Mass Effect Andromeda

[HandsomeDead]

Okay, so I started playing this because a while back I started watching a playthrough of someone going through the ME trilogy having never played it.  It was a pretty fun watch, skipping the grindy bits.  And I've also realised ME3 is quite a bit better than I remember, but that's off topic.

Anyway, instead of moving on to watching Andromeda I decided to play it myself.

 

So I approached it with a renewed appreciation and a willingness to give it grace.

 

I like the premise a lot.  I could see this be a cool game.  You're *first name* Ryder, a 'Pathfinder' who is tasked to helm the colonial project that has travelled into deep space to find a new home to get away from all of the events of the ME trilogy, and you've been in cryo for 600 years so that's all no-ones worry anymore.  But you're not on the spearhead of this move since you meet a ship/station there first and they thought the trip went wrong, so they thought they were stranded and over the course of 14 months many went totally feral and there was a mutiny, and there were some other separatist movements.  I've got a bit of a problem with this timeline, it seems far too accelerated.  It means that there is already quite a lot of colonised areas and you're not visiting these uncharted worlds as often as you think.  They invited to many libertarians on this trip, I guess it was doomed to fail.

 

So you go to these planets, there is a native race (Angara), they seem nice, and another race that aren't nice (Kett) who also appear to be colonisers but sci-fi stuff points to them being kinda native to the area too; and there's ancient robots again! They're important because 600 years ago we used science to observe these planets and they seemed like nice places to live but it's all different when we show up, and it's their technology that allows us to terraform them back to how they were.

 

I don't really hate this premise, I think it sidesteps some potentially interesting subjects to tell a dramatic story, which the trilogy did engage with from time to time but I guess they're going for something more light hearted here.  Just adventure and maybe kiss an alien on the mouth (or maybe it does go somewhere interesting with the story but I won't know, you'll find out at the end).

 

I started off quite liking the game.  I decided to just focus on the main quests and some of the meatier sidequests.  If I do that the open worlds that it has won't drive me insane by trying to clear every marker on the map.  

I generally like the idea of achieving what they clearly wanted to do with ME1 but I'm sure they could have done it in a way that didn't have you leaving all the time to talk to someone, somewhere offworld or on another planet, and having to come back.  Too much arbitrary nonsense.

 

I can't decide if I like the new levelling system or not.  It's not class based, really.  It guides you a bit to encourage optimal play styles but you're free to mess it up as much as you want.

Combat is... fine, I guess.  Well, there was one planet I hated it, but I think it's more because of the level design.  What this has over the other ME's is you have a jump and a dash but combat areas are still mostly laid out like you don't have those abilities.  They could have been taken out of the other games.  And, ugh, the jungle planet... You know when you're playing a shooter, maybe an older one and you kinda go out of bounds and the fight you're in becomes stupid and you make your way back to the actual level to have fun.  This planet is all that out of bounds area, but no fun area.  It also reminded me of the jungle level from Goldeneye, the worst level.  My jaw was on the floor, I couldn't believe this was in a AAA game.

 

But I'm giving it grace, I'll keep going, it'll get better.  I like the mystery, I want to know what'll happen, and some of the combat is pretty good (there was a boss fight, the cleric? which I liked (it had level design!)), some passable (most of it tbh).  Peaks and valleys, that's all.

And I want the Scottish science officer to be my GF but she believes in god and she'll only flirt if you argue with her about it, but Ricky Gervais has ruined atheism so you do you, hen, I'm not biting.

 

So I explore more, see what there is.  I got the first planet up to 100% viability.  That felt good. I did a bit on a few others, a snowy planet, a hot planet and one full of libertarians.  I was up for sorting all this out.  But eventually the game kept crashing, just hanging on the loading screen.  Other weird hiccups had happened like doors not opening when they should.  I actually referred to a guide the first time this happened thinking I'd missed something, but no, just a glitched door.

My grace has run out.  Uninstalled.

 

 

[Maryokutai]

I actually liked the jungle planet, mostly because it wasn't a gigantic open hub area.

 

The levelling system is a double edged sword. From a gameplay perspective it's cool that you're not limited to a class and can mix and match, particularly as biotics feel extremely satisfying and overpowered here. That aspect is a huge improvement compared to the trilogy. The downside of it is that this specific aspect of Ryder's character doesn't factor into dialogue and storylines anymore. I remember one character going on and on about Biotics and my Ryder, pumped full with Biotic skill points, was just sitting there with a blank face. Shatters the illusion a bit.

 

It's a shame your game broke at some point. It's not as good as a game of its size needs to be but I've always felt it was significantly better than its reputation and the finale actually left me wanting more, so it did something right with its premise, too.

[HandsomeDead]

I was pretty mad about the whole thing.  I'm not against trying again and maybe an uninstall then reinstall will shake off the bugs that I was getting but I'm leaving it for now. 

[DisturbedSwan]

On 01/08/2023 at 10:34, Maryokutai said:

It's a shame your game broke at some point. It's not as good as a game of its size needs to be but I've always felt it was significantly better than its reputation and the finale actually left me wanting more, so it did something right with its premise, too.

 

Yeah, I felt much the same, would've loved a sequel.

[regemond]

On 02/08/2023 at 11:40, DisturbedSwan said:

Yeah, I felt much the same, would've loved a sequel.

 

100% agreed on this. For all its faults, I saw it as the start of a new series in the same franchise. I think its biggest problem was that it was a 'poor ME clone' - something I reckon it would have been dragged for if it didn't carry the Mass Effect name.

 

All the development troubles meant there was no bloody way it was ever going to live up to the highs of the original trilogy, though. It's a huge shame, because Bioware used to be such an amazing developer.