So in the first part of the review I mentioned a couple of bugs. One of the biggest ones seemed to be problems rendering hair and faces.
Does it get better?
Now the walks are still there. But this can probably be fixed with a bug fix since it is there so consitently. The horror show that is weird the eyes and patchy hair is actually fixed. And it was fixed by switching video cards. A GTX 960 to a GTX 1060 to be exact. The hair for the characters is no longer patchy. So one problem solved. I was also able to max out all the graphics settings without reducing my frame rate. The faces look a lot better. This leads me to believe that they developed this game towards to the latest and greatest videocards and just forgot about QA-ing the minimal spec.
Was all the bad press deserved?
Sort of ? There are definitely problems with the game. The characters look more cartoony than realistic. Especially Cora and the cookie cutter Asari. Hopefully these will be fixed soon. But in this age of drama games journalism (See “No man’s sky” ) things get whipped up a lot. And seriously there are issues with the game but they have been whipped up quite a bit.
So has my opinion changed since the start?
Hell yeah. While playing the game for over 17 hours over the last 3 days I ran into a lot of bugs. They got hilarious from time to time. Spinning heads that are more reminiscent of the horror genre than science fiction. Unhealthy hairdo looks. But the more I played it. The more I was impressed with what I saw. The game felt more like an RPG than a shooter I got used to in ME2&3. And this is something I really enjoy. But will also alienate a lot of gamers who were expecting another shooter.
The music
The music for Andromeda will keep me company in the next few weeks while doing coding. Wow it sound great. A lot more electronic feel to it than ME3. This is a good thing as its something I really like. The track “Heleus” is an example of something that I really like. It is the game’s galaxy map music. And from what I can tell it is a remake of the original galaxy map tune for ME1-3
Manufacturing ?
I have yet to try it. But so far I had trouble even modifying the colours of Sara Ryder’s outfit. There is no system as far as I have seen to indicate the blueprints are unlocked for something I want. No way to say “I want this thing”. So it is an aspect of the game i have yet to check out.
Interface interface interface
The UI for this game is not a prize winner. It is the cause of most of my grief with this game. It is confusing and almost requires a search field to be able to find most things. Switching your team is hidden behind an icon on the top. While in previous games this was always a step in the process of departing the ship. This part is the most frustrating part of the game.
Finishing the game…
There is not a lot less pressure to finish things. I get to walk about do my thing. And really explore all the different areas and people. There are a bunch of quests to finish. But its very hard to keep track of the quests. This is the problem with the way the game handles quests and markers on the map. The map has overlapping symbols and can be called messy at times. It took me a while before I figured out fast travel. So finishing this is going to take me a lot of time. And you have a chance of getting the 100% completion 😉
Switching videocards
It got a lot better after switching to the GTX 1060. I bet it gets even better on a 1080. A lot less distracted by the weird faces. The game looks a lot better. Who would have thought. I think they should say the min spec is the 1060. Not the GTX 660 they mention. So my hunch of getting the 1060 really panned out.
My Verdict
I will replay it after finishing it in new game + because I think I already missed a heap due to the problems with the game’s UI and bugs and glitches. The game is an ok first instalment in the new franchise so far. And I think we’ll see some more games in this universe in the future. At least I hope so.
I played this on my pc called Galadriel. This is my own opinion of this game. I purchased this game with my own money.