Mass Effect 4

Starbreaker

Starbreaker
I'm gonna miss renegade Shepard as your choices in this game seems to be 4 shades of paragon.

[video=youtube;sy-eRfupYbA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy-eRfupYbA[/video]

[video=youtube;-PjTuSQNLI4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjTuSQNLI4[/video]

And they did at least learn from the Hinterlands zone in DA:I by preventing people traveling too far out on Eos due to the radiation. If you didn't play DA:I, there was complaints from people struggling with that area to which the response was, get the hell out of Hinterlands, you're not supposed to clear the entire area when you first get there.
 

Soopyyy

S
Starbreaker said:
I'm gonna miss renegade Shepard as your choices in this game seems to be 4 shades of paragon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy-eRfupYbA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjTuSQNLI4

And they did at least learn from the Hinterlands zone in DA:I by preventing people traveling too far out on Eos due to the radiation. If you didn't play DA:I, there was complaints from people struggling with that area to which the response was, get the hell out of Hinterlands, you're not supposed to clear the entire area when you first get there.
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The problem with the Hinterlands is that at least 80% of it was boring fetch quest garbage. Well... Most of that game was like that but the Hinterlands was like the gradle of boring fetch quest civilization. So far in ME:A I am yet to see a very obvious fetch quest.
 

Jezzah

Jezzah
Captain Willard said:
YES This is kind of what I EXPECTED. This is more like playing ME 1 again. Plenty of missions, ad lib with diff chrs. Lots of lore and rpg aspects with a little ME 1,2,3 and other game adds thrown in. Yes the voice acting and writing is sub par to the trilogy, but then again, how may years went in to that trilogy and this is a one shot game AFAIK. I give this game a " HELL YES" Prolly need to go check on my python. :)
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This is how I feel also. Happily surprised considering the bile that was written about it. It's not perfect but it is solid and it's very much got its hooks in me.
 

Insomnia

Insomnia
Soopyyy said:
you're not doing arbitrary bear bum collect-athons.
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Wh--whats wrong with that??

Seriously though I have nothing against open world (in fact I prefer it), material collecting increases play time and adds another layer of gameplay (albeit a cheap way of increasing it) and crafting in different ways do increase
The level of fun in games. If the game has content to back up these features then it's all good. If it doesn't have content to back it up (like another familiar space game) then these features loses its purposes.
 

Starbreaker

Starbreaker
Was more motivated searching for cracked industrial firmware for my new T-9 thrusters this weekend, but don't tell the FDev...:p

I'll get back into ME:A eventually, just not feeling it atm.
 

hairychris

hairychris
Played a chunk more, so I have some further thoughts:

The boss at the end of planet 2 is kicking my ovaries repeatedly.
Some of the ambient conversation with teammates is better than the main scripted stuff.
Roadkilling in the Nomad is kinda funny.
The ability to change profiles is actually a good thing. I was concerned that it would affect skill trees, but it's just for class-based modifiers.
I want my 8 slots for powers back again. Only having 3 is really annoying. Sod favourites as that's limiting and another step. And no medigel?
Facial animations haven't improved.
Weirdly I prefer the mining mechanic in ME2.
The main ship layout is really annoying. Overly cluttered. Preferred the 2 Normandy layouts.
New alien races are meh.

I'm still enjoying it though. I've also heard a bunch of chatter from people saying that Horizon: Zero Dawn is doing everything that ME should be. Um, news for those people: some of us do not own consoles*, let alone the PS4 so how the hell are we going to play it?

* Quite deliberately. I hate controllers.
 

Insomnia

Insomnia
hairychris said:
I've also heard a bunch of chatter from people saying that Horizon: Zero Dawn is doing everything that ME should be. Um, news for those people: some of us do not own consoles*, let alone the PS4 so how the hell are we going to play it?

* Quite deliberately. I hate controllers.
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I bought a PS4 Pro just to enjoy those amazing exclusives. And I prefer controllers over keyb mouse, but prefer PC for its diversity. :)
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Alright, I want to see this for myself. Got the trial for a few Euro, will cancel afterwards. First up: downloading the full game apparantly. :(
 

Jezzah

Jezzah
The trial is not a great way to judge the game. The up to the first 8 hours you're still limited how much you can do. There's a lot of talking and exposition not to mention the radiation on the first planetary will limit how far you can explore. It's ok to bed in the basics but it really opens up after that first planet. EA kinda shot themselves in the foot with doing this trial. I would say if you enjoy the trial you'll love the rest.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Jezzah said:
The trial is not a great way to judge the game. The up to the first 8 hours you're still limited how much you can do. There's a lot of talking and exposition not to mention the radiation on the first planetary will limit how far you can explore. It's ok to bed in the basics but it really opens up after that first planet. EA kinda shot themselves in the foot with doing this trial. I would say if you enjoy the trial you'll love the rest.
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Hmm, maybe. But doesnt it depend on what you're hoping to get out of it? I've only done the first bit (am now pathfinder), but so far my impressions are very meh, and not due to a lack of things to do or having to talk too much. Its more that the dialogue is atrocious, and every little step in the plot is just nonsensical and riddled with holes. The action is pretty good I'd say, but so far it looks like this is a game for people who mostly want an action RPG, and for people who think Star Wars is the pinnacle of SciFi storytelling. Every interaction just seems so much like its some kind of highschool teenager writing Mass Effect fanfiction and its very difficult to ignore it. Never mind enjoy it.

The whole 'Single Player MMO' critique actually sounds like fun to me, I loved bumbling about in ME doing generic stuff, so doing that in bigger maps sounds like great fun to me. But NPCs really need to stop reacting the same way to finding out someone is still alive the way I react to finding out there is another M&M left in the bag, and not every other line has to be a weak punchline...

To be fair, it doesnt help that Frostbite runs like crap on my CPU, had that issue with every Frostbite game so far. Will continue the trial and make up my mind then. But if at the end of the trial its still meh I doubt I'll gamble E50 on a game that after ten hours still doesnt impress nor runs very well. We'll see though. :)
 
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Jezzah

Jezzah
I can't apologise for some the wonky dialogue. It does get better. Is it worth 50 notes...I'd say yes at this point. There's a lot of content here and a surprising amount of depth in exploration/crafting mechanics.
 

Backer42

B
Jezzah said:
The trial is not a great way to judge the game. The up to the first 8 hours you're still limited how much you can do. There's a lot of talking and exposition not to mention the radiation on the first planetary will limit how far you can explore. It's ok to bed in the basics but it really opens up after that first planet. EA kinda shot themselves in the foot with doing this trial. I would say if you enjoy the trial you'll love the rest.
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I would say, if the first eight hours are a slog, any game had its chance and failed it.

There is too much good content around to waste this much valuable free time on mediocre stuff you can't stand. A good game (including the first Mass Effect) hooks you within the first 42 minutes. We don't watch an entire season of a TV show to finally find out that we don't like it. One episode and maybe the beginning of another one and the decision is made. No reason to give video games more leeway. We are not a jury who has to sit through the entire thing to give it a fair rating. One short demo session to impress me, thumbs down, uninstall (refund). This is how it works in 2017.
 
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Knightshark

Knightshark
Backer42 said:
I would say, if the first eight hours are a slog, any game had its chance and failed it.

There is too much good content around to waste this much valuable free time on mediocre stuff you can't stand. A good game (including the first Mass Effect) hooks you within the first 42 minutes. We don't watch an entire season of a TV show to finally find out that we don't like it. One episode and maybe the beginning of another one and the decision is made. No reason to give video games more leeway. We are not a jury who has to sit through the entire thing to give it a fair rating. One short demo session to impress me, thumbs down, uninstall (refund). This is how it works in 2017.
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I agree, a game would need to become truly exceptional for make up for a lame first few hours. I don't think this is the case with Mass Effect Andromeda.
 

Jezzah

Jezzah
Backer42 said:
I would say, if the first eight hours are a slog, any game had its chance and failed it.

There is too much good content around to waste this much valuable free time on mediocre stuff you can't stand. A good game (including the first Mass Effect) hooks you within the first 42 minutes. We don't watch an entire season of a TV show to finally find out that we don't like it. One episode and maybe the beginning of another one and the decision is made. No reason to give video games more leeway. We are not a jury who has to sit through the entire thing to give it a fair rating. One short demo session to impress me, thumbs down, uninstall (refund). This is how it works in 2017.
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Its funny you say that about an RPG, an open world rpg at that. I don't know how many hours people are pumping into this but it could be upwards of 100 so a few hours at the start is a small percentage of the whole really. If this were a standard 15-30 hour game I'd be right there with you.

Having said that I do get what you're saying if it's a complete slog at the start for people then you'll likely not enjoy the rest. In my case I felt it was good enough for me to keep going.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Well, at least it convinced me of one thing: my 8-year old cpu and 6gb ram dont cut it in 2017 anymore. Modest upgrade incoming, will continue me:a trial afterwards. :p
 

bootsam

bootsam
I played it further over the weekend. I like it, there's some annoying parts and confusion over skills, crafting and all that but I generally ignore those things and do auto level up. I'm not fond of the objectives bit. I get confused what it is I am supposed to do sometimes. Whether to leave some part till later and focus on other tasks etc. The SRV is too slow. I'd like to bind the scanner to a mouse key but when I do the trigger for it becomes inactive. Other than that, its been enjoyable. I'm used to bugs and quirks. There isn't a game in existence that didn't have any. I don't care too much for the graphics that people complain about. They're fine, nothing special but I don't play these games for that. The dialogue can get on my pip a bit and thank god for [space] to skip it. I do, a lot. I've never been into RPG's too much. I just wanna shoot and go. The glyph puzzles are a doddle though. I've completed EOS to 85% and have moved on to some other system with some weird looking purple aliens. I liked the game and the open world bit doesn't annoy me. Its fun.
 
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