Mass Effect: Andromeda
 

Anyone else getting this?

Pre-ordered months ago and now only days to go.

Just seen some of the early review scores and slightly concerned now though....

Skipping this one. Was really annoyed by Dragon Age 3, so I am going to wait until they have a critical success before trying again.

Got it delifering tomorrow. Will wait a quarter for bug fixes.

Also i loved DA:I

Me too, I also greatly enjoyed DA: 2. DA:3 was unplayable from the start for me. Just hated everything about it from the start.

I=3

Origins isnmy all time fav game though.

I never got on with Dragon Age 3. The combat seemed too repetitive and didn't like the storytelling style. Shame, as on paper it was right up my street.

Gonna wait for bug fixes and probably a sale. I loved the ME trilogy save for the debacle that was an ending to 3. The reviews are pretty "meh" so far but I wasn't that excited for it to begin with. Ill get to it eventually, but Ill probably play new game+ Witcher 3 and maybe Horizon: Zero Dawn before I get around to this. That makes me a sad Drebin.

I'm excited tomorrow. Yes, the reviews are fair. But, everyone has a dud every now and then. Bioware is not immune to this.

Don't judge the book by it's cover, as they say.

The main issue highlighted in the review I read was technical issues and most of the game play and story was complemented, albeit to a lesser degree compared to previous games.

Hopefully most of the issues can be patched out.

Not out here until Thursday so a couple more days for them to achieve it too.

Its not even made by the same studio. They just took a developer of Sims add on packs and gave it to them.

Bioware already had its duds in Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition.

I liked Inquisition :/

wasnt a fan of DA: I (but I did see it through). I know i'm in the minority though of those who really enjoyed DA2.

A former employee of Bioware Montreal has spoken out about some of what the hell happened

https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Emp...VW11370424.htm

In summary:

• "Lost over 13 leads (game design, art, audio, prog, senior core leads, etc) in 5 years at Bioware Montreal on Mass Effect. Edmonton lost only 3. It is clear that Edmonton has the bigger part of the stick when it comes to purge Leads and Producers who are not aligned with their leadership style."
• "Putting people on performance improvement program (PIP Program) is the new tactics to get rid of people. Once again more than 10 people in Montreal got slammed with this bureaucratic uppercut to let go people that are not bending to Edmonton leadership styles in the last revision cycle. This approach is used by the Montreal Leadership to purge the mess from the lack of vision cause by upper management in the last 4 years (throwing people under the bus to protect bad core management)"
• "Renaming crunch to Finaling mode. Which means company pays for your lunch but you have only 30 minutes to eat and then getting back on the keyboard. Was lasting for over 2 months and was a real catastrophy."
• "Retaliation and harassment is sadly a reality. If you talk and ask questions you will be tag as a trouble maker and end up in a bad position."
• "HR won't help you out. They will deny the current harassment from Monreal management by ignoring and not documenting the facts. In other words if you leave don't talk. Just let it go..."
• "Many benifits got cut due to too much time extension to get the game done."

But that doesn't explain something quite bizarre. This comparison of leaked gameplay from one year ago compared to the final scene: https://my.mixtape.moe/yugchn.mp4

https://gifyu.com/images/mea.gif

Downgrades can happen throughout development to make it fit, but why so drastic and why did it happen here? We know Frostbite can handle it even when downported to consoles. The only theory I have is that they just turned all the graphics down to hit the performance target instead of actually optimising, because the game is pretty patchy with the performance as it is anyway. I just hope we get the full story sometime.

Fucking hell that is quite a difference.

I'd assume its a mix of the chaos going on at Bioware and them pulling an Ubisoft (and others) with bullshot marketing to generate huge buzz for the game. They are just paying the same price as everyone else doing this technique once the real screens and footage starts to become available.

It wasn't actually used for marketing. It was leaked.

Like, some of the changes in that comparison are straight up fucking weird. Why is the Krogan now wanting to go to clown school?

No spoiler here or anything. But, it takes way too long until you get the keys to the ship and go nuts.

Unlike the first 3 where you had a quick first mission and you're on your way.

Enjoying it so far. It's having its moments with some skipping/framerate issues. Nothing to scare you away of course.

Bioware does that. SWTOR takes like two Planets before you get your ship. Also it's your first play through. It'll probably be nothing if you go through it again.

Doing the prologue to see what I think...so far i am pleased. Though the first 3hrs of game usual get the most time spent on them in development so its hard to say

With that graphics comparison, the only logic I can see for why they did it is because maybe they were prioritizing draw distance. With the heavier and more detailed atmospheric effects and lighting in the older video, you can't see any of the mountainside in the background other than like 1 small unfocused moment. You can see much farther in the final build.

But we all know that's not what really happened :/

Still installing. Boo.

I now understand why this game is catching some flak.

Fun as hell and can keep you hooked for hours. But damn, does it have its issues.

Have been enjoying so far. Only seem to have encountered two glitches, neither of which were a big deal. One involved just reverting to a last save and the other taking some time to kill an enemy stuck in a wall. Nothing that didn't happen with games like Skyrim or Fallout for example.

Still pretty early on though, just left Eos. So will see how it goes.

gThis game is soo fuckin

5yrs five FUCKING YEARS
THESE MENUS

Playing drunk probably makes it harder.

STD plays game listening to Star Trek music. You should too.

I don't drink the typos are all the result of deep rage while playing this game.

Seems fair.

https://abload.de/img/c8h9a88uwaaytsz.jpg-ecy3y.jpeg

They're owning it by the sounds of things. Hope the news is good.

Sounds like it was released before it was ready. Fucking capitalism.

They had 5 years. At a certain point, they had to shit or get off the pot and EA wanted back some of that 10's of millions of dollars they invested before the end of the financial year.

If it didn't have the Mass Effect name, I bet it would have been cancelled. As it did, EA knew they could recoup some cost based on name value alone.

Interested to see what that means.

5 years? Still had deadlines to meet. Pretty much a given that the reason for all the ME3 issues were deadlines that forced them to cut a bunch of stuff. Why do you think we never went back to or heard about Omega or dark energy?

I get pushing a game out in this age where you can patch things up as you go along. Delay it, and you get death threats.

I miss the days where Blizzard would delay a Diablo or a Warcraft and everyone was like "sucks but I know this means they're gonna put out a better product" and they did.

Had my first real issues trying to play multi-player today. Was annoying.

However most of the issues with the game seem to have been overhyped. Not a polished game, but neither was Mass Effect 1 when that originally came out.

Although I do get that by the time you're on your fourth game you shouldn't be repeating the mistakes of the first!

This is this particular studios first full AAA game.

While it shows its still excellent

Playing it makes me feel like an addiction. It's so badly written that it's funny, combats OK, exploration feels like a bit of a chore like scanning planets does. I'd have trouble putting it in my top 10 games of the year so far, but that's not helped by the fact that this is a fucking ridiculous year.

I should really just buy Horizon and see how they fix this. Feels bad to be plodding away when I know I likely could be playing something better.

I sat it down because I know fixes are coming

"Guys, hold off on buying Horizon. We'll fix things by....uhhhhh....Tuesday!"

The quests involving driving around the planet looking for things to blow up or scan are absolutely ludicrous.

Random spawn points and a ton of ground to cover and keep you on the planet far longer than you should be. Should be way past Eos & Voeld, but can't get away because I want to put these certain side missions behind me.