Comments on: Thoughts: Mass Effect Andromeda

By: ilitarist

ilitarist — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 10:15:57 +0000

Meanwhile Stellaris just became good. As it’s very close to Mass Effect in some regards (or, to be precise, they reevaluate Star Trek in very similar ways) it’d be a good time to switch and reinforce sci-fi greatness.

By: Zenicetus

Zenicetus — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 00:07:37 +0000

Good review and it mirrors my take on it, so far. I’m about 3/4 of the way through it, and trying to summon the will to finish. There are a lot of things dragging it down, but the repetitive combat is what may finally make me give up. This game is like playing Witcher 3, if Geralt had to slog through a fight with a dumbed-down Wild Hunt crew before completing every goddamned side quest, with no other interesting enemies. CDPR understands pacing, and how players need variety in a game that relies so heavily on combat to move things forward. Bioware doesn’t get that.

On the Joss Whedon inspiration… yeah, they aimed for Buffy when they should have gone for Firefly instead. I dunno, maybe people are tired of gruff space marines like Shepard, or gruff Geralt, but they went too far in the other direction with these wide-eyed teenage space rangers.

Drack is the only companion character I like, and there is no real depth to him. It’s just that the contrast is so stark against the other clueless characters. They missed a big opportunity with Jaarl, the only new alien in the crew. He comes across as the token Tonto to the PC’s Lone Ranger hero. “Gee I can’t decide what would be best for my People, you decide!”

As for the future of the series… well, I think they’re locked into the location now, if only because they’ve spent so much time on the Angara assets that can be re-used. I can’t see them changing main character focus either, so we’re probably stuck with Ryder the Pathfinder. Maybe they’ll just move to another star cluster, or into the galactic disk proper. You know there’ll be a next one, even with this misstep. The IP is too valuable, and EA can still afford to throw money at it.

By: ilitarist

ilitarist — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 13:47:13 +0000

>There is clearly somebody on the writing team at that studio who has seen far too much Buffy The Vampire Slayer and fancies themselves as the next Joss Whedon

This is what I always say when I see BioWare writing. You *must* have been stolen the comparison from one of my comments here. Anyway, it’s really annoying how every character is always reduced to some level of badass with a secret smartass inside, and the only difference between companions is proportion. There is no character in BioWare game that doesn’t try to surprise you with being too smart for a brute or being too brutish for a smartass.

Anyway, you reminded me I can replay Mass Effect 2-3 *again*. And by the way, I never got to ME3 DLCs. And Dragon Age 2-3 DLCs are still a mystery to me too, and I don’t even consider those games to be that bad (even though DA2 characters are mostly bad, especially elves). Or there’s an overwritten mess of Torment Tides of Numenera, at least it’s short I’ve heard. Still nothing seems to approach last year’s Tyranny.

Also ironically I’ve purchased Batman Arkham Knight just before you posted this review. They’ve fixed it, right? It’s a good game now, right? Just like MAE will be 2 years later. Probably. Maybe.