It's about what I expect and get out of a Mass Effect game intro. Although it may be not, maybe I just expected so much worse based on the reviews and so I'm a bit lenient. Obviously too early to tell but my only complaint is that some of the voice acting is god awful. Like that Salarian you meet in the Nexus...gah.

I'm generally okay with the writing but I think I now understand the issue some people are having. It's trying to go for that Whedon dialogue and is only I would say 'okay' at hitting it. So when a scene does miss it misses by thousand miles.

I have only played a few hours but it feels like a Mass Effect game and I'm liking the new characters so far.

Same boat. I'm having a good time with it.

Same. Some are definitely worse than others *cough*Addison*cough* but all the main characters on the ship are written well and are really likable so far.

Addison being the likely first conversation you have in the game is unfortunate because she is easily the worst I've seen so far.

From what i played it wasn't terrible, but it was pretty by the numbers and cliche' as hell at least in the intro mission. None of the characters seem interesting or unique either so far. But yeah while playing it was interesting enough to keep going as the gameplay felt good so far, i like the scanning mechanic and feeling of exploration. Disappointed by the lack of in depth backstory in this brand new galaxy and just relying on the previous lore for the milky way.

hmm, my only complaint so far might be a spoiler.

but you and the new aliens you meet use the same name for kett and remnant, it's probably the universal translator that somehow magically works on new alien species but I still figured that they would refer to those things as something in their own language.

The only parts that are really whiffing for me are some of the attempts at humor. They are trying so earnestly to do some of these jokes but they just are not landing for a variety of reasons. Granted there have been a couple of lines that have gotten a legitimate chuckle out of me. But for the most part, I have no idea what people are talking about when they say that the writing is substantially worse than the older trilogy.

I'm enjoying more than I thought I was going to. Im starting think no matter what Andromeda turned out to be, it wasn't gonna hit those expectations fans had.

It hasn't bothered me because it seems to be par for the course for Bioware and this franchise. I honestly wonder if people have forgotten how cheeseball Biowares writing has always been for ME and DA.

I really like it. I had the day off from work today and managed to play most of the day. It does not hit as hard as the other games but they are not directly comparable. Andromeda seems to be going for something different than the other games did. The focus is colonization and resources. I find the story engaging and the motivation for Ryder is simple enough that it works. The sens of wonder is not as strong as it used to be and there is a ton of things to manage this time around. Almost too many things This seems like the kind of game that willstart to make sense 20 hours in. There is a lot to unpack even if it feels daunting at times. All in all I like what they have done after my first 10 hours

Maybe their face was too tired to understand decent writing?

I'm having a good time with it. I actually think your Tempest crew seems pretty okay. I just got PeeBee and she seems pretty delightful. Games with this much dialogue definitely have a few stinker lines but so far it's nothing offensive. I think Ryder is solidly written, he/she is set up to be the opposite of Shepard. Young, inexperienced and with a large responsibility on their shoulders. They have captured that so far I feel at least somewhat invested in her goals.

I've kinda enjoyed some of the cheesy humor too. I've been enjoying flirting with everyone I can and have had some pretty good moments, specifically with Suvi, they've had some giddy interactions to say the least... also Kallo giving you some command prompts was pretty good.

At worst, it's making me occasionally wrinkle my nose and think, "Well, that was awkward/lazy." Even the Pathfinder stuff is nowhere near as egregious as the internet would have you believe. ("Pathfinder" is a basically a rank, so I have no problem being called Pathfinder all the time. It's like calling John-117 "Master Chief.") So far, it's just another Mass Effect game, albeit one with slightly less charm than the original trilogy.

Basically, the internet loves a train wreck, so it took a handful of relatively minor fuck-ups and blew them way out of proportion.

There are some genuine missed opportunities (like only having two new races), some botched moments, some overly cheesy writing, and some questionable plot choices; but the OT had all that as well, just in different contexts. I agree with the consensus that the opening hours are kinda rough; but as soon as I was on my ship, wandering around talking to my crew, everything clicked into place for me. Its a Mass Effect game.

I think a big issue for some people is that they never played the Citadel DLC for ME3. Dragon Age: Inquisition may be the template for the open world design, but the Citadel DLC is the template for the dialog and plot: light-hearted action adventure with tons of jokes, "jokes," and one-liners. People who didn't play it still think of Mass Effect as a fairly serious space opera, with some room for cheese, but the Citadel was more of a space office sitcom. And maybe Bioware shouldn't have just followed the Citadel model, but it was so well received at the time by those who did play that I think they decided it was what the fans wanted; and was a way of making it different from the OT.

Personally, I like it a lot.

@fezrock: As someone who hasn't played it, how hard do they lean into that "office comedy" routine you mentioned in Andromeda? I enjoyed the Citadel DLC in 3, it certainly had a very charming jank aspect to the quality of the writing. But from the footage I've seen of Andromeda it only seems they lean into this a bit. Does it happen more as you talk with your crew? Because if the characters are intentionally one note, that may be a different story and there could be some humor drawn from that if they go there.

So I'm only a couple of hours in (just got my ship, stopped for the night before taking off), but I think the biggest problem right now is poor scene direction. While the other issues of awkward animations and some poor line delivery are definitely there, they wouldn't be nearly as noticeable except for the direction, which is done in such a way that it directs you right to those issues, so they're more distracting that they should be.

Everything is just so . . . dead with the way the camera is positioned and characters move through the scenes. If you want to see it done right, go back to the opening of the original Mass Effect. There, you had this sense of kinetic movement. The camera was low and following Shepard, there was just a little bit of camera sway, and there were actually things going on - crew going about their duties, people saluting you - and then the camera pans around to Shepard's face for the "hero shot" just as the music crescendos. It was great.

Here, everything is static and boring. Characters almost never move around, and when they do it's in this very deliberate "I'm going to walk over here. Then this character is going to walk over there" manner that honestly feels like students in a bad high school play. And the direction of the camera never focuses on anything. For example, when you wake up after the first mission, there are three people in shot, but the camera centers in this empty space in between them. Consequently, the player's attention isn't drawn to any particular speaker, just this dead blank space. And when one of the characters walks out, but the camera holds on the scene until she's all the way out of shot, so there's this dead period of like three seconds where no one's saying or doing anything. It kills any sense of momentum the conversation had and makes things feel broken even though it technically isn't.

It makes things seem even more dead that they already are, which isn't great when the character models are kind of stiff to begin with.

Also - is there seriously zero ambient music in this game or is that a bug. Not that the music is very good, but walking around a bunch of dead corridors without any music at all does add to the sense of emptiness.

I don't often notice bad writing. Game writing in general is pretty rough, but for the most part it's good enough to not take you out of the experience. The few hours I've seen of Andromeda are one of the very few instances where I've had the thought "I could write better than this".

My other issue is that this is supposed to be a whole new galaxy filled with mystery and unknown secrets and yet it feels way too much like the original trilogy. If they didn't tell me I'm in a new galaxy, I wouldn't even notice. It's disappointing that there are already established colonies and races from the milky way long before my character arrived. Hell they even got a citadel.

I had no problems with the writing either.

i think bioware montreal was stuck in a rock and a hard place with trying to make something unique yet feeling strong pressure to be beholden to what makes mass effect mass effect. i personally would have loved some real crazy shit in andromeda, but it may have been offputting to some.

I went back and played Mass Effect 1, Andromeda is noticeably worse...a huge drop in quality. As another poster mentioned, even the 'camerawork' in the first game is much better. If ME1 and 2 were A tier games, 3 was a B and Andromeda is a D.

I will just leave this here.

@wynnduffy: Several awkward gifs does not a game make.

Is that legit in the game, or are those voice overs?

This seems to be what all the "romance" dialogue is. I've avoid it entirely and play the game as a clear cut more professional Ryder and the eye roll levels are significantly lower. I've never been one to chase these romance dialogues much in Biowares previous games anyway because they've all been this poorly executed to me.

Its bad but it has been like that the entire series.

I got this!

There's no accounting for taste, after all.

Legit!

These GIFS + the Quick Look + livestream and bad reviews do though.

@devise22: I've been messing around a lot and also playing multiplayer, so I'm not actually that far into the game yet and I don't know how far it really goes. But I think it varies quite a bit; if Bioware did their usual practice of assigning different characters to different writers, I think some writers were leaning more into the comedy than others. Some of the characters' crew conversations are pretty joke-y throughout, whereas others are still close to the OT conversations. Same goes for conversations with other characters. Its the party banter in the field where it sometimes goes all the way; especially when its reactive one-liners.

I think the Citadel DLC is the template, but its usually not quite as zany, screwball as that. Its more that there's lots of lines like EDI's "I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees" (which stood out because there wasn't a lot like that in that game), rather than the constant fourth-wall breaking, total self-awareness of Citadel.

@efesell: How is Addison the first conversation you have in the game? There's a whole planet section before her, and even if you dont chat with anyone optional, you're forced to talk to Lexi when you wake up. Not to mention other dialogue sequences with Liam, the captain of the ark, and your father.

I will say this, it is the first game in the series that i actively skip dialog options. Also there is a sub story where you learn about your father some more, and I swear ive figured out the entire thing after the first log entry(maybe I am wrong but I doubt it). Everything just feels like "well i know where this is going". I can enjoy bad writing though if the game play is fun, which so far it is. I kinda wish the writing would just be "so bad its good" though, instead of just really subpar. Jeff and brad got it right with the " straight to dvd sequel" observation.

@oursin_360: Seconded when it comes to skipping dialog. It's kinda mind blowing to me that I would do that in a Bioware RPG, but a lot of things about this game are mind blowing to me, and not a good way. There is definitely fun to be found, but the writing/dialog is not where that fun is. I know people are going to naturally defend a thing they spent money and put time into, but some of the defenses for this game shock me. I wonder if a lot of people playing this game have skipped gaming for the past 3 years, I can't really fathom otherwise why some people would be so accepting of the pure lack of quality and polish this game has, especially for a full 60$ thing.

But whatever, I'm enjoying it for as poor as parts of it are. I don't regret my purchase, but I also didn't go into it expecting anything on par with the other stuff we've gotten this year and this wouldn't be the first time I play something, enjoy it, but can easily see and call out parts of the game that are poor design choices (cough BOTW cough)

The whole terrible animations thing has always been a staple of Bioware games, what covered it up was decent cinematography and a sense of emotional investment. They are going for the lighthearted goofy sci-fi stuff and sadly, that actually makes the animations more noticeable due to the lack of emotional investment. That and as someone has mentioned, the cinematography was better in the previous games.

I actually like the lighthearted nature of the game, even when it doesn't connect, I find it more entertaining than the sorta-stiffness of the previous games. But the fact of the matter is, the original trilogy had a good ramp up of story progression and character introduction and for most people that's gonna make or break the game.

@shivermetimbers: Animations, Art, Models, Writing are noticeably worse than other mass effect and even dragon age games. The characters all have big heads and small oddly proportioned bodies, male ryder looks 5ft tall and seems to be taller than most other humans. Walk around and wiggle the left analog back and forth for some good times. Other games had some stiff animation, but it was actually pretty quality for the time nothing in those games is as overtly bad as this one though.

So I've been playing emotional/casual fem!Ryder and I keep feeling like I'm in a middling episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The characters all sound like they should be in their teens with how cheesily campy some of the lines are. That said, some of the crew are growing on me, and I am managing to have fun regardless. It does make me want to do a logical/professional playthrough eventually to see how that changes things.

Oh I don't mean quite so literally as that, people obviously talk in the prologue.

It's just that it was time to start a Mass Effect game. I'd hit the 'citadel' and hours of dialogue wheel is now accessible and front and center to that is Addison.

I'm thirteen hours in (and I feel I've hardly scratched the surface of content in the game), and I am really liking it a lot. I played the game for thirteen hours straight pretty much, from last night to just an hour and a half ago. I had a few short breaks in between, but it's mostly been playing. Some of the issues I saw in the first video posted on Giant Bomb here, I didn't actually have. So far, all the issues are pretty negligible. I made a bullet point list of my thoughts as I went.

• The music is more generic sounding than previous Mass Effect soundtracks, but I still like it.
• Animations can be wonky, be it facial or body and character face detail look like previous, last-gen Mass Effect. The is probably better-looking than it, but it makes me think that it looks only a little better than Mass Effect 3 at max settings on PC overall (let's say Mass Effect ones visual jump to ME3's visuals), but it's still enough to look current-gen and great overall.
• I haven't run into any experience dampening bugs/glitches, much to my surprise.
• The combat gameplay is the best out of any of the Mass Effect games. I also like the cover system.
• I have already taken a liking to the characters for the most part, and the story is interesting enough so far.
• Ryder sounds like Nolan North and has a similar personality to Nathan Drake. He's a likable character, even more so than Shepard perhaps, but it's awkward that it feels as if Bioware really wanted to put Nathan Drake in Mass Effect.

Eh, that's what I put down so far. All the issues are negligible to me, and to my surprise are far less an issue than I expected. The game doesn't go above and beyond what I had expected the game to be, but it is better than I was recently expecting with the things people had been saying about it. I also think the voice work and dialogue is on the same level as the previous Bioware games, and that's good to me. I've heard the 'direct-to-video' comment/comparison from a few people, and I'm not seeing that. The biggest issue so far really is just how 'bad' the character facials look, less so the animation and more the detail. This is another Bioware Mass Effect game. To me, it is no better and no worse in many respects.

It is unfortunate that some of the story bits seem so predictable right now, at least a parts of it (like who SAM is). I do like that they took out the blatant paragon/renegade options because I choose the choices based on how I feel at times. In the trilogy, I just wanted to be good all the time and so went with the obvious paragon option. I still want to be that, but this one just feels more natural. I don't feel like I'll be penalized for talking back to a character for example. And there doesn't seem to be any world changing events where it'll affect it, like in ME1 where in the end you can purposely or accidentally run over a Pyjak in the end and get renegade points.

It is a game that I want to play for long hours because I enjoy it, and I want to see more of what it has to offer. That's a good sign so far. Honestly the only reason I'm not playing now is because I'm tired and wanted the system to cool down.

I adored the intros to Mass Effect 1 and 2* but after seeing a couple playthroughs of Andromeda's first couple hours, I definitely feel as if its beginning is very weak. Andromeda's opening lacked a sense of wonder and gravitas that captivated with the original trilogy. Everything seemed so toned down and insular unlike Mass Effect 1's opening which seemed rich with a backstory I want to dig my teeth into.

Nevertheless, I'm glad you're enjoying it. I really do hope it holds up, if only because my Dad was really excited to play this game and I want him to enjoy it.

*I found ME3 a little disjointed in the beginning which is probably why I burnt out before the end (and I'll probably go back during a holiday break this year to finish ME3 for my Mass Effect fix0

I found the "I fucking told you so" moment when Shepard's court martial gets lasered in half by a Reaper to be one of my favorite moments in ME3. The invasion and destruction of Earth was really powerful in setting up the urgency to getting all the races to cooperate. ("All our homeworlds are burning; I need your help to save us all!") Problem is, the game's structure after that actively worked against that narrative tension, as did the whole Cerberus side-plot.

I have been playing pretty much two days straight now (which normaly does not happen anymore) and I have to say there are some excellent story and character moments in this game. Feels the same as the previous games, including some corny stuff here nad there. My only complaint would be it feels a bit too familiar, including some specific story beats, but hey, I love it anyway. The negativity is way too overblown.

@quipido: I couldn't agree more with this. I am enjoying the hell out of ME:A. I'm about 8 hours in and I find this one just as engrossing as the previous three games.

It seems that being a snarky cynic is trendy these days.

To me it seems like people will go equally great lengths to keep defending a game that is mediocre at best. That said i doesn't bother me that you are enjoying (why should it). But personally i just can't see past the issues this title has. I really want to, but just can't.

For me it was totally about expectations too - after the pre-release debate I was expecing a trashfire but I got a really solid game instead. I wish they pushed some more inovative ideas instead of settleing for what is a new story with the familiar structure, but it's still awesome and I can't stop playing it. 35 hours in and about 30% completion, really thinking about going for the 100%. Story is engaging and the more I play the more I am invested in it. Even the content that is being talked about as tedious and repetetive seems well done here, exploring is fun and each quest has at least a small but always interesting story (helps it's full voice-acted as well). Map is both janky and well designed, it marks all the quests so you can easily pick stuff up in one sweep when you travel, see what is closets etc. And the fast travel loads really fast too. I also spent a couple of hours reading the codex, mainly at the beginning, which helped me understand the story much better and countered the issues mentioned in the quick-look. That part is not voice acted which is a shame, but it's quicker to read a bunch of text then listening to it.

I have a hell of a time, I played the original trilogy three or four times over and I feel a bit sad this one cought on fire in this way, preventing more people from enjoying it.

I would be interested how will the newcomers like it though, it's amazing how some stuff carried over even with changing the engine it's built on. In some ways it's as busteds as the first Mass Effect and I am aware nostalgia is a huge factor why I like it so much.

@ntm: I've played roughly the same amount as you (although I did restart after the intro planet to make my own Fem Ryder) but I pretty much agree with you. I just got onto the next planet I can fully explore and do quests on and I gotta say even the intro to that stuff is so much better than everything on Eos. Everyone talking about how shots are framed and such is an accurate criticism but after you the whole lead up to the next planet after Eos is all neat stuff.

It's funny, while I'm not entirely connected to all of the characters yet, thinking back to ME1 I recall all the shit people talked about Kaiden and Ashely. Wrex was pretty good from the beginning. but Liara and Garrus weren't awesome in 1 either. It's not until Mass Effect 2 until everyone started to click and with your history with them made them great. On top of that, 2 introduced a bunch of other characters that they knocked out for the park. So when mos tpeople think back to how great he characters in mass Effect were they are probably pulling from ME2, which was basically built to be driven by their characters. You literally had to dig in deep with these characters to progress forward. Add that with the studios precious experience with ME1 and it's no wonder those characters are so memorable and amazing.

Andromedas characters have the difficult job of starting from square 1 and also competing with Nostalgia from the previous games. It's a hard job and while I won't say these new characters are better than the OTs, I will say I don't mind them and I'm at least interested to hear what they have to say given the unique situation they are in. Before I quit last night I got the new species squad member and so far he has been the best and will definitely be really fun to talk to and find out about their race.

I also like how Ryder is framed. She is the chosen one not because she is special or seasoned, she is special just because her dad decided to give her the pathfinder title. This could change later but still, I at least like right now that my Ryder is trying to live up to these expectations her father was supposed to meet but do to circumstances it's now on her shoulders. This coincides with her sometimes sounding more casual than Shepard and sometimes even uncertain or worried since she really doesn't know much of what she's doing. Just trying to fill in for what her father would've done.

The story isn't grabbing me a whole bunch but it's enough to propell me forward so far and I hope it starts to open up later. Luckily that combat is really really great, I enjoyed it in 2 and 3 but this is a whoel new level IMO.

I'm bummed the game has been so buggy for a lot of people, the worst one I've had was I couldn't change any of my powers whether doing it through the pause menu or my favorites. It was easily fixed by just restarting the game.

But I gotta say I'm enjoying it quite a bit, it's certainly still Mass Effect and that makes me happy

EDIT: phone typing sucks. My bad form all the typos. So many but too lazy to fix...

@sackmanjones: I completely disagree about Liara and Garrus from ME1.

@ntm When you can't even tell your squadmates what to do (outside of move) how can you say the combat is actually better than the previous games?

Jeff and Brad are on point when they made fun of how often "pathfinder" is called.

Everybody on the nexus somehow already knows you are the "pathfinder" the first time you arrive, even though you weren't who they would be expecting, and you are not wearing any designation to stand out.

And then with Tann, you insist on being called the "pathfinder". I can understand that being a cocky option, but most people probably wouldn't talk that way?

When Addison asks what happened, what kind of moron doesn't know she's asking about your father? Instead Ryder asks in a very casual tone/facial expression "who?"

Definitely liked the first two hours (before I hit nexus) much more than the nexus part. Hope things will pick up later. Apparently the general agreement is more interesting stuff do happen, but usually after 20-30 hours, so I plan to skip most side quests.

we are in a world now where a game is amazing or awful. medicore games are now awful. this is totally what I feel like is happening to this game

It's a mediocre game, but an awful Mass Effect.