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Video Games: Next Stop... Andromeda


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11 minutes ago, GallowKnight said:

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has posted their impression from the first hours of Andromeda.

And it's not very positive.

Naturally it also contains some minor spoilers regarding the starting point, if you want to go in completely blind.

 

Peter Brown of Gamespot also had some not-great things to say about the game today on Giant Bomb's podcast. Though his complaints were mostly around the combat, and he admitted he hadn't played any of the original trilogy, so he didn't know what to expect from that. He did say that other people at Gamespot who were playing it seemed to be having a better time than he was.

ETA: On the flip side, Kotaku seemed to like the game a whole lot more on first impression.

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1 hour ago, Fez said:

Peter Brown of Gamespot also had some not-great things to say about the game today on Giant Bomb's podcast. Though his complaints were mostly around the combat, and he admitted he hadn't played any of the original trilogy, so he didn't know what to expect from that. He did say that other people at Gamespot who were playing it seemed to be having a better time than he was.

ETA: On the flip side, Kotaku seemed to like the game a whole lot more on first impression.

How in the world you could be an employee/reviewer of a major video game site and never play one of the biggest franchises of the past decade is beyond me. And then you play the brand new game without at least jumping into the first game just to get an idea seems moronic. I hope he had a miserable time.

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Kotaku definitely read very positively after a 5 hour play through. That write up also compared it to DA Inquisition, but suggested they hadn't come across any filler. I think if they designed the game with all essential story content being in a smaller area of a planet and side quest stuff that can give the story more depth and nuance (but not essential) being also relatively close by then grindy completionist stuff can be far flung for people who what to explore every nook and cranny. The game can have the feel of being really expansive in nearly every location but not force you to spend a lot of hours wandering around trying to find the places you are meant to be.

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I think what put me off about DA:I (and I still haven't gone back to finish it) is that the character movement felt..clunky to me. I think if you give me that exact same questing etc, but with the ME flavour and smoother control then I'm not going to take issue with the open world stuff. Especially if I can then vanguard charge across annoying terrain!

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40 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I think what put me off about DA:I (and I still haven't gone back to finish it) is that the character movement felt..clunky to me. I think if you give me that exact same questing etc, but with the ME flavour and smoother control then I'm not going to take issue with the open world stuff. Especially if I can then vanguard charge across annoying terrain!

Don't you mean jet pack jump THEN vanguard charge?

DA:I had some areas where traversal was tedious, because it had too few waypoints for fast travel, and the only alternatives were 2 legs or 4 legs. I dunno if movement felt clunky in PC but to me movement on PS4 was fine, at least it didn't have anything noticeable that caused me problems... well aside from the jump mechanic when I was trying to ascend some tricky bits of terrain.

43 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

I'll be happy with DA:I in space. I loved that game. Witcher 3 made it look bad to most I think. I loved them both though.

TW3 was better in many respects. But I find DA:I to be more worthy of replaying and thus I have to give DA:I the edge in terms of which game I think is better over all. 

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9 hours ago, Fez said:

30 hours in to my Stellaris campaign and I have now fully become the Covenant from Halo; what started as an accident became a goal. My militarist, fanatical spiritualist empire is now a 'Transcendent Empire,' which gives me a bunch of bonuses, but more importantly means that all my leaders are now titled 'Saint [name]'. Through aggressive military expansion (though only against other nations that brought it on themselves by declaring rivalries against me) and targeted uplifting of primitives there are now members of 11 different species in my empire. My founding race (who are the only ones who I allow to become leaders) are less than a quarter of my total population and are only found on my sacred home worlds (i.e. the ones that I rule directly instead of through sector governors) and one other planet in one sector.

I'm still only 1 of 7 roughly equal empires though, alongside over 20 weaker ones, so I've got aways to go before my rule is complete. There used to be an two other greater empires, one fell apart in civil war, and the other has been greatly weakened after a series of wars with me. Stellaris uses a modification of the warscore system from the Europa Univeralis games; which makes it impossible to annex too much territory in a single peace treaty.

I'm hoping to have it finished off before Mass Effect comes out. Its a different enough game though that I'd be fine playing it alongside ME (assuming I play anything alongside ME). I've also got my eyes on that new Nier game; but the timing there is tricky.

You're post makes me want to start a new Stellaris play through so much! But I just can't bring myself to start a large campaign knowing that the new update comes out in 3 more weeks. Is humanity in your play through? If the United Nations of Earth are still around you should go conquer them right away. Otherwise you're not really the Covenant. 

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I really enjoyed DA:I. One thing that didn't quite appeal to me was the whole map mechanic and having the word divided up into discrete little areas/zones. It didn't really feel like one game world. But it seems to me that this mechanic will be eminently suitable to to a space exploration game such as Mass Effect. So I'm hoping it will feel less contrived and more natural there.

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1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Don't you mean jet pack jump THEN vanguard charge?

DA:I had some areas where traversal was tedious, because it had too few waypoints for fast travel, and the only alternatives were 2 legs or 4 legs. I dunno if movement felt clunky in PC but to me movement on PS4 was fine, at least it didn't have anything noticeable that caused me problems... well aside from the jump mechanic when I was trying to ascend some tricky bits of terrain.

TW3 was better in many respects. But I find DA:I to be more worthy of replaying and thus I have to give DA:I the edge in terms of which game I think is better over all. 

Bolded - right you are! How foolish of my to forget this most important of innovations, bringing to the ME world what we were supposed to have in the real world by now.

I never even got far enough into DA:I to give it a fair assessment. I did a fair bit of the first area, decided I'd never get through it if I tried to be completionist and tried to rush through the second coastal area and don't think I even managed to clear that. I think the movement thing that bothered me is the slight delay when you start running from the animation starting up, and similar delays when turning. And some dissonance between moving with the keyboard that has been an issue through all the DA games but started bothering me a lot more when it expected me to run around controlling my character more.

SW:TOR also had something slightly off with the movement in it, even after getting two characters to max level when it came out it never felt right to me. The reference against which I was judging it was WoW which is just buttery smooth and perfect, and its that expectation that may throw me off.

ME1 movement wasn't perfect, but by ME3 the only thing annoying me was the start up/slow down shudder I mentioned before.

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3 hours ago, karaddin said:

Bolded - right you are! How foolish of my to forget this most important of innovations, bringing to the ME world what we were supposed to have in the real world by now.

I never even got far enough into DA:I to give it a fair assessment. I did a fair bit of the first area, decided I'd never get through it if I tried to be completionist and tried to rush through the second coastal area and don't think I even managed to clear that. I think the movement thing that bothered me is the slight delay when you start running from the animation starting up, and similar delays when turning. And some dissonance between moving with the keyboard that has been an issue through all the DA games but started bothering me a lot more when it expected me to run around controlling my character more.

SW:TOR also had something slightly off with the movement in it, even after getting two characters to max level when it came out it never felt right to me. The reference against which I was judging it was WoW which is just buttery smooth and perfect, and its that expectation that may throw me off.

ME1 movement wasn't perfect, but by ME3 the only thing annoying me was the start up/slow down shudder I mentioned before.

Can't say I ever noticed that on PS3/4 for any of the DA games. But then I didn't notice anything for DA2 on PC, and I played that on a total PoS PC.

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9 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Keeps sounding more and more like Mass Effect: Inquisition. I liked Inquisition a lot, but this isn't what I was hoping for. 

Worth noting that John Walker, that RPS writer, also hated The Witcher 3; calling it "like eating cardboard." So it could be he just doesn't like big AAA RPGs. And his preview, plus Peter Brown's comments, are the only particularly negative coverage I've seen.

7 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

You're post makes me want to start a new Stellaris play through so much! But I just can't bring myself to start a large campaign knowing that the new update comes out in 3 more weeks. Is humanity in your play through? If the United Nations of Earth are still around you should go conquer them right away. Otherwise you're not really the Covenant. 

Humanity does exist on the far side of the galaxy, based in Sol even, but they aren't one of the two pre-made factions (or maybe they were and had a government change at some point); they are called the United Humanity Dominion or something like that. They only have 3 systems though and are vassals of the Ox'Bratel Cartel who are one of the 7 factions near in power to me. Although not too close; there are 2 factions ranked 'equivalent' to me in power, 2 that switch between 'equivalent' and 'inferior,' and 3 that are 'inferior' (Ox'Bratel is one of those). All other factions, which I think there's around 30 of if you count vassals, are ranked 'pathetic.'

Their time will come, but first I need to finish destroying the Glorious Compact federation and then eat up a few pathetic factions to reach the Ox'Bratel borders.

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1 hour ago, Fez said:

Worth noting that John Walker, that RPS writer, also hated The Witcher 3; calling it "like eating cardboard." So it could be he just doesn't like big AAA RPGs. And his preview, plus Peter Brown's comments, are the only particularly negative coverage I've seen.

As far as I know though, Walker is a pretty big fan of the previous Mass Effect games. So I don't think it's just bias against big RPGs.

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RPS are usually pretty solid, but Walker is strongly about the writing and dialogue in games. If those are shit, he sometimes ignores decent gameplay. For some games that is a weird approach, but for an RPG it is appropriate. He is a huge BioWare fan though, declaring (against all reason and sense) that Dragon Age: Origins was the best RPG for about a decade when it came out, so he's not prejudiced against the company.

Looking at the gameplay vids, the writing does feel extremely lacklustre and the characters aren't standing out particularly well in the early game. That can change, of course, as the previous ME games showed.

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2 hours ago, Werthead said:

RPS are usually pretty solid, but Walker is strongly about the writing and dialogue in games. If those are shit, he sometimes ignores decent gameplay. For some games that is a weird approach, but for an RPG it is appropriate. He is a huge BioWare fan though, declaring (against all reason and sense) that Dragon Age: Origins was the best RPG for about a decade when it came out, so he's not prejudiced against the company.

Looking at the gameplay vids, the writing does feel extremely lacklustre and the characters aren't standing out particularly well in the early game. That can change, of course, as the previous ME games showed.

 

He's for writing and dialogue and hated the third Witcher? Seems a crazy juxtaposition to me. 

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