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

[Lhynn]

Thats bullshit, sure you could say that there were few good moments in the story but thats the same for pretty much any shit game ever made. Just because some shit is more "coherent" and "consistent" then other shit it still doesnt make it anything more then shit, and having low standards is hardly something to be proud of.

Thats retarded. "just because its well written doesnt meant its not the same as other games that are poorly writen" What?
You cant say something is mediocre if it sits above most things in the medium.
Also ME1 has plenty of memorable moments, some mako bits were pretty great. fighting a giant worm is pretty great, the whole sequence at the end of the game where you fight while climbing a tower from the outside is fantastic. The music is great, Heck, the tutorial area is a very good mission on its own right, and never got old. The mission where you have to pick who lives or who dies, or where you have to talk down the angry krogan or put him down. Or how about assaulting a geth base in the middle of nowhere and having enemy drop ships bringing reinforcement, that was a sight to see.
Then there are small sidequests like the one where the biotics took a ship to try and get better lfe conditions, or the one with the dude that makes illegal implants.
I could keep going, they went through a lot of troubles to show you an interesting world with real problems that fit thematically and make the whole narrative stronger as a result.

If you have super high standards rooted in some retarded ideal world, and wont adjust your expectations to reality, then your opinion is fucking worthless.

 

[moon knight]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGfyLW7fuH4

And still no written language, which is basically what the prothean left.

For example, we know something about how the Etruscan language was written, but we have very little clue about how it was spoken.

 

[pippin]

Also ME1 has plenty of memorable moments, some mako bits were pretty great. fighting a giant worm is pretty great, the whole sequence at the end of the game where you fight while climbing a tower from the outside is fantastic. The music is great, Heck, the tutorial area is a very good mission on its own right, and never got old. The mission where you have to pick who lives or who dies, or where you have to talk down the angry krogan or put him down. Or how about assaulting a geth base in the middle of nowhere and having enemy drop ships bringing reinforcement, that was a sight to see.

This is all wrong.

The mako sucks, and the worm fight is just boring. The mako parts were the most boring ones of the game, actually. And the tutorial is one corridor, and sure, it's not as tedious as Taris or Irenicus' lair, but it's still an inconsequential corridor. Granted, Ashley or the other guy is a real decision, but in the end they are still interchangeable, just like wrex's fate. You still get a new Krogan. Assaulting a base with the enemy bringing reinforcements? I think Bioshock Infinite had a segment like that. Is Bioshock Infinite a great game?

I dunno, it kinda reads as if ME1 was your first rpg.

 

[salaciousbcrumb]

Update on the Forbes article...

...Paul Tassii says the article is open for comment and he doesn't see a problem with the articlle:D

Anyway i tried to post again and again with no luck, so just ended up posting on the story below, the comment went through straight away. Basically now Forbes is a paid up EA marketing pamphlet. I gave them room but with the high reviews and positive press they gave the game. Not to mention the twisted goolgle searches (on last friday morning here I typed in Mass Effect Andromeda on google and all I got was articles ripping the animations to shreds, an hour later they all popped out of existance and were replaced by buying options and two glowing Forbes articles on the first page. Forbes is a brothel and Tassi and Kain are whores.

Holy crap... I just tried searching for Mass Effect Andromeda and with exception of few (very few) reviews from usual suspects, there are links to official Mass Effect resources and rest are almost all where to buy it.

In hour your say... if this happened how the hell did they pull it off? No offence but can anyone else verify this?

This is interesting because Google should customises search results. If you clicked lot of links leading to memes, etc. Google should prioritise those results higher in future searches. Other is trend, if trend is towards user generated content, that should show up in every search result somehow.

Basically since the first animations hit harvested from the early access, articles started appearing about the poor quality and showing the clips. More an more of these articles appeared from large gaming magazines in the days before the reviews hit. I searched a few times for mass effect andromeda over a few days, to see the latest news. Anyway I did a search one day in the morning, I think it was the Friday before last and most of the articles mentioned the criticisms, when I searched later they had all been replaced on the front page. By sales offers, positive spin and a Kotaku article accusing people of sexist bullying and death and rape threats, towards one of the animators and other defensive articles that painted the game sympatheticly.

It wasn't because the searches were tailored to my personal searches either as I purge my search history often because of...ahem...reasons:D Also it happened on both computers I use.

I don't think it's any great revelation that google often fiddle their search results for political as well as financial reasons, I just found that it was a bit jarring to change the front page search results all at once.

 

[markec]

Thats retarded. "just because its well written doesnt meant its not the same as other games that are poorly writen" What?
You cant say something is mediocre if it sits above most things in the medium.

Also ME1 has plenty of memorable moments, some mako bits were pretty great. fighting a giant worm is pretty great, the whole sequence at the end of the game where you fight while climbing a tower from the outside is fantastic. The music is great, Heck, the tutorial area is a very good mission on its own right, and never got old. The mission where you have to pick who lives or who dies, or where you have to talk down the angry krogan or put him down. Or how about assaulting a geth base in the middle of nowhere and having enemy drop ships bringing reinforcement, that was a sight to see.
Then there are small sidequests like the one where the biotics took a ship to try and get better lfe conditions, or the one with the dude that makes illegal implants.
I could keep going, they went through a lot of troubles to show you an interesting world with real problems that fit thematically and make the whole narrative stronger as a result.

If you have super high standards rooted in some retarded ideal world, and wont adjust your expectations to reality, then your opinion is fucking worthless.

I didnt say that if a mediocre story is more "consistent" and "coherent" then industry average, but if shit story is more "consistent" and "coherent" then shit industry norm. Your problem is that you see ME 1 story, characters and lore as something well done. I see it all as shit with few decent moments.

ME1 had a lot of memorable moments if you have shit taste in games and low standards, especially if you like any Mako bits in which case I will call you autistic. Also every thing you mentioned as an example of good moments gave me a chuckle, especially the part where you mention the mission where you need to choose who lives or dies, since that moment was one of the most facepalming moments in gaming history.

So my "high" standards of expecting slightly competent writing in games and refusal to eat shit with a smile makes my opinion worhtless, ok.

 

[Fairfax]

Mass Effect Prospermeda looks like some game made by some complacent yes men that EA placed on Bioware. They just gone with some stuff they tought was Mass Effect iconic and made a big checkbox list, "MAJESTIC MYSTERIOUS advanced lost alien civilization.", check, "Romance with ridiculous comical anthropomorphic aliens." , check, but this time with open world gameplay as EA wants an Assassins Creed of its own for years. You can notice no one, nowhere even stop a second to reflect and form a coherent vision of anything.

The EA machine can't think, it can only assimilate and regurgitate things. I really hope they rebrand Bioware to EA Edmond and stop the farce Bioware still exist.

By blaming EA you're giving BioWare too much credit. There was a very clear change in how EA managed BioWare after DA2, and BioWare was allowed to take their time and do their own thing. DA:I took almost 4 years, ME:A took 5. That's as much time as the development cycles of ME2 and ME3 combined. Unless the game went through an Alpha-Protocol-like overhaul halfway through development (which would be BioWare's fault as well), there's no excuse for this mess.

Also, DA:I was commercially successful, had very high scores and won several GOTY awards, but this game failed with both fanboys and critics. EA must be wondering what the hell happened as much as everyone else.

 

[pippin]

I think they do know what happened. We all know DA2 was going to be a DAO DLC, but EA rushed it in hopes of training Bio to be a yearly franchise maker. It went like shit. I guess they figured out that Bioware are too lazy focused on details to just rush things out like that, and their fans did resent the poor quality of DA2, especially when compared to Twitcher 2 (the CDPR > Bio as a real thing and not just a meme started about those months in the BSN). The decision was to give Bioware more time to do their games. And while DAI had plenty of criticism, with MEA they lost the mainstream support. And yet again you have people comparing their games to CDPR's.

 

[Loren Silvercloak]

I think many are overly harsh with the writing in the mass effect and i think the problems with the plot it's not even the writers fault, the problem in general is that the try to win over new customers with every new game after the first one that for most (myself included) has the best story any new addition to the series has the same problems story wise in the beginning and end.

In the second game the kill shepard for no reason than to make the new players fell that the didn't miss anything and to start fresh and the main plot has just 3/4 mission to develop and is a small part compare to gathering your crew so of course it sucked in contrast the rest of the game that focus in characters is very well written, same with the third game because they where releasing it in ps3 for the first time the had to include new players in to the franchise and the fact that it was the most plot heavy of them all (aside the first where the had to create the world building of the game) and the shorter time the have in development didn't help either so the game except the combat (which let's face it it was mostly the same with the 2 and they just twitch some stuff) is worse in all regards.

I mean everybody was complaing for the ending and it was the worst part but the beginning was not much better, the opening act and you conversation with anderson was just info dumb for the new players i remember playing it and thinking that i was playing some recap section, that with the stupid tutorial and the half assed attempt for drama with the dead kid make the opening section one of the worst i ever played, as for the end most complain about the (not) choices you force to made but i haven't see many point out the horrible final battle which you basically have to fight i wave of enemy's before the cut scene starts, i mean the 2 one had i bad boss fight with that terminator esque abomination but the suicide mission was very well done and it build around your characters in the third the entire last segment on earth is sub par with the last fight been just plain horrible i really didn't believe at first and it's the main reason that i stop playing after the first time i try to see the endings had a save in that point and after the second ending i just gave up that how bad it was.

My point is that when you reboot the game every time a think is a little difficult for the writers to make something good no mater how much they try or even if the have a good idea because chances are it's going to the garbage bin with the constant restart and that's what happen with andromeda, anyway that's my take why the whole series despite the promising start got to the point of being a meme in the web.

 

[Lhynn]

This is all wrong.

no u

The mako sucks, and the worm fight is just boring.

No it doesnt and no they dont. Worms require planning to take down, and a wee bit of luck, especially if outside the mako (which you surprisingly can do!). The mako is great for exploring, it was used to make the gameworld look actually big and endless, it may have become boring eventually, when the novelty wore off, but its definitely better than not having it.

The mako parts were the most boring ones of the game

Not all of them, feros and virmire are pretty cool.

And the tutorial is one corridor

You say that like it was a bad thing. its a tutorial, in it you get to see a reaper, learn about geths, learn about husks, learn about sarens betrayal, get hints from the beacon. Its not a work of art, but it works well to showcase what the game will bring later down the line while still being fairly entertaining.

but it's still an inconsequential corridor.

Its anything but inconsequential, the events on it fuel the trilogy and start one of the main obstacles on the game.

Granted, Ashley or the other guy is a real decision, but in the end they are still interchangeable

No they arent, you have to pick between two very different characters mechanically speaking, this has an impact on your choice of companion for this and the whole second game. What the fuck more do you want? Also its a choice that you have to make on your command, a real one. I dont remember a game that put you in that situation. You downplaying it is retarded.

just like wrex's fate. You still get a new Krogan.

You still dont get to play with wrex for the rest of the game, and it has an impact on ME2 and 3 plot, a real impact on how it develops. Its insane to even fucking imply it doesnt matter.

Assaulting a base with the enemy bringing reinforcements?

It was more about how it happened. Heres a base in a world you just found, its not part of any quest or anything, you found it through exploration, so you start the invasion and suddenly their orbital dropships come down and release some of the biggest geths you have ever seen. Its was a cool moment.

I think Bioshock Infinite had a segment like that. Is Bioshock Infinite a great game?

Missing the point entirely. also didnt play infinite bioshit, you should be ashamed of yourself.

I dunno, it kinda reads as if ME1 was your first rpg.

My first rpg was either fallout or exile, cannae remember which one i played first. It reads more like you are being a contrarian for the sake of it, as you really put no real argument forward as to why any of it is shit, you just point them out and hope some other asshole comes to fill in the rest.

 

[Lhynn]

especially the part where you mention the mission where you need to choose who lives or dies, since that moment was one of the most facepalming moments in gaming history.

Explain this, as for the rest, its just retarded shit ive already adressed.

 

[pippin]

You had to go and use that autistic manner to answer posts, huh?

The decision between Ashley and the other guy *is* inconsequential because you get a replacement. They replace each other. Just like killing Wrex still grants you a Krogan companion. Or you can get another Geth if you kill Legion. You never get blocked out of stuff in the game, which is a problem and it hurts real c&c. When you do get to lose companions or stuff like that, it's time to do ME3, so it's too fucking late for it to matter.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Just like killing Wrex still grants you a Krogan companion. Or you can get another Geth if you kill Legion.

 

[pippin]

Just like killing Wrex still grants you a Krogan companion. Or you can get another Geth if you kill Legion.

What?

If you let Wrex die you get Grunt, and you don't even get chased off Tuchanka because you killed a notable krogan warrior. If you let Legion die, you get Geth VI. You never get locked out of stuff in the first two games, at least. Have you played them?

 

[markec]

especially the part where you mention the mission where you need to choose who lives or dies, since that moment was one of the most facepalming moments in gaming history.

Explain this, as for the rest, its just retarded shit ive already adressed.

Its a kindergarten level of quality writing of forced "emotionally engaging" scene where you make a choice between two boring characters nobody cares about.

How in the world would someone use it as an example of a great gaming moment is beyond me.

 

[pippin]

especially the part where you mention the mission where you need to choose who lives or dies, since that moment was one of the most facepalming moments in gaming history.

Explain this, as for the rest, its just retarded shit ive already adressed.

Its a kindergarten level of quality writing of forced "emotionally engaging" scene where you make a choice between two boring characters nobody cares about.

How in the world would someone use it as an example of a great gaming moment is beyond me.

If you are a gaming youtuber, or work for Kotaku, you might think it's a great gaming moment

That's the problem: there's little to no reason to care about any of those characters because they are given a very basic bare bones characterization, and it mostly ends up as a subtle way for Bioware to allow you to kill the "racist" character because racism is wroooong.
Most of the companions are given shit characterizations. Wrex is a fighter, Liara a scientist, Ashley is a racist, the other guy is as bland as wet white bread. This might be the Bioware game with the least effort put into individual characters, which is somethign they really like and are apparently praised for.

 

[donkeymong]

I

That's the problem: there's little to no reason to care about any of those characters because they are given a very basic bare bones characterization, and it mostly ends up as a subtle way for Bioware to allow you to kill the "racist" character because racism is wroooong.
Most of the companions are given shit characterizations. Wrex is a fighter, Liara a scientist, Ashley is a racist, the other guy is as bland as wet white bread.

Bland? Kaidans backstory isnt worse then the one of Jack...
He just dealt with his past himself (like an actual adult), like killing his instructor , without doctor Shepard, maybee that makes him bland?

 

[racofer]

Leaked footage of ME:A developers presenting the new characters to their board of directors:

 

[Lhynn]

Its a kindergarten level of quality writing of forced "emotionally engaging" scene where you make a choice between two boring characters nobody cares about.

How in the world would someone use it as an example of a great gaming moment is beyond me.

Retarded point to make, it was never treated as an "emoshuns", simply played straight as a moment where you as the one in command has to pick who lives and who dies. That it was two characters who worked closely to you served to drive the point home rather well.

That you knew or cared about the soldier you sent to die or not is inconsequential, it is part of the burden of the command and it was fairly well represented on the game, but it simply wouldnt have worked as well if it was just a nameless npc. At this point i believe you are nitpicking the shit out of it because you literally have no argument here.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

What?

If you let Wrex die you get Grunt, and you don't even get chased off Tuchanka because you killed a notable krogan warrior. If you let Legion die, you get Geth VI. You never get locked out of stuff in the first two games, at least. Have you played them?

My bad. I see what you mean now.

In fairness, given the amount of work that goes into content creation, I can't blame them for trying to create multiple ways to access the same content.

That said, within a given game, you can absolutely lock yourself out of content via choices. Not taking Garrus for example.

 

[Lhynn]

I

That's the problem: there's little to no reason to care about any of those characters because they are given a very basic bare bones characterization, and it mostly ends up as a subtle way for Bioware to allow you to kill the "racist" character because racism is wroooong.
Most of the companions are given shit characterizations. Wrex is a fighter, Liara a scientist, Ashley is a racist, the other guy is as bland as wet white bread.

Bland? Kaidans backstory isnt worse then the one of Jack...
He just dealt with his past himself (like an actual adult), like killing his instructor without doctor Shepard, maybee that makes him bland?

Also this, kaidan was one of the most grounded characters in the normandy, so was ashley, but they werent bland.
Kaidan had a nice backstory showing you what it was like growing up as a biotic.
Ashelys backstory was one of military family tradition, a bit of xenophobia and a bit of religion. They did a good job at making the human military feel real.

True, when you had ultra badass mercenary, super engineer, mega police, ultra scientist, etc. they certainly seem dull, but nontheless they make the more strange elements of the setting stand out merely by being there, and thats a good thing.

 

[Lhynn]

What?

If you let Wrex die you get Grunt, and you don't even get chased off Tuchanka because you killed a notable krogan warrior. If you let Legion die, you get Geth VI. You never get locked out of stuff in the first two games, at least. Have you played them?

Wrong, you get grunt regardless in ME2. Wrex stays home to rule over his people. If you let him die you instead have to deal with an asshole and no longer have the best or easiest way to resolve things available.

 

[markec]

Its a kindergarten level of quality writing of forced "emotionally engaging" scene where you make a choice between two boring characters nobody cares about.

How in the world would someone use it as an example of a great gaming moment is beyond me.

Retarded point to make, it was never treated as an "emoshuns", simply played straight as a moment where you as the one in command has to pick who lives and who dies. That it was two characters who worked closely to you served to drive the point home rather well.

That you knew or cared about the soldier you sent to die or not is inconsequential, it is part of the burden of the command and it was fairly well represented on the game, but it simply wouldnt have worked as well if it was just a nameless npc. At this point i believe you are nitpicking the shit out of it because you literally have no argument here.

You actually believe what you wrote?

I literally cant stop laughing right now, fuck me, this is pure gold.





Ok, I calmed down a bit.

What the fuck are you babbling about, of course its all about "emoshuns", thats the whole fucking point. Almost every post Fallout 1 RPG has quests about choosing who will live and die, this is supposed to be different because this arent just some quest NPCs but your companions and love interests. The whole point of it is to be all sad and shit because you need to choose between a two characters that are close to you and you made a bond with them after hours of gameplay.

Problem is that characters are bland and boring and writing shit so the whole scene end up being unintentionally funny. Well atleast thats my experience with it, it seems that there actually were people with shit taste and low standards that thought it was a great scene, I just didnt expect to meet them on the Codex.

 

[cvv]

Its a kindergarten level of quality writing of forced "emotionally engaging" scene where you make a choice between two boring characters nobody cares about.

How in the world would someone use it as an example of a great gaming moment is beyond me.

"Compared to what" is a good point. 98% of videogame writing is teen fanfic at best and an incoherent word borscht masquerading as real text at worst.

As bad as standard mainstream literature is the bulk of it is at least coherent and professional. If you pick up any of Steven King or Tom Clancy the story will be well constructed, the language will be clean and everything will make sense, more or less. Plus ofc there's a substantial amount of "high literature" too, some of it pretentious but some genuinelly life changing.

In comparison there isn't a single videogame script you could describe as "high art". At best there's a lean handful of profesionally well written games like PST or Witcher. Videogame writers are usually middle class kids wthout any discernible talent, willing to "work" for peanuts at famous studios coz it's cool. And studios can get away with employing them because noone cares about writing (well didn't use to till recently, apparently with MEA everyone suddenly does), not even prestigious critics congregating at a certain web forum. Because writing is for storyfags, muh gameplay etc.

In that environment ME1 was like a revelation. Not only it was a sci-fi RPG - a blissful delight after years and years of dwarves, dragons and ancient swords - but it even attempted to rise above the standard and NOT aim squarely at the 11 years bracket with their story, characters and general writing. Of course it couldn't have lasted, nothing good does, Age of Kali is unstoppable. But saying ME wasn't anything special, just more shit coz everything's shit...nah.

 

[markec]

Its a kindergarten level of quality writing of forced "emotionally engaging" scene where you make a choice between two boring characters nobody cares about.

How in the world would someone use it as an example of a great gaming moment is beyond me.

"Compared to what" is a good point. 98% of videogame writing is teen fanfic at best and an incoherent word borscht masquerading as real text at worst.

As bad as standard mainstream literature is the bulk of it is at least coherent and professional. If you pick up any of Steven King or Tom Clancy the story will be well constructed, the language will be clean and everything will make sense, more or less. Plus ofc there's a substantial amount of "high literature" too, some of it pretentious but some genuinelly life changing.

In comparison there isn't a single videogame script you could describe as "high art". At best there's a lean handful of profesionally well written games like PST or Witcher. Videogame writers are usually middle class kids wthout any discernible talent, willing to "work" for peanuts at famous studios coz it's cool. And studios can get away with employing them because noone cares about writing (well didn't use to till recently, apparently with MEA everyone suddenly does), not even prestigious critics congregating at a certain web forum. Because writing is for storyfags, muh gameplay etc.

In that environment ME1 was like a revelation. Not only it was a sci-fi RPG - a blissful delight after years and years of dwarves, dragons and ancient swords - but it even attempted to rise above the standard and NOT aim squarely at the 11 years bracket with their story, characters and general writing. Of course it couldn't have lasted, nothing good does, Age of Kali is unstoppable. But saying ME wasn't anything special, just more shit coz everything's shit...nah.

Around the time ME1 was released we had Mask of Betrayer, Witcher 1, new Geneforge and Avernum games all which I find far better written and far more interesting games then ME1. And this comes from a huge SF fan who has been dreaming of a proper SF RPG.

ME1 was shit, saying otherwise just confirms you having low standards and shit taste. Sorry, but saying it was SF game in sea of fantasy and that it was more competently written then other shitty RPGs does not make it good, only less shitty, but still shit.

 

[Somberlain]

You actually believe what you wrote?

I literally cant stop laughing right now, fuck me, this is pure gold.





Ok, I calmed down a bit.