Video Games: Next Stop... Andromeda

[KiDisaster]

3 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Yeah, my son's been talking about Horizon, I think. We'll look into that for sure.

Can wholeheartedly recommend it. If I hadn't just played through both Banner Saga games I'd say it was the best thing I've played so far this year.

Speaking of which, minor spoilers that aren't even to do with the game itself really: 

LANCE REDDICK OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE!

[Centrist Simon Steele]

20 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

Can wholeheartedly recommend it. If I hadn't just played through both Banner Saga games I'd say it was the best thing I've played so far this year.

Speaking of which, minor spoilers that aren't even to do with the game itself really: 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

LANCE REDDICK OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE!

 

Great--I'll definitely look into it. I feel a big pull to go back to Mass Effect too. This is rough. I know I need to wait for reviews. I miss Commander Shepard. Maybe I should just go play Mass Effect 2?

My son is also interested in For Honor--but I think Horizon looks cooler.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

1 hour ago, MerenthaClone said:

I'm a ME junkie who hated ME3's ending, liked DA:I well enough, don't mind goofy facial expressions, and am having doubts.  Please advise.  

You sound exactly like me.

I'll add this: do you mind that this game plays more like a "shooter" than prior ME games?  You can still pause the action but the (silky smooth) combat mechanics encourage a more free-form approach.  

If this sounds appealing to you - I'd say get it.

ETA:  @Simon Steele 

I'd say definitely don't get this game if weird looking characters bother you that much. Cause that vibe is definitely there.

[KiDisaster]

Also worth mentioning with regard to Horizon, there is some bad lip syncing in it (particularly with side quest stuff, the main quest dialogue is usually fine) but nothing compared to what I've seen in the ME:A clips. If that stuff really bothers you though maybe check out some videos of Horizon's dialogue first. 

[Fez]

14 minutes ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

You sound exactly like me.

I'll add this: do you mind that this game plays more like a "shooter" than prior ME games?  You can still pause the action but the (silky smooth) combat mechanics encourage a more free-form approach.  

If this sounds appealing to you - I'd say get it.

ETA:  @Simon Steele 

I'd say definitely don't get this game if weird looking characters bother you that much. Cause that vibe is definitely there.

I'm not sure its that much more of a shooter than ME3, which was already pretty far down that road. The jumpjet does allow you to move around more, but the mobility still isn't like Titanfall 2 or Destiny or a COD; and sometimes you definitely still want to sit back in cover (unless you play vanguard with a shotgun only; like me). Not controlling party member powers is the biggest change I think, but IIRC in ME3 I never used that anyway and just let the AI decide; so to me the combat feels almost the same. Just with the jumpjet added.

I like the combat a lot. And even if the SP was complete trash, which its not, I think the game still might be worth it (though maybe only at a reduced price) for the fun I'd have in the MP.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

1 minute ago, Fez said:

I'm not sure its that much more of a shooter than ME3, which was already pretty far down that road. The jumpjet does allow you to move around more, but the mobility still isn't like Titanfall 2 or Destiny or a COD; and sometimes you definitely still want to sit back in cover (unless you play vanguard with a shotgun only; like me). Not controlling party member powers is the biggest change I think, but IIRC in ME3 I never used that anyway and just let the AI decide; so to me the combat feels almost the same. Just with the jumpjet added.

I like the combat a lot. And even if the SP was complete trash, which its not, I think the game still might be worth it (though maybe only at a reduced price) for the fun I'd have in the MP.

I suppose that's true. ME3 is the game in the series I've played the least (by far) so that's probably some bias toward the first two games slipping in. Certainly you'll still use cover a good deal but the extra freedom of movement afforded by the jumpjet gives it a very different feel from the other games.

At any rate, it's a blast. I'm counting down the minutes til I get to play again.

[Rhom]

2 minutes ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

I suppose that's true. ME3 is the game in the series I've played the least (by far) so that's probably some bias toward the first two games slipping in. Certainly you'll still use cover a good deal but the extra freedom of movement afforded by the jumpjet gives it a very different feel from the other games.

At any rate, it's a blast. I'm counting down the minutes til I get to play again.

This is very encouraging to me.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

6 minutes ago, Rhom said:

This is very encouraging to me.

Same. I figured going in that I could deal with the cutscene issues as long as the core gameplay delivered. Again, it is early, but no complaints thus far in that department.

Perhaps I should take half a...paid vacation day and get some more time in this afternoon?  

[Swordfish]

I'm about 4 hours into Horizon, and I have to say, I'm really liking it so far.  I don't even have any real nitpicks.  They nailed a lot of stuff here.  The bow mechanics are great, quest tracking is good, maps are good, skill trees seem manageable, and the game is beautiful visually.

Granted, i just started it, but so far I'm really liking it.

 

 

[Rhom]

21 minutes ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

Same. I figured going in that I could deal with the cutscene issues as long as the core gameplay delivered. Again, it is early, but no complaints thus far in that department.

Perhaps I should take half a...paid vacation day and get some more time in this afternoon?  

I mean sure... if you want to cheat your employer out of their hard earned money, you could take payment for doing nothing like some sort of communist.

[KiDisaster]

24 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I mean sure... if you want to cheat your employer out of their hard earned money, you could take payment for doing nothing like some sort of communist.

Took Thursday and Friday off next week

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Took Thursday and Friday off next week

And as long as you don't expect pay for that, I say enjoy!!!  

[Corvinus85]

44 minutes ago, Rhom said:

And as long as you don't expect pay for that, I say enjoy!!!  

I fully expect pay for my vacation, because...umm, they told me I had that when they hired me.  You're just on overzealous, Scrooge-like taskmaster, Rhom 

[KiDisaster]

Yep, I'll be getting paid to go out of town for a night and play Mass Effect the next day. Best money I've ever made

[Werthead]

This game is really interesting. Wartile is a skirmish-based Viking-esque tactics game influenced by miniatures. Each mission takes place on what is effectively a diorama with you moving miniature-like units around hexes and getting into battles. You level up between missions and can customise your units. The visual style is absolutely fantastic.

It is real-time though, which is weird. The game looks like it really should be turn-based, at least for combat.

[KiDisaster]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

This game is really interesting. Wartile is a skirmish-based Viking-esque tactics game influenced by miniatures. Each mission takes place on what is effectively a diorama with you moving miniature-like units around hexes and getting into battles. You level up between missions and can customise your units. The visual style is absolutely fantastic.

It is real-time though, which is weird. The game looks like it really should be turn-based, at least for combat.

Looks just like Heroscape. Which is really awesome. Or would be if it weren't real time. Shame :\ 

[Jace, Extat]

22 hours ago, Rhom said:

I mean sure... if you want to cheat your employer out of their hard earned money, you could take payment for doing nothing like some sort of communist.

That poor employer, cheated out of his serf's hard earned money.

[Fez]

Had a massive hangover today, so I ended up spending most of it playing more of Mass Effect. I think I've used up 8 of my 10 hours now. My overall impressions are the same as before, but I do have a few new thoughts:

I think one of the issues with the facial animations isn't the faces at all, its the lighting. I've noticed a pattern that almost all the scenes that looked totally fine were in fairly dark environments, and the ones in direct sunlight are the worst looking of all. So I wonder if there's some way to mess with the screen brightness or other graphical settings to fix at least some of the problem.

After spending more time with the alien races, I think the Salarians and Turians look better than ever (especially the Salarians, they look really, really good); the Krogan look about the same as ever; and the Asari look worse. Probably because they have the most human faces. But its not just the animation, something about the Asari design changed this game, and it shows up in the illustrations of Asari in the Codex. Their faces are all a little too round now. 

I've now played the game across three gameplay sessions, and two of the times three when I quit the game, it froze on me and I had to ctrl+alt+del to force quit the game. I'm hoping that's a minor bug that Bioware can quickfix in a patch as soon as they've figured it out.

The menus actually are overly complicated, and I can't get over how terrible the map is.

Scanning planets is also pretty bad. The galaxy map is really pretty, and the scanning itself is pretty quick. The problem is, there's a 20 second screen transition to move between each celestial body in a solar system that I can't imagine is there to hide a loading screen; it just feels like padding. And the game already seems massive; I don't need the tedium of having scanning slowed down to a crawl like that.

Crafting seems okay.

It is disappointing that around 5 hours in (I've spent 2 hours in MP and 1 hour reading the codex and messing around in menus) and I still haven't had a conversation longer than 30 seconds with first two party members you get (they do get some banter on the prologue planet, especially Liam, but that's not the same). And I suspect that's why some people have said they don't care about what's going on in the game. I imagine that changes later; and I've heard third-hand that things pick up a lot on that front once the game transitions from linear to open-world. For now though, seems like a missed opportunity; especially since there are plenty of conversations with secondary and tertiary characters. 

Exploring the Nexus and Hyperion was pretty close to how I felt exploring the Citadel the first time in ME1. It wasn't as large an area (though it was said several times that most of the place wasn't operational yet, so I suspect there will be more areas to see later in the game), but I felt the same sense of discovery; albeit more from conversations than from exploration. This was also when I got my first real side quests, and it was good to see they have a bit of meat on them. I like Kandros a lot and I hope he gets a lot more screen time in the game; something about Turian military officers gets me every time (but never in a romance way, I just always want to be buddies with them).

Finding 

Spoiler

Liara's audio logs

was a really nice touch that I liked a lot.

[KiDisaster]

Finished Horizon today, actually ended up getting the platinum trophy without even realizing it. Apparently I had just done everything there was to do before I beat the game. Total time played clocked in at 50 hours almost on the nose. The last few main story missions are really, really well done and answered pretty much all of the questions I had. Everything that I worried was going to be left unexplained, or that wouldn't make sense, they thought of. Everything builds to a very satisfying conclusion right up to the sequel hook. Apparently they're going to be releasing some story DLC for it as well, looking forward to that. 

---

Played a couple rounds of Andromeda multiplayer mainly cause I wanted to see how the game runs and how combat feels, no complaints in either department. Seems to be a good port and the combat feels pretty much like ME3's did with one massive improvement, the "floatiness" for lack of a better term. ME2's combat has this really satisfying weight and impact to it that just wasn't there in 3. It seems to be back in Andromeda, very happy about that. 

I'm itching to jump into the story mode but I'll at least wait for Monday night. I don't want to burn through the trial this weekend and then have to wait to continue

[Jon AS]

Used up the trial time for Andromeda. I'll definitely be getting the game when it comes out later this week.

There haven't been any absolutely great, memorable moments yet, but I definitely want to learn the full story behind all the hooks the game has thrown out so far.

 

And combat is the best of any ME game so far. There's a place on Eos where you're fighting a big monster and a bunch of goons with guns simultaneously. I played on Insanity (really stupid in retrospect given the time limit) so I died a few times before I got that one right, but the way you can freely maneuver in this game was really on full display here. Between exchanging fire with the bad guys I was jumping over rooftops, charging and dodging like crazy. Good fun.