So Mass Effect Andromeda...

[Saetha]

No particular topic of discussion with this one, just a few general questions - what are opinions on it? Obviously we can't have very informed ones, since it's not out or even been shown off that much. But I'm nonetheless curious about what people are thinking about it. Excited? Annoyed? Indifferent? Thinking it will fail, be decent, or actually be good? What are your thoughts on it?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Indifferent. No Tali, no carei.

I think it will be decent, sell well, and the edgy backlash will proclaim it worse than it actually is. I'm thinking a deserved 7.5/10, with a potential upgrade to an 8-8.5 when all the DLC and additions are out. But the final opinion will be that its a 5/10.
And it'll probably be the last Mass Effect game for a long while. No sequel will be announced immediately, but we might get a TellTale Garrus in C-Sec game in 2018.

 

[wings012]

Don't care. While ME3's ending left me sore, it has been bloody ages and I'm not really so hung up over it anymore.

If it looks good, I might give it a shot? There's been such a bloody lack of games recently that I might jump on anything halfway decent just to get a bit of a fix.

 

[Zhukov]

Taking a wait-and-see approach.

I refuse to get excited just because it shares a name with the series I adored despite its flaws.

I think it's good that they're making a clean break from the trilogy. Sure, my inner fanboy is pining for more of the old characters but this is for the best. Get away from the baggage of that disastrous ending.

I still have a soft spot for Bioware generally. I know it's popular to view them as a shadow of their former selves but I was never impressed by their old work and the last thing I played from them was Citadel which was some of the most fun I've ever had with a game. (Haven't played Inquisition.) So if they're able to give a good impression with the trailers/previews/gameplay footage of Andromeda then I'll give it a shot.

 

[Hawki]

What do I think?

I think I would have preferred it to be a new setting. Considering the game takes place in Andromeda, hundreds of years after ME3, what exactly does it being in the Mass Effect setting add to it bar some of the old races? I'd argue very little. You can argue that the gameplay being the same would necessitate it, but I disagree. Almost every one of BioWare's entries has been an RPG, and most of them have been sold on the basis of their world/story. I don't think recycling gameplay would be an issue.

Still, it does effectively give the franchise a clean slate. I missed the boat for ME2 & 3, and it would be a huge investment of time and money to go through them, so Andromeda does allow me to jump back in. But I haven't seen enough of the game to really comment on how it looks. Guess we'll find out in November.

Edit: Oh, and since the only BioWare games I've played are Mass Effect (excellent) and Sonic Chronicles (kill it with fire!), I don't really have any strong thoughts about BioWare not being as it was in the "good ol' days," so I really don't have any strong thoughts towards how they function. RPGs are such a massive time sink that as much as I'd like to play their games, I'm very wary of doing so.

 

[DeadProxy]

I'm more or less sold on the whole Mass Effect franchise. Had an amazing first playthrough of the games that will stick with me for some time, but game releases over the past couple years have soured me, so I can't say I'm excited or hyped, but I do want it on day 1 because I'm a huge sucker for Mass Effect.

Biotic powers and more ragdoll are my big wants for the game. Just more powers, cause they were fun to use, and more ragdoll, cause it was so damn fun watching the enemies flip flop from a force push/pull or be sent flying out of bounds from an OP shotgun/harpoon. That's why I was probably one of the few who really enjoyed ME3's multiplayer. I put dozens of hours into that before it got updated to high heaven and got all the fun new races and biotics not in the base game.

As long as I get my fancy space magic, everything else will just be icing on the sexy alien cake.

 

[meiam]

Strangely enough, I'm more interested in the game from a gameplay point of view than a story one... Really like ME2 gameplay and 3 really polished it well (you have to play them on insanity to appreciate them), but storewide, ME3 was a big disappointment and ME2 wasn't all that great (good writing, bad story). So yeah, so long as they haven't fucked the gameplay I'll probably play it at some point.

It is rather pointless of them to make it tied to mass effect but at the same time effectively make it a restart, might as well just make a new universe. Maybe make it more open and let us play as alien.

 

[MysticSlayer]

It will probably follow the same steps Dragon Age: Inquisition did:

Step 1: Critics praise it to no end.
Step 2: It sells incredibly well.
Step 3: Those who hate the game join in the far-smaller-than-its-noise-indicates chorus of BioWare haters in declaring EA is the devil, BioWare a lost soul, and Andromeda their evil spawn.
Step 4: All the people who have been spending all their free time loving the game come to praise it to no end.
Step 5: People from Step 3 get louder. People from Step 4 go back to playing a new favorite game.
Step 6: Andromeda breaks everyone's GOTY brackets by going on to win it all.
Step 7: The people from Step 4 come back to laugh at everyone else's self-inflicted, excess misery.
Step 8: Wait for the next BioWare game to repeat the cycle. In the meantime, talk about how bad BioWare is and act like everyone in the whole world agrees.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I expect it to be generally the same Bioware game as always; You're Mr. or Ms. Awesome who gets to save the world while getting into everyone's pants. It's been that way at least since Mass Effect 1.

And, eh, I'm fine with that. I just hope Bioware doesn't spread itself thin this time focussing on 20 team members, making most of them come off a tad weak, like in Inquisition.

Overall I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Jandau]

It's going to be fine. Unspectacular. A bit sterile. High production values, some decent writing, reasonably solid gameplay, but largely soulless. Above average, but lacking any real charm.

Honestly, I don't see why so many people are insisting it will be terrible. Bioware never made a terrible RPG. DA2 was as bad as it got, and even that was just "meh". ME3 was a good game up until the ending. DA:I had a pretty great RPG hidden under tons of pointless fluff and busywork.

Sure, the only Bioware is dead and gone. The studio that brought us Jade Empire, DA:Origins, ME2, etc. is long gone, but they are replaced with a reasonably decent game studio that gets tons of money to make AAA RPGs. And they do a decent job of it for the most part. I doubt I'll ever be blown away by a Bioware game ever again, but at least I know they'll be decent fun.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Indifferent. No Tali, no carei.

I think it will be decent, sell well, and the edgy backlash will proclaim it worse than it actually is. I'm thinking a deserved 7.5/10, with a potential upgrade to an 8-8.5 when all the DLC and additions are out. But the final opinion will be that its a 5/10.
And it'll probably be the last Mass Effect game for a long while. No sequel will be announced immediately, but we might get a TellTale Garrus in C-Sec game in 2018.

Would any other Female Quarian character suffice?

Anyway I am still waiting and hoping for a Mass Effect Trilogy Compilation where all 3 games are in One Disc so that it will be eaiser to use the Save Transfer feature.

 

[chrissx2]

It will be Dragon Age:Inquisition in space

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Step 6: Andromeda breaks everyone's GOTY brackets by going on to win it all.

I'm sorry, when did Dragon Age: Inquisition "break everyone's GOTY brackets"? Was this on some bizarro earth?

Also, is this where we're at with DA:I now? Hand-waving any criticism as the work of a tiny, noisy cabal, and hailing it as an underappreciated classic? I weep. DA:I might be the soggiest, flimsiest exercise in aggressive mediocrity I've touched in a decade. If it swept "everyone's" GOTY awards, then "everyone" needs to budget up for more than one game in a calendar year.

OT: I'm cautiously optimistic for ME:A. Mass Effect has been Bioware's flagship series for some time now, unlike its red-headed fantasy-steeped sibling that still can't find its pants after three installments. We've been on notice for some time now that nu Bioware doesn't have much of old Bioware's DNA coursing through its veins, but ending aside ME3 was a playable and entertaining (if frequently janky) game, and the Citadel DLC demonstrated at least someone on staff remembered why people liked the series to begin with. The fresh slate creates opportunities.

The caution comes in because these are story based RPGs, and Bioware's storytelling has been marching south for many years now. ME has had consistent gameplay through three offerings, and I expect more of the same, so we won't have a "we've reinvented it again, only shittier!" problem like we always seem to end up with where Dragon Age is concerned. But I do worry that they're going to carry some of Inquisition's ghastly "open world" tedium over, replete with Facebook-game mission table and timesink mini-quests involving returning letters and finding lost space Druffalo. If they can dodge that bullet, and if the story isn't eighteen kinds of stupid, I'm sure it'll be a solidly entertaining outing. As MysticSlayer kindly points out, though, DA2, ME3 and DA:I all got decent reviews at launch that very helpfully failed to point out any of the gaping sores that littered the underbelly of those games, so I'm going to err on the side of EXCESSIVE patience where this one is concerned. Fool me three times, Bioware...

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Andromeda is not on my radar at all. By the end of the third game I really had had enough of the characters and world. I liked the first one the most and they just progressed further and further toward being a shooter+conversations rather than an RPG. I understand why people like the franchise but I think the first trilogy was enough of the Bioware formula for me.

 

[sanquin]

ME3's ending left a really, REALLY sour taste in my mouth. So much so that I'm still bothered by it. So I certainly won't be buying Andromeda any time soon after it's release. I'll wait it out for a week or two and see how the reviews and user reactions are. And if it's good I'll probably buy it. I'm not holding my hopes up though. It's still EA...

 

[Amigastar]

The only thing that interest me for now is the HDR support, which apparently really "sings" with this game.
Never been a big Mass Effect fan tbh.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

I only saw a few boring screenshots and a CGI trailer that shows nothing, but I'm not that interested, to be honest. Mainly because once I'm used to a particular group of characters that belong to a particular universe, it's really hard for me to be interested in the same universe, only instead of Commander Shepard and Garrus, you get Cammonder Shaperd and Gurras.

Also another thing. I don't play games that much anymore, maybe 2 hours/week, and most of them are either indie or older titles, but I was trying Need for Speed Most Wanted (I think?) on my brother's computer, and something annoyed the hell out of me. You can just jump from car to car in that game, but a lot of cars are DLC and they're there in the game anyway. So when I try to enter those cars, the game takes me out of the game to go to the store. Really?

I can only hope they won't do something like that with the new Mass Effect, where you'll be talking to some dude all "hey! let's go on a mission!" and then... "this mission is part of the abcd DLC". I don't remember that happening in previous ME, maybe it had these, I don't know.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Not on my radar if its good great if not I dont care. I had enough of ME after finishing 1 and 2 on insanity. I got some enjoyment out of them but I really did not care how the story ended (good job I did not I suppose). Also the gameplay of 2 did not leave me wanting more as I am not a huge fan of shooters.

Then there is of course EA whom I hate and I never buy a game that has their logo on unless I really really want it which has happened about 3 times since the 90s.

Would much rather they had a new IP entirely tbh. One good thing though is that at least Garrus wont be back (I hope) easily one of my least liked characters in gaming, felt good killing him off in 2.

 

[stroopwafel]

Never played the first game but Mass Effect 2 was awesome I think. Really good story and well developed characters. I loved how the Reapers were these looming threat and the mystery of their origin and general purpose really elevated the more character driven story. Gameplay was pretty good as well.

Mass Effect 3 was really a step back in the story department for me(and not just for the ending). Too much was explained so there wasn't really an enticing mystery at the center, character motivations felt weak and lacking the dynamics of the previous game with peculiar changes to their personality(my favorite character of the previous game, Mordin, suddenly turning a cry baby) and the Reapers(already way overexplained in this game) ended up a boring dud. Gameplay was slightly improved though.

I was never really invested in the games so the ending and the general Shepard story-arc didn't do much for me(other than how awesome it was in ME2). That Andromeda stands apart from the previous game is actually a plus, as it gives me hope that Andromeda could be more like ME2 than ME3.