@burncoat: I don't necessarily feel like I gave them too little credit. Like, Thessia is this to me. London looks like this. Vancouver looks like this. Mars looks like this. It's a lot of one color, all the time, entirely coating the surroundings, with either little shadow or harsh, pure black shadows. It doesn't look like a palette to me, with different complementing colors. It's just one color overlayed on an entire area. Even just comparing other WAR DESERTS or whatever, I think other games did a much better job. Compare that last image there with a huge robot in the desert to this one. For me, the different is night and day, and I'm happy Andromeda looks more like MGSV's colors than ME3's. I'm in agreement on places like the Citadel looking the best, but that's almost entirely a case of bright neon lights. There are some exceptions here and there like Virmire and the green, park-like bits of the Citadel, but that stuff was rare. Especially in ME3. It's entirely possible that ME1 is actually way better about it, I don't remember it bothering me until Earth in ME3. But I don't think Andromeda looks any worse at all. It's hard to know if they do anything like the legion/tali standoff without having seen all that much of it really.

Granted, the skin has the same weird shine as Inquisition. After the livestream today, I think that game looks exactly like Dragon Age Inquisition, warts and all. I greatly prefer the environments to what came before, as well as the colors. But the animations are still busted and the faces look as uncanny as ever, only since DAI they've also looked like they're coated in sweat and the flat hair matches even less. The old movement looks just as janky, while the new jetpack/dash abilities look shockingly good compared to them.

oh god.. this game.. hrmm.. i was really looking forward to this.

After playing the trial verison and i'm going cancel my pre-order. the game kinda sucks. I'm going to sleep now and cry in my pillow.

Pc gamer has an article up with early impressions of the game from a couple staff members. It's pretty nasty but most of them said they are still having fun. They also hint at EA really fucking up by only letting them talk about the early game which I hope is a sign the game picks up after the intro.

I recall inquisition have the same issue of the game taking a bit to finally kick in and get going. Oh well, still crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

I've been watching the streams, and, yeah, I don't think I'll be picking this up any time soon. If ever. Allegedly good combat is insufficient for me in a game that claims to be a RPG. The writing left a really bad taste in my mouth, and the animations and some of the voice acting are, to be frank, absolutely horrid. If the open world stuff proves to be DA:I-style MMO-lite experience then that's the nail in the coffin. Shame. If you can look past all that, by all means, enjoy the game, but this is definitely not my cup of green stuff.

Have to say I'm shocked by some first impressions. I've been playing the game for almost a week now and I really enjoyed the parts people tend to pick apart. I'm playing on the PC version with a 1070 and had the frame drop twice, down to like... 53 from 60. Almost feels like I've been playing a different game?

So far i'm mixed on it, honestly the story and voice acting stuff seems pretty good to me? The movement and shooting feels a bit sluggish (but i may need to adjust my sensitivity levels etc). I'm running infiltrator (or whatever they call it) but they stuck me with only a pistol so far so that's not so good lol(not sure if i can change weapons yet though. Animation isn't that bad while playing, probably on par with past games honestly maybe just a bit better. Performance seems decent, running at ultra at 4k with something like 70% scaling. getting 50-60fps so far(Gtx 1080/15 6600k). Not sure what the problem settings are but don't want to waste my trial in the settings ( can spend a good 20 hours in a game just doing that lol). Gonna try some tomorrow when i hopefully don't have a headache and get some good sleep and get a sense of how i really feel about it. Only an hour in i should say as well. Also if you want to get your fps without running a third party software type this in as it's a frostbite game.

1. Tilde key to bring up the console
2. perfoverlay.drawfps 1 [enter]
3. Tilde key to close console

Is that resolution scaling? Because if it is, that means you're not running at 4k :P

Did you try monitor scaling a lower resolution vs. the game set to 4k with resolution scaling down?

@wynnduffy: yeah i know, just not 100% what the scaling is probably close to 1800p but not 100%(could be 1440p). I use scaling instead of changing the resolution because dual monitors is wonky in windows 10. Also if you set your settings to default "high" it forces your scaling to 1080p for some reason, so i would suggest going custom.

I'm betting I'm going to enjoy it, but the multiplayer looks good either way, so the single player campaign is almost a bonus for me. That's not what I expected going into ME3, but it's how things turned out.

As long as there are likable characters, and some well-written and thought out loyalty missions, that should be enough for me. The writing in the main campaign quests hasn't really been very good since ME1, IMO.

@ethanielrain: Ah ok, I never played DA 2, only origins. Still it's a shame, I've played a lot of Chosen One stories over the years and I am find it hard to relate to the protagonists. It was the thing that I really enjoyed about the back half of the Witcher 3, you're not the Chosen one, you're her dad. Your job is to be the best Dad you can be while she figures out how to save the world :)

Im enjoying this a lot more than I was expecting to. Only have a few issues. Squad commands are shit, movement can be stiff and unresponsive during combat and the music is completely forgettable. Can't wait for the full game to unlock, I've already burned through most of my trial and I desperately want more.

@arabes: Heh, it's not even just to be the best Dad in TW3, it's also to realise you aren't entirely in control and that it's not just about you. That's at least what I got out of it.

All very uncommon things in fantasy RPGs for the playable characters role.

I can't recall a game that has been so LARGELY mixed. Some people love it, Some people hate it, some people think its ok. I can't get a good read on it.

Yeah mate, if you actually figured out how to drive the Mako, the handling was great.

@ivdamke: Yeah, you're right. I really wish they would expand on that more in other games. Just being a guy/girl in the world would be pretty cool.

Can anyone tell me why only Ryder can be a Pathfinder? Couldn't the people in the Citadel 2 just have put some dickhead in a scout ship and sent them out into the galaxy?

@arabes: yes they could but then we would be playing that dickhead. In fact we are...

@rethla: Fair enough :D

I would have liked if the next Mass Effect game (this one) was about a group of Space truckers just doing their thing that somehow got mixed up in all this crazy ancient aliens stuff but were acting parallel to all the space organizations instead of being actively recruited by them. It would give you a more grounded, down to earth atmosphere, a reason to upgrade your ore-hauling cargo ship and hopefully a purpose that wasn't dictated by save-the-world videogame standards.

I just don't know if I have it in me to play "another one of these" and it honestly kinda pains me to say that as a fan of the series - never thought I'd become so absolutely indifferent towards Mass Effect.

The in-game reasoning is that (first hour spoilers) your dad was the Pathfinder, he died and put you in charge by fusing an AI into your mind(?). "Pathfinder" is just a title, you're basically the dude who's in charge of "away missions" for the human ship.

hrmm.... maybe i'll go and try FFXV now that i no longer want to play ME.. *sigh*

maybe i'll buy a switch :) GOD DAMN! ME was going to be my jam. I didn't really mind DA:I - i put over 100 hours into that, but this junk... semi better combat (that i'm not coming to ME for anyway) isn't worth crap writing/bland story/unlikable people/bad voice acting/dumb face tech

/me goes to cry

@ethanielrain: Thanks man. Does that make sense in the context of the game or does it feel like a contrivance to make you the Special?

Felt contrived, although it seems like it might make more sense the deeper you get into it (the AI stuff).

So, after trying the game (EA access is basically free for a month if you're planning on buying any EA games, with the 10% off)...I'm disappointed with some of the voice acting/animations/characters in general, and the story. But it's hooked me enough to want to keep going.

It reminds me of Dragon Age Inquistion A LOT. I think if you try and do *everything* in the game you'll get burnt out and be disappointed (ie, leave the Hinterlands!) But if you just do what you want to do, focus on what you enjoy...seems pretty neat.

Default gamepad mapping is bad, maybe it was the same in ME3 but using 2 buttons to do one power feels janky as hell in the heat of battle(at least when those 2 buttons do other powers separately). Trying to find a way to change it but don't see anything yet.

Story stuff seems alright, feel like i need to redo my face again and start over (par the course for bioware games though). The enemies looking all dough eyed is kinda hilarious, that's literally character design 101 in what not to do except in saturday morning cartoons. Sad that the overall art direction for characters may ruin the sales and kill the franchise but it's not a huge deal to me so hopefully people can get over it.