I've just been going back through ME2 to work up another character to import, and I noticed the animation and lip-sync in 2 is WAY better!! Also I lost count of the amount of times in 3 where you can see one animation end and another just kick in, its really jarring and tbh it took me out of watching what was previously a really well animated movie.

The 'hold my hand up to my face and look down' animation is WAY overused for when a character is struggling to cope with something.

Does Shepard still run with his head down like he has a concussion? Because that was something that bothered me in 1 and 2.

@insane_shadowblade85 said:

Does Shepard still run with his head down like he has a concussion? Because that was something that bothered me in 1 and 2.

I know this sounds crazy, but the running animations are actually worse in ME3.

Yeah, I know what you mean, especially about the jarring animation. The combat animates very well, but I feel like the game lost some of its more intimate moments to character model issues and glitchy movements. During a talk with the Illusive Man, his elbow became a part of his hip, so one half of his character model looked like it was doing the chicken dance. Weird stuff.

@Cloudenvy said:

@insane_shadowblade85 said:

Does Shepard still run with his head down like he has a concussion? Because that was something that bothered me in 1 and 2.

I know this sounds crazy, but the running animations are actually worse in ME3.

I agree. It looks like your floating of have a wooden leg.

My overall experience is that ME3 doesn't look as polished as ME2 does. Especially the thirst half of the missions all look like they rushed the level-design and cutscene animation. Compare that to the ME2 Shadowbroker DLC; that is one good looking expansion with a lot of detail in every scene. The difference with ME3 is pretty large. Although I have to admit the filmgrain in ME1 and ME2 covers a lot of these shortcomings. Also the framerate in ME3 seems worse.

Still a very good game, just not as good as ME2 imo.

@insane_shadowblade85 said:

Does Shepard still run with his head down like he has a concussion? Because that was something that bothered me in 1 and 2.

That said, the run animation in ME3 looks robotic and ridiculous. I'm not sure Shephard could kick up his/her knees any higher.

The run animation is really weird looking, ME2 was weird with the head thing but the hips or something just look off in ME3. The cutscenes are also really janky in ME3. I feel like 1 in 10 will result in a character disappearing or facing the wrong way or moving weirdly. I had Garrus disappear during one and had Dr Chakwas facing the wrong way while trying to talk to me so her head keep moving left and right which caused her neck to morph left and right. My Shepherds eyes keep rolling back and he keeps turning his head to the right for no reason. I also wish they had made a few more new animations. I keep seeing the same ones repeat over and over again and lots of them are from ME1.

POLISHED! YES!! Thats the word I was looking for, I dont want to call the dudes 'lazy', because clearly that term isnt apt for the amount of man hours they would have put in, but DEFINITELY polished. If ME2 was polished, then ME3 is FULL of dents!

I never actually noticed how much I love the film grain tbh, but I totally agree with Brad about it being necessary, I think it should have been an option in the menu! I wonder how much testing they did with teams of dudes before this came out, because if you get any number of fans of the game in, they would pick up on ALL of the problems we're having in an INSTANT

The whole situation with this game and the way its being received is so fuckin weird. I mean Casey is having to defend and justify their side of it in interviews!! Messed UP!

Absolutely. I had loads of animation ... i dunno what to call it - flinching? in ME3. Everything a bit twitchy and slightly wonky, and the lip syncing is really quite bad a lot of the time.

Yep, I only played through the demo but the animations were noticeably worse. Both, glitchy and just plain bad (run animation in particular). I wonder what happened there.

@The_Nubster said:

Yeah, I know what you mean, especially about the jarring animation. The combat animates very well, but I feel like the game lost some of its more intimate moments to character model issues and glitchy movements. During a talk with the Illusive Man, his elbow became a part of his hip, so one half of his character model looked like it was doing the chicken dance. Weird stuff.

Yeah I've noticed this as well. The combat animations looks smoother but there's the occasional odd moment during cut scenes or dialogue where small things like eyes, heads or hands are awkwardly placed. Pay close attention to Shepards head right after Tali's romance scene for example, it just looks like they forgot to animate his eyes sometimes. On the other hand, Garrus' romance scene though has a lot of detail to it. The whole thing is just very inconsistent. It's very...odd. I feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one who's noticed the bad lip syncing but at the same time it makes me sigh in disappointment a lot.

@Cloudenvy said:

@insane_shadowblade85 said:

Does Shepard still run with his head down like he has a concussion? Because that was something that bothered me in 1 and 2.

I know this sounds crazy, but the running animations are actually worse in ME3.

Female Shepard wearing the club/night dress and running is simply awful. How did the animation team let that go through - I guess female Shep is always constipated or something.

@Cloudenvy said:

@insane_shadowblade85 said:

Does Shepard still run with his head down like he has a concussion? Because that was something that bothered me in 1 and 2.

I know this sounds crazy, but the running animations are actually worse in ME3.

Worse, yes. But also hilarious! So bad!

The way Anderson runs (or walks?) in the first mission is hilariously bad.

I like to call Shephard's new run animation "Baldur's Gait".

@msavo said:

I agree. It looks like your floating of have a wooden leg.

Haha, what?

Hahaha Anderson's little trot across the rooftops is HILARIOUS. And so is Garrus doing a quaint little strut through the battlefield on Menae! SO much stupid crap in this game, its RIDICULOUS they let so much stuff go in comparison to the previous games

I like to call Shephard's new run animation "Baldur's Gait".

The running animations look especially weird when you're not in combat gear, because they're not adjusted at all.

It's so strange that ME1 had by far the best movement animations.

There's some great improved animations going on.
Then a squadmate does the silly reload animation and you get ripped out of the immersion.

Most of the stuff said in this thread is true.

I almost love the clumsy canned animations sometimes. I imitate them. I give people a point. Sometimes I crack my knuckles, or slam my fist in my palm. Cross my arms and rest on one leg. Wave my hands emphatically to signal no. Put my hands up to my face as if I were crying but don't actually touch my face.

Approach bars with a lumbering presence from about five feet out. Drink my booze in one gulp and then wring my head. Push off of the bar until I'm standing five feet away.

@BrockNRolla: He's a robot, hello?

I felt that the combat seems to be the one thing that they have improved upon. Unlimited sprint and the ability to jump dodge made the combat run at a faster pace. It's weird but the combat seems to be the ONLY thing I found that they did well in ME 3. I mean the game is still enjoyable, and I don't hate it but I can't help but feel disappointed that this is how the game turned out.

Addendum: I think the most development time was spent on ME 1 (around 3 or 4 years) since they were essentially building upon the universe before they went on to focusing on building the actual game. Plus at that time, Bioware wasn't bought out by EA and the original Mass Effect was published by Microsoft Game Studios. The buyout occurred after the Xbox 360 version came out and before the PC version was released. Again, I think the pressure of being such a high profile developer owned by a large publishing company cost them and the quality somehow suffered. I think the game would have benefited from another delay to maybe another few months. There were buggy side quests ("roam" quests) in the game wherein you couldn't even interact with the NPC in order to complete it. It was pretty annoying and I only experienced it only in this game.

It'd be interesting to see how the Witcher 2 does since I really like the developers at CDProjekt Red to succeed. They are one of the few developers who really are focused on supporting their products months after release, giving free updates and constantly tweaking and squashing bugs. Those guys were also Bioware fans and built the first Witcher on Bioware's Aurora Engine. I think it would come to a point that they would surpass them in the long run and I hope they do.

I find it funny because after playing all the Mass Effect games I can't imagine how Shepard would jog normally. I mean you can't really go full sprint because it looks weird in a public place so in my head the awkward jog is the only way in the Mass Effect games to run at a decent pace when not in combat. To me all of the games have funny animations in that department but I kind of accept it.

And I don't notice anything about lip sync but I'm terrible with noticing basic things like that.

@GaspoweR: What about the power customization? It's not amazing but I think it's an improvement on 2.

Pretty much everything about 3 is worse than 2.

@Sooty said:

Pretty much everything about 3 is worse than 2.

Thats actually true! Apart from adding a dive roll and an over-cover takedown, I cant think of anything else thats an improvement. I mean the pacing is horrendous because it feels stupid that you're doing fetch-quests while Earth gets torched, and they took out a bunch o dialogue options and let Shep do half the convos himself!

Power customisation yeah I guess it has more literal branches, but I dunno they're not very in-depth. I would have liked to rank up the destructive side of the push power, so that when I max it out, and I'm full Renegade, I can just pop some heads!! :D

@Brodehouse said:

Put my hands up to my face as if I were crying but don't actually touch my face.

What is with games and this animation? It's been around forever and it's always looked awful.

@Cloudenvy said:

@insane_shadowblade85 said:

Does Shepard still run with his head down like he has a concussion? Because that was something that bothered me in 1 and 2.

I know this sounds crazy, but the running animations are actually worse in ME3.

I just wish sheppard didn't look like he was running around with a butt plug in his ass, whats up with "dat gap" I mean if fem shep walks around like that then I'm all for it lol. Also am I the only one who notices everyones neck articulation is like a godamned owl. That is the worse when someone has their back to you and they look over their shoulder to address you. I've tried rotating my own head as far as they do in the game and I just don't see how it's anatomically possible lol.

Shepard also does that weird thing when he/she's standing there, where s/he steps forward and puts all of her/his weight on his/her front foot and her/his head bobbles back and forth like a doll.

The running animation is the shittiest one since Wanted: Weapon of Fate, especially when someone (like Anderson) is running in front of you. NO ONE MOVES THEIR UPPER BODY

@Voxel said:

The way Anderson runs (or walks?) in the first mission is hilariously bad.

I haven't stopped laughing for ten minutes.

Or, this, which is fucking hilarious:

@Napalm said:

Or, this, which is fucking hilarious:

It took far too long for someone to post this here.

@Hailinel: His laugh gets me every fucking time.

I ran through ME2 the weekend before starting ME3, the animations are just as bad if not worse. You're not remembering it correctly if you think ME2 had good animations, there are moments when leaning on a table and turning to face someone that your whole body looks like it's on a turnable. Not even mentioning your head looking in the wrong direction for a lot of conversations or looking at your feet while on the Normandy.

They are all equally bad, just bad in different ways.

The Citadel is a constant race to the bathroom