Mass Effect: Andromeda

Pretty decent write up coming from Kotaku (?!) to be fair.





Five years later, it’s hard to find anyone who’s happy with the results. Mass Effect: Andromeda, released in March 2017, disappointed even the biggest fans of BioWare’s longrunning series. The game was widely pilloried, with critics slamming its uneven writing, frequent bugs, and meme-worthy animations. The PS4 version of Andromeda has a 70% on Metacritic, lower than any BioWare game to date, including the ill-advised Sonic Chronicles

I love the game. Sue me. So do plenty of other people regardless of how many troll crap thread "reviews" hit metacritic. That's an all but worthless litmus.



And, even if the problems were a little exaggerated by the internet’s strange passion for hating BioWare

An amazing understatement. It's some sort of insanity. "Oh noes! EA Ware!"

I've never seen anything quite like it. They make a few mistakes and even after they move heaven and Earth to fix those mistakes it's no use.

I even saw corners of the Internet openly state that Bioware was "marked for death" for whatever the next game was they put out which ended up being ME:A.

Why?

I can name a number of outfits that get away with murder and see far less even under EA's own umbrella.
 
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Pretty decent write up coming from Kotaku (?!) to be fair.







I love the game. Sue me. So do plenty of other people regardless of how many troll crap thread "reviews" hit metacritic. That's an all but worthless litmus.





An amazing understatement. It's some sort of insanity. "Oh noes! EA Ware!"

I've never seen anything quite like it. They make a few mistakes and even after they move heaven and Earth to fix those mistakes it's no use.

I even saw corners of the Internet openly state that Bioware was "marked for death" for whatever the next game was they put out which ended up being ME:A.

Why?

I can name a number of outfits that get away with murder and see far less even under EA's own umbrella.

Studios don't like risk, and when they take a risk and it backfires they go back to churning out safe cheap profit making titles. Andromeda was a huge risk switching to Frostbite, they should've known the engine was going to be rough to work with and take time to get it right. Once the story and gameplay elements were locked down they should've taken another 6 months to clean up the animation. They knew all this towards their deadline and still decided to put an unpolished game. They deserved all the hate they got in my opinion. Lessons are hopefully learned and maybe one day they'll go back and get it right. Unfortunately because of the way these major publishers work we may never see another Mass Effect again. I am on my playthrough of ME3 after burning through all 3 games in the last couple of weeks and finally going to buy Andromeda possibly next weekend.
 
I'm not having issues with HDR. I stopped updating the NVIDIA drivers once they broke HDR with Mass Effect.
I'm not having any HDR issues on the latest driver, but I'm still on Windows 10 1607. As far as I know, HDR is only messed up on the desktop in 1703 anyway.
 
Studios don't like risk, and when they take a risk and it backfires they go back to churning out safe cheap profit making titles. Andromeda was a huge risk switching to Frostbite, they should've known the engine was going to be rough to work with and take time to get it right. Once the story and gameplay elements were locked down they should've taken another 6 months to clean up the animation. They knew all this towards their deadline and still decided to put an unpolished game. They deserved all the hate they got in my opinion. Lessons are hopefully learned and maybe one day they'll go back and get it right. Unfortunately because of the way these major publishers work we may never see another Mass Effect again. I am on my playthrough of ME3 after burning through all 3 games in the last couple of weeks and finally going to buy Andromeda possibly next weekend.
No, sure the game had some shortcomings, but deserved all the hate? That's fucking bullshit. And if you haven't yet played the game then how you're even fit to judge that?
As already stated others get away with far worse all the time and they don't get half the hate, what half 10 percent of it. The animations are shit in andromeda? The characters are shit in andromeda? Man look at any Bethesda rpg, and everything in it becomes a masterpiece.

Animations wise the few exceptions with weird facial expressions were taken out of context and presented as if that was the norm everywhere trough the game.

To me the game feels polished, more so than the average title that gets released. So that's an unfair judgement as well. That it would be unpolished. Many glitches and bugs are a direct result of the frostshit engine, that were already present in da:I which got zero flack for it, how is that fair now?
 
No, sure the game had some shortcomings, but deserved all the hate? That's fucking bullshit. And if you haven't yet played the game then how you're even fit to judge that?
As already stated others get away with far worse all the time and they don't get half the hate, what half 10 percent of it. The animations are shit in andromeda? The characters are shit in andromeda? Man look at any Bethesda rpg, and everything in it becomes a masterpiece.

Animations wise the few exceptions with weird facial expressions were taken out of context and presented as if that was the norm everywhere trough the game.

To me the game feels polished, more so than the average title that gets released. So that's an unfair judgement as well. That it would be unpolished. Many glitches and bugs are a direct result of the frostshit engine, that were already present in da:I which got zero flack for it, how is that fair now?

Sorry, didn't realize I had to spend money to watch youtube videos. From what I was able to deduct the animation are/were shit.

A 40 minute compilation may be out of context but it certainly didn't help. Do you think there's some sort of anti-Mass Effect Illuminati going around trying to sabotage the game? Mass Effect is a well beloved series and the fans just didn't want to see it taken apart and turned into some shitty money milking machine.

More polished than the shit I see on steam now a days? Sure. But Mass Effect fans expected more, we wanted a true Mass Effect successor. Looking at Dragon Age Inquisition videos, it looks ok, the animations are surely much better than whatever Andromeda put out, I didn't care for the gameplay elements. I believe if they would've polished it up then they probably could've achieved their 80% Metacritic goal. I mean, even the top review sites didn't give Andromeda rave reviews so something else must be the issue and it's not the public.
 
No, sure the game had some shortcomings, but deserved all the hate? That's fucking bullshit. And if you haven't yet played the game then how you're even fit to judge that?
As already stated others get away with far worse all the time and they don't get half the hate, what half 10 percent of it. The animations are shit in andromeda? The characters are shit in andromeda? Man look at any Bethesda rpg, and everything in it becomes a masterpiece.

Animations wise the few exceptions with weird facial expressions were taken out of context and presented as if that was the norm everywhere trough the game.

To me the game feels polished, more so than the average title that gets released. So that's an unfair judgement as well. That it would be unpolished. Many glitches and bugs are a direct result of the frostshit engine, that were already present in da:I which got zero flack for it, how is that fair now?

Don't try to excuse the facial animations by saying the videos took them out of context. Every. Single. Human. No human character in the game had good facial animation. The state the game launched in was unacceptable for a AAA title and especially from Bioware. DA: I got a ton of flack, but it had a lot bigger problems than wonky animation. DA: I was a disaster in it's own right at launch and it got, well deserved, shit for how poor the PC version was initially. ME: A isn't a Bethesda game. It isn't an "average title". It is a game from Bioware and from a series that many people call some of the best games of the last decades and one of the best video game trilogies ever. Even with all of ME3's faults I'd still rank it as one of the better games in the last several years. ME: A though? Eh, it's okay. Aside from the abysmal launch animation, I don't really have strong feelings about the game one way or the other. The plot is worthless, the gameplay is fun, most of the characters have little to no impact, the writing is acceptable, it looks pretty, the quests exist, planet exploration is fun. It actually feels a lot more like a Bethesda game then a Bioware game, just with a lot less bugs and better voice acting.
 
I played the preview (multiplayer only) and started single player day one. The facial shaders were out of wack, the animation was easy to trip up / bug out, and the character creation was... strange (mostly due to that facial shader issue). Shader is fixed, the animation is much harder to freak out, and I have had exactly one crash (of the sound in multiplayer) so far. It's not a 9/10 game, but it's also nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be. I will always think the animation glitches were on purpose, I can't consistently cause them even on purpose (and less now that's it's been patched).

You will get out of this game what you want. If you want a Mass Effect universe game, it's there. If you want a strawman to pin your rage on, it's there.
 
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Sorry, didn't realize I had to spend money to watch youtube videos. From what I was able to deduct the animation are/were shit.

A 40 minute compilation may be out of context but it certainly didn't help. Do you think there's some sort of anti-Mass Effect Illuminati going around trying to sabotage the game? Mass Effect is a well beloved series and the fans just didn't want to see it taken apart and turned into some shitty money milking machine.

More polished than the shit I see on steam now a days? Sure. But Mass Effect fans expected more, we wanted a true Mass Effect successor. Looking at Dragon Age Inquisition videos, it looks ok, the animations are surely much better than whatever Andromeda put out, I didn't care for the gameplay elements. I believe if they would've polished it up then they probably could've achieved their 80% Metacritic goal. I mean, even the top review sites didn't give Andromeda rave reviews so something else must be the issue and it's not the public.

No you're not sorry, you're just being obnoxious. That's exactly my problem you can't judge the game by watching youtube videos exploiting the errors in animations to get views. I didn't say there were no problems with animations. I said that's not the rule, that's the exception to the rule.

The point is all the facial animations in bethesda rpgs are shit more than shit, non-existent almost. Yet nobody flings shit at those games, they're all beloved games. Mass Effect is not taken apart, Andromeda is a very good game. The fact that you'd rather judge it trough what others say about it than make up your own mind is the root of the problem. That's what caused the shitstorm in the first place. I almost wrote off the game myself, but by the time the shitstorm started I already pre-ordered the game. Thankfully I might add, because it is a great game that I wouldn't have wanted to miss. But I'd have if I listened to what they were saying.

I am a Mass Effect fan. Yes it's very different than the previous games. But is it the awful shit they make it out to be? Not at all. Now you can stand there and argue without even playing the game but I think it is pointless. I don't give two shits about "top review sites" they have reputations to uphold, they won't tell it as it is, they'll tell it as you want to hear it. I'd sooner believe a non-prominent reviewer than a huge site with millions of followers. By the time reviews came out the consensus was already there "MEA is shit" going against that if you're a huge youtuber or reviewer, would most certainly have meant thousands if not tens of thousands of butthurt fanboys.

Liking ME:A on youtube is like being against brexit. They'll both earn you terrible ratings.

I've been around for long enough to know the saying "one fool makes a hundred" is rooted in reality.
 
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I played the preview (multiplayer only) and started single player day one. The facial shaders were out of wack, the animation was easy to trip up / bug out, and the character creation was... strange (mostly due to that facial shader issue). Shader is fixed, the animation is much harder to freak out, and I have had exactly one crash (of the sound in multiplayer) so far. It's not a 9/10 game, but it's also nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be. I will always think the animation glitches were on purpose, I can't consistently cause them even on purpose (and less now that's it's been patched).

You will get out of this game what you want. If you want a Mass Effect universe game, it's there. If you want a strawman to pin your rage on, it's there.
It certainly is not a 9/10 game. Even I gave it 7/10. But what they make it out to be is a 2/10. And that's absolutely ridiculous.
 
No you're not sorry, you're just being obnoxious. That's exactly my problem you can't judge the game by watching youtube videos exploiting the errors in animations to get views. I didn't say there were no problems with animations. I said that's not the rule, that's the exception to the rule.

The point is all the facial animations in bethesda rpgs are shit more than shit, non-existent almost. Yet nobody flings shit at those games, they're all beloved games. Mass Effect is not taken apart, Andromeda is a very good game. The fact that you'd rather judge it trough what others say about it than make up your own mind is the root of the problem. That's what caused the shitstorm in the first place. I almost wrote off the game myself, but by the time the shitstorm started I already pre-ordered the game. Thankfully I might add, because it is a great game that I wouldn't have wanted to miss. But I'd have if I listened to what they were saying.

I am a Mass Effect fan. Yes it's very different than the previous games. But is it the awful shit they make it out to be? Not at all. Now you can stand there and argue without even playing the game but I think it is pointless. I don't give two shits about "top review sites" they have reputations to uphold, they won't tell it as it is, they'll tell it as you want it to hear it. I'd sooner believe a non-prominent reviewer than a huge site with millions of followers. By the time reviews came out the consensus was already there "MEA is shit" going against that if you're a huge youtuber or reviewer, would most certainly have meant thousands if not tens of thousands of butthurt fanboys.

I can see what I am dealing with here so I am just going to say, try taking off the rose(blood?) tinted glasses. No one has said the game is complete shit. It's average at best. I don't know why you're attacking everyone as if they just took a shit in your Wheaties when they have anything negative to say.
 
I can see what I am dealing with here so I am just going to say, try taking off the rose(blood?) tinted glasses. No one has said the game is complete shit. It's average at best. I don't know why you're attacking everyone as if they just took a shit in your Wheaties when they have anything negative to say.
Where did I attack you? I just said you were being obnoxious. When you start a sentence with "sorry," or "with all due respect" we all mean go to hell in reality :D

No you just said the animations were shit, which is also not entirely true. And saying average still doesn't do it justice. If it was average then there should be tons of better games out there by Q2, but I'm not really seeing the stream of games better than ME:A There is at least one though. The very definition of average is that there should be just as many better as worse games released.

I started playing ME:A directly after / during playing ME3. And becuase of the shitstorm I statred looking at animations in ME3 like a hawk, and there were glitches there as well. And no less than in ME:A I might add.
 
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I am a Mass Effect fan. Yes it's very different than the previous games. But is it the awful shit they make it out to be? Not at all. Now you can stand there and argue without even playing the game but I think it is pointless. I don't give two shits about "top review sites" they have reputations to uphold, they won't tell it as it is, they'll tell it as you want to hear it. I'd sooner believe a non-prominent reviewer than a huge site with millions of followers. By the time reviews came out the consensus was already there "MEA is shit" going against that if you're a huge youtuber or reviewer, would most certainly have meant thousands if not tens of thousands of butthurt fanboys

I think you're exaggerating to make your point...most of the people complaining about the game are not saying it's 1/10...most agree it's a decent game maybe a 6 or 7...the problems lie not just in the animations, those could easily be overlooked if the story and gameplay were amazing or anything close to the previous series highs...take a beloved franchise and not only mess it up with lots of bugs and technical issues but also dumb down the dialogue and story and you have the makings of a 7/10...plus you add BioWare to the mix who used to be known as one of the best developers out there especially when it comes to dialogue and you're left with Andromeda in its current state

show me all these reputable sites which gave the game a 2/10...stop exaggerating your posts...it makes you sound too much like a fanboy and not an impartial observer
 
The ending of mass effect 3 fucked up the franchise. If this was an unrelated game it probably would not get such hate. Yes, the animations sucked. They made the highlight reels but they were a small part of the game. For what it did it was pretty damn good.
 
I think you're exaggerating to make your point...most of the people complaining about the game are not saying it's 1/10...most agree it's a decent game maybe a 6 or 7...the problems lie not just in the animations, those could easily be overlooked if the story and gameplay were amazing or anything close to the previous series highs...take a beloved franchise and not only mess it up with lots of bugs and technical issues but also dumb down the dialogue and story and you have the makings of a 7/10...plus you add BioWare to the mix who used to be known as one of the best developers out there especially when it comes to dialogue and you're left with Andromeda in its current state

show me all these reputable sites which gave the game a 2/10
Sites started to give so high marks to games to appease fanboys that now even a 7/10 is regarded like a 2/10 . Hell I've seen some idiots frowning at a 8/10 score a few weeks ago. I say a 7/10 is still very good. But when a prominent reviewer gives a game 7/10 it is regarded as a terrible failure.
The story and the gameplay was good IMO. Of course if you expected better than the trilogy then you just set yourself up for a big disappointment with your unrealistic expectations. I think I never expected it to be better, just to be high quality enough. And I think it achieved that. I liked it much more than DA:I's gameplay / story.

The things what I See is that people come in here from time to time and ask if the game is really that bad as it's reputation. And some get angry when you tell them it is actually good, while others are happy that the reputation not really earned.

What I have a problem with is when people tell me based on watching a few youtube videos that I'm an idiot for liking the game. It might not be with those words but that's what it feels like to me. And not just here, or not here at all, but anywhere on the net when I bump into people arguing ME:A's merits and failings.

If you want my honest opinion on the game read my review.
 
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Sites started to give so high marks to games to appease fanboys that now even a 7/10 is regarded like a 2/10 . Hell I've seen some idiots frowning at a 8/10 score a few weeks ago. I say a 7/10 is still very good. But when a prominent reviewer gives a game 7/10 it is regarded as a terrible failure

I agree that a lot of people nowadays only see games as being the greatest or the worst...there is no middle ground...if a game is not a 9 or 10 then it's considered 'bad'...but I like to think that most people are smarter then that and see games for what they are...even if Andromeda is a 7/10 is still seems like a decent game overall...I think a lot of people factor price into the equation as well which makes it about value...was Andromeda worth $60 at launch with all the issues?...no...I think as the price drops you'll see more people equate more value to the game
 
I agree that a lot of people nowadays only see games as being the greatest or the worst...there is no middle ground...if a game is not a 9 or 10 then it's considered 'bad'...but I like to think that most people are smarter then that and see games for what they are...even if Andromeda is a 7/10 is still seems like a decent game overall...I think a lot of people factor price into the equation as well which makes it about value...was Andromeda worth $60 at launch with all the issues?...no...I think as the price drops you'll see more people equate more value to the game
I think no game is worth $60. I paid $40 for it. And it was well worth it. I've been stuck with much worse purchases in recent time. ME:A is one of the few games I'm happy to have purchased.
 
What a nice piece of journalism from what many regard as a rag. Unique perspectives on game development. That comment on Bioware's studios having trouble being spread out while Ubisoft has more employees to deal with the bureaucracy of the distance is really interesting to me.

Ew, kotaku I don't dare read it, is it cringy?


Not a little but a lot, and FULL STOP end of story as far as I'm concerned.

Nothing cringey about it. Its a good read, and as someone else pointed out somewhere else, even through Jason Schreier is a goddamn idiot alot of the time, his journalism is pretty good. Surprisingly. (People never can be just completely good or bad can they)
 
Sites started to give so high marks to games to appease fanboys that now even a 7/10 is regarded like a 2/10 . Hell I've seen some idiots frowning at a 8/10 score a few weeks ago. I say a 7/10 is still very good. But when a prominent reviewer gives a game 7/10 it is regarded as a terrible failure.

I'd wager it has more to do with kowtowing to publishers, who buy ads on their sites, than it does with trying to appears fanatical readers.
 
Kotaku: The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development

Five years later, it’s hard to find anyone who’s happy with the results. Mass Effect: Andromeda, released in March 2017, disappointed even the biggest fans of BioWare’s longrunning series. The game was widely pilloried, with critics slamming its uneven writing, frequent bugs, and meme-worthy animations. The PS4 version of Andromeda has a 70% on Metacritic, lower than any BioWare game to date, including the ill-advised Sonic Chronicles

http://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428

LOL, well, besides the first update that seemed to bork previous thins that IMO were fine, and the mentioned leaving uildings washing out effect (Which I have noticed many times over when it comes to any frostbite engine based game BF BC2-BF3-BF4-DA:I-ME Andromeda) I quite enjoyed this game till to my satisfaction completed the single player, a few quests was unable to complete cause of poor story linking, it not deleting paths not able to do cause of previous quests, have not touched MP might at some point, no rush, got other things to worry about.

But, as far as saying hard to find anyone who is happy with results, do they just talk to upset people, I personally think they did excellent job, there is some issues, yes, but I have very very few qualms about ME:A, fits in with the IP, adds some new things, opens up some old things etc.

I do not have, nor ever plan on ever using again any Nv product, for me is AMD/Radeon and for my ancient 7870 2gb plays very well, at least to my satisfaction, as long watched what settings was/am using, no complaints about the games performance either.
 
I'd wager it has more to do with kowtowing to publishers, who buy ads on their sites, than it does with trying to appears fanatical readers.
Sure you won't get early review copies next time if you slag off their games even if it is warranted. But I think number of loyal viewers / readers is even more important nowadays for ad revenue.
 
I think i need to change my build, I'm having a hard time completing the game due to motivation - I'm on my 5th planet - Kadura? and I think I spent too many points in shotguns and assault rifles and not enough in biotics because I'm just getting extremely bored, the game has made me painfully aware that I'm doing the same thing on planet 5 that I was doing on planet 1.
 
I think i need to change my build, I'm having a hard time completing the game due to motivation - I'm on my 5th planet - Kadura? and I think I spent too many points in shotguns and assault rifles and not enough in biotics because I'm just getting extremely bored, the game has made me painfully aware that I'm doing the same thing on planet 5 that I was doing on planet 1.
YOLO Vanguard is always fun.
 
Sure you won't get early review copies next time if you slag off their games even if it is warranted.

Funny how people always say that and yet there is tons of evidence that publishers still send games to sites despite low scores sometimes. Publishers won't blacklist for giving games a lot score, they'll blacklist for unfair reviews or if they feel the site has a personal vendetta. While there are exceptions to that, publishers face massive backlash when they blacklist publications, especially when its over a fair review. Though, most of the time sites aren't dealing with publishers they deal with outside PR firms hired by publishers.
 
people are raving about the new Character Creator options with the latest patch...seems like you can actually create good looking characters now
 
people are raving about the new Character Creator options with the latest patch...seems like you can actually create good looking characters now

Anybody know where on the tempest we can edit current characters?
 
medbay. enjoy your lilly white skin....
rGGGC1w.png
 
I can see what I am dealing with here so I am just going to say, try taking off the rose(blood?) tinted glasses. No one has said the game is complete shit. It's average at best.

That's not how "rose tinted glasses" work. They are actually what people use to convince themselves the previous Mass Effect games were some sort of flawless masterpieces, the legacy of which has been destroyed by Andromeda. Not once did anyone ever play a Mass Effect game and seriously think "whoa, those facial animations are awesome" or "the characters I can create look so realistic". Certainly no one played ME3 and ever thought "whoa, this story is awesome and that kai leng character is so deep and well-written".

The hate for Andromeda was/is entirely disproportionate to its issues, especially when people try and claim it's nowhere near the standard of the previous games. But then I'm guessing a lot of the people who moan about Andromeda without playing it didn't play those either.
 
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Good news!
I will play this game when it is on deep discount, as I did with the other 3 games and then report on whether or not it meets the standard set by the previous 3 thus settling all arguments concerning this games placement in the pantheon of ME games.

Thank me later. Much later, as it seems it will be a while before I play this.

Your Welcome.
 
I have been playing this a lot and am about 40% or so through the game, but I am already beginning to get bored with it. It's not as bad as some reviews make it out to be, but it's not nearly as good as the first three ME games. I know for some reason I just don't really care what happens to each member of my crew. I think that's where it really differs from the previous ME games. I started to feel some kind of desire to help out the crew by this time in the past games and that helped me keep going but now nothing. I took a few days away from the game and it really didn't help. This might be heading towards my pile of unfinished games.
 
That's not how "rose tinted glasses" work. They are actually what people use to convince themselves the previous Mass Effect games were some sort of flawless masterpieces, the legacy of which has been destroyed by Andromeda. Not once did anyone ever play a Mass Effect game and seriously think "whoa, those facial animations are awesome" or "the characters I can create look so realistic". Certainly no one played ME3 and ever thought "whoa, this story is awesome and that kai leng character is so deep and well-written".

The hate for Andromeda was/is entirely disproportionate to its issues, especially when people try and claim it's nowhere near the standard of the previous games. But then I'm guessing a lot of the people who moan about Andromeda without playing it didn't play those either.

I think it is a bit more than that. For one, Andromeda really did look unfinished on release. the first 3 ME games, for the faults they did have, were complete on launch. Andromeda really had a number of bugs that scream "not enough time in beta/QA". That should, rightly, make people mad. They aren't selling it as Early Access, they are selling it as a release, it should be done.

The second issue is that there really is some graphics stupidity, particularly the female Ryder. I'm sorry but she looks wrong. It isn't just that she isn't pretty (and let's face it, people like pretty main characters in games and movies) it is that her face looks incorrect for a human. It is just shit-tier design work. Particularly compared to the original female Shepard design which was quite well done and looked appropriate for the character. When your main character looks goofy, people are going to react poorly.

The final issue is ME3 itself. It was a real let down in so many way. It did a crap job with the promise of "making all your choices matter" that they promised, had a generally poor story (though it did have some bright points like the A Future for the Krogan arc), and destroyed a loved franchise. As such, this game has to prove itself. It has to be a redemption of sorts. It can't be "just another ME game" because people are wary and distrustful of that. It gets viewed with a harsher lens because of the problems with ME3.

Also consider that there continue to be better and better games out there for it to compete with, including Bioware's own games. Take a look at Dragon Age: Inquisition. That game has some seriously beautiful visuals, pretty good facial animations, solid cutscenes, etc. It was also made by Bioware, and uses Frostbyte, so it is the same platform. Then look at shit like The Witcher 3 that has come out. The bar has been raised. Remember ME1 came out 10 years ago. Look at games that were its contemporaries and it holds up pretty well. You can't judge older titles by current standards. I mean take Deus Ex: If it came out today it would be panned. Never mind the graphics, even assume those were current. The voice acting was crap, the story was ok but not amazing, the game pretended to give you choice but was not very good at it, there were some really stupid mechanics, etc. However it was a great game when it came out in 2000 because of what there was to compare it to.
 
That's not how "rose tinted glasses" work. They are actually what people use to convince themselves the previous Mass Effect games were some sort of flawless masterpieces, the legacy of which has been destroyed by Andromeda. Not once did anyone ever play a Mass Effect game and seriously think "whoa, those facial animations are awesome" or "the characters I can create look so realistic". Certainly no one played ME3 and ever thought "whoa, this story is awesome and that kai leng character is so deep and well-written".

The hate for Andromeda was/is entirely disproportionate to its issues, especially when people try and claim it's nowhere near the standard of the previous games. But then I'm guessing a lot of the people who moan about Andromeda without playing it didn't play those either.

I did, guess I am the minority. For it's time Mass Effect was an amazing looking game, nothing else came close except maybe Half-Life 2.
 
I did, guess I am the minority. For it's time Mass Effect was an amazing looking game, nothing else came close except maybe Half-Life 2.
HL2, was released 5 years before the first mass effect. How is that even a comparison?
HL2 was a technically flawless game.
Mass Effect had tons of flaws. You just don't want to remember them. And it wasn't praised for it's graphics even when it was new. Plus it had the wrost inventory, the tedious combat, and the castrated exploration of empty heightmaps. It re-used the same maps and buildings on almost every away mission. The thing that DA2 was hammered on, yet noone seem to recall the same thing from ME1.

It was made great by the story and characters, and the universe it was set in. Everything else in the game was average at best. And I say that as an avid fan of the series.
 
HL2, was released 5 years before the first mass effect. How is that even a comparison?
HL2 was a technically flawless game.
Mass Effect had tons of flaws. You just don't want to remember them. And it wasn't praised for it's graphics even when it was new. Plus it had the wrost inventory, the tedious combat, and the castrated exploration of empty heightmaps. It re-used the same maps and buildings on almost every away mission. The thing that DA2 was hammered on, yet noone seem to recall the same thing from ME1.

It was made great by the story and characters, and the universe it was set in. Everything else in the game was average at best. And I say that as an avid fan of the series.

Dude, I replayed Mass Effect, 2 weeks ago :| I am not even going to argue with you anymore by the way, it's pretty pointless since you obviously have some sort of vendetta against anyone that says Andromeda is mediocre.
 
Wasn't planning on watching the EA stream since it's all sports and Battlefront (*gag*).
I'll tune in to see if they have any plans for Andromeda. It's also bittersweet, I watched every time the last 3 years or whatever it was, waiting for ME:A news.
 
Dude, I replayed Mass Effect, 2 weeks ago :| I am not even going to argue with you anymore by the way, it's pretty pointless since you obviously have some sort of vendetta against anyone that says Andromeda is mediocre.

But he is right. Poor inventory system, so-so combat, buildings on random planets were all the same few designs, and a number of trigger bugs that prevented progress (checkpoint reset fixed it). I also fell through the floor a few times. Was not a fan of that bug! ME3 got fairly bad to. ME2 was probably the best from a bug perspective, but the dullest of them all. The whole series was far from perfect, but the story and diolgue was really good. ME1 is very memorable because it redefined high quality video game dialogue and story pacing.
 
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But he is right. Poor inventory system, so-so combat, buildings on random planets were all the same few designs, and a number of trigger bugs that prevented progress (checkpoint reset fixed it). I also fell through the floor a few times. Was not a fan. ME3 got fairly bad to. ME2 was probably the best from a bug perspective, but the dullest of them all. The whole series was far from perfect, but the story and diolgue was really good. ME1 is very memorable because it redefined high quality video game dialogue and story pacing.

Except no one is saying the originals were perfect. He just keeps comparing Andromeda to the originals and saying "Look, the originals had problems so Andromeda is much better by comparison." It's a stupid argument.

Also I disagree, ME2 was probably the best of the series overall in my opinion. Although I loved 99% of 3.
 
Dude, I replayed Mass Effect, 2 weeks ago :| I am not even going to argue with you anymore by the way, it's pretty pointless since you obviously have some sort of vendetta against anyone that says Andromeda is mediocre.
I have a vendetta against those who are clearly biased either way. And then you immediately pivot to ME2, when my post was clearly focused on ME1, can you get any more disingenuous?
ME2 is clearly the best game in the series. And one of my all time favourite games. That doesn't mean MEA needs to be judged 10 times as harshly because it had a great predecessor. It needs to be judged against the competition now. If Andromeda is mediocre then what is Prey, Dishonored II, or Mafia 3? Because to me MEA seemed infinitely better than any of those three.
 
Except no one is saying the originals were perfect. He just keeps comparing Andromeda to the originals and saying "Look, the originals had problems so Andromeda is much better by comparison." It's a stupid argument.

Also I disagree, ME2 was probably the best of the series overall in my opinion. Although I loved 99% of 3.
For fuck's sake I'm not saying andromeda is much better than the old games. It's clearly inferior. But still it's not average or mediocre, and definitely not a bad game. It's a very good game, much better than many of the competitive games released recently.
 
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