Sara and Scott’s Excellent Adventure

Sara and Scott’s Excellent Adventure

I’ve just finished the most excellent journey. It was, in essence, a Quest for the Promised Land, something that came up as a sidequest before, but never been used as a main theme. The Helius Cluster in Andromeda galaxy was my new Kingdom of Prester John.
So, that gotta be a tragic and perilous journey of spiritual…


I can’t recommend playing this game if you intend to take anything with grave seriousness. But if you are in a mood for pulp fiction and guilty pleasures, suspend your disbelief, stuff away your inner grumpy grandpa’s high-brow attitude, and Andromeda is one hell of an excellent journey.

Nobody gonna die. Not even goldfish. Ryder doesn’t have a fishtank.


Andromeda took me to a living Galaxy. I was visiting with the local dwellers, Angara. They fought with and against me, made uneasy alliances with my team, or berated it. The Galaxy had an ominous cloud hanging over it, slowly eating away at it, but I had plenty of time to worry about that sort of stuff. The End of the World alarm was not blaring for all 100 hours of the game in the distance becoming a laughable irritant.

Non-triumphant, but bodacious side-quests. Totally.


Unhurriedly, I navigated a spaceship around that corner of the Galaxy. I tried to shore up, clean up and augment. I cared for this Galaxy. The Vaults, OMG, the Vaults! The blend of puzzles, the pattern matching, jumping and timer restricted actions was entertaining. The quests were you just talked were blended with the quests where you shoot them in the face till they were dead.

I want to specially note that game permitted me to skip over the things I did not want to do with a remarkable ease. The New Tuchanka story did not appeal to me, so I barely left my footprints in its sands, and it was just fine. And, a confession: I loved Nomad once I’ve upgraded it. A crazy machine. I am sorry for hating on you back on Eos, Nomad. Hugs?

I was playing one young alien orphan trying to follow what seems like the best course of actions among the competing interests and against strong-willed and much worldlier characters. I had a trump card in my sleeve, something my family left me, like that magic sword in ‘em good olde tales. I was taken in once in a while, and I pulled a fast one too.

I have a cunning plan, evil alien dudes!


I also had a brother. That’s my second videogame brother, and for someone who spent most of the game comatose, he managed to become more than that one male squaddie whose appearance I have some control over.
One brother coming right up.


Sometimes I trusted explicitly and sometimes not at all. I did stupid things for my friends, and was ruthless on occasion. I’ve made a mistake of kissing a scoundrel. I’ve awkwardly build an understanding with an alien being, and eventually got to facepalm through a Space Regency romantic experience.

That’s an eyeroll, Ryder, not a sigh.


I am sad that the sojourn in the Andromeda Galaxy is over. The sense of adventure and that unapologetic having tons of fun is hard to capture. Not everyone gets to experience it in a particular video-game. I was very fortunate because I did. From the moment I started the game till the moment I read a bunch of thank you e-mails.

And, well, here is my Reply All:

Thank you so much, BioWARE. Party on and stay excellent to each other. After all we are all Pathfinders.