Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Mass Effect BioWare Montreal's Mass Effect: Andromeda - where element zero meets trisomy 21

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,071
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
I actually like the things Uplay adds like unlockables for achievements and shit, at least it gives a point to that otherwise useless 'feature' and might make doing extra shit once finishing the game at least have some kind of extra reward. Uplay isn't the total shitbag it used to be

100% agreed. The idea to link achievements with some actual rewards, not just an icon popup, is such a no-brainer I'm stunned it took so long for devs to figure out. Ubi even offers straight up monetary reward - 20% off of any game for a 100 "achievement points". Huge kudos for that.

Origin has their subscription service with exclusive pre-release access which is a great idea per se, too bad everything EA disgorges nowadays is disgusting dog vomit.

Meanwhile Steam has idiotic trading cards that look ugly as fuck and are utterly embarrassing and useless.
 
Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
4,010
PS: Also shows sadly that EA didn't always suck dicks and allowed a lot of good shit albeit mostly as publishers though also as devs.
Nigga, they literally killed studios which made games you listed.

Is anyone surprised EA closed any of those studios you're talking about? It's not like EA killed 1997 Origin Software, they killed a post Ultima 9 Origin which didn't have its founder anymore, and hadn't released anything worthwhile in eight years. Although it does suck that Ultima Online 2 never came to be, because it at least looked interesting at the time. Bullfrog seems like the one where the writing was most on the wall it's end was near. Molyneux was gone (at this time that would've been seen as a bad thing), the Theme Park series was getting its ass kicked by a new game called Roller Coaster Tycoon, and EA was already working with Molyneux's new company to make the very kind of games Bullfrog did. Westwood is the only one where it seems like an actual shame it got closed down, despite things like Command & Conquer: Renegade being delayed to a point it only looked worse in comparison to what had just been released the previous few year before. But it's little surprise a studio whose focus was on a PC genre like RTS didn't survive that period in the 2000s when PC gaming was basically dead outside of a handful of titles from a handful of developers.

EA's got this reputation for making studios do this or that, but I bet if they'd actually forced them all to focus their efforts on doing stuff like Ultima, Lands of Lore, Nox, Populous, Dungeon Keeper, Crusader, and Wing Commander on Xbox and PS2 in the 2000s they'd of lasted a lot longer; if not still be around. That weird setting of Ultima Online 2 probably would've been as big of a hit as Morrowind was on Xbox as a new single player Ultima. A lot how EA seemed to handle those studios seems pretty stupid. It's almost hard to believe EA didn't mandate Renegade have base building, (given it was a fucking C&C game) especially since they would known they had another FPS with drivable vehicles in big open environments coming in 2002; and with Halo being released the previous year and did open stages with drivable vechicals much better.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
So.... I just bought this game for 5 euros - just out of curiosity if it's really that bad. Will be interesting haha :positive:
Now go and buy Vodka for 60 euro,the higher alcohol percentage is,the more tolerable the experience will be. Some horrors are not meant to be tangled on clear head!
 

Lutte

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Aug 24, 2017
Messages
1,967
Location
DU's mom
despite things like Command & Conquer: Renegade being delayed to a point it only looked worse in comparison to what had just been released the previous few year before. But it's little surprise a studio whose focus was on a PC genre like RTS didn't survive that period in the 2000s when PC gaming was basically dead outside of a handful of titles from a handful of developers.

It's almost hard to believe EA didn't mandate Renegade have base building, (given it was a fucking C&C game) especially since they would known they had another FPS with drivable vehicles in big open environments coming in 2002; and with Halo being released the previous year and did open stages with drivable vechicals much better.

Funny thing is that RTS / vehicular first person control hybrids were already a thing in 1998, way before Renegade and they were very well done.

That one wasn't without flaws, but it had a decently challenging solo campaign and was a very fresh and innovative game that was undermarketed and went under the radar.
The same year also saw the release of battlezone.


Both of those games are much closer to what Renegade should really have been. Both also lacked the advertising power Westwood had as a studio and didn't manage to make enough of a dent in the market so that promising hybrid genre of games just became forgotten. Renegade could have been the game to push the genre to the forefront if they had more ambition while making it.
 

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,071
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
BioWare: 'Mass Effect is certainly not dead'

Gamble says that despite the criticism levied at Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare has learned from its perceived mistakes—"some specific tactical things like faces, for example, that was one of the hot-button rallying items for Andromeda..."

They think the problem with Andromeda were the faces.
rating_prosper.png


Yeah, Mass Effect IS dead.
 

Vorark

Erudite
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
1,394
:dead:

It's like ME3 and its ending, it overshadowed the many other failings the game had. The animation/faces were so poor in MEA it helped hide the rehashed story and characters, empty open world, fetch quests... well you get the gist of it.
 

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,071
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
:dead:

It's like ME3 and its ending, it overshadowed the many other failings the game had. The animation/faces were so poor in MEA it helped hide the rehashed story and characters, empty open world, fetch quests... well you get the gist of it.

Agreed with the second part. But I'd say the sloppy ME3 ending overshadowed the good parts of the game.

Before Andromeda ME3 was considered the ugly duckling of the series but that was entirely due to the last few minutes of the game. Everything else was great, that is to the extent a linear action game with light RPG elements can be great - the writing, characters, atmosphere, gunplay, DLCs even the multiplayer.

I've replayed the trilogy before I played Andromeda and I thought all three games have an equal measure of good and shitty things and none of them really stands out in either direction.
 

Freddie

Savant
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
717
Location
Mansion
:dead:

It's like ME3 and its ending, it overshadowed the many other failings the game had. The animation/faces were so poor in MEA it helped hide the rehashed story and characters, empty open world, fetch quests... well you get the gist of it.

Agreed with the second part. But I'd say the sloppy ME3 ending overshadowed the good parts of the game.

Before Andromeda ME3 was considered the ugly duckling of the series but that was entirely due to the last few minutes of the game. Everything else was great, that is to the extent a linear action game with light RPG elements can be great - the writing, characters, atmosphere, gunplay, DLCs even the multiplayer.

I've replayed the trilogy before I played Andromeda and I thought all three games have an equal measure of good and shitty things and none of them really stands out in either direction.
My experience of ME3 was quite different. I saw that ending over shadowed how uneven the writing was. There were places where they managed to build up tension, but then it ended in something anti-climatic. Ardat Yakshi.. or whatever corrupted Asari temple or whatever is good example. There were many instances of cut scene stupidity, Kai Leng fight being one of the worst examples. You lose because game says so.

That they decided to cut huge parts as Omega out and release as DLC affected a lot to game. It's not only that mission which might had been alright at least turned out to be boring chore and felt it didn't contribute anything towards the bigger goal, it also made pace of game even worse. Earth levels were terrible and whole 'say good byes' to everyone so overdone it was insulting regarding both, intellect, nuances and even style

It's extremely jarring because there were good parts of game. Dynamic Citadel was good, there were lot of good in Salarian and Quarian missions. But I never saw it as a good game, with or without the ending.

MP was great though.
 

Vorark

Erudite
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
1,394
Agreed with the second part. But I'd say the sloppy ME3 ending overshadowed the good parts of the game.

Before Andromeda ME3 was considered the ugly duckling of the series but that was entirely due to the last few minutes of the game. Everything else was great, that is to the extent a linear action game with light RPG elements can be great - the writing, characters, atmosphere, gunplay, DLCs even the multiplayer.

I concur about the improved gunplay but I couldn't turn a blind eye to:

- The lacking journal system. A total wtf after previous entries being decent about it.
- Fedex quests.
- The points system which forced you into multi.
- Space bar being used to jump/cover/roll.
- Turret sequences.
- Removal of holstering animation. It was one of those nifty details.
- ME2 squadmates reduced to cameos.
- Autodialogue. Instead of speaking after player input, Shepard would babble and babble for minutes. Why was my hardass renegade, who killed a bunch of batarian scum and other nasties being all worried about people dying? Bioware sacrificed the little player agency left in the name of "cinematic experience".
- As mentioned by Freddie, the uneven writing.
 

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,071
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
Uneven writing is a thing in all MEs. ME1 has probably the best plot and pacing but some of the dialogues are cringey (oh god and the Mako sequences...never again). ME2 has good characters, dialogues and sidequests but the main plot is so retarded it brings the whole game down hard. ME3 has a great vibe - the feeling a serious shit coming down, imminent end of history, great atmosphere build up, but then the very ending is bad. I didn't even mind there's no awesum final boss or some shit, the final boss in ME2 was retarded enough, but they just fucked it up with the annoying kid and the three-colour endings.

Overall I like all three games more or less equally, I enjoyed replaying ME3 the most just because it aged the best, obviously. I was surprised how badly ME1 aged and how terrible is the gunplay in ME2 compared to ME3.

Also pleasant reminder how good the multiplayer in ME3 was. It was still going strong a year ago, 5 years after the release. Too bad for Bioware coz it was a great benchmark showing how terrible the Andromeda multi was.
 

Freddie

Savant
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
717
Location
Mansion
For me Mass Effect 1 presents what I wanted the most and considering that it had burden of being encyclopedia of the world, it did well. I liked some moments NPC banter, moments in the Citadel. Elcor and Hanar were good ideas for a chance. This is game, we can model stuff, so why have humans with different make up? Writing and voice directing (latter with also Prothean AI) was something they could had improved for ME2, but instead they dropped these Elcors and Hanar or made them comic reliefs (Volus).

Trivia: Mako sure divided players, but necessary planetary missions in ME1 actually take less time than planetary scanning in ME2, even with improved scanner.

Single type of planetary building did get old pretty fast.

Chris E'Toile wrote Ash, whom still is the best attempt at writing 3 dimensional character I have seen. He also wrote Geth, which were actually interesting and menacing in ME1. In ME2 Ash was dropped all together, Geth... Mac Walters didn't liked E'Toile's ideas there either.

There were good things in ME2 like about anything involving and happening around Mordin. For ideas and themes, identity, sexuality, self actualisation, they are worthy themes but Walters went so far with that he didn't even mind about the consistency of story and we ended with bunch of people with daddy issues, which watered the whole thing down.

Never learned to like ME2 popamole combat. ME1 was just fine if you learned to upgrade your companions. Killing machine cleaning left and right... In ME2 there were barriers / shields which just slowed combat down and unified cooldown system didn't helped any of it. Suicide mission was fine if you knew your builds but sequences could have been longer, especially when end boss was such... cheese.

Combat improved to ME3 but was still... I don't recall but two really good battle sequences from ME3 SP. The writing... Lot's of good writers did what they could. The tone, the build up at times, seeing how things influenced, it was IMO top notch. But like I said, I really felt it was all over the place. Characters, Ash was back but they turned her to... who? I don't know if BW knew themself. Player agency was compromised, like Vorak mentioned.

For the ending I recall bleak research station and then TIM's hideout, which was practically empty and boring and final showdown with Kai Leng, whom was as lame as ever and of course there had to be cheesy cut scene even after you thought you finally get rid of him. Then the Earth where I didn't mind the bleakness but that there were but like one battle sequence that really worked out well, that really felt subbar. For me Star kid was just final insult to injury.

Lot of words has been written about BW and ME series in Codex, but it's worthy to sometimes revisit these things. It's not that I enjoy kicking them in the nuts when they are down, but that WHAT happened, HOW it happened, what were the CONSEQUENCES. Like messing up entire IP and practically burning the platform they had for their writing talents.

They had that chance to make a come back with Andromeda and they fucked up even worse. I think in the industry there are lot of ideas. But no small studio can take hit like that and get away with it. Maybe sometimes it would be good to stick with what you have and improve, not re-imagine.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

Guest
BioWare: 'Mass Effect is certainly not dead'

Gamble says that despite the criticism levied at Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare has learned from its perceived mistakes—"some specific tactical things like faces, for example, that was one of the hot-button rallying items for Andromeda..."
some specific tactical things like faces, for example
tactical things like faces
tactical things like faces
giphy.gif
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
9,933
I think he was saying the over-reliance on their face scanning tech instead of proper animators was a tactical mistake. Granted that was an ordered from on high by people who didn't even see it in action hence why we got all those great my face is tired memes.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Can it even be blamed on that?
Notice that essentially every problem with faces in the game were female faces. Did they have a separate team working on the male and female characters?
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
BioWare: 'Mass Effect is certainly not dead'

Gamble says that despite the criticism levied at Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare has learned from its perceived mistakes—"some specific tactical things like faces, for example, that was one of the hot-button rallying items for Andromeda..."
some specific tactical things like faces, for example
tactical things like faces
tactical things like faces
giphy.gif

It could be that it was a freudian slip and he wanted to write "technical" instead of "tactical" or the guy saying it had that slip. One cannot be sure of course since a lot of these guys are just plain retarded.
 
Last edited:

oldmanpaco

Master of Siestas
Joined
Nov 8, 2008
Messages
13,609
Location
Winter
Can it even be blamed on that?

I think the faces were a gateway to mocking the entire game. If the masses could laugh at the faces then they could laugh at the retarded writing, story, gameplay, romances, everything.

Honestly the funniest thing about the whole post release shitstorm was that one of their first priorities was going to be to increase/enhance the homosexual romance options because there were one or two fewer than the lesbian/hetero options. What a bunch of idiots.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

Guest
I think he was saying the over-reliance on their face scanning tech instead of proper animators was a tactical mistake. Granted that was an ordered from on high by people who didn't even see it in action hence why we got all those great my face is tired memes.
I think it had more to do with lazy/inexperienced animators/texture designers hired for their social justice cred and not their skills.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
It was more than that. Earlier versions of some female models were more accurate. They were toned down so they weren't 'too pretty'.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
Must say that MEA is unplayable after the patches,they fixed all the funny bugs and left it only with the sjw drivel. Faces were one of the only few good things in the game.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom