Poll: Has the Mass Effect: Andromeda Backlash Put You Off the Game?

I for one am a fan of comedy, so this actually seems like it'll make the game more fun for me!

You know, if it was like Horizon with its one kind of laughable scene, I'd shrug it off, but more and more evidence keeps surfacing of how incompetent the developers apparently are. It's looking really, really bad. Combine that with at least one scathing preview and... well...

If it does turn out to be as bad as it looks, I'll probably grab it when the price drops to $20 or so and play it ironically.

Everything is overblown on the internet.

I've played around 5 hours of the PC version and although the mo-cap and animations aren't great it's still very much Mass Effect. I had fun with it and will for sure be grabbing a copy next week.

Im gonna get this eventually but gonna wait for some patches and a price drop.

@johncalmc I still can't quite believe someone at BioWare stopped and said "Hey you know what was really great? Planet scanning. Let's have that back."

I wasn't planning on buying it to begin with.

Bioware has been on the decline since ME2. But Andromeda really REALLY takes the cake. Not only do the previous 3 Mass Effects have better animations and models, there are games from 2004 with better models and facial animations (Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines is a good example, and even that was a rushed and buggy game).

I really can't take this game seriously. I was even kinda looking forward to it since it's a fresh start compared to the mostly pointless detour of ME2 and rushed ME3 with its silly story that seemed to ignore its predecessors.

But other than the animations, the moment you become Pathfinder, you become the chosen one. The writing stopped rolling downhill and just took a huge nosedive instead. "Hello Pathfinder, you have a job that needs fulfilling; ie finding new homeworlds for people who've been waiting hundreds of years in cryosleep, but please help my husband who's been falsely arrested. They'll listen to you. You're the pathfinder."

Why would they listen to me? Cause Pathfinder is something REALLY super special, I suppose. You even choose who/which race to wake up and when.

Not a fan of ME or EA, but I remember ME2 having great production values. Is that gone now or what?

Got a preorder for it still sticking with it, but I've ordered horizon as well so I get play through that and then in few weeks when its been patched (they do look quite weird facial animations) I shall play it.

I have the 10-hour trial on PC queued up for this weekend!

The only thing that's important to me is a strong story and choices that have an actual impact...something that I honestly haven't really been pleased with since the first game.

@johncalmc The bits where you explore planets in the Mako in ME1 are infinitely more interesting than the planet scanning in ME2, though. Whoever decided to bring back planet scanning should be fired, or at least be moved somewhere where they're not making important decisions about in-game mechanics.

I will get it eventually. If it gets mediocre reviews then the price should come down pretty quickly.

@johncalmc I liked the planetary excursions. Despite the complete dearth of environmental diversity, it still felt like I was infiltrating an enemy stronghold, which, of course, is always tense and engaging. Planet scanning was nothing but tedious busywork. The planetary outings needed to be improved, of course, but instead they took something that had potential and made it one of the worst parts of the game.

ME2 really was a disappointing game on almost every level.

I wasn't gonna get it in the first place, since I haven't played the original trilogy, but I'll admit that these animations make me curious about the game's overall quality.

I'm not gonna count it out just yet, it might still be good overall. However, the janky animation makes me wonder how bugged the game is.

I can pretty much bet this game will get decent reviews around 8's, you know what this all reminds me of Horizon people did the same thing to that game but to a smaller extent. I can bet you now not all the game will be like this, it'll be a few characters at best which isn't a biggie. As for the glitches people act like The Witcher3 didn't have glitch it had some bad ones, so glitches are nothing new to RPG's next week it'll be something else.

Imagine if the official Bioware forum is still up and running...

Cancelled my order as there are far better games available right now.

I feel like Horizon has just as bad facial expressions. I mean sometimes I just burst out loud at when I see a characters face and they are talking.

In the meantime, I'm playing a ton of games that aren't Mass Effect and having a blast.

If this game was a action adventure game then I could ignore the bad animations. But since this games focus is story and gameplay is a close second then a bad animated game rips the submersion from the story. The characters aren't believable anymore even if the voice work is top notch. I can see if most of the npc's looked bad but the main characters were top notch. I know that could be jarring also to see great dialogue scenes and then see the terrible animations from the terribly animated nonessential npc's. It's not just that the characters faces don't invoke emotions but the way the characters move also look terrible at times.

@banacheck I played 80 hours of Horizon and the animations of people bodies were weird ON OCCASION but the facial animations were way more believable than ME andromeda. Horizon faces were almost life like. Andromeda faces not only look like plastic dummies but they also do not convey emotion. I would say that ME story was suppose to always be the main focus of its franchise. I have seen 2-3 hours of andromeda ad it ain't looking any better. Horizon weird body movemets and possessed facial expressions are anomalies.

I am not trying to picky about andromeda but these things are massive turns off to prevent from getting involved within the character progression.

@zimbogamer sir. You are far wrong. Yes Horizon has weird body movement but it wasn't all the time and with every character. Horizon mo cap was top notch in skin texture and hair modeling etc. Every human in Andromeda looks like mo cap from 5-8 yrs ago. People have already proven from comparison videos that older ME games npc's look better than a 2017 high budget andromeda game. I just don't know how bioware thinks this is acceptable.

@Ewflex I have never played a mass effect game so I can't compare with older games. I'm sorry but the characters in horizon look like they are made from putty. Most of them have creepy eyes and just stare into the distance when talking. Don't get me wrong I am having a blast playing the game but the facial animation always entertain me

Seems like all the effort has gone into the wrong places on this. I'm definitely not buying it day one. And I am 100% never buying new. Pre owned and no extras. EA are not getting a penny out of me.

I've never really been impressed with the writing in Bioware games, but it has been good enough to not detract from the overall experience. From what I've played so far, the combat and dialog all feel similar, which i guess is good or bad depending on how you feel about it. If you're coming in wanting more Mass Effect, it's certainly still there.

@zimbogamer my point is that horizon looks way better than Andromeda for sure. If you haven't watched a substantial amount of videos of andromeda gameplay like I have then you probably aren't able to compare the two in order to see the difference. Honestly al you need to do us look at 5 minutes of andromeda. If you have watched tons of andromeda videos and still think Horizon is as bad or worse then I believe you need to go to the eyecare center for a check up. No way Horizon is nearly as bad as andromeda PERIOD.

I'll be sure to buy this at some point because the original trilogy was awesome but those dire facial animations has certainly put me off.
I said all these amazing games can't last.

@Ewflex I mean I have watched a decent amount of videos and gameplay for Mass effect. Yea the facial animations are not the greatest but if you think horizon is that much better you must have a special patch that I never downloaded cause I have to disagree with you. Horizon looks amazing especially with hdr and 4k upscaling but those facial animations are wonky man.

@zimbogamer well we willl agree to disagree. No one is saying Horizon has great animations but far better than mass effect. It's really not even close. I was invested in most of the characters I met in Horizon. I think the worse. Voice acting was the black lady who has the son and daughter that died. I don't know ho me she made it thru auditions. She solid like she is drunk or in drugs.

@johncalmc do you agree with me that BioWare should stop putting combat in their games?
They're not good at it, and they don't care about it. They could put that time into.more story, cut out the stupid sidequests...

I might have gotten past the intro in more of their games if I didn't have to deal with their awful combat.

@get2sammyb lol great it's waiting for me at Gamestop Tues night woo hoo!

I could care less personally.
Am looking forward to junping into the Mass Effect world again.

I remember all the rubbish surrounding the ending to Mass Effect 3, which was not nearly as bad as it was made out to be.
Im not suggesting these ARENT bad but hardly the worst thing to happen.

As long as the overall narrative is sound, Im good.

From what I'm reading and seeing the game is not looking good at all. Graphics and animation alone I could get past, but it seems there are a lot of problems here. I've gone from definitely day one to, might get it in a sale depending on reviews and if they fix a lot of the issues..

Lol, I can't believe they let the game out like this I will be waiting for it to get to the bargain bin.

Honestly, I couldn't care less. I'm a huge Mass Effect fan and the only worry I've had about the game is whether or not it'll suffer from DA:I's very MMO-like world and quest structure. At the end of the day the first Mass Effect was never a great looking game, with awful textures, ugly characters and some stiff animations and yet, along with the other 2, it's still one of the best games I've ever played.

I've put 2 hours into the Access trial on PC and I enjoyed every second, even though my PC is so unbelievably average that I had to put every single graphical setting on low. Maybe my love of the series is just blinding me to its flaws but I think this whole thing is so incredibly blown out of proportion, and will end up hurting what could be a deserving sequel.

I seem to remember people used to go out of their way to make the main character as ugly as possible for a laugh so I think some people will be happy about this...

Personally I'm more interested if the game/story is any good. If it is I can forgive a bit of poor design in the graphics department.

If it were just the animation I wouldn't be so bothered, but the dialogue I've heard sounds awful, quests look bland and I'm disappointed that we still have to play as a human...All those races, and I can't be any of them. I was hoping they'd add ship-to-ship combat too, doesn't seem likely at this point....
I think I'll give it a miss and replay Buck Rogers : Countdown to Doomsday instead. Still the best Sci-Fi RPG, and it was released in 1990.

Most of the backlash I've seen is about 'sjw this, sjw that' or about one idiot on a team of hundreds of people, so no it hasn't put me off the game. The performance issues that have been discussed are a concern but can be fixed through a patch (I hate when companies go that route but that's the way of the industry these days).

I love Mass Effect and regardless how everyone views them now, they will forever be one of the best gaming experiences for me. Even the planet scanning and Mako, they are a fun diversion and offer a bit of diversity.

Obviously negative publicity is a concern, some of the animations are a touch dodgy etc

But its Mass Effect - every game has been boss so far!

@etherwinter All Bioware games are like that. Always making you feel you're the center of the universe, instead of just being part of it. I hate that.

To be honest, your coverage today made me cancel my preorder and order horizon Zero dawn instead. I will wait to see what the reviews are like for mass effect before deciding when I will take the plunge. Will definitely still buy it at some point

Ya know, a few months ago I held games such as those from Bioware in such high regard. But right now I'm playing the best video game in my entire life, and suddenly games like Dragon Age Inquisition and Final Fantasy XV, games I've hailed in the past, seem dull in comparison. Suddenly games I was previously excited for, like this new Mass Effect, seem surprisingly unappealing.

And, far be it from me to write off a game due to facial animations (Xenoblade Chronicles X was one of the best open world games I've ever played and its characters were kinda goofy looking) but it's kind of expected with western mega-developers. It's not that the faces bother me, they just make me question the quality given even last gen Bioware games had better. It's all a bit moot anyways- I'm keeping my preorder but I won't be playing it any time soon.

@ShogunRok
I liked planet scanning

@Splat
What! You've ruined my childhood.
It's like a slap in the face!
@JaxonH
Once you've discovered Hello Kitty Online you never go back.

@JaxonH
"...right now I'm playing the best video game in my entire life, and suddenly ..., games I've hailed in the past, seem dull in comparison. "

Let me guess, The Last of Us? Been there.

@JaxonH the game you are playing is life of black tiger right

@Nickolaidas
Damn, tell me about it. Im crying out for a game that doesnt make you a god among men.. The prophecy says you are the chosen one.. Two main quests in: "You're the Pathfinder".. "You're.. Dragonborn!".. "You're.. the Inquisitor!" Bla bla bla.. When is an RPG gonna put you on a level playing field & make you work to fulfill your destiny & not hand it to you in the first five mins?

I could get past the animations if the writing wasn't so atrocious

My intro to the series was Mass Effect 3, so I was never going to buy this anyway.

Yes, I know (I've been told) I should have started with ME1, but it wasn't available at the time, and Bioware said they'd catch you up with the story at the start of ME3. Which they did, to an extent.

But I found the whole game pretty tedious, and didn't come to care about the story or the characters. If I had, I'd happily have gone back and started at the beginning when it was made available. Now, though, too much time has passed, and I've got too many other games to play already.

As someone who never really got into Mass Effect, I'm glad for once to just lean back and let the sparks fly. This should be fun!

I'm gonna be honest I never thought that I wouldn't buy ME Andromeda as pre order. Now I may even wait for a discount.

@FaultyDroid Daggerfall, Morrowind... they're out there. Not super common, but out there.
Demon's Souls, to a degree.
Bloodborne a bit more.

@Nickolaidas I don't mind if there's some buildup or reason for it. Like in the first Mass Effect you're pretty much just a soldier who stumbles upon something so big that it involves the entire galaxy, and since you're the one who stuck your hand in, you're the one who alerted the galaxy, people look to you as to what to do next. Also being a soldier just kinda makes sense when people ask you for help.

But in ME:A the moment you're the Pathfinder, ie at the very beginning, you're instantly some kind of god. Everyone looks up to you, knows who you are, and you have some kind of lawmaker or king's authority, despite that not being your job.

@FaultyDroid Definitely look into NieR: Automata then. You're never put on a pedestal, you're just a soldier taking orders and doing her job, until crap hits the fan and you have to deal with it.

Tales of Berseria and Yakuza 0 as well. Both are tales about the main character struggling against the world to become something more than what they started as. They're not given legendary status, they have to earn it.

@ShogunRok 'I still can't quite believe someone at BioWare stopped and said "Hey you know what was really great? Planet scanning. Let's have that back."'

Oh, I don't know. ME3 was my intro to the series, and that was by far my favourite part of the game.

Anyway, everyone needs to watch this video... XD

https://twitter.com/Chinnerdomain/status/842453831313154049

Im still getting it, i will have fun playing it as well

The FF15 online 24/7 b*** fest has taught to that its best to completely disregard online opinions.
.
Because they were completely off the mark

I'm going to wait for the reviews and maybe rent the game first before deciding whether to buy it or not.

Will be play torment tides of numenera instead for now

I was unsure of buying the game before and I think the whole thing is kind of hilarious. It almost makes me want to buy it now.

no.
I wasn't interested in the game to begin with.