Mass Effect: Andromeda goes Gold

[votemarvel]

Bioware have given themselves an out on the Reapers and Static discharge with Andromeda.

The Arks in Andromeda collect the discharge and use it to power the internal systems while they journey through Dark Space.

All Bioware have to say now is that the Reapers use a similar technology and problem solved.

In regard to the Reapers plan not working, well it was. Putting aside the idiotic choice not to take the Citadel straight away, the Reapers were taking the known Galaxy piece by piece and no-one could stop them.

Then they pulled a derp when the Crucible arrived at the Citadel "oh hey guys, there's that weapon they've been building to wipe us out for cycles now. Should we target it?" The Reapers needed to do nothing more to win than all of them firing on the Crucible at once.

BOOM! Crucible destroyed and the harvest continues.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

The combat of Andromeda looks like it has a lot to be desired. I don't think they used the third person perspective very well, never mind that the animations looks pretty wonky too.

I blame all these wide open spaces. Then again, cover shooting has never worked well in open world games.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

It didn't contradict anything.

Play ME1 again.

The Reapers do posses conventional FTL drives.

Do they? Where or when was that established? Deux Ex Machina? Shitty writing?

The Citadel relay while not 100% vital...

Play ME1 again.

ME3 is so full of glaring plot holes and contradictions that I promise you you cannot win any argument to the contrary.

 

[Athennesi]

Shamus did a retrospective on entire plot, it's a very read: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=30359

It's pointless to argue against it, it has more narrative holes and inconsistencies than the Bible, and the more you dig the worse it gets.

I'd happily turn a new leaf for Mass Effect here, but entire reasoning we've heard from Walters is equally dumb and with as much foresight: "We go to Andromeda 'cause we like to explore!"

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Funny thing is, I was one of the people who hated that ending. Still do. Not quite ruined-the-series-forever hated, but definitely put a massive dampner on the whole thing.

But anybody who is still angry about a video game ending 5 years later needs to get some bloody perspective in their lives.

I don't spend any time thinking about it, but passage of time has not changed my opinion on the ending, or softened my dislike of it. Sometimes time and perspective makes it even more annoying, in the "Oh yeah, what the fuck happened there anyway" sense.

I just think people get animated about media. I spend 0 hours of my day thinking about Ultima IX, but if someone wants to engage me in a discussion on why I thought it was bad, I might become very animated. By stopping and taking time to remember it, you revisit unpleasant feelings. Also, hyperbole and criticism go hand in hand these days. It's not enough to dispassionately dislike something when you can take a big soggy shit on it. Gamers tend to be hyperbolic by nature, so it's not enough to call a terrible game "disappointing". That shit needs to be painted as WORLD ENDING to get the point across.

Honestly though? I'm a lot more worried about getting another DA:I than getting another ME3. Fuck that game.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Here's 17 minutes of some of the worst casual dialogue you'll hear in modern gaming:


That is just cringeworthy. Is it meant to appeal to 13 year olds?

 

[Avnger]

That is just cringeworthy. Is it meant to appeal to 13 year olds?

I didn't sit through the entire video to notice the dialogue enough, but based entirely on the "softcore porn" statement made the other day, yes. EA has gone full on "YOUR MOM'S GOING TO HATE THIS!!!" for ME:A

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Play ME1 again.

Why wouldn't the Reapers have conventional drives? All the ingame lore states that they do.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Why would they need another reaper?

Their whole modus operandi is to create a Reaper based off the most advanced species of a cycle.

 

[Zhukov]

Honestly though? I'm a lot more worried about getting another DA:I than getting another ME3. Fuck that game.

A-yup.

I've come to regard DAI as a chore.

- Take out bins
- Scrub shower
- Hang out washing
- Play one hour of DAI

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Our technology is their's, not the other way around. It would be the smallest leap in logic to say that they have more advanced technology than we do including the ability to bypass the limitations placed on our tech. They aren't exactly going to provide an even playing field for us on purpose.

The Charon relay (that is in our solar system) is the better part of 42 billion km's away from Earth. Going at traditional sublight speeds, it would take decades to get from there to Earth. Now the Reapers may or may not have faster sublight than normal people, but that journey would still take years whereas a FTL jump, and you are there in seconds.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I know that shnookums, I meant why would they build a reaper in such a precarious situation, where they can't safely and reliably build one, risking dickstomption.

You mean in a space station at the centre of the galaxy, protected by a unique relay, that if you don't have the correct protocols for, will slam you in to ancient ship debris or worse? Gee I don't know, cupcake, why wouldn't they build there?

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Play ME1 again.

Why wouldn't the Reapers have conventional drives? All the ingame lore states that they do.

It has nothing to do with having or not having this or that drive. It has to do with essentially rendering ME1 and everything we, the player, as Shepard did moot. In ME1, the story goes something like:

Sovereign, the Reaper left behind to check on galactic progress wakes up, decides it's time for the cycle to start and sends the "It's time!" signal to the Keepers on the Citadel. This doesn't work, so after presumably trying to get in touch by Email, whatsapp and phoning, he realises something is wrong. He indoctrinates and recruits Saren, a SPECTRE with unrestricted access to the Citadel, and the Geth to find out. Saren finds the Beacon on Eden Prime with the message left by the Protheans, goes to Feros where he trades Shiala to the Thorian in exchange for the Cipher. With Benezia's help, the Cipher lets him understand the Beacon's message which said he needs to go to Ilos to find the Conduit. To get to Ilos, he needs to find the lost Mu Relay, whose location is known only by a resurrected Rachni Queen on Noveria. He sends Benezia to get the location with her Biotic abilities since Ubisoft have already trademarked the Animus.

Meanwhile Shepard is a step behind throughout. He recruits Liara to help decode the Beacon's message and the Normandy crew arrive on Ilos moments behind Saren. Here we meet Vigil who explains that the best the Protheans could do was to help Shepard's cycle by preventing the Keepers from receiving the signal to activate the Citadel. Following Saren through the Prothean built conduit, we prevent the Citadel relay from being activated, destroy Sovereign and prevent the cycle from starting.

Then ME3 comes along and says "Yeah, turns out they have great engines on those Reapers. Just took 6 months and voila!". So if the Reapers did *not* need the signal from Sovereign OR the relay to get here, everything explained and built up in ME1 was moot. Everything we the player did in ME1 was pointless. The terrible ME2 writing team then had the gall to recycle the SAME story for Arrival but ME3 invalidated that too. It takes the Arks in ME: Andromeda 600 years to reach one galaxy over...the Reapers just went on maximum thrust for 6 months and they came from outside all known space.

I mean everything that happened in ME1 and ME2 was pointless when Sovereign could have just gone "You know it'll only take 6 months to get to the lads and 6 months to come back. Being an immortal being who's survived millions of years, I could probably spare a year." But no, he recruits Saren and the rest, announces his presence to the galaxy and makes such a mess of things Harbinger would be slow-clapping if he had arms. ME2 and ME3 were good games because the gameplay was alright and the characters were great. The story and storytelling were dire tho, and the worst part about ME2 and 3 was that EA robbed us of the stories we could/should have gotten. ME1's story might have had some issues but they were minor in service to an exciting, well told and consistent plot. What came later was shameful.

 

[MCerberus]

I'm hoping for two broad-strokes points about the story this time.
"ME3 was a dumpster fire. Bail." This seems to have been accomplished.

Thematically being The Old West IN SPAAAAAAAAACE. Vast spaces with little villages. Colorful characters you meet at the seedy space-saloon. An overall optimism as you round up a posse to deal with mustache-twirling villains. Pretty much Star Trek ToS without the federation or planets-of-hats.

 

[Shock and Awe]

This may be the first game I've bought for my XBone since Fallout 4, so I really hope its good. Bioware has a pretty high bar to reach on this one.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

It has nothing to do with having or not having this or that drive.

How would the Reapers discharge their FTL drives out in the Dark? The lore states that if you don't, your ship essentially melts.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

-snip-

Mordin's anti-bug repellent only worked on small groups. It's why Jack/Samara had to deploy a biotic field during that assault on the Collector base.

As for the Collectors being discovered, that's why they were targeting the colonies, because they had severed all ties with the Alliance. If the Elusive Man didn't bait the Collectors in to attacking the one Colony with an Alliance war hero on it, who knows how long their raids would have gone undetected.

 

[Jadak]

The Reapers do posses conventional FTL drives.

Do they? Where or when was that established? Deux Ex Machina? Shitty writing?

Didn't everyone? That was the entire premise of mass effect fields, manipulating space time through magic to bypass those pesky physics laws.

Mass Relays were just an advanced form of the same tech, the main distinctions being range and speed.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The whole planetary raid idea is unnecessarily prone to failure once the inability to reliably kidnap people kicks in.

The Reapers are nothing if not supremely arrogant. They see us as little more than brainless livestock, they don't factor in the "lower species" throwing a wrench in their plans.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

A new official cinematic has been released, highlighting some of the different planets and their biomes.

​

Of particular note:

Spoiler

At 2m10s, when speaking about Habitat 5, it mentions "For our Turian and Quarian colonists...", that strongly implies there will be some Quarians among the Milky Way refugees, a species whose presence in ME: Andromeda has hitherto remained unknown.