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Mass Effect: Andromeda was Released a Year Ago Today
- Thread starter Fiery Phoenix
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The Andromeda mission left the Milky Way before ME3 happened, so there's not much connection there. A few references, but not really important
I wouldn't really call it "stand alone" though.. more like "fall down alone"
Worst game I have put the most time into. Up until the very end I hoped that it'll justify the hours I've invested to me. It didn't.
In addition to the abysmal UI, the narrative and storytelling itself were aggressively mediocre.
Of course, past installments had problems (3's conclusion, the issues with 2's direction in respect to the overall arc), but each crafted interesting (+new) characters and stories. The same can't be said for Andromeda whatsoever. Even the dialogue references to the trilogy came across as poor attempts at fan-service.
Once again, Andromeda serves an important lesson in poor leadership and mismanagement. Its fairly common in all the entertainment industries, but this one stings really bad.
Of course, past installments had problems (3's conclusion, the issues with 2's direction in respect to the overall arc), but each crafted interesting (+new) characters and stories. The same can't be said for Andromeda whatsoever. Even the dialogue references to the trilogy came across as poor attempts at fan-service.
Once again, Andromeda serves an important lesson in poor leadership and mismanagement. Its fairly common in all the entertainment industries, but this one stings really bad.
A rather enjoyable game despite its many flaws. The best combat the franchise has ever seen, and the complete removal of a class system brought great variety to character builds. Gear management/modding also was a welcome return. Sadly, its biggest sins were a mostly bland cast and an uninspired plot, which made its other flaws much more aggravating. Because it's a BioWare game, people play it for the story.
I hope this game serves as an example to studios to hire capable people. Those animations became memes and gifs and killed the game.
I took advantage of the unbelievably quick drop in price this game had, and, no surprise, it was as disappointing as everyone was claiming. I wish I could praise something like the soundtrack which Mass Effect is known for, but I literally can't remember a single theme from Andromeda's soundtrack..
Man, I hope enough time passes and they can garner favor and give the franchise to a developer with enough time and space to make something that could retcon Andromeda and build on it's promising potential. I'm sure in our heads we all envisioned meeting new races with intricacies and histories as interesting as any of the more prominent Mass Effect Trilogy races.
Beta state? Not even close. The game was content complete. Main campaign took 50-60 hours with enough side missions and content to last a full 100 hours. There werent many bugs considering how big the game was, and facial animations were the only incomplete thing about the game. And they were fixed within 2-3 three weeks.
I bought it for quite cheap late last year, and have yet to play it. I have read that the patches ironed out most mistakes and bugs (of course not ones related to quest design and general story).
What I'm looking forward to is the scifi setting, which is something that few other games in the genre can provide.
I hope that someday EA Bioware plans to revisit the series with a truly fresh start.
What I'm looking forward to is the scifi setting, which is something that few other games in the genre can provide.
I hope that someday EA Bioware plans to revisit the series with a truly fresh start.
When actually playing it, the animations are the least of its problems.
As one of the, seemingly, few who enjoyed I'm still bummed that we never got any singleplayer DLC.
The problem with ME: Andromeda is that it is disappointingly mediocre. It has some great ideas and promises, but fails to execute on pretty much every single one of them. The bugs, bad animation and everything else just compounds on top of a game that is merely... ok.
There were many bugs, and the fixes took 2 to 3 months unless I'm seriously misremembering. Not that it solved all cutscene animation problems as it was impossible. What the game needed was more development time, period.
In a vacuum, it sold fine. But it was an extremely expensive game, and it fell massively short of what EA expected it to sell. It is unquestionably a failure on more or less all fronts (critical, sales, community, etc.).
And, as I've long said, I feel like Bioware bears far more blame than EA. Honestly, EA was downright patient. It was Bioware management that let Montreal squander 3 years on wide goose chases trying to make No Man's Sky: The RPG, which eventually forced them to cobble together something in 18 months to shove out the door.
Honestly, I'm still really pissed at how the game betrays its very premise. You're an explorer charting new territories!.... just kidding, you're going to encounter Milky Way species everywhere you're going and you're far from the first person to visit stuff. Oh, but you have this pressing mission to create colonies and it needs to be done now or we're all going to die!... oh wait, you're tripping over "outlaw" colonies all over the place and they seem to be doing alright.
A pretty good contender for worst game I've played this generation, or it would be if I didn't play Fallout 4. I also think Inquisition was worse since Andromeda had solid combat at least. It's somewhat amusing to me to see how badly EA/Bioware dropped the ball with this series going back to the original trilogy.
Playing it now, and it's biggest sin isn't that it's mediocre but that it's mediocre forever. The trilogy games were tight affairs that even with all side missions could be completed in 20 to 30 hours.
I personally found more to like than most in this and if it was also a tight experience it would be worth playing warts and all. But it just keeps going to the point that even the things it does right have gotten stale and tiring, can't really recommend this one.
I personally found more to like than most in this and if it was also a tight experience it would be worth playing warts and all. But it just keeps going to the point that even the things it does right have gotten stale and tiring, can't really recommend this one.
Was playing the game as the first one from a new series from a new dev and enjoyed it a lot. Hurts me a lot we'll never get a follow up, was promising.
It is a fascinating little flash point in video games. You have all the people who love the OT vs the people who like Andromeda, and the clashes tend to be massive. Then there is the whole political undercurrent to the game, with some claiming the game is filled with political correctness and others saying the dev team was a "bro fest", that argument alone has shaded a lot of the hate/love of the game. Combined with the pretty well researched articles about the development hell the game went through it just builds up to some sort of operatic tragedy.
Plus the Bioware A team working on Anthem and Dragon Age 4 leaving a newbie team on Andromeda and the whole history of EA killing off and mismanaging studios and Bioware of 2017 not feeling like the Bioware that developed KOTOR, Dragon Age 1, Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect 1-2, etc it really was a inflection point on the state of the industry, that just completely blew up with the Battlefront 2 loot box nightmare a few months later.
Plus the Bioware A team working on Anthem and Dragon Age 4 leaving a newbie team on Andromeda and the whole history of EA killing off and mismanaging studios and Bioware of 2017 not feeling like the Bioware that developed KOTOR, Dragon Age 1, Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect 1-2, etc it really was a inflection point on the state of the industry, that just completely blew up with the Battlefront 2 loot box nightmare a few months later.
Damn.
On another note: how does this game compare to the xenoblade chronicles series in the sense of scale department? Rolling around in those worlds made you feel like a tiny person on a big adventure.
On another note: how does this game compare to the xenoblade chronicles series in the sense of scale department? Rolling around in those worlds made you feel like a tiny person on a big adventure.
it was just a very pretty looking mediocre sci-fi game
it wasn't absolutely terrible, it didn't kill anyone
It just was par for the course after patches.
Some of the environments and planet design though are really cool.....
only thing that sucked was the absolutely terrible quest design.....back and forth back and forth back and forth
it wasn't absolutely terrible, it didn't kill anyone
It just was par for the course after patches.
Some of the environments and planet design though are really cool.....
only thing that sucked was the absolutely terrible quest design.....back and forth back and forth back and forth
I've only played XBX which is narrative light. Andromeda is smaller and less interesting to explore, but the story beats you do encounter are usually better presented. Nothing really touches Xenoblade's scale. Andromeda planets tend to be large but sparse sandboxes.
Sure if you hated the characters and story from ME1&2. ME3 has a lot going for it. The ending was a letdown but the journey up it was excellent.
... And once again a vocal part of the 'gaming community' showed their true colours by howling and shitting their pants like unruly toddlers.
Oh my god the horror! HER FACE IS NOT LITERALLY PICTURE PERFECT!!!!
Never forget
Oh my god the horror! HER FACE IS NOT LITERALLY PICTURE PERFECT!!!!
Jeese, relax lol.
Never forget the crappy unfunny introduction of a crappy unfunny character.
And we'll never get that Quarian DLC or a Mass Effect Andromeda 2.
Sigh.... this really saddens me.
Sigh.... this really saddens me.
OP
OP
A friend of mine who worked at EA at the time told me that singleplayer DLC was never planned in the first place.
I had a lot of fun with it. Haven't been back in a while, but I did have some issues with the latency and general lag in the multiplayer. Which is a shame because it is hella fun. Wonder what the Xbox population is still like. It's been months since I've touched it.
1 person = vocal part..... you understand what hyperbolic means right? (yes during the time of release it was bad when all people did was complain that people werent pretty to their standard., but christ its only one person here who said anything wrong about it, wait till at least 3+posters dog on it before saying a vocal part of "Gaming community")
The ending of the game pretty much sets you up for the continuation of the story.
Yeah, but you have to imagine they probably wanted to leave certain possibilities open for the potential future. It doesn't necessarily mean active development on DLC or ME: A2 was happening at any time.
Peebee's cool.
Cooler than you, I bet.
...
What?
Yeah, I agree.
Still, it sucks that they set up the story like that and then we get nothing.
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