Mass Effect: Andromeda 18 Months on– A Good Game Trapped in a Great Shadow.

      

We have all seen the reviews, we have all seen the memes and we have all seen the fallout. Mass Effect Andromeda (ME:A) the latest game in one of the greatest franchises in gaming history was utterly slaughtered by critics and fans Alike.

Following the reputation of the original trilogy, a great set of trailers. People had their hopes up. People expecting a game on the level of the divine majesty of ME:2, or the very least the set up of ME:1, were disappointed with bad reviews and a buggy game.

Now 18 months on after the patches and near collapse of Bioware I play ME:A for the first time to see if this game deserves the flack it got, to decide whether poor Management decisions, a bad game or high fan expectations is the reason we may never get a conclusion to this story or even another addition to the Mass effect title.

Animation and Graphics.

Now one of the first things I noticed, within the first few hours, was that the animations were somewhat lacking, the facial animations were okay or passable for the most part, I’ve not played many games on Xbox 1 with believable facial animations, however when I used the default Sara Ryder the animations were appalling the same can be said about the eyes of Scott they just wander. ME:A  is considered to have exceptionally bad animations probably because it’s a game that largely focuses on the facial animations.

Outside the Facial animations, it was a rather mixed bag. After playing the original trilogy on Xbox 360 and Xbox 1, being in awe of the graphics at times, I was pleasantly surprised of the Turian facial animations, making each plate more pronounced than before. Then I was very disappointed by the Asari, Bar Peebee and Lexi, nearly every Asari is identical not only this the rendering of their faces is bad they look overly smooth and rounded. This is just poor the old mass effect games didn’t suffer so, and neither should ME:A.

The Krogan and Angara were also less than optimal. The Krogan often had regular clipping issues, their helmets were too big for the rest of their armour. The Angara despite being a designed race had a really badly rendered neck it just wasn’t as crisp or detailed as say the Turians.

Did this bother me?

No, not really. The vast, vast, majority of the game is set in a 3^rd person view far enough away that these problems are not noticeable, it's only the conversations with the close ups that really have a view to make these shortcomings an issue.

Overall the game graphics are good and may have been forgiven in a fallout title or assassins creed game.  However, in a Mass effect title EA and Bioware, who made splashes due to their amazing 360 and PS3 graphics in ME:2 and ME:3, should have expected a higher bar.

Game Mechanics.

Here is where this game makes up some ground, this game has a fantastic combat system and is generally easy to use. One of the only gripes with replaying the original trilogy was that I always wanted to be a biotic or biotic tech combo character but by doing that you lose half your weapon and armour options. Moreover, in the original games, many of the Biotic powers seemed too simplistic, you see some insane biotic abilities. Yet when playing with them I got a sense it was lacking somewhat. The whole combat system of the original games was very simple, get to cover and shoot, cover, shoot etc the games seemed to favour Shepard regardless of gender as a solder, not a biotic.

Well, Andromeda is different. You start off as a single class solder, adept, vanguard, sentinel etc. but you can spend points in any of the power “trees” allowing you to truly customise your Ryder. I started as a soldier and ended up playing most of the game as an explorer with 2 biotic and 1 tech ability.

To complement this the combat is not, sit and wait like the early games you can fly around the combat zone often run past them entirely. This freedom really benefits the biotic and tech abilities to just jump in and kill 2 chosen while hovering to then hit the floor take out some anointed with backlash and proceed to dash around taking out the rest with lance and overload. The game actually makes you feel like the AI enhanced Super solder you’re meant to be. The Boss fights are just that Boss fights, the Ascended and Architects are ruthless to fight, the latter even being a challenge in the lowest levels of difficulty.

Now this game has some issues but less than some games I’ve played. The fact you have to be in front of NPCs to talk is annoying when they are running away from you or in front of consoles, but this is trivial.  The game has some insane levels of gear I completed all main quests before getting anywhere near top tier gear, maybe this was to leave room for more progression in a once planned DLC.  

The biggest issue in this game and its one shared with ME:2 and 3 you have to leave the planet or port to get on the tempest. This is truly aggravating to have to watch these repetitive sequences of arriving/leaving a planet or the near seizure inducing FTL travel so much. This is especially annoying when I’ve settled a planet just called Addison from the outpost QEC vidicon but to talk to her again I have to not only go back to my ship but enter orbit, WHY?

The biggest problem was that the quests were very planet hoppy and on my first playthrough, I didn’t realise that for every main mission I was meant to do all the side ones since they would update with the next major mission, not be done at the end just before the final mission.

Story and Characters.

The character bag was very much like the original trilogy, people you hate, love and everything in between. I loved Drack and Vetra, liked Peebee, Jaal and Cora and absolutely hated Tann overly prejudiced toward the Krogan and clearly racist he clearly saw his own people as superior to all others like when he recommended the Salarian pathfinder for the ambassador position. I liked how the crew seemed alive more so than the first Mass Effect, and maybe more than the second.

The story while slow to start was, in the end, very very interesting. The tale of the Angara, the level of advancement for the Jardaan the story and threat of the Kett. Was totally enthralling. The planet exploration was great, and the Vaults actually did a lot made the exploration a lot easier. Not to mention the final mission gave me a chill like the suicide mission from mass effect 2.

One criticism I’ve regularly seen is the lack of big decisions and this one I don’t see as fair. In my opinion, Andromeda had more impactful decisions than ME:1. In the first mass effect game, the major decisions were about the Ranchi, Kaden or ash, save or sacrifice council and Udina or Anderson. These decisions had no effect on the outcome of that game.

In this game the missions, I do and when effects how the final mission plays out, especially where the pathfinders are concerned. This is much more like Mass effect 2 not to mention that many of the decisions we made were probably meant to take effect in the DLC and in the sequel all of which now is cancelled.

The Tragedy

That to me is the biggest failing. After the backlash, all subsequent content for this game is cancelled. All the potential for this game, this story and the characters involved is snuffed out because Bioware couldn’t get facial animations down?

No. I feel that too many fans were expecting a rehash of ME:2 and too many expected all of the decisions we made to have an effect in this game, which is unfair ME 1 didn’t have that and none of the decisions of ME:3 mattered at all.

Is that the fate of all ME games to be brilliant yet end so sadly? We don’t truly know what happened to Shepard and co, now Ryder and the Initiative’s fate is a mystery who is next to get a great story but end so tragically?

This game is fun, it has a good protagonist and interesting antagonist and plenty of fake allies and potential enemies yet aside from a book we are left wondering how the Andromeda Initiative fairs. Do the Jardaan return? Did they leave? Are the kett a vast empire? What attacked one of if not the most advanced race in Mass effect history? Did the Reapers Win and track the Initiative? Did Cora get her garden or Bradley his ranch? 

We will never know