Counterpoint: DON'T buy Mass Effect: Andromeda. (Gaming)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Wednesday, April 05, 2017, 15:10 (2580 days ago) @ cheapLEY
edited by Korny, Wednesday, April 05, 2017, 15:14

I know there was some excitement about Andromeda here on the forums in the weeks leading up to its release. Then it came out and received middling reviews and lots of attention for its goofy animations. Besides Raga, I haven't seen anyone else here talking about it, so I'm here to tell you to play it, in case the reviews and animation fiasco drove you away.

I don't think it was just reviews and animation fiascos that drove people away, but a number of widely reported technical issues and downgrades to previous ME games.

The game has undeniable issues. I haven't seen anything too awful from the animations--they're not amazing, but they're at least as good as Horizon's (to be clear, Horizon's are bad, real bad, but no one seemed to care).

You've acknowledged the hyperbole, but still, it bears calling out that the biggest issues in Horizon's animations is lip-syncing (which received a patch shortly after launch, and will reportedly continue to improve), whereas in ME:A, the animation issues are more prevalent, from lazy, untouched mo-cap to wonky character movements and cringe-inducing algorithm-based facial animations, it really pulls you from the experience. When the attention to animation detail in HZD is good enough that articles have been written to highlight it, I can live with the occasional lip-syncing issues.

I haven't seen any of the real goofy shit that's showing up in gifs, so, despite what the internet would have you believe, it's not like people are crab-walking everywhere.

I mean, I can live with a few bugs, and the occasional enemy standing ten feet above the floor, but the countless little things that show a lack of polish really do cause you to feel like you're playing an unfinished game, and that's before you really run into any big issues.

I'm perhaps not far enough into the game to give it a complete recommendation, but I'm about ten hours into the game, a couple of hours beyond Eos, which is the first real mission in the game that really shows you what Mass Effect Andromeda is. And that is a pretty good Mass Effect game. If you like that series, you'll like this game.

But why not just wait until they fix a number of the issues and it drops in price?

I think it misses some opportunities and drops the ball (only two new alien species, one of which is the enemy you fight, only Taurians, Asari, and Krogan from the last trilogy show up). I'll never forget the first time I set foot on the Citadel and just got lost in the Mass Effect universe. With a new galaxy, I was hoping for that experience again, and I think Andromeda could have done a better job providing that...

Like I said, it's a downgrade to previous ME games, and while I mostly understand the story reasons for cutting a majority of the species from the game, it kills a lot of the love that I have for the series, and it contributes to the sense that it was made by a far-less talented team than the one that handled ME3.

That said, Bioware released a blog post detailing immediate and upcoming patches to the game, including player creation options and the addressing of major issues, giving players even more reason to hold off on buying it. The longer you wait, the better the game will be on a technical level, which is a shame that we're having to see this done since the game had already been delayed.

It's better than the hot mess that was Mass Effect 3 by miles.

People whining about ME3's ending aside, it was a pretty outstanding and polished game out of the gate. The gameplay was on-point, characters were likeable, the stories and side missions were great, and the closure to almost all of the characters was a fitting culmination of what you'd done before (pretty much all of these points in Andromeda have received criticism in one review or another). And I don't even have to mention how fantastic the co-op and the free DLC format was (which is touted as one of Andromeda's strong points, despite a butchered player roster).