Mass Effect Andromeda’s Animations Have Reduced It to a Laughing Stock

Megalith

Megalith

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Unfortunately, it is too late to officially turn Andromeda into a comedic parody of itself like Blood Dragon, as that is what the final game looks like. Was the engine just too difficult to work with, or were all the animators replaced with unpaid interns? I think this is now a $20 or $30 title for me.

Everyone on the internet is laughing at the new Mass Effect game. It’s the animations, you see. The facial animations. And the walking. And probably the dialogue too. The internet is merciless. Hours after the embargo for early impressions and streaming lifted and Mass Effect Andromeda has been reduced to gifs and memes and jokes. Because that’s how we communicate in 2017. Remember, this is final code Electronic Arts and Bioware has sent out to reviewers, streamers, YouTubers and other influencers. This is the game you’ll be getting on launch day.
 
Holy crap, that's hideous. It's not even a question of style. It's just bad.

Edit: Thought just occurred to me, but this might be like DA:I's plastic helmet hair, where lower quality settings were "textured up" after release. Still hate to see that, but it wouldn't be the first time an EA property did something like this.
 
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My guess is the people were stretched too thin. This is a large game and animation can take a ton of work. My guess is they automated as much as they could to fill in the gaps and were understaffed to save money. In older games this was less of an issue because the fidelity didn't throw you off the way increasingly better graphics can now.
 
Yep, saw this coming from miles away. Fucking Half-Life 2 does facial animations better than this 2017 title.

tetris42 said:
My guess is the people were stretched too thin. This is a large game and animation can take a ton of work. My guess is they automated as much as they could to fill in the gaps and were understaffed to save money. In older games this was less of an issue because the fidelity didn't throw you off the way increasingly better graphics can now.
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The original series did a much better job of facial animations and gestures. Bioware has always been known for their close up cut scenes and excellent dialogue/facial expressions. For them to just automate it for this one is a slap in the face to fans of the series.
 
It's still significantly better than the last Deus Ex which mysteriously got a pass from reviewers...
 
It does look bad.... i haven't beat ME2 yet... and im still looking forward to this game, we will see what the reviews are like. Might be a bargan bin title for me.
 
Domingo said:
It's still significantly better than the last Deus Ex which mysteriously got a pass from reviewers...
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Yeah the Deus Ex engine they've been using is pretty horribly outdated. The reason I love it so much is it just triggers nostalgia for me as Deus Ex is one of my top 10 favorite games and they didn't change the formula up too much.
 
Bad animation and a fuckton of jankiness aside the game is still fun. Like most modern RPGs the writing is hit or miss as well as the acting. I'll still enjoy most of it.
 
NickJames said:
Yeah the Deus Ex engine they've been using is pretty horribly outdated. The reason I love it so much is it just triggers nostalgia for me as Deus Ex is one of my top 10 favorite games and they didn't change the formula up too much.
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This will be the same for me as long as it is fun to play. Mass Effect 1 is still one of my favorite games of all time despite the terrible inventory system and animations that were good for the time but just as laughable as these nowadays. I love boundry pushing graphics as much as the next person, but a fun game that looks terrible is a lot more enjoyable to me than a beautiful game that has no substance to it.
 
Im one of the biggest ME fans around but Andromeda hasnt caught my interest.

Im pretty sure that if I had to pick greatest game of all time on any system Id have to give ME2 serious consideration. Andromeda doesnt look to come anywhere close.
 
Cobra said:
This will be the same for me as long as it is fun to play. Mass Effect 1 is still one of my favorite games of all time despite the terrible inventory system and animations that were good for the time but just as laughable as these nowadays. I love boundry pushing graphics as much as the next person, but a fun game that looks terrible is a lot more enjoyable to me than a beautiful game that has no substance to it.
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I agree but to me Mass Effect was 60% Story, 30% Visuals, 10% Gameplay. Now it seems they flipped the formula around. If the story is good I'll probably still play it, I just hope they didn't fuck up that aspect.
 
NickJames said:
I agree but to me Mass Effect was 60% Story, 30% Visuals, 10% Gameplay. Now it seems they flipped the formula around. If the story is good I'll probably still play it, I just hope they didn't fuck up that aspect.
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I agree with this 100%! I want a compelling story worthy of Mass Effect. Give me that and I don't care if the graphics/gameplay look like the original Deus Ex from 2000.
 
Sadly, Bioware went to shit after EA bought it mid development into SWTOR. I was at ground zero for the fall out during that game, when they fired almost all the staff and ran off the 2 founders of BioWare (one retired, the other quit to start a new venture after what EA did to the original vision of the game).

SWTOR ended up something that could have been great, did make some mistakes with the original crew but they cared about their fans. The new people were nothing more than crap, and their "community manager" Eric Musco was a grade A asshat who once blamed every single forum poster for the actions of a lone nutjob who stalked a dev and his family, and said the actions of that one guy are why they don't talk to their own gaming community like other MMO devs do.

So, given I saw first hand what EA does to games and publishers, its no surprise to me that ME:A is a shit show. all the quality already left the studio. And the good name BioWare built up with Dragon Age and Knights of the Old Republic is now long gone. Makes me even happier though that Projekt Red keeps telling EA to go fuck themselves when they come around trying to buy up that studio - Projekt Red is essentially this generation's BioWare; their spiritual successor.
 
hmm, the visuals don't seem very engrossing at all. Might wait to get this to see what it looks like live
 
The Lazy Town puppets are better animated. This is atrocious, definitely waiting for the bargain bin.
 
Seventyfive said:
CD Project Red - 370 employees
Bioware - 800 employees

WTF is going on at Bioware other than a bunch of employees not having enough time to work because they're circle jerking it to pro SJW memes?
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There is Bioware (Edmonton), then there are the various other studios which EA named after them (Austin, San Francisco). Many of these have since closed. Currently it mainly comprises of Edmonton (making an unannounced title) and Montreal (ME3 MP, ME:A).
 
Zion Halcyon said:
Sadly, Bioware went to shit after EA bought it mid development into SWTOR. I was at ground zero for the fall out during that game, when they fired almost all the staff and ran off the 2 founders of BioWare (one retired, the other quit to start a new venture after what EA did to the original vision of the game).

SWTOR ended up something that could have been great, did make some mistakes with the original crew but they cared about their fans. The new people were nothing more than crap, and their "community manager" Eric Musco was a grade A asshat who once blamed every single forum poster for the actions of a lone nutjob who stalked a dev and his family, and said the actions of that one guy are why they don't talk to their own gaming community like other MMO devs do.

So, given I saw first hand what EA does to games and publishers, its no surprise to me that ME:A is a shit show. all the quality already left the studio. And the good name BioWare built up with Dragon Age and Knights of the Old Republic is now long gone. Makes me even happier though that Projekt Red keeps telling EA to go fuck themselves when they come around trying to buy up that studio - Projekt Red is essentially this generation's BioWare; their spiritual successor.
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EA and Activision are destroyer of game developers. Its like when manga artists get picked up by big publishers and suddenly the story they crafted out of love becomes a work obsession and they're expected to turn out 10x the content so they hire a bunch of cheap artists to fill in the time gaps of good content and eventually the whole thing just falls apart until it's no longer a cash cow worth milking so they finish it with a half assed ending.
 
Just watched it with the sound off here at work. All I could think of is: "mememememememememememememe... mememememememememememememe.... memememe..."

 
It made me laugh its that bad, I suppose there is that.
But wtf?
 
The game is probably still pretty enjoyable I would think based on other footage. The animation is a definite downgrade though, and there is something about all of the characters that I've seen so far that make me dislike them before I even play the game. They don't look like seasoned space travelers to me. More like... ... I don't know... game media reporters or something. :D "Here we are, live at the Citadel for this year's E3!!"
 
Flogger23m said:
There is Bioware (Edmonton), then there are the various other studios which EA named after them (Austin, San Francisco). Many of these have since closed. Currently it mainly comprises of Edmonton (making an unannounced title) and Montreal (ME3 MP, ME:A).
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What about Austin? SWTOR is based out of there and is still active.
 
J3RK said:
The game is probably still pretty enjoyable I would think based on other footage. The animation is a definite downgrade though, and there is something about all of the characters that I've seen so far that make me dislike them before I even play the game. They don't look like seasoned space travelers to me. More like... ... I don't know... game media reporters or something. :D "Here we are, live at the Citadel for this year's E3!!"
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The early review i saw so far wasn't that impressed with it.... https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/03/14/mass-effect-andromeda-review-opening-hours/

Then again it's RPS so take it with a grain of salt.
 
Game is a lot of fun and has some impressive visuals. Sure, it's not perfect, but I would still pay full retail for it.
 
Seventyfive said:
CD Project Red - 370 employees
Bioware - 800 employees

WTF is going on at Bioware other than a bunch of employees not having enough time to work because they're circle jerking it to pro SJW memes?
Click to expand...

And here I thought we could have a thread that didn't contain political trolling. Silly me.
 
Domingo said:
It's still significantly better than the last Deus Ex which mysteriously got a pass from reviewers...
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I think that the facial animations in Mankind Divided were slightly worse than this but it looks like all the animations in this are bad as well as the voice acting based on that clip. Bioware games have also always been heavy with dialogue so even if it's just cut scene animations that are off you're still likely to encounter it more.
 
Plot Twist -- all the money and time was diverted to make a hyper real, fully accurate, 8k, VR ready space orgy with humans and aliens.

Double Plot Twist -- it's 30s long, the aliens are androgynous and the humans are partially clothed.
 
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I just watched a couple youtube vids on character creation. If you don't like the default, make your own. Some of the choices I saw were.... interesting.
 
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