Mass Effect: Andromeda - Autism reaches outer space

Yah, I mean. If this were any other game and released by any other studio it would be fine. It's not. I think that ME stood toe-to-toe with Star Wars trading punches for who had the best lore.

Then they released this. Way to make the prequels look good. Go team.

The largest failing of this game, putting aside all the bugs and other stuff already mentioned, is it has failed to pull me away from my billionth play through of modded Skyrim. If a brand new RPG can't even manage that then it has failed. Thank god I didn't spend my own money on it. This game is a 5/10 at best and I am a complete and total RPG whore.

Okay, after reading up on this thread, I get the combat has mixed reviews(I will take your word), the animations are terrible (more on that) and the writing is horrid.

Note: There will be no spoilers here. I say this because I just suffered through the cut scenes from a few videos. Several hours worth. Here is my take on the technical issues.

1). There is no emotion in the acting or the animations. The Quake Low Poly Love Doll competition back in the 90's produced move viable models. Seriously, huge step back from ME2.

2). Each sentence is delivered in a vaccume, independent of every other sentence, even consecutive sentences by the same character. It is like listening to William Shatner without the charm.

3). Every alien has become a human in speech and mannerisms. Don't believe me? Compare the Krogans from ME2 and MEA. There was nothing of the affectations from previous titles.

4). The lack of any music. A musical score can be a powerful tool setting up ambiance, and cover up a lack of emotion from the voice actors. People will read more into the cut scene animations with a proper score.

5). The options for dialog feel like railroad tracks... no matter what your choices (aside from romance) there are no real choices on your adventure (this one could be wrong, as I just watched multiple cut scenes).

6). The models themselves. People prefer looking at attractive things, not psychopathic love dolls. Don't believe me? Check out the comments in the screenshots sections.

The sum of my comments is that based on the cutscenes alone, I would pass on this one. I will not play a game just because it is set up in the same IP as the ME trilogy.

Gunnar said:

Stephan has been brought up 3-4 times to me in this thread. It's not a big deal anywhere else. I'm just pointing out how batshit Ut and a couple others here are. Definitely more to the story.

I've been saying the whole time the SJW shit doesn't exist outside the minds of the mentally unstable.

Broken game features do. People are free not to like the game or point out the flaws, I just love seeing people whip themselves up over made up shit then have the lack of self awareness to insist the "autism" of the game.

I'm about 14 hours in and enjoy it for what it is. I just refuse to whip myself into a frenzy.

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Unless you only spend time at NeoGAF you're being disengenous about it it only being an issue here. And what made up shit are you talking about? There is nothing made up about the fact that the main character was intentionally made less attractive at the last minute, or the fact that all the women look like shit on purpose. There is also no denying that making a decent looking white character is a thousand times harder, and has less presets, than any other race. The Stephan stuff isn't even the biggest issues just the most forced and ridiculous which is why It's easy to point out, so much so that even SJW types are pointing out how awful it is. All this shit just didn't happen by accident, but go ahead an keep pretending that it's all in peoples minds.

And let's not forget that the entire reason the game is such a shit show is because BioWare decided that is was more important to hire people who had these SJW views than it was to hire people who knew WTF they were doing. So even if there was nothing in the game that pandered to the SJW crowd that mindset is responsible for the trainwreck you are currently playing.

You are right about one thing, Autism probably isn't the right word to use in the title, Downs or Palsy would be more appropriate given the terrible animations and facial expressions.

It's not just the fact that all women have been beaten with the ugly stick, it's that and the fact that all asari women look uuuuhhhhhhhh exactly the fucking same. Cut and paste, over and fucking over and fucking over. And they have just fallen from the sky hitting the ugly tree, and every branch of it on the way down.

Utnayan said:

Are you fucking for real right now? I do not want to play a game where some fuck got fucked up by his family and decided he was a tranny and worse "It feels good. It feels right" jammed down my ass. Because you know what? About .000001% actually have that happen to them, if that, and the others got ass raped by their mom or their step dad/mom. I am so sick and tired of this shit. And keep that shit out of my video games while a bunch of unethical fucks try to make "Love" a scapegoat.

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I've only personally known one tranny IRL [well, at least to my knowledge - it's not a topic I generally give a shit about] - and although they were an old one (if they were still alive, they'd be around 70 now), so they were well before it became accepted - but their reasoning would've been summed up in short terms like that.

And mind you, much like Hainly in the game, "she" would go out of his way to discuss it with little nudging - a bizarre pride over something unusual and weird. (And yes, the pronouns flipping is intentional - it was awkward dealing with them, thankfully I rarely had to...)

Fulorian said:

It's the same thing with the animations - there's a couple that are just bug-eyed over the top holy shit awful, but most are pretty decent and not noticable at all.

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Practically every cutscene and conversation in the game has bug-eyes and dead eyes, painfully bad attempts at conveying emotion through expressions, awful lip movement and syncing. When the camera changes angle characters frequently are in different positions/places without actually moving, and there's a lot of times where models are completely frozen other than their faces. That's just the amateur hour shit too, not the actual bugs like T-poses, broken animations, characters facing the wrong way, etc.

Gunnar said:

Stephan has been brought up 3-4 times to me in this thread. It's not a big deal anywhere else.

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It's pandering and virtue signaling for sure, but they failed so horribly at it that it's hard to even care. Reason being, you're wrong that it's not a big deal anywhere else; they are getting ripped apart in SJW circles for how they handled the conversation. On places like KiA it's pretty much just, "oh look, more tokenism" and "holy shit, SJWs are going to eat them alive for this".

So, an actual gameplay question: anyone else playing pure biotics? I'm curious what weapons others use. I've researched N7 Valkyrie AR, Remnant Equalizer SMG, and cryo-gauntlet for melee, and they're great most of the time since you usually only face shields. I don't have any answer for armor though, other than bringing Dreck along and hoping for the best. Incendiary ammo only goes so far. Unlocking a third weapon slot isn't going to happen because of the weight. I could switch the Valkyrie to a Sonos, but then I'd have two short-range guns, plus the best part of the Valkyrie is that it is super light for an AR.

Utnayan said:

Oh this is such fucking bullshit. Rafterman said it better than I could as I nurse my hang over.



You need to fucking get out more and "enjoy" more games so you can see what a good fucking game is.

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Please do tell me more about what I should or shouldn't like. Then get mad about people telling you to accept trannies.

It's cool to tell people how they should live and feel but if they do the same shit, screeching ensues,

Utnayan said:

You need to fucking get out more and "enjoy" more games so you can see what a good fucking game is.

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Keep in mind, many of us were EQ players - the epitome of TONS of "tolerable" content rather than great content all the way through.

Some of us rate "length of being tolerable" as a good game whereas others playthrough something as quickly as possible treating it more like a movie than a week+ diversion.

There's many different types of gamers - quantity and quality gamers both exist. Many games mix in elements to appeal to both types (like collectables in otherwise short games) - but yea, ME:A did drop the ball alot in the quality department - but nothing recently that I've seen has gotten close on a quantity aspect.

I'll 100% say I enjoyed HZW's ~30 hrs far more than I have the ~30 hrs I've put into ME:A so far. But while that 30 hrs has me basically done with HZW where I'd just be replaying all but a few things - I'm currently reporting at "30% explored" in ME:A on the universe map and tons of minor quests all over that I've left on the sideburner for now. (Clearing the Kett bases and Architects being a few [too frustrating on Insanity at my level ATM] or quests I was finding too annoying ATM)

With platinuming it, etc I fully expect to be occupied until after Persona 5 comes out. Sure, a lot was just "filling time" more than being an amazing experience [Although I will say Liam's loyalty quest is almost definitely guaranteed a "lock" in memory forever - it was VERY well done] - but "filling time" is an important value to me. [Heck, it's part of the same reason I love the Personas for the wife, and why I intend to give P5 a try even though P3/4 didn't do anything for me]

Vorph said:

So, an actual gameplay question: anyone else playing pure biotics? I'm curious what weapons others use. I've researched N7 Valkyrie AR, Remnant Equalizer SMG, and cryo-gauntlet for melee, and they're great most of the time since you usually only face shields. I don't have any answer for armor though, other than bringing Dreck along and hoping for the best. Incendiary ammo only goes so far. Unlocking a third weapon slot isn't going to happen because of the weight. I could switch the Valkyrie to a Sonos, but then I'd have two short-range guns, plus the best part of the Valkyrie is that it is super light for an AR.

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I've gone tech heavy with a "shield rape" focus myself only tech item I've got with any armor bonus is the "special" tech ability that shows up as UNKNOWN early on (and even then it's minor, relatively speaking) - I go Sniper/Pistol w/ Drack/Liam most of the time - armor doesn't present a problem on Insanity for me with that setup. [Vanquisher and Ushior specifically for Sniper/Pistol setup]

Vorph said:

So, an actual gameplay question: anyone else playing pure biotics? I'm curious what weapons others use. I've researched N7 Valkyrie AR, Remnant Equalizer SMG, and cryo-gauntlet for melee, and they're great most of the time since you usually only face shields. I don't have any answer for armor though, other than bringing Dreck along and hoping for the best. Incendiary ammo only goes so far. Unlocking a third weapon slot isn't going to happen because of the weight. I could switch the Valkyrie to a Sonos, but then I'd have two short-range guns, plus the best part of the Valkyrie is that it is super light for an AR.

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I am.

I'm using the Scorpion III right now, it doesn't have the lag that it did in ME3 (one of the few bright spots in this fucking game) and is pretty deadly. I think for the AR I'm using the Valkyrie I as well. Can't find the shit to upgrade it yet. That shit pisses me off too. "Oh we're gonna include crafting!" "Cool!" You have every other mineral in the fucking world, except for the ONE YOU FUCKING NEED.

goishen said:

I am.

I'm using the Scorpion III right now, it doesn't have the lag that it did in ME3 (one of the few bright spots in this fucking game) and is pretty deadly. I think for the AR I'm using the Valkyrie I as well. Can't find the shit to upgrade it yet. That shit pisses me off too. "Oh we're gonna include crafting!" "Cool!" You have every other mineral in the fucking world, except for the ONE YOU FUCKING NEED.

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Eh, I've found it worth just ignoring the tradeskilling until L30 when you can unlock V's - the difference between crafted and storebought is nill besides the crafting mods - and they're too rare in my experience to be worthwhile (and some are just ruin weapons in my experience - beam one was garbage)

goishen said:

I am.

I'm using the Scorpion III right now, it doesn't have the lag that it did in ME3 (one of the few bright spots in this fucking game) and is pretty deadly. I think for the AR I'm using the Valkyrie I as well. Can't find the shit to upgrade it yet. That shit pisses me off too. "Oh we're gonna include crafting!" "Cool!" You have every other mineral in the fucking world, except for the ONE YOU FUCKING NEED.

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Yeah, I could write a full page rant about all the things wrong with the crafting system. It's not complicated, it's just needlessly cluttered with too many systems. Research is just annoying, both having to waste time scanning in the field and the fact that you end up with thousands of Heleus points you most likely don't need, are constantly out of Milky Way points even if you take the cryo pod perk as #1 priority (and actually bother returning to the Tempest all. the. fucking. time.), and Remnant points are also too scarce but at least you probably don't need very much of them.

Be sure to check vendors for materials if you don't have a particular mineral. Aya has a good selection if you're up to that point. Augments are the really obnoxious part though. I hate to craft anything less than rank V and waste the good augments, like the one that gives two extra mod slots or +20% power damage when your magazine is full, because it's a pain in the ass to get more. Unlike DA:I you can't just craft your augs, you have to get lucky and find them as loot or on a vendor. The materials vendor on Aya sold me a second +2 mods aug, but I'm not sure if that's random or how often he restocks it. It's also frustrating that you can't R&D mods, only augs.

I've also got no idea what some of them do. Like the ones that convert your gun to fire a beam, charged plasma, lightning bolts, grenades, etc. Could be really good, could be garbage and I'm too lazy to test it at this point. Some are kind of misleading too. Like the ammo ones don't add that ammo effect, they just increase the damage that the consumables do. Which makes them pretty worthless.

Vorph said:

I've also got no idea what some of them do. Like the ones that convert your gun to fire a beam, charged plasma, lightning bolts, grenades, etc. Could be really good, could be garbage and I'm too lazy to test it at this point. Some are kind of misleading too. Like the ammo ones don't add that ammo effect, they just increase the damage that the consumables do. Which makes them pretty worthless.

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I've only tested about half so far - but to date, every... single... one that I have is garbage. Especially "seeking" on a sniper rifle.