Unfinished: Mass Effect: Andromeda 02/22/2017

I'm gonna get this game no matter what because it's Mass Effect. I know, I'm part of the problem.

#MakoDidNothingWrong

I enjoyed mass effect 1 a lot, never finished 2 and thought 3 wasn't really great and gave up an hour or two in sadly. I'm replaying mass effect 2 right now (really early in) because I forgot how amazing jennifer hale was until I watched a renegade video of her. Due to my disinterest in the mass effect world I can't quite figure out why but I am really wanting this game based on the footage they are showing.

For some reason I keep watching clips of this game on my samsung tablet which has an AMOLED screen and I can't get enough of how great the game looks. I have a problem though because my PC monitor is an older 27" non LED and I want a similar experience to what I'm seeing on my samsung tablet (the colors are incredible). Any good PC monitors that are LED under $500 or are they super expensive for a good one like a TV? LED TVs seem incredibly expensive and most monitors are IPS for aroudn that price range it seems. What is the price of a good LED monitor akin to what Dan has talked bout he has at home? I would love to play this game at 4K its looking real pretty.

Vape the final frontier of haze.

@hewitt: I mean, I didn't like that about Inquisition either, but I still don't see what that has to do with Mass Effect being an 'action shooter', rather than an exploration-driven RPG? After all, Inquisition had no action shooting, but quite a bit of exploration--even if that exploration was, as you say, rather disappointing for the most part.

Like, I'm not saying you shouldn't be sceptical of Andromeda - though I am, at least for the most part, fairly hopeful - but being worried that it'll be too much like Inquisition, and having concerns over it being more of an 'action shooter' than an exploration-driven RPG, would seem to be two separate, unrelated things?

And I don't think I agree on skill trees and branching dialogue no longer counting as RPG elements. Skill trees are indeed fairly ubiquitous at this point, but they still originated with the RPG genre. And branching dialogue of the sort BioWare tends to produce is still a fairly rarefied gameplay element--the only non-RPG games I can think of that engage with it in a significant way are Telltale adventure games.

In any case, I'd say a game that employs skill trees, branching dialogue, somewhat non-linear story-telling - as in, you can visit these planets/towns/etcetera, and do these quests, in whatever order - an inventory, loot, and a substantial character creation system, is probably an RPG. (To be clear, I don't think all - or even most - of those elements are necessary to declaring a game an RPG. They just help in forming the definition.)

And yeah, an Obsidian-developed Star Trek game is pretty much my big 'this'll never happen but it'd be soooooo amazing if it did!' game. And I'd certainly be super interested to see what they could do with the Mass Effect licence as well! (That said, I'm not nearly as down on BioWare as some seem to be these days.)

@tpoppapuff: I absolutely agree that greater context would be required to understand who Shepard is, but I doubt Shepard's going to get more than a nod. 'Commander Shepard, Hero of the Citadel, the first human Spectre, declared missing in action a couple of years before we shipped out...' (Or something like that but better-written.) Just enough to make existing fans of the franchise a little excited, and perhaps entice new fans to check out the old games.

@kirkyx: I understand what you mean. Brad mentioned they ask you the gender of Shepard in your game which I find odd as to why that's the only piece of information they would need but still as to why they would need that information at all. You know what I mean? Like you answer that... so that they can briefly mention Shepard with a 'he' or 'she' instead of a 'they?' Who knows. Weird though.

Anyway that's why I mentioned it as at least some context as to who Shepard was.

Well if that's the intended purpose then the label makes perfect scene, however as far as I can remember that was never clearly stated (vaguely remember Drew introducing the feature on a podcast) and 99% of Unfinished features are Quick Looks (Mirror's Edge Catalyst is the only other non QL Unfinished I can think of). So I think the label has created a kind of expectation now, at least in my mind. Kind of like how Quick Looks are expected to be anything but quick.

I'd also argue that "Unfinished" is a bad title since games are rarely ever "finished" nowadays. That's why I suggested the "W.I.P Look" label to Drew before, but I can now see how that might not work for a feature meant to cover all misc pre-release content. However, I kind of feel like that's way too broad a category for a feature that will probably remain 99% quick looks. And you could say you're still just looking at something in any case.

Just my thoughts on it anyway. Thanks for the reply Jeff! I appreciate you taking the time to clarify this.

Meh. I fell off of Mass Effect after it started going downhill, which in my opinion was in ME2. ME3 was atrocious and a disgrace to the series and the Bioware name. This doesn't interest me in the slightest. Although it looks amazing, especially in the 4K footage, I'm so done with this series and the rinse and repeat structure. Hope people enjoy it though if they decide to pick it up.

I have not played the original trilogy. Should I skip it and start with this one?

Not biting. Mass Effect 2 was the pinnacle for me in this series. Mass Effect 3 brought in the shooter-style of gameplay which I wasn't a big fan of - this looks like it's doubling down on that complete with jetpac acrobatics. Nope!

"And maybe they'll ask... what's Shepard's favorite color?"

Fuckin' savage.

looks like warframe.. any idea if theres co op?

@pickassoreborn: The shooter style gameplay was also in ME2 by the way and I've replayed it recently.

I'm always excited for Mass Effect.

did they say how many humans total were on this mission? it just strikes me as funny that you're on this colonial mission with supposedly a very small group of people and yet you're killing folk left and right. i'm guessing there's different factions, or maybe a lot of those are just humanoid aliens.

considering it's a different galaxy i really hope they bring the weird, though i guess a different galaxy in and of itself doesn't mean that everything's all crazy relatively speaking. obviously it's still the same physics/elements/etc.d just seems like it'd be a real good opportunity for some stranger in a strange land type shit.

for the record i think the female protag looks fine.

It looks very pretty, but they're only showing action and that always took a backseat for me with the story and characters at the forefront. If they have created lots of new, interesting characters and good conversations, then maybe this will be good. But if that's not there, then all this will ever be is a pretty third person shooter.

I'd be down for that too, although I think Brad would prefer to play Geometry Wars ;)

@ioftd said:

I also noticed this and I guess the "new footage" in this unfinished is just footage from trailers not released yet. Kind of a shitty move from EA to just give the duders a random collection trailer footage, they might as well just talk over some YouTube trailers from the ME channel.

Those characters look completely forgettable

Is this content? I like content.

@tpoppapuff: well if i had to guess it is because there is a voiced message (video/audio) from Shepard that you listen to during the set up for the game, maybe as a good bye we hope you make it. To set up the first small bits of the story and they wanted you to hear it as your shepard, aka male or female.

Not that I don't appreciate a good Mass Effect discussion, but the convoluted talk over how BioWare ended Mass Effect 3 seems to justify EA setting this in an entirely different universe with all new characters. People seem to REALLY get hung up over those old games. I enjoy Mass Effect for Mass Effect..I guess that makes me strange. Story wise, I treat it like Star Trek. Each series is it's own thing connected by threads. Sometimes it's awesome, sometimes it's silly...but I enjoy the franchise.

@gulinotm said:

Yeah not crazy about them. Too many humans. The Turian and Asari look fine enough, but not super fond of the others.

Will wait for the reviews, but one plot hole i noted in the game play.

We are the first humans to arrive in Andromeda, but in one of the adventures we meet humans who run a frontier town. WTF?

Either that's a spoiler or terrible writing........please let is be a spoiler