Mass Effect Andromeda review thread

[ratchetdude231]

Forbes: 8.5/10

 

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I have a feeling that Mass Effect fans will enjoy the game, but I don’t think anyone will claim it outclasses the original trilogy, outside of maybe the very first game. If you could combine the story and memorable quests of the originals with the combat, visuals and scope of Andromeda, you would have the perfect video game, though I think what's offered here will satisfy most. Despite its issues, Andromeda is welcome return to one of my favorite fictional universes, and I am still not ready to let Mass Effect go. I'm not sure I ever will be.

 

Gameinformer: 80/100

 

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When taken as its own journey (and not in comparison to Shepard’s saga), Mass Effect: Andromeda is fun, and the important parts work. The narrative isn’t astounding, but keeps you invested and drives you forward. The combat is entertaining whether you're in single-player or multiplayer. The crew isn't my favorite, but I like them and they have some good moments. Even with its other problems, these are the largest forces shaping your experience with Mass Effect: Andromeda, and they make it worth playing. At the same time, I was often left looking through a haze of inconveniences and dreaming about the game it could have been.

 

Critical hit: 80/100

 

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Mass Effect Andromeda is a fresh start – but in borrowing liberally from the first game it’s made many of the same mistakes. In spite of them, it’s an exciting space adventure that delivers everything that’s become important to Mass Effect: Great characters, fun exploration and a climactic tale of good vs evil.

 

IGN: 7.7/10

 

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Mass Effect: Andromeda is an expansive action role-playing game with a few great moments that recapture the high points of the landmark trilogy that came before it, and energetic combat and fantastic sound effects contribute to a potent sci-fi atmosphere. Without consistently strong writing or a breakout star in its cast to carry it through the long hours and empty spaces, however, disappointments like a lack of new races, no companion customization, and major performance problems and bugs take their toll.

 

Gamerevolution: 3.5/5

 

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I had a lot of fun with Mass Effect: Andromeda. The galaxy I got to explore was full of life and the combat felt incredibly satisfying. But various issues with important mechanics like the scanner and hefty technical problems prevented my enjoyment from ever lasting too long.

Although familiar in some regards, this is a positive in Andromeda’s case. Though, a truly successful revival needs to be innovative, not repetitive, and Andromeda often falls into a trap of tedium. It's a shame because it could have been so much more.

 

Playstationlifestyle: 6.5/10

 

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With the vast love of the Mass Effect series, Andromeda was never going to make people 100% happy, the same way the ME3 ending didn’t make people happy. The BioWare team put so many great things in place, but the main story, the characters, and most of the writing keep the game from being great. Sadly, technical mess keeps it from being good.
 

 

Gamespot: 6/10

 

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In many ways, Andromeda feels like a vision half-fulfilled. It contains a dizzying amount of content, but the quality fluctuates wildly. Its worlds and combat shine, but its writing and missions falter--and the relative strength of the former is not enough to compensate for the inescapable weakness of the latter. As a Mass Effect game, Andromeda falls well short of the nuanced politics, morality, and storytelling of its predecessors. For me, the series has always been about compelling characters and harrowing choices, so to find such weak writing here is bitterly disappointing. Yet even after 65 hours, I still plan on completing a few more quests. The game can't escape its shortcomings, but patient explorers can still find a few stars shining in the darkness.

 

Overall I'm pretty disappointed with the reviews. The game in itself seems decent, but the technical issues stop it from being good. Definitely going to wait until Bioware (Hopefully) releases some more patches.

 

Game is currently sitting at a 75 metacritic

[Dragon-Archon]

Damn, seems like the story and crew members are lacking too. I was hoping those parts of the game would be memorable  . 

[Staggy95]

Noooooooo

[ratchetdude231]

3 minutes ago, Dragon-Archon said:

Damn, seems like the story and crew members are lacking too. I was hoping those parts of the game would be memorable  . 

I don't consider Inquisition to be a good game, but damn that reviewed a hell of a lot better than this game did.

 

 

[Dragon-Archon]

1 minute ago, ratchetdude231 said:

I don't consider Inquisition to be a good game, but damn that reviewed a hell of a lot better than this game did.

Is Andromeda similar to Inquisition in terms of story and crew members? 

[ratchetdude231]

1 minute ago, Dragon-Archon said:

Is Andromeda similar to Inquisition in terms of story and crew members? 

I'm not sure, but Inquisition sure as hell wasn't as buggy as this game is. 

 

 

[ShadowReplicant]

A few more:

 

Destructoid: 6.5/10

 

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Mass Effect: Andromeda spends a lot of time not really feeling like a Mass Effect game. If anything, it feels like a spin-off -- the sort of thing created by another studio that's unsure about what direction to take it. Like in the game itself, there are problems with the atmosphere. But Andromeda is very clear that it doesn't aim to be like the other Mass Effects. New beginnings, not funerals -- for better and for worse.

 

Eurogamer: no rating

 

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The combat crackles and the worlds are lush, but mediocre writing and tepid quests add up to what is probably BioWare's worst RPG yet.

 

Rock Paper Shotgun: no rating

 

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Is it as bad as my previous comments on the first few hours suggested? Kind of, yes, but diluted down by sheer volume of busywork. There’s nothing I’ve found that redeems its crappy writing, threadbare companions, moribund story, and ghastly UI. But, well, the best I can say is it occupies time.

 

[GunfighterHefty]

Wow...I'm not enjoying these reviews. I am currently in the middle of playing through ME2 on my way through 100%ing the trilogy in preparation for this. I guess at least it got me back into a story that I love and IS worth it? I pre-ordered so will still honor and play it but I am not as excited as I was. 

[StrickenBiged]

Just now, ShadowReplicant said:

[Quoting Eurogamer] probably BioWare's worst RPG yet

 

When you remember that Dragon Age II was a thing, that's a very strong statement...

 

I'm going to skip based on the reviews, and wait to see what the good people of the forums have to say. 

[MafiaBrett]

38 minutes ago, ratchetdude231 said:

I'm not sure, but Inquisition sure as hell wasn't as buggy as this game is. 

 

 

 

A few reason Inquisition did better.. It came after Dragon Age 2. Which the only good thing I can say about that game was the awesome story and likable characters. The combat although fun was a huge step back from the tactical combat in Origins. The game world was unimpressive with TONS of reused textures and copy/paste dungeons. 

 

Inquisitions main focus was trying to fix that with more open world exploration and a return to a more tactical combat. It was a plus that the game had very little bugs. Now where the game failed and got criticized was the story (esspecialy side quest) began to take a hit. Also the dev team wanted to push the whole "girl trapped in a man body" into our face with the Ironbull commander thing.

Edited March 20, 2017 by MafiaBrett

[ratchetdude231]

The worst thing about this whole situation is that I can't cancel my pre-order or even get a refund. This fucking sucks for me. 

[MafiaBrett]

Is it on the PS store? Because most retailers normally allow you to as long as you don't open the box if you have it sent to your house.

[ratchetdude231]

Just now, MafiaBrett said:

Is it on the PS store? Because most retailers normally allow you to as long as you don't open the box if you have it sent to your house.

I Pre-ordered it from the PS Store. Was probably a mistake.

 

Wasn't expecting this game to be this buggy. Last time I was burned like this was with AC Unity. I guess stuff like this is bound to happen from time to time when you pre-order digitally.

[nyonmyan]

1 hour ago, GunfighterHefty said:

I pre-ordered

You mean you threw away 60 bucks. Game is horrible.

 

ME2 is my favorite, by the way, hope you will enjoy it.

[GunfighterHefty]

We will see, I haven't played it. If I enjoy it enough, I wouldn't consider it throwing it away. I played through ME2 a long time ago before ever touching any other version, so it's been fun with my imported character. Definitely getting more out of it. 

[HaSoOoN-MHD]

1 hour ago, StrickenBiged said:

 

When you remember that Dragon Age II was a thing, that's a very strong statement...

 

I'm going to skip based on the reviews, and wait to see what the good people of the forums have to say. 

Dragon Age II was awesome. Fite me.

 

Speaking of Dragon Age II; i'm not to fussed about the story complaints so far because it might be another DAII, where in people want a world ending threat and a power trip and what they got is smaller in scale. Still, 75 is pretty shocking for an ME game.

[sephiroth4424]

I read that the combat system is bad.This came from people who played the trial version for pc.Apparently they removed the power wheel,so now you can't control your allies during combat

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

2 hours ago, ratchetdude231 said:

The worst thing about this whole situation is that I can't cancel my pre-order or even get a refund. This fucking sucks for me. 

 

1 hour ago, ratchetdude231 said:

I Pre-ordered it from the PS Store. Was probably a mistake.

 

Wasn't expecting this game to be this buggy. Last time I was burned like this was with AC Unity. I guess stuff like this is bound to happen from time to time when you pre-order digitally.

 

If you don't mind me asking, why pre-order from PSN anyway? A pre-order like that has unlimited supply so if it's about playing right away, you can just pre-order one day in advance.

 

Personally I only pre-ordered one game through PSNP; The Day Of The Tentacle Remastered, they had a pre-order sale and I played the original so nothing could have persuaded me not to get it anyway.

 

I don't think the game will be as bad as teh interwebs now makes it out to be. Mediocre, probably, but not a horrible mess.

 

I liked Unity, by the way, not the best AC ever but good enough to rate among my top half of AC games.

[ratchetdude231]

3 minutes ago, BillyHorrible said:

 

 

If you don't mind me asking, why pre-order from PSN anyway? A pre-order like that has unlimited supply so if it's about playing right away, you can just pre-order one day in advance.

 

Personally I only pre-ordered one game through PSNP; The Day Of The Tentacle Remastered, they had a pre-order sale and I played the original so nothing could have persuaded me not to get it anyway.

 

I don't think the game will be as bad as teh interwebs now makes it out to be. Mediocre, probably, but not a horrible mess.

 

I liked Unity, by the way, not the best AC ever but good enough to rate among my top half of AC games.

Well for starters I'm digital only so I buy all my stuff through PSN.

 

As for why I pre-order well I usually don't but there are so many games coming out this spring and since I was planning on buying so much stuff I decided that pre-ordering a lot of it would be a good idea since I usually only have about 60 to 80 bucks a month to spend on games.

 

So basically ever since November of last year I have been pre-ordering the games I wanted in the spring on PSN. First game I pre-ordered was Gravity Rush 2 and I just kept pre-ordering the games on my list until finally I pre-ordered Persona 5 last month. 

 

I also recently pre-ordered Kingdom Hearts. 

[Satoshi Ookami]

Wow, this is even worse that I expected, lol =D

 

23 minutes ago, ratchetdude231 said:

Well for starters I'm digital only so I buy all my stuff through PSN.

This may open your eyes and you may stop getting things digital

[ratchetdude231]

Just now, Satoshi Ookami said:

Wow, this is even worse that I expected, lol =D

 

This may open your eyes and you may stop getting things digital

Nothing will open my eyes. Fuck physical.

[Undead Wolf]

How the mighty have fallen... While it isn't reviewing horribly, and I'm sure there is some good in the game, it is bad by Bioware standards. Mass Effect and to some extent Dragon Age were some of the few franchises from EA I actually gave a shit about. The latest game in both of those series have been disappointments now. It looks like EA is more interested in making Star Wars games these days than making worthwhile entries to their own IP. Ugh... 

[matchpenalty]

I still think this game will be good, just not ME trilogy good. I still want a PS4/XBox1 remastered trilogy. 

[xh117]

5 hours ago, ratchetdude231 said:

I Pre-ordered it from the PS Store. Was probably a mistake.

 

Wasn't expecting this game to be this buggy. Last time I was burned like this was with AC Unity. I guess stuff like this is bound to happen from time to time when you pre-order digitally.

You know you actually can get a refund, I think you can if you don't play over a certain amount of time. It was that way with No Mans Sky anyway.

[ratchetdude231]

10 minutes ago, xh117 said:

You know you actually can get a refund, I think you can if you don't play over a certain amount of time. It was that way with No Mans Sky anyway.

Nope. No Man's Sky was a special case because refunds were being given out on the basis of false advertisement. There really was no false advertisement with Andromeda it's just a buggy mess.

 

I also think the shitstorm over No Man's Sky got so big that Sony was pretty much forced into giving out refunds. I highly doubt that will ever happen with Mass Effect, but if it does then I will try and get a refund.