If you thought a fangirl like me would wait to post until then, you were sadly mistaken.
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| It's here! I don't care how many days until I get the full game! |
I'm not totally sure why. Maybe because it's been five years since ME3? Maybe because EA marketed the shit outta this game online, so more people than ever are aware and pre-ordering and paying attention? I'm not sure -- I joined the video game scene long after ME3 had come out and disappointed so many of its fans, and to this day, I'm one of the only people I know who worships the ending of ME3 (it's beautiful and tragic and I love it). And when DAI came out, I was plugged in but not so heavily since I didn't enjoy DA2.
So I've never experienced anything like this.
Nevertheless, let me explain why it doesn't bother me: Andromeda, from what I've seen so far, is good.
I admit, I haven't touched the single player campaign at all. After reading some reviews and learning that it stops the campaign at a crucial moment -- right when it's about to get amazing, from what I understand -- I decided not to spoil it until I can play past it. Good stories take time to get off the ground, something the gaming industry doesn't seem to understand, and I don't want to get bogged down in frustration waiting the extra days until I can continue it.
Plus, I took the 21st off from work specifically to play, so I'll have time.
The single player campaign is also the subject of much scrutiny and derision online. No doubt if you follow pcgamer, IGN, and others, you'll have seen some of the headlines: "Why I Hate ME: Andromeda's Planet Scanning System" comes to mind, as does "The Internet is Brutally Mocking ME: Andromeda's Animations" (these are direct quotes from PC Gamer - not exactly objective reviews).
Some authors seem like they have a bone to pick with the series. The guy who hates the scanning system, for example, is irritated that you can't drive the Nomad up a vertical cliff without shifting into 6-wheel mode, something akin to 4 wheel drive in modern SUVs. This seems a) realistic, to have to change modes for different terrain, and b) incredibly nitpicky. When has the vehicle system in Mass Effect ever been good? The characters even make fun of it in the ME3: Citadel DLC, it's so bad. And really, you can't drive up a vertical cliff? Maybe the game didn't mean for you to go that way.
But rants about video game critics aside (which is an essay unto itself), there do seem to be some actual issues with animation, including poorly animated faces and bugs with character movement. They are things that might drive away critics, and perhaps even some incoming fans, but to me, it's not that bad. No faces I've seen are missing half their skin a la Assassin's Creed Unity, nor so badly rendered that they are collapsing into piles of skin and clothing, or falling through the floors at random.
Instead, you get moments like this:
Frankly, this is hilarious. I've been walking around my basement like this for two days, it amuses me so much. So does this:
This is like they made a ballerina into a colonist! It's awesome! I get that that's probably not what the programmers were going for, but I love it anyway.
Some errors I frankly wonder how people missed in previous games, like this one of poor Cora...
... which gets compared to a gorilla walking away. Okay, yes, this is hilarious too. But it's not new! The female Inquisitor in DAI walks just like that all the time, stomping all over Skyhold like a water buffalo. I can't imagine being so annoyed over it that I wouldn't play, or that I'd cancel my pre-order, or anything else.
And Sara Ryder's giant toothy smile is just adorable, let's be honest.
I realize that I haven't played the campaign yet, so maybe this is more intrusive than I think. But if there's a good story, and if the characters are as developed and interesting as always, and I can crush the ever-living shit out of whatever enemies stand in my way, I don't foresee any real issues. I'm not playing for the animation, after all.
Once you get over the animation, the reports of cheesy dialogue are, frankly, a non-issue. The Mass Effect stories have always been incredibly well-written: They are massive and far-reaching, have great continuity, and clearly the writers devote hours into putting all those puzzle pieces together.
But the dialogue has never been Shakespeare.
I spent hours in-game searching for great quotes from Shepard a few years back, when I got my Mass Effect tattoo. I'm covered in quotes from books, movies, philosophers, etc, and I thought Shepard might have something profound to add to this. Nope. I ended up with an N7 tattoo I adore, and that fits the spirit of the series, far better than "I should go" ever could.
Nor, frankly, was the animation ever that amazing. One walk into the battery to talk to Garrus, only to have him turn his head around Exorcist-style just to say "Can it wait for a bit? I'm in the middle of the calibrations?" was enough to know that.
Don't believe me? Just watch Shepard dance:
So I'm not passing judgment based on some animation issues. I want the GAME, not some critic's issues with it.
Nor have I maxed out my 10 hours on multiplayer, but I'm getting close. And that... whew. That might be worth the money in and of itself -- it's awe-inspiring. It's fast-paced and brutal, full of challenges and new enemies, and some stunning new combat effects that frankly, I am having a ton of fun playing. Every time I jet-pack over some destructive enemy, only to drop a biotic punch on them that reverberates through the field, I absolutely adore it.
I've seen criticism here too, and again, I'm not sure what people were truly expecting. It's often the same set-up as the ME3 multiplayer: cooperative teams fighting waves of enemies, each wave tougher than the last. There are a mix of hacking, disruption, and survival goals, and as before, having a mix of races and classes offers you the best chance for success.
Bioware has also eliminated the part that made ME3's multiplayer so irritating: It is no longer mandatory, and instead a way to earn additional points, tech, and rewards should you be so inclined.
Then again, I don't play FPS online games like CoD or Battlefield or anything else. FPSs make me motion sick, so there's that, but I also don't like the attitude of noobs vs. people with too much time on their hands vs. casual gamers; I prefer the cooperative aspect in ME where I don't have to be the best to enjoy myself. This gives me the chance to play with others, to explore incredible combat styles, and still have fun. To me, that's the best of all worlds.
Sure, there are opportunities for microtransactions, and the multiplayer menus aren't the easiest to navigate, and of course, playing the maps without knowing anything about the enemies you're fighting from in-game experience makes things difficult. But no game, no matter the time investment of the developers or its fans, is without flaws. I don't expect it to be.
It helps that it's fabulously fun to play. When I can do THIS...
... and take some enemy out, I don't really care if there are micro-transactions or difficulties muting other players. I just wanna crush a bitch and get up for the next wave.
Get ready: Only 3 days until we hit Andromeda.
