Ravens Forums

Hey all

Was browsing through an old hard drive the other day and came across some DAOC screenshots I must have taken years ago so it brought back some great memories.

I thought I'll post to see how everyone is? I know I've spoken to a few people in WoW or PS2 over the years but what is everyone upto nowadays?

Brigh

Well I picked this up finally, when it was on 33% discount in the Origin Store last weekend. I'm about 25 hours in so far, so here's a few thoughts.

+ Main story line is great. It's gripping and seems paced nicely so far (some say it starts rather slow but I'm ok with that). Really enjoying the difficult choices, although it seems they are the usual faux choices without true consequences.
+ Combat is very enjoyable. I thought the lack of manual cover would be a problem, but so far it hasn't been. I'm playing Infiltrator but can't do my usual hide and snipe thing so easily, so need to be more mobile, but that's fine.
+ Loving the jump pack, even if it spooks me every time my companions use it (sounds like combat kicking off).
+ First contact with the Kett is handled really well, really tense and edgy.
+ Overall it has the right Mass Effect feel (although there's a downside to that, see below).

= Alien tech and planets are a bit too familiar. They go light years to another galaxy and it all feels the same as previous games. But I accept it must be hard to totally break out of what's expected of a ME game.
= Dialogue and voice acting is a mixed bag. Some of it is good, some of it is cringe inducing. It's certainly not to the same standard as previous ME games. New companions seem very bland compared to the compelling characters in previous games.
= Field Of View is rather strange. I'm very grateful they've put FOV adjustment in, but it's handled in such a weird way that I've yet to get it exactly how I want it.
= Character customisation is mediocre at best and feels a step backward. Worse than previous ME games (which is saying something) and certainly no match for DA:I's system on which it is supposedly based.
= Animations and expressions are still rather odd, and that's after they patched them. I often find myself thinking "what sort of expression is that". Did the devs not watch their own cut scenes and not think the same?

- The UI is a disgrace, even by the low bar set by previous ME games. It's like they've learned nothing. Some things are so obviously broken it boggles the mind how they thought it was ok. For example, if you want to buy 100 of a resource from a vendor, you can't type the number or go up in increments of 10 with shift, you have to click the arrow 100 times! FFS that's so unbelievably amateur.
- Whoever put the console key right next to the 1 key and then didn't allow you to rebind it needs a big slap. Hugely frustrating when this kicks in during frenzied combat. Amateur hour design.
- There's lots of inconsistent design. For example, the M key brings up the map (as you'd expect) but then the M key doesn't work to close it (you have to ESC twice). This is constantly irritating.
- First contact with the Angara is a truly woeful piece of storytelling and the way the core Angara missions and side quests are presented is very lazy game design. I hope it's not a sign of how the rest of the game will be.

Overall 7/10. Definitely enjoying it, but have to feel it could have been so much better. Still not tried multiplayer though as I don't want to get sidetracked just yet. In ME3 it was multiplayer that I ended up spending most time in.

Yeah I managed to hold fire and I've not taken the plunge yet. I see patch 1.05 is out and fixes some of the initial problems, especially the animations. But that has pushed the price back up, so might hold fire a little longer

Good review eko, I haven't played much due to time constraints but I can confirm it is quite playable whilst maybe not as good a game that I'd have hoped for.

Did you manage to hold fire Cern ?

Thanks for the heads up about the Greenmangaming price, I might be tempted

Oddly enough, I'm mostly interested in the multiplayer in Andromeda. I really enjoyed ME3's multiplayer and spent more time on that than the main game which I only played through once (the infamous ending has much to do with that). So I like that Andromeda's multiplayer is similar to ME3 and some reviews suggest it's even an improvement. Perhaps too early to tell. ME3's multiplayer had good longevity and people were still playing it until recently (perhaps still are).

Most of the negativity I've seen so far is about the facial animations, UI (never a Bioware strong point) and some sloppy story writing (which is rather more worrying).

Perhaps I ought to try and finish Witcher 3 first, but I'm feeling impaient too