The 10-Hour Mass Effect: Andromeda Trial is Now Free to Everyone

[ffronw]

The 10-Hour Mass Effect: Andromeda Trial is Now Free to Everyone

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1387/1387875.jpgIf you haven't given Mass Effect: Andromeda a try yet, the 10-hour trial is now available to all, including those on PS4.

The 10-hour free trial that was previously only available to EA Access members on PC and Xbox One is back, and it's now available to everyone, including those folks playing on PS4. If you played the trial previously, diving in again will mean you only get to finish up the remaining balance of your ten hours.

For your 10 hours, you can choose to play single-player or multiplayer. The campaign will let you progress as far as the vault on Eos, but you won't be able to go inside. It's basically the entire prologue of the game. Once your 10 hours is up, your progress will carry over to the full game if you decide to purchase it.

Mass Effect: Andromeda has had a troubled life since it launched in March of this year. Rumor has it that the series has been planned single-player DLC has been canceled [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/170332-Mass-Effect-Series-Put-on-Hold].

If you're planning to check it out, don't forget to check out our updated guide to the game's romance options [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/walkthroughs/17761-Mass-Effect-Andromeda-Patch-1-08-Romance-Options-Update].

You can find all the details on the trial over on the official Mass Effect: Andromeda site [https://www.masseffect.com/trial].

Permalink

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I still hope and wish EA/Bioware makes a Remastered Mass Effect trilogy with all 3 games in one disc so Save Transfer is easier.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Ah, the 10 hor demo that sank the game. A stark warning that demos are only worthwhile if the game is good enough to engage the people playing them.

I still hope and wish EA/Bioware makes a Remastered Mass Effect trilogy with all 3 games in one disc so Save Transfer is easier.

That will likely happen when they get rid of the 'Bioware points' system of selling DLC, so not in the lifetime of anyone who reads this.

EA seems to invent and then abandon more storefronts than most publishers release actual games, it's amazing.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I wonder if that 10 hours includes the time it takes to download the game. My Internet isn't terribly fast.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Ah, the 10 hor demo that sank the game. A stark warning that demos are only worthwhile if the game is good enough to engage the people playing them.

The game was more than good enough - the state of it really wasn't, and prompted the classically reductive, immature internetz response of ultimately boiling everything down to an inane gif or three. Also, [certain groups/peoples] politics.

 

[Damian Porter]

Ah, the 10 hor demo that sank the game. A stark warning that demos are only worthwhile if the game is good enough to engage the people playing them.

The game was more than good enough - the state of it really wasn't, and prompted the classically reductive, immature internetz response of ultimately boiling everything down to an inane gif or three. Also, [certain groups/peoples] politics.

The game may have been "good enough" for you, but it sure as hell wasn't good enough for the rest of us. The state of the game is a big part of it and it counts, whether you like it or not. It's not something separate, and the internet isn't immature for calling it out.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

The game may have been "good enough" for you, but it sure as hell wasn't good enough for the rest of us. The state of the game is a big part of it and it counts, whether you like it or not.

I was smart enough to wait for patches, so the version I played was more or less wholly bug free. That's not a defence for its rather appalling launch state, of course, but the reality of modern gaming - particularly triple-A's - is that often what a product is at launch isn't the same as what it becomes (which has made the culture of formal at-or-before-launch reviews rather redundant).

And so---

It's not something separate, and the internet isn't immature for calling it out.

---yes, reducing game critique (ideally a measured thing written with perspective in mind) to gifs and memes is pretty pathetic. And, as I said, a lot of the most vocal, vitriolic criticism wasn't about the game at all, it was - with profound irony and/or hypocrisy - about politics, chiefly, the 'wrong' politics for certain folk.

Ultimately no one came out of this well; BioWare (and perhaps EA, but that seems unlikely in this case) for their peculiarly unfocused/disjointed production cycle, and the denizens of teh internetz for their reaction (the self-entitled and petty score bombing sensibilities honed from ME3's ending debacle were brought to bear once again).

 

[Jadak]

I wonder if that 10 hours includes the time it takes to download the game. My Internet isn't terribly fast.

It does not.

 

[Metalrocks]

have played only several hours of it and while i have to say its not terrible, it certainly lost some of its charm we know from the previous titles. the dialog is certainly one thing that is a downer like: now he is mad. maybe because i shot him in the face.
thats a step backwards in my books. while i do have some good things to say about it, i have a bunch of bad things as well. and thats just from a few hours of playing.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

After playing for an hour or so, I have noticed the less than stellar lip syncing. But Mass Effects 1 through 3 also had pretty bad lip syncing too. So I can pass the game on that. I can say that Andromeda's running animations are much better than ME1-3, in those games, Shep looked like she spent too much time on horseback. I haven't seen Ryder dancing, or if she even does. So, if she doesn't, that makes her a better dancer than Shepard.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Having played Andromeda, a lot of the hate it got was really not deserved.

Yes, at launch the animations were pretty bad but a later patch actually much improved them.

Yeah, the game does have a few sinkers for lines. But so did the first 3 games.

The story is honestly on about the same level as the past three games - it's just that we don't know Ryder as well as Shepard and the characters have a lot to live up to the previous crew, which hurts them. Perhaps a little unfairly.

But the actual look of the game? The actual gameplay? Pretty damn good.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Lame horse.

The trial not only has a 10 hour limit, but a hard limit on what you can do. I still have more than 4 hours left on the clock, and I am at this one particular part on Eos, and when I try to progress, it says "Thanks for playing, buy the full version."

 

[votemarvel]

I still hope and wish EA/Bioware makes a Remastered Mass Effect trilogy with all 3 games in one disc so Save Transfer is easier.

Easier than clicking a couple of buttons? Could make it one click I suppose =)

I doubt EA will consider a remaster of the original trilogy. They don't want to use the Unreal Engine any longer and thanks to backward compatibility, people can play the games and buy the DLC all with no extra work on EA's part.

Plus on the PC people have already been playing the games with HD textures thanks to the hard work of modders.

I know a lot of people would like the combat system from 3 put into the other two games, and that might work with little effort for the second game, but the first would present bigger problems.

Compared to the following two games, the first Mass Effect has little in the way of chest high walls. The shield system in the first was worth more than wet tissue paper and thus levels were designed with that in mind. If the combat system in ME3 was moved into ME1 without redesigning the levels then Shepard wouldn't be lasting very long in a firefight.

 

[MCerberus]

Having played Andromeda, a lot of the hate it got was really not deserved.

Yes, at launch the animations were pretty bad but a later patch actually much improved them.

Yeah, the game does have a few sinkers for lines. But so did the first 3 games.

The story is honestly on about the same level as the past three games - it's just that we don't know Ryder as well as Shepard and the characters have a lot to live up to the previous crew, which hurts them. Perhaps a little unfairly.

But the actual look of the game? The actual gameplay? Pretty damn good.

It's still jank, so it really depends on whether people value the mirror-shine of polished iteration or if they're okay with new systems that don't always feel right.

But then again it's Bioware which runs on the stuff. It would be like buying a Bethesda game and being SHOCKED when it crashes.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Mass Effect Andromeda; My 10 hours.

So I have a little less than half an hour left on my free trial, and... it's not as bad as I thought it might be. The writing isn't up to par in some places (I swear "My face is tired" is a bad translation. Bioware Montreal, maybe it was originally written in French?). Animations (lip syncing specifically) are about what you'd expect in a Mass Effect game. General animations, like running, climbing, etc, are much improved over the other ME games. Despite being a different engine, there are still teleporting NPCs, but I suppose that is to be expected in a complex game. The Nomad vehicle is pretty sweet to drive around. I begrudgingly admit that it is better than the Mako (which, personally, I thought was very good to drive) despite the lack of armaments (maybe it gets a gun later, I don't know yet). ME2's Hammerhead is still crap.

It is selling for $99.95AU on Origin. Is it worth that? No. It is on sale at my local EB Games for $47AU. Is it worth that? Yes.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I still hope and wish EA/Bioware makes a Remastered Mass Effect trilogy with all 3 games in one disc so Save Transfer is easier.

That wouldn't have any effect on save transfer, only ease of installation.