Mass Effect Andromeda
interpolator
Anyone else excited?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1hBNALUk4w
Yeah...
remember that thread I made two days back? About graphics hindering gameplay?
People in the comment section seem to believe that because the game looks good the story and gameplay will be diminished...
I don't.. know why I keep reading the comments..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1hBNALUk4wYeah...
remember that thread I made two days back? About graphics hindering gameplay?
People in the comment section seem to believe that because the game looks good the story and gameplay will be diminished...
I don't.. know why I keep reading the comments..
Replies
1. Good combat. Ability combo, tactical commands, cover systems, nice gun-play (had a hard time in FO4).
2. Good squad-play. Teammate synergy, nice squad customization/abilities/armors, and interesting companions.
3. Don't make me grind for resources/drilling or anything similar !!!
4. That's it !! I don't even care about the story...
I don't care about the gameplay of Mass effect, I care about the story and the nice hard sci fi visuals(Doesn't mean that good gameplay doesn't help, the weapon variation in ME3 was great!)
FYI, watching a 4k video on Youtube even on a 1080p monitor will look better than watching it at 1080p due to compression.
But back to the demo, looks pretty good. Can't wait to play another Mass Effect game. It'll be interesting to see PC vs PS4 comparisons at 4k. Not really much information in terms of gameplay. I'm still curious how Sony is going to deal with PS4 vs PS4 Pro on a 1080p tv vs PS4 Pro on a 4k tv. Looking forward to those comparisons.
That's not what my pre-alphas look like...
Besides that, if it has a silly waste-of-time planet scanning/flower gathering mechanic I'll probably wait to buy it until there's a good save editor. Looks like it could be good though.
Or using procedural textures like I did 20 years ago using POV-ray! *$$$ ka-ching! ka-ching! $$$*
I have a kind of Love/hate relationship with Mass Effect and Bioware. I played through the first 2 games multiple times, as male- and femshep, both Paragorn and Renegade, i loved every minute of it.
Then came Mass Effect 3 and i played through it once.
Then i took some time to study, analyze and dissect it so that i could understand why it failed so spectacular for me.
Then i uninstalled all ME games, gave them away, stopped talking and thinking about them. Never touched a Bioware game since then.
The flame of raging disappointment is still burning somewhere deep inside me.
But this one looks promising. Very futuristic and alien, very epic in scope.
It seems to me that the frostbite engine enables the artist to really go for their artistic vision rather than fighting engine limitations.
Everything i've seen from the new Mass Effect gives me hope (not hype) that they will deliver something interesting.
When Shepard says "signing off" I just about cried.
6. Banging alien dudes.
7. Banging alien androids/cyborgs.
Same. But then again, "space travel and leaving everything behind" theme is my soft spot.
*Looking at you; Civ: Beyond Earth teaser vid.*
I'd hate to see them lose that by overtly grabbing what everyone else has already done.
I can say that I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't make my character look more alien. I guess it's intentional, to keep my character human, but it felt like there were a lot of non-human features available too. I hope there is a way to modify my appearance, but I don't recall seeing that as an option. My color choices seemed to be a bit brighter/stronger than they were on the creator, so my character ended up looking like Dennis Rodman, rather than the alien look I was going for.
As for the great animation debate, sure, they could/should have been better, but it doesn't make or break a game for me. Definitely not enough to cancel/return my order. I can understand, if gamers feel it's a sign of the rest of the game's quality, but there are already plenty of videos providing gameplay... base your opinions on that.
Thoughts?
It feels the most like the first Mass Effect, for better and for worse. There's a nice sense of wonder that the first one mastered, but has a lot of jank the first one had, like they passed over the sequels when talking about lessons learned. The facial animation in particular is rough, enough to take away from the cinematics, which is a shame.
It runs smooth at 4k on my i7/gtx 1080 on high to ultra. Overall, I'm enjoying it so far, but I wouldn't call it the best in the series.
Also somebody high up really liked how screen space reflections look because everything is shiny and reflective.
I also laugh, every time I see my character run, because he remains perfectly vertical, as he runs, which almost looks as though he's taking a dump, while running.
My friend, who loves this series, claims to not have noticed anything wrong with the animation. I'm not sure if he's trying to defend the game, or seriously doesn't notice, because it feels very obvious to me (again, maybe the internet brought it to my attention).
I can't say much about the game still... I got on last night, and basically did a bunch of stuff in the Nexus. I finally landed on a planet, just before getting off for the night. I can say I'm not a fan of the button arrangement, and menu navigation. Just feels a bit clunky to me. I'm not sure if this is a typical bioware arrangement, but I really liked how Horizon had the 'take all' option set to the same button you used to open/investigate an item.
I need to get some undisturbed time, with this game, so I can get focused. Both nights have been spent with people in my party, talking about the game's animations, and comparisons to previous versions.
https://twitter.com/i/moments/845012187231895552
I will not be hypocrite, I still don't understand what happened here. 10 years later, and this is the next gen Mass Effect?. How could they sell a game in this state? where did the good/senior artists go? It feels like Bioware trolled us hard. I've watched 2016 footage and it's not like this.
At least they have made history.
Actually I also have to say it doesn't feel like ME to me. Far less story, too much running around in the middst of nowhere 'scanning'... Exploration is feeled like in DA Inquisition just with meaningless collectibles. Take Inquisition and combine it with the planet scanning from ME2 & 3 and spice it with hazardous environment that harms you over time. The new tank is a pain to drive so far. Basically many of the annoying things from ME 1-3 'exploration' have been turned into 'features' being more prominent while not improved - at least for my taste.
To me making a sequal to that triology seemed like a huge enterprise and it might have been too big for the team. I don't blame them and I am not disappointed since it was a huge undertaking that has to be respected. Not knowing the old games I might even say it is a good/solid game, but it isn't on the level of the old ones. I remember watching a friend play ME 1 on his console and just from the 1st intro cutscene on I was pumped and had to get the game - couple of hours into the new one and I am not even sure I could bring myself to finish it, feeling no connection to anything introduced so far.
...and I can't take that Andromeda logo seriously...
Sorry, but that is NOT GOOD ENOUGH for me.
The amount of wasted potential will trigger me into an emotional rage, so i stay far far away from it.
I rarely play games these days anyways, Mass Effect could have been a nice little escapist holiday, but seems like i have to wait until Star Citizen drops.
I'm not that far in yet, but to me is seems like a great game.
I have seen no bugs, no weird animation, or anything else people make fun of.
Look very solid to me. And the environments are more beautiful than what I have seen in another big game recently released that is praised for the environments.
The other things that really bother me are the tons of filler quests (go scan this, then this, then this,... or just collect this and that - all the horrible habits from Dragon Age Inquisition are back). No customization what so ever for companions - no armors, no weapons - nothing except for skills. No companion commands besides 'go there' in fights (could be a controller thing tough, since I play on PC using controller). 99% of the time I can just select if I am 'loosly nice' to people or 'formally nice' - you can't be anything else than an Enterprise captain Picard would have been proud of (and probably bored of).
Overall just not AAA level and a huge step back from the old series. Many things come with the switch in engine, but honestly a lot of the issues could have been avoided and a lot of things could have been cut in favor of more polishing of the core elements.
So as for the fun stuff, combat and the environments seem pretty cool. So if you want a dragon age style combat and customization system, which is pretty neat your in luck, (its a lot more like dragon age then mass effect... Think super buggy dragon age inquisition in space). Its not totally bad, but its not what I personally want in a mass effect. Still, I haven't finished the game, so It could end like KOTOR and blow my mind enough to be one of my all time favorite games
The facial animations are awful. The more I spend with this game, the more it bothers me. Their brows don't move, and their eyelids are always 100% open, except when blinking.
To top it off, they decided to make every character's body continue their animation, but it doesn't match the head/face. For instance, everyone keeps using the device on their arm, while having their head turned to the left, looking at you.
The characters run with their backs straight up. No one runs like that.
Sorry if this sounds like I'm attacking you... just trying to point out what I've seen. A game, at this level, should have much better characters visuals.
That being said, I agree, the environmental visuals are very cool. I love watching the tempest flying around, and the nomad is very cool
Half the budget of Witcher3, 3x the dialog/animation and to top it off an engine switch. It's obvious they didn't care about animation or automation.
But here a prime example why this isn't about the artists and devs working on the game, but by the people calling the shots: On a planet I just started a quest. Several lines of talking between an alien and my character, with her telling me her and her sisters background story. Then I walked 10 steps, scanned an object, SAM gives me several more lines as well as my character and returned back to the quest giver to finish the quest with more talking. The whole quest without the talking was about 10 seconds of gameplay (mostly walking). I would say at least 1 minute of dialog made for it. When you lack resources, why even bother putting up even more dialogs? So far probably the worst case, but I've had other quests similar like this.
But for now it's just a guess work, don't want to really blame anyone or anything for those mistakes.
It's interesting, I really haven't noticed a single of these issues, with the exception of the constantly surprised look on some of the faces (eyes wide open).
I am playing on PS4.
Maybe im simply too tired to perceive anything going on when im playing
Also i reject the easy scapegoat of the engine...its not the engines fault...see Battlefield and other Frostbite games. The Engine can handle nice facial animations and stuff. This game just needs more work to fix bugs, glitches etc. That is a logistic/management problem, not a technical problem.
And like I mentioned earlier, I had the game get completely stuck 'loading'. I rewatched my stream, and it went on for 4 minutes, before I closed the game (I wasn't just being impatient).
Another thing bothering me is how the character models don't touch anything. They put their hands to their hips, and their hands just hover over the waste. When they hold their tablets, the tablet just floats in the middle of their hands.
Option 1: Throw more animation assets at the problem.
Hire a bunch of animators to make new unique assets that are really just the same anim, with an anim layer thrown on top.
Technically this is possible if you're willing to quadruple the anim budget and bloat the size of the game significantly. Hopefully you can find some place where 50k per year gets you 5 animators instead of 1. If you go this route you will need a lawyer well versed in obscure child labor laws in various countries.
Option 2: Throw tech at the problem.
Invest in tech heavy solutions that can accurately re-target animations, basically get Frostbite to automate what animators would be doing. The Frostbite engine would be amazing if it could pull that off. Sadly that would require a lot of high end, top dollar talent in the most expensive and competitive positions to fill. It would probably also require a bump in min-spec that goes outside of what consoles are capable of putting out.
Option 3: Throw anyone at the problem (and by problem they mean bus).
Hire a handful of fresh out of school "designers". Make them feel special, pump up their ego and then chain them to their desks. Have them take whatever is laying around on the cutting room floor and demand that they stitch scenes together until their fingers turn into bloody stumps. Hose down their keyboard and get a new warm body with fresh appendages. The only options they have are bad options, nothing works and because they are chained to their desks they can't ask the animators for what they need, which is a hacksaw...
It looks like they half-assed option 1 and 2 and settled on 3 as deadlines loomed.
The Witcher3 had way better facial animation but it also had less animation overall, so they could focus on quality not quantity.
Witcher3 also had double the budget of Mass Effect A, 80mil vs 41mil. 80mil in Warsaw goes really far.
They can't increase quantity and expect quality not to suffer. Bioware also had to use the Frostbite engine which is several steps behind when it comes to slamming this kind of content together. They should have used another game that is similar in mechanic but much smaller in scope to figure out what tools and adjustments they needed before diving into a game with a scope this massive.