Already tired of the ME:A hate

Seems like when the internet finds a weakness they just pile on whether it's SJWs and that former IGN guy, Batman vs Superman, and so on. 90% of the Youtube comments I've read and comments I see on different articles are "faces suck" in some way and the conversation stops there. I've spent hours with the game and it's far from a trainwreck - I don't see anything stopping it from being a 9 point something. Criticizing a game is perfectly fine, but hearing the same thing over and over gets boring fast. Faces need to be improved, we get it, now lets move on and talk about other things. The game gets a ton right and screws up here and there like most games. It runs well (it's not a Bethesda game) and it seems to be a complete package worth $60 (a long campaign and good multiplayer) - unlike something like Destiny, which didn't feel like it was worth $60 after I bought it. Since it was limited content in a loop over and over, which felt lazy as hell.

ME:A's gameplay and graphics are great. The facial animations aren't acceptable, but the body movement animation is a vast improvement over the trilogy. I haven't seen any notable bugs. Seems like many critics played on PS4 Pro and assumed issues there were issues for every platform. I haven't seen anything that weird or buggy on X1. The main problems I noticed were:

- Obviously there's a problem with face animations.

- The character creator is way too limited. I actually chose female since I didn't like any of the male hair. There are some good choices there, but not for a black character since the couple of good male hair options were with straight hair.

- Biotics are weak now and didn't need to be changed. Biotics were good for enemies with a biotic barrier and armored enemies. Now they suck against armor, since there's no warp, dark channel, and reave, so biotics are just crowd control, but they can't crowd control enemies who are armored or with shields, so this was a dumb decision.

I was gong to post something similar - there's a certain glee in the gamer criticisms of MEA, which I'm guessing is holdover hate of ME3 and of EA in general. That said, I'm certainly going to hold off on this until some early adopters chime in - I can deal with poorly animated faces, not so much poor gameplay/storytelling.

*Stares Intensely Forward without Blinking*

I'm glad to hear something positive. I can't play until March 23 when it is out here and I was feeling bad about the game after everyone made it a joke. I am a huge ME fan so I hope I'll love this game too despite the facial animation problem that somehow looks worse then the previous ME games but that is forgivable if it is a great story with great combat.

You haven't played and finished the game I assume, so I have no idea how you can say it's worth $60 and gets a tonne right and all of this other conjecture. You're upset that people have jumped on the bad faces and animations -- they're holding the game up to 2017 standards -- but I get it, that's okay to feel that. But we've only criticized the footage we've seen, and most outlets agree the writing, aspects of the graphics, and bad voice-acting have held back the great gameplay in the early game stuff. Some outlets have shared opinions based on much deeper time with it and state it doesn't change that much in those areas, but we will have to see for ourselves.

People love this series, and are saying this seems bad even compared to ME:3, which was a smaller drop in quality (basically it went from great to pretty cool with issues). You seem to be saying that you find it a sensitive experience when other people don't behave and feel like you do on things you like, but you really do have to laugh at that behaviour, not open a thread where you're basically complaining about how other people feel which is pointless and makes you seem not more open to giving things a chance like I'm sure you feel, but more like you're scolding people for being a bit hard to please and somewhat cynical of iffy products, which they have every right to be.

Superman Vs. Batman is an average film in a lot of people's eyes, and they have the right to 'hate' on it if it's thoughtful criticism. If a director's cut came out that fixed a tonne, I'm sure some would say, "Eh, you know what, it's not so terrible," but we only have 2% of Andromeda to criticize, and man, it isn't a promising 2%. The other 98% could be pretty good, but until then, you must think it a huge conspiracy if all its critics are lying or being unfair. DA:I was very well regarded, despite its issues, so it's not like there's an Earth-long hate train for this type of game outside of purists who just really, really loved Dragon Age 1 and ME: 1 + 2.

Edit:

If those people have made their minds up permanently about Andromeda, then that is a real shame and not particularly fair, but so many good games are out that money matters for a change, and where you put that money relies heavily on pre-release footage more than ever, and unfortunately Andromeda has underwhelmed there. I want it to prove me wrong. I am someone who will happily throw their misgivings out the window instantaneously if the buzz improves and the mid to late-game gets going in a satisfying way.

I hear you, though. I'm not criticizing your feelings, I just feel strongly that people are honest about their feelings, even if they're negative and come across aggressively. I'm more in the middle, personally.

All the criticism i have seen is 100% legit though. I find the stuff didn't bother me as much while playing, but way more when watching someone play if that means something. The gb playthrough starts further than i am and all the character stuff seemed 100 times worse there. The gameplay isnt bad but i am not yet convinced its actually an improvement. Locked to three powers and no power wheel in single player just seems bad. Jet pack is cool but i find i spend most the time getting stuck in things the game doesn't actually want me to jump on. The skyrim open world glitches seem present with random t-poses and crazy animation loops and clipping.

I hope they at the very least patch in some eye textures as starring into the dead eyes of ryder for 40 hours doesn't seem like a good time imo.

I played for like 3,5 hours or so, so far. I gotta say that I'm still adjusting to seeing the ME universe in a new setting/new characters, but otherwise it still feels really good and exciting to me. I'm kind of glad so many people are hating on it - hopefully they'll find the door and leave. The masses only water everything down and mess things up. ME:A looks to go back to a more RPG style with this DA:I template, and I'm glad for it. The game looks and plays great to my standards, and I'm really excited to dive in and explore these new worlds and characters, and see what the writers have come up with. So far so good.

@deathstriker: I gather you're playing on X1? And you say it runs well? That's good to hear since I'll be playing on the base PS4. Very excited to dig into it. It's been a long time since Mass Effect 3 and I'm ready for another one.

If it makes it any better, my main gripe with what I've seen so far is the writing. The bad animations and faces are funny, but the way the quality of Bioware's story, characters and dialogue has been going sharply downhill since DA2 is tragic. I really don't care if this game has an amazing multiplayer, there are tons of games with amazing multiplayer out right now, so I'm good. What I need is an immersive space opera RPG and this is like the only game doing it and completely not delivering with its writing. If it somehow gets way better after the initial bit I'll be damn surprised and might give it a try. But given what Bioware has been putting out in the last five years, I'm not getting my hopes up. It seems like a huge waste.

I don't know, maybe my face is just too tired.

@brunothethird: the only question i have for you is, if someone can say a game is bad and not worth a investment after not playing all of the game (which the GB crew have said many times) why can't someone feel a game is worth a investment even though they haven't finished it. I have played the whole 10 hours preview getting to the story stopping point and was able to level up to 5 in MP and i really like the game and think its worth the cost of the game. So am i wrong?

And to contrast my point, long after the release i finally played witcher 3 and played 20-30 hours and i found the game boring and unfocused and never finished it, now i don't think its bad game and i would never tell someone not to buy it but i regret buying it. Yet the internet say's its the one of the greatest games made. Am i wrong?

@deanoxd: My point was that both can have their opinion if they wish, but that they're equal in their worth. I don't believe either should be a buy vs. don't buy argument, as it's not enough of a rounded experience like a huge RPG such as Mass Effect needs to say so. You're not wrong at all. I wasn't providing a counter argument necessarily, but pointing the two out as equally unfair in a way, to me. As I said, I'm in the middle, and I think my comment ultimately shows that. I was saying it's not fair to say something is not worth buying based on that tiny percentage, or vice-versa, but that this crazy high-level gaming season makes an investment harder for those not sure.

To your other point, I think 20-30 hours is actually a much bigger chunk to call it quits on. That's fair. Why risk the huge time-sink if that has gotten you nowhere with a game? You're not wrong there either. It's a great game with issues, and you didn't like it. I'm the same with RDR, though I made myself finish it and really enjoyed the Tall Trees section. It's one of the best I've ever played, in fact.

I've never needed to 100% a game to tell if I should buy it or not, I go with my gut and it's right 98% of the time and often that's just by looking at gameplay videos - not playing it for 10 hours. When I did buy a game that wasn't worth $60 like Destiny it was probably because I was bored and thought screw it, or the idea of playing with friends would make up for its shortcomings. I say this game is worth $60 because I had fun with the MP, much like ME3's MP, and the singleplayer was enjoyable and is supposed to last 60 to over a 100 hours, so that's worth $60 to me.

Youtubers who specialize in Mass Effect coverage and liked the series a lot like me (and who have played way more than the game than us) also enjoyed it. I take Brad and Jeff's comments with a grain of salt since they never seemed to like the ME series that much. Also, I mainly listen to the podcast, not watch the videos here that often, but when I do watch a video and it's Jeff/Brad they make every game look silly and has a pessimistic feel to it, even some of my favorites like TLOU or Witcher 3, which none of them seemed to love if I remember correctly (maybe Vinny, but not most of them). ME3 wasn't bad, that's just people being hyperbolic again. They screwed up with the ending (last 5 minutes of the game) and it should've had more exploration, but it's still a great game. The internet is often either 0 or 100 and ME3 is an example of that too, not just ME:A. People can feel however they want, but this game is more than just "bad faces", just like BVS is more than "Martha" - people repeating something they didn't like ad nauseam is more my point.

This is just going to devolve into another ME:A crit thread.

I haven't seen anything in Andromeda that makes me think they're turning the series back toward RPG design. Looks like they pretty aggressively doubled down on action shooter. And, really, as an RPG fan the DA:I template is the last thing I'm looking for. MMO fetch & collect quests are not what I want from a game.

In my opinion, yes. You're very wrong. But that's how opinions work.

@brunothethird: Fair enough, and i think i sit firmly in your camp of thinking as well, hearing people say that game is a disaster and not worth it as of right now makes me nuts. But i am not holding out for good reviews i think there will be a couple but for the most part i have a feeling the industry is going to punish EA and bioware for this game.

Yeah, I didn't see any bugs/issues on X1 in the campaign or multiplayer. None of my friends who played it mentioned bugs or problems either. The UI could be better in some places, especially in MP, but no bugs.

Plenty of the criticism seems somewhat out of proportion but understandable. My issue is when it seems like the general trend is people wanting the game to fail beyond that.

It's not 'the writing in this first mission isn't perfect, I hope the story picks up over the course of the game' it's 'the writing in this mission isn't perfect, this game is dreadful, Bioware are incompetent'.

Like I said. Some of the criticism is valid. But also it's the internet. People like to kick stuff.

It also has the shitty DAI side quest design.

More or less this. I've played about 2~3 hours of the trial and the animations aren't bothering me at all...Oblivion and New Vegas are two of my favorite games of all time, so I'm pretty immune to that sort of thing.

By and large, the actual gameplay seems totally fine too, so if you're looking for a big space shooter with serviceable RPG mechanics you'll probably have a good time with this.

However, as for me, I never came to Mass Effect for the gameplay. There are many games with better shooting mechanics out there and if I'm in the mood for that sort of thing I'll go play those. I always came to Mass Effect for the writing, the world and the characters. Based on the first few hours of Andromeda, I've seen nothing that compels me to want to play beyond the trial...the writing seems at best serviceable and at worst disjointed and cringe-inducing, both on a micro level (really rote dialogue) and a macro level (the opening hours are not just the worst pacing and motivation I've seen in a Mass Effect game, they're probably the worst I've ever seen from Bioware period...slow, boring and uninspired).

But even bad writing could be saved by decent voicework and direction...but here's comes that other shoe drop: thus far, the voice acting seems flat and phoned in across the board and the emotional deliveries are atrocious. This might sound hyperbolic but I'm being dead serious: I've seen (and been in) bad high school plays featuring more realistic reactions than any of these characters. For instance, when male Ryder lost his father, the reaction line reading sounded like someone who was disappointed that there weren't any pickles on their hamburger, as opposed to someone who just lost their goddamn dad. Not an iota of genuine emotion. It was downright creepy.

If it gets better later in the game, that's almost as bad as it not being there at all...in a game purportedly all about its characters and writing, from a developer that prides itself on that exact thing, this shit should be frontloaded. It's flat-out baffling. I wonder what the hell happened during development?

Stop looking for it then

OP is not wrong that the internet seems to largely exist to kick dead horses- but the face issue is so conspicuous. it's easy to understand why people are stuck on it. it's funny, it looks like it fell out of last decade, and it just so happens that a substantial amount of time in ME is spent staring closely at faces.

i realize i'm likely in the minority here- but if i was given the opportunity to allocate resources to the team that developed this- i'd be REALLY tempted to reduce the shooting/combat to a "janky and goofy" level of quality and spend more time on high-quality character animation, modelling, and writing. i know games aren't that simple, and that naturalistic subtle movements don't equate with sales- but character interaction in mass effect IS THE THING for me.

Wait a second. So it's the internet's fault that a movie, where a boy is taxied around in a tornado made of bats, was bad?

I do think it's weird that it's suddenly this big a deal.

Like I get it the tech should be better and 'It's always been kinda bad' is a shitty argument but it just seems like the fire is burning especially hot and I don't really know why.

@deathstriker:

98% is probably an understatement, even. We all know ourselves, right? and those people you may possibly call haters are no different. When you finish Andromeda, you should start a thread and give some in-depth opinions on the whole package. People will listen to that openly. But at this early stage, your enjoyment is not much different from their disappointment, you just landed on the other side of the fence. I'm sure you can agree with that at least partially?

It is more than just the faces, you're right, and people have criticized way more than that. ME3 is more than just its ending, which the Citadel DLC actually improved and won back plenty of peeps after that ridiculous furore, but it was also criticized for more than that.

About Giant Bomb's take:

Jeff is one of the most frustrating people to listen to. He dislikes so many more games than anyone I've heard in my life, and the ones he does like really confuse me sometimes -- being so forgiving of every COD and not ripping them as harshly for shit he rips in better games is something that constantly makes me laugh -- but he is actually a big fan of Mass Effect 2 specifically, and he liked 3 more than most people if I recall right. Not that I care. I actually never came to Giant Bomb for Jeff's opinions. His knowledge is why I respect the man so much, but I always preferred Ryan's piercing intellect; enjoy Dan or Alex's more forgiving and optimistic appreciation of games; or Vinny's casual and uniquely-spun semi-reviews on the podcast.

Witcher 3 was such a strange one, because it was time that stopped most of them continuing with it, or simply not getting on board with the unique, dark Polish fantasy which probably isn't their thing to begin with, so not a surprise per se, and obviously not the people to take seriously on the quality of that product.

Opinions can be frustrating, and you should fight it if you believe people are acting crazy or ridiculous about it, but who cares in the end. The people who want it will get it, and the people who don't will not. Nothing new here. Feelings are a vast and complex colour wheel that will never be stabilized, but it can be liberating to see it in those simplified terms. Does it annoy me whenever Jeff says Kingdom Hearts is genuinely awful? Yeah, sure, 'cos I love it, but I just laugh at his rage 'cos he's a funny guy, and think fondly of my own experience with it.

Thank you for your reasoned response. Enjoy the game!

Opens with a jab at "SJWs," classy.

It's cool that you like the game, but saying "Jeff and Brad don't even like the series that much" when Mass Effect 2 won GOTY 2010 and Jeff even liked ME3 more than average...? Come on. Sometimes people just don't like things that you like, and sometimes bad characterization/dialog/animation can negatively color an experience that is largely driven by character interaction. People strongly disliking those aspects of this game enough to write off the whole thing shouldn't be surprising.

Mass Effect is not an underdog individual who needs you to stand up for them; it's the product of a gigantic company, and the fourth game in a profitable, popular franchise. People disliking it is not a grave injustice, and you aren't a bad person if you like it despite that criticism. All of that is totally okay.

I'm playing Andromeda in the trial on PC and although the face stuff looks horrible in spots, having it all run in 60 fps smooths over the faults but there's no hardware fix for the bad writing and bad voice acting. I hope they front loaded their bad shit all in the beginning and the rest of the game is great but Andromeda makes for a bad first impression. I was going to bring a PS4 copy with me to play overseas because I can't lug around my big PC but instead playing that trial made me cancel the preorder and I rather come back home in 6 months to a discounted PC copy.

And if you're tired of the "hate" just stay from toxic threads, play the game yourself, and stop relying on what others are posting for you to feel ok about playing this game.

Wasn't ME3 also Brads game of the year..?

I agree OP. The criticisms are real and valid (except the voice acting IMO, that all seems completely fine to me), but I think most of them are being blown out of proportion and that people are ignoring so much of what the game gets right.

I've played for about 4 of the available 10 hours so far, both SP and MP, and the thing is, I'm having fun. A lot of fun. It does seem a bit like a AAA game that should've come out a couple years ago, but the thing, AAA games back then were really good sometimes; just like today. Maybe it's because I'm a big fan of the series and I wouldn't have as much fun if I was a newcomer to it, I don't know. But there are lots of fans of the series out there, and I think most of them would also fun.

Yeah, I think "understandable but out of proportion" is what's happening here and a very good description.

Uh... you do know that scene didn't actually happen right? It was a dream.

There is a lot of nitpicking going on and its distracting from the main issue: boring, uninspired gameplay.

@banefirelord: The quality of voice acting is indeed jarring. I don't believe Bioware and EA would hire community theater amateurs to voice their game, so the blame must lie with whoever was in charge of voice direction (if there was anyone at all). It feels like they went with the first take many times when they clearly shouldn't have, as if they were in a hurry. Now that I think about it, I have not seen voice work this bad in AAA game in a long time. Fallout 4 was kinda underwhelming in that regard, but not to this degree. Weird.

"out of proportion" seems like a poor choice of words lol.

But i dont think the criticism has been that over exaggerated tbh(jokes and memes aside), when you have a game where you are in up close conversation 80% of the time this stuff is pretty jarring. Early parts of the game are in the wild so it isn't just snippets of 5 minute trailers, this is from up to 10 hours of gameplay. It may bother people on different levels but there is no denying it is a major problem. Its honestly baffling to me that any art director let this through alpha, animation isnt much better in deus ex but at least face proportions look human.

The faces are hard to deny but I'm actually not seeing a huge problem with the voice acting?

Like I dunno it seems of a video game quality.

I think it's a legit criticism. I've enjoyed the game so far (10 hour trial), but am super disappointed with the voice acting, characters (not just faces), and overall story. In most games it wouldn't bother me so much, but for me Bioware games are all about the character relationships and story. Some of them in the ME & DA series are my favorite characters in any media ever, not just video games.

In this game I want to have helmets "on" 100% of the time. I want to explore planets & shoot stuff much more than talk to people. That's a big bummer to me :(

Well, SJWs can be very annoying and that sentence was about about the internet in general, not just Mass Effect. Like I said in here before, I mainly listen to the podcast, not so much the videos on here, they seemed to like ME2 a lot and more or less whatever to ME1 and ME3. I never said their opinion was wrong, but my taste often lines up with Vinny more than Jeff and especially Brad. It's not like I said or implied "you're going to hell if you don't agree with me and like this game" lol. People can feel however they like, it's just that hearing the same thing over and over gets old.

@ethanielrain: On this though even if the faces were flawless why would anyone go helmets off on this game about blazing trails on shitty planets, it looks so duuuumb.

@deathstriker: I'm glad to hear the X1 version is good, I'm planning on getting the PS4 pro everison even though I'm messing with the PC trial. My wife my find the game interesting and it's just easier for her on console. I'm hoping some big issues are with the Boost mode enabled (which I turn off when not using) and hope that fixes things up.

How is the frame rate on Xbox one? I'm one of those people that appreciate a solid 60fps but if it's a stable 30 that is totally fine as well. I've honestly never had this much trouble deciding what version to get... the perils of marriage I tell you.

The faces aren't even the real issues:

• It's BioWare's C team, everybody who worked on ME1 and ME2 are long gone
• The writing is poor even by video game standards and definitely a step down from the last games, I can ignore this usually but the stuff I saw in the live stream was terrible, very amateur hour
• Voice acting is obnoxiously stilted, it's more obvious than ever that nobody delivered lines in the same room as each other
• There are examples of the 10 year old Mass Effect having better animations in dialog scenes
• Characters have the personalities of a milk carton
• A pathfinder!!!

idk we got this?

@gunflame88: Speaking as a fan of Bethesda's work who nonetheless doesn't care for their writing at all and really detested having a voiced protagonist in Fallout 4...they still managed to make a more compelling, emotionally-resonant and realistically-voiced main character in their opening hours than what I've seen from Ryder in the same amount of time in ME:A. I never thought I'd see the day where I'd favorably compare a Bethesda game to a Bioware game when it comes to that sort of thing, but here we are.

@deanoxd: You might be right, but I'm predicting a more divisive response. A couple nines, maybe; the vast majority to be eights and sevens; then some middling sixes or lower here and there. Probably nothing overtly damning as a consensus. I'm really rooting for it to be a hidden gem that rises from the ashes of its own underwhelming intro. Like Pacific Rim. The first half of that film is underacted garbage, and then it flourishes into anime-ass mech deliciousness with Ron Perlman's best performance ever.

About others' comments regarding some sordid people wishing or hoping for its failure, I'd be surprised if the number of people holding that ideal is as high as it might seem on the surface. It would be easy to mistake genuine anger and cynicism as . . . propaganda, in a way. If they are in fact a legitimately big force on the internet, let them stew in their own sad hatred. That behaviour has no self-preservation in the long run. You can't function as a productive member of society if your personality thrives on failure, even in the protective bubble of anonymity the net can provide. Even then, how often does it turn out those people are teens or regular people who aren't like that in the slightest in real life? It's a weird world.

I think you are over thinking this.

The facial animations and the dialogue are bad in a way that's really funny. Let ppl have their laughs and you do you.

Well they have "force field" type helmets, safer than plastic/glass :)

Considering the first thing Ryder does on their first mission is break that glass it might work better...

If you are tired of it already, just wait. The game hasn't even come out. Its going to get 1000x worse next week when the masses get their hands on it.

i can see it has problems; the dislike is a bit extreme though. it feels like a well designed but arguably lesser ME but it's still a cool universe to set a game in. i don't feel the faces are as bad as some say (people are getting way, way too hung up on that shit), and i don't know but i kind of like that it just throws you into things without much pretense.

my plate is way too full now and i have to play through the original trilogy myself anyway, but this still looks good and i can see myself getting to it eventually. and who knows, they may even do some tweaks to fix the animation woes down the line. (considering the work done on games like the original witcher back in the day, it's not a foregone conclusion)

The problem here is from what I've seen, all that criticism would apply to any previous Mass Effect game doubly so. You can make the argument that they should have jumped a bigger gap, but to suggest it looks, plays and sounds worse than any previous ME game is just nonsense.

But whatever. I guess I should stop trying to care that people look at a game I will most likely love the shit out of fairly.

@wynnduffy The team making Andromeda made Overlord, Lair of the Shadowbroker, Citadel and the multiplayer for ME3. Arguably the best parts of the entire trilogy.

We will all drown when the sex scenes are discovered.

The Great Flood, of gifs.

i would also say if you've already made up your mind on the game, move on. there's no sense in getting repeatedly upset about it. there's a 95% chance you're not going to get the kind of ME game you want anyway. maybe you can hope for the spiritual successor on kickstarter in 5-10 years.

e: developed by obsidian, no less,