Mass Effect: Andromeda Review • Digital Fiasco

The Mass Effect trilogy holds a special place in many gamers’ hearts, with its rich backstory, character development, and epic scale. Seeking to sidestep the consequences (and the controversy) of the Mass Effect 3 ending, Mass Effect: Andromeda literally uproots the action and moves it to another galaxy, while simultaneously leaning heavily on the player’s nostalgia for the series.

[OB1Biker]

From the review:
'Right up front, I want to say that I was a huge fan of the original Mass Effect trilogy, and as a result was fully expecting not to enjoy Andromeda at all.'
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https://media1.giphy.com/me...

Thanks for at least admitting you were biased before and also paid attention to other reviews and therefore under their influence:

'Have been judged so harshly'

At least the writer seems to have enjoyed it so there's that.
I just wish reviewers would go into a game completely open minded and IGNORE what others think or whatever fuss there may be on the internet. I ve had this feeling for a while that reviewer's position their review vs other reviews and what they expect people want to see.

[LordMaim]

There's a lot of inaccurate assumptions you just made, so let's step in here one at a time.

I purchased the game well before any reviews were out, so I was under the influence of no reviews at all, and have not been influenced by them. I was not expecting to like the game because of Bioware's soft reboot of the universe, and their cop-out on reconciling the ending(s) of Mass Effect 3 and all of the controversy that came with them.

re: Judging harshly, my point was that if this were a stand alone sci-fi game, a brand new IP that you'd never heard of before and not drawing the immediate comparison to Mass Effect, that this game would be lauded as a fantastic achievement. It's only through the context of our experience with the original trilogy that this game is measured and found wanting. That skewing of perception makes some people disappointed in a game that is still very good, just perhaps not as good as Mass Effect has been in the past when viewed as a whole.

So again, none of my review has been influenced by other's opinions. Its impossible to ignore the backlash on the internet, but I wasn't influenced by it. I streamed my first four days of the game last week and you can listen to my running commentary as the review was written if you'd like to delve into how that process works.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I base my review on my own judgements of my experience with the game and not other people's expectations or other site's reviews. That ME:Andromeda worked out to be better than I expected was a surprise, but the only reason it did was due to its own merits. Thanks for reading though.

[OB1Biker]

That's good to hear man. Hey I respect what your doing. Most of your final word' explain how you were biased before playing it. Maybe you don't like the word biased idk.
'found myself liking the game in spite of myself' I m not inventing anything.
You say that's the problem in a nutshell. Problem is many actually didn't play the previous ME or don't care to compare it the the old games or see it as a new start.

'strongly doubt that it would have been judged so harshly.'
What I meant is you do mention others point of views and I saw that in many reciew s that they mentioned the internet gifs and so on. I honestly think that extra references should not be in the review per se since they do distract from your own. If your review is done independently from others then it shouldn't refer to them.

[LordMaim]

Biased yes, but not by other people's opinions. Just my own expectations. The game won me over though, for the most part. From a strictly non-scientific standpoint, I imagine the number of people who's first Mass Effect game was Andromeda is comparatively small. It is certainly positioned as a soft reboot, which is part of my issue with the game, but as a standalone title it does its job relatively well (despite sanitizing some of the history of the Salarian/Krogan/Rachni issues, and downplaying the First Contact War with the Turian in the embassy, but that's politics I guess.)

Again, there have been a lot of articles, twitter posts, random complaints that have nothing do to with reviews. I can see your point of view, but I think it would be disingenuous to write a review with a decently positive score without at least acknowledging the public reaction to some of the more obvious issues with the game. If nothing else, to give context to the score awarded being seen as given "in spite of those issues", rather than "ignoring those issues." Your mileage may vary, but that's my perspective.

[OB1Biker]

'acknowledging the public reaction to some of the more obvious issues with the game. '
That's where I totally disagree and I've seen your point of view in a few reviews.
Its a bit like you were reviewing a game before its released but used a time machine to see how people react and write your review accordingly. Some molehill issues become mountain issues on the internet and not every game is equal in that way. I don't understand how in all honesty any other factor than your own open minded and personal feeling could be present in a review. That should be in comments after people react to your review. Not the other way round.
OK I don't want to waste your time either and you've been cool enough to reply to my comments. Thanks for that. I do have a lot to find fault with the way reviews are made nowadays so that s nothing personal, namely I don't think scores are relevant anymore or reviewers should be more open than their own tastes and instead of pushing an opinion they should try to HELP the readers to figure out if they will enjoy a game since everyone is different etc
Thanks anyway

[LordMaim]

Hey, OB1Biker. No problem, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean. People have been reacting to issues with the game well before release. I think in some cases they are making mountains out of molehills, but there are certainly some issues with the animation that are distracting. The bigger issue for me is the sheer number of issues I had with quests being broken and/or triggering objectives out of order.

Anyhow, my point is if I gave a review of X value, and didn't acknowledge the problems that I (and others) have had with the game, there would be some who either think I was glossing over the problems due to bias or perhaps were shilling for Bioware or had some kind of conflict of interest. I think it was more important to acknowledge that I understand the issues that are common with the game and in spite of those I gave the game score X anyhow.

I guess the long and the short of it is that any course of action would probably draw some criticism, so I erred on the side of openness. If you think that's not the way it should be handled, I get it. But hopefully you at least understand why it was presented how it was. In any case, thanks for the feedback.

[migrateddoor]

I love it so far.... I don't care about the "OMG the animations are horrible fiasco" if people are hating it cuz of this than they don't need to be "watching" games they should be playing it.. It has all the flair of a mass effect game and I love it.

[LordMaim]

I agree, but at times in the early hours it can be really distracting. Looks like as of Thursday it won't matter though, as hopefully Addison will have less puckered lips and glassy eyes. She really is hard to look at now.

[chris235]

i don't care about animations or other design flaws. what breaks the deal for me is that is a 4th part of something. i have never ever played a 4th part of something that was worth my time and money. andromeda is an extremely subpar product tricking gamers into buying by applying a mass effect logo. no one should support such a low approach. even those who claim "this is the bestest game evah". the disqualification of these buyers is beyond words.

[Jmanzare]

But did you play it? Or you're not playing the game because the number 4 is on the box

[OB1Biker]

That doesn't make any sense

[LordMaim]

Metal Gear Solid 4, Final Fantasy IV, Uncharted 4, Front Mission 4, Ace Combat 4, off the top of my head. I'm sure that there's more that people could come up with.