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 History Last winter my girlfriend, Soulhiatus, got me hooked on BioWare games. I played through Mass Effect 2 and 3 as Ziggi Shepard, who was resurrected with the help of regenerative alien DNA. Now that Shepard's story is over, all that's left is for Soulhiatus and I to play through Mass Effect: Andromeda. But how do I top a Shepard full of extraterrestrial DNA? By making Ryder-- our new main character-- half-asari! I get that you're eccentric, but how will that choice affect gameplay? No idea! We'll have to see. It will most likely just create a (mass) Kuleshov Effect-- if you're enjoying the ride, you may insert or notice subtext in the dialogue and in how Ryder is treated. Also, as Soulhiatus makes clear early on, we will be playing her as young asari tend to act; namely, by being very flirtatious. We'll be pursuing as many romances as possible, and with luck and game-saving, we may even have to censor stuff! But doesn't this game kinda suck? ALLEGEDLY! I completely get that people were disappointed, but I would still place the blame on EA, not Andromeda itself. As you may expect, Soulhiatus and I are very open-minded and we had a good time with the first 1.5 hours. One of the complaints I've heard about the game is that the NPC's are Just Too Horny, but that fits in with our Ryder just fine (pun alert). Also, all the Andromeda LP's that show up on the top of YouTube seem to have been done before a critical game patch. So at least we've got better eyes and makeup in this romp. Will Schecky be joining you again? And didn't you say your next LP would be Hotline Miami 2, two years ago? Wow you've got a great memory! You should be proud of yourself! Hotline Miami is coming soon, but the technicalities of recording my pupil dilation forced me to put it on the backburner. I moved away, for school, so this isn't conducive to getting my Dad on-board again. I am working on another project utilizing Skype, but it's about anime instead of video games. And Schecky needs to get over his mercury poisoning first.  Now, without further ado, say hello to Eve Zesmeni "E. Z." Ryder!  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- EPISODES Episode 1 -- Ikea In Spaaaace Episode 2 -- Give Me Your Fidget Spinner Episode 3 -- No Planet For Old Men Episode 4 -- She Looks Like Freddy Krueger In Drag Episode 5 -- A Tired Face Is No Excuse Episode 6 -- Meeting The Crew And All That Jazz Espresso Steampunk fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Sep 19, 2018 22:42
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Reserved in case of emergencies, and alsooooo Fan Art! (Magic Wand, make this section growwww!  )
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Sep 19, 2018 22:44
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I completely abandoned this game due to deep disappointment around the 4th planet so I might as well watch someone else play it to see if the later parts of the game get better
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Sep 19, 2018 23:18
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Hedrigall posted:I completely abandoned this game due to deep disappointment around the 4th planet so I might as well watch someone else play it to see if the later parts of the game get better We've heard this story many times, even from friends and family. So in a way, I'm being very charitable and that's good for my ego.  The good news is I get to edit the footage after-the-fact, so if we hit a slump I will do my best to speed it up or just cut it out.
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Sep 19, 2018 23:28
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The first ~4 hours of Andromeda are absolutely stellar in terms of presentation, atmosphere and storytelling. Once you have your whole party together and leave Aya for the open map is where things fall apart.
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Sep 19, 2018 23:33
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nine-gear crow posted:The first ~4 hours of Andromeda are absolutely stellar in terms of presentation, atmosphere and storytelling. Once you have your whole party together and leave Aya for the open map is where things fall apart. Uh oh, almost halfway there! Did you make it through the whole game, nine-gear crow? I tend to be a completionist, but it's starting to sound like I might have to make an exception. Or maybe we'll have fun laughing at the whole experience. We should be fine as long as we don't try to get through the Shrine of the Silver Monkey... (another reference, just to confuse younger viewers)
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Sep 20, 2018 00:13
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Espresso Steampunk posted:Uh oh, almost halfway there! Did you make it through the whole game, nine-gear crow? I tend to be a completionist, but it's starting to sound like I might have to make an exception. Or maybe we'll have fun laughing at the whole experience. We should be fine as long as we don't try to get through the Shrine of the Silver Monkey... (another reference, just to confuse younger viewers) I got about as close as I could tolerate to 100%ing it before I beat it, yes. A lot of the side quests are really tedious and involve a lot of backtracking and hopping between planets to complete what should be relatively simple matters, and the main quest comes up lacking quite often too. Like, I'm happy this game is being LP'd, and it's nowhere near as bad as the internet loves to smear it as, but yeah I have near zero desire to go back and replay it now that I'm done with it, doubly so since there will never be any kind of follow up to it.
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Sep 20, 2018 03:39
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I was fine with the new characters and shoddy animation and awkward attempt to shoehorn open worlds in, etc. I just couldn't forgive the blatant cost cutting like the entire Asari race having two models: one for Peebee and one for literally every other Asari.
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Sep 20, 2018 |
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Sep 20, 2018 03:45
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I tried multiple times to get through this, but each time I gave up. I eventually realized that... well, I liked maybe 2 characters enough to get to know them, and the level design just... I dunno, it felt like they thought "If we make it open world, then we can just throw them in there, what's the point in planning a path anyway, right?" The environments just didn't feel set up to create interesting combat, like they realized that there is a challenge in designing open world games (you can't automatically predict which direction a person is coming from) and their response was to not even try to address it. edit: I tried really, REALLY hard to like the game that let me combo incinerate and charge. A lot of the armor options were gross as hell. Just looked terrible. Gharbad the Weak fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Sep 20, 2018 |
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Sep 20, 2018 03:47
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Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Sep 20, 2018 |
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Sep 20, 2018 03:56
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I played through the game once, and usually enjoyed it. The combat is pretty fun. But I've never touched it again after beating it, in contrast to the first three Mass Effect games. Your Ryder looks pretty good, better than the dope faced standard Ryder. I'm following this, just to see what differences the patch makes.
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Sep 20, 2018 05:20
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Oh boy, now I can't wait to try on those ugly armors! I googled a bit and that sure is a weird aesthetic they're going with. I'll probably mention this in-game, but it seems like they tried extra hard to make this different from the previous games, and that seems to be where the problems came from (to varying degrees that a player might find it problematic). To me, it does kind of have a "Jetsons In Hell" feel to it. But again.... trying to stay open-minded. Or at least enjoy the journey! Hedrigall, holy hell, that picture of the asari is hilarious! Also a bummer, of course. Where'd you find it, and where in the game does it happen? If I haven't passed it already, I really want to keep an eye out for it, for the sake of the YouTubers. Heyyyy, Torrannor, thanks for sharing your experience, too. Sounds like you're in the minority so far, but I'm (currently) hopeful about also usually enjoying it. Speaking of the patch, the first thing I noticed is they seem to have unlocked all the hairstyles. The Let's Plays I'd glanced at from earlier seemed to have about 12 hairstyles for each gender, whereas E. Z. had all of them to choose from. When we finally see Scott Knight Ryder, you'll notice I was able to give him 80's rocker hair which was previously only available to lady-Ryders (wait let me rephrase that  ). At least, that was my sleep-deprived impression when we were blitzing this first episode.I'm sure most of you have studied the patch very intensely, but here's a link to show some differences. They're subtle but certainly greater than the sum of their parts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCxPP5QY75M Also, a picture is worth a thousand words (and one eyeball clipping through an eyelid).  Note that these are from patch 1.06. They've patched up to 1.09, but I wasn't able to find a good video, and I think most of the graphics stuff was back in 1.06, anyway. Espresso Steampunk fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Sep 20, 2018 |
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Sep 20, 2018 21:25
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Man, this game was such a blazing disappointment for me, in more ways than one. IŽll probably chime in once we get further into the plot.
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Sep 23, 2018 18:47
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Animation and modelling issues aside, I had a lot of fun with this game. The exploration is actually fun, which is more than can be said for literally any other ME game. Horniness is more or less what I expected from a ME game, so I was ready for it. The mid-late game can be a bit of a slog, but the finale is bonkers awesome so it ended up being worth it for me. The Kett made for a lacklustre villain, but I liked all the business with the Angara and how they fit in with the overall theme. Once again, leaving the animation/model issues aside, I have a feeling a lot of people just weren't ready for the jump from Space Opera to Space Western in a ME game. It's much more casual, less melodramatic, much more fuzzy in its politics.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:09
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I am really digging the conflicting opinions on this game! I'm looking forward to you chiming in, Sylphosaurus... hopefully we can provide at least a different style of gameplay, even if the results are the same (I'm looking at you, Ending Of Mass Effect 3!). Prince Orcus, calling it a jump from Space Opera to Space Western is a very cool description. When you put it that way, I agree, it does sound like a larger deviation that people were expecting, myself included. And the bad press was instantaneous. On a Dragon Age facebook page, someone once asked "Who is the worst villain in all the BioWare games?" I replied "EA, every time."  ^----- those of you who are new to my Let's Plays will soon learn I post the staredog a lot, due to a 2-year-old superstition that it will eventually summon Geop to the thread!
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Sep 24, 2018 00:24
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Episode 2 -- Give Me Your Fidget Spinner Episode 2 is up! Looks like we've settled into a posting schedule: Tuesday nights! I'd like to update twice a week, but we've got a couple other projects in the works right now, so we're trying to manage our time appropriately. Glad you're along for the ride, dear viewer. 
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Sep 26, 2018 00:43
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Hey friends, can I crowdsource your opinion? My brother told me that episode 2 seems to have some artifacts when there's motion in dark places. He suspects the bitrate is too low. But also he was watching it on his phone so perhaps that could account for it?  If you've watched episode 2 (and I hope you enjoyed it!), let me know if you noticed anything. I may just toy around with different presets when I render, but first I need to figure out what/when my brother saw artifacts. Thanks! 
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Sep 27, 2018 02:00
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There are definitely artifacts there. I'm no technical expert, so I can't say what's causing this. I've watched the episode on a PC, so it's not a phone problem. By the way, donations are on the way to make your worst fears come true! 
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Sep 28, 2018 19:56
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Torrannor posted:There are definitely artifacts there. I'm no technical expert, so I can't say what's causing this. I've watched the episode on a PC, so it's not a phone problem. Thank you for checking that out! It's not the news I'd have liked ... but that's the way the cookie crisp crumbles. Torrannor (along with anyone else who has the time), do you happen to know a specific spot in the episode where I could see the artifacting? If I know that, I can just try rendering that clip with various settings until I get it right. I will also poke around in the tech forums here on SA, but it would help if I could point to the specific problem itself. (I went artifact hunting earlier and couldn't seem to figure out where it was happening, probably because I have less-discerning eyes?). Thanks again
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Sep 29, 2018 16:56
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Here's episode 3! We've finally broken through the tutorial (well, like 95%), we've got points to spend, and I just pray the quality holds up. Streaming through the XBox One is... more hands-off than I'm used to. Next episode we try it with the film grain off. Episode 3 -- No Planet For Old Men
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Oct 3, 2018 00:38
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Here's another update! We're exploring the Nexus (finally) and collecting side quests. We also establish some jokes which will become running gags next episode. (The update was a day late because I have finals woop woop) Episode 4 -- She Looks Like Freddy Krueger In Drag
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Oct 10, 2018 23:48
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Oops! Posted this one 5 days ago now and never finished telling everyone about it. I'm doing clinicals for school now and it is banana-pants crazy. Plus I'm doing another YT show also. Once I get a handle on my schedule I'm going to start making shorter videos, and uploading twice a week. I have learned that 22-minute videos are way more edible than 45-minute ones... Episode 5 -- A Tired Face Is No Excuse
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Oct 23, 2018 01:39
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I enjoyed Andromeda. Enough that I was rather disappointed that the loose story ends that were obviously set up for DLC never amounted to anything. I think the game has some pretty serious issues. I also think the internet loves hate-mobbing stuff. If the choice was between getting an Andromeda-ish sequel or no more Mass Effect ever I'd happily sign up for the sequel!
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Oct 23, 2018 02:55
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IDGI was their an option to have your character not human or are we just RPing?
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Oct 23, 2018 05:08
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Bettik posted:I enjoyed Andromeda. Enough that I was rather disappointed that the loose story ends that were obviously set up for DLC never amounted to anything. I agree 100%. I'm doing a non-LP-playthrough by myself, to hopefully streamline this let's play a bit... and the sidequests/driving everywhere is getting annoying. But that just means I won't do all the sidequests in my own playthrough, and for this LP we're avoiding as much as we can (henceforth) because holy hell, that's a lot of game. It's definitely not perfect, and the game shouldn't have been released with the graphics it had at the time, but I really do suspect a lot of the hate was the feeling of betrayal that BioWare was investing all their resources into Anthem instead of A Sure Thing. Am I excited to play Anthem? Not currently. Gridlocked posted:IDGI was their an option to have your character not human or are we just RPing? We are just RPing.  But also I was assuming there would be a bitttt more family-interaction before everything kicked into motion, so there's not much chance to expand E. Z.'s backstory, alas. But I've always been attracted to the subtext and the Kuleshov Effect. When Soulhiatus got me to play Dragon Age: Inquisition (my first BioWare game), Sweetmoves Lavellan would always get looked down on for being an "elf." But she was also gay, so there was the feeling like, "Are they actually mad because she's an elf, or is that just their excuse?" And it did affect how I made some choices.When I played ME2 and ME3, I wasn't sure how to make Shepard look. I find myself feeling like the options are either: Hilariously Ugly (too easy) or Sexy Space Soldier (too common, perhaps?). So once again my headcanon kicked in: what if Cerberus haaaaad to use alien DNA to rebuild Shepard, because of its stem cells or regenerative properties, etc. So I had a Tilda Swinton-esque Xeno-Shepard:  As you might expect, whenever someone referred to her as "human," it had an extra layer of irony, or surprise, or whatever. It also made Cerberus's agenda more of a "grey" (haha) area during ME2. Shepard was an infiltrator, so I knew going into Andromeda that I wanted to try out a biotic. Making a half-asari was a thought experiment that worked so well that we decided to stick with it. Will it change how we interpret some of the scripted dialogue? I honestly don't know at this point. But it could be fun, and outer space has enough redheads as is...
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Oct 24, 2018 02:53
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Hope everyone had a "Happy" "Howl"-o-ween! Here's another Andromeda; we take a look at space travel and talk to the crew. Shockingly, three different people shoot down E. Z.'s advances! We also talk about the architecture of the Tempest (well, its bathrooms) and Soulhiatus uses the term "elf MILF," so you have that to look forward to as well. Episode 6 -- Meeting The Crew And All That Jazz Espresso Steampunk fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 01:36
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Quick update, for you chosen few who still follow this thread.  Apologies for the delays. Basically everyone in the house got sick, and then got each other sick. Also, school is beating my cakes, but we'll be back in production next weekend. So around 11/20 we should be back to our regular schedule. Thanks for your patience, and stay tuned!
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Nov 12, 2018 01:45
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I'm still following this! Delays happen, don't sweat it. I hope you all get better.
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Nov 12, 2018 05:54
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Torrannor posted:I'm still following this! Thank you, I appreciate that! In the meantime, there is other stuff on my channel; but I oughtn't post links to the dating-sims-show Soul and I are doing, so feel free to just poke around if you want my dulcet tones in your earholes (???).
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Nov 13, 2018 01:52
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 Even if the entire game is a shitshow, it's still almost redeemed just for having Vetra  Also if you're trying to place Suvi's VA, she's Cait in FO4 Nalesh fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Jan 10, 2019 |
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Jan 10, 2019 18:05
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Yeah, Soulhiatus romances Garrus every chance she gets. And also writes smutty fanfiction about him. Alas, the true appearance of turian tatas will be a mystery forever, it seems... Thanks for that tip about Suvi. I must admit I never got into the FO franchise but that is good information for the thread. And wow, that is a strong accent she's got!
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Jan 17, 2019 22:39
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It's one of those accents that people go "That has to be a fake accent" with, but no, that's just Glasgow.
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Jan 17, 2019 22:54
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Nalesh posted:It's one of those accents that people go "That has to be a fake accent" with, but no, that's just Glasgow. Absolutely! :O We had a similar experience with Widowmaker from Overwatch... it sure was embarrassing when we watched one of those "Meet the voice actors" videos.
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Jan 18, 2019 23:35
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