Yes, I didn't think the preview stuff made it look bad. I thought the mobility stuff and combat in general looked cool. I've never played a Mass Effect so I don't have any nostalgia or expectations. But all the coverage and reviews has pushed me away from playing it.

Definitely. Like a lot of people I was looking forward to the next Mass Effect game a lot, and those first few promo videos they released were looking really cool.

I was totally fine with ME3's endings and was prepared to disregard any of the tut-tuttery about Andromeda, but the rather unanimous negative tenor of the initial reviews gave me pause. After I saw the quick look I have to say I felt just like Jeff did. Seeing the Journey-video-invisible-keyboard guy and the drunk lady stumbling around made me feel kind of embarrassed. If this game were coming out of some country that had never made any kind of large-scale game before then you could dismiss that kind of stuff as part of the charm, but this game is from the largest video game publisher there is.

Like they said on the Bombcast, it's such a bummer that they had this opportunity to go to a completely new galaxy and rewrite the rules and invent an entirely new setting, but then they come up with only two new alien races and do another mysterious-originators plot. This looks like when a kid does their entire senior project the night before it's due.

If people enjoy it then that's real cool and I hope they have fun, but in the last few days I've gone from "This game looks great, I can't wait to play it!" to "Maybe I'll pick it up for cheap in a year or two and just plow through it for the story."

It's not so much the reviews as it is the plethora of amazing games out now. even if it was fantastic, i'm broke and was going to put it off anyway.

This is the same for me. Which I think sounds mental when I say it because I'm that guy who bought the books and comics to read about the extended universe and characters of the past games. I love that series and I was totally ready for more Mass Effect until the raw footage got out. I just got off one full price open world game (Horizon) and Persona 5 is out shortly, so trying to fit in an unappealing looking Mass Effect game between now and then seems like a waste of money.

I dropped my pre-order when I succumbed to the Zelda hype and got a Switch. The reviews have made me feel better about not trying to play two games simultaneously.

Not mental at all. I've had similar instances where I was a huge fan of a franchise that took a sharp left turn and left me (to my own surprise) feeling quite cold on the thing. Also as you mentioned, with so many great games on the horizon why bother getting bogged down with a serviceable one when you can be playing something way better. Sounds like Andromeda for you and me will end up being a great time sink once summer hits and it has a) received a lot of patches b) gotten a few DLC packs and c) dropped in price. During that period when no big games are coming out I can see myself coming home each day, plopping down and like Brad mentioned on the Bombcast just sort of zoning out as I clear each area of quests and collectibles. This is all due to gameplay footage though. Recent reviews by Jeff and others just further cemented the idea that reviews really are completely pointless for me as I'll often have a different opinion on something. To bring up the Bombcast again, I respect and admire Danny but man did I feel like he was talking about a completely different game when he was gushing about Horizon - especially how he described the platforming as "less hand holdy Tomb Raider" to which I quite literally did the Drew meme face. So if my own experiences are so vastly different to those of others, even people I greatly respect, then how could I ever use them as a barometer for my own enjoyment? It's fun to listen to but thats about it. Who knows, maybe I'll absolutely love Andromeda despite the internets ire? I've been known to enjoy some games that the internet absolutely hated and similarly disliked a few games that were universally praised.

I wasn't really expecting to be that interested in this game. My interest in the series waned pretty quickly after the first game. I really liked what they did with it then, and the changes they made to two I didn't really appreciate until a second playthrough years later. I remember when I first played it I really didn't like the bigger focus on it being an action game with minimal loot. When I finally bought 3 it was on PC and I didn't have a save so I went through the first two games to make one. Coming back to it a few years later I thought the first one didn't really reflect my memories well. The story was still pretty decent, but the parts that I defended from the first with things like loot I sort of found to be needless fluff a second time around. I came to actually enjoy the second game a bit more, but part of that I think was also based on the class I chose this second time around. Playing as something besides a sniper offered way more options, and I realized the sniper class was pretty bland and overpowered. Once I got to the third game I'd sort of lost steam and didn't really want to play it much, so I put it back on the virtual shelf. I realized that I don't really like the universe much, I don't like the alien races, I don't really like the story. So I thought maybe a refresh might help things.

Fast forward to Dragon Age: Inquisition which I really didn't like as much as Origins. I was really into Origins with its return to what I loved so much about the gameplay of KOTOR. I already wasn't really thinking I would be interested in Andromeda based on my feelings after replaying the first two trilogy games. But as soon as I saw the Quick Look and saw that there are a lot of similarities to Inquisition, I really don't think I would enjoy it. It might be a game that I eventually pick up to waste a few hours on but I think them doubling down on the Inquisition stuff makes sense since that was probably a big game for them, but I just don't have any personal interest in it.

But who knows, maybe I would actually really like this game. Hard to tell without playing it. But the evidence points otherwise.

I barely trust reviews for anything and only use them to glean bits of information on systems.

All this excessive hate is actually making me more interested because it just seems like another case of the internet piling on something and shitting on it. Taking some elements that aren't good and blowing them way out of proportion. That's what it seems like anyways, but won't know for sure until I try it out.

I don't know how you're coming to that conclusion. Just watching the Quick Look shows how mediocre the game is and how terrible it is as a Mass Effect.

Maybe perhaps...they would disagree?

If you disagree it's fine, but what you don't need to do is start claiming it's some kind of Internet hate machine directing this. Nothing is wrong about finding enjoyment in a game that isn't that great, and nobody can say with a straight face that this is in the same league as its predecessors.

Wound up getting the EA Access for a few other things & after the trial of Watchdogs 2, tried out Andromeda & so glad that I only dove into the trial for $5. Just so disappointing that the story & characters are so flat & dull (plus buggy & ugly on many characters/animation) with a fun premise for the singleplayer stuff. Might be a good game over time but as someone who loves most of what Bioware used to do, this is something I'm in agreement with Jeff on where MEA feels like a direct to video knockoff & not very fun. Glad I only went into the trial getting from the start to the first start planet with the tempest, saved the money on a full game & after seeing this game I'd rather find an average 3rd person action game over MEA.

I mean I can definitely do that, cause it's at the very least more fun than the first game to me.

I preordered it and no the reviews haven't changed my decision. The only thing that did concern me was the facial animations. I usually like to leave my first run through as the default. After seeing that the Default Sara is a trainwreck though I decided to play as Default Scott. Then I saw how bad his animations were ans spent the time looking up the best preset. That did cause me to spend several hours looking up and deciding the best way to create a character. Though, in truth so many of those presets are ghastly that at least half of them weren't really an option to begin with. Overall I'm fairly happy with the way my twins came out, but the severely limited range on skin tones is disappointing. Honestly it would be impossible to make a latina or hispanic woman. Your only options are white, black, asian and monster clown (again, half the female presets). I ended up only playing about an hour of actual game time. With that said that hour seemed pretty decent. When everyone has helmets on the game is pretty gorgeous.

Ouch tough love but yeah you are pretty much right. I'll wait for a sale though

Huh? Mass Effect has created pretty great DLC in the past. Not all of it's perfect but overall it's better than practically any other games out there when it comes to story DLC. The list of great story DLC is Mass Effect series, The Last of US, and save, because that's the end of the list.

@sweep said:

If you're in animation then you know virtually none of the animations will be patched.

I was a bit happy to see that most reviewers were more than lukewarm on the game, though I have to admit most of what I saw in Giant Bomb's nearly 4 hours of coverage did not convey any of the good vibes that other reviews like Phil Kollar refer to. I couldn't help but walk away from the whole thing wondering just how much players have to bring to the game on their own; love of Mass Effect, love of the mere idea of colonizing a new galaxy, love of dialogue wheels and quest logs. And so while I'm more open to the idea of this game being potentially enjoying, the hours of dialogue over this game I've heard from trusted sources Jeff Gerstmann, Brad Shoemaker, Mike Mahardy (I like this Gamespot guy overall and have enjoyed watching him take a bigger role with that company) and Austin Walker I'm concerned I just won't be able to look over certain things the way other reviewers like Kollar, Forbes' freelancer, Joe Juba and Dan Stapleton were.

I was able to enjoy Horizon: Zero Dawn's stilted character interaction on an ironic level because, for me, that was a game about the action and the history. I did not connect to the time I was actually living in other than my desire to destroy it, and so I loved the weird way Sylense animated and animatronic nature of everything there. It felt like a thing I could just focus on beating up and sticking my spear into. I don't want to feel that way - and don't know that it's possible to feel that way - about a Mass Effect game that, improved combat mechanics or not (and I'm dubious removing partner commands from the game can result in a better experience) is ultimately about character interaction and world building, both of which seem sparse and broken.

I'm saving my money for a Switch anyway, but I just finished the EA Access trial and...man that game seems rough. I'm mildly interested in the story, but the bad character writing and animations along with it being incredibly buggy and overwrought with boring side missions is too much to overlook. Perhaps a few months down the line after its patched (and around $20) I'll see if its improved.

Yeah I meant the bugs, of which there are apparently many.

I've played a couple of hours of the trial and I"m just not enjoying myself. Everything just seems so bland, and too much of the game is reminding me of Inquisition--which I played recently. I think I just need to wait until I'm ready for the game. To be cheaper. And maybe patched a few times.

@tpoppapuff: The DLC was problematic because some of it was cut content that clearly should have been part of the main game ( like most characters ) and how it is available. Availability was/is more of an PC issue, but for example right now ashes+leviathan+citadel DLC for Xbox 360 version costs 3 times more than the physical copy of the main game - I don't even want to know what is going on with Bioware points on the PC. Edit: it seems Origin wont even show the prices of the DLC unless you own the game...

@sweep said:

Fair point.

The only DLC that fits that description was Javik. All the other DLC was impossible to get into the original games proper. And none of the games felt like they were lacking a complete story because the other DLC was built into the game.

Yes the DLC today is too expensive. That's an issue for practically every game so to single Mass Effect is arbitrary at best and intentionally deceptive at worst. The same issue plagues Bioshock Infinite. That DLC is $15. Call of Duty Map Packs and season passes total over $50 even for something as old as World at War. I agree DLC prices should come down, but singling out Mass Effect, the lone game where the price is more justified than any other game older than three years of age, seems rather absurd and vindictive.

Many people are saying this exact thing on these forums.

It is insane to me there is a group of people who

A. Like Mass Effect enough to get what is, by almost all accounts, a pretty mediocre game AND

B. Claim Mass Effect was never that great in the first place.

How? Why? Who?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_NAoNd4YyY

Yep, this is totally comparable to the ok to bad writing of ME:A.

Technically nope. It was word of mouth from people whose opinions I trust. No buy for me, not worth the time or aggravation to find out.