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

[Sykar]

I never could finish DAO. First time I gave up in Deep Roads. The subsequent playthroughs got shorter and shorter now I can barely stomach the prologue. Overall it was a thoroughly disppointing game for me.

 

[oldmanpaco]

You must have missed the meeting, codex consensus is now that DAO is over a decade old it's ok to like it.

Zoomers looking for that old-school cred.

I never could finish DAO. First time I gave up in Deep Roads. The subsequent playthroughs got shorter and shorter now I can barely stomach the prologue. Overall it was a thoroughly disppointing game for me.

I finished it once as a human noble. Fucked the witch so I wouldn't die. Then took over the country (I think). It's a bit hazy. Tried a few years later as a mage but lost interest.

 

[Aarwolf]

I didn't really make that point you're arguing against, I said the writing was mediocre.

That being said, ME1 was nothing like Star Trek, nor was it "nerdy" or "talky". Do you have ADD or sth?

It was no worse than ME2, which was complete garbage writing or ME3 which topped that. The only game with fairly serviceable writing was ME1.

MEA did not try to mimic ME1 in writing, but in gameplay and look and feel. This is because the writer is the same person who wrote ME2 and ME3, but the main game designer had the coincious goal of making a game more akin to ME1.

MEA combat isn't just better than ME1 combat, but better than ME2 and ME3 combat.

TBH it doesn't really sound like you ever played ME1. "Talky" and "nerdy" are not adjectives one would use for that game.

You come more across as a dumbass concerntroll NPC.

Yeah, I got it, you like MEA and treat it personally. Okay, I am here not to kinkshame anybody, fell free to enjoy it as much as you like.

 

[Atlantico]

Yeah, I got it, you like MEA and treat it personally.

Not really, sunshine.

I've had to listen to the same drivel you were pushing from a cavalcade of people who had never played the game and were just regurgitating someone else's opinion.

It's simply boring and I'm not humoring it.

It's the same NPC talking points as everyone else who never played the game or expected ME2 again and were disappointed.

Nobody who actually likes ME1 would describe it as "talky" or "nerdy", I'm sorry. That's like describing DAOrigins as "strategic" and "deep".

Also, saying ME2 is better because while it pissed on the franchise and shat on the main character, at least it meant to do that. I don't even

 

[rusty_shackleford]

it's ok
I'd probably rate MEA above ME2 honestly, I never liked ME2 and never understood the praise for it. Has some good DLC though, main campaign is prosper-tier

 

[Nano]

DA:O was a console game pretending to be a PC game. At least games like KotOR and ME1 knew what they were.

Stop being retarded. Origins was literally developed for PC and got hastily ported to consoles by a different studio.

 

[oldmanpaco]

DA:O was a console game pretending to be a PC game. At least games like KotOR and ME1 knew what they were.

Stop being retarded. Origins was literally developed for PC and got hastily ported to consoles by a different studio.

LOL how many design decisions were made because they had to squeeze it onto a Xbox? Party size, tiny city, reused maps, limited textures. The list goes on. POE2 was also a PC game but designed to be played on a PS4.

 

[Aarwolf]

Nobody who actually likes ME1 would describe it as "talky" or "nerdy", I'm sorry. That's like describing DAOrigins as "strategic" and "deep".

Well, here I am. And no, I don't think DAO is strategic or deep, but keep projecting dear. It has to take you somewhere, eh?

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

ME2 was the last BioWare game I played. I didn’t hate the gameplay, but the writing was laughably bad, and after playing it it was clear to me that BioWare was not interested in making games that would interest me anymore.

 

[Atlantico]

Well, here I am. And no, I don't think DAO is strategic or deep, but keep projecting dear. It has to take you somewhere, eh?

Fuck you, you condescending little bitch.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Mass Effect is nerdy. Most of what people like about it is Codex related; not this site, but the in-game encyclopedia of the game's world. If lore logs are the big draw I'd call that nerdy.

This is like in a DA:O thread where people larp the game was good.

You wanted to say "this is like the DA thread where people larp DA:I was good".

DA:O was a console game pretending to be a PC game. At least games like KotOR and ME1 knew what they were.

This is impossible, as the game is worse on console. Removes the tactical view, and ends up playing like a worse version of KotOR; or maybe since it has the Gambit System a worse version of Final Fantasy 12.

ME1 has no idea what it is either. When you look what it's trying to do, how it attempts to do those things, and how it ended up dropping all the big ideas which were the whole reason it even sounded interesting before release...the game is just a mess.

 

[vibehunter]

DA:O was still super clunky even on PC. Felt like there was input delay even in the tactical view. I can see why it might come off as a "console game pretending to be PC".

 

[Atlantico]

Mass Effect is nerdy. Most of what people like about it is Codex related

Most of what nerds like is codex related.

Most of what normal people like about it is pew pew and fucking aliens and being a badass space FBI agent.

Nerds being nerdy don't make the game nerdy.

ME1 has no idea what it is either.

That's what makes it stand above the rest. It's trying something new.

ME2 knows what it is: a dumbass popamole shooter with awesome buttons and romances and edgy characters. Sold like hotcakes.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I'm not sure normal people give much of a shit about Mass Effect. It's not exactly the biggest of games...back when that news about Dead Space came out years ago the numbers for the first Mass Effect came out too, and they weren't exactly high. Anyways, whenever I hear anyone talking about what they like about Mass Effect it's always stuff related to the world of Mass Effect, and that's Codex entry stuff. It's world building codex stuff, aesthetic stuff, but rarely do I ever hear anyone talk about the quality of the action being why they're into it. I have seen someone say they like how it lets you use powers.

Mass Effect didn't try anything new. It's a year after Gears of War, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, and Rainbow Six Vegas. What little that would have been new that they talked about before release ended up being dropped, and even some of that stuff they seemingly couldn't figure out wasn't new.

 

[J1M]

I'm not sure normal people give much of a shit about Mass Effect. It's not exactly the biggest of games...back when that news about Dead Space came out years ago the numbers for the first Mass Effect came out too, and they weren't exactly high. Anyways, whenever I hear anyone talking about what they like about Mass Effect it's always stuff related to the world of Mass Effect, and that's Codex entry stuff. It's world building codex stuff, aesthetic stuff, but rarely do I ever hear anyone talk about the quality of the action being why they're into it. I have seen someone say they like how it lets you use powers.

Mass Effect didn't try anything new. It's a year after Gears of War, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, and Rainbow Six Vegas. What little that would have been new that they talked about before release ended up being dropped, and even some of that stuff they seemingly couldn't figure out wasn't new.

The 'new' thing Mass Effect advertised when it was announced was basically to be a "bioware rpg with an experience that's cinematic enough that the mainstream will enjoy it too". The shooting combat wasn't a focus until the second one.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

That's not exactly true. The big new things they advertised was stuff like:

- A new dialogue system where you could change things on the fly

- Having to make choices between the missions you take

- The game being a trilogy built around the idea your choices would matter from game to game. This was talked about as an evolutionary of the importing save game stuff they'd done in Baldur's Gate 2

All these would be dropped. Although in the first Mass Effect it looked like choices mattering across the trilogy was in, but they dropped it in ME2. The core idea behind the series original sounded like is was choice, even the name of the game is a play on this. They also talked up cinematic stuff, but the way they talked about it wasn't how it ended up getting referred to in the end. As is, the dialogue system in the game is a pretty standard dialogue system, just with the dialogue wheel; but the original idea was an active conversational system where doing things like interrupting and not saying anything were valid options. It sounded like, and this plays into the whole cinematic approach they were originally talking up, that conversations would happen and you'd interject whenever you wanted as opposed to the normal: character talks, stops talking, and then you have forever to pick a reply. They also talked about having non-verbal communication in there; this was also another part of their whole cinematic presentation deal, sounds similar to how the facial expressions on the talking heads in Fallout 1 & 2 would change to tell you how they felt about something. In the end, the cinematic presentation stuff just ended up being related to camera angles as opposed to an aspect of the gameplay. Some version of this is still in the game all the way up to E3 2007 in July, with dialogue options have normal or interrupt versions depending on the button you press to select it on the dialogue wheel.

You ever let Mass Effect sit on the menu for a while and it plays that cinematic trailer where they get a distress call, and Shepherd looks sad as he turns it off and goes on another mission? Well, that was originally a feature of the game. It's something they talked about in interviews before release. Originally it sounded like you couldn't do everything, and choosing to do something over here may mean you couldn't help someone over there. How exactly they were going to go about it I don't know because they never said. I could see it working like how Dead Rising went about it the year before ME came out, but I could also see it being some turn based thing too because of the space travel stuff. This also sounded like it'd feed into some kind of system where your choices effect the standing of Humans in the galaxy, your standing as a Spectre, or maybe the council or something; I want to say there seems to be some leftovers of this in things people say when you become a Spectre at the start.



They also made the game sound much more open before release. Areas sounded much bigger, with more things and more characters populating them than the final game.

Not some big thing like the other stuff, but they also talked about your armor getting dirty and worn over time if you didn't keep it clean. This, as well as your character getting visibly injured would have some direct effect on gameplay and maybe the options available to you in some way.

It also sounds like squad members relationships to each other and to you would change depending on how much you took them on missions with you like in Binary Domain. I haven't played it since it came out, so I can't remember if there's anything like this in the final game. Like I know talking to them on the ship has an effect, but I can't remember if taking them on missions matter in relation to you with them and them with each other. Was also originally a squad of ten, instead of six, when they were talking about it in 2005.

Combat was always a focus of the Mass Effect series. Although I just looked up some 2006 footage of the game and funnily they can't seem to decide how combat will work. In the E3 video (this would've been in May) it looks like a completely free aiming system, and there's two lines on the side of your aiming reticle that seem to indicate your spread from recoil. Then in September they're at X06, (an Xbox show) and it's got a lock-on system (reminds me of shooting in the 3D GTAs before GTA4) and all HUD and IU elements are changed. Both these videos also make a point to talk about the games new dynamic dialogue system.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

- The game being a trilogy built around the idea your choices would matter from game to game. This was talked about as an evolutionary of the importing save game stuff they'd done in Baldur's Gate 2

All these would be dropped. Although in the first Mass Effect it looked like choices mattering across the trilogy was in, but they dropped it in ME2.

This simply isn't true. There are plenty of choices from ME1 that you see impact your game all the way to ME3. There are hundreds of tracked flags.
Dragon Age and Mass Effect are unmatched in sequel games tracking things done in prior games, nothing else even comes close. Just pop open a ME3 or DAI savefile in a save editor sometime.

 

[Bad Sector]

So i just finished the game, took me ~95 hours according to Origin (though i left it running a couple of times while making food or talking to the phone so i guess it'd be around ~93 or so hours in total).

I agree with Atlantico that it feels the closest to Mass Effect 1, though i'd guess it depends on what you liked about that game (assuming you liked it of course). It gave me a feel of exploring a galaxy like ME1 did and ME2 and ME3 never did - the main part i missed there was being able to actually *land* on those planets (most of the ME1 planets could just as well be randomly generated but they still gave a sense of being in space), but at least the planets you can land on were varied and quite large to explore (even if some of the minor sidequests were a bit repetitive and formulaic). The characters weren't as interesting as the previous games though and overall i found it much less imaginative - but still i think it is a decent action sci-fi game (well, i wouldn't play it for so long if i wasn't enjoying :-P).

Now on to read Shamus Young's gigantic retrospective... :-P

 

[Dwarvophile]

I agree, I bought this for 7$, and it's ok, it's fun enough. The planets are the usual cheesy space opera locations but beautiful; and some good effect, ambiant sounds and musics adds to the atmosphere. Gameplay is nervous, less tactical than in previous iterations but quite fun (AI seems to be much better).
The writing ranges from retraded to allright, and is mostly lazy and un-imaginative : it's barely enough to care about the plot after 60 hours, and most characters are uninteresting. 80% of what they have to say is just filler : it doesn't add anything to the journey but sentimentalism (sigh Bioware) and bland lore. Same for the MC, he/she travels light years and encounters countless chars and crisis without having the opportunity to change a bit at least. There are some interesting dilemnas but they don't seem to bring real consequences. This is where it feels less than the original trilogy, that, and and the fact that it came after.

What is interesting and new though; is the odyssey aspect. Everything related to the arks going through dark space, 5 species jumping in the unknown, sleeping through 600 years, with no way back to a world that is no more ; and mainly, the fragmentation of the collective when expectations are not met, the creation of a new pariah cast, all the different ways people will appropriate themselves a stillborn dream and thrive over its corpse. Well, Bioware could have dug much deeper into that, but at least, it offers a bit of the novelty a more or less copy-paste galaxy fails to provide : there are very few new sentient life forms in general and after 60 hours I've only met 2 alien civilisations and they are pretty standard. I didn't xpect Stanislav Lem , but still, evolution (and lore) in Andrmoeda has taken a lazy path.

So i just finished the game, took me ~95 hours according to Origin (though i left it running a couple of times while making food or talking to the phone so i guess it'd be around ~93 or so hours in total).

I agree with Atlantico that it feels the closest to Mass Effect 1, though i'd guess it depends on what you liked about that game (assuming you liked it of course). It gave me a feel of exploring a galaxy like ME1 did and ME2 and ME3 never did - the main part i missed there was being able to actually *land* on those planets (most of the ME1 planets could just as well be randomly generated but they still gave a sense of being in space), but at least the planets you can land on were varied and quite large to explore (even if some of the minor sidequests were a bit repetitive and formulaic). The characters weren't as interesting as the previous games though and overall i found it much less imaginative - but still i think it is a decent action sci-fi game (well, i wouldn't play it for so long if i wasn't enjoying :-P).

Now on to read Shamus Young's gigantic retrospective... :-P

What was your favourite planet ?

 

[Reinhardt]

You must have missed the meeting, codex consensus is now that DAO is over a decade old it's ok to like it.

Old boring shit game is still boring shit game.

 

[Reinhardt]

expected ME2 again

Why would anyone expect ME2? It's shit. Dropped it halfway and never touched mass effect games again.

 

[Goldschmidt]

Because of Atlantico I am gonna play Andromeda. Fuck all the naysayers. When I am a male granny in the orphanage, the codex hivemind will prolly make it GOTC! You got to anticipate the future!

 

[Bad Sector]

What was your favourite planet ?

Spoiler

The broken one you visit later in the game. It is practically empty and not much of a reason to revisit, but i liked the concept. Aside from that, Voeld.

 

[Atlantico]

I am gonna play Andromeda

One suggestion, to improve the experience: increase the music volume well above the SFX and other volume. Music in the game is very atmospheric and well done, and by default is set way too low.

Allow the music to enhance the experience. It's actually another thing that's really inspired by ME1 and dumps a lot of the "orchestral" and "cinematic" music of ME2 and ME3, for synth scores and ambient themes.

 

[Fedora Master]

One suggestion, to get the Bioware feeling right:

Spoiler