Mass Effect: Andromeda goes Gold

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is most definitely a cringefest. Holy crap the dialogue in this game is so bad, and some of the voice acting is amazingly awful. Especially that Liam Kosta guy. His voice actor is terrible. It's like he's not even trying. He's just uttering sentences without any emotions like he doesn't know the context of the situation that he's character is in. You don't get any sense that the character he plays knows what he's looking at or what he's doing in the scene. It sounds like Bioware just gave some random guy a sheet of paper and told him to read from it. But it's not even just that. His accent is so unpleasant to the ear. There's absolutely no way that I could stand listening to his voice for the entire duration of the game.

 

[mad825]

Overall I'm considering grabbing it, but I'll wait for reviews, if its on the same level as Inquisition in terms of quality then I might skip, that game was pretty soulless for me. If Bioware hits it out of the ballpark though (and I hope they do!) then I'll definitely grab it.

Indeed, I'm personally waiting for Razorfist to give the yay or nay. I'll get it at some point regardless but it would also be like some buffer period for all the patches to get by.

 

[GoGoFrenzy]

Yeah after Mass Effect 3 I won't be preordering or buying anything right away (probably won't buy it anyway). It wasn't just about the poo ending either. I hated how what I did in Shadowbroker dlc wasn't even recognized by Liara (horrible writing to not acknowledge the most important dlc of ME2). My main issue was the dlc fiascos. How the prothean story was a dlc and how to this day the dlcs for Mass Effect 3 are still full price and were never discounted. I don't want to buy stupid Bioware points either. Just let me pay in real world currency. I told myself I would give EA a chance if they dropped those dlc prices. They never did so I just don't trust them.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

I guess I'll sneak in a positive comment and say that I'm looking very much forward to this game and I'll be playing it tomorow via Origin Access.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

This is most definitely a cringefest. Holy crap the dialogue in this game is so bad, and some of the voice acting is amazingly awful. Especially that Liam Kosta guy. ...There's absolutely no way that I could stand listening to his voice for the entire duration of the game.

I cannot say anything about the quality of voice acting, but his accent is quite out of place. As a Londoner, I'm obviously a bit more acute to regional accents, and an inner-city, council-estate ("projects"?) accent is really jarring. In footage I saw of that same mission [https://youtu.be/OnJSHuinPPQ?t=2524], he shouts "Shit, this just got real." That is such a contemporary line that feels so completely out of place in the ME universe, it shatters my sense of immersion. American accents in fantasy I don't like, in sci fi however they're fine. Merryl in DA2 with her Welsh accent was a little odd but I could roll with it. The Scottish lady at the start of this one feels off too. If they're going to use British accents in these things, they should just stick with the neutral one like Natalie Dormer has, like Ian McKellan as Gandalf, Peter Cushing as Moff Tarkin, etc, etc. These ones feel very out of place. Liam's accent immediately pulls me out of exotic planets in another galaxy, and suddenly I'm in a McDonalds in Ealing. Not that there's anything wrong with McDonalds. Or Ealing.

What the fuck is wrong with the facial animations??

I don't know. It might be a limitation of Frostbite, but combined with some fairly ugly mugs across the board, the faces aren't (wait for it) turning any heads. I think they're either just in or on the brink of uncanny valley territory, but they really do look wrong. Might be easier to just roll with Drack and Jaal and bypass the issue of looking at human faces entirely.

 

[mad825]

I did in Shadowbroker dlc wasn't even recognized by Liara (horrible writing to not acknowledge the most important dlc of ME2).

Yep, from what I understand it's a bug they never fixed. You can easily fix it yourself though via ME3 Gibbed save editor...Assuming you've got the PC version.

 

[meiam]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/03/14/mass-effect-andromeda-review-opening-hours/

Ouch.

... Why the hell did they feel the need to bring back planet scanning? And I'm saying that as someone who would go out of his way to click on every planet to just read the description.

But yeah that sounds bad, kinda wish he'd show more of the UI, it's kinda hard to understand in writing, but it does sound bad.

Oh and, we don't need to be "the special one" can't we just be "the dude/dudette who's competent so we give him the job"?

 

[GrumbleGrump]

The nitpicking on this game, or any Bioware game, is so weird.

Yeah, it's not like they have a multi-million dollar budget and alledgedly professional animators and artists. Bad animations, terrible dialogue and voice acting is just nitpicking, guy!
Okay, if those things are nitpicking to you, then let's talk about the gameplay in the video, shall we? After all, this is a videogame. The gameplay trailer doesn't showcase any kind of interesting AI (at least, none is appreciable), to the point that some enemies just hover towards you. Yes, this might be more realistic to what a mindless drone might do, but you know what's more realistic? Getting shot in the head by a enemy a kilometer away and not being able to retry. Make them do something more interesting, make them super fast, take cover or deploy countermeasures. Instead they just stand there and shoot. Kind meaningless having so many skills available at the tip of your fingers if the game doesn't challenge you, isn't it?
The arenas don't look all that fun either. They're just chest high walls. It's level design that doesn't take into account the fact that you have a jetpack.

 

[critanime]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/03/14/mass-effect-andromeda-review-opening-hours/

Ouch.

That's the same guy that said playing Witcher 3 was like 'eating cardboard'

so I'd take his opinion with a grain of salt. Given his is the only harshly negative pre-release review, I'm betting he's getting a lot of views and ad revenue generated from having such a contrarian article.

You have to take any review with a grain of salt. Outright positive reviews make me as cautious as outright negative.

 

[mad825]

so I'd take his opinion with a grain of salt. Given his is the only harshly negative pre-release review, I'm betting he's getting a lot of views and ad revenue generated from having such a contrarian article.

PC gamer is saying the same thing. Also from PC gamer, they're saying that there's an embargo for review of the whole game until the day before the release (20th). So that said, hold your horses and spare everyone of your misguided cynicism.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I watched the gameplay. I am pretty conflicted.

The gunplay actually looks right up my alley, but I am not a fan of the cover system. And all the extra "mobility" they give you looks clunky as hell. And such good graphics really contrasts with such shitty facial animations.

But I do love me some sci-f guns and armor and hot alien sex, so I'm willing to wait and see.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

So this is what a $60 AAA game from a multi-billion dollar company that also dares to implement microtransactions can get away with these days:

 

[CritialGaming]

You know I WAS super excited for Mass Effect. Then after all this stuff has come out....I mean....did they accidentally give people the fucking alpha build? There is no way this can be a release version. Right?

I mean seriously....right?

Guys?

Right?

 

[Nimcha]

It's kind of funny seeing the same 4 or 5 gifs pop up everywhere. And based on that people say the game is bad. It's quite funny.

Been playing the game for a few hours, on pc I've noticed none of those things.

 

[meiam]

https://twitter.com/UndeadIrrlicht/status/842124856699281410

Holy crap... this is beyond animation, everything about this is just so off. The weird camera angle, the pause in the dialogue, the actual writing. Good things for them the gameplay is apparently good cause that's seems like its the only thing pulling the game.

 

[Casual Shinji]

You know I WAS super excited for Mass Effect. Then after all this stuff has come out....I mean....did they accidentally give people the fucking alpha build? There is no way this can be a release version. Right?

I mean seriously....right?

Guys?

Right?

I thought the dialoge sequences in Horizon Zero Dawn were awkward -- This is a fucking trainwreck!

They seem to be using somekind of new facial capture tech, and it is not working for them. Maybe developement was too far in to change this, but you can't tell me nobody at Bioware looked at this and thought 'Yeah, this is some quality here. Good work people.'

I was set to buy this for some fresh, new, sexy space adventures, but not until Bioware releases a statement revealing that this is all just an elaborate hoax.