Mass Effect Andromeda early impressions and facts

Moriendor said:
Hmmm… that limitation must be US only(?)
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I'm not sure if it's US only, but it's definitely no longer available here.

Hello everyone,

Jump straight into The Vault with a 7 day free trial for Origin Access! The trial is available for a limited time only, so be sure to grab it while you can.

How does it work?
Your first 7 days are FREE if you sign up for Origin Access before March 7! After your trial ends you'll be charged monthly or yearly, depending on the plan you choose. Cancel anytime during your 7-day free trial and you won't be charged.

Where do I start my trial?
Full information about Origin Access and starting your trial can be found on the Origin website:

https://www.origin.com/store/origin-access

We hope that you will enjoy Origin Access. And if you have any further questions, then we will be more than happy to answer them on the Origin Access forum.
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Link - http://www.answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Origin-Access-7-Day-Free-Trial/m-p/5882325
 
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Moriendor said:
There is a 7 day free trial of EA Access
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Not worldwide. One can use VPN though. Usually I'd say don't "cheat". In this case I won't say it as it's plain discrimination. Aren't all customers equal? No, based on geolocation some have free EA access, some can screw themselves. Well, screw you EA.
So pick some free or cheap VPN, set the location on Germany, UK or wherever it's offered a feebie week and do test the game.

You're lawful evil like me? Ok then. Buy 4€ EA access month but then take an oath and keep your word you'll never ever buy some EA's horse armor DLC.
It's good for your health. And pocket - my wallet is the best example, instead of buying crap DLC I back (crap?) KS projects. ;)

luj1 said:
Well firstly, I must say I appreciate the research you've zealously put into this Joxer. This carcass of a franchise didn't deserve it, but sometimes fanboys come in very handy.

In any case, this game seems like a piece of shit. (not interested in graphics)
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I'm #1 fan of the ME trilogy.
But I'm not buying games blindly, especially when they come from an "offender" - DA2 was mediocre product that sold only thanks to mainstream silly reviewers, DA3 had one of the worst trashmobrespawning mechanics I've seen in my life. ME3 was insulting to anyone who didn't want to play it's bundled MMO while critical to story/lore sidekick was behind a paywall on the release.

While I did preorder The Art of ME4 on Amazon instantly, there was no way I'd buy the game before I've checked everything about it. Yea, pic or didn't happen, sure:

pic.jpg


What surprised me was bombardment from Bioware over social networks and whatever other media about stuff that pretty much didn't interest me at all.
Not a single thing I was worried about was detailed, possibly because some PR decisions but still, I can't understand why being so shady.
So I had to read, watch, research, hell even "play" the silly phonegame due to lack of info.

After I got my answers, some with own calculations and conclusions sadly because noone seemed to care and Bioware deliberately killed BSN so I couldn't ask devs directly, I've preordered the game.

Today reviews are being published. Those same reviews speak of horrible animations. UI, AI, planetscanning, etc. All of them.
Find me one. Just one, please. That says hair in the game is atrocious. And it is, in fact it's IMO not acceptable in AAA title from year 2017. but either all those reviewers are blind or they never played TW3 or RotTR. Probably it's both.
Well I'm not cancelling my preorder.

Voqar said:
I'm doing the trial now and in just the first hour and I'm already disappointed by numerous things. I want to like this game but man.
…
No numeric hotkeys for dialogs means you always have to click on them, which to me is annoying. Minor but I'd imagine with a controller you get button mash options.
….
No quick save and apparently no saves during main missions is beyond belief in 2017 in a semi-RPG.

UI is typical console crap.
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Voqar said:
Yeah, this game isn't for me. I'm glad I did the trial even if I only needed 3 of the 10 hours to decide to uninstall.
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You earned respect from me. You know what you want. It's not there so they can shove off with their "precious" title.
Sadly, Origin doesn't have thumb up/down system like Steam. On the other hand you won't get trolled by zealots like me for thumbing down ports that don't care about PC audience.
 
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So joxer, did I read correctly and you pre-ordered MEA despite the godawful hair textures?

Well, I probably have nothing to say about that, I pre-ordered because the combat looked awesome and I could try to park the Nomad on the Tempest (it can be done I saw gifs!).
 
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Yes I did, I already knew Frostbite can't render decent hair but was hoping they've maybe changed that (they didn't). But it's not the only thing that matters to me when it comes to games and besides there were more pressing matters (grind, MMO integration, possible DLC key content scam, etc).

On combat and Mako I have to agree. Combat to me seems finally challenging - except horrible companions AI but then again, did we ever care about sidekicks AI in the original trilogy? ;) And I know Mako was frustrating experience to many, but I wrote plenty of times that bounce around Mako was superfun to me.

Anyway, I'll try MMO part definetly, maybe it's fun. If you'll try it too, count me in. Unless it ain't fun, but somehow I feel it'll be. I hated ME3 MMO, it was too easy (read: boring).
 
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I went into ME3 mp like once. I'm not really into "co-op battle arena". Might change for MEA if the gameplay is really fun.

Anyway, just a few more hours until I get back from work and start that VPN to try to get into MEA early.
 
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joxer said:
Yes I did, I already knew Frostbite can't render decent hair but was hoping they've maybe changed that (they didn't). But it's not the only thing that matters to me when it comes to games and besides there were more pressing matters (grind, MMO integration, possible DLC key content scam, etc).

On combat and Mako I have to agree. Combat to me seems finally challenging - except horrible companions AI but then again, did we ever care about sidekicks AI in the original trilogy? ;) And I know Mako was frustrating experience to many, but I wrote plenty of times that bounce around Mako was superfun to me.

Anyway, I'll try MMO part definetly, maybe it's fun. If you'll try it too, count me in. Unless it ain't fun, but somehow I feel it'll be. I hated ME3 MMO, it was too easy (read: boring).
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But it's not an MMO...ahh, fuck it. :p
 
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Ok, I played 3 hours (made it to the Nexus and talked to a bunch of people and gathered quests) and now I'm wondering what the hell some of the reviewers have been smoking.

The only glitches I saw is one dude sliding on the floor for not even 1 seconds to correct his position. The dialogues all sounded fine to me in context they were presented in. I also find the animations fine (i.e. normal BioWare level) to great. In fact, the animation do try to convey a lot more here, I suspect many people are clueless that humans avoid looking in other people eyes when they feel ashamed or are trying to think about what to say (I got cases of both of these) and I saw that because I was looking for weird ass eye stuff everyone was complaining about.

Also, the gifs people have been laughing at, they are below High quality settings or streaming quality destroy the graphic quality or an AMD RX 480 is just better at rendering the game than Nvidia. Humans face in cutscenes looks might fine on my PC on High (texture is on Ultra).

Gameplay wise, new combat needs to get used too, especially when I keep using space to get in cover like if I was in ME2/ME3 and that's make me jump instead. I really love the new cover system (once I got used to it) and sniper + hover is freaking awesome. Not being able to save wasn't that much of an issue in the first mission, I died 3 times and checkpoints were all near where I died (you can save where ever you wants once on the Nexus). As for the UI, yeah there is a lots of layers, I don't find it annoying personally (and I though I would, but stuff is clearly categorized using that system). I like the scanning, Ryder doesn't walk as slow as my impression was from people complaining about it.

Some stuttering in cutscene on my FX-8350, I'm not surprised I got that in DAI too. Normal gameplay is smooth as a baby though. I didn't check FPS.

After 3 hours, I barely started the plot, but I'm currently liking this a lot.
 
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I hate this Tuesday there and Thursday here crap, and I'm not using a VPN just to unlock it.
 
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JDR13 said:
Well I doubt anyone here expected you to say otherwise. ;)
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No, but almost everyone here just plain hate BioWare since EA bought them and didn't let them play their Warden again in DA2 and just love looking at everything they do with confirmation bias for their hatred.

I spent 10 minutes talking to Addison, the poster girls for MEA bad animations and she doesn't have crazy eyes or janky animations in my game (on PC) like she does on the gifs all around the internet. And her "My face is tired because…" is actually a disguised "fuck off, go bug someone else" (she's an ass).
 
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How are you finding the writing, Azarhal? For me the most worrying criticism has been reviewers saying it bland and cliched, and how the "pathfinder" chosen one thing feels crowbarred in.
 
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azarhal said:
No, but almost everyone here just plain hate BioWare since EA bought them and didn't let them play their Warden again in DA2 and just love looking at everything they do with confirmation bias for their hatred.
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Spoken like a true fanboy. :thumbsup:
 
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azarhal said:
Ok, I played 3 hours (made it to the Nexus and talked to a bunch of people and gathered quests) and now I'm wondering what the hell some of the reviewers have been smoking.

... snip .
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Thanks for providing an alternative view. I was beginning to wonder and all the negative view points were making me think I shouldn't bother. Not that I plan on rushing out to get it either but good to know its not all bad and there are some favorable impressions as well.
 
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Pongo said:
How are you finding the writing, Azarhal? For me the most worrying criticism has been reviewers saying it bland and cliched, and how the "pathfinder" chosen one thing feels crowbarred in.
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I'm only 3 hours in and I was just dumped the duty of pathfinder on my ass by circumstances. Cliched? Sorta I guess. Crowbarred? You weren't given a choice, but this isn't DAI where a nobody is giving control of the Inquisition on an act of faith or DAO where you are the only one left standing and Alistair doesn't want the job. You were promoted to the job, I'm still missing information about that though.

The "you are the most awesome and will save us all" present in BioWare games haven't appeared yet. I don't feel like a chosen one so far, more like a cheap replacement. That has time to change though. In fact, most people seems to think I'm going to fail right now, but hope that I will succeed.

On the plot side, we just arrived in Andromeda, got a bad first day and the rest of the AI project is a shit show. It's a lot less bombastic then previous BioWare games so far: instead of a secret mission with a planet invasion (ME1), you start with a shuttle accident… Maybe that's what people refer to as "bland"? The tone is clearly on science and exploration aka discovering a new world(s) and not war and imminent destruction. It feels more hard scifi than previous ME games too.

That of course doesn't mean it can't lose the plot/writing eventually.

No much comment about squadmates because I only have Cora and Liam and we haven't had the time to wind down yet for casual chatting.
 
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azarhal said:
I'm only 3 hours in and I was just dumped the duty of pathfinder on my ass by circumstances. Cliched? Sorta I guess. Crowbarred? You weren't given a choice, but this isn't DAI where a nobody is giving control of the Inquisition on an act of faith or DAO where you are the only one left standing and Alistair doesn't want the job. You were promoted to the job, I'm still missing information about that though.

The "you are the most awesome and will save us all" present in BioWare games haven't appeared yet. I don't feel like a chosen one so far, more like a cheap replacement. That has time to change though. In fact, most people seems to think I'm going to fail right now, but hope that I will succeed.

On the plot side, we just arrived in Andromeda, got a bad first day and the rest of the AI project is a shit show. It's a lot less bombastic then previous BioWare games so far: instead of a secret mission with a planet invasion (ME1), you start with a shuttle accident… Maybe that's what people refer to as "bland"? The tone is clearly on science and exploration aka discovering a new world(s) and not war and imminent destruction. It feels more hard scifi than previous ME games too.

That of course doesn't mean it can't lose the plot/writing eventually.

No much comment about squadmates because I only have Cora and Liam and we haven't had the time to wind down yet for casual chatting.
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I am interested to know if this game has lot of busy work like DAI. From what I have read it does but I am hoping otherwise! And if you can skip those easily and just do the main quest and get the best out of it. I know its too early to say that now but may be you can shed some light later on when had few more hours under your belt :)
 
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