPS don't think much of the preview:
https://www.techgig.com/tarzanstalin2
http://kotaku.com/people-are-ripping...ati-1793334047
Not a chance I'm pre-ordering this or buying it before the reviews and stuff have all panned out.
Everything about it looks absolutely fucking wank.
There's a lot of roughness going on with animations and NPCs pop in and out of existence.
This should be standard practice for anyone without their brain dribbling out of their ears.RPS don't think much of the preview:
https://www.techgig.com/tarzanstalin2
http://kotaku.com/people-are-ripping...ati-1793334047
Not a chance I'm pre-ordering this or buying it before the reviews and stuff have all panned out.
I dunno when the last time I pre-ordered anything was. I bought Dishonored 2 on the first day when the reviews and warnings about the graphics were up.
Too many games, big games, come in a right state to be giving them your money early on. Doubly so for games where they refuse to even let reviews go ahead, at least Bioware don't appear to be hiding much here.
I have this pre ordered but all the fallout around it (and me being bored) means I've just stumped up the £4 for a month of EA Access on PC to see what I think of it before I drop £40 on it.
It's going to be interesting to see if this ends up being a MASSIVE LETDOWN or if the moany whiners are just a vocal minority. I initially wasn't thinking much of the complaints, but they're starting to pop up more often than I thought so there must be something there.
Not that I'm going to buy it for a decade anyway.
I remember the days you could buy a game on release day and know you were getting it actually finished.
I loved 99% of the Mass Effect series so far, so I'm hoping all the negativity I'm hearing about this one is wrong.
My hope is that it's just the internet being the internet.
It'll be really, really interesting to see how the writing and animation holds up. Seems like those are the two sticking points and the latter's the one getting all the clickbait. Bioware is in such a different place these days and EA haven't really pushed this much until this close to release.
I'm hoping for something good but you have to wonder how many writers from the original trilogy are still left or on other projects. I mean, the trilogy placed humanity as rank outsiders in a galaxy already with a rich, political history.
If it's true that you basically touch down and the first aliens you meet are aggressive warmongers then that's a bit of a wasted opportunity, but then from 2 onwards it's been increasingly about the shootybangs anyway.
Heres Mike Ryder in all his bad chinned glory
Bioware is no longer a byword for decent writing, what I've seen of this looks pretty poor in that respect. As for the direction they take the story you'd be silly to expect anything different from the others, they're catering to an existing audience not looking for a new one.
"Hey, we're going to scarper to another galaxy mid-way through ME2."
"Oh, in case we don't win against the Reapers? Good idea."
"No. We're discovering new worlds."
From what I've seen, the writing is fucking atrocious.
Well, this is getting panned left right and centre.
I, being a noted arse, pre-ordered this a while ago so I shall be able to confirm the category of flop this is shortly.
I was recently shocked to find out the lead characters are voiced by neither Nolan North or Ashley Birch. Thanks to the actor's strike, they summoned guys that sound awfully like them.
I've only had the opportunity tonight to sod around with the character creator but I can confidently declare the game a catastrophic disaster based on that alone.
Eight(!) facial hair options, only one of which could in any way be described as a proper beard. Just as small a pool of haircuts to choose from, all of which look like they were boosted from a mid 1990s wrestling game.
I'm not sure I have the strength to carry on.
Reminds me of this awful, terrible waste of fucking existence:
I have played games online with Cord and let me tell you, if Andromeda won't let him have a sweet hat there will be blood.
It is very similar to that golf one, except you bizarrely get to choose two different eye colours at the same time. Four haircuts, and yet you can have purple and yellow eyes. Thus far no hats either, Ian. Grr.
I managed to play through the first five minutes of the intro sequence after creating my amorphous beardless blob. I really didn't think I'd be bothered by the facial animations as I'm not overly fussy when it comes to graphics, but my character spent the opening cinematic making faces that reminded me mainly of (dangerously up to date cultural reference approaching) Les Dawson. In particular, this face:
This could be unintentional genius.
Ah, the old 'Get this out before Q1' game.
Giant Bomb's review is up 2 stars. And a video.
This wasn't even half-baked.
I've been making a concerted effort to actually finish this while I've got a bit of time off.
The pre release moaning was all about the animation and frequently bad dialogue, which are often present admittedly, but what actually kills it (or gets close to doing so anyway) is the sheer amount of grind involved. It seems the motto used when developing it wasn't 'how can we make this fun?', it was 'how can we make this longer?'. Case in point, I've just done a side mission that involved roaming the corridors of the new citadel replacement thing to scan 4 objects (which include going through 3 or 4 loading screens), then had to hop onto my space ship (loading screen) to travel around 4 solar systems to scan things (about 8 loading screens disguised as cut scenes) only to end up needing to go onto one of the major planets, where the objective marker was in the middle of nowhere necessitating a few minutes of dull driving, and the payoff was about a minute of gunfighting and a 30 second cutscene with a moral choice I'm fairly sure wont come up again.
Appropriately enough being the beginning of a new trilogy, it's basically a spiritual successor of the first game considering it's 80% driving around planets to uninteresting sidemissions.
It's a real shame because I actually like the new squad mates and main quests, and just occasionally you'll run into a character or situation that's just as good as anything from the original three games. Just a shame they buried it all in a mountain of tedious shit. There's also a lot of story/galaxy based problems, but I suppose I'll wait until I've finished it before I rant about them.
Everything I've read/seen/heard of this points to it being a huge missed opportunity to re-boot the series with a blank slate whereas what they've actually done is produce a carbon copy dull as shit bore fest (with terrible dialogue). Sad times given that the last Dragon Age game got similar criticism, there's probably an easter egg in ME somewhere where you take Greg Zeschuk out behind your spaceship and execute him.
Sadly not. There's one where you romance him instead. They doubled-down on the space sex, like how From doubled-down on PREPARE TO DIE with Dark Souls.
Regarding the carbon copy thing, I think they basically just screwed themselves over with the concept of being an explorer going off to set up home in a new galaxy. It sounds like a good idea, and even works quite well in some ways in that the slow building up of your organisation is actually pretty engaging, but it also has the massive downside that they had to send you to what's pretty much an empty galaxy to avoid you having to play as a massive colonialist bastard.
So basically you are left with another galaxy full of humans, Turians, Asari, Krogans and the occasional Salarian. There is one new evil baddy race (who are literally just slightly reskinned Collectors from 2) who are also invaders so you don't have to feel bad about killing them, and one friendly race who lo-and-behold happen to be vastly more interesting to deal with than everyone else as they are fresh. Your interaction with them still comes off as colonial a lot of the time, even if the game does acknowledge it.
So not only is it a carbon copy, but it's a much less colourful one. I've had a look at a wiki and the first trilogy has loads of additional races that aren't in this game - Quarians, Volus, Elcor, Vorcha, Batarians, Hanar, Geth, Drell, Rachni and a few others. When you are playing a space epic, you need variety like that. They haven't even been arsed to make the hostile wildlife different on each planet, it's all the same.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...dromeda-trial/
I think I'd rather just wait until it's cheap enough that I buy the whole thing.
Not sure that's going to work particularly well, I found the opening of the game to be the weakest part.
I did manage to finish it, and it actually ends quite well. The final mission isn't magnificent in itself, but they do that cool Mass Effect thing of getting everyone you'd become friendly with to turn up and help out and it feels pretty epic. I definitely found myself interested in a second game set in this world, with the obvious proviso that they actually do it properly and don't fill it up with tedious grind.
If you are a big Mass Effect fan and wait for it to get proper cheap and go into it with low expectations (and skip most of the sidequests), you'll find stuff to like. Though you are playing the first part of a trilogy we are clearly never going to see now, so it might be a pointless exercise.
Under £18 on Origin. Might as well.
Hate myself.
I love how they set their stall out early in this, having the Salarian leader dude basically go "YOU'RE NOT SEEING ANY HANAR IN THIS GAME, OKAY?"
Bastards. I want to play as a Hanar.
I'm going to have a proper post about this soon but in the meantime, some of the planet and area design in it is ace. Probably one of the stronger aspects of the game.
Toggle Spoiler
That isn't the most spectacular or scenic shot but when I looked up and saw that I just really liked it.
This is turning into a bit of a slog now. I feel like I'm just running around clearing icons off a map, but not in the way I find satisfying in your better Batman's Creed-alikes.
I'm still sporadically plugging away at this between playing other things. There's a pretty entertaining 20-hour game buried beneath this heaving, dozens-of-hours pile of flab.
@Disco mate why you doing this to yourself again? I see you playing it.
Is it faring any better with suitably lowered expectations?
I needed something brainless to fuck about in and the combat/movement is quite fun. Some of the design decisions are still unfathomable and the writing remains lazy but the core concept is decent enough to poke through the jank.
I thought the combat was the worst in the series because you basically get everything early so you can decide your favourite loadout right away or something like that. And it just didn't feel as chunky as in 2/3. But the jetpack jump boost part of it was good.
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