Mass Effect 4

[Virandar]

Its not that you dont have 'complete freedom', you have no freedom at all. W3 is a fantastic game, but it isnt an RPG. Its just an action game with a good story, where you have to play the gruff action dude with his rough manly personality but endearing heart deep within. Same for Mass Effect, for example. Skyrim, Fallout etc are roleplaying games (though still less than what they used to be) because you actually can make all kinds of different roles and see how it plays out. Even if it is doomed to fail. To me the story is important, but not as important as freedom. If I wanted a zero-freedom game with a great story I'd read a book.

You are totally free to have your preferences. I do like the freedom, though it used to play more important role to me in the past. Today, I don't have that much freedom in, say, Mass Effect trilogy, but I love it because of the story. And yes, it does sort of feel perhaps not like reading a book, but a bit like watching a film with you cast as a protagonist. It's not as much freedom as one had in, say, Morrowind although it's not overly limited, in my opinion.
As for the Witcher, I never played the game as I'm not a fan of the universe, but I'd imagine you get to develop your character to fit more or less your gamestyle. Though yeah, I prefer to be able to customise my characters as well and make them truly my own.

 

[Insomnia]

I really have to say this.
A few years ago I felt like I had to quit playing games because no game never appealed to me anymore. Games failed to evoke anything in me. I thought I could just quit games, sell everything, because I believed I lost interest. I then turned to a genre I never thought I'd like: walking sims. Walking sims usually have these amazing stories. And to play games like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Dear Esther, Homesick, Gone Home, made me realise there's hope for someone like me that really enjoy story driven games. I stopped caring what genre it was as long as it's a fantastic experience. Look at The Last of Us, a marvellous story driven game. It didn't matter if it was on obvious rails. The game was such a magnificent experience that nothing comes close of beating it.

Anyways, even though RPGs might not be this generation's strong point, as it was in the 90's, it will surely resurrect in the future.

 

[Jezzah]

Indeed insomnia. I think W3 has helped this a lot after the glut of poor "triple A" writing we've had in recent years from those that used to know better.

 

[MTBFritz]

I thought I d leave this here as I didnt see any mention of it on the last page in this thread

Spoiler

[video=youtube;i7YeL1bVNbI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7YeL1bVNbI[/video]

Well I had ME:A on my wishlist for the longest time but was unsure to get it because of the return value. It looked good but replay factor seemed really low and the single player campaign seemed lackluster to justify an expense of 45-60 bucks. I couldnt care less about the multiplayer part of the game. Maybe now there will be some "serious" sales going for this thing?

 

[Captain Willard]

I put ME A on the same footing as ME1, it took many years and two sequels for the ME trilogy to really come into its own. Could ME A been better? yes. Could it evolve into a great story? I believe so, but with all the negativity it will prolly die by the wayside.Everyone was expecting ME A to outshine the ME trilogy which was just an unreal expectation. They could really go places with the story line but it is most likely a dead soldier.

 

[Jezzah]

I put ME A on the same footing as ME1, it took many years and two sequels for the ME trilogy to really come into its own. Could ME A been better? yes. Could it evolve into a great story? I believe so, but with all the negativity it will prolly die by the wayside.Everyone was expecting ME A to outshine the ME trilogy which was just an unreal expectation. They could really go places with the story line but it is most likely a dead soldier.

Agreed. Like I said above MEA felt a bit like ME1 ... kid steps into a new series and all that. I have no doubt that with a bit of polish, some new writing, and tightening up the gameplay that any sequels would be much better the same as what happened with the ME series.

This just feels like it was a bit of a cash grab now. Get something out the door maybe it'll get traction with some aggressive multi media marketing. I have no doubt that it wasn't a massive commercial success due to bug videos etc (This was blown out of all proportion however and unfair). But it seems clear that they are putting the A Team onto the 2018 release of Anthem and MEA as a series could jump in a lake for they really care.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I put ME A on the same footing as ME1, it took many years and two sequels for the ME trilogy to really come into its own. Could ME A been better? yes. Could it evolve into a great story? I believe so, but with all the negativity it will prolly die by the wayside.Everyone was expecting ME A to outshine the ME trilogy which was just an unreal expectation. They could really go places with the story line but it is most likely a dead soldier.

Though I didn't expect it to outshine - I expected a more solid package of quality. It was OK to play in SP for one playthrough. MP was quite the mess. And there were no Matriarchs.
Did I already mention they gave me Pibbi instead? *Disgusted noise.*

 

[Jenner]

Agreed. Like I said above MEA felt a bit like ME1 ... kid steps into a new series and all that. I have no doubt that with a bit of polish, some new writing, and tightening up the gameplay that any sequels would be much better the same as what happened with the ME series.

This just feels like it was a bit of a cash grab now. Get something out the door maybe it'll get traction with some aggressive multi media marketing. I have no doubt that it wasn't a massive commercial success due to bug videos etc (This was blown out of all proportion however and unfair). But it seems clear that they are putting the A Team onto the 2018 release of Anthem and MEA as a series could jump in a lake for they really care.

Seems so.

I played ME:A a bit last night (starting a new game) just to look at it agian. It really is a decent game. It's definitely got it's issues, but it's still enjoyable for what it is. Too bad...

 

[Virandar]

Though I didn't expect it to outshine - I expected a more solid package of quality. It was OK to play in SP for one playthrough. MP was quite the mess. And there were no Matriarchs.
Did I already mention they gave me Pibbi instead? *Disgusted noise.*

Thanks to this thread I decided to do another playthrough. And my opinion still stands: it is a decent game. Especially in a landscape sort of devoid of decent story-focused RPG-like games.
As for MP, I have absolutely no interest in that, not planning to play ME in multiplayer anyway. For sure not going to play that whole Anthem thingy, it seems hollow to me.

As for Peebee... She's not Liara. But even Liara wasn't fully Liara in ME1. So perhaps by ME:A 3 Peebee would become just as iconic. Although from what I remember BW were not planning to continue with Ryder as the protagonist, so it might have been difficult to show that character's development. Anyhow, we're not going to see that anyway.

Agreed. Like I said above MEA felt a bit like ME1 ... kid steps into a new series and all that. I have no doubt that with a bit of polish, some new writing, and tightening up the gameplay that any sequels would be much better the same as what happened with the ME series.

This just feels like it was a bit of a cash grab now. Get something out the door maybe it'll get traction with some aggressive multi media marketing. I have no doubt that it wasn't a massive commercial success due to bug videos etc (This was blown out of all proportion however and unfair). But it seems clear that they are putting the A Team onto the 2018 release of Anthem and MEA as a series could jump in a lake for they really care.

Yeah, I also think the reviews were a bit too harsh and mockery was uncalled for. But then again, I think the whole storm around ME3 ending was blown out of proportion. Especially that I wasn't really aware of it until I played through the whole trilogy.

 

[Insomnia]

EA big boss Patrick Söderlund about ME:A:

http://www.pcgamer.com/eas-patrick-...fect-andromeda-criticism-was-a-little-unfair/

 

[Jezzah]

Definitely agree with him on the levels of stupid criticism that it got. Totally overblown and for some reason it got a lot of traction with the "professional" gaming media. I suppose for clickbait reasons more than anything.

Yes it needed a bit of polish here and there but no more so than many games that get released these days.

Good to see that he says it's not the end for the franchise though.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Basically I'm seeing the X-Rebirth scenario replay itself.
Game was horribly bugged on release, got ridiculed to moon and back, and people are STILL salty over that version, while the improved one with two big DLCs is fun to play.

EA apparently decided at some point that ME: A is not turning into Mass Effect 4 success type of game (tbh. they didn't intend it to be Mass Effect 4 tho) and decided to cut their loses. It explains why the game seemed to be rushed to release with the sad state it launched in. It was a failed project in corporate's eyes, and no amount of "it was a good game with bad internet ridiculing it" will fix it.

I mean if I were a QA I would never allow that build to go live with that horrible bugs, delayed the release and fixed at least the facial animations. But it was apparently decided above QA - we're shipping it now to avoid more losses.

I played the trial, liked it. It was less jarring if you played a male protagonist. The story - I liked the trailer story. I will buy this game on a serious discount, just don't feel pressured to buy it now.

 

[Backer42]

EA apparently decided at some point that ME: A is not turning into Mass Effect 4 success type of game (tbh. they didn't intend it to be Mass Effect 4 tho) and decided to cut their loses. It explains why the game seemed to be rushed to release with the sad state it launched in. It was a failed project in corporate's eyes, and no amount of "it was a good game with bad internet ridiculing it" will fix it.

Exactly. There is just one thing which doesn't help failed corporate projects: When there are enough successful corporate projects to play instead. There was no shortage of great games with great endings since Mass Effect 3. This is why MEA got ridiculed: There is competition.

I will buy this game on a serious discount, just don't feel pressured to buy it now.

However buying at a steep discount isn't going to help EA cut their losses. And by next year most people will have completely forgotten that Andromeda ever existed.

 

[Jezzah]

See I don't remember seeing any "horrible bugs" on release. We're there silly animations and facial problems with lip syncing etc...totally there was some of that. Game breaking or progression breaking bug would be "horrible" in my book and I didn't see any of that.

I'm not white knighting here but I've got to say it as I saw it.

 

[Insomnia]

See I don't remember seeing any "horrible bugs" on release. We're there silly animations and facial problems with lip syncing etc...totally there was some of that. Game breaking or progression breaking bug would be "horrible" in my book and I didn't see any of that.

I'm not white knighting here but I've got to say it as I saw it.

I have to admit I had some good laughs when it first got released. Same with No Man's Sky.
I can accept quirky or buggy animations on occasion but not like what I've seen in ME:A. It's a huge franchise after all and EA should've delayed the release by 3 months or so.

 

[Jezzah]

No argument there from me

I had the "my face is tired" one with that captain woman. But I didn't see any of that funny walking around animation etc.

 

[Jenner]

Definitely agree with him on the levels of stupid criticism that it got. Totally overblown and for some reason it got a lot of traction with the "professional" gaming media. I suppose for clickbait reasons more than anything.

Yes it needed a bit of polish here and there but no more so than many games that get released these days.

Good to see that he says it's not the end for the franchise though.

Yup. Agreed.

The animation problems and such have mostly been addressed. More difficult are the other problems the game still suffers from. It has some cringe-worthy dialog like the infamous "my face is tired" thing. The characters range from mediocre to terrible (looking at you, Liam). There's no Modin here. No Wrex. No really engaging intra-personal dynamics. The game has way too much trash loot and pointless crafting. The player is constantly inundated with pointless busy work quests. (I hate that particularly. When a game like this makes *everything* seem important, then *nothing* is).

BUT... the gunplay is rock-solid imho. The exploration is fun. The planets are really beautiful. The Mako is a hoot to drive. The story, while not on par with the trilogy, is still decent.

It didn't deserve to be taken out behind the barn and shot like it was.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

See I don't remember seeing any "horrible bugs" on release. We're there silly animations and facial problems with lip syncing etc...totally there was some of that. Game breaking or progression breaking bug would be "horrible" in my book and I didn't see any of that.

I'm not white knighting here but I've got to say it as I saw it.

I had a particularly nasty quest state that would always crash the game when trying to go to the ship on the Nexus. I had to go back and do a priority mission to get that out of the way.
When I started a new game + I got all kinds of broken quests and on the second playthrough there were still a couple of broken quests, though only side stuff.

 

[Virandar]

Yes it needed a bit of polish here and there but no more so than many games that get released these days.

In my case I didn't notice any crazy bugs people were finding, which may mean I've built my PC better. I've seen some crazy videos and haven't experienced anything like that myself. And that's another thing people tend to blame on the game, when in reality it has nothing to do with the game, but with their computer having issues. As for, say, animations or acting, original trilogy itself wasn't always totally smooth in this department. Though I preferred character models and facial animations in ME1.
A lot of criticism was, I feel, an aftershock of ME3 criticism. Many people didn't enjoy that ending (again, in my opinion ME3 ending was reasonable and it closed the story well, at least for me) and held a grudge against BW and EA for that. So MEA became in a way a scapegoat.

I certainly do hope ME will come back one day. It would seem a waste not to use this franchise anymore. The amount of work and resources put into creating this universe and promoting it has value of its own. I think they'd rather sell it to someone else than just ditch it, it makes no sense to just ditch it, also in financial terms.

 

[Demascus]

ME:A got exactly what it deserved and have no one but themselves to blame. Good riddance to the studio and shame on the board room that pushed that unfinished mess through.