@primesuspect said:
This is me as a 100% non-invested person who knows absolutely nothing about Mass Effect, has zero emotional investment in the IP or storyline, and hasn't read reviews or followed anything other than what I see my friends say about this game:
That looks hilariously bad. Like terrible. Like, really really embarrassingly bad. What the hell happened? Wasn't this a major AAA franchise?
Rumours abound that EA pulled a Deadspace 3 and are trying to kill off the studio because they hadn't made anything in 5 years.
It doesn't help that Bioware at this point is basically a "Ship of Theseus" paradox in that all of the original talent is gone only to be replaced by fans of inferior talent who were drawn to the studio because of their past prestige. The "B" team created Andromeda and it really, really shows.
97 hours in on first play-through and still haven't finished the game. What a shitty game, consuming all my free time with fun shit to do. And the sad part is, that I'm already looking forward to my next play-through!
Man, I expected some bashing of Andromeda, because EA/ME3 ending, but damn son. People climb on any train these days. Yes, there are some problems. The goofy animations have been drilled to North Dakota and back.
So I guess that makes me the fanboy. Enjoying Andromeda. Not buying in to the hate-bash-train. Defending Bioware until the end of times. LOL.
In my 97 hours, I've only experienced 3 bugs that required me to load a previous save. Some of the shit in the videos above I think is before the Day 1 patch.
Let's get serious for a moment. Here are the scores of Andromeda around the web;
Press Start – 9
Gaming Nexus – 8.8
Forbes – 8.5
PlayStation Universe – 8
The Sixth Axis – 8
PCGamer – 80/100
PCGamesN – 8
IGN – 7.7
Polygon – 7.5
Trusted Reviews – 70/100
RPG Site – 7
Hardcore Gamer – 70/100
GamesRadar – 3.5/5
Destructoid – 6.5
PlayStation Lifestyle – 65/100
Gamespot – 6
Metro – 6
USGamer – 3/5
Digital Trends – 5
Eurogamer – “probably BioWare’s worst RPG yet”
Kotaku – “a game to get lost in”
Shack News – in progress (but uses the phrase “ruff Ryder” in the URL)
Rock, Paper, Shotgun – (no single quote was representative of this savage take down)
That's a pretty wide spread. Metacritic currently has the game at 75/100. TOTAL PIECE OF SHIT!!!
I finished the game last night. Two thumbs up from this guy.
As I thought back more on the Andromeda story, I decided it was unfair to compare it to ME2 and ME3 because two completely different teams did the games. What I mean by that is, ME2 built on the foundation of ME1, and ME3 was the conclusion of the build up from ME1 and ME2. With the trilogy you had Shepard's story. The games could have easily been called ME: Shepard's Story 1, 2 and 3. By the time the team started doing ME3, they knew wtf they were doing.
Andromeda is not ME4. With the controversial ending in ME3, Bioware decided to leave the Milky Way behind and start new 600+ years in the future.
So what we have is a fresh team making Andromeda 1. Therefor I feel we have to compare MEA with ME1. The foundation of the next series.
For those of you who have played ME1, you'll remember the story took a very long time to get exciting. I remember many forum posts about "you just gotta get off the citadel. If you can do that you will love the game". Getting off the citadel in ME1 took quite a few hours, more if you were a lore junkie.
Andromeda is the same way. In fact the power curve of the story from "meh" to "holy shit" is basically the exact same between ME1 and MEA. Both games start off by throwing you right into the "holy shit" for an hour or two, and then both games have many hours of "let food sit on low heat"
I can see both ME1 and MEA losing the interest of players during this "low heat" timeline.
I know a lot of people don't want to hear, "get off the citadel (nexus in MEA) and the game gets good" but it is so worth it. MEA like ME1, is a slow burn story that takes many many hours to reach it's potential. I probably only did 85% of the content, and I clocked 103 hours.
So, does Andromeda live up to the awe of Mass Effect 1?
Almost.
But I feel Andromeda lays down a much better foundation for future Andromeda games than ME1 did.
Comments
Rumours abound that EA pulled a Deadspace 3 and are trying to kill off the studio because they hadn't made anything in 5 years.
It doesn't help that Bioware at this point is basically a "Ship of Theseus" paradox in that all of the original talent is gone only to be replaced by fans of inferior talent who were drawn to the studio because of their past prestige. The "B" team created Andromeda and it really, really shows.
I'll just leave this here....
97 hours in on first play-through and still haven't finished the game. What a shitty game, consuming all my free time with fun shit to do. And the sad part is, that I'm already looking forward to my next play-through!
Man, I expected some bashing of Andromeda, because EA/ME3 ending, but damn son. People climb on any train these days. Yes, there are some problems. The goofy animations have been drilled to North Dakota and back.
So I guess that makes me the fanboy. Enjoying Andromeda. Not buying in to the hate-bash-train. Defending Bioware until the end of times. LOL.
In my 97 hours, I've only experienced 3 bugs that required me to load a previous save. Some of the shit in the videos above I think is before the Day 1 patch.
Let's get serious for a moment. Here are the scores of Andromeda around the web;
That's a pretty wide spread. Metacritic currently has the game at 75/100. TOTAL PIECE OF SHIT!!!
(I could apologize for the sarcasm, but won't)
I finished the game last night. Two thumbs up from this guy.
As I thought back more on the Andromeda story, I decided it was unfair to compare it to ME2 and ME3 because two completely different teams did the games. What I mean by that is, ME2 built on the foundation of ME1, and ME3 was the conclusion of the build up from ME1 and ME2. With the trilogy you had Shepard's story. The games could have easily been called ME: Shepard's Story 1, 2 and 3. By the time the team started doing ME3, they knew wtf they were doing.
Andromeda is not ME4. With the controversial ending in ME3, Bioware decided to leave the Milky Way behind and start new 600+ years in the future.
So what we have is a fresh team making Andromeda 1. Therefor I feel we have to compare MEA with ME1. The foundation of the next series.
For those of you who have played ME1, you'll remember the story took a very long time to get exciting. I remember many forum posts about "you just gotta get off the citadel. If you can do that you will love the game". Getting off the citadel in ME1 took quite a few hours, more if you were a lore junkie.
Andromeda is the same way. In fact the power curve of the story from "meh" to "holy shit" is basically the exact same between ME1 and MEA. Both games start off by throwing you right into the "holy shit" for an hour or two, and then both games have many hours of "let food sit on low heat"
I can see both ME1 and MEA losing the interest of players during this "low heat" timeline.
I know a lot of people don't want to hear, "get off the citadel (nexus in MEA) and the game gets good" but it is so worth it. MEA like ME1, is a slow burn story that takes many many hours to reach it's potential. I probably only did 85% of the content, and I clocked 103 hours.
So, does Andromeda live up to the awe of Mass Effect 1?
Almost.
But I feel Andromeda lays down a much better foundation for future Andromeda games than ME1 did.
And that part has me excited.