Joined: Apr 2004 Posts: 4,465Bib4Tuna
I will take you to Jabba
Bib4Tuna
I will take you to Jabba
Senior Member
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 4,465
NC, USA
Originally Posted by PanzerMeyer
By the way, that statement is not an apology. Bioware is simply acknowledging that the game has some issues and that they will be addressed with future patches.
I had edited my post before you posted.
There was an apology issued, but was for a different issue ( a character that misrepresented a minority group ). I took the original statement from the website's headline.
It was part of the same article where the link for this was posted, but I found that it was not relevant for the discussion here.
Most of that stuff listed in this patch is for the I just want the game to win itself crowd.
I can say this game seems to be pretty damned long if your trying to do everything. Still not finished it and been at the single and a little MP side of it for like 90 hours so far. Its a decent game but it feels a little stale here and there. To much go here and here and here oh and back there too. I was digging the early go explore stuff thing but that got lost real fast for bucket loads of fetch/kill quests. I dislike the ammo everywhere thing. There is little tension for managing ammo fight after fight. The initiative seems to have dumped ammo all over this new galaxy somehow. But the animation compliants are over blown. Ya, they can be a tad stale but its pretty damned well the same as the old mass effect games. So its just more noticeable now than a decade has gone by. Not that its horibad its just not as good as it could be.
I guess my biggest beef the over use of tired old formula of this sort of game. Its pretty much just a crazy amount of little quests and no risks taken on anything new in game play. Its not a bad game but its not a GREAT game either. No amount of patches are going to fix that. Still trying to figure out why on the early planets after killing Kett everywhere and supposedly setting up outposts along with killing local Kett leader they just keep spawning over and over and over again. I think they played it too safe on the game play formula and it really sticks out.
Joined: Apr 2001 Posts: 121,384PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
Miami, FL USA
Originally Posted by FlashBurn
I think they played it too safe on the game play formula and it really sticks out.
I can see that. If you look at the changes made from the original ME game though the second one and the third one, you can CLEARLY see how the game changed from being mostly an RPG with some third person shooter elements to being mostly a third person shooter with some RPG elements thrown in.
Last edited by PanzerMeyer; 04/06/1706:37 PM.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Elder Scrolls and Fallout are also falling prey to that same issue/problem PanzerMeyer I believe. Though I liked Skyrim I loved Oblivion much better. Even with Oblivion people complained at the time that it was less RPG than Morrowind which I do agree with because its true. Skyrim even more so less RPG than its predecessors. Maybe my mood will change but I can't hardly stand Fallout 4. I have 40 hours in and I just can't drum up the desire to continue. Its all more of the same with an ever increasing decrease in RPG mechanics and gameplay. I hate that. Now at least two things I loved that they did with FO4 is the addition of the volumetric lighting the much tighter, first person shooter-like gunplay. In my opinion though, FO4 did not(and to a degree neither did Skyrim at the time)offer much more than some graphical enhancements and some new mechanics such as the improved gunplay. Not only that but they continued this trend of becoming less and RPG and more a shooter with some token, rpg-like features plastered on top. I hate that. In my opinion even though I enjoy them for the most part, I'm finding myself becoming very disappointed in them and this formula they have been getting sucked into. FO4 was/is not a large enough improvement in gameplay or graphics in my opinion. I'm a little concerned that Bethesda is starting to fall into this Call of Duty syndrome where they just keep rehashing more or less the same game with the same damn game engine for a decade with very little improvement and additions in every installment. It doesn't reassure me either about that fear when you see how obvious its becoming that Bethesda now wants to make money off the modding community that has had a celebrated yet separate tradition with their games post release of that game. It bothers me to no end that it seems their efforts are more on ensuring that they get a piece of another pie than focusing on improving themselves and raising their own bar.(like Naughty Dog and Projekt CD Red do) Knowing their previous successes and the whole philosophy of modding being a free and independent thing this just looks selfish and bad. I believe they've come to a crossroads that will either lead to more of the same or hopefully, just hopefully it will lead to them almost rebooting the whole thing in a sense so as to come up with completely new and refined gameplay, a return to an RPG-centric formula first and foremost and a totally new graphics engine.(preferably another in-house design that can be unique to them and their games, easily built upon so that it can be significantly upgraded for a possible set of games over the course of 8 years) The old engine and formulas are tired and long in the tooth and as a long time fan and customer these last iterations and this tendency towards rehashing are not acceptable progress.
I haven't played any, but have watched lets plays of all. ME:A is the least engaging so far, partly because of the buggy and pisspoor animations but mostly because of the saturation of POI with waves and waves of enemies endlessly repeating.
At one point YT dropped my 'recently viewed' list and I couldn't tell until 4 half hour videos in that I had already watched 'some of these already', as it was so samey. (Not to mention the re-hashing of much of the plot/situations from the earlier games but done less well in many cases.
Not to say I haven't been enjoying having it on in the background, but I have not found it a foreground task as I did with earlier iterations or other let's plays of games I both have and have not played myself.
I had two weeks to get into FO4 and it just isn't working for me. Mostly I'll be fine with a visually nice open world shooter to replace it - not expecting another Witcher 3 for now. Haven't had a Scifi game in a long while either. I considered getzing ME3 but it's not holding up visually for me.
After the first few hours of gameplay, I can only say I like it. Maybe my requirements are a bit low, given that I rarely buy a AAA title these days. But visually it's exceptional, the combat is fun, the story and characters are okayish (not Witcher 3 level, but not Far Cry 3 or Fallout 4 level either).
It runs brilliant at ULTRA on my GTX970 and very aging i7-860, so that's impressive too. Maybe it helps that I never played the original three games.
RSColonel, are you getting a fairly smooth 60 fps? I was tempted to think about getting the PS4 version but if the PC version runs fairly well I'd much prefer getting close to 60fps as opposed to what I'm assuming is a locked 30fps on PS4. I realize it may run better on a PS4 pro but I don't have one.(Sony really ticks me off with the whole Pro thing. That hardware should have been in the PS4 day one.) Anyhow Uncharted 4 looks very good and Naughty Dog should be commended for getting that to run at a very consistent and smooth 30fps. I don't think I've ever seen a game that has a smooth looking 30fps like Uncharted 4 especially knowing what their game engine looks like and what its rendering, its pretty amazing. Its not perfect but its heads and tails above and beyond what a new game performed like at 30fps on a Playstation 3.
Because I'm a GFX snob I run the game on Ultra and capped my frames at 30, same as for W3. I believe with High I could get close to 60 on my 1920x1200, so 1920x1080 definitely would give smooth 60.
It is very well optimized for how good it looks and very smooth even at capped 30. I do believe the PC version has more visual detail.
Right now I'm close to 7h in the game, the characters don't have quite the same "lifelikeness" to them as Witcher 3, but they are pretty good, definitely I like it more than Fallout 4 or Mad Max. The main story seems interesting and sets a good background for the kind of gameplay, and for me it does feel a bit like a Star Trek movie where you are the captain. Not sure what people expected, maybe compared with the earlier parts it may be different, but to me it's a good game alright. Only bug I saw this far was an enemy stuck in a leaping animation, only once.
I get why people downrate it compared to W3 and the original ME trilogy. W3 had an amazing "sense of place", in the way the environments, monsters and characters were designed. The writing was great, the animations where great, and it was polished (and Polish) to a high degree.
However... while this isn't as strong here, it's a really decent game. The combat is great fun, the feeling of exploration is very much like a ST:OS episode with a bit of Indiana Jones.
Most reviews I've seen give it about an 8, and that seems pretty correct. I guess for true fans of the original trilogy it's going to fail harder, for people like me who have no previous comparison (besides W3) it's quite satisfying.
Joined: Apr 2001 Posts: 121,384PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
Miami, FL USA
Thanks for that review RSColonel. I'll be buying the game eventually. I just want to wait for more patches first.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Pretty cool video about conversation systems and animations in games, kinda relevant here...
PM, waiting for patches definitly makes sense - for me it's not so much an option given my approach to Origin and Steam titles And at 44EUR I found the price acceptable...
I've still only played ME 1-3 one time each. I figure I'll do another round of all of them before I go to Andromeda.
Before that, though, I have Fallout 4 and Witcher 3 to play. I also have Skyrim SE and KOTOR 1 and 2 (also only played them once each). I thought about replaying Fallout 3 and NV before 4, since I also played them only once, but I demurred.
The Jedi Master
The anteater is wearing the bagel because he's a reindeer princess. -- my 4 yr old daughter
Joined: Apr 2001 Posts: 121,384PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
Miami, FL USA
Originally Posted by RSColonel_131st
If you haven't even started FO4 and TW3, then you're not going to be done with them before summer
LOL Yup. I put in 227 hours into Witcher 3 (plus the two DLC's) and 214 hours into Fallout 4 (plus all of the DLC's).
Last edited by PanzerMeyer; 04/12/1702:29 PM.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
The animations are still apparently a bit wonky in most places, but the recent patch improves those which got most heavily criticised (the my face is tired scene, and the Krogan fight where they fail to connect with each other being two I recognised), and more importantly the exaggerated gurning has been toned down a bit, and the eye shading has been improved substantially...
I'd say there is lots that could be fixed yet, but the some of the worst of the 'in your face' dodgy stuff has been improved with some simple changes.
As I listen to the soundtrack (the bonus files) I realize the game really isn't making good use of it's music. There's some really great score there that might well fit a Star Trek movie, but you hardly hear it while playing.
Did the "Excess Baggage" quest today, and while it's a really small side quest it actually set a wonderful emotional tone for me. The game definitly does have it's moments of great storytelling.