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Mass Effect: Andromeda | Review Thread (READ MOD POST)

Sanador

Member
I am enjoying the multiplayer. And the game looks great in 4K HDR.

I haven't tried the campaign yet...need to finish HZD first.
 

Gator86

Member
This qualifies as the flop of the generation now. There have been other games with high expectations that didn't deliver(Destiny, Quantum Break, No Man's Sky, Evolve, The Order 1886)...but none of them were established franchises with histories of excellence. Oh I forgot about Street Fighter V although they disappointed for very different reasons.

No Battleborn?

FYI all of the games above are atleast origional and do 1 thing extremely well. (Exploration:No Mans Sky, The Order 1886:pretty Graphics, Quantum Break: TV Show integration, Destiny:Gameplay, SFV:Gameplay, Evolve:Asynchronous Multiplayer)

Mass Effect is just an unpolished Mediocre game that laks ambition, Good Writing, performances ect. Its the Terminator Genesis of Mass Effect.

Fucking scatching. Poor Mass Effect.
 

Shoeless

Member
I'm enjoying it, but I think the Metacritic average is fair. If this were a brand new game from a small developer, I'd be impressed with how ambitious they were despite not always hitting their target. Coming from one of the most critically acclaimed developers and one of the biggest publishers in the world makes it easier to be a little less forgiving, but the inherent fun in the game is there, it's a lot more flawed than what I was initially expecting.

But the characters are growing on me, and, as usual, half the fun is just wandering around talking to people or taking the Nomad for a spin to see what's out there.
 

butman

Member
To give some perspective killzone shadow fall got a 73 metacritic and has been forgotten by history

82vRJtP.jpg


It's done.
 
Late review in english from a greek PC site (Ragequit.gr). They liked it better than Numenera if scores are anything to go by.

http://ragequit.gr/reviews/item/mass-effect-andromeda-english-pc-review

Sure, nobody expected that Andromeda would be the Iliad of our times, or that BioWare would suddenly learn how to approach certain issues that can be explored within its game in a more "mature" way. But the writing in this game stands out like a sore thumb when compared to other AAA Open-World RPG games of recent years (I don't have to reference the Witcher 3 again, do I?) or even when compared to the series' past games (I can clearly remember the chats I've had with Wrex, Garrus or Mordin Solus as Shepard, but I honestly have trouble remembering even the names of my companion NPCs in Andromeda despite finishing the game a couple of days ago). Only now do we realise the "damage" Witcher 3 has done to the industry - it opened the eyes of many and it raised the bar for "mainstream" AAA Open-World RPG productions to such a level that mediocrity in such games is now more easy to spot, and elements that in normal circumstances would be ignored or passed-over (or even praised, in some cases) are now reviewed in a much more critical manner.

Man, Witcher 3 really set a standard for these games.
 

inky

Member
And Brad loooooves Mass Effect. It's his favorite series from the past gen and went so far as trying to push ME3 in the GOTY discussions.

Holy shit.
 

Demoskinos

Member
Aaaaaaaaaaaand there goes the metacritic score below 70. Incredible. Would have never guessed this game would be this bad. I was guessing a lot of 8's but holy hell what went wrong with the development of this game?
 
Giantbomb spoke about ME2 has being the Game of the Generation and that the trilogy is a special event in gaming history. And now...this. It hurts. :(
 

Nokterian

Member
Giantbomb spoke about ME2 has being the Game of the Generation and that the trilogy is a special event in gaming history. And now...this. It hurts. :(

After playing a bunch of hours..combat feels great,looks beautiful,love the profiles to adept when needed.

Not liking dialogue,characters,ui among things. I can't attach to any of the characters unlike i did with ME1,2 and even 3.

It all feels flat to me and that is a real shame :( only the MP feels good to play right now and fun to do.
 
I feel like I'm playing a completely different game than some of these people. It has rough edges but I like it quite a bit. I really like the environments, characters and writing (for the most part) and the combat is awesome.
 

Gator86

Member
You have to post the video that goes with it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmYgUhXDDio

Such a goddamned mess

EA/Bioware deserve all of the shit, within the limits of basic human decency, that they've gotten for this game. This is trash and should not be sold. It's clearly a completely unfinished game and one that's not even especially good. Shame on them. There's nothing you can say later when you've knowingly shipped a broken product.
 

Lime

Member

because as it stands right now this thing is a real mess. Andromeda shouldn't have shipped like this.

For the start of a new chapter to be so bad at the things Mass Effect has traditionally been so good at raises serious questions about where the series, and perhaps even BioWare, go from here.

"Internal mock reviews are tracking very well"
 

geordiemp

Member
I always rate combat in games above alot of things, dialogue and its animation is only good in an absolute handful of games like TLOU and so reviewers can be very inconsistent in giving many games a pass and shitting on others....so who cares if they are up there own arse - just read a few of said reviewers articles and its laughable what gets a story pass and what does not.

Gameplay is good, multiplayer is great, there are bugs, but its still my second favourite game this year after Horizon.

Asari characters in multiplayer is more fun than most games I played this year.
 

Garlador

Member
So much overreaction

I... don't know. I don't.

I ADORE Mass Effect Trilogy and I'm playing through ME1 right now while following Andromeda and there are some things ME1 does that are leaps and bounds better than the game that came out a decade later on superior hardware. Expressions, animations, art design, dialogue, story...

That's not bringing up recent games to compare Andromeda against; that's comparing it to its own predecessors from a decade ago on vastly inferior hardware.

But then you do factor in modern games and their evolution of the medium - like Witcher 3, Horizon, or Breath of the Wild - and it casts a looming, dark shadow over what Andromeda brings to the table.

I'm of the opinion the game is not bad - it's NOT - but it's possibly worse than being bad: it's forgettable and average. For all the flaws of the original series, they had incredibly memorable highs that made the games more than the sum of their parts. I haven't experienced that with Andromeda. It's mostly "decent" throughout, but never has those highs, but it DOES have the series lows (after all these years); more glitches than I ever expected, technical issues aplenty, loads of mundane busywork with almost no tangible rewards, animation and expressions more stilted than the original game, etc.

The game feels like a first-pass that was never given the time to polish up what they had, but even IF the game was technically perfect without a single glitch, I still think the story and narrative and mission design are banal enough that it would still be the weakest entry in the series yet by far.

The technical issues that turned the game into a meme are just the cherry on top of an unfinished sunday.

It avoids being awful, but it also avoids being memorable for any positive reasons.
 

Renekton

Member
My understanding is that Bioware Montreal's internal expected score was...well, significantly higher than what it is now.
Yeah Shinobi was told as much.

I wonder if EA trusts Bioware enough to give them carte blanche again.

Looks like it's Bioware's lowest reviewed game. Right under Sonic Chronicles.
Interesting because Sonic Chronicles is objectively far worse.
 

megalowho

Member
I... don't know. I don't.

I ADORE Mass Effect Trilogy and I'm playing through ME1 right now while following Andromeda and there are some things ME1 does that are leaps and bounds better than the game that came out a decade later on superior hardware. Expressions, animations, art design, dialogue, story...

That's not bringing up recent games to compare Andromeda against; that's comparing it to its own predecessors from a decade ago on vastly inferior hardware.

But then you do factor in modern games and their evolution of the medium - like Witcher 3, Horizon, or Breath of the Wild - and it casts a looming, dark shadow over what Andromeda brings to the table.

I'm of the opinion the game is not bad - it's NOT - but it's possibly worse than being bad: it's forgettable and average. For all the flaws of the original series, they had incredibly memorable highs that made the games more than the sum of their parts. I haven't experienced that with Andromeda. It's mostly "decent" throughout, but never has those highs, but it DOES have the series lows (after all these years); more glitches than I ever expected, technical issues aplenty, loads of mundane busywork with almost no tangible rewards, animation and expressions more stilted than the original game, etc.

The game feels like a first-pass that was never given the time to polish up what they had, but even IF the game was technically perfect without a single glitch, I still think the story and narrative and mission design are banal enough that it would still be the weakest entry in the series yet by far.

The technical issues that turned the game into a meme are just the cherry on top of an unfinished sunday.

It avoids being awful, but it also avoids being memorable for any positive reasons.
This is pretty fair but I'd argue the companions come pretty close. ME1 in particular didn't have many h8ghs with regards to companions they really only came into being in ME2 and ME3 for me.
 

JetBlackPanda

Gold Member
I gave this game a chance I really did but holy shit it's so.. bland and I felt like I was fighting wonky controls and it's just all so... boring

I don't know what the fuck happened here but coming off Horizon and then Zelda and then P5 coming next week I don't have room for this mess.

Pretty heartbroken over the entire thing.
 
You know, I think if this was this was a new IP by a small studio people would be enjoying the game a lot more. It's a bit baffling, this is supposed it be Bioware's flagship franchise, and so many things about it are so half-assed. There's still a fun game buried underneath all the jank, and I honestly think most Bioware fans can probably find enjoyment here even if it's not as good as their previous games.

The thing that's most worrying to me is that they spewed so much bullshit about learning from Dragon Age Inquisitions mistakes, but this game ended up being so much worse. It's almost like they got a bunch of suits who don't play games together and tried to cram as many buzzwords in as possible. "People love Ubi towers right? Forward stations go!" "People liked Batman? Let's make 90% of quests revolve around detective vision!" "The Witcher 3 was 100 hours long? Let's pad this game out with tons of unskippable repeated animations and boring ass busywork."
 

tuxfool

Banned
The game feels like a first-pass that was never given the time to polish up what they had, but even IF the game was technically perfect without a single glitch, I still think the story and narrative and mission design are banal enough that it would still be the weakest entry in the series yet by far.

This is pretty much it. I suspect it is also why EA felt it was ok to release it in its current state. Even without the bugs it would only ever be as good as average.
 

Vamphuntr

Member
My understanding is that Bioware Montreal's internal expected score was...well, significantly higher than what it is now.

I just have to wonder what they were expecting , 90+? Not in the state it is now for sure. I really wonder what happened. This is a project that was given 5 years of development after which they were probably expecting to make sequels in 2-3 years once they've mastered Frostbite. After beating it so many stuff appears to be half baked that you wonder what happened in those 5 years. PC version was good to me, never had awful glitches like in the Giantbomb review but this is pretty inexcusable to have in a AAA game. Especially since you can find many more as worse on Youtube.

Like bluecapsule said above, it actually manage to be worse than DAI a game where they've said they had learned so much from and would improve on. With more and more open worldish games being released Bioware is no longer the default king in the third person RPG world. When released alongside Horizon, Witcher 3 and Zelda MEA's flaws look really apparent.

It's also never a good idea to give the game to reviewers at the last minute when the game is filled with time wasting quests to pad the game. Some probably got burned really quickly trying to beat it.

They had to know the game wasn't in an optimal state. For the last round of previews they were trying to have reviewers says the boring padding was optional and that the bugs would be fixed at launch. They've pulled their idea to have a MP beta probably because it was still too buggy. I wonder what EA will do with that. After 5 years I doubt their expectation would be a 70 meta score with 20-25% off on the game at the end of week 1.
 
It's had the effect DAI had on me which i feared for this game, But still bought because i was a fan of the trilogy( other than 3)

And it's i gave up halfway through, It's just not interesting, Like DAI i cant stand the squadmates, I find them not interesting at all, It's boring going around the planets doing the same thing.

It really is Mass Effect inquisiton.

the MP is the same as it was 5 years ago, Horde mode.
 
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