Mass Effect: Andromeda

[rhoenix]

[youtube][/youtube]

This kind of looks like one of the things I enjoyed the most about the Mass Effect series - between the shooting, storylines, and character moments, there were the times when you really could feel like you were exploring the unknown reaches.

Yes, this game is beating the N7 drum, but that's okay. I know most people will be shouting "Shepard!", and I get why, but on the other hand, Shepard was in the end a martyr. In some conversations with others, I actually likened Shepard to the Operative from Serenity, due to the Operative's line about wanting to create a perfect and peaceful world, despite knowing that he'd have no place in it due to who he is.

Anyway, conjecture and high-minded nonsense aside, this does look interesting as a preview, at least.

[Hotfoot]

I'll care when they have you know, details about the game. We've KNOWN they've been working on something Mass Effect oriented since ME3 came out. I really get tired of gaming companies putting out shit trailers for games we know they've been working on for years that give us absolutely nothing with regards to the story, the features, anything, but we're supposed to get super hyped because they put some nice CGI to some nice music or something.

And Bioware? They've got a lot to do to re-earn the trust of the Mass Effect fans. Inquisition may make up for the terrible Dragon Age 2, but they REALLY fucked up with ME3, to the point where I have to wonder how the heck they plan to do the storyline. All we know is that they intend to go to a new galaxy, which...yeah, I'm not sure how that's going to work out because that sounds like an excuse to bring in a new Reaper threat of some kind, setting aside the worldbuilding they did for three games if not throwing it out almost entirely.

[rhoenix]

I'll care when they have you know, details about the game. We've KNOWN they've been working on something Mass Effect oriented since ME3 came out. I really get tired of gaming companies putting out shit trailers for games we know they've been working on for years that give us absolutely nothing with regards to the story, the features, anything, but we're supposed to get super hyped because they put some nice CGI to some nice music or something.

And Bioware? They've got a lot to do to re-earn the trust of the Mass Effect fans. Inquisition may make up for the terrible Dragon Age 2, but they REALLY fucked up with ME3, to the point where I have to wonder how the heck they plan to do the storyline. All we know is that they intend to go to a new galaxy, which...yeah, I'm not sure how that's going to work out because that sounds like an excuse to bring in a new Reaper threat of some kind, setting aside the worldbuilding they did for three games if not throwing it out almost entirely.

All of that is true - with the lack of information actually released, all we really have is conjecture. And conjecture at this point is not enough for me to get too terribly excited.

However, one of the takeaways for it is that I can look at the trailer here, and see some possibilities for conjecture. All we really can do is see that some of the stuff looks more advanced, more solid than before. Coupled with the fact that this is evidently in another galaxy, and that there were no mass relays shown in the trailer, to me this implies that evidence was found of the Reapers having extragalactic origins, and a ship and crew were put together (with what support structure?) to go scout it out.

With that, I'm just going to wait for more information. It took fan fiction to salvage the Mass Effect universe in my case, as even the Citadel DLC didn't save it for me. I haven't even started the Dragon Age games, despite the many good things I've heard about it from others here and elsewhere, just because I didn't want to be in a position where it took a fan's writing to salvage a story or characters in a game again. Maybe that's aversionary on my part, where I consciously shy away from a new experience due to previous similar experiences - but the writing present, despite the many good character moments, wasn't good enough to carry it all the way through for me.

I know others argue that 95% of the trilogy was good, leaving only 5% that wasn't, and that 95% is pretty damn good. It's a fair argument, but to me, the end of a journey is just as important as the process of walking it. Not more, and not less. If at the end of a long, wearying journey it feels as if the storyteller is just as tired of telling it as the character is of doing it, then it tends to lose some of it's majesty for me.

All that screed aside, I'll still be watching as this develops - after all, it could end up being something cool, just as I'll be getting into the Dragon Age trilogy to experience its storyline.

[Hotfoot]

The original trailer for Mass Effect 1 involved Shepard making a choice to save one of two colonies, something which never actually happened in the final game.

You can't rely on a teaser trailer for anything in a game.

[rhoenix]

The original trailer for Mass Effect 1 involved Shepard making a choice to save one of two colonies, something which never actually happened in the final game.

You can't rely on a teaser trailer for anything in a game.

Also a fair point, and all the more reason to simply wait and see.

[Hotfoot]

Yeah, less than two minutes that does nothing but show up weird alien landscapes, the existence of FTL, and generic Mass Effect combat with no conception of what's at stake does nothing for me. Had they lead with some element of story, gameplay, something to interest me, that would have been something.

As a counterpoint, since it's E3 season and individual threads for each and every game reveal is just going to flood the forum, let me show you a better example of how to handle the next game in a terribly mismanaged series.

[youtube][/youtube]

The previous Ghost Recon by all accounts was pretty bad, and the series is generally considered to have gone downhill in general since the first few iterations (though I rather enjoyed Advanced Warfighter, it wasn't really that great). This one, while still far more over the top action oriented than the series was originally, at least makes an effort to return to more open maps (in this case, an open world) with multiple methods of gameplay (all out assault, long range sniping, stealth attack) with implications of 4 person co-op, globe-trotting mission zones, and a storyline that may or may not suck (it's a Clancy game, they kind of go one way or the other).

While the entire thing was clearly scripted like a cutscene and the graphics could in fact be much worse on final release, it at least is giving us a baseline of what the game should look like, how it should play, and what we can reasonably expect from it. I'll be keeping an eye on it, because this looks like my sort of jam. That said, it's still Ubisoft, it's still a Clancy game, so it's pretty much a crapshoot as to if it's going to be any good or not. Also, no release date yet, but since The Division is scheduled to come out early next year, I'll wager 2017 or so for this one.

Which itself is stupid, given that Fallout 4, XCOM 2, and a slew of other games that just got official announcements are coming out later THIS YEAR, but then Ubisoft is pretty desperate these days anyway, especially after how badly they got slammed last year for Assassin's Creed 2014 and AC2013 2, Previous Console Edition.

[Josh]

I would like to chime in and say that if I had a voice on Mass Effect, I'm right with Tyson in thinking that getting back to the roots of exploration are the direction to go in.

Level design in Mass Effect sucked pretty hard. "Oh gee! Another generic colony base! Oh look! A new configuration on the crates! How exciting!"

Then there was the endless driving of the fucking Mako. Especially on those insanely vertical maps.

But you know what I loved? The first moments of being on the ground with the Mako, when the exploration music was going. I really had this great feeling of being out in the universe, finding shit. Even if every world ultimately was heavily repetitive, the promise of those opening moments was that you were in a new place that no human eyes had ever seen, and you were going to see new shit.

Now... um... if they could actually give us said new shit, that would be awesome. Kind of the feel I get from Planet Explorers, only with the ME style.

Kind of reminds me of Havoc's rant about utopianism. ME with the music and that feel of exploration was the closest I've gotten in a game to that Star Trek feeling of exploring a new frontier. It felt clean and pure, even if there was dire shit going in the background.

I did enjoy Omega and in general appreciated ME2, especially with the elimination of the repetitive "Oh look, a bunch of Geth on a planet" scenes, but I did miss that bright tone. Darkening the series may have been necessary for the story they wanted to tell, but for me it did kill the magic as well.

[Hotfoot]

If you haven't already, you should look up No Man's Sky, which supposedly will be having some sort of big reveal this E3 if it hasn't already.

[Josh]

Hadn't heard about it.

Looks interesting, so long as it doesn't end up a grindfest.

[Hotfoot]

Also this might appeal to you:

SOLUS Project

[Josh]

Yeah, Planet Explorers really whetted my taste for that style of game.

Especially because in PE the first response to everything you encounter is "Can I eat it/cut it down for usable resources?"