Mass Effect Andromeda Skepticism thread

Mac's back at Bioware.  He's been twitting about ME:A, according to my google search.

Casey's gone, but yeah, Mac came back to BioWare.  As far as Casey goes, I don't know the man.  He seemed that way, but I'm very skeptical of game journalism or mainstream journalism when they cover video game news.  It's far too easy for folks to put their own views into these articles and still somehow call it "objective" with a straight face.  <shrug>

I also don't jump on the EA hate bandwagon.  I won't white knight them, but I have family members that work for another "evil" big corporation.  I don't like it when EA screws up and causes games like DA2 and ME3 to get rushed out the door.  However, those are just men and women like anyone else.   I don't EA-bash because I see the people involved.  I don't like some of the crap they've pulled over the years, but I refuse to hate them.  Life's too short.

The premise of Andromeda, that has been revelealed so far, at least, is pretty half-baked.  I'm almost hoping it's been infiltrated by Cerberus or something so it's been set up to fail.

There is this weird brand loyalty to Bioware among some DA fans where any mention of CD Projekt Red or The Witcher 3 triggers them. Granted this thread was a shitpost intended to provoke a an angry reaction, but even on the old boards in the Witcher 3 thread, you had a few Bioware fans who'd pop in occasionally to bash the game or ramble about how DA:I was supposedly superior, despite admitting to having never played The Witcher 3. It was really bizarre. 

To be fair, maybe a similar thing goes on at CD Projekt Red's forums and you have people saying Bioware's games blow without having played them. I don't post there, so I have no idea. On the BSN however I found the people who thought the Witcher 3 was better than DA:I to be a more reasonable crowd overall, minus the occasional troll, because at least their opinion was formed after having played both games. A lot of the BSN's 'TW3 sucks' crowd never played it.

I just do not understand brand loyalty at all. The only thing either Bioware or CD Projekt Red cares about it is separating consumers from their cash. That's it, so why give either of them blind loyalty? On that note I hope both Andromeda and Cyberpunk 2077 are equally great games, so the people who bought them get their money's worth. 

The main reason is the lack of fluid gameplay. So far we have seen nothing but snipets and randomly cut lirces. Well before the 6-months-to-go mark, we had seen a good portion of consistent, fluid gameplay footage of a mission in ME1, ME2, & ME3. Add that to the supposed leaked comments by former employees and it's very easy to let the skepticism build & fester.

Bottom line is that we still don't know much about the actual gameplay, much about the characters, dialog system, multiplayer etc. other than "it will be awesome. More to come soon." 2 months is cutting it very close for some disclosure along the lines of ME1-3....and pretty much every other game. I can't think of any major game that has NOT had a live gameplay demo presented to journalists in a Q&A session with 2 months to go.

The main reason is the lack of fluid gameplay. So far we have seen nothing but snipets and randomly cut lirces. Well before the 6-months-to-go mark, we had seen a good portion of consistent, fluid gameplay footage of a mission in ME1, ME2, & ME3. Add that to the supposed leaked comments by former employees and it's very easy to let the skepticism build & fester.

Bottom line is that we still don't know much about the actual gameplay, much about the characters, dialog system, multiplayer etc. other than "it will be awesome. More to come soon." 2 months is cutting it very close for some disclosure along the lines of ME1-3....and pretty much every other game. I can't think of any major game that has NOT had a live gameplay demo presented to journalists in a Q&A session with 2 months to go.

I wouldn't say I am sceptical (I did pre-order during the sale) but I am a bit apprehensive. It's more the switch to an open world style that has me worried than anything about ME3 which overall I loved. I would rate DA:I maybe 7/10 at most and have not been able to get into The Witcher 3. I hate elder scroll games. I also think the logic in how they are switching to Andromeda from what we have heard is not well done at all, if they were so desperate to move there I would have preferred a much more creative and logically sound explanation. But as I said, I loved ME3 and ME2 so I will still give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

The second and third Mass Effect games were considerably less open, more opting to give you the choice of one of a few different routes you could go in which you ultimately had to go to all of them in the end anyway(This has been the standard BioWare formula for a long time). Plus a few side missions you could choose to do if you wanted to.

The first game at least had the planetary exploration bit, even if the Mako did handle like a drunken rhino in a bouncy castle.

The second and third Mass Effect games were considerably less open, more opting to give you the choice of one of a few different routes you could go in which you ultimately had to go to all of them in the end anyway(This has been the standard BioWare formula for a long time). Plus a few side missions you could choose to do if you wanted to.

The first game at least had the planetary exploration bit, even if the Mako did handle like a drunken rhino in a bouncy castle.

Pfft, my Mako handled fine. Maybe if you showed it more respect and affection it would listen to you better.

In all seriousness, I blame the terrain of ME1 more than the Mako for whenever there were issues.