Early review: Mass Effect: Andromeda is Dragon Age: Inquisition in space

A week of playtime is nowhere near enough to fully review sprawling galactic epic.

Read the whole story

 

[yeppers]

The whole thing just seems misguided. I don't want DA:I in space. Bioware crafted the perfect action game in Mass Effect 2. Great characters, lots of choices, awesome combat, varied mission design - it was just great. That's what I want. That's what the series was best at. Not driving around in the Mako or walking around a planet looking for plants to scan.

They also wasted a whole new galaxy, which seems insane to me, does Bioware have any sci-fi fans on their writing staff? Oh but man they sure did put a lot of work into the banging options.

Outside of "to make money" I have no idea why this game exists.

 

[Boskone]

Controller-biased control scheme? I'll wait for a sale based on that alone. I have a keyboard and mouse, dammit, let me use them as such.

 

[Flit]

All of the things Lee talks about are true, though I would say that DA:I at least had very interesting characters that you could get attached to, and so far in 10 hours of play I don't care a whit about the idiots that tag along with me and get slaughtered every 5 seconds.

Here's a big huge plot breaking question for the lazy writers of Mass Effect. If I can have a tiny Quantum Entangled Communicator in my brain that instantly connects me to my ship wherever I am, and QECs can communicate instantly across any distance of space, why doesn't the Institute have a QEC connection with the Milky Way?

And another, if somehow magical space telescopes can let the Initiative see the viability of "golden planets" from 2.5 million light years away why couldn't on-board ship sensors detect updates from those planets when they got, oh I don't know, a few dozen light years away? And say "hey look out for that giant scourge thing, let's maybe scan a few other planets since these have gone to shiite."???

When the games plot is broken so badly before the game boots up, there are going to be huge problems.

I never understand people who think technology in sci-fi has no limitations, and that the story and dialogue must hinge on explaining those limitations to the viewer at all times.

 

[Danegelt]

I was thoroughly whelmed by the trial. It felt a lot like ME 1 while adding in some of the better gameplay elements from the sequels, but it also seemed like they didn't bother updating the character models from the last game and just lacked polish. Its worth the $60 to me just for the sheer amount of content, but I'm not going in expecting to be blown away.

 

[pokrface]

But it seems that those parts are not present. Reading the review, I get that there are small gems, but I disagree when they are compared to "small gems" in ME. Shooting bottles with Garrus wasn't a small gem discovered on the side. It was the ME world in a nutshell: two bad-asses sharing a quiet moment before the storm. It was an absolutely necessary moment to set the tone. As far as I can tell, it's also really hard to not encounter.

Can anyone chime in around their experience of how the world is built? So far, it seems that its small side moments are just that - small side moments - that don't do anything to build the relationship between the characters and the story.

Remember that you shooting bottles with Garrus is kind of a capstone on a multi-year, multi-game relationship. Garrus in ME1 wasn't instantly your space brother from another mother, even though he became that over the course of three whole games.

The companions in ME:A all have their moments, but I don't think it's fair to expect a single game's structure to include a set of relationships that are as deep and meaningful as the ones you end up with in ME3 after all those years of relationship-building.

Look, for example, at what's probably my single favorite moment in the entire series: at the end of ME3, Liara will share her memories with Shepard. If you've romanced her in ME3, she kisses you, and that's all fine, but if you're not in a romance with her, the scene plays out with much more poignance: she steps to your side and lays her head on your shoulder, in silence, without needing to say anything.

My headcanon Shep romances Liara in ME1 and then Tali in 2-3, so the way this scene played out for me the first time was really powerful: two former lovers and dear friends, with a bond that goes far beyond needing to speak, taking a moment to find comfort in each other just by being there. It was profound, moving, and got me close to tears.

But it did that because while the stuff on screen was playing out, I was thinking back to 2008 and all the play-throughs of the series I'd done since then, all the time spent with Shep and Liara, and how much they'd both come to mean to me. It worked because of the huge long tail of emotion we'd build up.

It's hella hard to hit those same notes in a single game—in fact, without note-perfect writing, trying to portray that level of attachment in a single game (the context of which would necessarily include meeting the characters, too) is super-easy to screw up. Then, instead of profound and moving, it just feels cheesy, maudlin, overwrought, and stupid.

Fortunately, they didn't try. This is a new adventure, and with that comes the recognition that ME3-level feels are going to be difficult to establish.

 

[Flit]

But it seems that those parts are not present. Reading the review, I get that there are small gems, but I disagree when they are compared to "small gems" in ME. Shooting bottles with Garrus wasn't a small gem discovered on the side. It was the ME world in a nutshell: two bad-asses sharing a quiet moment before the storm. It was an absolutely necessary moment to set the tone. As far as I can tell, it's also really hard to not encounter.

Yeah, but like Lee is saying, asking for a moment like that in a new game with new characters is an unfair bar to set. Yeah, when all is said and done, these moments might be missing from the game, but I highly doubt there won't be any.

Think of it this way: The difference between Wrath of Khan's death scene vs. New Trek's analogous death scene. One had years of setup and context, and therefore became tragic and touching. New trek tried the same thing based on one movie with no other history for those characters, and just came off as crass. That Bottle scene was in 3 (IIRC) and had the context of the other two games, making the history of the characters what gave that scene gravity.

Same with the opening attack in ME2. That moment still is one of my favorite in any game, but it was because I had so much investment in ME1. Had ME1 started the same way, I don't think i'd remember it.

 

[pokrface]

Same with the opening attack in ME2. That moment still is one of my favorite in any game, but it was because I had so much investment in ME1. Had ME1 started the same way, I don't think i'd remember it.

RIP Jenkins and...uh....(googles)...Nihlus.

 

[Rommel102]

All of the things Lee talks about are true, though I would say that DA:I at least had very interesting characters that you could get attached to, and so far in 10 hours of play I don't care a whit about the idiots that tag along with me and get slaughtered every 5 seconds.

Here's a big huge plot breaking question for the lazy writers of Mass Effect. If I can have a tiny Quantum Entangled Communicator in my brain that instantly connects me to my ship wherever I am, and QECs can communicate instantly across any distance of space, why doesn't the Institute have a QEC connection with the Milky Way?

And another, if somehow magical space telescopes can let the Initiative see the viability of "golden planets" from 2.5 million light years away why couldn't on-board ship sensors detect updates from those planets when they got, oh I don't know, a few dozen light years away? And say "hey look out for that giant scourge thing, let's maybe scan a few other planets since these have gone to shiite."???

When the games plot is broken so badly before the game boots up, there are going to be huge problems.

I never understand people who think technology in sci-fi has no limitations, and that the story and dialogue must hinge on explaining those limitations to the viewer at all times.

You played the game yet? They specifically make a big deal about being "on their own" apart from the Milky Way without any explanation of why that is the case. The Mass Effect series already canonized QECs and the fact that they are (magically) based on real science means that they will work at any distance. Why not at least mention that the Milky Way QEC was destroyed in the crash? Even if we don't want to conveniently ignore this the Nexus and other Arks should at least all be able to instantly communicate with each other.

Even if you ignore the QECs completely, how do 5 enormous ships travelling together to another galaxy get separated and lost without explanation? The plot doesn't make any sense. If you are sending 4 Arks and an Ark Base/Citadel to another galaxy, why would you send them all separately to different star systems? The mission has a much higher chance of success and survive-ability if they all travel together, build the Ark Base, re-confirm viability, and then send the Arks.

As the story stands (mild spoilers), the Nexus arrived a year early by itself, crashed into dark energy and killed every single competent leader, and then they just waited around for a year for "the Pathfinder" to show up. They didn't even pull the awesome explorer ship out of mothballs despite trying to setup some colonies on obviously unviable planets.

Oh and then every Ark ship also crashes into dark energy and kills or damages a bunch of people. Because the sensors from another galaxy are better at picking up stuff then the ships they sent themselves.

It just really screams contrivance, and that is just in the first few minutes.

 

[Ten Wind]

It seems like people have had their expectations set a bit unreasonably high for this game. Mass Effect has always been a pretty good sci-fantasy action shooter with rpg elements, and it seems like this game continues in exactly the same vein. The story was never great - it was sci-fi story 2. a) with options I. and iii. selected - but if was serviceable. The writing was fine, and I think it's unreasonable to suddenly expect literary excellence out of the fourth game in the series.

Andromeda seems to continue on in every way that which characterized the first three games, and clearly that's going to be perfect for many people considering the number of people who loved the first three.

 

[Wyrmaster]

The complaints about there being only 2 new intelligent species seem overblown to me. Didn't we fly to one (hopefully quiet) corner of the galaxy? Sounds like we ended up in one group's home cluster, possibly with the Kett doing their best space fascist "Stay in your homes and we won't shoot you much!" impression. If the map for Andromeda 2 expands to the whole galaxy and we still don't see more aliens then I'll worry.

On another topic, from what I've played of the MP, I'm glad the A for Acrobatics button is gone. ME3's MP left me constantly failing at running, and slamming into cover behind every corner I tried to run around, but both running and cover feel smoother this time around. Now if only I could figure out how to punch people when I want to melee, and switch weapons when I want to.

 

[Null_Space]

All of the things Lee talks about are true, though I would say that DA:I at least had very interesting characters that you could get attached to, and so far in 10 hours of play I don't care a whit about the idiots that tag along with me and get slaughtered every 5 seconds.

Here's a big huge plot breaking question for the lazy writers of Mass Effect. If I can have a tiny Quantum Entangled Communicator in my brain that instantly connects me to my ship wherever I am, and QECs can communicate instantly across any distance of space, why doesn't the Institute have a QEC connection with the Milky Way?

And another, if somehow magical space telescopes can let the Initiative see the viability of "golden planets" from 2.5 million light years away why couldn't on-board ship sensors detect updates from those planets when they got, oh I don't know, a few dozen light years away? And say "hey look out for that giant scourge thing, let's maybe scan a few other planets since these have gone to shiite."???

When the games plot is broken so badly before the game boots up, there are going to be huge problems.

I never understand people who think technology in sci-fi has no limitations, and that the story and dialogue must hinge on explaining those limitations to the viewer at all times.

You played the game yet? They specifically make a big deal about being "on their own" apart from the Milky Way without any explanation of why that is the case. The Mass Effect series already canonized QECs and the fact that they are (magically) based on real science means that they will work at any distance.

Any distance?

Since in "real science" they don't work at all, how can you make that claim?

Or maybe they work, but the energy requirements increase exponentially with distance?

 

[KGFish]

But it seems that those parts are not present. Reading the review, I get that there are small gems, but I disagree when they are compared to "small gems" in ME. Shooting bottles with Garrus wasn't a small gem discovered on the side. It was the ME world in a nutshell: two bad-asses sharing a quiet moment before the storm. It was an absolutely necessary moment to set the tone. As far as I can tell, it's also really hard to not encounter.

Can anyone chime in around their experience of how the world is built? So far, it seems that its small side moments are just that - small side moments - that don't do anything to build the relationship between the characters and the story.

Remember that you shooting bottles with Garrus is kind of a capstone on a multi-year, multi-game relationship. Garrus in ME1 wasn't instantly your space brother from another mother, even though he became that over the course of three whole games.

The companions in ME:A all have their moments, but I don't think it's fair to expect a single game's structure to include a set of relationships that are as deep and meaningful as the ones you end up with in ME3 after all those years of relationship-building.

Look, for example, at what's probably my single favorite moment in the entire series: at the end of ME3, Liara will share her memories with Shepard. If you've romanced her in ME3, she kisses you, and that's all fine, but if you're not in a romance with her, the scene plays out with much more poignance: she steps to your side and lays her head on your shoulder, in silence, without needing to say anything.

My headcanon Shep romances Liara in ME1 and then Tali in 2-3, so the way this scene played out for me the first time was really powerful: two former lovers and dear friends, with a bond that goes far beyond needing to speak, taking a moment to find comfort in each other just by being there. It was profound, moving, and got me close to tears.

But it did that because while the stuff on screen was playing out, I was thinking back to 2008 and all the play-throughs of the series I'd done since then, all the time spent with Shep and Liara, and how much they'd both come to mean to me. It worked because of the huge long tail of emotion we'd build up.

It's hella hard to hit those same notes in a single game—in fact, without note-perfect writing, trying to portray that level of attachment in a single game (the context of which would necessarily include meeting the characters, too) is super-easy to screw up. Then, instead of profound and moving, it just feels cheesy, maudlin, overwrought, and stupid.

Fortunately, they didn't try. This is a new adventure, and with that comes the recognition that ME3-level feels are going to be difficult to establish.

Fair point on that the bottle-shooting scene (and a lot of other awesome ME:3 scenes) are capstone scenes that required a lot of set up.

But let's take another example (and forgive me for the lack of other details, as it's now been over 10 years that I last played ME:1). Remember the scene on the beach where you have a choice (if done "right") between fighting Wrex and convincing him? Wrex was a companion before, and a brother afterward. That also did take some time to set up, but it took only a single game.

My point is that emotionally important scenes don't require 100+ hours of investment. They require careful writing that provide release for emotional tension that was built up with very specific interactions. To provide another example: there are plenty of theater plays that portray powerful emotions - and they don't take 100 hours to set up. They just require carefully built interactions.

What I'm trying to figure out is whether ME:A has the careful writing of the overall ME series, or whether the ending of ME:3 is a sign of the writing in ME:A. So far... well, I can't quite tell, but things seem off.

 

[Rommel102]

All of the things Lee talks about are true, though I would say that DA:I at least had very interesting characters that you could get attached to, and so far in 10 hours of play I don't care a whit about the idiots that tag along with me and get slaughtered every 5 seconds.

Here's a big huge plot breaking question for the lazy writers of Mass Effect. If I can have a tiny Quantum Entangled Communicator in my brain that instantly connects me to my ship wherever I am, and QECs can communicate instantly across any distance of space, why doesn't the Institute have a QEC connection with the Milky Way?

And another, if somehow magical space telescopes can let the Initiative see the viability of "golden planets" from 2.5 million light years away why couldn't on-board ship sensors detect updates from those planets when they got, oh I don't know, a few dozen light years away? And say "hey look out for that giant scourge thing, let's maybe scan a few other planets since these have gone to shiite."???

When the games plot is broken so badly before the game boots up, there are going to be huge problems.

I never understand people who think technology in sci-fi has no limitations, and that the story and dialogue must hinge on explaining those limitations to the viewer at all times.

You played the game yet? They specifically make a big deal about being "on their own" apart from the Milky Way without any explanation of why that is the case. The Mass Effect series already canonized QECs and the fact that they are (magically) based on real science means that they will work at any distance.

Any distance?

Since in "real science" they don't work at all, how can you make that claim?

Or maybe they work, but the energy requirements increase exponentially with distance?

Quantum Entanglement is a real phenomenon that has been observed in nature. The concept of being able to transmit information using it is thought to be impossible. So it is all "magic" anyway, but when ME2 and ME3 already canonized its use, and you actually have the ability to use a miniaturized QEC in your brain in Andromeda, to simply ignore the possibility of contact at all with the Milky Way is lazy writing.

As I mentioned, they could have said it was destroyed in the crash at least. Or gave some handwavium answer like you suggest with power requirements increasing with each million light years or something. But there is no answer at all, because we are all just supposed to assume that leaving the Milky Way necessitates a complete break from society.

 

[UnHoly One]

Were you trying to make your character look like Ashly Burch?

Because if so, you succeeded magnificently.

 

[Flit]

Quantum Entanglement is a real phenomenon that has been observed in nature. The concept of being able to transmit information using it is thought to be impossible. So it is all "magic" anyway, but when ME2 and ME3 already canonized its use, and you actually have the ability to use a miniaturized QEC in your brain in Andromeda, to simply ignore the possibility of contact at all with the Milky Way is lazy writing.

As I mentioned, they could have said it was destroyed in the crash at least. Or gave some handwavium answer like you suggest with power requirements increasing with each million light years or something. But there is no answer at all, because we are all just supposed to assume that leaving the Milky Way necessitates a complete break from society.

Not explaining every technological limitation =/= lazy. Also, people making decisions you don't agree with (Sending 5 arcs to 5 different locations) isn't bad writing either, it might be poor decision making by the characters, but it isn't wrong.

 

[Aquiles]

I don't know how to feel about this. I consider myself a Mass Effect fan, having put more than 1500 hours into the whole trilogy, and I think Dragon Age: Origins was an outstanding game. But I absolutely hated Dragon Age: Inquistion because the story was forgettable, the characters were forgettable, the combat was forgettable and a very unwelcome change from the first game (the first was a proper tactical RPG whereas Inquisition was a button-mashy MMO with as much depth as a puddle during the dry season), and it was overall a tedious game to play with all the fetch quests ans busywork. It just didn't have any single redeeming quality that could save it from its overall mediocrity. Plus, I still haven't forgiven Bioware for the whole "made by PC players for PC players" bullshite.

So, on the one hand, as a Mass Effect fan this should be an insta-buy for me according to the reviewer, but on the other hand, the same reviewer says that this is Dragon Age: Inquisition in space. You can understand that I'm a bit confused.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that I'm not going to pick this up at the very least until it has been patched three or four times. The question now is whether to pick this up after it goes on sale for 15€, or not at all.

EDIT: also, I will not fogive them in a million years for not including the Quarians. Besides Tali being the absolute best videogame girlfriend that has ever been created, you'd think the Quarians would have a thing or two to say in a game about finding a new home for humanity.

 

[DiavoJinx]

Thank you for this detailed review -- that's how I like my game reviews!

(And as a result I've learned this is not the game for me.)

 

[Rommel102]

Quantum Entanglement is a real phenomenon that has been observed in nature. The concept of being able to transmit information using it is thought to be impossible. So it is all "magic" anyway, but when ME2 and ME3 already canonized its use, and you actually have the ability to use a miniaturized QEC in your brain in Andromeda, to simply ignore the possibility of contact at all with the Milky Way is lazy writing.

As I mentioned, they could have said it was destroyed in the crash at least. Or gave some handwavium answer like you suggest with power requirements increasing with each million light years or something. But there is no answer at all, because we are all just supposed to assume that leaving the Milky Way necessitates a complete break from society.

Not explaining every technological limitation =/= lazy. Also, people making decisions you don't agree with (Sending 5 arcs to 5 different locations) isn't bad writing either, it might be poor decision making by the characters, but it isn't wrong.

Considering that those two decisions lead directly to the extremely bad situation that you find yourself in the beginning of the game, they are extremely lazy. They are simply ignored in order to setup the plot of the game.

You find yourself discovering all of this ineptitude and of course you are now "The Pathfinder" which is another incredibly lazy plot point and can solve all of these problems that stumped hundreds of other people for 18 months. In DA:I becoming the Inquisitor made sense at least; you had a very unique and specific skill that allowed you to magically fix things. In Andromeda, (if you are fem-Ryder) you are just a low-level dorky solider/scientist whose only real differentiating ability is an AI that makes you slightly better in combat (I admit I don't know how that plays out down the line).

The first 10 hours or so are just lazy writing in general, regardless if you nitpick about specifics like I do...but the fact that there are so many lazy plot devices used just to setup the beginning of the game is symbolic of the writing in general (again through 10 hours).

 

[FighterforJC]

One thing I'm looking forward to is the combat, which sounds good enough for a dedicated third person shooter. Very happy to know I won't need to micro manage my team mid combat. I absolutely hated having to pause to stare at menus in the middle of a heated firefight in past titles.

 

[Kazper]

Kind of on the fence about this.

I'm a huuuuuge RPG lover. And I'm a huuuuuuuge SciFi lover. This game should be perfect for me.

But... I'm just SO sick and tired of BioWare's (lack of) quality code. They always have so, so many bugs and annoyances (examples already abound in this review and the "Ugly" column). So I'm probably gonna skip this for a (long) while.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Also glad the game doesn't force you to play as a girl

And the problem with that is..?

 

[teknik]

Controller-biased control scheme? I'll wait for a sale based on that alone. I have a keyboard and mouse, dammit, let me use them as such.

I had this question myself, I get RSI issues from kb/m. I did a google and it appears we're good!

https://www.pcgamesn.com/mass-effect-an ... er-support

Just in time, I'm flaring up at the moment from my current game, I replaced an old corded logitech thumball I loved (15 years finally took it's tole) with the new wireless version and it doesn't fit my hand correct and it's blown me out

 

[Flit]

But I absolutely hated Dragon Age: Inquistion because the story was forgettable, the characters were forgettable,

DA:I isn't a perfect game, but this criticism is objectively false.

 

[pokrface]

In DA:I becoming the Inquisitor made sense at least; you had a very unique and specific skill that allowed you to magically fix things. In Andromeda, (if you are fem-Ryder) you are just a low-level dorky solider/scientist whose only real differentiating ability is an AI that makes you slightly better in combat (I admit I don't know how that plays out down the line).

It's a little less dumb than that:

1) You're made Pathfinder ostensibly because the job requires interfacing with SAM, the AI, and when Alec kicks the bucket you're the only person nearby who has the implant necessary to make that work.

2) Your connection with SAM is the only reason why you can use Remnant technology, which is a big deal, because you're the only person who can use the Vaults.

3) ....but there's more to it than that, and Alec Ryder and Jien Garson had a lot more shit going on than just making an altruistic gesture with the Andromeda Initiative, and you (or your sibling, you're interchangeable) would be the only person Alec would make Pathfinder because of plot reasons that begin to unravel after you grab all of Alec's memory triggers...

4)...and there's some weird, weird, weird shit going on with your SAM that doesn't affect any of the other Pathfinders' SAMs (because each Ark has a SAM)....

...and so on. It's not quite the arbitrary "You're the pathfinder because if you weren't there wouldn't be a game" choice it appears to be on the surface. Whether the underlying plot as it's revealed is satisfying to you is another matter, but it at least isn't just a thoughtless dumb thing that happens.

 

[pokrface]

But I absolutely hated Dragon Age: Inquistion because the story was forgettable, the characters were forgettable,

DA:I isn't a perfect game, but this criticism is objectively false.

Few honest criticisms are "objectively false." I've played DA:I twice from beginning to end (with about 60 hours per play through), and without Google I couldn't tell you how many companions you end up with or all of their names. There's Dwarf Sex Writer Guy, Stupid Elf Who Sucks, Stupid Joking Girl Elf, Templar Guy, Gray Warden Guy, Ghost Kid, and.....there might be more but I literally cannot remember.

edit - and Cassandra! OK, I remember Cassandra and her name, so that's pretty good.

 

[BulkyZ]

All of the things Lee talks about are true, though I would say that DA:I at least had very interesting characters that you could get attached to, and so far in 10 hours of play I don't care a whit about the idiots that tag along with me and get slaughtered every 5 seconds.

Here's a big huge plot breaking question for the lazy writers of Mass Effect. If I can have a tiny Quantum Entangled Communicator in my brain that instantly connects me to my ship wherever I am, and QECs can communicate instantly across any distance of space, why doesn't the Institute have a QEC connection with the Milky Way?

And another, if somehow magical space telescopes can let the Initiative see the viability of "golden planets" from 2.5 million light years away why couldn't on-board ship sensors detect updates from those planets when they got, oh I don't know, a few dozen light years away? And say "hey look out for that giant scourge thing, let's maybe scan a few other planets since these have gone to shiite."???

When the games plot is broken so badly before the game boots up, there are going to be huge problems.

I never understand people who think technology in sci-fi has no limitations, and that the story and dialogue must hinge on explaining those limitations to the viewer at all times.

When the tech is that good, there's only 2 excuses for the arks being caught with their pants down. Massive neglect, or tue tech was somehow broken. This was ignored (it seems) by the writers.

 

[Mitlov]

Despite my love of scifi games, I somehow didn't get on with the first Mass Effect and abandoned it after maybe 10hrs of play. Somehow its play mechanics just never 'clicked' with me. Never tried the sequels.

However, looking at some gameplay videos for ME:A I think I may take a chance on this.

Gameplay changed dramatically from ME1 to ME2 (and had modest refinements from ME2 to ME3). Action was far more fluid and natural-feeling, the incredibly-onerous inventory of ME1 was scrapped entirely, and the weapon-overheating system was swapped out for a more traditional ammo setup.

I find it interesting that ME:A seems to include a return to ME1's weapon overheat system (for at least one class of weapons) and ME1's inventory system.

 

[teknik]

Despite my love of scifi games, I somehow didn't get on with the first Mass Effect and abandoned it after maybe 10hrs of play. Somehow its play mechanics just never 'clicked' with me. Never tried the sequels.

However, looking at some gameplay videos for ME:A I think I may take a chance on this.

Gameplay changed dramatically from ME1 to ME2 (and had modest refinements from ME2 to ME3). Action was far more fluid and natural-feeling, the incredibly-onerous inventory of ME1 was scrapped entirely, and the weapon-overheating system was swapped out for a more traditional ammo setup.

I find it interesting that ME:A seems to include a return to ME1's weapon overheat system (for at least one class of weapons) and ME1's inventory system.

I agree, I did finish ME:1 but not for the gameplay. I enjoyed the changes in the later games.

This one sounds like it combines the best of both worlds, I was on the fence but now I'm excited!

 

[KGFish]

Also glad the game doesn't force you to play as a girl

And the problem with that is..?

I thought you'd never ask! I don't like playing as a girl in games that are made for males, which to me are action games with lots of killing. There's a reason you don't see Barbies with ak47's or G.I. Joe's with a hairbrush. Boys and girls play differently, something a lot of video game developers have forgotten

:facepalm: I dread for you the day a girl kicks your ass at... anything, really.

 

[Mitlov]

Also glad the game doesn't force you to play as a girl

And the problem with that is..?

I thought you'd never ask! I don't like playing as a girl in games that are made for males, which to me are action games with lots of killing. There's a reason you don't see Barbies with ak47's or G.I. Joe's with a hairbrush. Boys and girls play differently, something a lot of video game developers have forgotten

Oh get over yourself and your forced gender roles. My seven-year-old likes stuffed animals as well as his Halo toys, and pink is one of this top three favorite colors. So fucking what?

And one of his Halo action figures is Spartan Olympia Vale, and he has zero problem/confusion with the fact that she has lady parts under her armor instead of man parts. Because, after all, when we're playing with Halo action figures, we're not talking about genitals, we're talking about defeating the Covenant.

 

[ferdnyc]

I have to admit, I literally LOLed at...

And the Ryder twin you don’t choose to play as is conveniently knocked into a coma that lasts for the entire first third of the game. So that problem takes care of itself.

 

[Kevin Lowe]

EDIT: also, I will not fogive them in a million years for not including the Quarians. Besides Tali being the absolute best videogame girlfriend that has ever been created, you'd think the Quarians would have a thing or two to say in a game about finding a new home for humanity.

The Quarians prioritize the survival of the Fleet above all else. Why would one go traipsing across the universe, never to return to their home galaxy, let alone bring anything back to the Fleet?

 

[KGFish]

Despite my love of scifi games, I somehow didn't get on with the first Mass Effect and abandoned it after maybe 10hrs of play. Somehow its play mechanics just never 'clicked' with me. Never tried the sequels.

However, looking at some gameplay videos for ME:A I think I may take a chance on this.

Gameplay changed dramatically from ME1 to ME2 (and had modest refinements from ME2 to ME3). Action was far more fluid and natural-feeling, the incredibly-onerous inventory of ME1 was scrapped entirely, and the weapon-overheating system was swapped out for a more traditional ammo setup.

I find it interesting that ME:A seems to include a return to ME1's weapon overheat system (for at least one class of weapons) and ME1's inventory system.

Oh thank god. At least one bit of good news. I loved the overheating system. Especially since it meant an actual trade-off for using super-awesome ammo. I ended up using a sniper rifle where every shot put it into overheat mode, but was also instant kill on almost anything... if I hit. If I didn't, it meant I was a sitting duck for several seconds.

It made sniping feel much closer to actual sniping engagements: there was lots of scouting for a good vantage point, careful target selection, and very long-range shooting. Followed by hurried swaps to the assault rifle when the sniping went south, or when baddies arrived unexpectedly.

 

[dfjdejulio]

And another, if somehow magical space telescopes can let the Initiative see the viability of "golden planets" from 2.5 million light years away why couldn't on-board ship sensors detect updates from those planets when they got, oh I don't know, a few dozen light years away?

My understanding from the 10 hour preview... how to phrase without spoilers... okay, let's try this.

If I'm remembering correctly, the "magical space telescope" used in that way was built by ... someone ... who wasn't actually part of the initiative. The folks in the initiative didn't know how to build one and didn't fully understand how it worked... and didn't have the cooperation of those who did. I don't believe anyone in Andromeda has that tech available.

 

[pokrface]

Oh thank god. At least one bit of good news. I loved the overheating system.

There is a rare crafting mod (the "Legacy Heat Sink" item) that lets you craft guns of any kind with the ME1 style overheat mechanism, which I also very much prefer.

On the other hand, though—and I didn't mention this in the review—ammo doesn't seem to be a problem. There are crates (from which you can synthesize ammo, and by "synthesize" I mean "walk next to them and magically get ammo") literally everywhere in areas where you're supposed to be shooting. I don't know if they're as widely distributed in higher difficulty levels, but ammo has been beyond plentiful on stupid-baby difficulty where I'm playing.

 

[dfjdejulio]

The whole thing just seems misguided. I don't want DA:I in space. Bioware crafted the perfect action game in Mass Effect 2. Great characters, lots of choices, awesome combat, varied mission design - it was just great. That's what I want. That's what the series was best at. Not driving around in the Mako or walking around a planet looking for plants to scan.

Different people do want different things.

For me, ME2 was the absolute low point of the series, and ME1 remains my favorite (for now), though with ME3 a pretty close second. ME2 really did have two things going for it in my book -- character development and hacking minigames -- and for me, they didn't make up for what was lost. (I hated the combat in ME2, but then, I would go all the way to turn-based tabletop-RPG-style combat resolution if I could.)

I'm very optimistic about Andromeda. During my preview, aspects of it felt more like ME1 than either ME2 or ME3 did, and I regard that as terrific. YMMV, obviously.

 

[ten91]

But I absolutely hated Dragon Age: Inquistion because the story was forgettable, the characters were forgettable,

DA:I isn't a perfect game, but this criticism is objectively false.

Few honest criticisms are "objectively false." I've played DA:I twice from beginning to end (with about 60 hours per play through), and without Google I couldn't tell you how many companions you end up with or all of their names. There's Dwarf Sex Writer Guy, Stupid Elf Who Sucks, Stupid Joking Girl Elf, Templar Guy, Gray Warden Guy, Ghost Kid, and.....there might be more but I literally cannot remember.

edit - and Cassandra! OK, I remember Cassandra and her name, so that's pretty good.

Iron Bull is the only one worth remembering.

 

[pokrface]

If I'm remembering correctly, the "magical space telescope" used in that way was built by ... someone ... who wasn't actually part of the initiative. The folks in the initiative didn't know how to build one and didn't fully understand how it worked... and didn't have the cooperation of those who did. I don't believe anyone in Andromeda has that tech available.

Yeah, I don't think that's particularly spoiler-y (and I mention it in the article). The Alliance found a Geth experiment in the Milky Way where the Geth had turned a Mass Relay into an ultra long range faster-than-light telescope, and that's what they used to pick out the golden worlds. It's also ostensibly why the initiative didn't get updates on the worlds' status in transit.

They don't mention whether or not the alliance still has access to the geth miracle tech—if so, and if the end of ME3 didn't disable it, and if anyone remembers the Andromeda Initiative 630+ years after they departed, the milky way of the 2800s could fire 'em back up and check in on Andromeda at any time...