Mass Effect: Andromeda Pre-Release Thread

[Drax]

Charge into group of enemies, use that shockwave thing and then blast the survivors with a shotgun.
Rinse and repeat.

 

[Metro]

Charge into group of enemies, use that shockwave thing and then blast the survivors with a shotgun.
Rinse and repeat.

Yeah that's the biotics approach which I don't really like.

 

[pippin]

Real lockpicking and hacking were removed from 2 and 3, so the Infiltrator lost most of its charm to me. Biotics can be ridiculously OP most of the time.

 

[Drax]

Charge into group of enemies, use that shockwave thing and then blast the survivors with a shotgun.
Rinse and repeat.

Yeah that's the biotics approach which I don't really like.

I tried the more traditional "soldier" tactics but the shooting aspect was so shitty that I had more fun doing notmagic and just laughing at the enemies flying against the walls.

Edit: I don't remember playing an infiltrator, maybe it's better. I dunno.

 

[Metro]

It's basically stealth and sniper from what I've seen. I would do biotics if charge/shotgun weren't the mainstays. Throwing people around seems more fun. But... can't use an assault rifle!

 

[Drax]

You can't? I didn't remember that.
That's hardcore rpg shit man, like druids in D&D.

 

[Metro]

Only soldiers can use assault rifles in ME2. Other classes are mostly restricted to pistols, sub machine guns and/or sniper rifles.

 

[hemtae]

You can get the ability to use assault rifles midway-ish through the game.

 

[Metro]

 

[Drax]

I would do biotics if charge/shotgun weren't the mainstays.

I always hated this. They were so focused on making you TEH HERO that they missed a chance. If biotics was the game's magic, then they could've made something like the wizard-sorcerer/cleric/druid archetypes but in a sci-fi setting, giving you the chance to play a more "support" oriented character, which I usually enjoy more. Because I die less.

 

[Seari]

You can choose between sniper, assault riflles and shotguns I think.

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

pistols are awesome... or they were in me1 anyway

 

[Zeronet]

Was the Asari race a preview of Biowarian SJW-ism? After all, they were "neither male nor female" and the player is forced to sleep with one if they accidentally pick the wrong (right?) dialog options...

There's nothing particularly progressive about the Asari, they're depicted as powerful, female but also designed specifically to be attractive to the presumed audience. They're really just a boring race of attractive elvish women, created to serve the trope of 'green alien hotties' from star trek.

 

[Immortal]

Was the Asari race a preview of Biowarian SJW-ism? After all, they were "neither male nor female" and the player is forced to sleep with one if they accidentally pick the wrong (right?) dialog options...

There's nothing particularly progressive about the Asari, they're depicted as powerful, female but also designed specifically to be attractive to the presumed audience. They're really just a boring race of attractive elvish women, created to serve the trope of 'green alien hotties' from star trek.

Don't forget they can reproduce with Male and Female Sheps - The Ultimate Inclusive Tranny Race Of Sexy Avatar Elves.

 

[Lord Carlos Wafflebum]

I always play ME2 as an infiltrator. Cloak is super useful if you find yourself in an awkward position.

ME2 was fun. I enjoyed the Illusive Man, because you never knew what his end game really was. Then in ME3 they made him retarded.

 

[Lhynn]

Sentinel ftw on ME2. you were truly a tank, an armored weapon of devastation.

 

[lemon-lime]

I want to punch people who like ME2.

2 years ago, curiosity got the better of me and I actually started to play ME1. Playing on Veteran difficulty and doing everything manually lead to a game that was pretty ok.
After that I tried ME2, and I gave up after about 50% of the game. I hated almost everything about it. Skilling and inventory got lamer. Your companions got lulzier, with even more daddy issues than before. Mako exploration got replaced with double plus annoying planet scanning. And then the combat, the fucking combat. What felt like some tacticool special forces action in ME1 turned into a local fair's shooting gallery in ME2. Waves upon waves of spawning moles to pop. Did I say moles to pop? More like layers of HP bloat to whittle down.
"Oh, but you can one-shot peasants with the sniper rifle." - "Only a handfull then I'm out of ammo."
Fuck that shit, I'm gonna roll an Engineer instead of an Infiltrator then. But even skill abilities were made useless:
"A large robot. Good thing, I invested heavily in hacking!" - "Nope, you first have to whittle down the shield, then the armor and then you can hack the fucker."
At which point it becomes useless, because the thing dies after 2 more hits. And it didn't spare me the shit gameplay of HP bloat whittling.

WTF do people like about ME2? Talimancing certainly can't be enough. Wouldn't have been an option for me anyway, because I went femshep. Her voice is better and Default Shepard has such a punchable face, that I bet, he likes to play ME2. He looks like one of those fuckers.

 

[Morality Games]

Some people like action games and James Cameron stories.

 

[pippin]

There's nothing really "tacticool" about ME1 when you had that godawful camera and UI. It's objectively bad, and higher difficulties don't have anything to do with it.
Besides, you had pretty much the same cover combat in ME1. And while you had more options when it came to gunplay, you still popped moles when you got good enough with a certain kind of weapon, and this happens very soon.
Just because ME1 has a thin layer of kinda-sorta-maybe-rpg-ish mechanics does not mean it's less popamole than 2. I guess you will believe what you want to believe, though.

 

[Irenaeus II]

I want to punch people who like ME2.

Me too.

 

[lemon-lime]

There's nothing really "tacticool" about ME1 when you had that godawful camera and UI. It's objectively bad, and higher difficulties don't have anything to do with it.
Besides, you had pretty much the same cover combat in ME1. And while you had more options when it came to gunplay, you still popped moles when you got good enough with a certain kind of weapon, and this happens very soon.
Just because ME1 has a thin layer of kinda-sorta-maybe-rpg-ish mechanics does not mean it's less popamole than 2. I guess you will believe what you want to believe, though.

ME1 didn't spawn waves of new enemies like ME2 did. Usually you were presented with a combat situation and then you used your resources. You could pop off your special abilities in quick succession, killing/disabling a large part of enemies and then quickly take out the remaining threats. In most ME1 fights you were quickly overpowering your enemy. More in line with the whole small team of Special Forces theme. The fight against Benezia was the only one that truly had several scripted waves in succession. But small scale: 10-12 enemies total. Not multiple dozens.

ME2's gameplay was more a mini reenactment of drawn out trench warfare à la WWI. Completely retarded, considering the Special Forces theme. Quick health regen in cover and practically zero survivability outside of the cover system changed a lot. ME1 allowed me to mostly ignore the cover system, which wasn't even much of a system in the first place; it was mostly just a cooler looking animation. In ME1 you didn't press an extra button to enter or leave cover. You just moved naturally into or out of it. ME1 didn't systematically differentiate whether the chacacter was hugging the wall or not. Just manually crouching relatively close behind the wall was in most cases as effective as moving into the "system". But that is not true for ME2.

Those are clear differences in gameplay and control style.

 

[Lord Carlos Wafflebum]

I'm a storyfag, and I enjoyed where the story was going until the end, which was the definition of anti-climactic.

 

[Metro]

It's been a long time since I played ME1 but currently playing ME2 it was a lot better in terms of actual RPG elements: character build, item/weapon customization, etc. Both games share the same shitty level design, though. ME2 dumbs down a game that was dumbed down to begin with -- storyfag choice-your-own-adventure cutscenes chained together with short generic and linear popamole combat vignettes. It's amazing how many people think it's the pinnacle of the 'RPG' genre.

And while the romance and 'dramatic' writing is terrible to frequently cringeworthy the comedy/renegade stuff is good for a laugh.

 

[Dreaad]

ME2 has some of the worst writing I've ever experienced. It has this problem of trying to cover everything in details but the foundation is so bad that the details are terribad. It really is a situation where less would have been far far more. Trying to convey how technologically advanced a race is (the Geth or collectors for example) should take more than 2 sentences. Every NPC in the game acts like 4 year old and treats Sheppard like a 2 year old. Don't really understand how some people thought it was good for what it is, it was worse than some b grade young fiction I've read.

Pulpy done right is DA2..... Completely over the top stupidity, not even trying. That's something you can work with and get some enjoyment out of. Hyper sexualized/violent, filled with pop culture and totally pointless.

ME2 is trying so hard to be serious space opera, with issues like bloated government, class system society, rogue corporations, elite scientists and evil super aliens threat. But all the issues are covered in snappy one liners and shit like "We are a hyper advanced machine race and use the internet to vote on what to do next." followed by "I don't understand why humans don't love us, we are people too!"

 

[Lord Carlos Wafflebum]

The reapers never gave a shite about what "lesser" races thought of them. They were indifferent, except when it came to Shep for some reason. I disliked the special interest the reapers took in sheperd. Sure, he's an outlier on the human ability spectrum, but you'll always have outliers. I always felt Harbingers efforts to get rid of Shep were always half-assed. Kinda like how Joker doesn't actually want to kill Batman, even though it may mean his demise.

Sure, some of the storyline swung and missed actually connecting to anything. It's like the had an idea for a complex, interesting storyline, but were never sure how to fully develop it. Still, for the effort they made, I give them a B+.