Mass Effect: Andromeda | Official Thread

[Freya]

Well, here's a quote from the one we're talking about that hux linked, it's not a spoiler for a heads up,

I can’t even imagine how anyone can feel okay with writing that into a script without experiencing enough shame to just get up, walk away, and keep walking until they fall off of or into something.

I don't know, if you're intentionally saying "If you're okay with this go walk off a cliff". I don't really put faith in you being really professional or unbias in your review. I'm all for people mentioning faults but the way this reviewer writes his stuff it seems he's going out of his way to be inflammatory. Hence the statement of him just being a contrarian.

I personally can't put faith in a reviewer who writes like this. Now if he went more in detail about the flaws besides just "it sucked, you all suck if you like it." and more like "the UI was a bit clunky when you're on a PC because of this this and this." He compares it to a web browser... that he's used to a web browser... So that's why it sucks.

Basically, what I'm saying here is that if you want to put your faith in someone else's review, try to look at how they're speaking to see if it's worth merit. Trust a reviewer who says something is bad and then actually shows you what they mean without resulting to insulting and name calling.

If you like insults and name-calling, well whatever then this is for you.

[Psychotic]

I'm glad you mentioned the Zelda thing as this thread did make me think of it a little bit as I read some of the views about him on the Nintendo Switch reddit. People were incensed by his review, claiming he was doing it as clickbait. This, despite the fact that his site has no ads whatsoever. Jim is an excellent reviewer, and as he repeatedly said, 7/10 is not a bad score and he liked Zelda.

I actually like Jim as a reviewer but in regards to Zelda...I definitely feel that his review may have been influenced by his bad relationship with Nintendo. It's no secret that he really dislikes them.

That said, I haven't read the review or even played the game. But I do know about his disdain for them.

True, he doesn't like them as a company but I think he can separate that from his love for their games. I mean he hates Konami more than he hates Nintendo and he gave MGSV a 9, and iirc he gave Smash Bros a 9.5.

[Formalhaut]

I never look at just one reviewer. I tend to look at several to get a good baseline, then I'll read some user reviews on top of that just to get the 'non-corporate' side of things.

[Freya]

I never look at just one reviewer. I tend to look at several to get a good baseline, then I'll read some user reviews on top of that just to get the 'non-corporate' side of things.

This is exactly what people should do! And not just about games, everything in general. News, Movie reviews, restaurant reviews, etc. If you're already looking toward reviews to make an opinion, make sure to not just stop at one. If you don't look at reviews, don't worry about it! But if you do, try to be well-rounded with it

[Slothy]

I'm glad you mentioned the Zelda thing as this thread did make me think of it a little bit as I read some of the views about him on the Nintendo Switch reddit. People were incensed by his review, claiming he was doing it as clickbait. This, despite the fact that his site has no ads whatsoever. Jim is an excellent reviewer, and as he repeatedly said, 7/10 is not a bad score and he liked Zelda.

Not only does he not even have ads (and goes out of his way to screw with the content id system on YouTube to keep his videos ad free), apparently he said in an announcement through his patreon that he doesn't even track the traffic to his articles and reviews. Which makes sense since it's utterly meaningless to him.

That Zelda review was great though I thought. Not only did he overall enjoy the game quite a bit, you could tell in his write up that he really wanted to like it even more and was genuinely saddened by the fact that those problems got in the way.

And yeah, he hates Nintendo's business practices, and rightly so, but he's not the type to let that colour his opinion of a game. Like I said, his Zelda review was that of someone who was genuinely sad that it wasn't better. Hell, he hates Ubisoft as well but had quite a bit of praise for watchdogs 2.

[Del Murder]

Not everyone likes everything, stop the presses! We're all entitled to our opinions. That review brought up some interesting issues that would probably irk me too but also took offense to some things that I wouldn't see as that big a deal. I usually go by metacritic scores rather than individual reviewers as that gives me a consensus about the game from a critical perspective. I'll read full reviews from the big sites like IGN, Gamespot, and Game Informer because although I don't always agree with them, at least they are thorough in describing why they did or did not like something which allows me to mentally adjust the score for things that would not bother me.

[Pumpkin]

I tend to look less at the scores and opinions in games and focus on the content. Like sometimes a reviewer is like "Too much animu and outfit changes, terrible, 2/10" and I'm like SIGN ME UP! I mostly use reviews to see what kind of features the game has, what kind of story and characters, etc

I do plan to get this eventually but it's not a rush for me. I still haven't played much of ME3 although I did just get me a handy dandy strategy guide so there's that!

[Madame Adequate]

I've found RPS to be a very reliable indicator of things I will like and dislike, i.e. the staff's tastes and my own largely align, and the things Walker says about MEA are absolutely things that are continuations of problems in DAI and which have been a trend in Bioware games since DA2/ME2 (Much as I love both those games).

I sure as hell hope the Kotaku piece is more in line with the game than the RPS piece is, but I've long since stopped giving Bioware the benefit of the doubt.

[Pike]

TBH I'm already kind of prepared to not like this game, like not to be a Negative Nancy but Inquisition was really difficult for me to get into, it was just so large and sprawling and complex and I preferred the more intimate settings of DAO/DA2, and Andromeda really looks like it's following the Inquisition mindset.

So I guess my expectations for this game are already low, lmao.

EDIT: this isn't me trying to say that Inquisition was bad, it's clearly not, but it was not my style of game, at all, and I feel like Andromeda is similar.

[Psychotic]

The most concerning thing is this.

Generic Grumpy Space Captain Lady is there, right up front. With a deft hand she begins by correcting your grammar from “who” to “whom”, and then in the same conversation says “less” when she means “fewer”. Whatever, but don’t play Grammar Corrector if you don’t know any.

I remember when you jerks cheered in the Game of Thrones thread when (SPOILER)Stannis aka the One True King of Westeros died. And so here we are, in the hour when we need his grammatical skills the most, and huh, ain't that funny? Not a single one of you is cheering now.

[Freya]

TBH I'm already kind of prepared to not like this game, like not to be a Negative Nancy but Inquisition was really difficult for me to get into, it was just so large and sprawling and complex and I preferred the more intimate settings of DAO/DA2, and Andromeda really looks like it's following the Inquisition mindset.

So I guess my expectations for this game are already low, lmao.

EDIT: this isn't me trying to say that Inquisition was bad, it's clearly not, but it was not my style of game, at all, and I feel like Andromeda is similar.

I find this interesting with your love of the Elder Scrolls games. They are very open. Why do you enjoy those and not DA:I for being very open? Care to share?

[Pike]

TBH I'm already kind of prepared to not like this game, like not to be a Negative Nancy but Inquisition was really difficult for me to get into, it was just so large and sprawling and complex and I preferred the more intimate settings of DAO/DA2, and Andromeda really looks like it's following the Inquisition mindset.

So I guess my expectations for this game are already low, lmao.

EDIT: this isn't me trying to say that Inquisition was bad, it's clearly not, but it was not my style of game, at all, and I feel like Andromeda is similar.

I find this interesting with your love of the Elder Scrolls games. They are very open. Why do you enjoy those and not DA:I for being very open? Care to share?

I play the two series for different reasons. For me, the strength of the Elder Scrolls games is in the actual world itself far more than the characters or story. This world lends itself very well for sort of sandbox style play.

When I play Dragon Age, I want compelling characters and a strong, dare-I-say linear storyline that takes me from Interesting Story Point A to Interesting Story Point B. It's a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate 1&2; I want my squad based tactical combat and fun companions and tightly plotted story. When I first played Inquisition, I was confused. Why can my character jump? Where is the all important pause button? Why doesn't tab search for things like it has since Baldur's Gate? Where are all the things that make Dragon Age, well, Dragon Age?

I managed to sort of bash my way through the game so I could say I did it, but the entire time it just felt off, to me. This wasn't the Dragon Age I was used to. It felt like it was trying to be The Elder Scrolls despite the fact that it lacked the strength the Elder Scrolls has (the very, very lore-heavy world - I love me some Thedas lore, but it doesn't lend itself for sandbox style play the way Tamriel lore does), and as such was downplaying the very strengths I was playing the game for - story and characters.

I don't know if I'm wording this well but I guess what I'm trying to say is... well, if I want to play Elder Scrolls, I'll load up Elder Scrolls. If I want to play Dragon Age... looks like I'm loading up one of the first two games in the series because Inquisition doesn't feel to me like Dragon Age. It feels like something else, something which a lot of people like, don't get me wrong, but which I can ultimately get in a better form with, say, Morrowind.

EDIT: thought of a TLDR way to say it. I feel like the Elder Scrolls setting and lore lends itself better to open world, whereas DA setting and lore lends itself better to, well, not-open-world.

[Madame Adequate]

In Morrowind you can dive into a random dungeon and emerge with the Ring of Phynaster. In Inquisition you can dive into a random cave and emerge with some plaidweave. The primary differences is that Bethesda knows how to make a world worth exploring; even though I malign Fallout 3 even that game is fun as hell to just wander around aimlessly in. Bioware knows how to write great lore and incredible characters, but they have no idea how to make an engaging open world. Walker's line that the side-quests in Andromeda feel like something from a Korean MMO circa 2004 is exactly how I feel about most of Inquisitions side-quests. They're just "Go to [area] and collect ten fade bear asses." Skyrim's quests are often of the same standard, but they still tend to send you to an interesting dungeon that can be approached in various ways. The best Bioware manage is when you find something like "A letter from a templar challenging his apostate brother to a fight" (Carver, is that you?).

Still, to me the greatest sin of Inquisition is that for the most part the combat is boring as hell. You don't get enough skills and few of them are actually fun to use. Given that Andromeda looks to have a better spread of skills and the combat looks decently solid, I'm not going to write the game off yet; if the moment-to-moment gameplay is fun, I'll forgive a lot of other sins. As I did with ME3.

[Pike]

Still, to me the greatest sin of Inquisition is that for the most part the combat is boring as hell. You don't get enough skills and few of them are actually fun to use. Given that Andromeda looks to have a better spread of skills and the combat looks decently solid, I'm not going to write the game off yet; if the moment-to-moment gameplay is fun, I'll forgive a lot of other sins. As I did with ME3.

RIGHT that's the other thing I forgot, I really disliked Inquisition's combat especially compared to DAO and DA2.

If Andromeda has good combat I'll forgive it for a lot, though, you are right. xD

[Freya]

To be fair though, Inquisition was their first attempt at a more open world. From all the backlash they received from the limited re-used maps of DA2 it is no wonder they went that direction. I don't know if you guys recall how much hate DA2 got about that. It seems they went in the extreme opposite direction with DA:I because of that.

That being said though, this is their new attempt at a more open world so it may be different. Have you read any other reviews outside of that guy who is overly negative to be edgy? I've seen a few saying the side quests weren't that bad.