Just preordered Mass Effect Andromeda.

originally posted by: SpeakerofTruth
a reply to: tothetenthpower

See, I never had, unfortunately, any of the dlc from the previous Mass Effects, so, I can't speak to when dlc dropped for previous Mass Effects. I know it was a while before any DLC for Mass Effect 3 was released.

Of course, I don't consider skins and such as dlc... If it doesn't add missions and story content, it's not dlc to me. I know, that's kind of a weird view, but that's how I look at it.

ME DLCs are often fantastic, and some are arguably part of the main game that shouldn't have been omitted.

the day 1 dlc means also that they spent production time for the main game for a cash grab..thats never good.

From Ashes DLC from 3 should have been part of the game. Its a bloody prothean companion already and it really fills out the missing info.

The Citadel is pretty much my favorite fan service DLC from all the games. I think that would have been nice if they just gifted people that DLC when they screwed up the ending simply for appreciation, but whatever..worth the buy either way. a proper send off to the team..best to do that mission right at the very end

originally posted by: SpeakerofTruth
a reply to: SaturnFX

Actually, EA wanted the game to be released way before now. Like about a year ago earlier. Bioware told them absolutely not.

and Bio-M still couldn't get their s--t together to do a good job in polishing. I hope Montreal doesn't touch the franchise again and Edmonton regains control (assuming direct control!). I dont want this franchise to crash and burn. after 2 was released, I was touting that ME franchise is todays Star Trek / Wars.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Problem with Witcher 3 is that I just can't get into it. I've tried getting into Witcher games, and I don't get invested in them.

I am shuddering to think about what I am going to experience on Tuesday when I crack this thing open.

I did like DA:I. I just felt like they wasted an awful lot of space that they could have used on their storyline and/or their characters rather than just filling it up with fetches and collections. Trying to space the regions out so that I don't simply blast through the story and end up completely ignoring two of them means a long, dark dry spell somewhere between the palace assassination and the Grey Wardens and running the final gaunlet. And I spend that slogging through two or three regions just to not ignore them.

I was hoping that the DLC would add stories into those areas that would fill out the main story sort of like the ME:3 DLC did, but nope ... they added entire new regions I have no interest in slogging through whatsoever.

And now, I find out that I'm unlikely to even be able to make an attractive face for myself in Andromeda makes me sad. Men aren't the only ones who like running around looking halfway decent while they do it. Some of us ladies can be vain too. I can look average and blah in reality, so why pick up a video game where someone imposes that on me for my game protagonist just to prove they didn't objectify women?

originally posted by: Shamrock6
a reply to: SpeakerofTruth

That's what it boils down to. Don't expect the second coming of Christ and you'll be fine. Yes, some of the animations are off. Yes some of the lines are cheesy and the voice acting isn't always mind blowing.

Yet for all that I still enjoyed every minute I had in the early access.

I've heard the combat is quite fun, and that's pretty universal, so I don't expect a total loss.

But I'm just afraid that it won't be as engaging as I like and that I won't care as much about the characters.

I don't like one of the male characters in the game. He looks like he is from the 1960's.

a reply to: SaturnFX

I agree. Mass Effect is a great franchise and I sincerely hope, and frankly expect, Andromeda is decent. I want this franchise to continue.

I think the bottom line is we'll have a more developed opinion of the game in a week or so. A large problem with gaming community now is we're told how to feel about a game months before it even releases.

I miss the old days when games were a surprise. Nowadays, you can know what a game is before they're even done being developed. It takes a lot of the fun out of them frankly.

a reply to: SpeakerofTruth

I don't know. The pre-release buzz from the ground on ME3 was pretty spot on - good game, epic even, but the ending spoiled all that good will.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

I agree, except I thought that the dead space series was amazing.

a reply to: ketsuko

It seems you and I have had similar experiences with the Witcher series. I'm sure somewhere the universe has torn a little.

I enjoyed the combat but I'm a terrible judge of it. I put the difficulty in low so I can engage the story more. Unfortunately I don't think 10 hours is enough time to really delve into characters much, as I spent a buttload of time just running around.

Clancy Brown is absolutely amazing in his voice acting work, though. I won't give much away, but I've always enjoyed his voice work and in this context it's just...yea.

a reply to: Shamrock6 I can tell you now, if you only put ten hours into Witcher 3, you hadn't even got into the meat of the story yet. The game, at least the first 6-8 hours is rather slow. That's the case with any Witcher game, but particularly true with Witcher 3.

Some people just didn't have the time to invest in the game to really develop an accurate opinion of it. I have yet to meet or hear many who played the game all the way through who didn't like it. Most of its detractors only put 5-8 hours into it, and frankly, that's not even 1/10th of the way through the story.

a reply to: SpeakerofTruth

Here's what I suspect is the issue with Witcher 3 for me:

I have to have a reason to want to care enough about a game to slog on. If you are making the game to hook me, there are one of two ways: either give me a protagonist I care about enough to slog on or hook me with the story. I Witcher's case I really don't care all that much about Geralt. He's male and I'm not personally invested in male protagonists to any great degree. So that leaves story, and if it takes over 10 hours for the story to unfold in a manner that is going to hook me ... then you've likely already lost me.

By then, the game is an unfun chore since I always found Witcher's combat awkward at best. Had I gotten hooked enough to play on, I likely would have gotten a lot better at it, but between realizing that I really didn't care enough to want to plow on through the frustration of the combat system I was unfamiliar with a just not caring about either story or character up to that point ... I lost interest.

Because everyone always raves about the games, I keep going back, especially as I own 2 and feel like ought to get my money out of it ... but I just can't get into it enough to go very far.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: SpeakerofTruth

I don't know. The pre-release buzz from the ground on ME3 was pretty spot on - good game, epic even, but the ending spoiled all that good will.

Honestly, I never understood the uproar over the ending of Mass Effect 3. The beginning of Mass Effect 2 made it clear that Shepard's journey wasn't going to end "happily." It seems that is what some were expecting.

a reply to: SpeakerofTruth

It's one thing to have your protagonist die. It's another thing to feel like you were railroaded into it and that no matter which ending you chose, you were mostly forced to commit genocide in one way or another. Even sythesis, which is the supposedly "happy" ending, is galaxy wide genocide because you wipe out every single living thing at the genetic level to create all new organisms. Whatever they were before, they are something else entirely after you do that, and they don't get a choice. Let's just call it gene rape and be done.

And then the literal deus ex machina shows up with circular logic and you have to bow to your enemy who was never and always your enemy and had stupid, convoluted galaxy conquering plans if he's been there in the citadel the entire time. Organics and sythetics can't get along?! Then what was all that about me making peace between the Quarians and Geth?

I don't have time to go into it, but that whole ending sequence was wildly improbable and made absolutely no sense at all when tacked on to the story up to that point.

So, it's not the idea of heroic sacrifice I mind. it's the idea of railroaded heroic sacrifice in the vision of stupid and horribly tacked on ending that makes no sense thematically with the other games in the series and then a dev team who backpedals by calling it "art" that I mind.

a reply to: ketsuko

Well, I beat all three games multiple times, as in 4 or 5 times a piece, and the ending made perfect sense to me.

The argument of the reapers was rather simple really. Organic life could only evolve so far until it eventually would create something that would be responsible for exterminating all organic life in the galaxy. Basically, they had the view that organic life was its own worst enemy. In order to avoid that, organic life had to be diminished to the point of basically starting over.

I enjoyed the 10 hour trial for Mass Effect: Andromeda.

I won't lie, it could benefit a good polish from a patch, most notably Xbox One.

However, it bothers me none as Mass Effect: Andromeda will be getting treatment for the Xbox Project Scorpio when it releases later in the year. That being said, I may just wait until then.

In my opinion, the Mass Effect series is beautiful. It should resonate with all ATS members. In a nut shell, highly advance races seem to go extinct at around various periods of times. The race that humans learned their technology from also had discovered their technology from another highly advanced race. Turns out, that a cyclic event of purging happens to highly advanced races once they reach maturity. The Reapers are super advance and destroy all and are the reason for the cyclic destruction cycles.
The new Andromeda is set 600 years into the future. You awake to find that the golden worlds examined have all been a bust. Apparently, many of the Arks from the Milky Way have lost contact, with the Human Ark making it to its destination.

a reply to: ketsuko

In the end of ME 3 i wiped out all of the reapers by sacrificing myself...didnt know about the ending you mention??

a reply to: SpeakerofTruth

Oh, I got that part of their argument. Except, if you save the Quarians and the Geth, then you demonstrate that it's not always a either/or proposition.

And effectively, the Reapers had become their own self-fulfilling prophecy.

Not to mention, because the "star child" is the lord of the Reapers, you have no reason at all to trust a thing he says. He gives you no reason to trust him. He has been your enemy throughout the entire series working against you.

a reply to: Arnie123

I suspect it's going to do well and most likely will be a game of the year contender. We'll see. I know it's way too early to start making predictions, but I'd be highly surprised if Mass Effect and Horizon aren't candidates for game of the year. I am sure there will be 4 or 5 others, but I certainly expect those two games to be among them.

a reply to: CreationBro

Yeah, you could do a "synthesis" where you basically become "Lord of the reapers" and order them to "back off."