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

NickJames said:
Yep, saw this coming from miles away. Fucking Half-Life 2 does facial animations better than this 2017 title.
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.
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Have to say the same. I've been thinking that ME 1 and 2 deserve a replay because I really enjoyed how well the characters and aliens were 'fleshed out' in their animation as well as back stories. I never played ME3 because of all the bad reviews and plus it was an Origin game and I stick to Steam and GOG.

One thing I liked about the ME series was you could make your character Shepard as pretty or UGLY and looking like completely different people, not a Elven fair or scarred up version of the same person. My Shepard looked beat up and battle hardened; and yet steely eyed and wise. He Wasn't a pretty boy by any means.
 
So far I'm enjoying the trial overall. Yes, lip syncing and animations are pretty disappointing, though not quite Bethesda bad. I'm more pissed off by the character creator. Especially for the female Ryder.
It's pretty impossible to get something remotely pleasant to look at.
You pretty much have to pick preset 9 and try to make the most of it.
Here are the other options:
vrKISeR.jpg

I mean, literal WTF? Preset 1 Asian not too bad, but other than that?

As far as the writing goes,I haven't been blown away by it, and there's some cringe, but overall I haven't had too many moments of being pulled out of the story by poor writing.
 
Was anyone really surprised? I mean really? This has EA written all over it.
 
If this is your reason to not play the game ... I'm not sure you were ever really interest in it, at all.
 
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I'll wait for a service pack.
No point spoiling it.
 
Ebernanut said:
DA:O was mostly finished when they bought Bioware but they still managed to mess it up some by DLCing the crap out of it. There was the Shale DLC that they stripped out of the game(then included a code for first time buyers) as part of EA's efforts to get a cut of used sales and the worst was that damn Levi character they put in your camp with a mission marker over his head to shill the day 1 DLC that was likely(though not obviously) cut from the main game too.

It's one of my favorite games of all time but let's not pretend that EA didn't manage to make it worse in the short time they were involved.
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Shit yeah. I didn't bother with DLC the first time I played it, but later I bought the GOTY editions from GoG. The DLC is a shitty cash grab, it is so poorly integrated into the game, that I suggest any new player turn it ALL OFF. The only exception is Shale(Stone Prisoner?), that seems to be the one piece designed before EA took over.
 
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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CDPR has only released Witcher 1, I mean 2 no wait 3...ah hell a very similar game and for some reason the last one was popular despite being a complete repeat with horrible side mission system. I loved Witcher 1, 2 felt kinda same same but different, 3 was a heyyyyy I've played you!

Bioware has at least attempted multiple genres and had quite a few successes with a few.
 
^ Just imagine the last copy of this game is on that ssd... happy times
 
All the females have butter faces. Female shepard from me1-3 was a lot hotter than this pathfinder.
I noticed that i haven't seen male pathfinder animations. Are they just as bad?

I have a feeling they reused the same engine from me3 and the same artwork, they just didn't spend enough time playing around with the engine to get the animations correct.

They can probably patch slightly better facials in the future.
 
shad0w4life said:
CDPR has only released Witcher 1, I mean 2 no wait 3...ah hell a very similar game and for some reason the last one was popular despite being a complete repeat with horrible side mission system. I loved Witcher 1, 2 felt kinda same same but different, 3 was a heyyyyy I've played you!

Bioware has at least attempted multiple genres and had quite a few successes with a few.
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What Bioware game has not been an RPG?

Best arguement that can be made is Bioware does ARPG and CRPG but its been a long time since they did a CRPG.

All Bioware games are structually pretty similar, only real change has been engine driven. Time period and subject matter have really only been a paint coat applied to xyz engine.

Plus one studio is much bigger, and the other makes a much better product imo.
 
Megalith said:
I think this is now a $20 or $30 title for me.
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Any time I see this shit, it boggles my mind. The way you've phrased it makes it read like poor facial animation alone drops the value of the game by $30-$40 to you. A game that will probably give 50-100 hours on a thorough play though, and you derive half of its value from the facial animations?

I'm not saying the animations are acceptable, but for fucks sake, it's not like it ruins the game play or story. It doesn't make it any shorter or and less fun to play. If you don't like the story, or the gameplay, or it has technical issues on your rig or something, that's a solid reason to wait for half price. But because the mouths are a little wonky? How damn picky can you be?
 
Viper87227 said:
Any time I see this shit, it boggles my mind. The way you've phrased it makes it read like poor facial animation alone drops the value of the game by $30-$40 to you. A game that will probably give 50-100 hours on a thorough play though, and you derive half of its value from the facial animations?

I'm not saying the animations are acceptable, but for fucks sake, it's not like it ruins the game play or story. It doesn't make it any shorter or and less fun to play. If you don't like the story, or the gameplay, or it has technical issues on your rig or something, that's a solid reason to wait for half price. But because the mouths are a little wonky? How damn picky can you be?
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I can't really say i agree or disagree. There's a certain level of quality people expect in premium games. One would also expect that the quality improves over time and things that have been perfected/improved in other games would be the standard going forward.
I'm buying it because it's a space opera fps, and i really like that genre (and there's not enough games in this genre). Am i happy about how they shoveled out crap animation? nope. It's not a deal breaker for me, the story is a lot more important. However for some people, it is really important, and especially important not to reward studios that don't try and at least adhere to what's considered quality.
 
SuicideKing said:
So far I'm enjoying the trial overall. Yes, lip syncing and animations are pretty disappointing, though not quite Bethesda bad. I'm more pissed off by the character creator. Especially for the female Ryder.
It's pretty impossible to get something remotely pleasant to look at.
You pretty much have to pick preset 9 and try to make the most of it.
Here are the other options:
vrKISeR.jpg

I mean, literal WTF? Preset 1 Asian not too bad, but other than that?

As far as the writing goes,I haven't been blown away by it, and there's some cringe, but overall I haven't had too many moments of being pulled out of the story by poor writing.
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Yeah the character creation system seems a completely halfassed bullshit. Hell, you can't even change eyebrows (or get rid of them if you so fancy), your only option is to pick a preset with general shape you like best and start customising from that. I was right now watching one of my favourite Twitch streamers playing this game and their tradition has always been making a character that looks like a disfigured human-duck and have a whole narrative built around it from game to game (duck lineage). Even if you went crazy with your settings the result is still somehow an ordinary human being. Actually Dragon Age 2 suffered from the same, not enough options and range in sliders. Why did they not keep the character creator from Inquisition? That was very flexible and you could make your character a beauty or a hilarious monster.
 
Hypergreatthing said:
I can't really say i agree or disagree. There's a certain level of quality people expect in premium games. One would also expect that the quality improves over time and things that have been perfected/improved in other games would be the standard going forward.
I'm buying it because it's a space opera fps, and i really like that genre (and there's not enough games in this genre). Am i happy about how they shoveled out crap animation? nope. It's not a deal breaker for me, the story is a lot more important. However for some people, it is really important, and especially important not to reward studios that don't try and at least adhere to what's considered quality.
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I agree with everyone that it's a step backward, and it shouldn't be the way it is. I just can't fathom how that factor alone could devalue a game by half. If you've got another issue(s) with the game, or you we're only mildly interested in the game to begin with, that's fine. But then don't act like the poor facial animations are the sole factor.
 
Animation takes ALOT of time and effort.

When Bioware was making the first Mass Effect game, they had no idea as to it's success, and so naturally, as with any seminal project, everyone REALLY gave it their all. That's single-handedly why ME1 has superior animation. More time and passion was invested. Now take a modern Bioware with EA looking over everyone's shoulders and it's easy to understand why the passion to animate to the nth degree is no longer there at Bioware.

You should realise that motion capture only merely gets you started on a particular animation.
 
spine said:
Animation takes ALOT of time and effort.

When Bioware was making the first Mass Effect game, they had no idea as to it's success, and so naturally, as with any seminal project, everyone REALLY gave it their all. That's single-handedly why ME1 has superior animation. More time and passion was invested. Now take a modern Bioware with EA looking over everyone's shoulders and it's easy to understand why the passion to animate to the nth degree is no longer there at Bioware.

You should realise that motion capture only merely gets you started on a particular animation.
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Though even the snips I see online, the voice acting seems very generic and emotionless. Might have to try it out myself. At least they weren't lazy and farcry primal'd it with all subtitles lol
 
Aireoth said:
Ok, no one has said it yet... why does the Salarian look like it has joker makeup on its lips?

Good luck to those that preordered, after ME3 and DA2 I'll never preorder a bioware game again.
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make the female character unappealing and everyone loses their minds.

paint the Salarian like the joker and nobody notices.
 
NeoNemesis said:
You're looking at things through rose coloured glasses.

DA:O was good, but it's spiritual predecessor, NWN, was mediocre. While I might get flack for this, Jade Empire was also lacklustre compared to Bioware's other offerings.

Bioware just built up some much good will with BGI&II and KoTOR that people were willing to overlook the failings of their other series until EA snapped them up. Then, suddenly, every misstep became EA's fault.
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How old is Jade Empire?!? You know what, Doom had pretty bad facial animations now that I remember.
 
After the shit storm of ME2/3, was there really any "high" expectation for this sequel?

I literally had a friend from the studio offer me a copy for $10 and I don't think I'd even pay that much now I'm seeing all this mess.
 
Viper87227 said:
I agree with everyone that it's a step backward, and it shouldn't be the way it is. I just can't fathom how that factor alone could devalue a game by half. If you've got another issue(s) with the game, or you we're only mildly interested in the game to begin with, that's fine. But then don't act like the poor facial animations are the sole factor.
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I'm one ofthe biggest fans of the Mass Effect trilogy I finished the 3 games 20 times at least between them. But I already regret pre-ordering this. And I haven't even seen it. The female characters are atrocious, and those animations are atrocious. I'm literally taken aback by it. This shit can break immersion in an instant. It's not just bad, it's right in the uncanny valley. I fucking hate the uncanny valley it weirds me the fuck out.

I mean how is it that I haven't seen a single good looking character in the game so far? Not even speaking beautiful, I'm talking slightly better than cronenberg creatures.
 
Viper87227 said:
I'm not saying the animations are acceptable, but for fucks sake, it's not like it ruins the game play or story. It doesn't make it any shorter or and less fun to play. If you don't like the story, or the gameplay, or it has technical issues on your rig or something, that's a solid reason to wait for half price. But because the mouths are a little wonky? How damn picky can you be?
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You're watching characters talking and their hands are floating, facing the wrong way, or just being extremely odd looking. Immersion gone. IMO that directly effects the story. And on the story side, the gameplay shown has already been critiqued for a not-great storyline + writing. So that's part of the justification for not buying. Gameplay... personally I quit the game at ME2, because it stopped being an RPG; and from what I've read this is even less like an RPG than ME3 was.

Sounds like a $20 at that point, even if you're a fan of the series.
 
Stiler said:
https://my.mixtape.moe/fbvjpx.mp4


I think the issue with ME: A is simple, for those who don't know this is the first game being developed by EA Montreal. ME1-3 were done by the main Bioware studio, EA Edmonton.

Also the lead writer was new to Bioware as well, Chris Schlerf (He did Halo 4) wrote ME: A. He left last year....

What's sad is that they got the lead writer of ME back last year but put him to task working on SW: TOR instead of fixing up/adding to ME: A.

On top of all of this it doesn't seem like the dev team are as familiar with the Frostbite engine, because it looks NO WHERE near as good as what Dice did with it on BF1/Battlefront or even what Bioware Edmonton did with DA: I. The animation quality literally looks like they took inspiration from Bethesda of all people, wooden characters, terrible facial animation/models. Literally playing through ME3 currently to get ready for ME: A and looking at these videos I think the original games had better facial animation. Hell even Half life 2 from 2004 does this better.

There's really no excuse for a AAA developer backed by a huge publisher like EA to look like this. I mean take this:


That legit looks like something you'd see in a Steam Greenlight game, the writing is terrible, the voice work sounds like it's a first-take and the faces look like something from a nightmare.
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OMG what's up with her eyes darting back and forth to nowhere. What wrong with her face? Who taught her how to put makeup on? Her mouth...
 
SuicideKing said:
So far I'm enjoying the trial overall. Yes, lip syncing and animations are pretty disappointing, though not quite Bethesda bad. I'm more pissed off by the character creator. Especially for the female Ryder.
It's pretty impossible to get something remotely pleasant to look at.
You pretty much have to pick preset 9 and try to make the most of it.
Here are the other options:
vrKISeR.jpg

I mean, literal WTF? Preset 1 Asian not too bad, but other than that?

As far as the writing goes,I haven't been blown away by it, and there's some cringe, but overall I haven't had too many moments of being pulled out of the story by poor writing.
Click to expand...


WTF is right... WTF. The eyes... all dead inside.
 
It looks like they imported the free version of Fuse into the game. The same version I can pick up off Steam, & they use it for the human configurator. The must've put all of the artists and designers experienced with Frostbite into the alien races and the new staff on the humans, pathing, & scripting. The script is cheesy too, like Twilight level of cheese.

The more I think of it the more I convince myself they must've brought in kids right out of school to do half the work (& do it cheaper than experienced staff).
 
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Gasaraki_ said:
Don't know what you are talking about. Characters looked fine in that. None of them took a bat to the face.
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What they look like in a jpeg and animations are two different things, if you played that game you'll see it right away the facial animation is completely half assed.
 
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