Don't Believe the Negative Hype - Mass Effect: Andromeda

I hate seeing a major title misfire right out of the gates. Sure, there is some serious opportunity for schadenfreude, especially when the game in question is released by a cynical, consumer-hostile publisher like EA. When Mass Effect: Andromeda was announced, I was very excited for it. Although I believe the series declined from its initial entry, I was excited to see how Bioware and EA would create a new story within the Mass Effect framework.

Of course, when the game was released, all hell broke loose. The facial animations of the characters in the game was criticized at launch by numerous outlets for being inadequate by any standards, let alone those of a Mass Effect game. My YouTube feed at the time was filled with compilations of "funny" facial animation failures and oddities from the game. From my perspective, it really wasn't looking good for the literal face of the game to be so poorly received. Little did I know the facial animation controversy was obscuring a great game, and a worthy addition to the Mass Effect franchise.

Some time after the release of the game, a significant price drop, and many patches being made to the game, I decided to pick up a copy for the Playstation 4. I played it recently with the actual intent of getting it out of my collection (sometimes I'm more likely to play a game I think is going to be bad so I can "see for myself" and then get rid of it). After playing the game, I will likely hold onto it, and more importantly, I will try even harder on a personal level to not get caught up in overly positive or negative mainstream gaming media hype.

I'll get this out of the way, in the state I played the game in (in March 2018), the presentation of the game, including facial animations, is fine. I chose, as I always do, a custom female player character and overall I was happy with how she looked and was portrayed within the game and its cutscenes. Same goes for the NPCs. The game is a little rough around the edges for sure, but what Western open-world RPG isn't?

The game's combat may actually be the best in the series so far. The player has boost and dash rockets as well as the ability to temporarily hover in a boost, all of which gives combat and incredible sense of dynamic movement. This is no longer a pop and stop situation where you would likely spend most of your time shooting from behind cover. I was always zipping around the battlefield taking cover strategically when necessary.

I also thought the weapon and armor customization was very well done. I won't go deep into the details of the game's economies here, but they are similar to the past games in the series, with emphasis on resource management as well as research, crafting and development.

The only real drawback of this game, when compared to its predecessors, is that Ryder (the main character, who can be male or female) and the rest of the characters really cannot measure up to the standards set by Shepard and his or her crew as far as depth and the desire to learn more about them. This is by no means a deal breaker and does not in any way soften my recommendation. In fact, by the end of the game I was quite attached to my rendition of Sara Ryder. However the entire game from a story standpoint has the feeling of a straight to video sequel to a major movie franchise.

I truly enjoyed this game, and I was left with a sense that I need to do better at simply not paying attention to the mainstream gaming press. This is not an independent event in forming that opinion. The high praise received by Wolfenstein II and Uncharted 4, two games that I considered mediocre at best, has led me to believe that either my personal tastes are out of step with the mainstream, or that, more importantly, there is an increasing homogeneity in game design which creates an environment in which mediocrity rises to the top and truly great and iterative games like Mass Effect: Andromeda will be blasted for technical infractions, to the point where the future of the entire franchise is put in doubt.

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