Mass Effect: Andromeda

[Rawls]

https://www.vg247.com/2016/09/09/after-that-ps4-pro-demo-we-want-to-see-mass-effect-andromeda-more-than-ever/

I thought this was a good article. It addresses some of my largest concerns.

 

[Cheylus]

http://www.gamesradar.com/mass-effect-andromedas-malefemale-heroes-are-brother-and-sister-and-dads-around-too/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=grtw

If we can play alternatively every member of the family, that's interesting.

If the father is once again defined to "become the bad guy in the long run", or if he's intended to "die like all father figures" in video games, then no.
If the father is once again defined by having a "conflicted relationship with his son", then no. Sorry, too much Batman:AK, MGSV, Fallout 4...
If the father is once again defined by having a "good relationship with a beloving daughter", then no. Sorry, too much The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, TW3,...

Hit or miss!

 

[Pug.]

If the father is once again defined by having a "good relationship with a beloving daughter", then no. Sorry, too much The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, TW3,...

Did you even play Bioshock Infinite? "Good" and "beloved" are the last adjectives which spring to mind when I think of daddy/daughter relationships in that game. "Exploitive," "abusive," "dysfunctional," and "destructive" are probably more accurate.

 

[Cheylus]

During 90% of the game, you're playing the good daddy/daughter let's all care of each other thing. In fact Infinite is even worse, since this is a game about an infinity of father and daughters story.

I already wrote this countless times so sorry to the people who are used to my rambling about it.

My point is video games writers nowadays use father/daughter/son relationships too much, especially in "big" titles since the first season of TWD (2012). This (now) poor writing device is critically acclaimed at every occurrence, makes gamers feel like grown-ups for once (most of the time, you play the "father") and create cheap sentimental moments. Of course you can tweak it at will, you can also make inception-like wonders with a father/daughter story inside another father/daughter story, like what TW3 did with the (otherwise excellent) Bloody Baron quest, or indulge yourself in making an infinity of it, like Infinite did.

It's far from over: you will play the old games protagonist's son in the next Gears of War, in Dishonored 2 and The Walking Dead season 3 you will play the prototype of a girl who is becoming a woman because of the influence of her "father", God of War 4 looks like another father and son story, and now ME:A has caught the father plague. ME2 had already half of the companions having heavy father issues (Miranda, Jacob, Samara, Tali, Thane) and "father issue" quests associated with that.

 

[Rawls]

the prototype of a girl who is becoming a woman because of the influence of her "father",

But shouldn't every character be influenced by there parent (or the lack there of) to some extent? A character's history should have an impact on how the character responds to situations. I don't mind the focus on family centered games because there are a lot of emotional connections between the characters that players can relate to, and that can be very powerful if they are handled correctly. A lot of the games you've mentioned in the last few posts are ones that I really have liked in the last five years.

I don't see a huge problem with it as far as the story goes. The game appears to be about colonization and exploration. Wanting to build something for or protect your family seems like a natural emotional hook into a exploration / colonization story. Also I would point out that as far as I have read the protagonist is either the male or female child, and the other sibling is out there in the world. The dad in E3 2015 has been confirmed to be in at least part of the game, but I'm not sure how significant of a role he will have. The most specific quote from thus far have been:

“At E3 we got to see the female Ryder character, and now we’re seeing the male Ryder character. What a lot of people don’t know – a little surprise here – is that these 2 are brother and sister and they both exist in the game world at the same time. And so if you’re playing as the sister Ryder, the female Ryder, your brother is somewhere in the universe. Another fun little tid-bit is the character we saw 2 E3’s ago, the N7 is actually their father. So we’ve got the full Ryder family sort of now revealed.”

- Aaron Flynn

But bioware already confirmed the dad will not be one of the main playable characters back after E3 2015:

You will play a human, male or female, though that’s actually not the character you saw in the trailer (more on that later).

http://blog.bioware.com/2015/06/15/introducing-mass-effect-andromeda/

So during the main game, both siblings are confirmed to be "in the universe" at the same time. However, the father is not yet to my knowledge. Maybe the prologue will be through his eyes and he dies. Maybe he is a central character and in the squad. We just don't know yet. Regardless of how it plays out, a story revolving around the bond or conflict of siblings does seem interesting to me, and it hasn't been a huge focus of many of the games I have played in the last few years. Uncharted 4 is the only on I've played the springs to mind immediately - though I'm sure there are other examples people can provide that I have not played. It could be good or bad once we see the execution, but I think the concept is solid.

 

[Luxorek]

 

[Pug.]

*snip

Daaaaaamn. That is one pretty screenshot.

---------- Updated at 02:01 PM ----------

During 90% of the game, you're playing the good daddy/daughter let's all care of each other thing. In fact Infinite is even worse, since this is a game about an infinity of father and daughters story.

During 90% of the game you don't even know that Booker is Elizabeth's father. That's not even revealed until the final 10-15 minutes of the game. Booker's motivations for saving Elizabeth are initially purely selfish. He wants to "wipe out his debt," and he has been told that rescuing this young girl is the key to doing that.

 

[Cheylus]

Well, ok; for me it was another father/daugther relationship, for you this is apparently a deeper and interesting relationship.
Clementine isn't Lee's daughter, Ellie isn't Joel's daughter, Ciri isn't Geralt's daughter either. But all those games play with the very same (and overused in my opinion) trope anyway.
We'll see how MEA handles it, I'm simply not surprised at all they're using the parenting thing, like a lot of AAA "story-driven" games these days.

 

[Phinnway]

At E3 we got to see the female Ryder character, and now we’re seeing the male Ryder character. What a lot of people don’t know – a little surprise here – is that these 2 are brother and sister and they both exist in the game world at the same time. And so if you’re playing as the sister Ryder, the female Ryder, your brother is somewhere in the universe. Another fun little tid-bit is the character we saw 2 E3’s ago, the N7 is actually their father. So we’ve got the full Ryder family sort of now revealed.”

- Aaron Flynn

Isn't this basically what DA2 did with Male/Female Hawke and Bethany/Carver?

 

[Rawls]

Isn't this basically what DA2 did with Male/Female Hawke and Bethany/Carver?

If they join you in the same squad, then yes it is similar. I think it would be more interesting if the non-PC sibling ends up being drawn to some other faction from the PC and becomes an antagonist to some extent. Fighting them, joining them, or convincing them to join you becomes one of the major path choices in the game and has major consequences to the final result maybe. I'm not sure it could work, but something like that is what I kind of hope they do.

---------- Updated at 07:06 PM ----------

If we can play alternatively every member of the family, that's interesting.

Mac Walters appeared to confirm that you will only play as either the son or the daughter Ryder, not both.

https://twitter.com/macwalterslives/status/774465270047907840

 

[cyberpunkforever]

i hope this game is not like dragon age inquisition in space, full of "exploration" boring fetch quests and chores

 

[Garrison72]

I like the family premise, even if the father/daughter thing has been overdone lately. It can set up interesting emotional hooks. But as always with EAware, my expectations are low. Especially since that last vid had none of this magic.

None of the sense of awe or wonder, none of the original's atmosphere. Say what you will about TW3, but CDPR never lost those aspects of their series.

 

[Rawls]

Especially since that last vid had none of this magic.

I love the vigil theme. There are few days that go by that I don't play this song on the piano in our home.

I'm not so worried about the last video. It was create to show off the visuals as part of PS4 Pro's eye candy. It served it's purpose well in that regard. Bioware probably wanted to show off eye candy without giving up story so that it wouldn't distract from EAs fall releases. I'm withholding judgment till N7 day. Then they hype train will take off or I'll be really pissed - one of the two.

 

[Cheylus]

I like the family premise, even if the father/daughter thing has been overdone lately. It can set up interesting emotional hooks. But as always with EAware, my expectations are low. Especially since that last vid had none of this magic.

None of the sense of awe or wonder, none of the original's atmosphere. Say what you will about TW3, but CDPR never lost those aspects of their series.

Yep, I agree. The moment when you start the game after the character creation, the music...
Until you discover in game the butchered face you made.

:uma:

 

[Pug.]

Yep, I agree. The moment when you start the game after the character creation, the music...
Until you discover in game the butchered face you made.

:uma:

Lol. Yeah, that does seem to be a reoccurring problem with Bioware games. I can't count how many times I restarted Dragon Age Inquisition before I finally settled on a character.

 

[Luxorek]

I remember the first time I played Mass Effect in 2008. Bought CE that was offered here in Poland at release, because a sci-fi rpg set in space was my wet dream come true. I played around with the customization for couple of minutes until I realized that no matter what I did the PC would still end up with that subpar plastic skin texture and potato nose. In the end I went with default Shepard face and never looked back.

Funny thing is... the face they used for that default Shepard, belongs to Mark Vanderloo who is basically a male supermodel and so would often appear in ads in magazines that my mom would read. Whenever I was playing she would take active interest because of that - Mass Effect is probably the only video game franchise, besides the Witcher that she is more than superficially aware of.

 

[Rawls]

https://www.vg247.com/2016/09/13/mass-effect-andromeda-open-world/

Good bits -

Okay, I know we have to tread lightly, but let’s talk about the game a little bit. Based on what you showed today it seems like it’ll be much more open? The jetpack already seems to open up quite a lot of possibilities in terms of movement…


Yeah, oh yeah, I love the jetpack… and once you start really playing with it, you start to wonder to yourself… wow, where was this all my life in Mass Effect?
But, yeah, y’know, it’s funny. To bring Mass Effect to more of an open world play style where players are not just moving down a very linear narrative, albeit a very highly polished linear narrative… But also giving players the chance to move in the direction they want to go much more openly, explore where they want to go too, and then the narrative keeps up… that’s been a real big learning point for us.


Working through that and learning around that… It’s been a lot of our studio’s work these past five years through Dragon Age Inquisition and now through this – to really learn how to do that better and better. We’ve got lots more learning to do, but I’m really very happy with how the team is doing this with Mass Effect Andromeda.


How does the more open play style fit in with the choice-driven nature of Mass Effect? It seems like meshing those two things together properly would make things quite a bit more difficult.


Yeah, it does, oh yeah. It’s one of those things where we didn’t estimate properly I think… [laughs] It’s a lot of work.


I think one of the great things for us is that we’re learning how to still provide a really special narrative experience – one that is beautiful, and polished, and full of choice and consequence all at the same time as having this experience that is still more self-directed and lets you feel like you’re really in the environment and in the space and truly in control of things.


Where do you think Andromeda stands in terms of RPG mechanics? Each of the Mass Effect games has a different balance between the action game and the RPG…


Yeah, they do, definitely. So… we talk about Andromeda as the spiritual successor to Mass Effect 1. To us this means that we think about y’know… really, Andromeda is our chance to do a lot of things that were ideas that we couldn’t really do on Mass Effect 1, but now we have a chance to do them because our own experience is greater, the hardware is greater, so many other things have been pinned down for us. [Emphasis added].


That really allows us to do that, to return to some of those ideas from the first game and do right by them, and so that’s the way we think about it. Hopefully you feel the same way about the game when you play it.

 

[toudis815]

we talk about Andromeda as the spiritual successor to Mass Effect 1.

if that would be true...oh my god.

 

[arkhenon]

Keep your expectations low, folks. It's better to be surprisingly satisfied, rather than to be disappointed because of overhype. And these guys need to prove themselves once more anyway; I see no reason to get that hyped myself (before the game is out, that is). This may very well be EA PR machine working full throttle.

 

[Rawls]

Keep your expectations low, folks. It's better to be surprisingly satisfied, rather than to be disappointed because of overhype. And these guys need to prove themselves once more anyway; I see no reason to get that hyped myself (before the game is out, that is). This may very well be EA PR machine working full throttle.

Oh absolutely. Wait till N7 day and see what they have, not what they say.