#still struggling with finding the optimal settings and DoF for this game

[qtval]

[undead-potatoes]

Thoughts on ME:A so far

Thought I’d write a short little summary of my thoughts on ME:A after playing the 10 hour demo/trial these past days. I’ve split them up into different categories if you’re just curious about specific things. No story spoilers.

Character creation

First thing’s first: I’m really sad to say that the CC this time around is a bit of a disappointment, having very limited options even compared to previous titles. You get 9 pre-rendered faces to choose from, and then the option to move around on their facial features. No individual options for eye-, eyebrow-, or nose shape, nor any complexion slider. Hair options are about as good as you’ve come to expect from a Bioware game.

It’s still possible to make good looking characters, though it’s much harder to recreate a face from a reference since you’re confined to the presets.

Writing

The story so far is alright, it feels a little rushed at the beginning, which might be especially confusing/frustrating for new players. We didn’t get far enough in to really say anything about the rest, but the whole prospect of the plot still excites me and I’m looking forward to see where it all goes once the game is out for real.

Love the characters so far, especially your Tempest crew and squad mates. They all feel like their own distinct people right off the bat, and there’s a good variety in character types and personalities. All the girls are really cute and I’m gay as hell.

The dialogue can feel very dull and dumbed down at times, characters constantly stating the obvious, or the scene in question just generally being poorly written. I think the new team is still trying to find their voice and feel for the universe, kinda like the original writers in ME1. Fingers crossed they’ll find it over the course of the game.

Graphics

Environments are GORGEOUS so far, and it feels nice to run, drive, and explore around all the different areas they’ve set up for us. I doubt all the other planets will be any less pretty to look at.

And it turns out the reason why Bioware showed off so many scenes with bad facial animation is because it’s quite frankly inescapable. They’re often very over the top and uncanny, and lip sync is completely off in some scenes, though MOST of the time it’s at least passable. The twins are suffering the heaviest of all from this, while other human and asari NPCs get off a little easier. Other alien races seem to have neither of these problems, and look just fine (even salarians who have lips like humans and asari).

Overall graphics look great imo, similar to DA:I but with a lot more blues as opposed to DA:I’s yellows and oranges. It’s overall a very pretty game and I have no issues with it what so ever. (With the exception of the sunlight effects burning my eyes off, but that seems to be happening a lot in this generation of games. Looks real though.)

Krogans look fucking amazing and so realistic this time around, god bless

Tech issues

I’m personally experiencing some trouble with the Debt of Field, where about 10% of the time the game will focus on the background rather than the characters in cutscenes (DA:I had this problem too). And a lot of the DoF blur has this strange pixelation to it, and I’m not really sure what’s going on.

I’ve been struggling with some really annoying texture popping on characters WHILE I speak to them, where the textures will literally pop in and out as the camera is focused on them. Has mostly happened to asari characters like Peebee and Lexi so far.

And like many other on Reddit, I’ve had problems getting the game to run at a steady 60 FPS, possibly due to poor optimization for PC. Even people with 1080s and i7s have been reporting this problem, and so far no-one is really sure what causes it or what settings to tone down on to fix it.

Misc

The Temptest is fucking beautiful and I love so much. Adding huge windows and letting you look outside at whatever planet/station/comet you’ve parked next to is such a cool idea, and having a panoramic view of the stars never gets old. Feels huge compared to the Normandy, despite being smaller.

Your crew constantly walk and move around on the Tempest, and have little chats with each other now and then. It really helps make the ship feel alive and like an actual home where people live.

JETPACK! JETPAAACK!!!!! YESSS!!!!!!!! It’s like jumping, just a thousand times better and so much more fun.

Combat is more fluid than before, and the weapons handle nicely. The jetpack adds a lot more mobility during the fight, and can help you get both a good vantage point, but also pull out of danger real quick if necessary. A little bummed out about the removal of the squad power control, as well as weapon effects functioning as consumables now, but over all it hasn’t affected my combat encounters in any overly negative way so far.

ALL THE ALIENS!! ARE REALLY TALL! FINALLY!

I really like the Nomad, it’s a really big improvement over the Mako (and I’m saying that as someone who LIKED the damn thing).

The menu system is BAD and clunky and cluttered. They’ve made an overly complicated and unresponsive system, and it’s actually one of the most frustrating parts of the game for me (short fuse when it comes to tech that doesn’t work + visual senory overload from an overly cluttered interface). Rumor has it the responsibility for the menu design was handed over to someone else 3 times, so no wonder it’s a bit of a mess.

NO QUICK SAVE. And no saving at all during longer missions >:(

The first time you travel with the galaxy map is gonna be a fun surprise. That’s all I’m gonna say for now ;)

TL;DR: This game has its issues, but so far I’m having a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to the full release so I can really jump into this thing.

If you’re curious about anything I didn’t mention, feel free to ask!