[Col.Hornet]

jesus christ it's astonishing

lmao. But please mark the spoiler.

GOTY 2017 incoming

https://my.mixtape.moe/meplxn.mp4 

[Aesaar]

I'm looking more and more justified in my total apathy for this thing up until release. There's only so many times I'll put out hope for a company with the EA facehugger on it.

Considering how much freedom Bioware say they get from EA, I'm perfectly willing to say Bioware's recent failures are entirely their own.  A lot of their good writers left around the time ME2 released, Drew Karpyshyn (ME1's lead writer) included.  They did break up the company to work on three different projects at once, after all.

[Spoon]

Look at all of this 150 million mo-cap









wait... wrong thread...

[Phantom Hoover]

i think it's so brave of bioware to put a woman with severe brain damage in their leading role

[Phantom Hoover]

and they have broken new ground in inclusivity by having a cast entirely made up of people with moderate nystagmus

[StarSlayer]

They could always hand wave the whole thing by saying everyone suffered some neurological deterioration during the trip out.

[The E]

And here's RPS' Alec Meer with a bit more positive take on the game.

[MP-Ryan]

Still not inspiring.  Reconsidered my buy-on-release.  Think I'll wait a few days at minimum.

[Turambar]

Still not inspiring.  Reconsidered my buy-on-release.  Think I'll wait a few days at minimum.

I know this is some radical socialism or something, but how about not ever giving money to the people who have taken something amazing and turned it into a corporate game-every-year ****fest?

[MP-Ryan]

Except BioWare's products have not, generally speaking, been turned into a game-every-year ****fest.

Say what you will about ME3's ending, the rest of the game was enjoyable, the writing was well-above average (if not excellent in some places), and the characters remained interesting; to top it off, the combat was vastly improved over earlier editions.  DAI wasn't Origins again, but it wasn't much behind Origins when it came to its plot, characters, and gameplay.  Arguably, the gameplay was better than Origins in some ways.

Mass Effect in particular has always had its ups and downs, and BioWare's plots are commonly the "save the world" variety.  It's not like ME3 drove the series into the ground, as some would argue - look at the plot and mechanics of the first game sometime.  I wouldn't call any iteration of Mass Effect "something amazing."  They're above-average games with generally above-average writing.  BioWare's products have never really been about the compelling nature of the main plot, but rather the story of the characters within it.  If Andromeda's overall experience is on par with the previous ME games, I'll likely pick it up.  If it turns out BioWare completely dropped the ball, then I won't.  Just because some people have a hate on for EA does not make the products its studios produce bad; they succeed or fail on their own merits.

[Phantom Hoover]

Say what you will about ME3's ending, the rest of the game was enjoyable, the writing was well-above average (if not excellent in some places), and the characters remained interesting; to top it off, the combat was vastly improved over earlier editions.

Man this is just not true at all, the main plot was completely fumbled from start to finish, most of the best characters were sidelined because they might have died in ME2, the new characters were pretty boring and the only really great storytelling was the resolution of the Krogan/genophage and Quarian/Geth conflicts inherited from the previous games.

[Ace]

It basically feels like Inquisition, and it's not too bad. Inquisition I came into with the lowest expectations possible though. But the real issue is things feel uneven quality wise. Like there's side characters with meh VA that are put front and center by virtue of how the quests appear to be structured. Some of the various cutscenes also seem overexposed or just not quite as composited as well as say Mass Effect 2. Part of the problem I think is just how they decided to handle the post-processing with Frostbite, there's a lot of kitchen sink thrown at things (chromatic abberation when not needed, etc.).

Overall I think it's fair to be more critical because of the general quality of what CD Projekt did with the Witcher. It's not quite at Bethesda level of uneven but more on that range of the sliding scale.

To go into spoiler territory:

Spoiler:

Honestly there's not a great plot hook. I do like the whole focus on exploration and trying to figure out what is going on and the enemy seeming to be environmental but they needed something like dad-Ryder being abducted by the Archon to give a sense of urgency other than "oh these planets suck and people lost hope! Let's turn on the terraformers!"

Some of the things like "oh yeah exiles" seems a bit ham fisted. Especially when you have the best and brightest selected for a mission and within 14 months society collapses? Seems more like it'd be fitting if say the main station was stranded for 14 years instead of 14 months. I know that they want an excuse to have some humans to shoot at, but it could even be a splinter of militants thinking they're doing the right thing. Anything but space pirate exiles...

[MP-Ryan]

Say what you will about ME3's ending, the rest of the game was enjoyable, the writing was well-above average (if not excellent in some places), and the characters remained interesting; to top it off, the combat was vastly improved over earlier editions.

Man this is just not true at all, the main plot was completely fumbled from start to finish, most of the best characters were sidelined because they might have died in ME2, the new characters were pretty boring and the only really great storytelling was the resolution of the Krogan/genophage and Quarian/Geth conflicts inherited from the previous games.

You're welcome to your opinion.  I disagree.  By no means do I consider ME3 perfect or the best game of the series, but the main plot was no more terrible than that of ME1 or 2.  I still got plenty of discussion out of Liara, Tali, Garrus, not to mention both Joker and EDI, and there were plenty of moments that they shone.  It's a bit of a shame that the best of those characters didn't come out until The Citadel DLC, but ME3 was no worse a Mass Effect game than its predecessors, just different.  The main plots of all three games remain resolutely within the confines of "save the world" RPG quests, and the only real drop in quality in main plot quality in ME3 comes in the last 30 minutes of the game.  There are plenty of other criticisms than can be leveled at all three entries in the trilogy, and yet some people seem to insist that it all fell apart in the third.

[Phantom Hoover]

I really don't see how you can say the main plot of ME3 only fell apart in the last 30 minutes, given that it starts with a Reaper attack on Earth which makes no goddamn sense either as an in-story event or as an impetus to drive the plot, and it then proceeds to rub Kai Leng in your face until you're sweaty and hoarse with rage.

[Phantom Hoover]

You're probably right that it's not worse than ME2's, but ME2 a) had on average better sidequest/character writing, and b) had the luxury of being a middle act so its main plot didn't actually matter that much. ME3's ****ty main plot definitely spoils the experience throughout.

[CP5670]

I agree that ME3 had the best main quest of the series, if you leave aside the last 15 minutes. It was the only one that felt substantial and I like how you went to the homeworlds of all the major species and resolved some long standing issue with each species. ME1's quest was too short and ME2's quest felt inconsequential. The Reapers were only good in ME1 and had already become stupid in ME2, so that wasn't much of a change in ME3.

I'll get Andromeda at some point but definitely not on release, maybe after a few DLCs come out. One issue I was wondering about is the change in the engine. In all of the previous games, the Unreal engine's time compression commands (slomo) were essential in reducing the tedium in running around between places and making the games fun and not boring to play. I hope something like that is possible in Frostbite.

[Aesaar]

I really don't see how you can say the main plot of ME3 only fell apart in the last 30 minutes, given that it starts with a Reaper attack on Earth which makes no goddamn sense either as an in-story event or as an impetus to drive the plot, and it then proceeds to rub Kai Leng in your face until you're sweaty and hoarse with rage.

Listen Kai Leng is an effective villain because he broke into a guy's apartment and ate his cheerios once.

[Phantom Hoover]

more effective villain writing from the bioware team

[Luis Dias]

Me3's bigger plot line is a steaming pile. Let's list the pile.

It starts with the reapers invading Earth. Apparently, they have been pwning the Batarians for months now and no one was wise enough to have some eyes on the situation. Ridiculous.

It has Shepard tell the council they should forgo their own home planets and take everything they have to Earth. We are led to believe the council is inane for being concerned with their own planets first. Ridiculous.

Cerberus is now a military front that has the capability to be everywhere, always with overwhelming numbers. Ridiculous.
It is even able to conquer the Citadel, a feat that required Sovereign a full Geth army. Ridiculous.

Kai Leng. Nuffsaid.

We're building this massive hyper-weapon but we have no idea what it does or how it works until very late in the game. Ridiculous.

There's never a sense of real war: we are never given a sense we can defeat them conventionally, at least in some particular cases (except for Shepard of course, and only the lowly destroyers). So why do all council races still try to defeat them conventionally at every turn? It makes no sense. Only Hackett seems to have some brains here.

Rachni queen. The less said, the better.

Legion. poor legion, burdened with Data's syndrome, shunning ME2's impecable characterization of the Geth.

The Dalatrass refuses to help because she disagrees with your genophage decision. With the whole galaxy's odds at stake, the calculating scientific race decides to bail because the decision may be dangerous after the Reapers. What "after the Reapers"? Ridiculous.

The catalyst.

I'm forgetting a lot.

[Phantom Hoover]

Cerberus is now a military front that has the capability to be everywhere, always with overwhelming numbers. Ridiculous.
It is even able to conquer the Citadel, a feat that required Sovereign a full Geth army. Ridiculous.

It is truly remarkable how Bioware managed with every installment to find a new characterisation of Cerberus that totally contradicted everything from the previous game.