Even so, it's not like you get the game with that. See picture provided:

 

I'm in that phase where I expect it to be nowhere near as good as the original trilogy, while simultaneously expecting it to still be a very good game.

It's very debatable as to whether I'm picking it up on Day 1, but still likely as I've got a $50 voucher for the PlayStation store to burn on something and this is probably the best thing. If I didn't have that though I'd be waiting for a discount.

 

Surfing Reddit tells me that audio in mp is a mess, mics are annoyingly on by default and no text chat. Hopefully BW can fix audio before official launch.

 

Actually, since I was considering getting Andromeda, I was looking into when it was going to be released and I found out it's coming out in Europe 2 days after NA. wtf? How is it that when you can buy the game online that there are different release dates?

 

Looking at Giant Bomb's stream of ME:A, it's pretty fucking bad, mates.

The dialogue.. urgh.

 

I see a bunch of complaining that the animations suck. It's not like Bioware's been known for its "quality" animation for years or anything, no, this is a new problem. Maybe now that the obvious has finally been acknowledged they can start digging into some of the other major problems with Bioware's games.

 

Wonder if they'll bring back the omnipresent M-8 Avenger.

 

Apparently, the lead animator for ME: Andromeda has absolutely no experience whatsoever in animating for video games.

 

It shows pretty clearly. Most of the normal animations for just running around are pretty solid, and the combat animations are actually pretty good on the whole, but the facial animation in dialogue is just fucking awful, pretty much across the board. It's less obvious with the aliens, especially the Turians, but it's still pretty bad.

Also, the menu is laggy as shit on PC. It's consistently unresponsive and annoying to navigate; it's very clearly designed for a controller, but even with that in mind, it's still sub-par.

On the whole, I'm really not impressed with Andromeda so far. There's only two aspects to it that I like, the combat and the story.

The combat is very solid, definitely a big fan, and it's the main draw of the game IMO. It's much more fluid and dynamic than previous games, and it's got a real weighty feel to it. Plus, the loss of the hard cover system makes the combat infinitely more enjoyable. It's just really, really good, in my eyes, and I could see myself playing it for a long time.

As for the story, it's pretty good, though there are a couple of issues with it. The big ones to me are the "we totes left between ME2 and ME3" thing that makes no sense and Ryder's dad being the original Pathfinder instead of Ryder for no apparent reason. Other than that, it's pretty solid, though some of the dialogue (especially when combined with the shoddy facial animations) is rather cringeworthy. On the whole, I enjoy what I've seen of it, and I'm intrigued by the mysteries; it reminds me a lot of my first playthrough of ME1. There's a sense of mystique and exploration to everything that keeps me wanting to play, enough so that the issues and holes in it are pretty easy to overlook. I'm not gonna say it's the best story ever or anything, but it's definitely been pretty good so far and it's compelling enough to keep me wanting to play despite the other issues I have with the game.

 

I don't think 'ME animations have always been shitty' is a valid defence for what I'm seeing.

Judging the story from the first few hours is ridiculous, so I won't, but I agree about the dialogue too. I watched that same Giant Bomb stream.

EA came out defending said lead animator Odran mentioned, saying she isn't the lead etc. That's all probably a lie to counter the predictable asinine response of death threats and personal abuse she's probably getting, but I don't think the criticism of the work isn't warranted.

 

It's weird though - it seems as though all of the combat sections are relatively well done, but everything on the RPG side was horribly mismanaged. Dialogue, facial animations, various cutscenes, voice acting - all need to be polished. I don't think I've ever seen a AAA game with so little QC.

 

I'm watching TetraNinja's gameplay on YT and scratching my head. Writing in the first ~2hrs is awful.

Spoiler

Once past the prologue - PC's dad is dead and PC is the Pathfinder - first thing that happens is Hyperion goes to the Nexus, which, as I understand, is a giant space station in the size category of the Citadel. Hyperion approaches, no response.

So Hyperion docks with the Nexus and sends a search party: PC, black guy Liam and Cora, the chick with white hair. They board the Nexus in their pajamas. I'm sorry, but if you're getting no response to the hails and you've already had a shitty welcome to the galaxy, wouldn't it make more sense for the boarding party to gear up in armor and shit?

But okay, whatever, let's move on. Some cutscenes later we learn that the Nexus was hit by the same dark energy cloud on arrival as the Hyperion and that event - dubbed the Scourge - killed the high command, including Initiative founder, so other people stepped in to fill leadership roles. Cool. The Nexus has been adrift for 14 months and Hyperion is the first Ark to show up. Okay. Nexus didn't respond to hails because they thought it was just the Nexus system malfunctioning. All right, I can buy all that.

We meet the Nexus leadership. The militia captain says that after Scourge there was an uprising aboard the Nexus which the krogan quashed. The rebels - Exiles - we banished.

Stop.

Banished where, if all initial golden world are bust? Where did you send those Exiles? How were they banished? Shuttles? Did you give those assholes ships? How many Exiles were banished? What are the numbers aboard the Hyperion? How many awake, how many still in stasis? You know, basic stuff the Pathfinder should ask to wrap their head around all this.

Krogan wanted a bigger slice of the political pie but were denied, so they up and left. Hold on. If there are places the krogan and Exiles were able to go to and there are means to travel off the Nexus, why are you assholes still hunkered down aboard the drifting space station, rationing food and water? Jesus, get off your asses, Andromeda Initiative explorers? Are you really so inept that you've been sitting on your hands for 14 months because Nexus crew didn't include a person with the arbitrary title of Pathfinder so you had to wait for Ryder to show up?

But let's ignore that display of stupendously stupid scripting and move on. Ryder talks to a salarian dude who's supposed to be in charge of the Initiative. I get that MEA is supposed to be a game that can bring in new players without needing to have played the Shep trilogy, so some basic lore will need to be explained. Buuuuuuut you can use the codex for that can't you? Meanwhile, one of the convo options between PC and the salarian dude explains basic ME salarian/krogan lore, including krogan nuclear war, attempted salarian uplifting and salarian low opinion of krogan. I was half expecting the salarian dude to talk about the genophage. Isn't this basic history that any blockhead with extranet access in the Milky Way should know? Why is the Initiative Director explaining this shit to the Pathfinder?

I get that some sacrifices need to be made for the sake of game structure - you want to introduce the Nexus and the main players. I get that, but did it really mean the writing had to be dumbed down for the sake of gameplay to this degree?

Compare this to the beginning of ME1, which started with a coherent prologue and imparted universe lore at a sensible pace, with logical progression.

 

I'm not sure how much you've seen of the actual game cause it sounds like you just watched the first two hours, but some of this stuff was actually covered in the 10 hour trial. I can agree with some of your points, but a lot of it I think is nick picking.

Trial spoilers:

Spoiler

I think I read this in the codex or talking to one of the infoboard things, but golden worlds is just a bit of terminology the initiative came up with meaning the worlds that are optimal for early colonisation. Meaning planets with a high amount of resources, vegetation, good atmosphere etc. This doesn't mean there aren't other planets around that can be inhabited but just aren't optimal for colonisation, which is presumably where the exiles have gone.

You can even find scouting reports showing that the exiles are having a pretty rough go of trying to survive and a lot of their leaders have already died too. Plus, Krogans are crazy resilient and could survive in a fuck ton of places - there's a reason they survived turning their own planet into a permanent nuclear winter wonderland.

The initiative already has made attempts to move ahead with colonisation, despite the fact that I get the impression the Arks were more meant to implement colonisation efforts rather than the Nexus, meaning they don't have all the resources they'd need. Their failed attempt to colonise Eos is a major part of the storyline after visiting the Nexus, and multiple references are made about mistakes made during these efforts which wouldn't have been made with Pathfinders there to guide them.

Yes, the people on the Nexus have been inept as fuck so far. That's literally the point though. People on the Nexus flat out tell you that the Salarian dude in charge is a bad leader and has been causing problems. Most of the leadership died and this is what they're left with, mostly just trying to put out fires before they can attempt to do anything. I guess I'm not sure how that means it's bad writing?

I'm not saying I think the writing has been exceptional or anything, I just don't think there is too much to complain about yet. Yes, perhaps ME1 or other games had better introductions but there was also a lot more familiar concepts to provide context to newcomers - this time there is literally a whole new galaxy to introduce. I also don't think there is too much point in critiquing the story yet when we've seen so little of the complete package (especially if you've only watched two hours?). I can understand criticisms of the CC or animations but a lot of the things I've seen people say about the writing could easily be explained by further developments down the line in the game.

 

Your excuse for shit writing now is that it could be better later?

 

No, I'm saying I don't think the writing has been that bad so far, and that I've seen a lot of criticisms (mostly on reddit) that might make more sense once people have experienced he whole game.

Spoiler

Things like questioning Alec Ryder's motivations, or how the SAM/Pathfinder handoff works. I can see this being clumsy writing, but I also think there is likely a lot of backstory we have yet to see to such things further in the game.

I just think people should hold back on criticising the main story until we know more. I also think a lot of people have levelled accusations of bad writing without much evidence so far - I can see it being called average writing, yes - but not much worse than your usual Bioware stuff, which people haven't seemed to have such a problem with in that past. Can you point to me an actual example of what you've called shit writing so far?

 

Now they (Polygon, though others will probably follow suit) are somehow blaming GamerGate for criticism towards that one woman who was in charge of the facial animations, so this is going to snowball just nicely into a big ol' avalanche of shitflinging. I can see we're going to have a wonderful time post-MEA launch.

 

I learnt long ago that there's no point trying to cry 'it's just criticism', especially when there are fuckheads that will literally send death/rape threats to anyone with a vagina for sneezing in their direction.

 

I've been hearing a ridiculous amount of negative stuff about this recently. I was never hyped, after ME3, but I expected it to be at least good. But now... wow. My first ME:A video: this. What the salarian said =/

 

Eh, a lot of the criticism is fairly overblown. It's the end result of a big hype train leading to a mediocre game.

The only part of the game, at least in the first 10 hours, that I would call objectively bad is the facial animations. The rest ranges from mediocre to actually pretty good. It's definitely not a game of the year contender or anything, and I don't expect it to make many top-ten lists, but it's pretty solid. From what I've played so far, I'd give it around a 6.5/10. Solid enough to be enjoyable, with some really good combat, but with enough issues that I wouldn't recommend it unless you were a fan of the series or were able to deal with some pretty glaring flaws in return for a pretty decent third person shooter.

 

Bioware's writing at its finest. Remember - in every Bio game, everyone who isn't PC is a fucking retard that can't wipe his own shit-stained ass without PC being there.

From what I have seen, this just proves that Bioware is dead and has been since the first Mass Effect.