Is ME:A worth playing?

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Aww I'm late to the party, but I'll render my opinion anyway, because I can

If I had paid $12 for MEA I would be happy enough, certainly more so than having paid $60. Someone else in the thread said something along the lines of "if this had been a game other than Mass Effect it would have been better received" and I think that's pretty true. It's an okay game, it's not a great game, and coming from the trilogy, it certainly feels like a let down in many ways (in spite of the ME3 debacle). You've already made it this long, and it will undoubtedly go on sale again someday, so if you otherwise have other games to play, you can probably wait and I don't really think you'd be seriously missing out.

I played a couple of hundred hours of the MEA MP, just because *new shiny* and there are a couple of kits I enjoy, but it doesn't have the diversity or same kind of visceral fun of ME3MP (for me). After all, I have that 1 copy of MEA, and I have 4 ME3MP accounts - I haven't played the Xbox360 version in ~5 years, but I still have the game, and the console - I should have gotten the WiiU and PS3 versions also, just so I could have an N7HQ manifest for every platform, but alas...

As a side note, I noticed you were saying you were looking at pre-ordering Anthem when you stumbled on the MEA price... I don't want to be That Person because it's your money, but in like 15 days there's a free demo, so why not wait for that before actually giving your hard-earned cash away?

Vas, u rule!

Yeah....franchises that have been around for awhile are always trying to find ways to keep the core essence of the game itself while improving game play mechanics to keep them fresh. In certain instances tho...i'm a fan of if it isn't broke don't fix it. I;m a horror fan and resident evil changed its perspective with RE4....( i thought 4 was ok....but i did like the new perspective)...RE5 was ok and RE6 was trash and RE7 (while good)...i'm not a fan of the 1st person perspective.

i got ReMake on the ps3 and that game added improved visuals, expanded upon the base story and added more environments and depth to the story...it kept what made the original great and improved upon the existing material and the game was better for it. Now i have Uncharted 1 -4 and while the gameplay is starting to feel a bit dated, the characters are the stars of this series. I'm playing 4 right now and there are times that was a bit boring, but the dialogue and charm between it's characters are really well done.

There was small segment where Nathan is talking with Illana (his girlfriend/wife) and they was playing Crash Bandicoot on the TV, but the conversation between them felt so organic and natural...the game made me chuckle a bit with how natural it was.

My point is that while Andromeda for me was a mediorce experience, i don't want to come down too hard on it, because i do feel that the dev's intentions was genuine in trying to create a product everyone would enjoy, and trying to upstage the story of Reapers was a tall task already, but the overall package was just mired in mediocracy....


I just saw this vid on youtube and i wondered what Andromeda would have been like if some of these characters was part your crew and some of the characters implemented as your adversaries aside from the Kett....now this is a Korean game, but i just like the character designs....(a couple are generic).but these designs would have looked fresh and felt fresh in Andromeda not feel so familiar with the typical alien species we are familiar with and if these characters would have been combined with some great writing overall....Andromeda indeed could have been a much more promising product...but i guess if the writing was good overall there would be no need to replace those characters tho..right?...lol i just like these designs...

Quick answer: no!

Buying MEA for me would be like buying a teddy bear because my dog died. 


Seriously tho, imagine fucking up an acclaimed trilogy so badly that you have to move it to another galaxy, as far as possible from the original trilogy. Then imagine not having the dignity and responsibility to give the game attention and time in order to at least make it worth the words it has in its tittle. That's why I will never buy a new EA game ever again.

I know I'm late to the party, but I thought I'd chime in, and this time without my usual frothing rant.

If you can ignore the story/dialogue, and enjoy the mechanics of the single player, highly recommended. ME:A is the ONLY MASS EFFECT OTHER THAN 2 that I have ever managed to stand the SP enough to finish. Doubly surprising, as I truly despise the dialogue and character design/background.

If you are not bothered by high contrast flashes (exceedingly dark backgrounds with super bright explosions happening every 50ms), and aren't bothered by RNG grindfests that make ME3MP's store look partial towards the player, then the MP is actually not that bad.

These are my biggest gripes with the game that prevent me from playing it more. I do prefer ME3 as an MP experience though, but for an SP experience, ME:A plays much better. Take this as you will though, I'm one of those rare Mass Effect players who are bored to tears by ME1, and find ME2 the all-round best product in the series, best setting, best theme, best tone, best characters, etc. So, I'm kind of a minority here.

Imo the success of ME1 was Bioware's ability to create and tell a story about a complex universe in a video game. 

I'll give you that ME2 in many respects felt like a side quest but I liked it because it gave a more nuanced view of the Milky Way, building on that succesfull concept from ME1. The characters had their personal perspective on the ME universe; Mordin and Grunt relating to the genophage and Krogan culture, Tali, Legion and EDI on AI, Garrus on Citadel government, TIM/Jack and the-end-justifies-the-means etc. The best stories told during the loyalty missions were those that gave depth to the universe and set us up for the finale in ME3.

The point is, it was the characters and their interactions with Shepard that kept me invested. Yes, the structure of the MET resulted in some plot holes and the ME3 ending should have been concluded through gameplay instead of a 20-questions-to-the-professor conversation, but because of the characters I never felt disconnected from the main plot even in ME2.

This is what's completely ignored in ME:A. Every conversation with a ME:A crew member is the same: "I didn't really fit in in the Milky Way so I just tagged along for the ride". They have no impact on the plot and they don't drive the story forward.

All we are left with is a "just cruise around and shoot stuff while listening to cheesy one-liners" game concept. A hundred other games have done that better.

There is enjoyment to be had in this game. It has a few interesting ideas and there is enough *stuff* to do to keep your interest for quite some time.



But the same can be said about most games, Andromeda is just painfully mediocre with a pinch of lore defying stuff sprinkled on top.



Everything from writing to animations and character models (even the very design of new aliens) needs an overhaul and it is quite... Strange to say the least. Why sideline this franchise in favor of Anthem? Mass Effect deserves better.