Octopus Overlords

I wouldn't worry about what you've heard. It's a non-issue. I first changed my mind from buying to waiting, but I ended up buying it and even before the patch, the game is fun. If you liked the trilogy, you'll enjoy this.

Skinypupy wrote:Persona 5 has completely clunked for me, so I'm going to fire this up tonight (on PS4).

I have lowered my expectations to almost nil, which I think will probably help.

Clunked?

Scoop20906 wrote:

Skinypupy wrote:Persona 5 has completely clunked for me, so I'm going to fire this up tonight (on PS4).

I have lowered my expectations to almost nil, which I think will probably help.

Clunked?

I came in really expecting to like it, seeing as how it's one of the highest rated JRPG's in recent memory. After 2 hours, I absolutely hate it. Mainly because every character is a huge asshole, and I couldn't care less if any of them live or die.

So playing capt. obvious here...you should look at the various augments you can add to the nomad. It looks like they are cumulative and can add some nice zoom to the vehicle.

To do such...go into the Research & development terminal; -> development -> look for the nomad category then make whichever one you want.

Added a nice speed boost to my nomad earlier along with other things. You can do as many as you want as long as you got the mats.

It was awhile before I realized that mods to the Nomad were cumulative. At first I thought that there was only one mod slot and it operated similar to weapons mods, where you had to pick and choose. Fortunately while the perks are nice, not installing them wasn't a game breaker or anything.

This game doesn't make a very good impression first either. It feels like "Generic Space Marine Game #34" rather than anything in the ME universe. It also looks surprisingly last-gen for a 2017 title.

Hoping it gets better.

A few initial thoughts after 3 hours:

1. Seriously, that beginning section is simply awful. Uninteresting characters, a boring story setup, and a lame opening zone. Thankfully, once you get out of the starter area and actually into the story itself, the game starts to feel significantly better. Still, it's not like previous ME games that had you hooked on both story and characters right from the start.
2. All the complaints about the animation are certainly justified. Even after the patch, the facial movements and character animations all just look...off. It think that's partly because I'm coming from Horizon Zero Dawn (a game with incredible animation), but everything in ME Andromeda is just janky as hell. Lip synch doesn't match, running and movement animation is weird, eyes don't seem to track correctly, and the whole package just looks really dull.
3. The voice work doesn't even come close to the standards set by previous ME games. Everyone sounds bored and uninterested, and the voice actors they chose for certain characters are just completely wrong. The first time I met the Krogan on the base, I almost burst out laughing because the overly effeminate voice was such a complete mismatch for the character (even if she's female). Doesn't help that the writing isn't particularly inspired either...I'd probably be bored too if I had to say these lines.
4. Good news is that the framework for something interesting seems to be there. Now that they're actually starting to talk about Mass Effect-y things, it's drawing me into the world quite a bit more. I'm interested enough to see what happens next, even if everyone involved has the personality of a house plant.
5. Is there a way to tell when there is a scannable object nearby? I don't really want to run around opening my scanner tool every 10 steps on the off chance that there's something that I'm missing.
6. Dammit Bioware, figure out a way to include pausable cutscenes. We're in 2017, for crying out loud.

As a huge fan of the series, I'm really surprised Bioware dropped the ball so badly on the opening section of this game. It makes a horrible first impression, and if someone wasn't already invested in the ME universe, I doubt they'd have much interest to keep playing.

If there's a very big, important scannable object, at least on XBox One, the controller vibrates and an icon appears in the lower left of the screen suggesting I should open my scanner.

Otherwise, you're on your own with scanning stuff. If it looks interesting/different, you should probably scan it. It's how you get "points" for researching stuff.

pr0ner wrote:If there's a very big, important scannable object, at least on XBox One, the controller vibrates and an icon appears in the lower left of the screen suggesting I should open my scanner.

Otherwise, you're on your own with scanning stuff. If it looks interesting/different, you should probably scan it. It's how you get "points" for researching stuff.

So that's what that was. My controller kept randomly vibrating, and I had no idea why.

It probably came up in one of the tutorials...all of which flashed by so quickly (or popped up right in the middle of something else) I barely had time to read them.

A pretty decent explanation of the ME: Andromeda animations and the problems therein.

What Happened to Mass Effect Andromeda's Animation?

My recommendation for anyone who starts this game is that you have to commit to giving it at least until you reach Eos. That was about the time that the game finally came together and started feeling like an actual Mass Effect game. You get out of the drab, boring, generic space station and get to explore a planet that looks very cool. There are actually interesting conversations instead of a constant stream of awkward, stilted dialog. The combat starts becoming fun because you have a few abilities you can use. And it's probably about that point that my brain came to terms with the horrible animation and just decided to roll with it.

The unfortunate part is that it takes between 3-4 hours to get to that point. I can't help but wonder how many people gave up before then. I honestly can't think of a game in recent that botched the intro so badly.

Brian wrote:A pretty decent explanation of the ME: Andromeda animations and the problems therein.

What Happened to Mass Effect Andromeda's Animation?

Wow, that was fascinating and explains a lot about what might have gone wrong. Thanks for the link.

Makes me appreciate what The Witcher 3 did even more.

So i finished off Liam's loyalty mission...a few thoughts....minor spoilers.

Still really enjoying the heck out of the game. I have no idea how far along I am, I do tend to clear out places of quests when i hit them. As far as combat, i tend to just ignore my companion. I've tried commading them a few times and i just havent gotten the hang of it (Yeah i do feel stupid since it seems so simple). But also they tend to do a good enough job on their own, that I dont feel the need for deep tactics with em. That also does suck, since one of the nice thigns about previous iterations was controlling all characters. Hope they add that in any future xpacs or for the next ME.

So apparently I completely screwed up the romance I was going for (Suvi Anwar) as I'm now at the final mission and I never got the romance dialog.

Every other crew member practically threw themselves at me but I apparently missed a key dialog option with Suvi when we were having tea in my quarters on the Tempest.

I'm not going back now so no romance for femRyder on this playthrough even if I could find a save point close enough to do it.

If I go back and do a male Ryder playthrough, I'll just go with Peebee since she's much more like-able than Cora.

Brian wrote:So apparently I completely screwed up the romance I was going for (Suvi Anwar) as I'm now at the final mission and I never got the romance dialog.

Every other crew member practically threw themselves at me but I apparently missed a key dialog option with Suvi when we were having tea in my quarters on the Tempest.

I'm not going back now so no romance for femRyder on this playthrough even if I could find a save point close enough to do it.

If I go back and do a male Ryder playthrough, I'll just go with Peebee since she's much more like-able than Cora.

I'm still mad at BG2 for making the Jaheira romance unnecessarily complicated. To finish her romance you had to offer to help two evil characters break into the (good hero organization) Harper headquarters, of which Jaheira was a member! I mean, obviously.

Meanwhile, I'm not too invested in either Peebee or Cora, but will probably ultimately go with Cora. Though that's not stopping me from banging Peebee in Zero G on the regular.

Also, I can't describe how much I would love it if a game had an "unintended pregnancy" storyline for a situation like this.

Ryder, we need to talk....

"Hey, while you're down there fighting aliens, can you pick up some space peanut butter and space pickles?"

NickAragua wrote:"Hey, while you're down there fighting aliens, can you pick up some space peanut butter and space pickles?"

And some ice cream.

Max Peck wrote:

NickAragua wrote:"Hey, while you're down there fighting aliens, can you pick up some space peanut butter and space pickles?"

And some ice cream.

I remember I actually bought some of that stuff when I was at the national air and space museum down in DC (HEY I WAS CURIOUS ALL RIGHT?!) and man, it's pretty terrible. Like chewing on styrofoam.

I've eaten freeze-dried ice cream a couple of times, and I liked it. But then I like MREs too, so my judgement is probably suspect.

Yeah, my FemRyder is throwing herself at everyone like a dog in heat. What's the point of being a near-Messianic leader if you can't score with your crew? It's sad when I think how little Bioware games have actually advanced in terms of characterization and dialogue.

Suitably Ironic Moniker wrote:Yeah, my FemRyder is throwing herself at everyone like a dog in heat. What's the point of being a near-Messianic leader if you can't score with your crew? It's sad when I think how little Bioware games have actually advanced in terms of characterization and dialogue.

Yeah, me too, mainly because it amuses me how no one seems to notice or react to my wildly inappropriate behavior.

Finished the main story line.

On the plus side, it has a good ending, and I don't want to murder the writers like I did after the last game. It was also mostly fun - this is the key thing. My criticisms are much longer than my praises, but it was always mostly fun. The combat was way better and much more fun than in previous entries. Bioware doesn't really make true RPGs anymore, so why not just make the combat all action? I was down with that. I liked not having to micro-manage my party's inventory - especially after how hideous that was in DA:I. It was satisfying fixing the climates on planets and building outposts for colonies (I was disappointed with how few times I actually ended up doing that when I realized I wasn't going anymore places that needed it.) The planet where you couldn't leave the Nomad (The Nomad was roughly a billion times better than the Mako.) was beautiful and fun to explore - but there wasn't enough to do or see there. Clearly added late in the game. The main story quests were mostly fun, and were the funnest missions to play.

On the negative side, the premise is excellent, but the plot overall falls flat. It has its moments, but I was never as engaged as in the first trilogy. Also too many elements were similar to the original plot. Another lost ancient super powerful alien race leaving its tech behind? Really, no other ideas? The companions were nowhere near as interesting in this game and some were flat out annoying. Gil can go straight to Hell. The animations are definitely bad as were the PLASTIC DEMON DOLL EYES!!! AHHH! (The eyes got improved in a patch.) There were times I found some of the Remnant vaults tedious. Flip this button before that one. Flip this one nowhere near the area it affects. bah. The crafting and equipment management was tedious, requiring me to spend too much time navigating menus - just like DA:I (this is why it was good I didn't have to equip all of my companions). Inventory management was very frustrating before the patch where I was always full and not really clear on what I could do without to empty it. (For me the patch completely eliminated this problem.) The Nexus felt like there wasn't enough to it compared to the Citadel. No wonder they kept all these people sleeping. The unskippable spaceship cut scenes were beyond annoying - seeing them over and over again. The patch only made a small dent in this. The quality of side quests is highly variable with not many ways to determine the good from the bad. The constant planet/galaxy hopping for a single quest (yay more unskippable space ship cut scenes) got on my nerves. Like all open world(s) games, too much walking/running/driving around looking for shit including trying to figure out where on the mountain this waypoint is and how the fuck do I get up there anyway? Only 2 new alien races after travelling that far?! The main story quests were fun - but man I wish there were more of them. It felt like there was too much meaningless filler questing at the expense of main plot driven quests. Going to bed with bleeding eyes every night because they won't let me adjust the font size. After the patch SAM kept telling me I had more Email when I didn't have any fucking email! Speaking of SAM - SHUT UP! SAM talks WAY TOO MUCH in this game. There were times where I shuddered every time that know it all interjected itself into conversations.

Also, let me get this straight. There is an AI whose main CPU is sitting on a spaceship docked in the Nexus. Yet, no matter where I go in whatever solar system, he can always immediately process whatever I experience and give me instant feedback on it. OK, I will go with that.... But, I can't get fucking email without going back to my spaceship?! I have more easy access to my email in the present real world than in the made up world where there are faster than light drives?! SERIOUSLY?! Why can't I board the ship (to check emails) WITHOUT LEAVING THE PLANET and enduring more unskippable cut scenes?!?!

Still, the game was fun overall. A solid 7-7.5/10 game that is fun enough to make its irritations palatable. Very poor by Bioware standards, but still fun, and Bioware clearly isn't the same studio it used to be (HELLO EA!!!!!)....

I'm sure I'll be in for the sequel. If I couldn't last more than a couple days after release even with me still boiling over the terrible ending to the first 3 games, I am sure I will be ready for another in a few years...

El Guapo wrote:

Suitably Ironic Moniker wrote:Yeah, my FemRyder is throwing herself at everyone like a dog in heat. What's the point of being a near-Messianic leader if you can't score with your crew? It's sad when I think how little Bioware games have actually advanced in terms of characterization and dialogue.

Yeah, me too, mainly because it amuses me how no one seems to notice or react to my wildly inappropriate behavior.

They haven't gotten around to thawing out the HR staff who would have set up mandatory training sessions about this sort of thing.

I'm a little surprised that the intertubes have not taken Bioware to task for having a piece of multiplayer gear named Adaptive War Amp:


I guess maybe it's because The War Amps is just a Canadian thing.

How do you use fast travel on Aya (playing PC). Youtube has a video but hell if I can tell what to do from that video. Thanks.

It's a bit of a pain in the butt. There are fast travel stations you can select, but you have to click on them somewhat precisely.

Part of the problem with fast travel is when you pull up the map, things close to the travel point can interfere you with clicking on the fast travel spot. Zooming the map all the way in helps a lot.

One thing I haven't seen addressed: The Space Hamster

I have a settlement that needs assistance:

NickAragua wrote:

Max Peck wrote:

NickAragua wrote:"Hey, while you're down there fighting aliens, can you pick up some space peanut butter and space pickles?"

And some ice cream.

I remember I actually bought some of that stuff when I was at the national air and space museum down in DC (HEY I WAS CURIOUS ALL RIGHT?!) and man, it's pretty terrible. Like chewing on styrofoam.

Come on! You're not supposed to CHEW it. That stuff is awesome!!!

Grifman wrote:I have a settlement that needs assistance:

Did you import him from Mass Effect: Outback?

pr0ner wrote:

Grifman wrote:I have a settlement that needs assistance:

Did you import him from Mass Effect: Outback?

Mass Effect 4: Minutemen, Fall Out!

Grifman wrote:I have a settlement that needs assistance:

Ack! Kill him! Kill him with biotic fire!

(Memories of being nagged in Fallout New England surfacing)

Man, you kiss Cora *one time* and the game cuts you off completely from zero-G banging with Peebee. I didn't know that the game designers were such Puritans!

I'm at the "Journey to Meridian" quest. In terms of wrapping up important side / loyalty quests, am I ok doing this mission first? Or should I wrap up all other important side quests before starting this?

You can go ahead and start that mission. There's still quite a bit of game that follows.

Patch 1.06 is live:

• Patch notes
• MP combat balance update

Brian wrote:You can go ahead and start that mission. There's still quite a bit of game that follows.

I finished that mission and am doing all the loyalty quests, before proceeding to what I think is the final main story mission of the game. I've also settled Eos, Kadama (the exile planet), and the Krogan planet. Not sure if I'm going to bother settling the other planets (Voeld and one other, I think?).

Anyway, I'm enjoying the game. I will say that the writing doesn't seem as solid as the other Mass Effect games (which for the most part had good writing on the individual missions and characters, even if the endings of ME2 and ME3 were both insultingly dumb). Here the writing on the missions and characters is fine, but not especially compelling.

I got about 15 hours in, then simply got bored. Too many uninteresting sidequests (I had 28 in my journal when I quit), too little main story thread pulling it all along.

Sources: BioWare Montreal Scaled Down, Mass Effect Put On Ice For Now

In the wake of BioWare’s polarizing Mass Effect: Andromeda, fans have wondered where the lauded sci-fi series will go next. The answer, according to people familiar with the studio, is nowhere—at least for the time being. BioWare has put Mass Effect on hiatus and turned Andromeda’s developer, BioWare Montreal, into a support studio, according to four sources close to the company.

That doesn’t mean there will never be another Mass Effect game, of course. It’s unlikely that BioWare will kill the popular sci-fi franchise. But BioWare is letting Mass Effect sit for a while rather than putting staff on Andromeda’s follow-up right away, those sources said.

Last month, a number of BioWare Montreal employees were transferred to the studio EA Motive, also based in Montreal, to work on Star Wars Battlefront II. Those remaining at BioWare Montreal will help support BioWare’s other games including the new intellectual property, code-named Dylan, which we expect the company to announce at E3. BioWare Montreal will also continue to patch and support Andromeda’s multiplayer.