BSNer MEA Reviews thread (based on completed games)

My 2 Cents regarding Mass Effect: Andromeda
(Warning: Spoilers)

After playing through the whole campaign and doing all the quests. (Some additional tasks leftover)
I left myself 2 weeks before writing my following thoughts on the game.

I am not a fan of watching or reading critics regarding the medium I am going to see/play/read. (No trailers if I can help it)
I usually try everything not to spoil myself in any way, not tainting my thoughts and what I personally think of that medium.
With Mass Effect: Andromeda this wasn't so easy. Mainly because of Origin Access, with which one could "test" the game. The game was soon all over the internet and not in a good way.
So I cannot really say in good conscience that I am not biased. (The whole "my face is tired" thing was just too big)
But what I have learned from experience is that more often than not you can be surprised in a good way if you only heard bad critic before. So I always try to stay open minded.

I played the original trilogy so I guess I have certain expectations of a new Mass Effect.
And technology-wise it has been 10 years since the first Mass Effect.

Combat:

I want to start with something that I personally really enjoyed. Which was the movement in the combat system.
I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed that you are not glued to the floor any more. Since ME:2 I always chose the Vanguard class since it was the only one with the "charge" ability. Meaning more
mobility in a game which heavily relied on a cover system. Andromeda introduced a wide variety of new movement options and a new dimension in combat. Air-dash ,dash, biotic- Jet-jump, hover and I really enjoyed
these new options to battle my enemies. The old "press X to snap to cover" system was replaced with a "take cover automatically if the circumstances allow it".
I personally never had the problem that the new cover system misbehaved. ---For me this is the best improvement made from the old games regarding the tech department.---

The combat system itself is very similar the ME:3 Multiplayer system.
You have all the abilities from the old games plus new ones available and you can even customize them to fit your play style.
There is nothing for me to complain about a system that has already been polished since the original trilogy. Solid and responsive. Very fun to play.
The only thing I can say is well done for porting it to the frostbite engine.

I also like the new "Profile" system. Practically changing your "class" and the three skills depending on the situation is nice.
Although the standard F-keys are awkward to reach mid-fight. Radial Menu would have been nice for me. If it exists, it didn't work for me/didn't find it.

Graphics:

The game really looks good in the new engine. Sometimes a bit too many particle effect for me which leave me disoriented. (Even with minimal effects in the settings)
I am bothered with the Asari faces though. Everyone looks like a clone now. The same face. Ugh.
The humans are also pretty bad. The latest patches already changes the eyes but that should be better in the year 2017. You could do it in "Dragon Age: Inquisition" why not here?

UI:

The UI in Andromeda is everything but user friendly. Cluttered and unintuitive.

I often found myself at a loss with how the quests were shown and how the journal worked.
Quests regarding allies, side-quests, and general Heleus quests all have their own category. Which makes it really hard to find out if you want to know whether you have any open quests left on a planet.
The only way to know, is flying to that planet and in orbit you can see all the quests that are still open. Either do this, or look at every single quest in the journal to see where you have to go.
With the side-quests you had to find out on your own where you have to go sometimes. Some quests don't have a map marker. Regarding some quests, I understand that concept. Like the bartender on the nexus
that needs plants. With others I found it very tedious. Like the search for remnant devices. I would really have liked to know, where I found each device so that I don't have to visit the vaults again just
to check whether I already got it from there.

While on the planet your map shows you where the quests are. I really would have liked a list of some sort, where I can quickly select the quest I want to do. At the moment you have to check every quest
to see where the one is you want to do or battle yourself through the journal. But it wasn't so much of a problem for me since I am trying to do every quest anyway.

Gameplay:

I like the idea of a crafting mechanic. But I am disappointed with the realization. Every weapon/armour being craftable from the beginning was a bit overwhelming.
And in this kind of UI really annoying to navigate. Maybe a little love for the PC faction? (Assuming it was made that way because of consoles) That would have been nice.
More armour options would have been nice, and the ability to change armour/weapons of your companions. (I guess I am the only one that misses that feature since ME1. At least regarding armour)

I like the Nomad. Feels responsive and great to drive around with.

Things that are annoying:
Not being able to board my ship without leaving the planet. This is one of the most annoying little things in Andromeda for me. Was no Problem in 2007, why is it a problem in 2017?

Unskippable Cutscenes everywhere. Boarding the Tempest -> cutscene. Landing the Tempest -> Cutscene. By the time I am writing this the unskippable "flying to planets" cutscenes actually received a skip
function. So that's nice.


Atmosphere/immersion/story:

In Mass Effect: Andromeda you are the Pathfinder that has to save mankind the other species that travelled with you to the new Galaxy by finding habitable planets since the ones that were supposed to be
"golden worlds" are all not able to sustain an extensive amount of settlers.

One would think that with everything that happened (Golden Worlds not being "golden", hostile aliens) everyone would be a bit more grim. That the atmosphere is dark and heavy. But it's not.
Usually everyone is so damn hopeful and optimistic, I can't believe it. One of the parts I enjoyed the most was actually the short bit on the Asari Ark. The whole theme there was pretty gritty, grim and heavy and
I thought for the first time that the atmosphere actually fits.

Which leads me to the part of the game which I disliked the most: The main character and his/her disposition to the whole matter. For the record, I played Scott Ryder. So there might have been a difference to
my experiences.

I couldn't really identify with the MC since he felt so disconnected from everything that was happening around him. I think the "casual" answers bothered me the most. The answer given through that channel
were so out of the way, obvious and often unnecessary that it hurt. Both casual and professional often let me think: "I didn't want to say that. At least not this way". Effectively not using them when I had the chance.

In every dialogue something always bothered me: You couldn't really be an asshole to people.
I didn't feel as If you could go "renegade", if you want to speak in terms of the old trilogy. I usually played it 60 % Paragon 40 % Renegade but in Andromeda I was suddenly forced to play
99% Paragon simply because I didn't even had the option not to. Everything felt like a happy tea party and the moments which were more renegade like ended up being a break of character for me, since the MC
usually played the good guy. Not that I had a choice, but in these moments it really felt out of place.

On the whole I actually think the story has a lot of potential and is well written. But the delivery of it leaves much to be desired. This kind of story is told through its people (in this case the npcs and MC)
you interact with.

I think the whole animations gone wrong discussion is actually only the tip of the iceberg. If you watch a movie and see the actor instead of the character he is supposed to play, that actor failed. It is the
same with the MC in Andromeda for me. I simply didn't buy it. It might have to do with the fact, that you can't go renegade. (Limited Options)
It might have to with how the character is supposed to be (saviour of all species).
But I simply can't identify myself with the MC. One thing came to my mind after a while of playing. And that was: What a horribly generic character.
You could argue that Shepard, from the original trilogy, was also pretty generic. Hell yeah he was. But I thought Mark Meer did a damn fine job in bringing the whole character to life.
So maybe the actors did a bad job? Maybe. I had my share of laughs. (Ryder talking to himself) Good moments where I thought: "yeah that was witty". But overall I think I am disappointed.
In conclusion I can only say, that it is maybe an amalgamation of all these things that let me think, that in the whole companion/dialogue department we actually made
3 steps back since the first ME and to be fair I must admit that in the beginning of the game it was worse than in the end. But maybe I simply got used to it.
So I will try to stay open minded. Maybe Ryder will find out he has a dark side eventually


In my wall of text you see that I often refer to the old trilogy. Always in cases where the original trilogy did it better.
And this is also one of the things I do not understand. If something is good, and it works. Why change it, to make it bad? Change it to make it better? Yes, please! But if you go with a feature again,
why make it bad?

Since we function in away that bad things stay longer in memory than good things one might think I had a horrible time playing Andromeda
but all in all I really enjoyed Andromeda though not the new MC and the options given on how you (have to) play him. (Only referring to Dialogue)

I could write a more here, actually examining every aspect thoroughly but I wanted to keep it to a "minimum". Hopefully I was able to bring my point across. (Sorry for bad english)

Good leaning on great. Was disappointed with the final boss fight, but the rest of the game was solid to me. Wanted a big Archon face-off, not another Architect + Relics fight. Plus, it kept crashing here on my end, which broke a little bit of the end-game immersion.

The combat was awesome, quick and as Mordin would say "too many variables" for powers. I ended up mixing lots of them 'till I found out that bullet reppel power. Jetpacks, floating and dodging were awesome.

Exploration was great, better than ME1, but I kinda felt annoyed when I needed to complete a mission that went like : I'm on Kadara, get aboard the ship, receive E-mail to return to Kadara. Don't know why they couldn't make you board the Tempest and stay there. And I'd like to say that I wanted a no loading screen option when going off the ship as well. Pick armor, weapons and go to the other ship/go out there to explore the planet without a loading screen, implementing even some little things like driving the Nomad out of the ship yourself. And that galaxy map, no words. Even after the patch I never skipped those travels between planets. Took maaany screenshots and sometimes spent hours traveling to planets and exiting the Galaxy map view just to appreciate it on the cockpit.

The crew was also great, but sometimes Liam's e-mails got tiring. I mean, what's his problem with damn attachments? And sometimes he tries to be too much optimistical, which is not needed or wanted. I liked them moving around the ship and having interactions with each other. Each one of them had their personality and stories to be told. Movie night was fun.

Performance was the major issue for me. Kadara's doors, Nomad freezing out just for a second on Kadara as well and major lag while in the Tempest, specially when going in the bridge. Nomad's shield quest bug and some other minor glitches that did subtract from my experience while playing. Hell, even had 3 crashes on the final mission. And at least on PS4, I can't go into rest mode 'cuz the game just freezes, and I have to load a previous save. But I'm hoping those things get patched eventually.

And we could have some more variety in the enemies early on. Got tired after defeating Kett over and over, but it got better after meeting the exiles on Kadara.

Good game, fun game, I could surely replay it sometime in the future after some needed patches.

Finished the game and the best way to summarize my views is probably angry joes review for the game. I will rate the game 6/10 as i found quite a few boneheaded design issues. The dialogue needs a lot of owrk and the characters never act according to the gravity of the situation. Ryder is too hammy for how the situation is presented as. This also applies to the squad in general, dialogues and the situation do not match at all.

The gameplay is terrible, not the combat part, thats good, but the UI, 3x4 skill slot system, no squad equipment etc do add up to and create issues which were a lot reduced in the OT. I really hate the 3 skill slot system, hate it with a passion as it clearly signifies that the game was developed as a MP first and then that system was shoehorned into the SP part of the game.

Hoping for future they get rid of Ryders if they cant fix them and give us our skill slots back and ammo should be mods or powers and not consumables. No one likes consumables which is again annoying as most combat powers are ammo limited as well. Due to the MP they scrapped Adrenaline Rush, we lost ammo powers, we lost defensive powers like fortification, assault rifles are terrible and the best we got is a ammo based powers and 3 skill limit.

The trilogy gameplay was fine, it worked and instead of adding to it MEA instead gutted the gameplay. So overall due to average at best dialogue writing, massive gameplay UI issues the game is at best 6/10 for me.

Wooh. A little late to this thread, but having just completed my 2nd play through I'm already starting my third. I love this game. It's so much damn fun and I've greatly enjoyed the story. With enough open plot lines I'm already looking forward to a second ME:A.

Indeed. And DLC.

Needless to say, when it becomes available I'll be purchasing it.

I guess I must be one of those 29% people.

It's a shame that some people think that it's a bad thing for other people to enjoy a game that they personally don't.

Loved it my favourite in the franchise.

The game suffers from conflicting decisions which leads me to believe they need better project management. Here a few examples:

1: They give us an inventory menu but then proceed to gut it completely that it has no use anymore since you cannot even equip from it.

2: They give us free form combat with freedom to choose our skills but then neuter the entire idea with a 3 skill slot limit.

3: They write some decent side quests but the proceed to ruin them by stupid padding, travel times and ruin their execution by too much of telling and not showing. Example of such a quest is Firefighters, Contagion etc

4: They give us exploration as a motive but gut the concept out.

5: They call you a pathfinder but instead you are made to be a path follower. First contact, sorry wasn't the first contact. First remtech, again not the
first and this continues on everywhere.


The game is seeped in conflicting decisions all pointing to fucked up management.

I'll type out a more in-depth review a little bit later, but figured I'd give some quick highlights.



PROS

• Characters are Still Overall Good: Jaal, Drack and Vetra especially. I don't think Cora and Liam are that bad, could be a little more unique. Peebee is my least favorite.
• Gameplay: Smoothest its been forever. It almost feels awkward to look at the animations of the original Mass Effect Trilogy.
• Exploration is Back: ME2 and ME3 were hyper-lacking this feature. ME1's planets were big squares, these have a lot of variety to their design.
• Heleus Cluster Galaxy Map is beautiful: I enjoy the planet descriptions and the black hole in the background.
• Some parts of the main quest are 100% awesome: Hunting the Archon especially.

So, finally finishing it after 90 hours, I'm calling it "good, but could have been great". Too padded with meh side missions, way too buggy on Day One. The best missions were the loyalty ones. Drack and Liam's, especially. The GUI, especially missions and R&D, felt badly designed. Liked the weaponry.  Excellent graphics, post-patch.  Loved the combat, the jetpack really added a new dimension.

While I applauded getting rid of Paragon and Renegade, I didn't like the lack of choices in how you interacted with people. Too often, it felt like I was given four ways to express one POV. Some of the early writing was pretty bad, but most of it was quite good. 

I know I'll get crap for this, so before I say anything else: I'm not a Gamergater, I think they are, on the whole, terrible human beings who want to use an incredibly flimsy pretext in order to publicly be the dirtbags they already were privately. I've never used the phrase "SJW" in a non-ironic sense. My politics are centre-left politically (in Canadian terms.  I'd be considered very liberal south of the border). Having said that, the social politics were jammed in there so ham-handedly that I just laughed and shook my head. Everyone being gay/lesbian, the whole Hainly Abrams fiasco (and the shrieking hysterics that accompanied it), it was nuts. If you can't do it well, don't do it. Don't force it in there with a crowbar and sledgehammer. Plenty of sci-fi can and does weave that stuff into their work without coming off as advocates for certain political positions (Expanse, for example). I know the game was made in Montreal, so it was inevitable, but still.

Anyway, by the end, it felt more like a slog. I wanted to love this game, I really did. I adored the OT. By comparison, I'm playing Horizon: Zero Dawn, and 2/3 of the way through the story, I'm still filled with wonder and awe.  When I leave work, I press the gas pedal on my car a little harder so I can get back home and play it just a little sooner.  Like all games that I love, I don't want it to end. It was the feeling that I hoped I'd have with MEA, and didn't. I finished it, and I'll play the presumably insanely overpriced DLC to learn about the other Ark, but it'll be an obligation, not a pleasure.

Well 65/100 is not generally considered good

A 6/10 is considered a D if someone were to give it a school grade. 5 or below is an F.