Mass Effect Andromeda officially delayed until 2017

Considering who ran the project, you can probably bet your mortgage that this is just the tip of the cringeberg.

"Deerless Dice wrote:

People have been posting gifs of the dialogue since early access began, and it's horrible. Physically cringe level bad for a AAA release. I hope it improves but I'm staying pessimistic about this game.

I've seen that all over the place since yesterday, but its really surprising, considering how great the facial animations, eyes and lip sync were for DA:I. Wouldn't Bioware just have used the same tech? How do they mess that up?

"Unlucky 13 wrote:

I've seen that all over the place since yesterday, but its really surprising, considering how great the facial animations, eyes and lip sync were for DA:I. Wouldn't Bioware just have used the same tech? How do they mess that up?

I think it shows the game was rushed, or that they focused more on the combat than the story telling.

The game has been at the forefront of my wishlist for a long time, but now I'm actually glad I'm not buying it Day One. Still have a lot to do in HZD, so maybe they'll patch MEA a bit before I get to it.

Been playing this.... Have about 3 and a half hours in using Origin Access on PC. Game looks great. Having a hard time getting into it. Maybe it being on the heels of Zelda isn't helping. I can say it's a lot more "RPG" than I thought. I was kind of expecting a shooter where you have some dialog trees. A lot of it is roaming the space station talking to people and helping with their BS

"mor911 wrote:

Been playing this.... Have about 3 and a half hours in using Origin Access on PC. Game looks great. Having a hard time getting into it. Maybe it being on the heels of Zelda isn't helping. I can say it's a lot more "RPG" than I thought. I was kind of expecting a shooter where you have some dialog trees. A lot of it is roaming the space station talking to people and helping with their BS

I love it! I've read other people making similar remarks, and being disapointed, but that kind of thing is up my alley, lol.

"Unlucky 13 wrote:

I love it! I've read other people making similar remarks, and being disapointed, but that kind of thing is up my alley, lol.

It's not the talking to people that I'm not getting into. I like that part of ME games. It's the world itself and the cast. They arent really doing anything for me. I really want to like it.

"mor911 wrote:

It's not the talking to people that I'm not getting into. I like that part of ME games. It's the world itself and the cast. They arent really doing anything for me. I really want to like it.

I guess we'll see. ME2 started slowly and confusingly for me too, until I figured it out, and then ME3 threw you into the action from the ery beginning before letting you get control of things. The game is apparently huge, so when I eventually get to it, I won't be too quick to judge.

I played the single player portion of the trial, too. The combat is fun and even though you can't control your squad's abilities anymore, the gameplay for your player is definitely improved. The biotics feel amazing. That was a good trade-off for me.

As far as the story and characters go, I'll give that more of a pass since it's still super early in the game. You have 3 crew members to start, 2 of which are human.

Also there isn't a button used for cover. I wish there was.

"BlameItOnTheHenne wrote:

I played the single player portion of the trial, too. The combat is fun and even though you can't control your squad's abilities anymore, the gameplay for your player is definitely improved. The biotics feel amazing. That was a good trade-off for me.

As far as the story and characters go, I'll give that more of a pass since it's still super early in the game. You have 3 crew members to start, 2 of which are human.

That is kind of disappointing. All three Mass Effects did a great job of capturing the attention quickly. I do not like the idea of having to slog through story until it gets good.

However, I am going to wait until I get a PS4 Pro to play this game, and I am going to wait until I have an OLED TV before that happens. I am not close for either at the moment, so it will probably be a year or two before I play. Which hopefully means I can get an ultimate edition with all of the DLC for a lower price.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/03/early-review-mass-effect-andromeda-is-dragon-age-inquisition-in-space/6/

A good review that I found. It focuses on the PC aspect, so those who game that way may find that interesting. However, some good things in there for everyone. It alleviated any concerns that I might have had with the weird press the last few weeks. Said that a good playthrough, even before any DLC, could take 120+ hours. And the last line, which the author intended as a negative, made me laugh, because DA:I In Space is what I've always hoped for. :lol:

https://www.vg247.com/2017/03/21/mass-effect-andromeda-patch-1-04-is-out-now-on-ps4-and-xbox-one/

The first console patch is live (1.04). 2GB on the PS4 and 775MB on the XBOX. No word of what it actually does, other than not effecting the facial animations.

I am actually enjoying the game. The characters still seem super dull to me. The plot is also not very compelling. But I am somehow still going. I met a new species to the ME series, so that's cool. I feel like you level up really fast. I am a level 11 I think.

I don't get the complaints. Including the trial, I'm already 12 hours in doing Mass Effect things from the original trilogy. Sure the facial animation is a joke, but it's still fun.

not sure what happened because DAI had such good facial animations it does throw the game off...and Im a little disappointed with some of the regurgitation in the story.. but it is a good game just hard to believe the substandard polish, that is usually a strong suit for Bioware.

There are quite a bit of bugs I've seen regularly. Granted I've only encountered one glitch that has made me restart the game. Technically it isn't polished, but 50 hours in it's still damn fun. Engineer FTW.

about 17 hours in, I quit. I can't take it anymore. I am happy that some people like it. I can't take it

With the mixed reviews, the wife decided to hold off on getting it right away. Leaves me time to play Horizon Zero Dawn, so I guess that is a win.

"Deus ex dolphin wrote:

With the mixed reviews, the wife decided to hold off on getting it right away. Leaves me time to play Horizon Zero Dawn, so I guess that is a win.

I've been ill all week and haven't done any gaming, and still have a while to play in HZD too. Thinking that when I do finally get MEA in a few weeks, maybe I'll catch a sale and there will be a few patches by then.

I finished the story about 80 hours in. There is too many minor side stuff, but the loyalty missions are awesome. I'm looking forward to the inevitable DLC and sequel. Lots of unanswered questions.

https://gamerant.com/mass-effect-andromeda-patch-105/

Lots of patch notes for the newest one. Looks like theres a lot in there. I've yet to get the game, and it looks like maybe holding off just a little is a wise choice. I remember reading all the stuff about how awful one of the previous AC games was, and by the time that I got it, most of that was resolved.

There is nothing game breakingly bad that I am finding. I ran into one issue with an important quest that forced me to reload an earlier save, and the early facial animations were surprisingly butt, but that last is partly remedied with the new patch.
Overall ... do you like ME games? You will probably like this one. If not ... you probably won't.

The characters do seem oddly lifeless alongside the original group, but not sure if that isn't just a bit of nostalgia+3 games of character development. I remember being over some of the original ME characters pretty quick.

Pacing is definitely off though - the amount of side quests are wacky and throws things off. I keep getting put on hold for major quests as I complete various parts, frustrating.

I get what they were trying to do with making it a bit more open-world, but they didn't pull it off well.

The crafting/customization is also pretty butt - the menus are clunky and poorly designed, hard to navigate. The quest menu is sooooooooo bad.

Lastly, there can be times when you get really frustrated because the AI (Sam) or another character will say something, and if you don't catch it, there is no way to get it back.

Overall though, I am having fun. I am enjoying setting up my world in anticipation of the future. :)

Started the game today and played a few hours. A few thoughts from the early going:

-From the very start, very disappointed by the character creation system. It seems no better than what ME 2&3 had. That's sad enough since we're five years past and on a new console generation, but when you factor in that Dragon Age: Inquisition (also a Bioware game) had one of the best creation systems ever two and a half years ago, you would have thought that it would be simple enough to repurpose that for ME:A. After messing around for a while, I just went ahead with the default Rider. And while that's essentially what I'd done for the previous ME games as well, it wasn't what I wanted.

-After spending the past five months playing FFXV and Horizon: Zero Dawn, the low quality of the character models was frankly jarring. If there's a step up from ME3, its not a big one. Not up to today's high end standards at all. I actually booted up DA:I to make sure that i wasn't remembering wrong, and the same company did so much better with their other game a few years back. How the quality actually declined is surprising and perplexing. Were they just lazy? Also, so far in my game (to the end of the first mission), there seem to be fewer character closeups in conversations, and I'm wondering if that was a concious choice, given the models.

-Gameplay itself is very reminicent of DA:I, and thats a good and comfortable thing for me. Controls felt a little too loose, but I adjusted to it.
-Eager to jump into all of the other options that the game seems to offer. I had read that the game only allows you to do a manual save outside of "priority missions", but I was still surprised that I wasn't able to at all as long as I played. As it is, I had to turn the game off and take it out of my PS4, so I'll just hope that the autosave brings me back to the point that I left off. I hate trusting that, though.

As I said, I do enjoy the gameplay when it comes to exploration. Jumping can come in handy, even when the game isn't forcing you to use it. I like all of the exploration and what seem to be a huge pile of sidequests. However, the combat is so much more fast paced and wild than anything I'm used to, especially in a shooter. Combine that with the fact that I've learned the hard way that you can't carry medigel to heal any longer, and I've died A LOT on the first planet so far, and I'm not even done with that mission yet. I'll probably figure it out as I go, but my method of being patient and shooting enemies one at a time as they come for me doesn't seem to apply in this one most of the time.

Also, driving the Nomad is fun. They did a really good job adding that in, as a non-driving game. You really have a lot of control over the thing.