the bad guy reminds me of this dude from Invaders from Mars.
Gaming Mass Effect: Andromeda (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
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Awkward animations, corny dialogue, cartoon-ish dehumanised antagonist - Bioware have done it again!
No Two Steps fro Hell in the trailer. Who thought that was a good idea? It is one thing that made the trailers of ME2 and ME3 so good.
Can't unsee Jack Wilshere when I look at the default character. Annoys the feck outta me.
Looks... alright? I am going to wait on a price drop.
Not sure if I am going PC or PS4 either.
Not sure if I am going PC or PS4 either.
The music in the trailer is bloody awful.
Shit trailer
Witcher 3 had some nice trailers
Witcher 3 had some nice trailers
The launch trailer was nice, and most interestingly everything there was just scenes from the game.
Still think that Mass Effect 2 and 3 had the best trailers (with the best soundtracks) in videogaming. So, lets look at them again:
That made me remember that Garrus isn't going to pop up and tell Shepard "it'll be just like old times!" 
Damn you Bioware!
Damn you Bioware!
That made me remember that Garrus isn't going to pop up and tell Shepard "it'll be just like old times!"
Damn you Bioware!
Actually, Shep getting killed (assuming that you get the Destroy ending, which is actually the only ending that makes sense) was actually a nice climax of his story which makes a lot of sense (of course, the implementation sucked). But BioWare, chose a cheap way of not having to deal with it (and the consequences) by going into an another galaxy and 600 years ahead in time.
I wonder if they will ever return in Milky Way.
The song is too new to associate it with a game, fecking sucks tbh it's on the radio every 30 minutes.
The game itself looks good though I'm picking it up on PC.
The game itself looks good though I'm picking it up on PC.
They wimped out of that too, editing it so that Shepherd is shown taking a breath after the events at the climax of 'Destroy'.
Actually, Shep getting killed (assuming that you get the Destroy ending, which is actually the only ending that makes sense) was actually a nice climax of his story which makes a lot of sense (of course, the implementation sucked). But BioWare, chose a cheap way of not having to deal with it (and the consequences) by going into an another galaxy and 600 years ahead in time.
I wonder if they will ever return in Milky Way.
My Shepard survived the Destroy ending! Though having also destroyed all the Mass Relays he also kind of fecked the galaxy.
Actually, Shep getting killed (assuming that you get the Destroy ending, which is actually the only ending that makes sense) was actually a nice climax of his story which makes a lot of sense (of course, the implementation sucked). But BioWare, chose a cheap way of not having to deal with it (and the consequences) by going into an another galaxy and 600 years ahead in time.
I wonder if they will ever return in Milky Way.
Yeah, that happens if you play a lot of multiplayer. Which makes no sense at all, but whatever, the last 15 mins of the game meant no sense anyway.
I got that ending having never played multiplayer, but then I'm quite obsessive about completing every possible task.
On the original version it was almost impossible to get it. You needed 5k war points (and you get only 50% without MP) to get it, and so you needed to do everything innall the three games in the right way to get as much.
I think that they patched it with the expanded ending.
I think that they patched it with the expanded ending.
These facial animations
Oh, yippee. For the first time in three months I almost forgot that this song existed. Thank goodness this trailer reminded me about it.
These facial animations
It's bad. Which is weird, BioWare were pioneers on this shit.
Few people know it, but the decline of Mass Effect began with ME2, when they decided to shit all over the story arc established in ME1.
pre ordered MEA last night. The animations are a bit wonky, but it's using the frostbite 3 engine rather than the old unreal engine.
The frostbite engine has some serious capabilties for destruction and environment, which is probably why they used it.
It'll be interesting to see how that may up the gameplay a bit, using a a game engine that has until now been primarily used for a game series that prioritizes multiplayer and not campaigns. They'll be able to patch the animations I'd say, fixing any critical stuff related to combat/environment would be much harder.
The frostbite engine has some serious capabilties for destruction and environment, which is probably why they used it.
It'll be interesting to see how that may up the gameplay a bit, using a a game engine that has until now been primarily used for a game series that prioritizes multiplayer and not campaigns. They'll be able to patch the animations I'd say, fixing any critical stuff related to combat/environment would be much harder.
Didn't they use frostbite for Inquisition too? I thought that the animation (and gameplay) were fine there.
It still was a wonderful game though, with a lot of epic moments and amazing characters. The story suffered, but it has the best set of characters in videogaming.
ME2 is one of the best games ever. People who say it's a let down or not as good as ME1 because the storyline isn't as good (even though the characters are much better) are being dumb, considering it's a better game in pretty much every other aspect.
It did yeah. Still, you need to configure the animation yourself, and build it from scratch. I'm not vouching for them in any means, but I'd say they were more focused on the building the world and gameplay first. It's a bit stupid they've let the animation slip, but it's fixable.
They aren't much better, just that there are many more characters. I would still say that the top two were Garrus and Tali which were inherited from the first game. The beauty of Mass Effect 2 was having so many great characters though, and that is kind of unprecedented in video games. You can have a great set of characters (Kotor, Dragon Age: Origins and the original Mass Effect had it too), but the number of characters in Mass Effect 2 was like the double of those games (10 + 3 from DLCs), and somehow it worked. In an already setting when you have your favorite characters, they still introduced the likes of Thane, Mordin, Miranda and co. and despite the less than inspiring story, you get an as a strong attachment to them as to the original characters.
Depends what your criteria is for being a "better game". I don't know anyone that plays ME for the gameplay - at best (by the 3rd one), the action is merely competent, if completely uninspired. I think for most, the story/characters is everything and the first one has IMO the best story by some distance. Although the second is fantastic too and has a great set of characters, the improvements to many of the game's mechanics don't eclipse the first's engrossing story.
I thought the gameplay in the second was great, perfect mix of RPG and FPS. The gameplay in the first game was dire and was only saved by the story.
I'd agree the second is a huge step up with the gameplay but it's still nowhere near as good as a dedicated shooter IMO. Not that it made me love it any less - the series is among my favourite ever ones...even the third, despite the issues.
Yeah i agree with this, just watched a recap and it still gives tingles. The story clearly isn't crap when people universally loved the characters, they're a big part of it afterall.
It was more linear sure but what the 2nd installment adds more than makes up for that.
I loved ME2 when I first played it. When I finally had assembled my team, we started out to explore the gala... the end. I started a second playthrough immediately, but stopped not halfway through. 80-90% of the game are only about collecting your squad mates, and then completing their loyalty mission. The main plot is not advanced by this in any way. They simply had no idea what to do with the reaper story, which became finally obvious to everyone when ME3 came out.
An extensive analysis of how it wasn't the same story after ME1 can be found here: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=28485
Besides that, I hated the introduction of ammunition in ME2. The worst thing about it was the incredibly stupid codex entry trying to explain how weapons with limited ammo capacity were more advanced than the previously unlimited ones in ME1.
An extensive analysis of how it wasn't the same story after ME1 can be found here: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=28485
Like Fellowship of the Ring, Mass Effect 1 set a tone and pushed the story in a very particular direction. It created a quest for knowledge, and put our heroes into a position where they were the best people to go on that quest. Not in a “chosen one as decreed by the gods / fate” sort of way, but in a practical way that the events of the first game gave them tools that nobody else had. They were explorers, searching for answers. The plot called for them to go out into that great big universe of mystery and danger, and find out how to break the cycle of destruction forever. They weren’t going to win because of their guns and biotics. They just needed the guns and biotics to get to the answers that would make victory possible.
The writers not only failed to make use of these plot elements, they took every single aspect of this setup and smashed it to pieces. The council is retconned to not believing in the Reapers and not caring about the massive attack that nearly wiped out their government. Shepard loses his status as both a Spectre and a member of the Alliance. Liara goes away and forgets all about Prothean archaeology. Shepard’s ability to understand Prothean is no longer an asset to their mission. Shepard’s relationship with the council reverts to the pre-Ilos status quo. Shepard is no longer the protagonist because his team is uniquely qualified to learn about Reapers, but instead he’s the protagonist because of his fame and combat prowess. As Miranda says, “He’s a hero. A bloody icon”. Most importantly, Shepard is no longer an explorer on a quest to uncover a mystery, but a badass trying to rouse an apathetic galaxy to action[6].
Like making a story about Frodo mastering the One Ring and becoming a general, this argument isn’t really about “plot holes”, even though there are plenty of those. You can’t fix this story by adding cruft to the in-game codex or touching up a few lines of dialog. The problem is that this is a fundamentally different story. The first volume set a goal and got the story rolling in a particular direction, and the second volume performs a hairpin turn and goes off in a completely different direction before we reach the opening credits.
And even once we’ve accepted the hand-wavy justifications, this new story is dealing with new themes and different ideas. You could even argue we’ve changed genres. Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 feel about as different as Star Trek the Motion Picture and Star Trek: Into Darkness. Even if you enjoy them both and even though they both allegedly take place in the same universe and feature the same characters, they don’t have any connective tissue. Placed side-by-side, they don’t seem to be saying anything.
Themes Matter
This is where fans will once again accuse me of nitpicking. This stuff about “themes and messages” strikes them as being horribly trivial. “Who cares? The game is still FUN isn’t it? Just enjoy the gameplay and hanging out with Mordin!”
It’s true that you can still enjoy a story with no coherent themes. But the point is that you can enjoy something even more when it has something to say. Lord of the Rings isn’t one of the most influential works of genre fiction in the English language because the public was clamoring for multi-page songs / poems that are barely germane to the plot. It wasn’t the elves, the rings, or the swords that made it so influential. It’s that fact that underneath all those trappings is a story with ideas that talk about big concepts like power, the nature of evil, the nature of a divine Creator, and the struggle to do what’s right when compromise seems so alluring. These ideas resonate with people and give the story a kind of potency that makes the work endure long after its most iconic elements have been pilfered, improved, and worn into clichés by the countless imitators that have followed.
No, Mass Effect doesn’t “need” to have profound themes to be a “good game”, whatever you mean by that. But it also didn’t need to spurn the first story. There was no reason – inside or outside of the world of Mass Effect – to sweep aside the groundwork laid by the first game. Even if you like the second game, it destroyed the first game just as surely as Frodo’s story of mastering the One Ring would destroy the tale begun in Fellowship of the Ring.
Themes matter. Tone matters. Something special was destroyed when the writer killed and resurrected Shepard as “a hero, a bloody icon”. Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 would both be stronger stories if we didn’t have to pretend one was a continuation of the other.
The writers not only failed to make use of these plot elements, they took every single aspect of this setup and smashed it to pieces. The council is retconned to not believing in the Reapers and not caring about the massive attack that nearly wiped out their government. Shepard loses his status as both a Spectre and a member of the Alliance. Liara goes away and forgets all about Prothean archaeology. Shepard’s ability to understand Prothean is no longer an asset to their mission. Shepard’s relationship with the council reverts to the pre-Ilos status quo. Shepard is no longer the protagonist because his team is uniquely qualified to learn about Reapers, but instead he’s the protagonist because of his fame and combat prowess. As Miranda says, “He’s a hero. A bloody icon”. Most importantly, Shepard is no longer an explorer on a quest to uncover a mystery, but a badass trying to rouse an apathetic galaxy to action[6].
Like making a story about Frodo mastering the One Ring and becoming a general, this argument isn’t really about “plot holes”, even though there are plenty of those. You can’t fix this story by adding cruft to the in-game codex or touching up a few lines of dialog. The problem is that this is a fundamentally different story. The first volume set a goal and got the story rolling in a particular direction, and the second volume performs a hairpin turn and goes off in a completely different direction before we reach the opening credits.
And even once we’ve accepted the hand-wavy justifications, this new story is dealing with new themes and different ideas. You could even argue we’ve changed genres. Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 feel about as different as Star Trek the Motion Picture and Star Trek: Into Darkness. Even if you enjoy them both and even though they both allegedly take place in the same universe and feature the same characters, they don’t have any connective tissue. Placed side-by-side, they don’t seem to be saying anything.
Themes Matter
This is where fans will once again accuse me of nitpicking. This stuff about “themes and messages” strikes them as being horribly trivial. “Who cares? The game is still FUN isn’t it? Just enjoy the gameplay and hanging out with Mordin!”
It’s true that you can still enjoy a story with no coherent themes. But the point is that you can enjoy something even more when it has something to say. Lord of the Rings isn’t one of the most influential works of genre fiction in the English language because the public was clamoring for multi-page songs / poems that are barely germane to the plot. It wasn’t the elves, the rings, or the swords that made it so influential. It’s that fact that underneath all those trappings is a story with ideas that talk about big concepts like power, the nature of evil, the nature of a divine Creator, and the struggle to do what’s right when compromise seems so alluring. These ideas resonate with people and give the story a kind of potency that makes the work endure long after its most iconic elements have been pilfered, improved, and worn into clichés by the countless imitators that have followed.
No, Mass Effect doesn’t “need” to have profound themes to be a “good game”, whatever you mean by that. But it also didn’t need to spurn the first story. There was no reason – inside or outside of the world of Mass Effect – to sweep aside the groundwork laid by the first game. Even if you like the second game, it destroyed the first game just as surely as Frodo’s story of mastering the One Ring would destroy the tale begun in Fellowship of the Ring.
Themes matter. Tone matters. Something special was destroyed when the writer killed and resurrected Shepard as “a hero, a bloody icon”. Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 would both be stronger stories if we didn’t have to pretend one was a continuation of the other.
Besides that, I hated the introduction of ammunition in ME2. The worst thing about it was the incredibly stupid codex entry trying to explain how weapons with limited ammo capacity were more advanced than the previously unlimited ones in ME1.
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You know, I actually didn't like KoTOR's characters in general but I suspect I'm in the minority there. I enjoyed Canderous, HK-47, and liked Bastila and Jolee (a bit underdeveloped though) from 1 but I can't say I cared too much for any of the 2 exclusives or the rest of those in 1.
ME2 is just a mediocre shooter. Rare enemies used any kind of power there save for few bosses. Compare that with being many times sniped, dumped, sabotaged, thrown, put in stasis, warped, neural shocked, had your shields overloaded, and on receiving end of sweet carnage in ME1. AI was terrible in all three though.
And considering nasty rumours about Andromeda, that you won't be able to tell squadmates when to use their powers, we'll have to rely on that terrible AI much more.
And considering nasty rumours about Andromeda, that you won't be able to tell squadmates when to use their powers, we'll have to rely on that terrible AI much more.
I don't agree with much of that article, its basically discounting progression as a valid narrative tool. The political nature of the first story made it expected that he would need to work outside the alliance and become the main force, if anything they just built on the themes first introduced. The way that article pitches it you'd think that was a never seen before plot arc.
Its not perfect but those criticisms are unfair.
Considering they actually dumbed down gameplay somewhat in 2, though I'd say some aspects were better myself, calling people dumb for not liking it as much as 1 is a little...well...dumb.
It's alright, but they did turn it into a mediocre 3rd person shooter. I preferred the slightly more rpg aspects of the first, though I do get why others like the more action orientated style. It just wasn't really for me.
It's alright, but they did turn it into a mediocre 3rd person shooter. I preferred the slightly more rpg aspects of the first, though I do get why others like the more action orientated style. It just wasn't really for me.
Lot of negative vibes here - so this isn't going to be very good?
I loved the first Mass Effect but think I was at uni for ME2 and ME3 so missed them...thought this was looking alright but if it's going to be another watered down RPG (cough, Fallout 4, cough) then maybe I won't bother...
I loved the first Mass Effect but think I was at uni for ME2 and ME3 so missed them...thought this was looking alright but if it's going to be another watered down RPG (cough, Fallout 4, cough) then maybe I won't bother...
Progression of what, exactly? And the thing is exactly that ME2 does not build on the themes introduced in 1. Defeating or even fighting the Reapers was never an option, according to 1. It took the entire Alliance fleet to destroy one single reaper in ME1, yet somehow ME2 and ME3 are all about fighting the reapers. Or more precisely - ME2 is about nothing really and ME3 is about fighting the reapers, when the trilogy should have been about finding a way to prevent the reapers from ever coming back to the galaxy in the first place. ME1 set out as a quest for knowledge, and this is never acknowledged by the sequels.
ME 2 and 3 are exactly like that. Mind you, 1 isn't exactly an overly deep and challenging game itself tbf.
I'll reserve judgement on this one myself though, I'll play it first and give it a chance. Though I'm not holding out any great hope.
The Mass Effect story was a repackaging of KOTOR in many ways, and they didn't know where to go with that either.
Kind of agree (although I enjoyed a lot ME2). I kind of preferred the weird gameplay of the first game, mostly because it was novel and to some degree challenging. While the overheating of weapons was a pain in the arse, it made you play a bit more careful than the virtually unlimited ammo in the second and third game. In addition, the emphasis of the gameplay was on making the right upgrades and balancing the team, rather than just being good at shooting. On the second game, just get at least one biotic with you, upgrade the 'slow time' and you're essentially unstoppable.
Indeed. On the entire first two games you hear repeatedly that Reapers cannot be defeated with conventional weapons. But in the third game, the most epic thing is the space battle and you hear (and see) that 4 dreadnoughts can destroy a Reaper capital ship. Totally agree that the second and third games should have been quests for knowledge and a way of stopping Reapers to come (similar how LotR is all about stopping Sauron from coming), not preparing to fight it. Karpyshyn leaving Mass Effect 2 for The Old Republic (and then leaving entirely the company after Mass Effect 2) seems to have affected the story quite a lot.
Mass Effect was essentially KOTOR in the new generation machines and without the Star Wars theme. Which isn't a bad thing.
The problem though is that BioWare have become very one-dimensional on their stories. The baddies rise up, you have the chosen one and his friends who stop them. Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origin and Inquisition all seem to use this formula. They made things a bit more complex for Jade Empire and especially for the second Dragon Age, but considering that the game sucked (not because of story though), they went to the good vs evil in Inquisition. It is fine, but a bit of an overused formula and make the baddies look much more cartoonish and in essence there are no personal conflicts there.
Obsidian Entertainment have been far better at telling stories (well, at least they tried but them being a small company made half of their games unfinished), and the Witcher 3 went into far more complex stories, so BioWare should go in that direction too (IMO), instead of recycling the same kind of stories all over again. Otherwise, they will be at risk of just becoming a boring company, which would be a shame considering how innovative they have been in the past.