Mass Effect

[Samhain13]

Someone buy me a drink. I was just called a shill.

There you go.

[Sabby]

Man, people weren't kidding. The game's character animations are f**king hideous. Games fun, but after a minute of interacting with Peebee I need to take a break and just watch humans talk somewhere to remember what they move like. Bitch, align your jaw, close your mouth, and actually look at me when you talk to me, you ugly purple Shrek.

[Vow]

I just call it like I see it

But have you played it? Or at least watched a play through of it post release?

Playing it would imply giving money to EA for it and that's a big no-no. I have watched pretty much everything about there is about it though. And on that note, I have to say how pitifully sad that about the only somewhat decently animated scene is the sex/romance scene between Cora and Scott Ryder. I mean, they're both still quite hideous in their "notsureifhuman" forms, but the scene itself is substantially better than 90% of the game in terms of animation quality. 

[Gate]

Man, people weren't kidding. The game's character animations are f**king hideous. Games fun, but after a minute of interacting with Peebee I need to take a break and just watch humans talk somewhere to remember what they move like. Bitch, align your jaw, close your mouth, and actually look at me when you talk to me, you ugly purple Shrek.

Now I don't intend to defend this game 100%, but how are the animations any worse than Mass Effect 3?

[Sabby]

Man, people weren't kidding. The game's character animations are f**king hideous. Games fun, but after a minute of interacting with Peebee I need to take a break and just watch humans talk somewhere to remember what they move like. Bitch, align your jaw, close your mouth, and actually look at me when you talk to me, you ugly purple Shrek.

Now I don't intend to defend this game 100%, but how are the animations any worse than Mass Effect 3?

Are you joking? I've replayed Mass Effect 3 four times, and I've seen more and worse animation errors in my first four hours of Andromeda. f**k, people's eyes don't even move half the time. They face directly forward, so when the head moves around, the eyes move with it, and don't stay on the person being spoken to. If you can't have people look at each other when they speak to each other, then you failed to animate that scene.

And that's JUST the eyes. I agree that some people are being hyperbolic about the animations, but acting as if this is okay or expected is just as stupid.

[Necronomicon II]

"Ryder: It's not a Hotel, that's for sure. Nothing around here makes any sense."

...

[Samhain13]

[Le Celticant]

Story isn't inconsistent. What the hell were you talking about, Le Celticant?  There's just a whole lot to do because it isn't linear.

Actually, there is very little to do because it isn't linear.
Scanning 20 minerals and 16 plants ain't a lot to do, it's one thing to do, multiples time.
Same for remnant Vault.

The main plot is very thin and very predictable.
I haven't been surprised once so far and I'm about to kick for the last mission.

There are a few sidequest that picked my interest, mostly the one recalling past event and bringing the nostalgia about spectres, cerberus and that kind of stuff. The others were pretty "meh" and the last types are just repetitive tasks across each planet.
They aren't bad they just don't stand out much like you used to defeat husk in ships, caves, fight Eclipse, blue suns, Blood Pack...
It lacks a bit diversity for something that is supposed to be "open".

It's funny because it's everything I criticized in ME1.
In the end both look very alike, they are vast planets fun to roam with the mako/nomad with a lot of empty wasteland and very few interactions showcasing iteration of the same duplication.

My favorite part so far was Havarl, mostly because it was a bit more linear, on foot, and because the game design didn't felt as repetitive.
It's a place of wonder I could loose myself in. I just regrets the too thin sidequests.

---

I think the biggest disappointments so far are

1) The music, pretty neutral/ambient and are the same across each planets. Places don't get a "soul" like they did in the first game where just by the sound I could tell if I was on Noveria, Feros or The Citadel and they are really not on par with ME2 matching feeling with the overall mood.
That being said, they aren't bad, I especially like the galaxy map music, but the SFX around are just too distracting that I can barely get a glimpse at it.

2) The lack of impact for your choices. Probably the most terrible thing for this game. It's funny because every choice you make is incredibly grey. Either way you loose something and you win something else, there's no more "good people" and "bad people". In theory it's good, my only problem with it, the total lack of consequences for your choices. It just ends the quest and it's a "to be continued" kind of choice if there's ever a ME Andromeda 2.
It's really not satisfying to not see how your character progress with the choice you takes. In the original trilogy you could see Shep progression in each game the more you went Paragon or Renegade and there were things that got unlocked along the adventure.
Here now nothing is locked, it's just a way to answer people and since as I mentioned each choice makes very little to no consequences I don't even bother being invested into the dialogue. It's such a shame because when you have choice of Killing X or Killing Y and whoever you kill doesn't make an impact on either you or the game but awaits for another game to tell what consequences are, I feel like it's not rewarding at all and I really regret the removal of Paragon / Renegade.
I'm not saying it wasn't the case in ME1, just like you save the Rachni queen that was a "to be continued" but at least it felt very rewarding since you were building up the personality of your shep. There Ryder doesn't get anything from making choice, every conversation is unlocked at all time.
There's also the problem that choices are too thin and too often. It's always choose from A and B with very little story development and you don't get to know really what's going on. There's no grey "middle choice" also.
And last, there are almost no interruptive actions through the entire game.
It was mass effect trademark since ME2. Now it's just almost gone.
80% of the game and I've probably encountered 3 (I have 100% viability and almost all side quest done).
That has to be a joke right.

But then it's my game experience, each one is own. I just think they went pretty much down for this one so far.

[Sabby]

Okay, some positives.

I love everything about The Remnant

Kett are also fairly cool. Reminds me a lot of The Grineer, from Warframe.

The gameplay, so far, is actually surpassing Mass Effect 3 (say what you will about the game's issues, it's a solid third person shooter).

Physics are also very nice. Weighty, hold their form well, very punchy impacts (especially with biotics) and seem to incorporate well with the animations (been a few times where I've punched a guy near cover and he went pretty seamlessly into a rolling over cover death animation)

That f**king Nomad is just amazing.

I'm really enjoying this game. I was skeptical at first about the change of setting, but I have to say, the colonist approach is growing on me.

[Gate]

Man, people weren't kidding. The game's character animations are f**king hideous. Games fun, but after a minute of interacting with Peebee I need to take a break and just watch humans talk somewhere to remember what they move like. Bitch, align your jaw, close your mouth, and actually look at me when you talk to me, you ugly purple Shrek.

Now I don't intend to defend this game 100%, but how are the animations any worse than Mass Effect 3?

Are you joking? I've replayed Mass Effect 3 four times, and I've seen more and worse animation errors in my first four hours of Andromeda. f**k, people's eyes don't even move half the time. They face directly forward, so when the head moves around, the eyes move with it, and don't stay on the person being spoken to. If you can't have people look at each other when they speak to each other, then you failed to animate that scene.

And that's JUST the eyes. I agree that some people are being hyperbolic about the animations, but acting as if this is okay or expected is just as stupid.

[Sabby]

And? How many times does such an error happen? How frequent are they? How severe are they? How do you replicate them?

This is why 'here's a gif' is as good as not responding to a paragraph at all.

[Le Celticant]

Mass Effect andromeda is for sure the game of the series filled with the most glitch.
Not just the animation, I had every "Enoch" creature on Voeld Stand still roaring but not attacking, like it's stuck.
By every I literally means every one of them while on the other planet they are alright.

I also have a couple of Kett wandering in the middle of the desert with their rudimentary AI if shot, attack unaware of my presence.

The the dialog are full of this glitch moment, or texture & model loading, duplicating, surfing in the entire room hitting all the walls (funniest I had so far).

There's a clear lack of polishing animations for some characters who do in an unconcerned way type on their omni tool or just repeat task they were doing while talking to you.
It's like the animation department made a loop and copy/pasted it for the entire dialog.
I don't recall this last part in the 3 previous mass effect. It's clearly a problem of polishing due to lack of time.
It's terrible because while the SP "main" cinematics are usually fine, the rests could have needed more time and some still even look "work in progress".

[JokersWarPig]

As with all EA games I'm sure we'll see a patch for the AI issues.

[Local Trouble]

I think I'm going to table this game until they fix it.

[Gate]

Mass Effect andromeda is for sure the game of the series filled with the most glitch.
Not just the animation, I had every "Enoch" creature on Voeld Stand still roaring but not attacking, like it's stuck.
By every I literally means every one of them while on the other planet they are alright.

I also have a couple of Kett wandering in the middle of the desert with their rudimentary AI if shot, attack unaware of my presence.

The the dialog are full of this glitch moment, or texture & model loading, duplicating, surfing in the entire room hitting all the walls (funniest I had so far).

There's a clear lack of polishing animations for some characters who do in an unconcerned way type on their omni tool or just repeat task they were doing while talking to you.
It's like the animation department made a loop and copy/pasted it for the entire dialog.
I don't recall this last part in the 3 previous mass effect. It's clearly a problem of polishing due to lack of time.
It's terrible because while the SP "main" cinematics are usually fine, the rests could have needed more time and some still even look "work in progress".

I'm still waiting on the patches they promised.