I know it's a silly thing to think about but this is super unpredictable. Word of mouth and general impressions from the first few hours are pretty universally average - bad but then you see people saying that it does get a lot better. And then you have to take into accounts that will just give higher scores than they perhaps should because of hype. Dunt know mate

My guess is mid to low 80s as an average, but I don't think there will be anything even close to a consensus. I expect the scores to range from high 90s to the 60s. Being someone that loves Mass Effect, very much enjoyed Dragon Age Inquisition, and generally like every game Bioware makes, I expect my opinion will probably be on the high end, but this game will be divisive.

I've read countless reviews over my gaming life and I can safely say reviewers are not immune to outside criticism. The baseline score may go up or down depending on hype and bashing. I can see Andromeda getting low scores just because of the negative buzz-storm on in/on several publications and websites. It most certainly would not be the first time.

I voted 74-79. I think it'll hover around there. It's easy to forget lost in all the coverage of the animations and story of this game is a rather universal consensus that it's fun to play. I think that coupled with the lack of straight single player mission narrative loot shooters in this generation will lead to people giving it it's due criticism, but still recommending it.

I suspect that many of the people deducting points for facial animation problems will be the people giving out 10s to Zelda despite its persistent technical problems. I just don't understand this at all. Either a game is fun to play or it isn't. If the gameplay and story are lacking then sure, but the amount of hate this game is getting based on facial animations is preposterous. Technical problems will always be a minor point to me unless they are gamebreaking

@nevergameover: It's called peer pressure. No, I'm not saying anyone who thinks the game is shit must have succumbed to it, but it's painfully obvious that a lot of that is and will be going on. Some (a lot?) people form their conclusion on the game before playing/finishing it because it is the consensus. It's so lame. I never did like humans in groups.

Okay, this sounds fun.

There's a certain baseline that I don't think the review aggregate will ever dip under. No way a AAA Bioware game is going to land below 75. But I also think in a sea of good recently released games, Andromeda will probably not have the juice to hit above 80-84. It's going to be divisive as hell, though

@nevergameover: Facial animations are extremely important to a narrative though when its based on reality. Zelda can get a way with a lot because its basically a cartoon but if you are trying for realism and fail it is a lot more jarring.

@nevergameover said:

Ultimately it's a question of how much it affects the playing of the game, or the execution of what the game aims to do. Many reviews which gave high scores to Zelda and mentioned the technical issues specifically said it did not affect how much they enjoyed the game. In the Mass Effect franchise, the connection to the characters and believability of their interactions is one of its key foundations, so I can certainly see a legitimate argument that character animation issues actively jeopardises Mass Effect Andromeda.

I think mid- to high- eighties; but it depends on how reviewers decide to weight different things. For instance, the multiplayer is completely fine and a lot of fun I thought; so that'll be a big point in its favor for some. Likewise, the combat in the single player is also good. And there are plenty of other really good things about the game. There are also some bad things, and there is the general zeitgeist of negativity right now that may influence some.

I think we'll see a lot of reviews that spend a lot of time dwelling the negative stuff, but ending with something along the lines of "but the good outweighs the bad here." and that sounds like a mid-80s score to me. If GB gives it a written review, I think it'd get 3- or 4-stars; depending on who reviews it.

@dixavd: There hasn't been a single Mass Effect game where the animations were any better. In fact, all three suffer from weird and frequently occurring glitches that lock expressions in place in the weirdest ways. I'm not saying the game wouldn't be better with better animations, but I think it's a stretch to say Zelda running at 20-25fps affects that game less because ME's animations always have been more important. They never were.

I'm gonna guess low 80s. It seems to get better after the first few hours and the gameplay is solid. The one thing I've heard that worries me is that planet scanning is mostly bullshit and takes forever according to Arthur Gies. He said he's about 50 hours in and all he's gotten from planet scanning is resources. No random little one off missions or anything significant.

85, give or take 5 points.

My personal hangup with what I've seen of the game isn't the faces, although that doesn't help, nor is it the voice acting, although that doesn't help much either. It's the writing. What I saw in the Giantbomb stream was almost all bad. I'd forgive a few sour lines here and there, but this is the first few hours of the game we're talking about and it was main storyline content in. That stuff is supposed to be some of your best, and since this is a Bioware game you're more than likely going to spend at least half of it talking to somebody.

I'm still confused as to why this guy who has been given some sort of messianic title and is treated as such by most people still has to go find his own resources. Dragon Age Inquisition gives you a war table, a few very high ranking subordinates, and a motherfucking castle, and you still have to go pick your own flowers and mine your own ore. Mass Effect seems poised to do the same thing.

Based on how popular it has become to hate on it, perhaps excessively, I'm going to say 76. I think there are smaller sites out there that are going to come in real low now that it's "safe" to do so which will counteract some of the 90's it might get.

I don't think Gamespot or IGN staff is super positive on the game which is worrying for the score. Because if they come in the 80 range or so, it might go lower since I imagine they get weighted heavily.

Besides the laughably bad facial animation, the bigger issue may be the story which doesn't seems different enough to wow people. Kinda reminds me of Force Awakens in a way.

Otoh the combat does look decent, so that should help.

Let's hope a patch addresses some of this.

Mid to high 80s. Burning trashfire in the user section.

This seems inevitable since Zelda got so many 10s, but I don't think this is a relevant analogy. Zelda's frame rate problems are (most likely) due to hardware limitations and are arguably much less distracting than poor writing and facial animation in a game that's 50% conversations. Dismissing poor coding or design as a "technical" problem is disingenuous.

Honestly, like 77, though I'm hopefully for like 84ish

Baseline for a big budget middle-of-the-road game is probably around 80. MEA's combat and multiplayer look decent though unspectacular. Gorgeous environments make up for subpar human animations. Barring too many game-breaking bugs, it will come down to the story (very important for an RPG). Will it have enough spark to elevate it into the 85+ range? Too early to judge now, but... not very confident after the crew's quick look. Personal guess 79.

I'm relatively confident about an 81.

@zevvion: The issue with Andromeda's animations isn't that they are worse than the Mass Effect trilogy, it's that the fidelity of everything else is vastly superior to Mass Effect 1-3 and the animations haven't kept up. It's the same sort of jarring effect seen in cartoons when main characters are sharper/stand-out from everything else. It actively breaks the illusion. They are at odds with the delivery of the story, in a game specifically aiming for the story to be a key feature. Time has passed and standards have changed: meanwhile, the animations haven't improved.

For instance, a better analogy from Breath of the Wild would be the English voice acting which is sub-par (it doesn't personally annoy me, but it obviously isn't great). The stilted voice acting actively works against the way that Breath of the Wild aims to bring the narrative forward in a more interesting and nuanced way than past titles. If you reviewed Zelda from the perspective that the narrative was a key feature - a driving force through the game - then the voice acting would be a fair drawback. So too would animations were they to be an issue: but they aren't in Zelda specifically because they don't try to be so complex as Mass Effect: Andromeda's are. A simpler goal executed well is generally preferable to a more complicated one executed badly.

If reviewers found the performance issues in Zelda to actively hurt their enjoyment/the execution of the game, then they have every right to bring them up and give the game a lower score for it (which some actually did) but if it wasn't a stand-out issue for them (despite experiencing said issues) then they're is no expectation that it should affect their score. Similarly, if reviewers find the animation issues in ME:A to go against their enjoyment of the story - and they find the story to be a key draw for the game - then they have every right to use it to give lower reviews to the game.

I was shocked Inqusistion reviewed so well and fighting for alot of peoples GOTY however time hasn't been so kind, I have a feeling after being well into the new gen Andromeda will get judged more severely especially Bioware's consistant technical failings much like Fallout 4 which received far more criticism over its technical issues despite launching in a better state than any previous Bethesda title. My guesstimate would be mid 70's for Andromeda, good game if you can overlook Bioware's predictable problems.

I'm excited about it, but yeah, the somewhat negative talk makes me think in the 70's. Probably mid to high 70's.

solid 80, not that it has a reflection on anything. seems like this will end up being the most maligned by the hardcore while still being a generally pretty good game for the general populace general.

Mass Effect 3 is in the lower 90s. I don't expect this game to rate much lower. I voted 94-90 and feel pretty good about it.

Despite what I voted earlier, after thinking about it a bit more, I'm going to guess 78. I also think it's going to have a handful of really low and really high scores.

I'm guessing mid 80s.

The faces are wonky and the opening sections of the game don't make me feel inspired, but I don't anticipate to be anywhere near bad and it will probably be good to really good. My guess is there's going to be a spectrum from people loving it to people having BioWare fatigue.

I never liked Mass Effect, but it's a popular AAA franchise from a developer who can afford to give incentives to reviewers, so even if the new one is pretty shoddy, I'm gonna guess 75-79%.

@nevergameover: If Witcher 3 got facial animations right with their paltry budget two years ago, then BioWare has no excuse. lol

What equates to 3 out of 5 stars?

Yeah, I'm gonna be that guy right now.

It'll be in the mid to low 80s. There's too many pre-release rumbles of issues for it to score in the 90s. However, there are three factors that I think will prevent it from going any lower than that even if the game ends up being a total train wreck.

1. With all the bad press, we're due for the anti-backlash wave of people who will defend the game to the death no matter its issues. You can already see people hand waving the animation stuff away because "that's always been the way Mass Effect is."

2. A lot of sites just can't conceive of giving a AAA BioWare release anything less than an 8.

3. Going along with 2, there are plenty of sites who seemingly grade on a perpetual 8-10 scale. So they'll think the game is bad, give it an 8, and metacritic will count it as a raw 8.

60-64

Too much bad buzz already, but i doubt it is terrible.

I agree that the Witcher 3 is good example of why Bioware's shortcomings in animations are unacceptable, but that game's budget wasn't "paltry." The budget of The Wticher 3 isn't really relevant to the discussion of whether or not Bioware can and should do better in that area (they should), but The Witcher 3's budget was $81 million.

This is basically exactly what I was going to write

@ll_exile_ll: Uhhh, that works both ways. If Witcher 3 delivered a stable frame rate despite having significantly textures then Zelda, then Nintendo has no excuse. As someone who gets motion sickness, the frame rate on Zelda has literally made me physically ill on more than one occasion. It's abysmal.

What the hell does Zelda have to do with anything I said?

Does the internet think just because The Witcher 3 was made in Poland by a studio that only made 2 games before that it was some sort of scrappy low budget indie studio made a genre defining game?

Witcher 3 took a long time to make, took a lot of money (one of the most expensive games this generation), and a lot of talent to make. Comparing any game to Witcher 3 is like comparing gold to platinum, DeRozan to Micheal Jordon, any hockey player to Gretzky, etc.

@ll_exile_ll: Well, you were responding to my comment, where I compared the technical problems of ME to those of Zelda, so.... a lot.

No I wasn't.

i'll go for 6.9. The gifs that make the game look the most fun are all coop, and since that's a multiplayer thing , i doubt that it will get the same amount of attention as the singleplayer will.

And while the improved combat will be in singleplayer as well, i think the amount of time you have to interact with the animations & story stuff will only lead to reviewers wishing all that stuff was better.

86

That doesn't mean anything, a lot has changed in the last 10 years. Take a look at the original Witcher, a game that released a month earlier than the original Mass Effect, now compare the facial animations in that to The Witcher 3, the difference is night and day. Do the same for Mass Effect 1 and Andromeda and other than the lighting and textures it's hard to tell the two apart.

So what if the original trilogy struggled with animation, it's 2017 and this isn't the original trilogy, games have moved on since then. It's no excuse.

Also, 79-75

I voted mid to high 80s.

I feel like there's possibility that the rest of the game could be strong enough to warrant a high 80s score.

However, given the negative coverage up to this point, it's probably gonna be mid 70s.

It'll be fine. For a Bioware game to average below 80, I think it would have to actually brick consoles.

I voted low 80s after looking at the DA:I Metacritic scores. I don't think the animation jank will hurt the game too much with critics. For me, I have a sinking feeling that the writing and plot of Andromeda are what's going to do it in. My feelings pretty much mirror Vinny's at this point. Life's full of disappointments. It sucks if this turns out to be one of them.

70s. They might give it a little higher because it's bioware

I think it's a 3 stars from GiantBomb if Brad reviews it

Let's ignore that ME ever existed. Let's just say that Andromeda is the first game and it's a whole new franchise and it has no prior history and no connection with Bioware. It would be trashed like it came from the Mars: War Logs developer. It's getting an enormous amount of hate from the public but we're now getting a back lash against the back lash with people defending the game like it were their mother. It's all completely ridiculous tbh. Reviewers are going to have a rough time with this one because people are fucking idiots. A reviewer enjoys the game beyond all the technical issues, animation and dialogue and they'll be championed by the fans but lambasted by the people who think these problems shouldn't merely be overlooked in a big budget AAA game in 2017 and vice versa.

Yeah, because comparing the best animations from Mass Effect to the worst of Andromeda sure is compelling. I haven't seen anything in Andromeda so far that even comes close to the neck-crank issues or even just the pupil problems in ME and ME2. So to say it's 'not even close' is just unconvincing to me.

If one minor aspect that may not be great makes you think my bar is at the bottom of the ocean, then you are a clear case of the lack of nuance in this entire argument which is the only thing I am calling out. I'm not saying the criticism by itself isn't valid.

The Witcher is pretty much the only RPG with decent facial animations. Fallout 4 looked way worse than this graphically and it still got in the mid 80s.