Mass Effect:Andromeda [SPOILERS]

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Mass Effect:Andromeda [SPOILERS]

Post by Mr Bean »

So there's a new Mass Effect game, the reviews go up this Sunday or this coming Monday but already the game has been being memed for something I'd not expect Bioware to fuck up.

You see Bioware forgot to animate emotions which is strange from a company that manage to give Legion who is a literal machine devoid of emotion hints of fear, anger, curiosity and hurt, yet per reviewers who are speaking outside of their reviews that they have forgotten that emotion needs to be animated in the models.

And it's not a bug, it's like a glaring systemic thing that Mass Effect Andromeda might be shaping up to be a long step backwards in the series.
Which is a shame because it was going to play day 1 after two years of waiting or simply not having the time, instead I think I'll be passing on the game till a Summer or Winter sale.
Last edited by Thanas on 2017-06-06 01:35pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by TheFeniX »

To be fair, Bioware animating is only second in terribleness to Bethesda. Bethesda just doesn't do a whole lot of cutscenes, so it's much easier to pick on Bioware. The DragonAge team seems to work a bit better, but DA:I is chock full of just God awful animation. They seem wholly reliant on pre-created idle and facial templates.

Such as
Play audio: "You're a dick!"
Use lipsync to audio function.
Play "angry" emote
Play "pointing angrily" idle.

Certain actors might get more attention. I remember even in ME1, they did what they could with Joker. Possibly due to the way the model had to nearly always turn when talking, so they were already doing more than the bare minimum.

Also, their "action cutscenes" are atrociously bad. Compared to something like Resident Evil 6 (or God, even 5): it's embarrassing. The characters don't walk/run right, don't interact right, talk right, emote right, or even fall flat on their ass right. They're plastic dolls animated by invisible threads on the level of Team America. This was acceptable back during the Mass Effect and DragonAge 1 era, but it's 2017. The characters look like they were designed by amateurs, same for the dialog and animation. This is a step back even from ME3.

At least old Bioware, in a game like Mass Effect knew how to hide deficiencies in either skill or technology. If Sheppard punched someone, they would hide it with clever camera angles. Things like that. Now they showcase shit like Rider disarming a Turian thug and nothing about the cutscene says "This is a AAA studio." More like, "I just learned how to animate in Blender yesterday."

I came to terms a while ago: Bioware's just dead. If you're looking for AAA quality for AAA money, you won't find it from them. And normally, I'd let it slide, but if you're going to emphasis the story content, this isn't excusable, not when other studios can hack it just fine.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Tribble »

Well, there was no need for her to stop smiling, after all
Spoiler
she was only talking about her recently deceased father, it's not like that's important or anything.


Might as well save a couple of bucks on animating, right? :P
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by TheFeniX »

So, I just put this game off months back after the first round of hilarious shit. But Bean over here got my interest piqued again. And the laughs man... the laughs.



This whole scene is a trainwreck. But someone please tell me the bullshit with the eyebrows at :22 is some kind of edit, or something. Because I just spit Diet Coke at my screen. Mass Effect 1 was animated better than this. No, even that's not fair, even with all it's "Dreamworks face" KOTOR1 was better animated than this.

"You're looking at him." Why did Ryder's model move after the cut as if he weren't just standing there and was instead walking in from further away? Does he just like to be in "action mode" all the time?

This is like if Shamalan made a video game: no one emotes how and when they're supposed to. Everyone is just kind of spewing out dialog. And my God, some of this dialog. This is a comedy goldmine of SWTOR levels "Payment in kisses." Who wrote this shit? It's like that week in Freshmen English everyone had to write short-stories.

I can't believe shit like this outsells The Witcher. Such is life when you can dump more money into marketing than development.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Tribble »

TheFeniX wrote:So, I just put this game off months back after the first round of hilarious shit. But Bean over here got my interest piqued again. And the laughs man... the laughs.

This whole scene is a trainwreck. But someone please tell me the bullshit with the eyebrows at :22 is some kind of edit, or something. Because I just spit Diet Coke at my screen. Mass Effect 1 was animated better than this. No, even that's not fair, even with all it's "Dreamworks face" KOTOR1 was better animated than this.

"You're looking at him." Why did Ryder's model move after the cut as if he weren't just standing there and was instead walking in from further away? Does he just like to be in "action mode" all the time?

This is like if Shamalan made a video game: no one emotes how and when they're supposed to. Everyone is just kind of spewing out dialog. And my God, some of this dialog. This is a comedy goldmine of SWTOR levels "Payment in kisses." Who wrote this shit? It's like that week in Freshmen English everyone had to write short-stories.

I can't believe shit like this outsells The Witcher. Such is life when you can dump more money into marketing than development.
The eyebrows were hilariously awful, but at least he wasn't smiling the whole time unlike the female version (see Mr. Bean's link). :lol:
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by TheFeniX »

True. I've seen more video of just outlandish facial expressions not matching anything going on. There's one where Ryder is smiling like a serial killer/rapist while just messing around with his Omnitool. That's when they even bother with expressions. I thought (and upon rechecking, was correct) in assuming that ME1 one just had more work done in this department. It had issues, such as with certain side-quests (talking down the escaped slave), but most of the companions could at least fully-immerse me for a given length of time. The worst was maybe Garrus and his calibrations. Joker was very solid if for no other reason than he would have required nearly all custom animating and Seth Green's voice kind of demands a bit more to get his point across.

ME1 had issues with "talking corpses" but on nowhere near this level and that was 10 years ago. For the record, Resident Evil 5 was 8 years ago and the only big animating fails I could notice were with Sheva and her "angry face." Something about the model would turn her into The Joker for a split second. Creepy. Thinking about it, the only female who didn't have 1 or 2 issues was Ada. I wonder if female faces are a bit harder to animate. I honestly don't know.

Just for some conspiracy theory bullshit I've been seeing in (yea yea, I should know better) comments sections:
1. This isn't the original ME team. Duh since many retired or were fired, but also that this group is made up of ME fans who are now making the game. This is why we're getting fan-fiction tier writing such as when Metzen fell in love with Thrall, Salvatore fell in love with Drizzt and Co, and some EU Star Wars trash like Tales of the Bounty Hunters.

2. Bioware's insistence on making "unconventionally attractive" characters has exacerbated issues with animating due to proportionally fucked up skeletons and facial rigs. Though, this one is quite out there and gives them too much credit in my opinion: I think they just suck and/or don't care. The running animation alone is Ark: Survival Evolved tier. Read: bad.

3. Talking shit about the game is just free advertising and is being pushed by EA. They knew what was coming out had major issues but "no such thing as bad publicity." Let's face it, it's not like they tried to hide any of this. Even the original trailers looked terrible. Just like with Fallout 4, but that game still made bank.

Man... I really need to finish my playthroughs of the Witcher games. Just from the 4-6 hours I was able to give each, those guys are on a completely different level of understanding (and caring) how humans move and interact.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Tribble »

I miss Castle Wolfenstein 3D, I just don't have a computer with 5 1/4 Floppy disk drive to play it anymore. :(
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Anacronian »

Besides the facial animations, the game is also riddled with all kinds of other bugs - I've played the 10 hours trial and beyond the rampart T-posing by the NPC's I have also experienced enemies who clipped into the ground, This happened twice and both times I had to reload since they were unkillable and I couldn't progress the game - also there is a good deal of pop-in by items, NPC's and even the occasionally enemy in combat.

Game seems very buggy to me.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by TheFeniX »

Tribble wrote:I miss Castle Wolfenstein 3D, I just don't have a computer with 5 1/4 Floppy disk drive to play it anymore. :(
What is this, 1989?

A. Get a 3.5" drive. We're in the MBs now.
B. Go here. Thank me later.

You ever own Monkey Island 2 for DOS? Like fucking 16 1.44MB floppies. Kids don't even know. Wizardy 7 wasn't any better. Thank God for the Gold edition.

Holy shit, I grew up when floppies weren't even floppy. What a poser.....
Anacronian wrote:Besides the facial animations, the game is also riddled with all kinds of other bugs - I've played the 10 hours trial and beyond the rampart T-posing by the NPC's I have also experienced enemies who clipped into the ground, This happened twice and both times I had to reload since they were unkillable and I couldn't progress the game - also there is a good deal of pop-in by items, NPC's and even the occasionally enemy in combat.
Sad, I think the worst I ran into was getting ragdolled out of the map by Asari Biotics in the fight with.... shit... Deanna Troy? Liara's mom, voiced by..... shit... Deanna Troy from TNG? Whatever man, it's Friday, cut me some slack. I know the model had like... monster boobs. Even my wife (then girlfriend) was like DAAAAAAAMN!

Whatever, all I know is that, like Skyrim (weird) you can't take action while ragdolling. On Xbox, this meant the game wouldn't let you reload a checkpoint.

Sidenote: we were playing Heroes of the Storm last week and I was like:
"Alarak, I KNOW that voice who the shit is it? Arrogant and condescending. Man... I KNOW THAT VOICE!"

Totally done by John de Lancie. I mean, I still hate that bullshit silence burst comboing motherfucker, but just a lot less. Artanis for life.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Tribble »

TheFeniX wrote:What is this, 1989?

A. Get a 3.5" drive. We're in the MBs now.
B. Go here. Thank me later.
Awesome, thanks! I forgot there is something called the a search engine now, I should look into that. Now where is my 16k modem? :P
TheFeniX wrote:You ever own Monkey Island 2 for DOS? Like fucking 16 1.44MB floppies. Kids don't even know. Wizardy 7 wasn't any better. Thank God for the Gold edition.

Holy shit, I grew up when floppies weren't even floppy. What a poser.....
Unfortunately not; apart from Wolf3D I think the biggest game I had was Civilization, I know that took quite a few 5 1/4'' floppies. Don't have those anymore, alas. The whole civ intro screen idea was because it took so damn long to load lol.

Can't remember the sizes of games like Silent Hunter and Raptor: Call of the Shadows but I do seem to recall them requiring a few disks too.

But of course, nothing beats M.U.L.E. :P
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Adam Reynolds »

Even the premise itself feels off to me. I get that it allows for a sense of discovery that is no longer possible in the Milky Way within the setting as well as allowing the game to avoid discussing the ending of ME3, but I can't quite figure out what element of the premise in particular I don't quite like.

Another element is that I don't quite like the character introductions to the same extent as the first game from what I saw on Youtube. When contrasted with the nice introductions we saw for characters like Garrus or Tali, these feel somewhat lame.

Or maybe I am just convincing myself to not drop $60 on a game that my current computer won't likely run.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Bedlam »

TheFeniX wrote:
You ever own Monkey Island 2 for DOS? Like fucking 16 1.44MB floppies. Kids don't even know. Wizardy 7 wasn't any better. Thank God for the Gold edition.
I think I recall a Star Trek game (25th anniversary?) having maybe 24 or more disks, I remember having to literally remove everything but dos from my computer to fit it on at the time and that was a 386 which was about the best that any of my friends had, the fact I had an actual sound card made it better than about 80% of the people I knew.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by TheFeniX »

Bedlam wrote:I think I recall a Star Trek game (25th anniversary?) having maybe 24 or more disks, I remember having to literally remove everything but dos from my computer to fit it on at the time and that was a 386 which was about the best that any of my friends had, the fact I had an actual sound card made it better than about 80% of the people I knew.
Can I rant about this? I'm so mad wikis (or whatever) don't talk about what you had to go through to just get. games. working. EMM386.exe for Wizardry 7? It cost cash monies for what you can right-click on an application for today. Hell, they ended up baking that directly into the OS back when autoexec.bat was a thing. IRQs, DMA, I/O? Remember when Plug and Play was absolute shit? MSCDEX.exe? With parameters? Files? Stacks? BUFFERS!?

Kids man... kids. And even I'm a kid here, but I'm not going back into punch cards and shit. Or, god forbid, cassette disk access.
Adam Reynolds wrote:Even the premise itself feels off to me. I get that it allows for a sense of discovery that is no longer possible in the Milky Way within the setting as well as allowing the game to avoid discussing the ending of ME3, but I can't quite figure out what element of the premise in particular I don't quite like.
From trailers and other official media: game feels small. Which is weird considering the setting. It's like ME2: ME1 setup this HUGE galaxy and ME2 is like "but collectors, Human Reaper." I only got like 4-6 hours in ME2, so maybe I'm not giving it a fair shot, but it reminded me (as ME 1 did of Star Control 2) of Star Control 3. Not a bad game, but a step-back from the "original." They cleaned up the combat, but the story felt small and cuts were made where they shouldn't have been.

This is where I feel I'm too old and my "jadedness" got the better of me. I've been here before so I'm not giving ME2 a pass like a lot of youngin's would have. Though, to be fair, I gave the new Star Wars movie the credit is was due (as a ANH ripoff) and I liked it: so I'm not totally unsalvageable as a person.

But that ME2 is as popular as it is...... ugh. I can buy kids just not knowing better as opposed to DragonAge 2 which was basically "Paid reviews saved our shitty cash-in."
Or maybe I am just convincing myself to not drop $60 on a game that my current computer won't likely run.
Yea, that console jump to 64-bit and multi-core support hurts from what I can tell. Sooooo glad I dove back into PC gaming around.... holy shit, 2009? It's been 8 years since going back to PC? Top of the world baby! I thought I'd be stuck in match-making Hell forever.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Tribble »

TheFeniX wrote:Can I rant about this? I'm so mad wikis (or whatever) don't talk about what you had to go through to just get. games. working. EMM386.exe for Wizardry 7? It cost cash monies for what you can right-click on an application for today. Hell, they ended up baking that directly into the OS back when autoexec.bat was a thing. IRQs, DMA, I/O? Remember when Plug and Play was absolute shit? MSCDEX.exe? With parameters? Files? Stacks? BUFFERS!?

Kids man... kids. And even I'm a kid here, but I'm not going back into punch cards and shit. Or, god forbid, cassette disk access.
Ya no kidding. The good thing was, you actually learned what the computer was doing rather than just clicking icons.

I remember how excited I was to get my first CD Game... MechWarrior 2 for MS-DOS!



Now that's how you do a proper intro.

Btw, little known fact: the MechWarrior 2 CD doubled as an audio CD which contained the game's soundtrack. The soundtrack was pretty awesome and still holds up :D
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by TheFeniX »

Tribble wrote:Ya no kidding. The good thing was, you actually learned what the computer was doing rather than just clicking icons.
Steam is like.... oh man, RAGE: "What was wrong with WON? Why am I giving my HL1 key for this BS?" Kids have no idea even the shit it had to go through so they could play their shitty Fallouts.
I remember how excited I was to get my first CD Game...
Wing Commander Armada. Though, to be fair, I got multiple games like that on my Sega CD (Popful Mail) or god damn it..... Microcosm? You "Flew" around inside a dude (a la Fantastic Voyage or, the much more awesome, Innerspace) blasting bacterium in FMV. Oh man, what they would do to fill a 650MB CD-ROM. My mom worked in the lab and this one guy would dump tons of games off on her (for me) because they just gave these out for buying a CD-ROM.

But Wing Commander Armada was actually badass and not just a shit-heap of FMVs and some code on a CD-ROM.
MechWarrior 2 for MS-DOS!
YOU! I like you... BUT:

Not even fair. Nowhere near fair. Straight up cheating. Old school Activision WRT the Mechwarrior series is the standard when it comes to "FMV that gets you PUMPED!" It's like giving Blizzard credit for knowing how to model "10/10" female characters. I don't even need to click that link to remember that. "Weapon depleted. " :clickclickclick: Even into Mechcommander: pure boner-popping awesomeness. It's like giving modern-day Squeenix credit for making FMVs:"You cheat Dr. Jones! You cheat!."
Btw, little known fact: the MechWarrior 2 CD doubled as an audio CD which contained the game's soundtrack. The soundtrack was pretty awesome and still holds up :D
Dude, who are you talking to? I've ripped my MW, Twisted Metal, Sonic CD, and GTA1 discs, just to name a few. There is a specific format for CD-ROM to combine a data track (usually 1 if you try to read it on an audio player) with audio tracks that I can't recall for the damn life of me.

Now, I gotta cough up $50USD for the damned FFXIV soundtrack on Blu-Ray because "fuck you, that's why?" Fucking Soule only selling hardcopies of the Skyrim soundtrack in 2012: what an asshole!

Though, you sir! You... are good people.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Executor32 »

Redbook audio is the term you're looking for. My favorite game soundtrack like that, though, has to be Total Annihilation's:



Full orchestra? Check. Blockbuster movie soundtrack feel? Check. Jeremy motherfucking Soule? Fucking check.

Hell, TA even had a great opening FMV, too:

どうして?お前が夜に自身お触れるから。
Long ago in a distant land, I, Aku, the shape-shifting Master of Darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil,
but a foolish samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow
was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future, where my evil is law! Now, the fool
seeks to return to the past, and undo the future that is Aku...
-Aku, Master of Masters, Deliverer of Darkness, Shogun of Sorrow
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

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TheFeniX wrote:From trailers and other official media: game feels small. Which is weird considering the setting. It's like ME2: ME1 setup this HUGE galaxy and ME2 is like "but collectors, Human Reaper." I only got like 4-6 hours in ME2, so maybe I'm not giving it a fair shot, but it reminded me (as ME 1 did of Star Control 2) of Star Control 3. Not a bad game, but a step-back from the "original." They cleaned up the combat, but the story felt small and cuts were made where they shouldn't have been.

This is where I feel I'm too old and my "jadedness" got the better of me. I've been here before so I'm not giving ME2 a pass like a lot of youngin's would have. Though, to be fair, I gave the new Star Wars movie the credit is was due (as a ANH ripoff) and I liked it: so I'm not totally unsalvageable as a person.

But that ME2 is as popular as it is...... ugh. I can buy kids just not knowing better as opposed to DragonAge 2 which was basically "Paid reviews saved our shitty cash-in."
Mass Effect 2 and 3 is largely analogous to what DS9 did with Star Trek, in which the sense of exploration was traded for a focus on politics, character drama and warfare in the face of a seemingly impossible threat. It was largely well executed, I would say more so in the case of ME2, but it was still somewhat problematic as a new direction as that old sense of exploration was lost and could never be fully recovered. The Leviathan DLC tried and mostly worked, but it was a bit too late to make a serious difference.

So in this analogy, that makes ME:A akin to Star Trek Voyager.

Also, the reason for the smaller scale is that FTL without mass relays is extremely slow in the setting, so they are limited to a single cluster. Though given the fictional nature of the technology, they could have easily constructed their own mass relays as part of the premise if they really wanted to. Having the Nexus(new headquarters space station) as a single use mass relay for an emergency return to the Milky Way would be an interesting part of the premise and a nice source of drama as characters have a dilemma as to whether it should be activated.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Anacronian »

After having played the 10 hours (no multiplayer yet) and digested it a bit I have these impressions.

It's buggy and some facial animations are shit (krogan and Salarians look mostly good) - Though that is not what kills me, What kills me is the writing which is atrociously bad, These people in Andromeda behaves like they were written for a Tumblr fanfic and not a professional writer.

Honestly, the way they behave I cannot convince myself that these are the people in charge of the first human intergalactic mission, Hell I can't convince myself that any of them are in charge of walking the dogs.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Starglider »

TheFeniX wrote:I only got like 4-6 hours in ME2, so maybe I'm not giving it a fair shot, but it reminded me (as ME 1 did of Star Control 2) of Star Control 3. Not a bad game, but a step-back from the "original." They cleaned up the combat, but the story felt small and cuts were made where they shouldn't have been.
No, you did not give it a fair shot. ME2 is a much bigger universe than ME1. The reason is that it has a much larger number and variety of side missions, (particularly with DLC installed) and it doesn't pad out the runtime with driving the Mako around empty terrain (I liked the driving but not the emptiness of the non-main-mission landscapes). The story was more character driven than the first game, but that's fine, the character interactions are well above average (for a CRPG). ME1 actually compares to Star Control 1 with its somewhat awkward combat and limited scope. ME2 is in fact SC2 with lots more content and polish. ME3 is the SC3 where they tried but it all goes a bit wrong (worse combat, worse locations, more linear, mostly worse character interactions, obviously awful ending).
But that ME2 is as popular as it is...
Probably with people who actually played the game.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Anacronian »

I would say that if you play a game 4-6 hours you have given it a fair chance no matter what game it is.

If it doesn't inspire you to play on at that point then that is that, But you have definitely given it a fair chance.
Homo sapiens! What an inventive, invincible species! It's only been a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenseless bipeds. They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life. Ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable... indomitable. ~ Dr.Who
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by SolarpunkFan »

TheFeniX wrote:This whole scene is a trainwreck. But someone please tell me the bullshit with the eyebrows at :22 is some kind of edit, or something. Because I just spit Diet Coke at my screen.
"My father's dead, he made me my successor. What do you say I take you home and eat your pussy?" is what that seems to be saying. :P
Seeing current events as they are is wrecking me emotionally. So I say 'farewell' to this forum. For anyone who wonders.
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by TheFeniX »

Executor32 wrote:Redbook audio is the term you're looking for.
Thanks. That was driving me nuts.
Adam Reynolds wrote:Mass Effect 2 and 3 is largely analogous to what DS9 did with Star Trek, in which the sense of exploration was traded for a focus on politics, character drama and warfare in the face of a seemingly impossible threat.
Which is weird because I loved that direction switch with DS9. It's by far my favorite Star Trek series and Sci-Fi series in general.
Starglider wrote:No, you did not give it a fair shot. ME2 is a much bigger universe than ME1. The reason is that it has a much larger number and variety of side missions, (particularly with DLC installed) and it doesn't pad out the runtime with driving the Mako around empty terrain (I liked the driving but not the emptiness of the non-main-mission landscapes).
Sorry man, just don't/didn't feel it. I felt like I was playing a side-quest the entire game. This is not a bad thing in of itself and I had the same vibe with Fallout: New Vegas and that game kept me going. But I'm 4 hours in and my motivation is at rock bottom levels. I can barely recall anything about what I played of the game and I usually remember about damn near everything.

Game might have looked big, but it felt small 4 hours in and that's not good enough for me.

Now, I may have had an axe to grind with Bioware and EA, but I don't cough up money for a thing and look for reasons to hate it or be bored by it.
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Anacronian
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Anacronian »

In a bizarre turn of events, it seems like Bioware actually have better-looking faces - at least some have been discovered through data mining the trial version.

And they are fully functional in game.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/4qG2T0FUlZU?t=19m50s[/youtube]
Homo sapiens! What an inventive, invincible species! It's only been a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenseless bipeds. They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life. Ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable... indomitable. ~ Dr.Who
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TheFeniX
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by TheFeniX »

SolarpunkFan wrote:"My father's dead, he made me my successor. What do you say I take you home and eat your pussy?" is what that seems to be saying. :P
I swear I've heard that last line in some old porno. Credit for giving me a laugh though. Maybe Ryder takes after Archer and deals with personal loss by grief banging his way across the Pacific.
Anacronian wrote:In a bizarre turn of events, it seems like Bioware actually have better-looking faces - at least some have been discovered through data mining the trial version.
Next in line "make character not look like shit" DLC edition. Question: is there no advanced character editing in this game? Is there just no way to create a PC without huge jowls, bug eyes, and face grease? Why is everyone so fucking greasy? Is this really some Oblivion levels of potato heads in 2017? Do gamers have to wait for RaceMenu like mods to get a decent editor? I don't mess with Origin: I played ME1 and 2 on 360 so I can't test it myself. Unfortunately, the two guys I game with who use Origin: one doesn't like the series and the other feels hella-burned (his word) by ME3.

Anyway: I created some wacky shit in ME1 and I remember seeing some pretty badass characters on other forums. I ended up just going with default Male Shep and a slightly modified FemShep (because I suck at character design), but the options were there. The videos I can find on this are barely above SWTOR levels of character customization.
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Tribble
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Re: Mass Effect:Andromeda

Post by Tribble »

TheFeniX wrote:Steam is like.... oh man, RAGE: "What was wrong with WON? Why am I giving my HL1 key for this BS?" Kids have no idea even the shit it had to go through so they could play their shitty Fallouts.
Pretty much anyone born after the year 2000 probably can't remember a time when PC games weren't mainstream. Or even the concept of a gaming company launching a finished product, which seems practically unheard of these days. It's the main reason why I refuse to buy games until all the releases are done and they are significantly cut in price - I'm not interested in paying for the privilege of being a beta tester for a half-assed product.

I know it was inevitable but I still hate how the Internet went from:
"We can now patch things in case we make a mistake (but we'll try not to) ---> "We'll just release the game now and patch it after" ---> "We'll release the game before its even finished, and if you want a playable version you'd better pay extra, suckers!".
TheFenix wrote:Wing Commander Armada. Though, to be fair, I got multiple games like that on my Sega CD (Popful Mail) or god damn it..... Microcosm? You "Flew" around inside a dude (a la Fantastic Voyage or, the much more awesome, Innerspace) blasting bacterium in FMV. Oh man, what they would do to fill a 650MB CD-ROM. My mom worked in the lab and this one guy would dump tons of games off on her (for me) because they just gave these out for buying a CD-ROM.

But Wing Commander Armada was actually badass and not just a shit-heap of FMVs and some code on a CD-ROM.
Oh man I loved that game. I remember my friend deciding downloading it over his modem and it taking over 12 hours, we couldn't believe how big the damn thing was. :lol:

[quote="TheFeniX]YOU! I like you... BUT:

Not even fair. Nowhere near fair. Straight up cheating. Old school Activision WRT the Mechwarrior series is the standard when it comes to "FMV that gets you PUMPED!" It's like giving Blizzard credit for knowing how to model "10/10" female characters. I don't even need to click that link to remember that. "Weapon depleted. " :clickclickclick: Even into Mechcommander: pure boner-popping awesomeness. It's like giving modern-day Squeenix credit for making FMVs:"You cheat Dr. Jones! You cheat!."[/quote]

Hahaha I guess it is kind of cheating, that was my first CD-ROM game though, so it holds a special place in my heart. :P

"Alpha Assault this is HQ, what is your situation?" BAM!
TheFenix wrote:Dude, who are you talking to? I've ripped my MW, Twisted Metal, Sonic CD, and GTA1 discs, just to name a few. There is a specific format for CD-ROM to combine a data track (usually 1 if you try to read it on an audio player) with audio tracks that I can't recall for the damn life of me.

Now, I gotta cough up $50USD for the damned FFXIV soundtrack on Blu-Ray because "fuck you, that's why?" Fucking Soule only selling hardcopies of the Skyrim soundtrack in 2012: what an asshole!

Though, you sir! You... are good people.
Haha, sorry I meant that more in a newer generation sort of way. "You mean the developers would include a separately accessible soundtrack as part of the game?!" I can't seem to find my Twisted Metal and Sonic CD discs, alas.

Another thing I really licked about MW2 was all the Battletech EU material in it - there was literally novels worth of the stuff.
TheFeniX wrote:I swear I've heard that last line in some old porno. Credit for giving me a laugh though. Maybe Ryder takes after Archer and deals with personal loss by grief banging his way across the Pacific.
The last part of the line was in... Shark Attack 3 :lol:




Edit: and yes I know this thread is supposed to be about ME:A, but let's be honest, the game's going to suck, so I'd rather stick to nostalgia :P
"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - The official Troll motto, as stated by Adam Savage
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