Mass Effect: Andromeda - Autism reaches outer space

goishen said:

It just seems to me that anyone's that is 100% fine with DAI is fine with this game. While I didn't mind Inquisition, it had some things that were wrong with it. To model a ME game after Inquisition is anathema.

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To be fair, DA:I in many ways was trying to rehash ME1 though. Which I still maintain was a superflawed and frankly shitty game that I would've never played all the way through if the followups weren't so good.

And in many ways with a "new section of the universe" in both cases you kind of HAVE to, to waste a certain amount of time on the backgrounds of species and the worlds. Stuff that can be ignored in followups for the mostpart.

Vaclav said:

Wow... just got some news that doesn't bode well to ME:A to me at all IMO.

We forgot to cancel our Deluxe Edition copy from Amazon, and I just went through the steps to return it tonight. THEY ARE REFUNDING COPIES and not bothering to have them sent back.

I got the full amount I spent on Amazon for ME:A DE back ($59.91) and I'm able to keep the physical copy. (Which no doubt will go to Gamestop tomorrow since with digital we have no need for 2 PS4 copies - half of Persona 5 for free sounds good to me)



And note, it was unopened and keys unredeemed/etc. So no "DLC already redeemed" complications at the time, I busted it opened and cashed the key after they said it didn't need to be sent back though. [Esp. since Gamestop won't take stuff for trade that's still sealed - an oddity I've learned with gifts the wife hasn't wanted that I didn't bother opening first...]

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To hell with Gamestop, take it back to WalMart, if it is unopen. They rarely require a receipt.

Burns said:

To hell with Gamestop, take it back to WalMart, if it is unopen. They rarely require a receipt.

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you do realize that is quite literally stealing - getting money from walmart for something you didn't buy there

Okay, I won't argue that ME1 and DAI have some similarities. In fact, I've said so in other posts. However, stop getting your DAI in my ME. Dragon Age is a game that's all about faith, and the endless exposition and theory upon the meta, and what it all means, and where do we go when we sleep, and ultimately about faith. ME is all about science, and exploring, and most all mysteries that we currently do not know. That was what I loved about ME. Not checking off a box as though I were at some doctor's office checking off whether or I was allergic to penicillin.

And for the second part of your post, you're simply delusional. If you think that you spent any time getting to know them, you're crazy. Let me break down how it happens, "You fightin' kett?" "Yah, you?" "Yah, cool, we buds?" "Yah."

That's is almost how simply it is explained! In ME1, we're thrown into the middle of an already found races, already founded government, already found galaxy. We're just along for the ride.

Kharzette said:

Getting left out of credits is really common. I've worked on several games for over a year that I got no credit on. Hell one of them I wrote the credits module and I wasn't in them.

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More companies should meta their credits into their game as a secret level like Blizz did with diablo3.


They actually expanded it for the ros xpac and it was an extra floors longer when that released.

spronk said:

you do realize that is quite literally stealing - getting money from walmart for something you didn't buy there

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I'm not sure I would call it stealing since they would be getting an unopened game in exchange that they could then turn around and sell for full price again.

goishen said:

And for the second part of your post, you're simply delusional. If you think that you spent any time getting to know them, you're crazy. Let me break down how it happens, "You fightin' kett?" "Yah, you?" "Yah, cool, we buds?" "Yah."

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Uh... how far have you gotten, because besides "intro" parts that's woefully inaccurate. I'll acknowledge the early bits ARE that way. (But then again, with your ass against the wall as it initially is regarding the Kett, wouldn't you kind of ignore anyone who didn't want to kick Kett ass until things were more stable? (i.e. like Batarians were in ME2 - they couldn't give a shit about the Reaper threat so they were almost entirely tangential) [among other things with the "lets go kill Kett, boyeeeeee!" thing, it gets much deeper with the Angarans pretty quickly...]

Burns said:

To hell with Gamestop, take it back to WalMart, if it is unopen. They rarely require a receipt.

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Eh, regardless of legality - I don't like the concept ethically - opened it for the DLC codes already anyhow.

I'm flush enough being $30 ahead is trivial, much less $60. I we actually a little annoyed they're making me keep it, frankly... Got one of those kinds of ethical compasses.

So my buddy and I have video game days whenever we're both off of work and today he brought this. I immediately gave him a look and laughed but he didnt understand. He does now, I think. Lol. He doesn't visit any sites equivalent to this or even close and doesn't really trust reviews in general (which is actually probably a good thing most of the time).

So anyway, here we are about an hour and a half into the thing and I am already incredibly frustrated...

The models and animations ruin any sense of immersion or narrative building, and even when they don't - something like shit fucking dialogue or bad voice acting does. Like we're running into the first planet and my squadmate literally yells something like 'Wow bad weather!' followed by 'This planet is trying to murder us!' followed by 'Whats happening?!' followed by 'This isn't good!' followed by 'We might not make it!' all in the course of like 25 seconds. Can you shut the fuck up, please? I can see what's happening. Jesus Christ, shit like this happens all the time. The annoying robot interface they weave throughout the game does NOT go away and does NOT just shut the fuck up and let you experience anything organically.

Beyond all of those issues, combat is...Okay. the melee is way too clunky and your character is constantly way too close to the camera which makes it extremely difficult to navigate at first. Once you adapt, it gets better. The gunplay is smooth but pretty much the same as what you'd expect from a ME game, which isn't a bad thing. The skills are widely varied and very cool but you only get to use 3...Still. It's fucking retarded. You cannot use squad skills to make combos, you just have to pray the AI does what you want. Squadmates die constantly on higher difficulties, even when trying to place them in safe spots. Fucking annoying. Jumppack is OK, wish they would allow a double jump. Feels constricted a lot of times because of it.

The voice acting seems decent at times but then becomes wasted due to shitty and repetitive writing. Not really interested in any characters yet, either. Actually the general plot and theme of things tends to keep running circles around itself.

Interface is sometimes OK, sometimes annoying as fuck.

Not saving when you want to be able to is f r u s t r a t i n g as fuck.

All in all, this game sucks BUT I really only care about 90% of my experience being based on gameplay and combat, etc. This game at least offers enough of that to just press SKIP all dialogue and cutscenes, ignore everything, and go gunfight shit in space. That alone lets me give it like a 5 or 6/10.

Do not buy this if you want strong Mass Effect narrative and role playing. Or a AAA title in general.

Maybe, maybe, maybe in 6 months to a year after a shitload of patching this will be worth grabbing on sale. Maybe.

Will try multiplayer later tonight.

BTW - while I'll agree the save system sucks while you're on narrative missions... it was ALWAYS that way on narrative missions in all the other ME's. Seems such an odd complaint to crop up now - I've hated it for ~10 years now.

I guess. I just like having all of my shit in order, pressing Save manually and coming back to things exactly the way I stopped them.

Maybe I am getting old, IDK.

Vaclav said:

BTW - while I'll agree the save system sucks while you're on narrative missions... it was ALWAYS that way on narrative missions in all the other ME's. Seems such an odd complaint to crop up now - I've hated it for ~10 years now.

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And this is also BS, besides the first game which you could manually save with. Except for Liara's mission with getting her and the end fight. Jesus christ, I hated that elevator so much by the time I finally got through that fight. And actually, you just had to hit F6 to save the game, on PC at least. By the time ME2 had rolled around, they let you just hit F5 to manually quick save if you were not in combat. It continued in ME3.

Nothing like what we're seeing here. Where there is no quicksave function at all. At other times, there is no way to manually save at all.

Also, you cannot crouch and the auto cover system is complete garbage. I don't understand how franchises like this end up taking so many steps back. Fuck.

Also, as said above, I am not very far but the scan system does not seem to reward intuitive curiousity. Anything I am actually intrigued by yields zero information by scanning. Anything that is scannable is some narrative driven shit that is completely obvious. Tropeish as fuck.

Also, while some of the environments are really pretty, it suffers from the 85% complete empty space syndrome. A whoooole lot of beautiful room to roam with a whoooole lot of jack fucking shit in it.

spronk said:

you do realize that is quite literally stealing - getting money from walmart for something you didn't buy there

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Psh, Uncle Amazon gave me an extra game for my birthday, she thinks she got it WalMart, but xe is getting old and cant remember.

Think of it more like you are consigning Walmart to sell it for you, at full price!

So I just had this scene last night and even watching it a second time I still don't understand why they weren't wearing clothes.

I think they were swapping armor. ?

That was supposedly the point but as far as I know you do wear clothes under armor. I think the real point of it was showing off their new alien naked outside of a romance cut scene so they made up whatever bullshit reason to do it.

goishen said:

And this is also BS, besides the first game which you could manually save with. Except for Liara's mission with getting her and the end fight. Jesus christ, I hated that elevator so much by the time I finally got through that fight. And actually, you just had to hit F6 to save the game, on PC at least. By the time ME2 had rolled around, they let you just hit F5 to manually quick save if you were not in combat. It continued in ME3.

Nothing like what we're seeing here. Where there is no quicksave function at all. At other times, there is no way to manually save at all.

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Shrug - maybe PC had a different save system - I did them all on console, and it was ALWAYS this way in missions. The checkpoints felt "better done" but it was the same checkpoint stuff.