Mass Effect Andromeda: Your Impressions?

27 Mar 2017

Mass Effect Andromeda: Your Impressions?

As countless of other gamers around the world, I was a huge fan of the original Mass Effect trilogy: I've completed two full playthroughs, bought every downloadable content for each title, and even included it among my top 5 of all-time favorite games.

After 5 long years of waiting, BioWare finally released Mass Effect Andromeda on March 21, 2017. Despite the millions of fans that the original trilogy gathered however, the reception seems to be extremely polarized. Mainly, the facial animations and voice acting are almost unanimously described as "objectively bad" by the reviewing community.

As much as I myself would love to give that new title a chance, I can't really deny that "objectively bad" is quite an accurate term in this particular instance. Just observe the following animation/acting, and I'm confident that most will agree about how atrocious and laughable it is. I'm not sure if it was intended by the developers, but the line "my face is tired" practically comes across as self-derision toward their own efforts:

These weird and uncanny animations are pretty much all over the place, in a game where conversations/diplomacy/relationships take a central role. Plenty of other ridiculous glitches/oversights were also observed a few days after the release date. One of the pivotal characters is even holding her pistol backward in a cutscene. I mean, the pistol in question isn't some kind of extravagant alien weapon: it's the iconic M6 Carniflex, which most fans of the series can easily recognize. How a team of developers with a budget of $40 millions completely missed a mistake that every goddamn fan could easily spot is just unfathomable:

I wasn't planning on buying this game anyway (I still don't feel the urgency to buy a Xbox One or PS4), but seeing a series of critically acclaimed AAA titles take such an unfortunate turn is just plain sad. Not to mention that BioWare used to produce some of the most brilliant titles in the world of gaming (eg. Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age Origins). As plenty of other gamers questioned in the last few days... what the fuck is going on, BioWare?

Now I've watched a few gameplay videos and surprisingly, aside from the atrocious animations, the rest of the game actually appears pretty solid: the visuals are nearly sublime when exploring uncharted planets, the premise of the story is highly engaging, the combat/class system seems refreshing and well executed.

What are your own impressions about Mass Effect Andromeda? Are you willing to give the game a chance, or are you already disappointed in what you've seen so far? Are you a faithful supporter of the series, or a disenchanted fan?

Please share!

27 Mar 2017

I haven'g played it, but I am avid PC Game fan about yo buy a,really powerful new desktop, with some serious graphics power (SLI Geforce 1080s, 32GBs of RAM). It will kick ass when I install all 4 Mass Effect games on it. I feel that people who complain about games, for the most part, are whiny, self-entitled cunts who fuck kt up for everyone else who nust enjoy gaming, while having real lives apart grim it. I prefer to be a hardcore gamer, who has a,life, compleye with women, sex, best friends, house partying, working a job that I like, etc.

Having not played it, but watching hours of reviews, it struck me as a,game with an unforgiving gamer user base. They are unnecessarily cruel about animation in FMV, but at least gamers are better informed about games, than moviegoers abouy movies, on average, especially comic book movies. I guess the Mass Effect movie rumors will be put on hold as they focuscon more 2D Animated movies. The last and only one was epic, and they honestly should have considered developing around that syoryline, as it was heartwrenchingly incredible.

Going fron the syrong IGN review, I can see why the animations are such an issue in a,game with such heavy communication, and storytelling elements. I am sure it will satisfy new gans like me, but I am an experienced non-jaded lifetime gamer, AKA a rare commodity. I take things lightly when it comes yo games, because,much like any other artform and medium, there ate numerous entries of them. I commited myself to studying computer scoence because I want to be close to gaming. If yhe average game where as great as Mass Effect 4 definitely is, we should all be so blessed.

27 Mar 2017

Well this was a bit of a disappointment, I was expecting something based on the Andromeda TV series or more specifically Rommie...played by Canadian actress Lexa Doig...

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28 Mar 2017

Quote by ALOZI_THE_ILLUMINATI
Having not played it, but watching hours of reviews, it struck me as a,game with an unforgiving gamer user base. They are unnecessarily cruel about animation in FMV, but at least gamers are better informed about games, than moviegoers abouy movies, on average, especially comic book movies.

The gaming community is indeed loaded with plenty of spoiled little whiners who'll complain at just about any aspect of a game, but I believe that the harsh criticism concerning Mass Effect Andromeda is a perfectly valid one. Even the facial animations featured in the very first Mass Effect (2007) were infinitely better than what's offered in that new installment.

See what I mean in the video below, where the main character of Mass Effect 1 is being interviewed. Notice how she's squinting her eyes and raising her eyebrows whenever she's trying to sell an argument, how her eyes are subtly drifting left and right when she's thinking of a proper response, how her head movements are perfectly natural. Sure, it was still an obvious digital character and it still had some minor flaws, but it was nonetheless plenty enough to present characters that were thoroughly likable and believable:

The new facial animations of Mass Effect Andromeda are a million light-years from that (sorry for the irresistible pun). The characters are either blandly conversing with an extremely awkward/creepy stare (as shown in the video of my first post), or in the rare instances where they actually bother to produce a facial expression it makes you go either 'eww' or 'haha'; even the simplest eye blinking is coming across as forced and unnatural.

For 5 long years, fans of the series have been eagerly awaiting what the captivating universe of Mass Effect would look like with the mighty next-gen technology; what they've been offered is a glitchy atmosphere which doesn't even outperform games that are more than 10-year-old. Mass Effect Andromeda practically looks like a spoof of the original trilogy (at least visually). It's as if the new Star Wars movies were featuring people fighting with neon tubes while making silly 'pew-pew' noises with their mouths; that's genuinely the closest analogy that comes to my mind.

Considering the ingenuity and success of the original Mass Effect games, Mass Effect Andromeda was a game that was expected to redefine the benchmark of modern gaming (just like the previous titles did in so many ways). What BioWare have shown their fans is that they don't even take Mass Effect seriously anymore to bother presenting a game that looks half as good as what plenty of independent studios can produce.

So yeah, many people are disappointed... and rightly so.

29 Mar 2017

Massive, massive fan having done 3 full walkthroughs of 1, 2 and 3 on the same character at Insanity level smile

I don't know about this one though - I want to like it and I will play it.

1 Apr 2017

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2 Apr 2017

Quote by I_Am_A_Dog
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My thoughts exactly.

9 Apr 2017

Well, it seems like BioWare at least heard the complaints and are inclined to redeem themselves.

They've released a patch this last Friday, which fixes many of the previous uncanny animations: the eyes aren't so creepy anymore, the facial expressions are much more dynamic, the body language seemingly conveys emotion.

It's still bewildering how they didn't bother with any of that polish before releasing the game, especially since a mere 2 weeks was plenty enough to make those improvements. But hey, players will nonetheless gladly embrace the changes:

9 Apr 2017

Although I am a fan of the series, I am also an extreamly unbiased person. So I hope you can find some truth in my following comments. My first playy through of Andromida was before the patches and yes it seemed the developers were so focused on making a bad ass story that was completely different then the first 3 but still would fill the hole we all had (no dirty jokes please). I believe they did because I didn't really notice it until the patches came out and it was hard for me to put my controller down. As you said most people to complain are just trying to voice their oppinions that few care to here.
I would say if face movement is that big of a deal to you ether wait another month until they debug the whole game or shit idk go have a conversation with a real person, but if you like games with awesome story lines, jetpacks, guns, explosions, and weird alien sex (y'all know who you are) then shut up, get the game and invest the next 100 hourse of your life finding artifacts, minerals, vaults, and corpses.

Are you sure?