f1madman wrote:
There was a time when we were talking about Mass Effect everyday. HAs anyone played ME Andromeda, any good?
Well, I'll say this first - the version I played is likely somewhat inferior to whatever version you will play. I also adore the original trilogy, despite the many flaws present over the three games.
I didn't much care for Andromeda.
[*]I found the game badly paced - I tend to be a guy who opens an area, completes everything they can, goes to next area so when I'm done I've done a lot of the content. This game I felt I ended up with a situation where I had a long, long slog through the more trivial content then all the plot content came in one big chunk at the end. Maybe this is my fault but I didn't feel that was the case in Dragon Age: Inquisition which is a similar game in style.
[*]The plot was rather uninteresting.
[*]The core human characters fell into the trap of mostly being really boring. A lot of the minor characters just did nothing for me.
[*]When I played, facial animations were awful (worse than ME3 - which was several years and a console generation earlier). The customisation options for your character creation were ridiculously limited... to the point where I really felt they'd have been better to just scrap it since been improved by patching).
[*]I had some fundamental problems with the concept of a large scale organisation using AI. Did the writers of this game play/read the script of the ME trilogy and not get the perceived valid reasons why AI is banned. I found it a major thing to be honest, your mileage may vary.
[*]The game had a terrible save/load system quite often (possibly patched). ME3 generally if you cleared a room or area, you can save.
[*]The game had plenty of bugs in the version I played - *say it with me* probably patched now. The game had some good missions which were the way you'd play an ME3 mission. Land in an area then generally clearing rooms (or areas in a cave etc - basically a room still I suppose) with a story being told and set-pieces and well designed enemy typing and placement. The missions like that in ME3 are really good I think. The open world bits I just found a little boring. A lot boring perhaps. Again I compare to Dragon Age: Inquisition which had a similar style but I felt was much more entertaining in it's delivery. Basically, large chunks of the game weren't that fun.
[*] Many of the times where the game puts a decision on you felt to me like they had no payoff whatsoever. Just seemed odd to me to feel like they are setting something up then they don't. Also might be a case that if I replayed and made the opposite decisions things would change and this game is just a bit subtle about it all.
Multiplayer is a bit of a weird one. For a brief time I thought it was an improvement and I'd want to play this game as my online game like I played ME3 MP for months. For some reason I'm not that into it. They released with 5 maps which was a stupid move. Yes, ME3 released with 5 maps and those maps needed improving to be good maps. But ME3 had MP as a bit of an experiment and they couldn't know if it would be a success. I like the shorter matches in ME:A for Bronze (~10-12 mins, 6 waves then extraction wave). However, part of me also liked ME3 building up the enemy force so wave 10 was always a blast. I think at least they should have kept that for Gold. I also think they could have been well served by taking the style of DA:I's MP and incorporating that. I'm not saying instead of the default arena-shooty-killy gameplay, but aswell. Maybe I underestimate the time and effort required but I'd have liked it. Actually, the map I played earlier that is one that has just been added was somewhat like this. I also think they should have added a pure wave survival mode. Some objective waves but keep having it send a tougher combo of enemies until you pop it. They've cured the absolute worst aspect of the MP though, the number of disconnects was a considerable irritation in the early days after release. Getting 8 minutes into a 10 minute game then being kicked to the main menu on a large amount of games just annoyed me. This has been fixed, but I do think it permanently soured me.
My honest opinion on ME:A - it tiddled me off. I feel it was a clearly unfinished game. This game should have had an extra 3 or 6 months before release to polish, play-test and improve. Yet again, a big videogame company decides that it needs to be out on a set date for stockholders or because marketing materials have been made. We'll patch it later. And now they've seriously hurt the franchise and it's "on ice" for now. I
knew I should have waited after playing the demo, but the heart over-ruled my head. I really think if I played it now for the first time I would likely enjoy the game considerable more. And, incase anyone thinks me saying this game is inferior to ME3 is nostalgia goggles or the like, I have replayed ME3 twice since finishing ME:A. I have no intention of replaying ME:A in the near future, and might not at all.
tl;dr version - It's an okay game. It depends on how you like the open world aspect. In my opinion, if you want a good sci-fi RPG... play ME2 and 3 (I love ME too, but I prefer the gameplay changes they made into 2 to make it more shootery).