Unfinished: Mass Effect: Andromeda 02/22/2017

They should fire drew for that pun.

@wasdf said:

What are you even talking about? Jeff is disappointed because this looks exactly like the previous Mass Effect games, suggesting that Bioware is squandering their Star Trek premise of exploring the unknown. I feel the same way. I think a Star Trek-ish Mass Effect would be incredibly exciting, but if they're just plugging in all the core tenets of the Mass Effect trilogy into Andromeda, then what's even the point?

Drew...

@drewbert@jeff@unastrike I like these kinds of videos, but I think calling it an Unfinished is misleading. Not in the literal sense, but the categorical sense. An "Unfinished" is a Quick Look (actual live game play) for an unreleased game and this is not that at all. You're just talking over PR footage. Again I'm not saying that's a bad thing and I do enjoy this type of content, but I think it needs a different label.

If this video can be classified as an "Unfinished" than you might as well do a highly edited video of Horizon: Zero Dawn and release it already as a "Quick Look".

@razzuel:

I agree with you mostly. I think ME striving towards a lot of the goals that Star Trek did would be best, but I don't think anywhere in the video Jeff expresses that is what he meant. To me, it sounded like he was saying that they should continue/build from where the original games were coming/going to, and that meant keeping the characters? I don't think it's clear, but I read it as Jeff wishing Garris should stick around instead of having something like a "Citadel-like" ship where you would conduct much the same business as you did in the original trilogy, but on a new -like ship.

Obviously, not sure what Jeff was meaning, but to me it sounded like he wanted ME in much the same way you already had it.

maybe just "Quick Look Preview"?

They're going back to the roots of Mass Effect! The Mako's back! The Mako's cooler, tougher and a little wiser but it's still the Mako.

Alex is Blue Bombin', Dan is in the Yakuza, but the feature I really need is some @vinny Effect!

it needs to be a brad joint if anything.

I'M WITH DREW, THE MAKO WAS AWESOME AND IT'S HATERS ARE WRONG

This is the character Jeff was talking about

I wonder if Liam will be just as fucking boring as Jacob was

I don't understand the hate on Jeff for this video. I felt like he was more positive about the game than Brad was. By the time Brad stated he was 'casually optimistic' about the game i was surprised since he spent most of the video being visually and verbally underwhelmed by it, and wondering if it's even worth making a 4th one of these. At least Jeff pointed out that the combat looked neat and that he likes the status effects.

Personally, i think that having non-mmo combat will make this a way better game than Dragon Age Inquision.

That said, it felt like Bioware's main message to Brad was : We have a lot of content and you can level up a lot. When that's your main message, i'm going to assume that there will be an extraordinary amount of filler sidequests that you have to avoid at some point to not completely stomp through the game. That's a problem Dragon Age Inquisition had, and it sounds like this will be similar in that regard.

@relenus: ME1 is my favourite in the series. The Mako had its issues but it was still better than the lame ass planet scanning in ME2. That shit was just boring. The Mako should've been expanded but Bioware just saw the complaints and instead of improving it, just scrapped it (or maybe that's just an EA thing like how DICE decided no guns in the new Mirrors Edge instead of improving the guns). I hope they can fulfil the potential with this release.

*sees Mako pun* UNSUBSCRIBE UNSUBSCRIBE UNSUBSCRIBE

Shrek , et tu?!

@darkbeatdk said:

This is the character Jeff was talking about

I wonder if Liam will be just as fucking boring as Jacob was

So basically you're trying to say this is going to be like Arkham Knight

Drew originally conceived the "Unfinished" title to encompass all types of pre-release coverage, from playing preview builds live-to-tape to talking over B-roll or captured footage when that's all that's available. That's specifically why we broke it off from "Quick Look" in the first place, to better support weird situations like this.

So,

Not Shephard on Not The Normandy saves the Not the Milky Way from the Not Reapers while hanging out with his/her friends who are totally not like his/her other friends on totally not the Citadel.

Neat.

I'm pretty sure biotic combos have been around for a while, though it's weird how the marketing is presenting that system as if it were a brand-new innovation.

It looks really good. I'm excited. I second what Jeff says about the mobility of the character. That looks great. I'm also appreciating games that take a non-button press cover system. The jump jet thing reminds me of Halo 5 (which only ever needed to be used on Legendary). Can you switch sides over the shoulder?

Cool, you've already played the majority of the game?!?!? what a scoop!

I'm fine with a more action focused Mass Effect. As long as the RPG hooks are still present. While I know Inquisition was not everyone's cup of RPG tea, I still liked it alot.

I really wanna watch this but part of me wants to be surprised when i first play the game.

Only 27 days left!

Mass effect 3's ending is either the worst ending ever or the best when I choose to let myself believe the indoctrination theory. The red ending is the real ending all other endings are you be indoctrinated by the game.

I would love if at some point in the new mass effect games you find out that civilization in the old galaxy was completely destroyed by the reapers.

@jedted: This is mostly b-roll showing some combat and a bit of menu navigation. I've been trying to avoid too much detail, but this video isn't spoilery at all (besides the basic premise).

Man. I wasn't going To watch this cause I want avoid spoilers. And the I decided I just check out the graphics and the very first thing talked about is a spoiler. I'll check back after I play the game. Hope this game is fantastic.

I felt like the Mass Effect games are a bit overrated. I enjoyed them a decent amount, but they had some real problems from my perspective. I really thought the combat sucked (at least in 1 and 2, haven't played 3.) When I shoot a guy I want to see him blown back or damaged. In the ME games I always just remember a big shield bar going down a little bit, which was not satisfying at all. I get that it's coming from the RPG tradition, but in most RPG's the combat is quite a bit more complicated which makes up for the less reactive enemies. The missions were very formulaic, each divided neatly into a 'talk to people' portion and a 'shoot things' portion. I didn't care that much about the storyline, either - space demons will destroy all life unless an elite team of badass assassins stops them, etc etc. On the other hand, I did like a lot of the world building and some of the characters like Mordin and the elcor.

Pretty surprising to see people are still interested in this series.

By the way, it looks awkward when the person seated at the computer has to almost entirely face away from the camera to speak to someone. The layout of the set could use some work.

@thisisdell: by aboid spoilers do you mean avoid any information about the game in any form amd extent whatsoever?

I'm a bit disappointed that you can learn every skill in one playthrough. It essentially makes your choice of a starting class irrelevant. Part of what made ME1 cool was that you would pick a class and specialize your character on that path. It encouraged multiple playthroughs and different playstyles. Now you're just a jack of all trades. Boring.

its unfortunate that you cant rename the protag. i dont really care about the name i just wanted to play as someone named "dick ryder"

the jump jets look like borderlands TPS. granted i have not played that game

also i hope they don't cock things up in terms of the narrative around colonisation. i feel like they'll halfheartedly be like "oh what we're doing is Bad" but the entire plot will revolve around murdering people for their land

it's a shame that crafting is 100% confirmed because that shit was bad in inquisition and at best out of place in mass effect. i'm in space, why would i want to craft guns out of the sticks and rocks i find in the environment??

@tpoppapuff: Even the 'bad shit going down in the Milky Way' bit isn't really necessary context--the Initiative was launched as a scientific expedition, rather than an evacuation, and the majority of the people shipping out with it have no idea that the Reapers are even a thing, much less that they've blown the crud out of the Milky Way.

@entireties: You can totally rename your Ryder--they've just voiced the default names this time. So, if you stick with Sara or Scott, you'll actually get to hear other characters use those names, whereas if you go for a custom name, it'll be like the original trilogy, and you'll always be either 'Ryder' or 'Pathfinder' or whatever else.

For my part, I'm gonna stick with the defaults. I like crafting characters in RPGs - figuring out personality traits, aspects of backstory, and then roleplaying them - but I never get all that invested in names other characters'll never be able to use.

This looks fun. It has been enough time that I'm ready for a new Mass Effect. I think the new galaxy was absolutely the right choice for moving forward with the franchise. If they stuck in the Milky Way with the same characters they would have had to spend an entire game on rebuilding the galaxy and made up a bunch of messy lore to explain how they rebuilt everything, how they got the mass relays working again, what exactly they did with the Reapers and how half the technology did not work only to be fixed by the end of the game. That's not going to be a pretty picture and it would upend a lot of established lore in order to fix the end of 3. This way they can completely sidestep the problem and give us a new but familiar world that works and set things up for a sequel where a Milky Way civilization 600 years ahead of Andromeda rolls in a blows everyone away with all the crazy new tech they made and Liara to give us an overview of how they rebuilt that skips all the messy details that would rile up the fan base.

I'm excited for this game. Vanguard was the best class because charge was the best ability and now I can use charge with tech abilities or whatever else. Freeze + charge had better result in me crashing face first through a dude and smashing him to bits.

FYI most of the footage they were talking over is from the last couple official videos they've posted on youtube. The videos are direct, concise and well-narrated explanations of gameplay mechanics, that actually explain better than this Unfinished (of course I also like to hear Brad's impressions and Jeff's reactions).

On a similar note, does anyone know if the first video Brad played is from a trailer that's been released? The one where it seemed to be explaining the (not)Citadel ship/station thing and some other lore stuff, I didn't see it on the ME channel.

Inquisition is an EXCELLENT game!

This game looks absolutely amazing!! Looks to be Game of the Year, for sure, can't wait to get it!!

I can't believe someone thought "Peebee" was the perfect name for any character in a Mass Effect game, let alone that one.

Gameplay looks good. Always felt like movement was restricted after the changes they made to 2 and 3, but it seems like they've freed you up a bit again.

The big problem with setting it in another galaxy with another cast of characters that are just humans and krogans and asari and putting them on what is essentially the citidel is that I'm going to spend the entire game comparing it to the first 3. So if the writing and characters aren't top notch, this is doomed to be a disappointment in my book, even if the gameplay looks fun.

But is there a techno-neon nightclub?

Seems like yet another one of those "we gave this old franchise to a new team and they're stuck making it more-or-less identical to the old games because we don't want backlash!!!" type deals and that's a huge bummer.

My Ryder's going to be Shaun.

There will therefore need to be an extra dialogue option waaaay beyond Renegade.

Zack Ryder deliver us from the character models and animations, amen.

So, what you're saying is, I can't fuck Garrus?

@wasdf: To me Jeff sounds keen on the game but he's hoping it's not just ME3.1 but rather wants something more innovative. I'd liken in to how revolutionary the iPhone was but now from 5-7 it all seems kinda stale from one generation to the next. Sure they bring new features and no matter what you're probably going to like it but sometimes you want the boundaries of what you thought you knew to be completely wrong and instead revel in something that's wholly new and exciting.

I've played enough sci-fi shooters, I was hoping this would be more of an explorative rpg. Oh well.

@hewitt: I mean, you can put me down for an exploration-focused sci-fi RPG with very little shooting any day of the week - still desperately hoping (in vain, I know) that Obsidian'll get hold of the Star Trek licence some day and make that TNG-era RPG I've been dreaming of since I was about six - but, well, this was never going to be that.

It is, however, more of an RPG - gigantic skill trees, loot, an actual inventory, crafting, a more developed dialogue system etc - and more exploration-focused, than any previous Mass Effect game, so... Well, I dunno, I guess I don't know what else they might've done.

I think i'll wait for the reviews on this one. I loved ME for what it was, and while i liked 2, for me it was a mediocre rpg and a mediocre tps, and it was also where Bioware's writing started to feel really stale and weak for me.

The combat here looks fun at least.

Also, in no way i meant to imply ME1 was a good tps, because to me it didn't felt like it was supposed to be one.

Fair enough. I meant the bad shit more in the context of who Shepard is but I can see how that can be interpreted otherwise.

@kirkyx: Well if this did take the 'blue print' from Inquisition, most of the side content might just be "Go here, kill x guys, get skill point, move on" which would be such a dissapointment. I would love for this to be the best game of the year (I want every game to be good) but Bioware 'rpgs' are not really rpgs. I'm not even sure if you can count skill trees and branching dialogue as rpg elements anymore, they are so common amongst all genres now a days.

Btw Obsidian getting the star trek (or mass effect, actually) licence would be AMAZING!!