Mass Effect Andromeda

Looking back to the previous generation of gaming consoles, the Mass Effect series was one of the very best trilogies to come from it. Some would even argue it was the flat-out best. Personally, I hold them in very high-regard and they contain some of my most emotional and awe-inspiring gaming memories. 

They were a series set in the far future that felt like smart, realistic sci-fi. The stories they told were engrossing, they featured thoughtful characters, and really opened the door for gaming's "choices" logic that so many games try to use now. At the time their gameplay was pushing the industry forward with its tight, powerful action and the graphics were often the best of any respective year they released. 

In short, they were high-quality, AAA games that [mostly] got better with each iteration. 

Fast forward to 2017 and gamers are eagerly anticipating the return of the series after a several year hiatus and a game that graces us on new consoles, no less. It's hard not to get excited, but immediately disappointing when sub-par reviews began to trickle in. There's often less discrepancy with videogames than there are movies. A great game is often, truly, a great game to all whereas a bad game is similarly a bad game to all. As someone who put Mass Effect Andromeda as their most anticipated of 2017 (before I knew Middle-Earth: Shadow of War was coming out), this was pretty disheartening to hear that a series as good as this could have such a steep decline into the mediocre. 

Despite reviews though, I still purchased the game and wanted to give my take. While it's safe to say that I can see why reviews were lower than expected -- it's not nearly as good as the originals -- I think it's also safe to say that there is a really good game here, for a variety of reasons. 

You just have to know where to look.

It sure offers up some splendid visuals. Also, the Nomad (above) rocks

It looks great, but this aspect is dull

The biggest problem with Mass Effect Andromeda, and arguably the only one that really hurts it, is that there's too much superfluous stuff here. In an effort to match the likes of gargantuan games like The Witcher 3 or Fallout 4, there are a lot of added side activities that just simply don't need to be here OR they take too long to fully complete. A perfect example of this would be the resourcing/exploration of planets that you can't actually go to. The animation for doing so is beautiful...with the Tempest (your ship) flying from planet to planet with black holes, Super Novas, stars, and other planets in the background (more on that later). But the reward is somewhat minimal both tangibly and intangibly. You arrive at the planet, it gives you some data that you more than often don't read, you scan to see if there are any special "collectibles" there, and move on to the next. Traveling between planets is a bit cumbersome and overall I did this part just to do it and gather the elements I needed. What's frustrating is this was a complaint of the previous games too. Where it was forgivable last generation because it was the first time, it's unnecessary here and ends up as a footnote of an activity. There's also a fairly large number of useless side quests, which  isn't unique just to the Mass Effect franchise. Every open world game of this scope requires a certain amount of prioritization that drives completionists insane. I used to be one of those people until I realized that the earth keeps spinning if you don't 100% every game, but I digress. Andromeda has a lot of unnecessary, kind of ridiculous, side quests that play like chores. Scanning over 16 hidden rocks on various planets anyone? It's an issue too because most of them are front and rear loaded with dialogue that I couldn't care less about. At about the 7-8 hour mark I found myself completely skipping full conversations between Ryder (my character) and whomever he was talking to unless it played an integral part to the story. What's more is that characters often talk slowly and there are pleasantries within each conversation that, once I caught on, I knew I needed to power through so that I'd actually be able to beat the game sometime this year. 

Hey look! A trophy screenshot that is actually awesome for once!

Much has been said about the game's technological shortcomings too. I've experienced a few patches by the time of this review and I can honestly say I didn't have too many issues with the game on this front, which I thought important to include if it's keeping people on the fence. The whole "OMG their faces look horrendous!" part has far passed (and was probably blown out of proportion to begin with). I've experienced some slowdown and framerate issues fairly consistently when it gets really busy and there seems to be a lag when interacting with environmental things about every sixth/seventh time I play -- I know, weird. I've had my game crash once and a couple other close calls. If I'm being honest, while this is frustrating, the game's checkpoint system and self-saving ability are great safeguards and the only time I lost 10-15+ minutes of progress was when I died of my own fault. If slight glitches every once in a while like this are a deal breaker for you then I'd say the game probably isn't up to your standard yet. For me, and many others I'm guessing, it's part of the open-world package and it's certainly not the first, or last, game that we'll see stuff like this in. 

Exploring planets can be exhilarating...

Aside from the disappointment that Andromeda places on long-time fans, there's also a part of me that absolutely adores this game and wants to keep coming back to it. It feels different with its spirit compared to most games. Most games are about saving the world from annihilation or killing the bad dude. They're down. Depressing. Andromeda is about finding a new home and continuing the human race. It's set many years before the original trilogy as we follow several colonies, or Arks, as they venture out of the Milky Way and into other star systems looking for "Golden Planets" -- ones where humans can call home. It's shockingly hopeful. Obviously, complications arise and things don't go quite as planned, but if I were to give the big picture idea, that'd be it. It's a tremendous feat then that the game had me legitimately caring about being the Pathfinder, one selected individual from each race of alien that is that race's leader-in-charge to find a new planet. Ryder, the protagonist that Bioware has created is a humble, thoughtful, funny, likeable, and badass leader that I had no problem playing as. If anything, he may be a little forgettable, but I made him my own and I bonded with not only him, but my crew mates aboard the Tempest. The relationship building made famous by the previous games remains strong here and how in-depth you get into it really comes down to how much you care about the characters and their personalities. Some I enjoyed more than others, but overall I wanted to connect with my band of explorers on this epic journey to expand civilization. If anything, Mass Effect Andromeda plays like a version of Interstellar that continues far past the credit roll and to me, that's incredibly exciting.

Traveling to these various planets is a treat as well and I'm guessing that a portion of this game is what the developers of No Man's Sky were going for. Each planet is unique in its layout and weather patterns and features a host of things to do in order to create a settlement there. Some of these things are repetitive, some are distinctly unique of the planet, and some are really special and exhilarating (a giant Remnant worm fight on Eos comes to mind). There's a true sense of exploration when you arrive at a planet, and combined they're all big enough that it's actually quite easy to see why the game might crash at random intervals. In general, they're largely lifeless -- there aren't many randomly occurring events -- but at any point you get bored of the planet/quest you're on, you're welcome to travel to one of the other five or six different planets and work on establishing those. If I'm being honest, there's such a wondrous game beneath the fluff here that if they would have carved out a lot of the "To-Do-List" quests and left important, fun ones along with the main story, we'd likely be looking at a new, albeit shorter, Mass Effect classic here. That's also assuming all the initial glitches were gone, but you get my point. 

Tatooine? Is that you?

I don't believe this planet will be
around in a couple millennia

The star of the show is combat and it's as good as the Mass Effect series has ever been thanks to some awesome improvements. For starters, there are a lot of options for your character. What guns they use, what mods those guns have, what level of gun it is, what class you are, what powers/abilities you have, how powerful those abilities are, which squad mates you're using, what their abilities are, etc. There's A LOT that goes into making your character the combat machine you want them to be. It's extremely daunting at first and I still honestly think there's a little too much there between buying/selling gear, scrapping it, researching it, and developing it. It reminded me a lot of the "potions" avenues that I always refuse to go down with any open world game. I poke my toe in the water, usually get overwhelmed, and am more comfortable getting what I need another way. BUT I DIGRESS, for what feels like the umpteenth time in this review. Combat, once you have your character fleshed out, is immensely satisfying and intense. My character was a Vanguard meaning that I had an even mix of battlefield toughness/weapons knowledge and special, kinetic abilities. I was good with guns, but could also teleport slam an enemy, throw a ball of energy that would send them flying, or fire a stasis ball that would trap, injure, and float any caught in it. Within all of that there are special combos that add even more damage and by the time I reached level 25-30 I felt like an absolute boss. There are some difficulty spikes at the beginning and you always have to play somewhat smart, but in general the game treats combat fairly throughout and it's safe to say that it's the series' best by quite a mile. And that's without me even getting into the added movement abilities for fast dashes, dodges, and high jumps!

So many choices of what I can say!

Aside from the glitches/hiccups, Andromeda looks and plays amazing too. It's often very fluid in motion and makes good use of a TVs HDR if it has one. Standing on the vista of a foreign planet, overlooking its surface and seeing the stars and planets above is a jaw-dropping experience and one that the game delivers time and time again. As most games do, the "bigger" things look better than the smaller ones; environments and horizons look incredible while character models or vehicles look merely great. I don't think it consistently blew me away the way Horizon did, but it's still a very good looking game and a next-gen version of Mass Effect. If this were any other year, I'd also say that Andromeda has the best sound effects/editing of the year too. That award also goes to Horizon but that shouldn't take away from this game's accomplishments. Guns and powers all have high intensity, hard hitting impacts and effects while the environment itself (particularly zero-gravity sections) can also have memorable design. I wish the original score were more memorable, but in general it gets the job done. 

Before I wrap this up it should be quickly noted that I did not try the MP, nor do I really plan to. I'm sure it's fine, but it's not really why I play Mass Effect games and I think my opinion stands with enough content experienced on its own.

Can't deny that it's gorgeous

Am I disappointed in Mass Effect Andromeda? Yeah, I am. There are definitely parts of it that needed to go back to the drawing board and I didn't see anything radically "next gen" that would define this series the same way the original trilogy did for the previous generation of consoles. This is an example of a game with too much packed in and not enough of it is important or critical, or all that fun. After playing for several hours, you begin to learn what matters and what doesn't and can plan your approach accordingly. Doing this allowed me to play the fantastic game that exists within the larger beast and that game is hopeful, exciting, wondrous, fun, intense, and made me feel like a true space explorer. 

And that is exactly how the original trilogy felt.

CONS

• Too much stuffed into the game. Of this, a decent amount is unnecessary
• Side missions have way too much dialogue to get to the point
• Many side missions are boring quests that require annoying final "check-ins"
• Too many other activities like planet resource hunting, research/development, cryo pods, strike teams, etc. It's great they're there, but I never felt like they were 100% worth my time
• Some technological issues including framerate drops and momentary freezing
• A few uninteresting characters
• Forgettable original score
• Doesn't bring anything "next-gen" to this new generation of consoles

PROS

• Features some fantastic visuals of space, planets, the stars and everything in between. There are quite a few jaw-dropping moments
• Strong protagonist that you can really make your own. Most of the supporting cast is likable and memorable
• Funnier than expected and the characters have a good camaraderie
• Excellent combat and exploration. Firefights are fast-paced, intense, and require you to be skilled but also feature some highly intuitive controls that make everything feel fluid
• Awesome powers and weapons at your disposal
• Really large planets with a lot of variety in terrain, weather, and challenges. If you ever get bored by one, you can head to another
• Fun quests throughout and the main campaign was exciting to me. The spirit of the game is hopeful and that bleeds over into the general tone of the story
• Amazing sound effects
• At its core, and for about 70% of it's gameplay, it's still Mass Effect, which is still a fantastic game series. There may be too much here, but once you find what matters, it's high quality

Rath's Review Score | 8/10