Mass Effect: Andromeda Review by: endings - 5.9/10
A rocky beginning hides a serviceable, but bland sequel(Review posted before the 1.05 patch)
This second coming of Bioware's Mass Effect space fighting/dialog heavy series is in the sophomore slump. While trying to make a clean break from the controversial surroundings of the last game's ending, this fresh start in a new galaxy
should be ripe to draw in fans of the old, and be an introduction to new players. It doesn't manage very well, by introducing some dull characters and a lot of text about the perils of cryogenic freezing processes. Its not until you start getting your 6-person squad all filled up that the game stops dragging the fun out of the game, and finally feels more like the series its based off of. Fortunately for the game, thats sooner, rather than later.
:Graphics: 7 This is a game with contradictions. It has great graphics, and terrible. The people (especially in the beginning) look flat and robotic, with no real definition to their face. Many lack any convincing type of eye or lip movement. The aliens in the game, being foreign and make believe, fare better, since we don't know how their facial tics (or lack of) are supposed to be. It does get better later in the game, but even then I would see a cutscene or two with some character standing in place like a paper doll. Weird.
The backgrounds are beautiful. You see your ship zoom up next to the planet in orbit, then follow it down to landing. As you walk around the surfaces, the color, climate and sky often look wild and varied. Most of the aliens look better than the humans. Unfortunately, that cannot be said of the enemy types. For being a whole new galaxy, there is surprising little in the way of variety for the local enemies, and wildlife. The fact there is only two alien races is pretty shameful, but traveling to desert and ice planets and BOTH have the same type of wildlife (just palette change) is downright lazy.
There is a wide variety of weapons, far more than in previous Mass Effect or possibly in other Bioware games. Each has a lot of detail, and you can usually tell what gun is what just by looking at them, they are that unique. I'm not sure what happened to the flashy powers your characters use (such as biotic/psychic blasts, pyrotechnic explosions) from the past games, but here they are more muted and look a bit underwhelming, but work well.
So yeah, great backgrounds>fake looking people; impressive, unique planets>dull,repeated bad guys,cool guns>drab powers... There is a lot to like and dislike.
Sound: 7
This is a dialog heavy game, and the scale of the amount of people is impressive. Not all the voices are that great, however( see a theme?), but some of the major ones are solid. The beginning is mainly meeting higher-ups you will be dealing with for the rest of the game, and they actually are pretty bad. Your crew all have good voice-acting, and the male/female Ryder I didn't mind either, which is really important as they are your voice.
Strangely, there isn't a lot of music to this game, only 18 tracks. There were large pockets of the game I was walking around and exploring, and no music. Only when fighting or in certain locations did the sound kick on. I will say, if you've played Mass Effect series before, it does sound in vein to the music of the series, if not stand out.
I didn't mind the soundtrack, but I wasn't blown away by it. I wished there had more opportunities it was used, feeling too incidental. The massive amount of spoken word is by and large good, unfortunately some of the key characters (ADDISON, I'm looking at you) have some bad voice acting. Gunfire and monster sounds were excellent!
Addictiveness: 5
It feels a bit like a chore to go through the game, and I think its the lackluster writing. Things that would draw me in and make me want to find out mysteries and stories are just not as compelling. Despite your very important job, tons of people have no issue with bothering you to find their research notes or basically do their job for them. Its fairly insulting how bland most of the extra assignments are. The story missions are fairly good, but the side quests are almost all tedious fluff and feel like opening a big box of cereal and getting mostly air.
One big issue I see is the new scanning tech you have to use on a majority of missions. Think of it like Arkham Batman's Detective Vision, The Witcher 3, Dead Space - they all had some form of seeing small details in the environment - and all were a lot better than Andromeda's. Here you are stuck with a small square rectangle, and you have to stand just right to highlight what the game wants you to see. I've wasted minutes getting in just the right position to trigger the next scripted event in the story because I wasn't standing just right. I wish it had been more like Dead Space, which just did a whole area scan around you, and no need to hold a flashlight to every single thing.
Being the sidequests are dull, the text around them is often so too. I frequently would get such ridiculous tasks offered I tried to turn them down, as even fixing someone's personal matter still makes them talk about it like you haven't.
Story: 4
Wasted potential. You are part of a large group of interstellar travelers (humans and aliens, working together - thats the idea anyway) that go to find new homes out in the Andromeda Galaxy. You are one of the people who has the find the habitable planets. Unfortunately, you can only land on certain planets, and much of what you are looking at isn't all that exciting unless you just want a weird looking alien world.
Once your roster of squad maters gets filled up (which honestly isn't long at all), you will start travelling to several planets, and while you run into several of the odd pacing issue (I had to stop exploring a planet because the story badly wanted me to do another planet first then come back, despite offering me both at the same time).
You crew is alright, they all have little side content that at least plays out over the course of the game, so it doesn't seem like filler so much. The big bad guy is almost forgettable, as is their objective. It feels very recycled.
Depth: 9
There is a ton to do in this game. Much of is story related, but there is a LOT of tedious scanning, mining, fetch quests that get in the way of that. You will have so many pop ups you have to pick through them to get what you want, not get lost on some sidequest. I did like the colonization aspect, unfortunately, you don't really have as much say-so over that as you would think. For instance, you don't even tell them where to start to build the settlements.. which is kind of the point of finding a hospitable planet, right?
There is a mammoth amount of info about planets, random tidbits on datapads (tablets), laborious text flavor for every single gun in the game, but yet the bad guys backstory could be described in two words. I wish the enemies (and those beginning characters you meet on Nexus) had been given more time and development. Thats what a lot of this game feels like, parts were rushed and they just need fine tuning.
The menus are fairly clunky, and Research and Development is a crafting component of the game that often just feels too expensive to be useful.
Difficulty: 5
You can set your difficulty, and there are a wide choice of options. You can have every foe drop in about two attacks, or put it up to a mode you'll be hiding under cover for most of the game. There is some simple platforming and puzzle solving, but nothing vigorous. I did like they had all these different modes right from the beginning.
Some of the quest tracking can be difficult, or has issues (such as the one about being on top of what you need, but scanning won't pick it up). Other times you just know you're supposed to be in a place but it won't show you what is there until you dig around. Normally this is ok, but he bad lighting and the choice to have an all orange scanner don't help.
Combat however, is very good. You get a lot of maneuverability in a jet pack, lots of weapon and power choices.. and those powers you can change on the fly. The only drawback2 I see to combat is the lack of enemies to fight, and lack of control over your squad. They don't equip any of the multitudinous gear you find, and you can't direct them to attack a target. They mainly just run around, sometimes getting in your way, or standing guard at spot you designate.
How about some pro's and cons. The game isn't a total train wreck, but it does feel a little off with its own source material.
+ The crew is pretty balanced on personality types and has lots of dialog, both with your player and with each other. I'd argue they might be just as likable as the crew from the very first Mass Effect game.
+ Despite the single-player woes, there is a Multiplayer mode, very similar to Mass Effect 3's version, and its almost as good as that right out of the gate. If I was ranking just MP I'd give it a 8 out of 10. You can tell they took notes and there are only a few tweaks I think it needs.
+ Hub Worlds. One thing I like is many of the planets you go to, there is some form of settlement there, and they each feel as different as the planets they are on. It was very welcome to see life on each nebula. And those planets can look GORGEOUS.
+ Combat is tight, and I feel is the most polished of all the Mass Effect games.
+ The 6 wheel off-road vehicle you drive on planets is very easy to control and feels reliable.
+ Better diversity and female representation in this game 100% from previous games. Until the 3rd game, almost exclusively had male aliens. Now every species gets representatives out there where you can see and talk to them. This made me quite happy. Also the asari (the all female race) isn't as overly provocative as last outings, and tend to be shown in more positive roles.
Now the not so good
- Dreadful dull beginning. Its just... ugh. I'd expect people to play 10 minutes and quit. I had to force myself to remain interested (and I'm a fan of ME) until I got the 4th and 5th squad mates (you start pretty much with 3). It doesn't help a lot of people you meet in the beginning are part of the wooden face memes that going around on youtube. Then things picked up a bit.
- Crafting is overly complicated. You have to spend your resources twice to make another copy of the item you want to upgrade.... what? If you find weapons or armor in the wild, it doesn't count for upgrading, that's just bad.
- Lackluster side-quests. I got excited when I read developers looked Witcher 3 for inspiration. Clearly it wasn't for questing, Witcher could make a simple fetch quest turn into something unexpectedly horrifying or bizarre and humorous, but most of the quests here are just tepid.
- Feels slightly like a knock-off Mass Effect. There are a couple times I laughed at a sly wink to the old series, but they were few and far between. Some small things seem like the developer just checking off things that make it feel like the old game. For instance, ME 1 and this game,ME4 both feature an alien scientist who loves to talk about a mysterious ancient civilization and marvel at your unique way of dealing with them. The only difference between these asari is one is talkative and shows her midriff. How trite.
- More to do on the worlds. Sure there is a lot of dull side missions (that often feel a waste of your time), but the actual meat and potatoes of world building there is not a lot to it. You are offered a choice in what kind of modules to send out on your first enclave, but this is never brought up again, and have no part in how it grows.
- Uneven writing. I only bring this up because the company that made this series was well known for writing being one of their strengths. Maybe those people were busy or moved on to other projects because its pretty much a crapshoot if NPCs are going to use grammar that doesn't fit in this game world (I got an email from an alien and she told me (sorry, my bad), or show some of the old Bioware flair for complex characters (The conversations between squaddies PeeBee and Drack are hilarious!)
Overall : 5.9
Its an ambitious idea, but one that still needed time to be perfected. Unfortunately, lots of issues with quality (faces/menus/missions), and a really sluggish beginning almost turn people off to the game before it starts. Not quite a good game, some of the choices made are beyond saving, but the roots are there for something that could have been great.
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