If you're name-checking Lurking Horror, I definitely need to check out Stories Untold (even if it is blatantly trying to lean into the whole Stranger Things... uh... thing.)
@laner: I tried Rebel FM but Arthur Gies...yeesh. I never have listened to a podcast where a host seemingly wanted a large portion of the listeners to hate him but he sure seemed to. No wonder he jumped over to Polygon where that has an audience (personal opinion, obviously).
Gies didn't bother me as much as "chufmoney," but either way, I listened to the first couple of episodes and unsubscribed soon thereafter.
I ran into that exact same problem at the end of the video. You got to kill all of the baddies before you can turn off the shield generator. In my case, the one I couldn't kill was stuck in the geometry and he wouldn't die no matter what. The accessible window with the invisible wall was just icing on the cake.
I will say the real host of the 1Up Yours Show was Garnett Lee for most of that podcasts existence and it was also what is considered the "best years" of that podcast. The hosts didn't really change that often but I will say that when David Ellis took over that show turned into hot garbage.
Yeah, I'm bummed that Garnett is no longer podcasting. I don't recall David Ellis being terrible - or great - for that matter. Just kind of there. Nguyen, on the other hand... when the host of your flagship podcast is nicknamed "hamburgers" because he mumbles so badly, you know you're in trouble.
I remember all the splinter podcasts that popped up after 1UP died. Didn't really follow any of them with the exception of Retronauts - impressively, it's still going. Even if Jeremy Parish is way too Nintendo/Japan-centric for my tastes, his dedication is admirable.
I do feel like there is a bit of a case of rose tinted glasses when comparing some aspects of Andromeda with the earlier games. Some of the criticisms were definitely present in the previous games like the mention on the Bombcast of characters who stand in one spot for the entire game. Now of course it's been several years and of course standards have changed so maybe those things are worthy of greater criticism now but I can't help but feel specific comparisons with the earlier games in the series are a bit off the mark.
Yes, that was certainly present in ME1 - a 10 year old game at this point. But they also improved those aspects dramatically in the sequels. Returning to static, wax-faced characters in the next-gen follow up is a huge step backwards.
I wouldn't be surprised to see EA pull another Ultima IX with this; put out a few token patches that don't fix the root problems, then pretend it never existed (and possibly shut down Bioware in the process). Lots of similarities there - down to splintering the original team to work on an MMO.
FWIW, I defended that game like crazy at the time because I was a huge fan of the previous games and wanted it to be good so badly. In retrospect, yeah, it was a trash fire.
I saw what they were going for, and there was the possibility of a good game. If only they had less bugs, better tools, better writing, better gameplay, and another year or two to craft something that was actually fun without EA breathing down their neck to meet a Christmas deadline.
The problem with modern dollar coins is that they look like gold quarters. Bring back the Eisenhower silver dollar. Now that's a *man's* coin. Carry a few of those around in your pocket, and people will know you mean bidness.
I don't know what it is about the negativity that's bothering me with this game, but it's really bothering me. Yes this is not a perfect Mass Effect game, it has a lot of things worth critiquing. But this doesn't feel like critique, it just feels like unbridled hate.
Not hate - what you're seeing is crushing disappointment. ME 1 & 2 are beloved, landmark titles. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of gamers are deeply emotionally invested in the series. With a serious dearth of good space opera sci-fi (remember, both Wars and Trek really let us down as we rounded the corner into the 2000s), Mass Effect delivered in spades and gave us a new universe, exploding with possibilities. And they were great *games* to boot, regardless of setting.
While Bioware didn't stick the landing with ME3, many people assumed they would be able to right the ship with the follow up. New console generation, new engine, new setting, less baggage from the previous games, etc.
But there's also been an undercurrent of trepidation as well. Along with ME3, you had the underwhelming DA2 and DA:I that didn't sit well with many. Since ME3, Bioware's founders left. Casey Hudson left. The same writer that gave us red green and blue choices as a reward for the hard decisions you made over the course of three games is penning the follow-up. They gave this massive, sprawling game to an unproven studio. Gee, what could go wrong?
Then ME:A hits the shelves, and "underwhelming" doesn't even begin to describe it. This needed another year or two in the oven at minimum, if not a complete reboot. So yeah, people are bitterly disappointed at this turn of events.
Been playing the trial... but ran into an ugly bug on Eos; at the second pylon/monolith thing, you apparently have to kill all the kett before being able to advance. After clearing them out, I still couldn't shut down the shield generator on the kett outpost despite it being right there. I could jump/boost into a window, but even then it blocked me with an invisible wall.
Ran around for a good 15 minutes trying to figure out what the hell I missed. Finally discovered one kett stuck in the geometry that I couldn't kill; had to reload from a previous save
In the grand scheme of things, not a huge bug. But the game was already leaving a bad taste in my mouth and that did nothing but annoy me further.
Definitely waiting until they've had more time to polish this before going all in (if I decide to at all)
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