Summer Backlog Diary #2: Putting the "Ass" in Mass Effect?

Welcome back! The Summer Backlog Challenge 2018 is now in full swing, and I have mostly been playing Mass Effect: Andromeda... mostly. So today I'm going to share my opinion of the game so far.

You will no doubt be aware of all the fuss and general derision that met Andromeda upon its original release. Memes were created, rants were spewed forth, mediocre reviews were written by the gaming press, and death threats were sent to one of the animators responsible for the notoriously ropy facial animations in the game. When Casey Hudson returned to Bioware, one of the first things he did was announce that the company had cancelled their plans for any DLC and that the franchise was going to go on hiatus for extended period. Andromeda was blamed with killing off the series, but does it really deserve such a stigma?

Well, in it's original state, maybe, but in it's patched state I would say that it is actually a decent game. Still flawed, yes, but enjoyable in many ways. At the moment I would place it above the original game in the series, which also had it's fair share of quirks and design flaws, slightly after 3, and way way behind 2 which is the best game in the series so far. I may adjust that assessment when I come to the end of the story, but I have quite a long way to go yet.

So what do I like about it? Well the most notable thing is the combat.  After an initial adjustment period where everything feels wrong, you quickly get a feel for jumping, boosting, and sniping fools in mid air, which is just cool.  For this play through at least, I went with a pure soldier character (my usual choice when I play a Mass Effect game for the first time). There are plenty of abilities in all three skill trees to choose from and lots of scope for building interesting hybrid class characters, which I may explore if I choose to play the game through again at a later date.

I also quite like the main character, Ryder - or at least, my version of her. I have watched some videos from the likes of Outside Xbox and Giant Bomb where they were playing as the male Ryder, and he came across as a bit of an annoying dick, but the female version seems kinder, more jokey. I am also playing as a purely paragon character this time, going to great lengths to help everyone out and be nice to them.

As for the rest of the crew, there is definitely no one to match Garrus, Liara or Tali among them, but I do quite like Jaal.  He is very well written and voice acted, and the Angara are an interesting new race. It is a shame that they are the only new non hostile race that are introduced, and they also came at the expense of fan favourites like the Quarians, the Volus, the Drell, etc. I strongly suspect that these other races would have been part of the DLC, but we will never know now.  Vetra is also pretty cool, different enough from Garrus to just be a female clone of him.  Peebee can be pretty annoying at first, but I warmed up to her over time.  Drack is basically just another, older version of Wrex and Grunt - the same gruff, hard headed Krogan stereotype that we've seen before.  I struggle to find the human members of the crew very interesting, they're just a bit too generic for me.

Talking to the crew between missions, getting to know them and furthering their loyalty quests is one of my favourite parts of the Mass Effect series, and Andromeda does a decent enough job in this regard. There's certainly plenty of content to get stuck into, with about 50 - 60 hours of play time, 6 or so sizable planets to explore, and a seemingly endless supply of quests.  Some of these quests can get a bit annoying as they send you back and forth across the Nexus, or to other star systems, but I haven't skipped anything yet. I think if I were to play too much of this game in a short space of time I would start to tire of it, but short sessions every now and then keep it interesting.

I've already touched on a few things that I don't really like about the game, but let's go over a few more.  Firstly, the plot is hardly inspiring.  The overall idea of exploring a new galaxy and preserving the Milky Way races from extinction at the hands (claws, tentacles?) of the Reapers is an interesting one, but for the most part it's squandered here. The remnant, and the kett just feel like recycle versions of what we've seen before, and the revelation of what the kett actually are was hardly earth shattering news.  They've just used the Prothean / Collectors story again, but not as competently.

Other than that I am definitely starting to notice some glitching as I get further into the game.  Mostly it hasn't been a problem, but there is some noticeable and distracting pop in on the planet of Kadara, and Cora phased inside a shelving unit the other day with just her head sticking out the top talking to me.  So although several patches were released and the game is a darn site better than it was initially, they didn't get everything, and now they never will.

I haven't really explored the multiplayer side all that much yet, just a few quick matches. It seems like it's basically what was present in Mass Effect 3 though, just expanded a bit.  Your actions in the multiplayer mode do tie back into the single player, giving your money and resources to use on crafting, but it doesn't feel as critical as it did when it was affecting your Galactic Readiness rating.

I probably could find more to say about the game but I think I'm going to stop there for now.  There will be a full video review in time, but it will probably take me a few weeks to play through the rest of the game.  In the meantime I hope that I will manage to play through the entirety of Night in the Woods this weekend, so that will be the focus of my post next time.  I usually post my YouTube content on Tuesdays, but I don't think I will be ready to make my review by then, so it may end up going up on a different day.  At any rate, stay tuned to RMGB TV and keep any eye on the blog for more.  In the meantime, take care!