Mass Effect Andromeda
 

Similar to the DICE video for Battlefront, nothing really substantive, but it's official now.



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Dang. When that OST kicks in, I get some MASSIVE goosebumps.

Mass Effect was such a masterpiece. I hope this is a worthy successor.

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So I just started my replay of the original trilogy today.

The beginning of ME1 is still amazing almost a decade later, and about my seventh time through.

Still not much known about Andromeda outside of leaks (and not much there). Should have a huge presence at E3 though.

BioWare is the greatest developer of all time, IMO. I wish Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk never left. :(

KOTOR and Mass Effect were by far my favorite single player experiences. The nostalgia is surprisingly strong.

I played 1 and 2 all the way through. I never do that with games.

I never got into these games. I think when we hit the late-summer lull, I'll pick them up for PS3.

Loved them all. Didn't expect to ever play the multiplayer mode for M3, but I did.. and got pretty hooked on it.

Thought I read the ME4 would have no multiplayer, but that's fine. It stands so strong on singleplayer anyway.

Mass Effect series is incredible. And they got so much better with each version. Very excited for this one.

If I remember the leaked information correctly, Andromeda will have multiplayer and it will impact the singleplayer (although you don't have to do it for the sp...). It's horde mode IIRC.

Just made spectre. What a cool moment.

In less cool news, ea's cfo at a recent conference referred to me4 as a 4th quarter game, which in fiscal terms means early 2017. So it looks like holiday 2016 is out. But IIRC 2 came out in January and 3 in march so it's not unprecedented for the series.

Demo reel, short, from a couple years ago. EA has been real active removing it, so it's a legitimate leak.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=opOdFKObpeM

Quoted for mother ****ing truth

That's fine. I am patient. Still closing in on maxing my manifest for me3 multiplayer. Will be done by mid-late 2016. :)

Not really anything to do directly with Andromeda, but, yeah, I experienced these all...

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Bad news is that's all we're going to see for e3.

Good news is that I just saw Mac Walters live on the e3 YouTube stream say they're very much in the home stretch, that it's 'polish, polish, polish' now, and then he confirmed a spring 2017 launch.

Weird time of year to release a might be epic video game. One would think they would aim for Christmas as a gift and when the northern part of the hemisphere is stuck indoors.

You also have that huge segment of gamers in grade school that will be heading to summer break where they will do nothing but spend all day and night for 3 months playing games.

3 came out in March, so I don't think it's that big a surprise.

Tidbit of news from today: the me3 ending will not impact the game. So basically it sounds like you leave before the end of 3, go into stasis and wake up centuries later in another galaxy. Clean slate for the new trilogy.

Good read from polygon: http://www.polygon.com/e3/2016/6/14/...review-e3-2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyZw_oqk7Q8

No game play til dec 1st

Bioware went full orphan annie on us'

I just hope they make a good game and don't **** up the combat. ME series are the only Bioware games that have fun combat.

-Class system is gone; instead you have full access to abilities from all classes, you can mix and match skills from tech, soldier or biotics
-Goal is to allow players to try different approaches to combat without being locked in at the start
-However, you can still specialize once you invest enough points into a category of skills, you unlock a profile that can get you bonuses for your particular play style
-This is where class names like "Vanguard" (invest in combat and biotics) and "Adept" (invest in biotics) resurface
Interesting.
Many familiar weapons return, as well as new melee options like swords and hammers


Kinda of sad to see the Class system is gone :(

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Oh, **** yes! :drool::drool::drool::drool:

I'm not sad. I like it when I have the full plate of abilities at my disposal and can design my own class. Hopefully there won't be weapon specialization abilities, though. I like the idea of being able to specialize in some abilities that I like, but would like to be able to swap out to different weapons depending on situation or mood and not be gimped because I have all my points in assault rifle so I can't use a shotgun.

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So I'm working so much these days that I apparently missed an entire month of coverage on Game Informer

AND a gameplay trailer has come out in the last week:

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Embargo lifted yesterday on what seems like dozens of sites previewing the game. Just a metric shit ton of info out now: https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/...ussion_thread/

General consensus is that they've done exactly what they set out to do, combining the exploration of Mass Effect with the characterization of ME2 and then improving upon the combat of ME3, all the while tonally hitting on everything to make the game fresh but still feeling like the original trilogy.

Lots of articles and videos in the link. Some spoilers, but plenty of spoiler-free alternatives.

Can't wait. First new game I've been truly excited about since Fallout 4 (which I'm still playing).

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I'm already bored with scanning.

Just wait until the planet scanning starts.

I've never played any of these games.

I really enjoyed the first one and absolutely loved the second one. Replayed both of them several times.

The third one was fine until you got to the ending, which was so infuriatingly awful that it made the ending of Knights of the Old Republic II look good. Did not replay that one.

Two new videos today. The first is the beginning of the game so I'm tagging it. The second has me more excited for the game than anything else I've seen so far.



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Just pre-ordered. I'm so pumped.

I bought ME3 release week and even was excited enough to buy the Prothean DLC. Played it for a few hours that weekend and 5 years later finally picked it back up. Despite really enjoying enjoying first 2 and particularly 2nd got busy with work and haven't been gaming as much and amused it has really been 5 years.. Nevertheless, kinda forgot how much I dig these and probably will preorder on amazon with the prime discount. Sounds like it will take advantage of some of the PS4 pro abilities as well.

Can't wait to download this off PSN.
I played the shit out of Mass Effect 2 and 3.

After playing all of these as a goody two shoes think I might try the next as a space jerk.

I always play good the first time around, then as an asshole for round 2.

Which one is more fun? I always gravitate to good thinking I'll play another time through but never do.

Both ways have their advantages. In the Mass Effect games, "renegade" isn't so much evil as just mission oriented and everything else be damned.

In games like KOTOR and Jade Empire, you really had to embrace evil/good in order to get the full benefits of your choice. One of the annoying things about playing good in those games was you got penalized for doing shitty things to people who deserved it. The goody two shoes aspect of it got a bit tiresome.

Personally I prefer RPGs where I can just act like I would if it was real.

I have a very hard time acting as a true renegade in Bioware games all the way through, because you can do some truly evil shit, like initiate the genocide of an entire species to gain assets for an interstellar assault. But as Frazod said, for the most part, a renegade is really just a person that doesn't take shit from anyone. In the vast majority of interactions, I am a white hat, but there are several moments where there is nothing more satisfying than a renegade interrupt. I'll show you a few at the bottom of the post.

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They got rid of the paragon/renegade for Andromeda. I think there are still reaction choices that affect your relationships, but it isn't so black and white.

I always played a mix of both in previous games. On like my third playthrough of ME2, when you first meet Jack, I finally chose the paragon option. She responded, "You sound like a pussy." I got a laugh out of that.

I hated Jack. She was an annoying skank.

I do like the idea of getting rid of the total black/white choices, though.

Yeah, paragon/renegade is gone. Now I think there's up to four alternatives, the most I've seen discussed so far being casual and professional. Conversation interrupts are still a thing.


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Obviously any videos from PAX are just loaded with spoilers...

Ditto this.

I usually went the way of the white knight because some of those black choices were just too dark. For instance, when you had to decide the fate of the mentally handicapped person controlling the Geth in ME2.

Glad they have several other routes to go.

So finally gave in and pre-ordered a second ago. Wednesdays are my day off, so I know what I'll be doing next week...

Should be an hour of multiplayer streaming this afternoon. I'll link it once I find it.

(not the video I was referring to...)

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Looks pretty familiar for those of us who played way too much me3 mp.

List of profiles and bonuses:



Some cool looking stuff...

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Looks very familiar to anybody who played me3...

Really like that they've dropped the number of waves from 10 down to 7.

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I still need to preorder. Any idea if delux version is woth it or just fluff? Amazon prime has discount on both.

I did deluxe. Still ended up right at $60 after taxes with the prime discount.

It's worth it for me just for the soundtrack. I have all of them going back to the original. The only other thing I'll probably ever use is the multiplayer booster pack. The cosmetic stuff I don't care about.

Reviews are mediocre to terrible, ugh.

Whaaaa?

:cuss:

I was going to download it tonight, but not if the dogshit reviews hold up.

Especially after how much the last one pissed me off.

I cancelled my preorder. I've got other games I'm playing right now and will probably pick this up as a summer game after a price drop (or get a used copy).

I've played the trial a bit and have loved it so far.

I've noticed that the vast majority of people that have early access all love it. It seems like its just a few sites giving it bad reviews. Not sure whats up with the disparity.

I will await keg's review.

Reviews are mostly in the 7.5 to 8 range. I haven't seen any that concern me all that much yet. Many of the reviews read like rehashing of the comments about the trial/early game from last week. A few I read more clearly played past that point and talk about how much the game opens up after that point.

I think they probably made a mistake releasing press copies so late, because the game is evidently massive, to the point that I doubt anybody posting reviews today actually had time to sit and think about the game they were forced to burn through before their deadline.

Another reality is that BioWare games just get bad reviews, going back 7 or 8 years now, regardless. And then the rest of the gaming web jumps all over them. It's internet herd mentality. I expected it at this point. It happened with DA2, it happened with me3 long before anyone got to the ending, and it happened with DAI. Mixed reaction was inevitable.

What I've gathered so far is basically what I already thought based on watching streams:

- The combat is the best in the series, although the active skill/profile system is a little too limiting.
- Opinions vary widely on the story and acting (I've seen everything from hate to love...)
- The game world may be too large, and can bog down story progression at times
- The game looks amazing, facial animation issues aside.
- The multiplayer is exactly like me3

I've seen some people call it DAI in space. I've seen more people say it feels just like the ME OT. I guess I'll see tomorrow. Assuming my copy actually arrives when it's supposed to.

I downloaded this as soon as I could and went off to gather info on the game (ass backwards).

I've seen the poor reviews, so I dunno what to expect going in. I'm wondering if I just blew $60, but eh....I think I was going to get this regardless of the reviews. Mass Effect 2 and 3 were just THAT enjoyable and Andromeda was a Day 1 purchase I've had on my calendar for months now.

Downloading new. We shall see what we shall see.

Played about ten hours straight yesterday, split between sp and mp. Too early to know for sure, since I've really only gone through the starting planet, but I love it so far.

One thing I was surprised by is just how much ambient dialogue there is. Basically anytime there are two characters close to each other, they're talking, and it sounds natural. I'm just about to head to the first real explorable world, I'd be surprised if I finish it today, based on the size of the habitat that started the game. This thing is clearly going to be massive and time-consuming, at least with my 'explore every nook and crannie' playstyle.

Every person I've read that is actually playing the game says the same. I think there was a bit of overreaction from the initial reviews.

Cool. I'll probably download it and start playing over the weekend.

I'm also having a blast. To anyone who's still hesitant, don't be. Its great, IMHO.

Started playing this today. I'm digging it. :thumb:

I'm playing the shit out of it, hence the lack of commentary...

More multiplayer so far, but I have zero issues with the singleplayer, at least as far as I've gotten (building the Eos base). We'll see how the other 90% of the game goes, lol. I've liked literally everything so far.

Jesus, what a huge game. I've finished Havarl, gone back to Eos with a shit ton of map to clear and missions to run (none of which appear to be FedEx) and then realized I'm only 22% finished. After 28 hours.

Still experienced nothing negative aside from the occasional animation. Which I don't really care about. Did have one glitch where the game froze loading an area. No other notable technical issues. I've also played maybe 18 hours of multiplayer, so that's a grand total of one reboot of the game in 45+ hours of play. Story and characters have all been interesting to me so far, but I guess I still have 4/5 of the main storyline to play, so who knows...

I ordered the strategy guide (I'm old school). It just showed up today. It's more like a strategy pamphlet - nothing like what I was expecting. Less than 100 pages, about two-thirds the size of the older guides, with very few tables and charts, and no color images. I won't be buying another one sight unseen. :shake: