Mass Effect: Andromeda

 PC
User Score
5.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 4468 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,749 out of 4468
  2. Mixed: 712 out of 4468
  3. Negative: 2,007 out of 4468
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  1. Voltron89
    Mar 21, 2017
    6
    Big game, but sadly empty and without good quality content. Quantity over quality... The game is one huge waste potential. There are some extremely good features but also some extremely bad. Let's get to it.

    GOOD: - Vast, new Galaxy to explore with aswesome new planets and places to see. - Some interesting side-characters and team mates (sadly, not level of trilogy crew). -    Big game, but sadly empty and without good quality content. Quantity over quality... The game is one huge waste potential. There are some extremely good features but also some extremely bad. Let's get to it.

    GOOD:
    - Vast, new Galaxy to explore with aswesome new planets and places to see.
    - Some interesting side-characters and team mates (sadly, not level of trilogy crew).
    - Absolutely great combat system, dynamic, fluid, smooth. Good balance between risk and cover combat at higher difficulties.
    - 3 new interesting spieces.
    - Exploration is done much better than in DA:I
    - A lot of dialogues and side quest
    - Quite long game
    - Very good overall visuals of everything but character faces.

    BAD:
    - Generic, boring story. Same scheme for everything. There is nothing deep or ambitious here. Bioware played it 100% safe, no controversy, no emotions, nothing memorable.
    - Many sides quests, but quality is low. Many quests are simple "track, kill, pick up, deliver" or "scan the hell out of this area". More story side-quests are also mostly generic and boring, not even one memorable quest with some sort of plot twist. BioWare should learn from Witcher 3 story quests.
    - Your team mates are shallow, cliche and many times irritating (PeeBee...god...). I din't want to romance anyone in the end, since your right hand seems more interesting and sexy than any of NPCs.
    - Animations are tragedy. This could be forgiven 5 years ago. But we have 2017 and animations are immersion-breaking. Dialogues which suppose to sound tough, emotional, serious are being destroyed by stupid eye rolls, creepy facial espressions and smiles that arre totally oposite to the voice and scene tone. Absolutely garbage. This is RPG game and belive me- you will spend A HELL LOT OF TIME speaking with many different NPCs. Animations will make you skip and speed trough them just to not see this crap.
    - Character Creation is easy the worst in any AAA RPG I have ever played. Why did BioWare just not include DA:I CC? I have no idea. It's like they want to force you to play their "child faces" twins...
    - Faces are awufull. Textures are low res even on 2K on Ultra, lightning is tragedy, as characters many times look like plastic dolls, not living beings.
    - Exploration, while better than in DA:I is till just a time waste and it just try to force you into beliving that game is longer and has more content than it really has. Jumping puzzles, scanning everything is boring, boring, boring. And why our new car does not have Cannon like Mako had? I have no idea....
    - Combat- ther variety of skills is great but you can only equip 3...that is a joke, especially on PC, where you could easy have 5-6 of them. 3 makes combat not as complex as it could be with more active skills.
    - Crafting is useless feature, again it is just to force you to play longer (grind for materials).
    - Music is just average. Not as good as in ME1 or ME2 by a long shot.
    - Game just feels rushed, unpolished, unfinished. If you focus while you play you can see that many thing were not finished.
    - Last but not least- main protagonists are absolutely joke and in many situations they seem like sort of "space teens power rangers" that try hard to be serious and mature. You can't even compare them to Shepard.

    Overall, let me sum this up:
    Game is big, but this is illusion, like DA:I was. Empty maps with useless activities, improved exploration which sadly gets boring after first 10-15 hours. Everything feels unfinished, rushed, beta stage. Story is cliche, boring and without any good plot-twists. Honestly - I can hardly remember it after beating it. Nothing memorable really happened. Combat is great but why so limited with active skills? Animations are great in combat and absolutely garbage B-grade outside of it- expresions, walking, lipsync- just bleh.

    Very average game, but touching a little "good game" territory. As a great ME fan (over 1000h in trilogy and 450h in ME3 MP) I am very dissapointed what has become of my favourite RPG universe.

    6/10, for combat mostly and planets/areas.

    BioWare- you should be ashamed. But you won't since it's all about money. There is not good people left there and no passion for gaming.

    Try to be like CD Project Red Please. Try again to create game with love.    … Expand
  2. gobhoblin
    Mar 21, 2017
    5
    I don't understand how people are giving this a 10 on here and posting that it has lag and animation problems in the same review. What does 10 mean to you?

    Bad animations
    Bad character models
    Bad scaling
    Weak dialog
    Terrible voice acting
    Decent combat
    Boring scan ability that pads game time
  3. Thylbanus
    Mar 21, 2017
    5
    Take this for what it is worth, but I cannot finish this game. It's not engaging enough. Take anything I say with a grain of salt. You have a pretty shallow story that is interspersed with nothing but mission grinds. The voice acting is 75% bad and there is absolutely no reason to find any relation with your companions. The later ones are a bit more interesting, but you don't have anyTake this for what it is worth, but I cannot finish this game. It's not engaging enough. Take anything I say with a grain of salt. You have a pretty shallow story that is interspersed with nothing but mission grinds. The voice acting is 75% bad and there is absolutely no reason to find any relation with your companions. The later ones are a bit more interesting, but you don't have any Morden's sings moments. You can't have any agonizing decisions to make. DUDE, your decisions have as much meaning as the RGB ending of ME3! (*flashback eyetwitch*) You don't have... FUN!

    I shouldn't go off about the negative without some positives. Other than the horrible human wax dolls, the rest of the environment is QUITE pretty. The worlds, while limited in quantity, are still large enough to be interesting, but small enough to remember where you are going, as long as the mission doesn't unknowingly update. (Sorry, I said I'd try to be positive).

    The scope is quite nice for a game of this age. The crafting is lackluster, but having the modding back is nice. The combat is SUPER fun, but I'd rather have them spent the energy in the story and deal with the old system if there were a trade off. Has many hours of content.

    All in all, this probably would have been a higher score if this didn't have the Mass Effect label, but as it does it loses points for not living up to the legacy.    … Expand
  4. SpecH82
    Mar 27, 2017
    5
    Simply not worth full price.
    Partly bad animations. Bad graphics on characters (npc's) in-game while you walk around the nexus. Haircuts and hair colours on said npc's look like s**t.
    Lipsync is bad Npc's look almost the same in high. Looks, sizes and so forth. Side-content are lackluster and boring. Mostly fetch quests (wow 3.0). Orchestra isn't good. Voice acting is    Simply not worth full price.
    Partly bad animations. Bad graphics on characters (npc's) in-game while you walk around the nexus. Haircuts and hair colours on said npc's look like s**t.

    Lipsync is bad

    Npc's look almost the same in high. Looks, sizes and so forth.

    Side-content are lackluster and boring. Mostly fetch quests (wow 3.0).

    Orchestra isn't good. Voice acting is bad/boring, without any feeling/emotion in parts where there should be some.

    The characters don't stand still when you speak with them. Had a chat with the team's krogan. His arms are jumping everywhere.

    To name a few bad things with this game. Frankly bioware go play witcher 3. Perhaps you'll learn something. And stop catering to sjw/feminists. Perhaps if you do that. You'll be able to make good games again.

    Now to something positive. The landscapes/environments are beautiful.    … Expand
  5. psomaster437
    Mar 21, 2017
    5
    The multiplayer is/was fun sure, but the single-player is FAR more like dragon age inq in the terms of open world and story, and that kind of story telling is fine, but having to gather 5k resources ON FOOT is not my thing and then having a finite amount of them so you can't craft all the things or experiment without TONS of farming. I did not get through the 2nd mission at nearly 7 hoursThe multiplayer is/was fun sure, but the single-player is FAR more like dragon age inq in the terms of open world and story, and that kind of story telling is fine, but having to gather 5k resources ON FOOT is not my thing and then having a finite amount of them so you can't craft all the things or experiment without TONS of farming. I did not get through the 2nd mission at nearly 7 hours into the story!

    That is what made me quit playing the dragon age INQ, it just kept GOING with VERY little story progression, and if you did a side mission/quest it would rope you into side dungeons/events you COULD NOT LEAVE without spending another hour or something in them. Sure ME1-2-3 did that kind of thing, but it was FAR more linear with FAR more choices and impacts while this style of open world only results in a FEW choices mattering and any of those choices only effect what a few chars say to you not their entire character. IE in ME1-2-3 and dragon age 1-2 you could make someone hate you or disrespect them and it would effect their combat skills or unlock/lock skills, in this, just, nothing, they change a few key words of dialog.

    They also severally limited gameplay in terms of combat this time. No letting you use health-kits like in ME1-2-3, having to find ammo from crates in preset spots with only 4 ammo reloads, each gun takes up a refill so if you restock 2 guns with ammo 2 of the 4 refills are used, instead of dropped ammo from enemies.

    Limited use of abilities by saying it uses a power cell, weapons start out SUPER weak unless you have difficulty set down, you can't rez a teammate from a distance because you have to run up to them out of cover and hold to rez, your limited to ONLY 3 ABILITIES unless you hot-swap to another PRESET set of abilities which then sets those new abilities on a COOL-DOWN when swapped to even if your abilities were fully ready. IE see dropship dropping tons of grunts, swap to AOE power set as you enter combat, OOOPS to bad, you now have to wait 30-40 seconds to use your abilities now....

    And don't get me started on the animations. I just replayed through the series and watched others stream it on twitch A LOT recently. The fact they could not import/adapt even just the facial motions etc from the first 3 games is VERY sad. I mean wasn't Dragon Age INQ using the same engine? Could they not use the same assets/code for facial animations? Those were at-least far better and it was in the same engine with likely only SOME code needing to be redone to get it to fit on the models right.

    Overall I am giving it a lower score of 5 until the issues are fixed. As which point I will redo my review.    … Expand
  6. mike299
    Mar 22, 2017
    5
    nice combat system, buggy and unpolished, kinda repetitive, dialog wheel not representative of what the character says, soundtrack is average, all and all a typical Bioware game. Nothing Memorable about the characters or story. Haven't try multiplayer yet
  7. Solitary_Freedo
    Mar 21, 2017
    5
    Such a dissapointing game :/ Alot crucial for a fan of the series flaws, its really like inqusition in space. But with more time requirement and worse quality.
  8. DeltaXi65
    Mar 26, 2017
    5
    It truly pains me to write a negative review for Mass Effect:Andromeda, as the Mass Effect series is my favorite RPG series. The characters, the plot, the pacing, the voice work - it was all superb in past games, and I can even forgive Bioware for the botched ending to ME3.

    This game, however, has serious flaws, right from the beginning. First, the animations on faces are just not    It truly pains me to write a negative review for Mass Effect:Andromeda, as the Mass Effect series is my favorite RPG series. The characters, the plot, the pacing, the voice work - it was all superb in past games, and I can even forgive Bioware for the botched ending to ME3.

    This game, however, has serious flaws, right from the beginning. First, the animations on faces are just not believable. They seem to have taken a step backwards, even if the facial textures were excellent. The character creation process was stilted and difficult to understand - it took a while to figure out how to use a different default custom designed face. The voice over for Scott is just not up to the standards we've grown accustomed to.

    The decision to set the Initiative's departure date before Shepard's heroics in the rest of the series destroyed most chances for connections to the other games. The links to Liara - the young, naive Liara, not the hard nosed Shadow Broker that we all came to love - felt contrived. The relative lack of ties and easter eggs to the first games, in and of itself, was a major let down. In a series where the story is so key, this story has so many plot holes that go unexplained that it's hard to accept it at face value. Ryder makes first contact with an alien species that suddenly speaks English without a single explanation in game as to how he can understand them or they can understand him? Seriously? How many first contact scenarios have sci-fi fans seen over the years, from Star Trek to every aliens-visit-earth movie? This killed whatever suspension of disbelief I had and magnified the other deficiencies in the game for me.

    It's not all bad. What keeps the game out of the 1 or 2 score area is combat - this is as good as it has been in any of the games. It was nice to get a rover back, ala Mass Effect 1, although the mining/scanning device could use some work. It's just not that intuitive or fun.

    Overall, the game just didn't live up to my expectations, which were high - but that was because all of the other games in the series delivered. I'm still going to play the game and will probably finish it just to say that I did, but I don't feel the burning desire to complete the story, nor do I feel the same personal bond with these characters that I did with Garrus, Liara, Shephard and others in the first trilogy.

    This was a disappointing game that didn't live up to my expectations.    … Expand
  9. Ansatsu83
    Mar 23, 2017
    7
    Visual bugs aside, I hate the core aspects of the combat. Weapons dont do enough damage, feels like the damage system from dragon age inquisition meets me3. Voice actors do NOT match their races. The krogans feel like slightly more auto-tuned versions of and do not have enough of a gruff/grizzly voice. The salarian's voice actors/actresses pitch is way off compared to the other games. TheVisual bugs aside, I hate the core aspects of the combat. Weapons dont do enough damage, feels like the damage system from dragon age inquisition meets me3. Voice actors do NOT match their races. The krogans feel like slightly more auto-tuned versions of and do not have enough of a gruff/grizzly voice. The salarian's voice actors/actresses pitch is way off compared to the other games. The Turian voice acting... is ok. The story doesnt hit me as well as the old series did, nor does the overall concept of it. Very few enemy types leads to repetitive combat. They took some of the better elements that mass effect 1 had, and tried to combine it with the elements that mass effect 2 did right... And for some reason, they failed at all attempts.

    The nice thing is it is more open world, the movement is very nice and well tuned (least on the player side, animations are still hilarious at best), and the research system feels worthwhile... downside is everything is repetitive, very few enemy types, weapons feel completely useless, etc. I would say it has potential to be good... but right now, the damage system is my biggest complaint.. IT FEELS LIKE DRAGON AGE INQUISITION, WHICH I DISLIKED ALL TOGETHER!!!!!    … Expand
  10. UglyGod
    Mar 21, 2017
    7
    The bandwagon of hate is real with this one. Yes the dialogue animations are terrible. But it's not a reason to go out of your way to harass the people who worked on the game for so much time. It does not deserve all of these negative reviews here's why :

    Graphics : 5/10 I just had to took away 5 points because of the horrendous animations in dialogue(and other bugs), the eyes are just    The bandwagon of hate is real with this one. Yes the dialogue animations are terrible. But it's not a reason to go out of your way to harass the people who worked on the game for so much time. It does not deserve all of these negative reviews here's why :

    Graphics : 5/10
    I just had to took away 5 points because of the horrendous animations in dialogue(and other bugs), the eyes are just so lifeless it's scary. lip syncing is nonexistent and there are no shadows on faces. But the rest of the game looks GREAT, kudos to the Frostbite engine. The environment, armor, weapons and other alien races are just spot on ! ( just some weird texture popping and low draw distance when driving)

    Sound : 7/10
    I am not a music connoisseur but from what I heard so far in this game there isn't a memorable score expect from when you are on the galaxy map, the calm music is just so relaxing I had to mention it. Guns sound loud and have a great kick to them, so does melee attacks and ambient music. Voice acting isn't terrible but isn't great either some lines are just so damn cringy I had to look away.

    Gameplay : 8/10
    This is where the game truly shines. The gameplay is really good and far better than previous Mass Effect games. You are not bound to a single class and can choose to upgrade a way array of powers from simple ones like tossing grenades to sick ones like freezing your enemy before making him explode with a biotic lance. The cover system works well but isn't very intuitive, Ryder automatically snaps onto cover if his weapon is drawn behind a structure. You can now jump evade and teleport adding some verticality to the combat. Sadly ordering your teammates in combat is very basic but still work very well since the IA friendly or not is not stupid.
    On the other hand this is still an RPG which means base building and other goodies. With your scanning tool you can now earn research point to craft some new items, Your duty as pathfinder means that you are responsible of finding new world for your colony to settle in. By progressing in the game you will make the hostile planets somewhat viable allowing your fellow colonists to seize the planet ! You can also wake up citizen from cryo sleep and build up the nexus. It really is something that you need to experience for yourself to truly understand it. You really feel like you are part of something greater.

    Conclusion : This game does not deserve all the hate that it gets because despite the bad graphics at some points the core of the game is really good and will entertain you for a certain amount of time. You know what they say: don't judge a book by it's cover. This game is a Buy if you like RPGs and space operas.

    (There was an error while I was writing the first half of the review I had to complete it and submit another one since i cant edit what was already submitted.)    … Expand
  11. Rikalonius
    Mar 21, 2017
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I have to be fair, there were some well done portions of this game, but I cannot, in good conscience give it a good score. I can sum it up in one word. Derivative.

    Spoilers:

    To start with, we have to accept a huge amount of retcon in this game. A human lead initiative to go to another Galaxy started barely a decade after the first contact war? This would be like Columbus saying, "I've found a new land, now I'm going to go to Mars." I won't bother getting into all that, because retcon aside, the game still stinks.

    As everyone has rightly pointed out, the animations and character textures are sub par. Double Bogey sub-par. So, strike one. The dialog is juvenile. It just reeks of dialog of that was quickly written out and never spoken aloud and refined to see if this is how intelligent beings speak to each other. Strike 2. The characters are awful, and one dimensional cutouts. They each have "their" role to the game and they don't stray from it. And more often than not, they are annoying, especially the support crew members. Strike 3.

    While the environments are beautiful, and a lot of work went into the aesthetics of the planets, it can only do so much to distract you from the poor story and the hackneyed characters. New batter, strike 1. The story is, as I said, derivative. The original story may have been a Lovecraft esque Eldritch horror in which the hero almost literally punches Cthulhu, but its execution was so good you barely noticed. But at last ME1 was different. ME:A is an attempt to reboot the franchise away from the large looming shadow of Commander Shepard, and they don't succeed. You can go to another galaxy, but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard. Strike 2 again. So, lastly, the final out, is the Ryder twins. They exude zero credibility, and zero gravitas. Alec Ryder, for his very short existence, could have been a great character, but's like a Green Beret dies and his teenage son and daughter join the squad. They tell me with their badly animated mouths that they received training, but they act like they are in the cast of some prime drama for women.

    Sorry, but this feels like a poorly executed attempt to overwrite the franchise, and it fell flat on its face in my opinion.    … Expand
  12. Joote
    Apr 25, 2017
    7
    Played 115 hours.

    Not a bad game. Could have been a great game if not for... - Bad animation and facual expresions. - Strange distorted faces. - Really bad immature dialog in a most of conversations. - The few choices you have do not have any consequence. - Forgettable characters. - Once played, most will never play it again. (Very little reason for replay) - Bad story pacing.    Played 115 hours.

    Not a bad game. Could have been a great game if not for...

    - Bad animation and facual expresions.
    - Strange distorted faces.
    - Really bad immature dialog in a most of conversations.
    - The few choices you have do not have any consequence.
    - Forgettable characters.
    - Once played, most will never play it again. (Very little reason for replay)
    - Bad story pacing. ( you go through hours of boredom , then all of a sudden you are swamped with quests.)    … Expand
  13. Motoko_Kusanagi
    Mar 26, 2017
    7
    Excellent game, and tatikoma funny, I approve. + Great Graphics, good story.
    Excellent compared to the trilogy gameplay. Good Music. -
    A lot of masturbation on the planets. Technical problems, like bad animation.
    The fanatics of the original trilogy are too angry, for this I put 10, so the game is 7 points out of 10. P.s
    It's funny that in 3 parts, the score is only 1 ball higher.
  14. whatever523
    Apr 16, 2017
    7
    ME:A could be a potential game of the year if it wasn't for some bad flaws.

    + Technically, the game is very good (single player). Graphics, performance, configuration options. + Great fluid gameplay and combat. + Good progression system with skill points, classes and gear upgrades. + Good exploration mechanics on the planets and the Mako is back. + About 90 hours of mostly good    ME:A could be a potential game of the year if it wasn't for some bad flaws.

    + Technically, the game is very good (single player). Graphics, performance, configuration options.
    + Great fluid gameplay and combat.
    + Good progression system with skill points, classes and gear upgrades.
    + Good exploration mechanics on the planets and the Mako is back.
    + About 90 hours of mostly good content.
    + The animations are great, with a few exceptions.

    - The game tries to convey a message of inclusiveness and political correctness whenever possible and in a very blatant and childish way. Made me cringe during many dialogues. This is a big deal in a game that relies on dialogue so much and a huge step back compared to previous ME games that treated the player like an adult.
    - Many of the main characters are average and forgettable (Suvi, Vectra, Liam, Addison, ...). The female Ryder also has some weird dialogue and a strange grin on her face that mostly doesn't fit the situation.
    - Stupid sudoku style puzzles. They're not smart, just boring.
    - Travelling the space looks great, but a few hours in you wish you could instantly move to locations and skip all travel animations, especially when exploring. It doesn't help that scanning planets isn't very fun or rewarding.
    - Multiplayer could be fun, but it's plagued by lag, disconnects and crashes. The progression system is even worse than in ME3. The whole game mode is designed so players spend money on the store. They cancelled the beta test saying the game mode is polished and doesn't need more testing, which was clearly a lie. It's also very easy to cheat, as MP is peer to peer based. I don't think I've ever had such a bad multiplayer experience in any game.

    The game is good, but could have been great. Which is sad, as they clearly put a lot of effort into it and the mistakes were very avoidable. Keep your political opinion out of games, don't lie to your customers and finish the game before you release it.    … Expand
  15. Notarzt
    Dec 19, 2017
    7
    Are the Animations bad? Yes, human faces are straight horrifying at times. Does that impact the game experience? Again, yes it does and I wish they would've done better. But does that mean the game in general is bad? No, definitely not. The World look gorges, the story doesn't start off as bad as some people claim and if you like the old Mass Effect, there is enjoyment in this game.
  16. PathFinder
    Apr 6, 2022
    7
    The game is another great Mass Effect entry. We all know well that the game is good and the bad yet funny animations were only an opportunity to hate on Bioware.

    Okay so now the game which has made many good improvements the most visible is the combat which now is more engaging and challenging it is certainly more fast paced than before and expanded on. With the great addition of the    The game is another great Mass Effect entry. We all know well that the game is good and the bad yet funny animations were only an opportunity to hate on Bioware.

    Okay so now the game which has made many good improvements the most visible is the combat which now is more engaging and challenging it is certainly more fast paced than before and expanded on. With the great addition of the jump/jet pack the combat has really evolved. The jump pack is also a great addition to the overall game as now you can easily get to places that would be unthinkable in the first three Mass Effects.

    The introduction to the Nomad, new mining system and largely open world has also improved gameplay and immersion in the game. As an addition to this statement the graphics are absolutely amazing even on low settings. Bioware did a great job in producing an immersing set of planets which are all unique in their own way.

    Now an important part, the conversations and dialogue. Although the animations tend to be annoying and even funny many times they certainly do not ruin the gameplay. The dialogue is well delivered and enjoyable. The characters have great backstories which are always great to listen too. Even with great backstories the characters do not form a bond as some of the characters from the previous entries such as Garrus. The Good / Bad guy system was removed to ensure that you are making your own unique Ryder with a unique personality. Your dialogue options are now labelled clearly with a clear indication to when you can romance. Some of the dialogue of characters may seem cringy and forced sometimes but that fells normal to nearly every game I played.

    The game largely reduces loading time throughout the game and there are no loading screens while on the Tempest which is great. The animations when moving from planet to planet are great and the sound effects are often helping to immerse into the universe.

    Overall the game feels definitely like another Mass Effect game but different than the other. People are certainly hating too much on Bioware instead of focusing on the gorgeous gameplay of Andromeda. After playing 20 hours of the game it seems clear to me that the game is nothing as bad as some people say. A nice 9/10 is a fair representation of what the game has to offer. If you are a Mass Effect fan you should certainly pick it up as many reviews discourage fans to buy this great game with their stupid arguments of bad facial animations and poorly delivered dialogue which is not true. As i progress through the game my opinion on the game may change slightly but probably not for the worse but rather the better. The game is not the best in the Mass Effect series but it is another good game developed by Bioware. 9/10

    EDIT: Yea that was quite dumb 7/10    … Expand
  17. muertefx
    Jun 27, 2017
    5
    I wrote few reviews for past months, refunded the game even, but week ago bought it with big discount and spent already 90 hours in it. My opinion didn't change. This is very unpolished game with tons of bugs and glitches, starting from simple textures and ending at quests.

    On patch 1.08 still weak character creation window with a lot of ugly presets without allowing us to change any    I wrote few reviews for past months, refunded the game even, but week ago bought it with big discount and spent already 90 hours in it. My opinion didn't change. This is very unpolished game with tons of bugs and glitches, starting from simple textures and ending at quests.

    On patch 1.08 still weak character creation window with a lot of ugly presets without allowing us to change any face detail including eyebrows, lips type or eyes type (asian, europe etc), just the ugly presets. Still can't see my crew inside of Nomad, it's just empty! And don't even want to say about many texture bugs and quest glitches, up to broken quest which cannot be finished. With some weapons (as Valkyrie) wrong change weapon speed and still "something" pushing us in left or right side while falling down. And, still...a lot of glitches with hero legs animations...

    Almost all side quest are boring, point A point B. Multiplayer practically didn't change, boring co-op against stupid AI (in ME3 AI was better, to be honest, while in ME:A enemies just rushing us and do nothing, just dying, very smart).

    Many achievements cannot be achieved, some sort of bugs I think. For example 2000 kills Terminator - even if you have enough kills you probably will get it in next playthrough, if you didn't get it already. Same story with many other "kill score" achievements.

    And, finally, the game do not see my current equipped weapons in cat scenes, it uses pre-made weapons in - attention! - cat-scenes made with game engine. The engine must understand what is equipped right now, instead giving us random guns we don't have. Same problem was with ME1-3, but...really? Still can't fix this? Why Witcher never had this problem?

    I can see that there was made a great job, a lot of planets, space, all that stuff, but not professional job, it can be compared with the newbies learning Frostbite and trying to make something unique, but they can't. I think that because they didn't have time for this.

    I respect BioWare, I love BioWare, and that is why it is too difficult for me to understand and realize, that you guys just screwed this up. I know about many difficulties which you faced, but still the game could be polished and release date could be changed. Instead, we got different story.

    I really liked voiced, its good, great job. But, the storyline is awful, many quests or dialogs could be extended, a lot of animations could be added to it instead stupid JetPack and OmniTool, we got just 0 hand animations, no interactions with the objects.

    5/10 from me for trying, at least.    … Expand
  18. Trenos
    Nov 29, 2017
    7
    Andromeda would be a weak game if not for the combat system, combat system is amazing. This is one of the best system on the game of all time, now I can't wait for Anthem! Andromeda has some pros, some characters are good and music isn't that bad. If you aren't fan of Mass Effect franchise than I think(ironically,) you should play this game.
  19. prossnip42
    Aug 2, 2018
    5
    What the hell happened here. How did we go from Mass Effect 3 to this? What were you thinking Bioware? Actually that's a bit harsh because the real culprit here is EA. That big company sucking Leviathan is trying its best to completely destroy Bioware like they did with Visceral games. So why is Andromeda such a painfully average game? Well many reasons actually but let's do this one at aWhat the hell happened here. How did we go from Mass Effect 3 to this? What were you thinking Bioware? Actually that's a bit harsh because the real culprit here is EA. That big company sucking Leviathan is trying its best to completely destroy Bioware like they did with Visceral games. So why is Andromeda such a painfully average game? Well many reasons actually but let's do this one at a time.

    Pros:
    -Give credit where it's due, the graphics are pretty damn great. I was fortunate enough to purchase this game very late so all the hilarious bugs and glitches that i saw on the internet were thankfully non present throughout most of my experience and the game looked pretty appealing
    -Driving the Mako actually feels nice for once and the whole planet traversing and exploration thing from Mass Effect 1 was brought back only this time so much more polished and satisfying
    -The combat (while it's the most simplistic of the entire franchise) is pretty fluid and fun. Everything feels satisfying to shoot and the guns pack a good impact.

    Cons:
    -This is my biggest problem with the game. The story. Needless to say the story in Andromeda is boring and cliche beyond all belief. It really is terrible. The Kett are the most generic type of grunts you'll ever see and the Archon is a budget version of Saren, only less interesting, less compelling and doesn't have a cool voice.
    -The characters are also terrible. I mean nothing will ever really come close to the Normandy crew but the companions that you're given are beyond boring and uninteresting. Nothing feels urgent, nothing feels like an impending doom is coming, it's just a slog, a 20 hour boring slog.

    In conclusion, Andromeda's gameplay isn't that bad but the gameplay isn't why people played Mass Effect. It was for the story, the interesting characters, the plot twists, the larger than life conflict. Because if you take all of those elements out you're left with a basic third person cover shooter and nowhere is this more obvious than in Andromeda    … Expand
  20. ComandanteCobra
    May 7, 2020
    6
    Really average...worst than Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3.
    Worst part is , sadly, gameplay....story progression require heavy grinding and very repetitive missions (side missions and main quests both).
    Boss fight are all the same , planets (Ice, Arid, Jungle..) feel exactly the same, exploration is there but you just wander around to one-click some minerals or scan plants over and over again.    Really average...worst than Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3.
    Worst part is , sadly, gameplay....story progression require heavy grinding and very repetitive missions (side missions and main quests both).
    Boss fight are all the same , planets (Ice, Arid, Jungle..) feel exactly the same, exploration is there but you just wander around to one-click some minerals or scan plants over and over again.
    Research for guns and armours upgrade is repetitive (and pointless in some cases), recycled enemy type , NPCS look all the same.
    Combat also it's repetitive...more action and less tactical play (control your squadmates is complicated)...so you will just use the same three powers for the entire game.
    Rpg (or morals) aspects of the game is , also, reducted ...and most of your choices during missions or dialogues have little to no conseguences.
    Good thing about this game are Krogans that have an important part of the plot and an important companion that shred some light on this race    … Expand
  21. IntotheCosmo
    Nov 27, 2018
    6
    A now common "miss" from studio that was beloved not too long ago. Mass Effect: Andromeda is Bioware's reboot of the Mass Effect franchise, and a rather half-baked attempt at trying to forge new frontiers in an already adored franchise. Much like Dragon Age: Inquisition, however, this entry fails to recapture the brilliance that Bioware became famous for.

    Absent is the immersive writing    A now common "miss" from studio that was beloved not too long ago. Mass Effect: Andromeda is Bioware's reboot of the Mass Effect franchise, and a rather half-baked attempt at trying to forge new frontiers in an already adored franchise. Much like Dragon Age: Inquisition, however, this entry fails to recapture the brilliance that Bioware became famous for.

    Absent is the immersive writing and lovable characters. Gone are the moments that make your heart pound and your eyes water. Forgotten are memorable questlines and the general sense of tension and danger when trying to complete a task. Andromeda offers little in terms of gripping world-building, having to, instead, lean heavily on its predecessors. Which is shame considering that its setting had so much potential for new and exciting lore to be explored.

    Moving past the most critical features of storytelling, one runs into the general signs of lack of polish: models that are copy-pasted and overall horrendous looking, animations that are memeable in their faulty mechanics, and dialogue lines that are both poorly thought-out and poorly delivered.

    That said, there is some good. The environments are beautiful, if a bit badly optimized. Driving is 100% better than any Mako or Hammerhead. The combat is a bit too fast to be my cup of tea, but there are some interesting features such as new powers, combos, and the profile system which allows for a wide range of playstyles to approach every situation from.

    The development of Mass Effect: Andromeda is a sad story of trying to do too much with too little (a very well written article from Kotaku describes the hardships of the dev team), and unfortunately, it shows. Andromeda may bring more to the table in terms of graphics and combat, but it fails at what everyone wanted it to be most: a engaging story that has you hooked from the get-go and leaves you salivating for more by the time the credits play.

    One can only hope that Bioware's next foray into the Mass Effect universe will see a return to a world that not only looks and plays nice but feels rich and alive as well.    … Expand
  22. tagort
    Mar 22, 2020
    6
    I am finally payed and finished this game and now I can say that it was not as bad as everyone says but it definetly was dissapointing. I know that most bugs and animation issues was fixed at this moment (though not all for sure) but pointless grind, booring sidequests and lame script is still here. That game have good shooter mechanic, bunch of inteesting characters and sometiemes evenI am finally payed and finished this game and now I can say that it was not as bad as everyone says but it definetly was dissapointing. I know that most bugs and animation issues was fixed at this moment (though not all for sure) but pointless grind, booring sidequests and lame script is still here. That game have good shooter mechanic, bunch of inteesting characters and sometiemes even exelent atmospheric moments. But it sucks 80% time you playing it. Still other 20% gave me positive emotions. So I am not give up on Bioware and hope that they continue Rider's story but do it right negt time.… Expand
  23. snake_arcos
    May 24, 2020
    5
    Olviden la tontería esa de las animaciones faciales, vengo directamente de jugar la trilogía, ya que no la había jugado, maravillosa, emocionadísimo recién terminando el 3 abrí el andromeda, vaya decepción, lo terminé a la fuerza esperando algo bueno, la historia no te motiva a descubrir nada, haces el juego como el que hace la tarea del colegio, no hay misterio, no hay aquella sensaciónOlviden la tontería esa de las animaciones faciales, vengo directamente de jugar la trilogía, ya que no la había jugado, maravillosa, emocionadísimo recién terminando el 3 abrí el andromeda, vaya decepción, lo terminé a la fuerza esperando algo bueno, la historia no te motiva a descubrir nada, haces el juego como el que hace la tarea del colegio, no hay misterio, no hay aquella sensación que te da la trilogía de estar viendo como sería el viaje interestelar y tener todo por descubrir, cosa que tenía tanto potencial al viajar a la galaxia de andromeda, era la idea perfecta para crear algo épico de nuevo, y para los que pasan de la historia y quieren mecánicas, tampoco tiene mucho en mi opinión.… Expand
  24. Kluco
    Jun 21, 2020
    7
    For a fan of the Mass Effect ME:A might be a disappointment. There are still many improvements, combat feels better than ever and the exploration of an unkown galaxy felt great. The game has quite a few plot holes however the thing i think was the biggest stepback from the previous games were the Squadmates. Not only did the previous games offer more character but i felt more attached toFor a fan of the Mass Effect ME:A might be a disappointment. There are still many improvements, combat feels better than ever and the exploration of an unkown galaxy felt great. The game has quite a few plot holes however the thing i think was the biggest stepback from the previous games were the Squadmates. Not only did the previous games offer more character but i felt more attached to most of them, not to say than there are not any interesting characters in ME.A, i still found many great characters but none came close to my favorite character from the previous games… Expand
  25. birdman3
    May 11, 2018
    7
    I don't believe this game to be the franchise killer that many make it out to be, but while there are many steps forward in this game, there are plenty of steps back. The changes to combat are great, in that you feel more versatile, agile, and height adds a third dimension to combat that was mostly missing in previous games. However, while the combat is a step forward, I see the skillI don't believe this game to be the franchise killer that many make it out to be, but while there are many steps forward in this game, there are plenty of steps back. The changes to combat are great, in that you feel more versatile, agile, and height adds a third dimension to combat that was mostly missing in previous games. However, while the combat is a step forward, I see the skill system as a step back. Only three active abilities at a time? I don't find myself switching profiles that often during combat, so I'm frequently stuck with the same three abilities on repeat for most of the game. I found that to be a frustrating downgrade from the previous series. Not to mention that you're no longer in control of your allies abilities - who should I take into battle with me? It doesn't matter in the slightest!

    The universe that's presented is large and varied, but it's also quite empty. Traveling from system to system is more of a chore than anything else because you can only land on a few planets to begin with (not that I would want to land on all of them anyways). Once you start on each planet, you have your typical quest hubs that send you out into the unknown to do the same old things over and over again - go out to a navigation point, fight a few guys, scan a thing, follow a trail of bread crumbs to another point, do the same thing, etc. The quests were so repetitive that it got on my nerves and I wished for the more linear style that we got in the previous games. That's where Mass Effect shined the best in the previous games and in this one, in my opinion. Send me on a mission, give me a beginning and an endpoint, and put some bad guys for me to shoot in between. Make me feel like I'm doing something. Too many quests result in simple skirmishes that are ended easily, not to mention the frequent respawns of enemies that pop out of nowhere like "Oh my gosh! I have to kill these guys!", except that you can just keep driving in your car and you can avoid them entirely.

    In the year since release, I can say that the animations have been improved - I didn't see much of the laughable bad facial animations that were such a joke early on, but there were many bugs that caused me to either have to reload a save or wait for something to trigger on the computer's end. It made it frustrating because sometimes when I couldn't advance in a level I wasn't sure if it was me or the computer.

    Ugh- so many things I want to say about this game, but it's really not worth it to put it all into words - basically, they made some things more complex than they needed to be, and should have done a better job.    … Expand
  26. twobadcrew
    Oct 29, 2020
    6
    So much potential wasted, EA's idiotic decision to take resources from this development team to feed Anthem. This is mass effect by numbers, the graphics are great but the content and story is Sci-Fi channel level bad. My only hope is that a Mass Effect remaster will be made in this same engine.
  27. CallenAmakuni
    Apr 3, 2018
    7
    This game saddens me not because of what it is, but because of what it could have been. I have 40 hours in so far, I've cleared the storyline, and the only thing I have in mind for sure is a single question: Why waste so much potential?

    This game could have been much more than a not-exceptional-but-pretty-good one. It could have been a masterpiece given the appropriate time and    This game saddens me not because of what it is, but because of what it could have been. I have 40 hours in so far, I've cleared the storyline, and the only thing I have in mind for sure is a single question: Why waste so much potential?

    This game could have been much more than a not-exceptional-but-pretty-good one. It could have been a masterpiece given the appropriate time and resources.

    But let's start with giving credit where it's due.

    - I waited a year to get the most optimized version possible (which shouldn't happen in the first place), and the technical difficulties that everyone has been complaining about are pretty much non-existent now, or at least I didn't experience them. Sure, some faces are frankly ugly and all Asari look the freakin' same except for Peebee, but animations are not bad. They're not good either but hey, Mass Effect was never known for its animations. The game is very pretty, and while it's not the technical breakthrough some people expected with Frostbite, it still does visual justice to the universe we're exploring (and a few sceneries are honestly gorgeous).
    - The actual gameplay is fantastic; gunfights are nervous, dynamic and the weapons have a very good feeling at usage (My sniper rifle's shot echoing through a valley is the most satisfying thing I've experienced in this game). The Nomad also handles pretty well (especially when comparing it to the Mako).
    - SOME quests are very good. For example, Cora's Loyalty Mission genuinely felt like I was back playing a ME3 mission all over again. It's a shame only a handful of other quests made me feel that way.
    - The profiles system is a good idea, even though it could have been pushed further with more specialized trees.
    - The companions are interesting to an extent (but the ability to roleplay is severely lacking compared to the OT).
    - The mystery surrounding a certain ancient species looks very promising for future installments (and their tech looks badass).

    Now onto the fun part:

    - The writing, for the most part, is atrociously cringey. Some lines of dialogue honestly felt like they were taken straight out of a bad Fanfiction.
    - I feel like the general tone is a lot lighter than the OT's, in a bad way. There are basically no stakes. No danger. The main enemy faction is a joke, a bad copy paste from the Trilogy's Reapers. The final mission started pretty awesome and ended in the most anticlimactic way possible. The only thing that kept me going, for the most part, is a completely optional side of the main quest.
    - While this is more of a personal grief, I don't understand why they felt that adding a single new species was a good idea. We mostly just see the OT's species in Andromeda.
    - Most of the quests are boring as heck. Their structure mostly consists of the talk-to-this-guy-go-there-talk-to-that-guy-come-back-fight-some-guys-yay-you-won thingy. MMO style fetch quests are not what Mass Effect is about. More quests like the Loyalty missions would have been appreciated. Those had stakes and genuinely made me worry about the characters and their motivations.

    I'd give this game a 7.5/10 if that was possible, but that leans more toward 7 than 8. As a Mass Effect fan, I think, it loses a significant chunk of its charm, and I'd probably give it a solid 8/10 if I hadn't gone through Shepard's trilogy 15 times.

    Again, what I see is so much burned potential. Even the animations look amazing in some scenes (no, I'm not joking, check Cora's intimate scene or the last mission's cutscenes), but they're below average most of the time. I'm not hating Bioware for this, but I'm definitely calling it a disappointment.

    I bought it for 10 dollars, and I don't regret doing so. Some moments were genuinely fun. It's just that this game does not meet what we have come to expect from a Bioware game.    … Expand
  28. DillDoughNut
    May 18, 2018
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. (Note: This game is only worth ~ $10). While Andromeda is not close to comparing to the original trilogy, it sloppily delivered a game that was very enjoyable at face value. I only paid $5 (EA Origin Access), and I found it to be fun. The premise had such a great potential, exploring a new galaxy and finding habitable places for colonization while fighting a hostile alien species. But, this game didn't really follow through with any of its content. Also, character customization was, well, super lame. Every human looked similar because there is like 6 hairstyles per gender . I would of rather waited for EA and Bioware to wait another 3-4 years and had a legendary game similar to Witcher 3 or even previous Mass Effects.

    The game felt rushed, even after a years worth of patches to fix it. Human faces looked lifeless most of the time, like talking to androids. Asari for some reason looked like chubby little kids, not how they used to in the PAST THREE GAMES, which doesnt make sense. Some of the voice actors were great, others sounded like they were picked up for $5 and a lollipop. More than half of the side quests and "tasks" were boring and lacked any depth. I ended up not even completing 20+ side quests just because it was the same three steps: Travel, Kill and Scan. But to be honest, it is hard to live up to the previous ME games.

    (On a side note, many people complain about the SJW undertones, and while I understand, I don't think it affected the game to the point where it was something to dock points for. )

    I completed all of the loyalty missions, a good chunk of side quests and then finihsed the story and it took 40+ hours to complete. It kept me hooked for the most part, and like I said earlier, it was a good game, not great or amazing. Members of the team you eventually pick up were here and there, two in particular I hated Liam and PeeBee. They were a good assembly of squad mates with fun personalities, but none compared to the previous games' squadmates. None of their backstories were expanded upon unfortunately.

    The settings were cool for the most part, beautiful looking planets and hostile wild life was pretty entertaining at first, but got boring after playing for longer periods of time. Driving the Nomad was also incredibly satisfying. Combat was probably the best in the series in terms of shooting and fluid movement. I had a lot of fun with the combat, easily the best pro of the game.

    To wrap up, I believe any Mass Effect fan should give this game a chance for a sale price of 5-10 dollars. While the game isn't great, its good, good enough to at least give a chance. I didn't experience to many glitches in my 40+ hours of playing. I think if EA and BioWare took more time to refine this game and add more "flavor" to certain areas, it would easily be comparable to the others in the series.

    Next time, try not to be selfish EA, I find it hard to comprehend that rather than making an excellent game and putting the time and resources into it, they would rather make a average game at best and spending as little money as possible to rake in a larger profit. Please, for the love of god, take example from CD Projekt Red or even your other previous installments.    … Expand
  29. toxyk
    Jun 3, 2019
    6
    La decepción hecha videojuego, un mal sueño para cualquier fan de la saga, vaya cagadón de Bioware
  30. QuatokyTonberry
    Jan 23, 2019
    6
    Gameplay: - Good
    Story: - Normal
    Visual: - Good
    Music and sound: - Good
    *Microtransaction in multiplayer
    *Lots of grinding
    Average time: - 84h
    Score: - 6 (Normal)
  31. Jckovacks
    Nov 19, 2019
    6
    No comprendo las puntuaciones tan bajas y la "caza de brujas" a la que este juego ha sido sometido.
    Pese a algún problema técnico(que los tiene), el juego presenta una historia épica con cientos de localizaciones que explorar, razas con las que involúcrate, secundarias de calidad (no todas) y una jugabilidad con cientos de posibilidades y un gunplay más que aceptable.
    A mi juicio son    No comprendo las puntuaciones tan bajas y la "caza de brujas" a la que este juego ha sido sometido.
    Pese a algún problema técnico(que los tiene), el juego presenta una historia épica con cientos de localizaciones que explorar, razas con las que involúcrate, secundarias de calidad (no todas) y una jugabilidad con cientos de posibilidades y un gunplay más que aceptable.

    A mi juicio son dos sus principales problemas:
    - El exceso de tareas secundarias, que hacen que la calidad de estas no mantenga un buen nivel y que muchas te obliguen a ir de planeta en planeta para solo tener una conversación y volverte a mandar a la otra punta de la galaxia.
    - Los tiempos de carga entre planetas, incluso en el propio navegador de la nave, lo cual no termino de comprender.

    Que las animaciones no sean buenas, es algo a lo que rápidamente te acostumbras y te pasa desapercibido. Le invertí 68h para terminarlo y fue una experiencia muy satisfactoria.
    Si prefieren valorar este título de acuerdo con la gente que le pone un 0, porque leen en las reviews que no han trabajado las animaciones faciales allá ustedes.    … Expand
  32. r03vg
    Dec 16, 2021
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Довольно много рутины в данной игре. Если не обращать внимание на контекст, то почти все задания в игре однообразны. Подай, принеси, постреляй и вернись. Тем не менее, с этой игры я начал знакомство со вселенной Mass Effects и хочу пройти оригинальные части.… Expand
  33. PeakTop
    Dec 15, 2020
    6
    Андромеду нужно было либо превращать в полноценную РПГ типа Скайрим / Fallout, либо наоборот, урезать до линейной космооперы с плотной подачей на манер Mass Effect 1. В итоге игра висит где-то посередине и напоминает недожаренную котлету :) Технически после серии патчей всё прекрасно: красивые визуалы, приятный геймплей. Но в целом мир пустой, а сюжет уже не захватывает как предыдущиеАндромеду нужно было либо превращать в полноценную РПГ типа Скайрим / Fallout, либо наоборот, урезать до линейной космооперы с плотной подачей на манер Mass Effect 1. В итоге игра висит где-то посередине и напоминает недожаренную котлету :) Технически после серии патчей всё прекрасно: красивые визуалы, приятный геймплей. Но в целом мир пустой, а сюжет уже не захватывает как предыдущие части.… Expand
  34. ShockwaveGT
    Jul 26, 2021
    7
    The anger and disappointment that this game raises in a lot of fans of the franchise is to some extend understandable and also justifiable.

    I didn't finish the game when it was first released in 2017. It wasn't until I replayed the Legendary Trilogy recently that I decided to wonder how Andromeda actually finished. Instead of firing up my old save file, I decided to replay the whole    The anger and disappointment that this game raises in a lot of fans of the franchise is to some extend understandable and also justifiable.

    I didn't finish the game when it was first released in 2017. It wasn't until I replayed the Legendary Trilogy recently that I decided to wonder how Andromeda actually finished. Instead of firing up my old save file, I decided to replay the whole game as the Female Ryder and to some extend enjoyed my play-through.

    Playing at 4k on Ultra settings with HDR-10 on (since Dolby Vision is broken but is supported by my hardware), the game is simply beautiful to look at. The visuals on the different planets are great. Some planets like Havarl give you the color pallet we were introduced to in Avatar (2009), others gave you Dune feels like on Eladeen. Overall, the Frostbyte Engine 3.0 has great planetary visuals. That's a huge plus and step up from the original trilogy.

    The driving is also surprisingly fun, given the fact that the driving was develop by Need For Speed dev veterans, I am not surprised. These guys know how to make driving fun in games :)

    The gun play and action is far more dynamic than in the previous game, although I find the level of customization, engineering (Research / Development) too much and you end up spending too much time trying to figure out which set up fits best. Frankly, that part could be trimmed but overall it's not a deal breaker either.

    The worst part of the game is the main antagonist, the Archon is a completely underdeveloped character who does nothing but taunt the player throughout the game. You never get to actually fight him and the end boss battle is... meh... Why is the Archon the worst part? Because he sets the stakes of the entire story, which just feels like it's missing something the entire time. Plus he looks like an oversized pissed off Gizmo, but sure... Aliens be aliens.

    It's clear that some of the underdeveloped storylines in the final product were done on purpose to allow them to develop in future titles (like who created the Remnant) and where did the Kett come from, what's up with Elizabeth Reilly, etc. The game creates a lot of hype and intrigue without any real payoff.

    The repetitive tasks on each planet: I found the scenes between landing and take-off from and to planets way too long, which you couldn't skip for some reason. That got worse when I took off from a planet, exit the galaxy map, and then have an NPC tell me that either Gil or some other crew member wants me to go back to the planet to complete a small ridiculous fetch quest. A 90 Credit wine bottle is not worth the fuel it costs to get the Tempest to land and take-off from a planet!!

    Finally, the BUGS and the rushed time table the team had to develop their product. EA leads the way when it comes to worst corporate reputation in the entire video game industry. R* and CDPR are following suit but the former at least delivers a product people just thoroughly enjoy, minus the part where they pressure their dev teams. I hope and I really wish that the devs get the leadership they need to make a product they can be truly proud off and not disappoint the fan base. I also hope that the Quarians make a comeback... In the end, I am keeping my fingers crossed that EA and BioWare are able to make a serious positive comeback with Mass Effect (5?).    … Expand
  35. togekk
    Nov 25, 2021
    7
    This game is not that bad. The main story is okay, feels a little bit like ME2, but nothing heartfelt. The gameplay is awesome, the landscapes and architectures are creative and beautiful, and the loyalty missions are fun. Dialogues from squad members are well-written, but NPCs' are boring.

    I love the tone of the story. It doesn't focus on wars and crimes but exploration instead. It's    This game is not that bad. The main story is okay, feels a little bit like ME2, but nothing heartfelt. The gameplay is awesome, the landscapes and architectures are creative and beautiful, and the loyalty missions are fun. Dialogues from squad members are well-written, but NPCs' are boring.

    I love the tone of the story. It doesn't focus on wars and crimes but exploration instead. It's something different and interesting from the sci-fi games nowadays. They should've just started a new title for it since "Mass Effect" is literally Shepard's story now. Don't know if Bioware have any plans to continue the journey, but I'd love to see more of it.    … Expand
  36. Bennabus
    Aug 5, 2017
    7
    I finally figured out what the problem is with this game. There is a lot of it I like quite a bit. There are some moments of great writing and interesting characters, Liam and Jaal trying to figure out what is insulting to each other's cultures is one such moment where I really found myself liking some characters that I had otherwise found totally uninteresting up until that point. I knowI finally figured out what the problem is with this game. There is a lot of it I like quite a bit. There are some moments of great writing and interesting characters, Liam and Jaal trying to figure out what is insulting to each other's cultures is one such moment where I really found myself liking some characters that I had otherwise found totally uninteresting up until that point. I know there are little gems here and there throughout the game. The problem lies in the time between theml. The conflicts you are solving when you're not busy trying to maintain the existence of humanity in Andromeda are based on petty, maufactured, idiotic whiny side characters. I mean come on, you've been selected as one of a relatively small number of people to head all the way across the galaxy and to another one, why the heck are you willing to do stupid crap to nearly kill everyone because your friends and family aren't being woken up first? There's so much pettiness, so much selfishness in all these side quests, it seems like they just shipped a bunch of entitled millennials to the Andromeda galaxy because the wanted to get rid of them and let the grown ups deal with life here in the Milky Way.

    I mean there are certainly other problems, half the time Ryder opens her mouth she says something completely contrary to the tone of the story or scene at that point and she's super awkward in any remotely social situation, to the point she seems like she's not even part of the same conversation as everyone else, so far the logic behind the Remnant doesn't make any damn sense, and a few other silly things, but the further I get into the game the more I like it. I just hate dealing with anyone on the Nexus.    … Expand
  37. kane148
    Jul 16, 2017
    5
    I was really disappointed by this game. ME is one of my favorite series, and I was a huge fan for the first three games. This game had an awesome premise and plenty of potential to be incredible. However, Bioware really dropped the ball in several critical areas, resulting in a mediocre game overall. To be fair, it's NOT a bad game, but it surely fails to be a great game. The combat isI was really disappointed by this game. ME is one of my favorite series, and I was a huge fan for the first three games. This game had an awesome premise and plenty of potential to be incredible. However, Bioware really dropped the ball in several critical areas, resulting in a mediocre game overall. To be fair, it's NOT a bad game, but it surely fails to be a great game. The combat is really well done--that's something they got right--and the lack of class restriction on skills was definitely fun (if not lore friendly). I also really liked the open planets to explore instead of the corridor shooting of the last two games, and the Nomad is much more fun to drive than the Mako. The story has some good things going for it; I won't spoil anything, but it's interesting and does present some compelling situations. But the story execution--pacing, character development, narrative arc, etc.--fails in many places, with the result that you'll either stop caring or feel let down by the lack of narrative reward for your effort...or maybe just be confused. Easily the worst part of the game is the frustrating technical problems and poor design choices that make the game hard to play. Problems such as poor facial animations and lip-syncing errors don't ruin a game, but they really do undermine the immersion of a game like this that's supposed to have such a big focus on narrative and characters. Moreover, the performance was just awful. I don't have the best PC, but I could run the Witcher 3 (which looks so much better) on max settings with no trouble; yet ME:A regularly struggled even on medium settings. (in fact it ran better with big fights in the open world than walking around the Nexus). Lastly, the interface is often clumsy and unhelpful, and is very limiting. As in Dragon Age: Inquisition, they force PC users to be limited by the UI for console players, so that you can only use a few abilities at any given time. The game also makes the frustrating choice to introduce a large array of weapon and armor crafting options, but does not let you customize your companion's gear at all, so that most gear you find or can make is useless to you. All in all, it's probably worth playing if you're a big fan of the series, but you will have to prepare to be underwhelmed. The real shame here is that, had Bioware put the care into this game that it did for previous titles, and not sacrificed the singleplayer game in favor of multiplayer, this could have been another incredible title. Instead, it's likely the end of the franchise.… Expand
  38. Mr_Lut
    Jun 18, 2017
    5
    If you didn’t like Mass Effect 3 ending, then you will love Mass Effect Andromeda ending. Why? Because THERE IS ONLY ONE ENDING, and it’s not actually an ending, it’s more like SEE YOU IN THE NEXT DLC type ending.

    There .... I just saved you 60 Bucks, you can thank me later. Now to my opinion: MAE is Mass Effect 1 with better graphic and better combat, but with a **** story, ****    If you didn’t like Mass Effect 3 ending, then you will love Mass Effect Andromeda ending. Why? Because THERE IS ONLY ONE ENDING, and it’s not actually an ending, it’s more like SEE YOU IN THE NEXT DLC type ending.

    There .... I just saved you 60 Bucks, you can thank me later.

    Now to my opinion:

    MAE is Mass Effect 1 with better graphic and better combat, but with a **** story, **** villain, **** protagonist, **** facial animations, **** voice acting, and lot of “scan”quests and Sudoku. And of course performance issues and bugs.
    You play as the “Pathfinder”.... NOT a badass commander super soldier spectre, but a “Pathfinder”, because i guess finding “PATHS” is more fun than being a badass super soldier.
    NOW, is at least the exploration any good?
    NO, IT’S BORING... unless you like exploring; I mean “finding paths” in deserts, because that's how 90% of the maps are... just empty deserts where everything is miles apart, because padding.
    But at least it has good old Rex... I mean Drex, and Garrus ...... with a vagina, and some EMO alien caaallleeeed whatever its face ...... Yeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiii!
    This franchise is so important to Bioware that they left it to the “capable” hands of their B team (Bioware Montreal), to make some Destiny clone called Anthem, although it looks way better than MAE despite both games being developed at the same time an using the same engine.
    Oh and there’s more multiplayer Horde mode this time, because that is what we all wanted, right? And more microtransation, because EA is the best!
    To sum it up.... don’t buy this game at full price, it’s not worth it. And if you buy it, at least play it on the hardest mode and ONLY do main quests and loyalty missions. It’s still going to be an average experience, but at least you won’t have to sit though 70+ hours of it.    … Expand
  39. loslos
    Dec 15, 2017
    5
    i love the original trilogy but Andromeda's game world is just too uninteresting. The repetitiveness of the quests is too overwhelming for me, but I suppose if a player enjoys the hoard and fetch quests then there is great scenery to enjoy.
  40. YoloSwag4Doge
    May 19, 2017
    6
    I've found this game to be mediocre, though I can see so much wasted potential in it. The graphics, for the most part, are pretty spectacular. On a gtx 1070 my game runs smoothly with a great frame rate. I do run into the odd bug and freeze here and there.

    The combat is pretty good, but I find it tends to feel a bit meaningless. A good chunk of the combat is done at random, rudimentary    I've found this game to be mediocre, though I can see so much wasted potential in it. The graphics, for the most part, are pretty spectacular. On a gtx 1070 my game runs smoothly with a great frame rate. I do run into the odd bug and freeze here and there.

    The combat is pretty good, but I find it tends to feel a bit meaningless. A good chunk of the combat is done at random, rudimentary outposts scattered around the various planets. The thing is, the outposts respawn, so when you're going back and forth you find yourself killing off the same outpost over and over, or straight up driving past it without consequence. The gun play itself is fairly satisfying especially with the various abilities and combo detonators which are basically large explosions. Can't go wrong with a big boom.

    The animation is disappointing, but since that's been talked to death I'll leave it at that.

    The dialogue is all over the place ranging from excellent to cringe worthy. Some of the best dialogue I found was actually listening to your squad mates banter during missions. Pair Drack with just about anyone and it's a good time. I found the romance dialogue really, really sucked for the most part which was super disappointing. Most of the time your character goes from having a fluid conversation to being either a bumbling idiot or going into an abrupt out of place sex growl voice. The voice acting is also pretty hot and cold.

    Content wise the game is pretty packed offering dozens of hours of gameplay. But, I felt the writing was very bland causing a lot of the side quests to feel tedious and chore-like. There's a ton of ping-pong questing that goes on. Person at A tells you to investigate B where you read a data pad that leads you to C where you scan something leading back to A where you inform the person who then leads you to another planet at E where you talk to some one etc, etc. The going back and forth really wouldn't be a problem if I found the quests even remotely interesting, but without solid dialogue or engaging cinematic interaction between characters it just falls flat for me.

    You use your scanner a lot throughout the game. It's kind of ME:A's version of witcher senses except I found it cumbersome to use. It takes time to deploy and holster, only fills up a small box on your screen and forces your character to walk which makes taking it out a pain in the ass. You also have to use it to collect research in order to unlock blue prints, which I think is absolutely **** stupid. Just a needlessly tedious, time murdering mechanic. Though not as bad as...

    Being a god damn space miner. Yup, a space miner. In order to craft things you need resources and one of the quickest ways to do that is to drive your Nomad around looking for just the right spot to drop a mining drone. The thing is, you can't just drive by and drop a mining drone where ever you want. No, you literally have to monitor a **** graph to watch for just the right apex of resources to drop your mining drone at. Basically, you're playing marco polo with a graph. Cuzz that's what every gamer craves at the end of the day. To stare at a god damn, mother **** piece of **** graph. Like, who the **** came up with that? Seriously.

    Anyways, it's an alright game with lots of sorta boring stuff to do in it.    … Expand
  41. Captain_Chaos
    Oct 18, 2017
    7
    There's been a lot said about Mass Effect: Andromeda already. You've probably heard the basics: The vistas are pretty, the combat has been totally overhauled and much improved, you have a car again, and the facial animations are indeed, quite wonky. Also, there are breasts. It's clear from this game what the strengths and shortcomings of the Frostbite engine are- and it's obvious it wasThere's been a lot said about Mass Effect: Andromeda already. You've probably heard the basics: The vistas are pretty, the combat has been totally overhauled and much improved, you have a car again, and the facial animations are indeed, quite wonky. Also, there are breasts. It's clear from this game what the strengths and shortcomings of the Frostbite engine are- and it's obvious it was not designed with character-driven RPGs in mind. The fact that it was made by Bioware's "B Team" is also evident.

    If you missed the boat on the trilogy, here's the basics. You take the roll of one of the Ryder twins, members of the "Andromeda Initiative", a joint coalition of various Milky Way species to journey to and colonize the Andromeda galaxy, our closest neighbor in the universe. Naturally, things go pear shaped almost as soon as you wake from cryo after the 600-some-odd year journey through dark space.

    This distant sequel cleaves itself immediately from the events of the trilogy, hoping to make a fresh start as the colonists do. At the same time, it tries to evoke the spirit of the first game- a classical space opera of exploration, discovery and adventure. While that spirit can be felt, the reality of the game feels a bit hollow. My main gripe with the game is its sheer, padded length. The game is filled to the brim with unskippable cutscenes, fetch quests and the same dreary scanning for minerals and anomalies that has plagued the series since its inception. I played it for almost seventy goddamn hours and it really drags after the first thirty. I'm grateful for the explosive finale, or it might not have felt at all worth it. I had a similar issue with games like Mad Max, Kingdoms of Amalur, Metal Gear Solid V and especially Skyrim: There's too much to do and not enough of it feels worthwhile. The story feels a bit lacking as well: When your previous entry literally had the fate of a galaxy in the balance, a simple tale of colonization doesn't have nearly the same punch. I can't blame the team for things like this. Even with all the problems Mass Effect 3 had, there was simply no way to make a satisfying followup. And I think there was something to be said for the linear gameplay of both 2 and 3.

    Also, I kind of liked the Quarians. Their absence from the game almost in its entirety, only getting a brief mention in the epilogue was felt.

    But you've heard all this crap already. Let me talk about what I liked about Andromeda. I loved the car. The Nomad is as close to the Mako as I suspect we'd be permitted to get. It doesn't quite measure up, but it sure as hell looks cooler, and the environments were designed with it in mind- and that was not always the case in the first game. I loved the combat. It's fast and punchy, with the welcome addition of jump jets totally changing the dynamic from the comparatively stiff and clunky third game. This extends readily to the cooperative multiplayer, easily the game's best offering. While it retains the tired "booster pack" system of 3's coop, the drop tables are at least improved in such as way as to give you access to better characters and weapons early on. Also, while the combat in multiplayer is on the whole more challenging then 3, encouraging you to take advantage of your newfound speed and jump/dodge capability, the difference between bronze, silver and gold difficulties is less drastic. The combat is good enough that it carried me through to the end of an otherwise boring playthrough.

    And I liked a lot of the characters. Mind you, Liam is as boring as Jacob, unsurprising given that they had the same writer. But Cora could easily have been worse, as could Peebee and Vetra. Drack was a huge hit, as with any of the krogan, who I think have the lion's share of quality lines and story, in this and the trilogy. But the real breakout hit was Jaal, and you can tell he was likely the dev team's favorite- the token local Andromeda boy, a smooth talker, sniper and user of the ever popular Shadow Strike. The banter between your squadmates and your ship's crew is deep and varied, and often poignant or at least amusing. They're a good bunch and I was happy to have them.

    At the end of the day, Andromeda could have been a great game, though I argue that it was at least a good one. It's fault is its parentage- EA's talent for continually shooting themselves in the foot and running their own franchises into the ground is evident. The fact that there will be no singieplayer DLC is almost unheard of- and not a good indicator of the game's success. I hear they will even go so far as to resolve the obvious cliffhanger of the Quarian Ark in a comic book or something of the like.

    I wish the best to Bioware in the future, and other developers at EA's mercy. I know they're capable of more. I just pray they get the chance to show it.    … Expand
  42. dandalis
    Jan 17, 2018
    7
    Andromeda certainly is a quite polarizing game, but Jesus lord Christ allmighty its not as bad as the internet hate train suggests it to be. Weakest Mass Effect game ? 100 % yes, Bad game ? Not by a long shot.

    Biggest 2 sins the game commits from my experience are the still even in build 1.09 present numerous bugs, glitches and other technical issues like lazy animation work and badly    Andromeda certainly is a quite polarizing game, but Jesus lord Christ allmighty its not as bad as the internet hate train suggests it to be. Weakest Mass Effect game ? 100 % yes, Bad game ? Not by a long shot.

    Biggest 2 sins the game commits from my experience are the still even in build 1.09 present numerous bugs, glitches and other technical issues like lazy animation work and badly lit enviroments, plus the disappointing writing, as much as people like to hate on voice actors, you have to remember an actor can be only as good as the script he works with.

    I should also add, while PC version has plenty of features and customasibilty, the PC port's performance is very sub par, i had to go along Medium settings to get playable performance when i can run Frostbite games like Battlefield 1 and Mirror's Edge Catalyst on Ultra 40 - 50 fps on my GTX 1050 Ti, here in Adromeda on Ultra im getting pathetic 20 - 25 fps, stutter, fps drops all over the place, complete game freezeups for 5 - 10 seconds, i have strong suspicion of memory leakage cuz my 8 GB of RAM gets maxed out. I've even seen GTX 1060 not being able to reach stable 60 fps on Ultra where as in Battlefield 1 that card does near 100 fps...

    I blame EA the most for this game's rushed release date and unfinished state, extra couple of months couldve done the game so much good helping deliver well running game and fixed animations plus other technical mishaps, there's no chance all this crap didnt got raised up in quality control departments during game testing, yet EA just ingored everything and sabotaged the game's launch and never fixed it proper., they just ran away from the criticisms with head burried in sand.

    With that out of the way i have to say game is still luckily playble with turned down settings, otherwise i wouldnt had invested nearly 4 weeks into completing it. Some of the saving graces are the planet and Heleus cluster systems space exploration. It doesnt reinvent open world gameplay, but still driving Nomad over the maps, exploring places, driving up and over mountains, seeing the great looking environments, it all kinda adds up for an enjoyable spent time. The Tempest is a really cool place to be in, good amount of attention to detail has been put into Tempest interior, it really felt like being on Normandy again for the first time, this time there are more windows on space so you can see the planets, stars and other bodies in space which are quite well made to feel authentic,
    looking into space from Tempest's bridge its especialy awesome, it really feels like youre out in vaquum of space, something trilogy's games didnt really made you feel like that well.

    Characters wise, there's no denying, original trilogy's lineup is an extremely tough act to follow, but Bioware Montreal didnt actually disappoint, Vetra, Jaal, Drack, Pebee, Cora and Liam was a cool team to have, some of them can be annoying at times, true, but i really enjoyed their banter, their loyalty missions, light they shed on their history and reasons why they joined the initiative. However the Tempest crew felt a bit lacking, while he's no Joker i still liked Kello, Lexi was alright, but Suvi and Gil especialy felt like not well developed, written charcters to me.

    As for Ryder, i dont know, Ryder aint no Sheperd, what hurt Ryder the most was the dialoge that was written for him/her, lack of ability to create an attractive person to play as, really i have no idea why nearly all presets are so horrid looking, had to go with one of the female asian ones which is most acceptable looking one and those still existant goofy facial animations in places. I even think they should've let us play as old man Ryder not his children, or atleast give us an option to do so.

    On story side of things, there were ups and downs but overall, the main missions, the unique places you go to, new people you meet, all had something interersting enough to offer for me as a Mass Effect fan. I genuinely enjoyed the mysteries and revelations Heleus cluster had to uncover. Kett threat probably wasnt as menacing as i wanted it to be, also you get very little exposure with main baddie Arcon. Finding intel about other species missing arks with their Pathfinders and tracking them down was cool and intriguing. What the story lacked heavily perhaps were the really emotional moments and properly important feeling choices of the trilogy.

    In the end im really sad about how EA treated Andromeda, it still sold enough copies to make them profit, the reviews werent so bad, still they cancelled any planned DLC like Quarian Ark that me and millions of fans would've wanted, closed the Montreal studio entirely, they put whole Mass Effect franchise on ice in favor of Destiny type online casino cash cow game, this is not the fate Andromeda or Mass Effect as a whole deserved.    … Expand
  43. passionne
    Sep 21, 2017
    7
    In terms of background, I played the 3 previous Mass Effect games. I spent about 100 hours on Mass Effect Andromeda, did every quest except 6 secondary ones.

    Pros : - graphically awesome, one of best-looking 2017 game : HDR, high resolution textures, lighting and smoke effects... - art design : each planet is different and really beautiful. - very good Nomad driving : on Voeld,    In terms of background, I played the 3 previous Mass Effect games. I spent about 100 hours on Mass Effect Andromeda, did every quest except 6 secondary ones.

    Pros :

    - graphically awesome, one of best-looking 2017 game : HDR, high resolution textures, lighting and smoke effects...
    - art design : each planet is different and really beautiful.
    - very good Nomad driving : on Voeld, driving on ice feels natural.
    - A few companions are really sweet.
    - Mass Effect universe.
    - Many weapons, armors and powers available.
    - weapons and armors customization.
    - a few interesting side quests.
    - good loyalty missions.
    - Good main quest
    - huge content : 100 hours to complete every aspect of the game.
    - combat is very dynamic.

    Cons, from the most important to the less :

    - only 3 powers available in combat : far too restrictive. Or one can use the favorites (1 favorite gathers 3 powers and there are 4 favorites. So, theoretically 12 powers available) but in fact, they are useless because of the cooldown when swapping favorites. Moreover, when the favorite is changed, the power "assault turret" is disabled, the turret disappears ! Bioware limited the number of powers like they did in Dragon Age Inquisition which makes the combats too repetitive : since only 3 powers are available, no variety and strategy is possible. 10 powers would have been adequate, without use of any favorites.

    - No customization and control of the 2 squad mates : one can only tell them "go there" or "attack". Consequently, the combo powers are useless since you can not synchronize the actions. During 100 hours, I managed only 3 combos by luck. Moreover, it is impossible to create a strategy. Finally, I have the impression of playing alone and not be a team leader. Mass Effect 2 combat was more strategy-oriented : one could control every squad mate and optimize the attack. The action could be interrupted by pressing the space key in order to prepare the next action. The pace was slower than in Andromeda but enabled epic combats with numerous enemies. Each combat was unique contrary to Andromeda where every combat looks like the same.

    - Interface is really bad :
    - No mini-map when driving the Nomad, I always have to open the map then exit by pressing escape key twice !
    - To choose the best weapons, it is a nightmare : it is very diffcult to compare the weapons statistics, a table would have been necessary.
    - Moreover, there is nowhere a summary of all your characteristics (weapons, armors...).
    - Finally, when I want to create new weapons/armors and use again the upgrades of my current gear, I must create second weapons/armors, go from the research computer to the equipement locker, un-equip and replace the weapons/armors by the second ones created, break up the weapons/armors which contain the upgrades, go back to the research terminal, create the weapons/armors with the upgrades, go back to the equipement locker to equip the new gear. Easy and optimized !

    - The dialog choices are useless : they are uninspired, don't change anything and do not allow nuances. Many users have complained of childish writing and it is an example.

    - Technically, uneven :
    - the good : works fine most of the time, SLI supported and allows more than 60 fps with 2 GTX1080TI in 4K, everything maxed except anti-aliasing disabled.
    - the bad :
    -in Tempest, very bad performance between 20 and 30 fps. In cutscenes 20 fps. In Tempest, it seems that the graphic card calculates not only what is visible but also what is invisible too, in particular the space around the ship. Indeed, around Kadara, fps is very low whereas around Eos, the fps are doubled. And for a mission where there were many debris in space, fps in Tempest were below 10 fps !
    -Stutters because a 10 GB swap file is mandatory with SLI enabled : the stutters disappear if the swap file is disabled but the game is instable and crashes when connecting to a terminal or pressing escape key.

    - Many uninteresting secondary quests : fetch that object, find this person...

    - Main story looks like the 3 previous Mass effect plot : Bioware did not run the risk of innovating.

    Mass Effect Andomeda could have been the best game of the year if not plagued by many flaws. The worst is the combat : Bioware chose action rather than strategy and variety with more available powers : no wonder that many users complain about repetitiveness. The epic moments are very rare. Moreover, if the game launched before Witcher 3, the childish writing could have been forgiven. But since Witcher 3, the RPG fans have higher expectations in terms of story, maturity, choices : Bioware replicated their regular recipe for Andromeda and of course, it did not work : Bioware did not evolve while the RPG market changed.

    To conclude, my note would have been 5 because of many defaults. But I gave 7 because I love Mass Effect universe and most of the companions were really endearing.    … Expand
  44. Porthys
    Jul 11, 2017
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Mass Effect Andromeda is the first Mass Effect game I've ever played and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't play much RPG games and my focus was set on strategy. But MEA was totally in the street of things I enjoyed about an rpg game especially with the Sci-Fi theme.

    Once I've started playing, the cutscenes amazed me and I enjoyed the ability to change conversation outcomes and story outcomes. The game, however, did not feel so refined, but I did not have anything to compare it with. The storyline was interesting and made me want to keep playing hour after hour. There are hidden details here and there which makes the game more interesting.

    Besides the storyline, romances were a big thing I noticed. You could romance anyone on your crew which also made the game more interesting. The animations, however, were a little... strange. I didn't know if it seemed rushed or if its supposed to be like that. Sometimes it was impossible to even read the facial expressions (which made for funny moments here and there).

    After finishing the game, I was left with way too many cliffhangers... which is good... but after reading a bit on how the game was made and what the latest news is, it seemed that this game doesn't havea bright future, even though the game wasn't THAT bad. I started playing Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 and enjoyed those a lot more than Andromeda. Overall, combat is a feature that was greatly improved in Andromeda. It made fighting a lot more fluid and flexible whereas in ME2 or 3. The previous ME games were more immersive, but Andromeda is different. A whole different story which I have come to appreciate despite it not being as immersive as ME2 or 3.

    The exploration part of the game was pretty boring to be perfectly honest. I didn't realise I could use the fast forward stations because I was totally new to the game. It never really said that you could fast travel with those things. All of the planets were interestingly different, but the missions and what to expect on those planets are very repetitive. ''Activate 3 monoliths'', ''Defeat the Ket'' etc etc. There wasn't much of a challenge.

    All in all I give this game a 7 because it is my first Bioware game, I liked the idea, the theme, the romance, the story and the combat. But after playing the previous games, Andromeda wasn't as good compared to those ME games. They were far more immersive, the choices made did end up changing the course of the missions which Andromeda certainly lacked. The story is interesting, but doesn't compare to the trilogy. The graphics are good, but the animations were a disappointment.
    I am not telling you to buy it, unless you've read some of the other reviews around here. There are lots of things to improve about the game, but I didn't think it was a dead awful one.    … Expand
  45. M_Salgado
    Jul 12, 2017
    7
    I Greatly enjoyed the game. NOT as much as the original trilogy but like 70% as much.
    THE ONE THING I HATED was that I decided to buy on launch and ended the game really fast.
    THEN they patched in a bunch of stuff that was problematic. INCLUDING cutscenes and animations.
    So I am really pissed that my experience was actually a lot worse than if I had waited a month before buying.
  46. stafdude
    Mar 24, 2019
    6
    So I read all the negative reviews on launch, which is why I bought the game heavily discounted just before xmas 2018. I have now completed the main story and a lot of the side missions, having played 129 hours in total.

    From the reviews, there seemed to be a couple of major problems. One was the 'uglification' of characters as part of a sinister SJW plot aiming to rob geeks of their    So I read all the negative reviews on launch, which is why I bought the game heavily discounted just before xmas 2018. I have now completed the main story and a lot of the side missions, having played 129 hours in total.

    From the reviews, there seemed to be a couple of major problems.

    One was the 'uglification' of characters as part of a sinister SJW plot aiming to rob geeks of their only access to good looking ***. I never played with the template heroes in ME games, so I created my own pathfinder and didnt use the generic Sarah Ryder so I was not subjected to that experience. I did however notice that it was very difficult to create a character that didnt entice the vomit reflex on sight. But I managed. Also seems like a lot of the NPCs hade quite a lot of extra charm in the chest area - which should mean the "sjw" masters didnt have total control over the process.

    Onther reported issue were the bugs, the faulty animations and when functioning - poor facial animations. I experienced no game breaking bugs. I never saw a major animation glitch. I guess these issues were fixed at some point after launch. What I did however see were really bad facial animations (see the plethora of memes). Some characters look like they are severey depressed or had a lobotomy. Others look completely fine, but then they start talking an the lip movements look like a bad joke. I think they must have corrected some of these animations, because at times its hardly noticeable - but then there are whole segments where the animations look retarded. Most of the time you can ignore it. Something that is truly annoying though are the body animations - you dont feel like youre controlling a human being - but more like a bird with a human head. With the aliens this was not a problem for me, maybe they had bird like ancestors. But humans evolved from apes, not birds.

    Another purported problem was the writing - the storyline and questing. Dialog choices are usually fine but most of the time unecessary since they have little impact on the story. Sometimes you make choices that will have an impact but mostly not. What I actually liked was the romancing (i did Peebee) which added an additional spice and served to make the story a bit more immersive. In general the story is pretty generic. Big bad wants to kill everyone because of reasons and power. You are a chosen person with special abilities that has to stop big bad because humanity and stuff. Its fine, but probably something anyone with a basic understanding of sci fi / fantasy could concoct.

    What is less fine are the fetch/kill evil rando dude quests required before you can plant bases on the plantes. Although some of these do make sense, a lot of them feel repetetive and boring. All in all the writing feels sub par.

    The vaults are are basically just different maps with the same elements, enemies and other assets. The planets are actually quite diefferen from each other which I liked. The user map is atrocious though. Especially on that jungle planet that I mentally blocked from memory. Crafting is mostly pointless and boring. The inventory system is messy and feels poorly constructed.

    Ok so why do I give this game a 6, and not a 3 or 4? Well, for one after ME1-3 there are no other sci fi space opera games of this magnitude out there. At this point in time there are cash grabbing boring as **** looter-shooters and "battle royale" (is a game mode not a genre ppl!!! ffs.) games, dumb mobile-esque games, loot box filled "games as a service" bull etc. The spiritual replacement of ME is apparently Anthem, which seems to be totally broken on launch.

    So in the current gaming climate, were you to ask me if you should get ME andromeda or one of the currrent crappy tripple A scam titles - yes my advice is get ME Andromeda. The story isnt epic, but its fine. The planets are sufficiently diverse. Some story lines are fun. The combat is actually nice. It is single player, so you dont have to play with immersion breaking morons and you dont have to buy loot boxes to have the full experience.    … Expand
  47. Artur_
    Jun 8, 2017
    6
    Advantages: beautiful space and planet scenes. Sound and gravity correspond with environment - but a Krogan should use more solid word falling into the abyss, than "Cheeeeeeeck" ;-) Well done Nomad and fine armory development. Good idea changing side Ryder keeps weapon.

    Disadvantages: too much pointless killing and other MMO-like "thingies" like boring side quests and too little RPG in    Advantages: beautiful space and planet scenes. Sound and gravity correspond with environment - but a Krogan should use more solid word falling into the abyss, than "Cheeeeeeeck" ;-) Well done Nomad and fine armory development. Good idea changing side Ryder keeps weapon.

    Disadvantages: too much pointless killing and other MMO-like "thingies" like boring side quests and too little RPG in a RPG - this game really lacks a story and dialogues. No option to permanently disable flying animations between stars - they are nice, but only first few times. At one planet loading any of last few autosaves or last manual save freezed game. In combination with limited save possibilities - that were unforgettable impressions...

    Others: without active pause fight is too chaotic, but still acceptable. Poisoned water kills Ryder almost immediately and companions survive walking this poison keeping head just above the water, right... If some(thing/one) attacks you during conversation, your companions stay blind and deaf - scroll the dialogue or die.

    Summary: this is a fine game, not as good as previous Mass Effects, but I don't understand all these haters :-/ Of course it IS reminder of a gold standard that is valid recently - buy a game later, at least a few months after release, not pre-order neither right after release. I bought it 2 months after release, there were a few bugs only.    … Expand
  48. Amsheagar
    Dec 22, 2017
    5
    I ended this game today. I did nearly all quests, except 4-5 sidemissions. This game was a huge disapoint for me. I verly like the mass effect universe, but this, it hasn't got any mass effect essence.
    This is a very long game, after 20 hours it became very boring and repetative. i played 89 hours with it
    . The story and the action are boring. Ther is no tactics. The characters are    I ended this game today. I did nearly all quests, except 4-5 sidemissions. This game was a huge disapoint for me. I verly like the mass effect universe, but this, it hasn't got any mass effect essence.
    This is a very long game, after 20 hours it became very boring and repetative. i played 89 hours with it
    .
    The story and the action are boring. Ther is no tactics. The characters are ugly. The crew are unsalty. It has only a few playable planet in a vast new galaxy and every quests happen on the same planets again and again. This was very frustrating.
    On the psitive side, The space art and landscape are very beautiful. I liked see and scan the planets better, than played the story.

    after all, this is a correct game, but nothing more, it is very poor for a mass effect game. It gives me nothing plus    … Expand
  49. Tigran
    Feb 2, 2018
    6
    I am a huuge Mass Effect fan... except for this one. I felt that Andromeda wouldn't be able to reach the heights of ME3, as that one is almost perfection. But Andromeda proved to be even less, a medium class game which you are not quite sure if it's good or bad.
    The game is most definitely beautiful, especially the interstellar travel parts and on 4k monitor. The story is good and the    I am a huuge Mass Effect fan... except for this one. I felt that Andromeda wouldn't be able to reach the heights of ME3, as that one is almost perfection. But Andromeda proved to be even less, a medium class game which you are not quite sure if it's good or bad.
    The game is most definitely beautiful, especially the interstellar travel parts and on 4k monitor. The story is good and the main missions are interesting. One of the best parts - you get a freaking good-looking vehicle, the Nomad, to explore the planets (it does not have a gun, which would've been perfect, but anyway). The combat is pretty good, with many fighting styles.
    The good part pretty much ends with that. The conversations are very long, sometimes even meaningless and awkward. The flirting is awful and there is no one to even want to flirt with - the asaris and the angara are disgusting, there is just one normal looking human female (with bad hair) with whom I didn't find a way to flirt... you can have the guys if you are gay (I'm not). The side missions get repetitive and boring pretty soon (I just liked driving the Nomad, that's why I finished most of them).
    To summarize, you get a mixed gameplay experience, with a downward progressing sentiment, i.e. you like the game less and less as you progress through the game.    … Expand
  50. przemeks1982
    Sep 29, 2017
    7
    I waited for the game to get patched, and started playing with patch 1.10. The general impressions are that the game is good. I like the story of the pioneer, exploring new worlds, finding their secrets, managing the whole colonisation intiative (eg. deciding on who to wake up from cryostasis). The NPCs are interesting etc. To cut the long story short it has all it takes to be a quite goodI waited for the game to get patched, and started playing with patch 1.10. The general impressions are that the game is good. I like the story of the pioneer, exploring new worlds, finding their secrets, managing the whole colonisation intiative (eg. deciding on who to wake up from cryostasis). The NPCs are interesting etc. To cut the long story short it has all it takes to be a quite good action-RPG. Keyword here is "quite good". This is unfortunately nowhere near the original trilogy, but I try to be objective and rate it as a separate game.

    Even if we take away the whole burden of being compared to the orignal trilogy, the game still has many flaws that make it less satisfying to play. After all the patching it is still underdeveloped. There are a lot of bugs. Some locations are frustrating because of lack of save points (eg. when you fail in some locations you are forced to repeat last 20 minutes of gameplay, which kinda makes you stop wanna playing). The graphics don't look that good, if you consider the hardware requirements - or the game is just not optimised well. If we consider all of this, 7 is the maximum score I can give. I wonder how bad it was before all the patching. Good that I waited for ver. 1.10.

    All in all, I was happy to be back in the world of Mass Effect. It's just a pity that the quality of this comeback was quite average.    … Expand
  51. angelknives
    Sep 28, 2017
    7
    It's pretty clear this game ran into a lot of issues in its development, perhaps that should make us more forgiving of its flaws, I don't know. The truth is, this game feels far too familiar. The new galaxy, the new aliens, the new landscapes all feel like they wouldn't look amiss right here; there is nothing truly alien about it.

    The maps are huge empty places, often some variant of a    It's pretty clear this game ran into a lot of issues in its development, perhaps that should make us more forgiving of its flaws, I don't know. The truth is, this game feels far too familiar. The new galaxy, the new aliens, the new landscapes all feel like they wouldn't look amiss right here; there is nothing truly alien about it.

    The maps are huge empty places, often some variant of a desert (snow desert or almost barren rock land included) which makes sense I suppose because they clearly want you using the Nomad. Thing is, if you don't enjoy riding the Nomad, you will not enjoy a large chunk of the game. Every quest will require you to spend most time completing it in the Nomad. Even when it makes no sense story wise, the game will direct you from one end of the galaxy to the other. Often with little reward for doing so.

    The ridiculous amount of sidequests will make you miss linear games, and even the game itself tells you that some are not worth your time (namely tasks but honestly most of the other sidequests can be skipped as well). I know some people are of the idea that sidequest sucking does not matter because they're 'optional' but fact of the matter is, time went into creating these. Time now not spent on the real story content. Not to mention how discouraging an overfull journal can be when you can't predict which sidequests might be worth your while.

    This game also tries to cram in more romance options than any Bioware title before, it's a feature the devs were promoting a lot before release. It doesn't help that all of the characters feel a bit bland - besides Reyes there is no possible conflict there besides one sulky dialogue.
    These romances are some of the most disappointing once they've written yet, there are really only two that get fleshed out stories (Cora and Jaal) and neither of those felt more content heavy or engaging as some of the older romances did. Other romances seem to be missing scenes (for instance Liam's date cuts off before you see the actual date - this happens several times) and others are almost pointless. The flings should have been cut immediately. Again time wasted on developing those that could have been spent elsewhere.

    Like designing more aliens. Or making sure that the very few aliens we get to see aren't all literal clones (it's especially glaring with the Asari of course.) Or maybe fleshing out some of the characters more.

    The Ryders are the most preset PCs of any Bioware game. They have only one personality (a jokester because even if you pick serious options throughout all the autodialogue forces you into that role), often only two option to respond - both of which pretty much identical. Their whole background is set in stone as well, even down to their relationship with their father. Even the way they look, it's been slightly improved now but when playing at launch you literally had to pick a preset and you could only change a few things.

    The story is boring and rehashes parts of the OT's plot. It is supposed to have the highest stakes yet, but it's told jokingly. There are no meaningful choices, there are no multiple endings possible (well one minor NPC can possibly die), and a major plot thread is only revealed in a fetch quest! Then the story ends with a major cliffhanger that will never be resolved.

    Something clearly went wrong, the devs were promising things that never happened (just before release they said the CC was like the one in DA:I so clearly something went wrong), and there are some moments in the game that make you think there really was something there once. Of course the bugs are often too distracting to really feel emerged in the game. I've had some game breaking bugs and *still* have the issue that the cursor shoots to the middle of the screen all the time, even during cutscenes and I can't move it away.

    I still enjoyed parts of my playthrough, the combat could be fun, I enjoyed the Reyes romance, brief as it was, I thought Jaal had a real story arc in the game, I loved Havarl (well the way it looked alien at least). But in the end I haven't been able to start a second playthrough because there just isn't enough replay value there. A shame because Bioware games are always my most replayed games.

    Too bad we'll never see the series redeem itself.    … Expand
  52. ENRY_Critic
    Jun 11, 2020
    7
    Mass Effect Andromeda is a very ambiguous game. The game has both good and bad sides.
    Good sides:
    - The game is able to create a very beautiful scenery and it`s graphics are quite good - Never before in Mass Effect franchise have fights given me so much pleasure, although some decisions raise questions (for example you can use only 3 abilities) - References to the original trilogy are    Mass Effect Andromeda is a very ambiguous game. The game has both good and bad sides.
    Good sides:
    - The game is able to create a very beautiful scenery and it`s graphics are quite good
    - Never before in Mass Effect franchise have fights given me so much pleasure, although some decisions raise questions (for example you can use only 3 abilities)
    - References to the original trilogy are touching
    - Some of our teammates have interesting life stories like in first ME
    - Interesting character creator
    Bad sides:
    - Too many boring and stupid questions
    - Even after patches there are some problems with animations
    - There are bugs when you get stuck somewhere or fly out of the textures
    - Worst ground transport in the all franchise

    So, you can try ME: Andromeda if you want to try the role of not only the savior of the universe, but also a simple colonist :)    … Expand
  53. Olrikus
    Apr 29, 2017
    5
    This is a disaster with occasional good parts you will find from time to time.

    I made a few weeks pass to cool my head but I am really disappointed with this game. It's flawed in each and every way and looks like Bioware tried to make their typical game but Witcher 3 happened and EA said - we want bigger. And Bioware made it bigger at the cost of content quality. I am not talking    This is a disaster with occasional good parts you will find from time to time.

    I made a few weeks pass to cool my head but I am really disappointed with this game.
    It's flawed in each and every way and looks like Bioware tried to make their typical game but Witcher 3 happened and EA said - we want bigger. And Bioware made it bigger at the cost of content quality.
    I am not talking about technical problems and poor face animations (which are still present in 1.05 patch). Technical problems can be fixed with patches. Story and writing are much more expensive to fix and I can bet BW wouldn't fix inconsistent writing and disjointed dialogues.
    All paid reviewers said that the beginning of the game is bad and later on situation would improve... And it was a trap. I played Habitat 7 part bearing in mind I would refund the game if it is that terrible, but I found Habitat 7 and arrival to Nexus a nice and really enjoyable part. My thought was - if it is the worst part of the game then I am totally okay with it, I couldn't have been more wrong.
    Eos, extremely repetitive vaults, boring sudoku, one copy-pasted boss inspired by Matrix film, unimaginative aliens, two radiation/hot desert planets, one ice desert planet, one asteroid, one small jungle area and one sulfur springs planet... Whole story around Ketts looks like an inflated Voss side-quest from SWTOR. And companions... Aside from few lines it is a total disaster. I forced myself to finish this game in a desperate hope to find more good parts hidden somewhere and this can describe my verdict for a game.    … Expand
  54. Calcium
    May 8, 2017
    5
    There will be minor, veiled spoilers mentioned in this review yet nothing referring to the main story. Due to this, I decided not to mark my review as containing spoilers.

    The game is, overall, not as terrible as the reviews reflect. The scenery is breathtaking yet I believe we are all tired of EA skating on pretty views & delivering a sub-par product. And while Mass Effect has finally    There will be minor, veiled spoilers mentioned in this review yet nothing referring to the main story. Due to this, I decided not to mark my review as containing spoilers.

    The game is, overall, not as terrible as the reviews reflect.
    The scenery is breathtaking yet I believe we are all tired of EA skating on pretty views & delivering a sub-par product. And while Mass Effect has finally bestowed upon us genuine sex scenes with aliens, my relationships - both platonic & romantic felt hollow. I romanced the new alien in Andromeda & while there were sweet & intimate moments that I enjoyed, their conversations felt forced as if the writers weren't creating a character & simply attempted to appease the masses. This game has no soul, no depth; there's nothing but the hollow sound of your footsteps & tedious, uninspired chit chat among your followers to keep you company as you traverse the unknown. Normally, I'd be excited they added squad-mate banter but the writing was juvenile at best & utterly forgettable.

    As my character walked through an alien city browsing wares & exploring, I was completely un-enthused & merely wanted to leave. This was a tremendous opportunity as we have never before been able to witness an alien civilization unless it was in ruins from the reapers. There was nothing interesting & I grew incredibly bored listening to the annoying noise pollution & the hollow sound of my boots. For some reason, Bioware has decided to replace background music with either nothingness or crowd chatter on a loop. This was grating, annoying & far more damaging to the game than most realize.

    Bioware has most unfortunately forgotten what gave them their edge - what propelled them to become a fabulously successful gaming studio; the lack of choices was glaring. There were merely two "big" decisions with little to no consequences other than squad mate opinion. Not only that, but these decisions were thrust on the player from left field. And to be perfectly frank, there was only one that even felt like a genuine call that someone would struggle with.

    This lack of freedom was even more prominent in Ryder's relationships with his/her crew. For instance, there was a particular individual my character despised. This person lacked morals & was a self-involved, spoiled child masquerading as an adult. Creating individuals that one may dislike isn't what I'm criticizing, honestly this is an element that usually leads to great story-telling. Yet, Bioware ties the player's hands and forces positive interactions - even when this individual propositioned Ryder, tempting the character to cheat on their love interest, the player isn't allowed to say anything harsher than a gentle refusal.

    The rest of the issues are many.

    - Glitches, bugs, crashes, etc. There were many game breaking bugs I ran into. Thankfully, I anticipated this and backed up saves. Yet, I had to repeat a single mission 6 times before I could finish thanks to an inexcusable number of bugs. Similar issues occurred multiple times throughout the game.

    - Political agendas being forced upon the player. You will run into individuals who are queer, pansexual, transgender, etc. etc. There are constant feminist narratives, even the new alien race needs feminism. Thankfully, our ships of special snowflakes have arrived to enlighten them & bring them the holy gospel of feminism!

    - Lack of RPG elements. For instance you CANNOT be anti-artificial intelligence & will encourage the development of new AI whether you like it or not.

    - Horrible character creator & deformed female presets

    - The main story is so forgettable that merely a week after finishing, I can't recall major plotlines. I do however remember that it stole many elements from ME2.

    - And finally my personal gripe with the game, where have all the real men gone? The most feminine romance available involved an overly-sensitive mamma's boy who my character constantly praised for being "open minded & accepting." Sorry Bioware. That fails to turn most ladies on.    … Expand
  55. CLKgame
    Jun 8, 2017
    6
    While the combat is possibly the best in the entire series... When it comes to just about everything else, Andromeda falls flat on its face. Before you can even begin your mission as Pathfinder, you are introduced to one of the most painful character creators ever conceived by mankind. No really, it's not difficult at all to create an abomination that would make Frankenstein's monsterWhile the combat is possibly the best in the entire series... When it comes to just about everything else, Andromeda falls flat on its face. Before you can even begin your mission as Pathfinder, you are introduced to one of the most painful character creators ever conceived by mankind. No really, it's not difficult at all to create an abomination that would make Frankenstein's monster scream and run away in terror. Andromeda completely lacks the cinematic feel of the original trilogy, and while some of your crew are compelling characters, the overall story is lackluster.… Expand
  56. Rudd_Nurseman
    Jun 11, 2017
    7
    ME:A is a great game, well worth it's price. The graphics and performance are great, the characters are unique and believable and the story is pleasantly surprising and compelling. There are certain mysteries kept in reserve to allow a sequel game, which is part of good story telling. The game makes the player feel like he/she is making extremely long lasting choices that could conceivablyME:A is a great game, well worth it's price. The graphics and performance are great, the characters are unique and believable and the story is pleasantly surprising and compelling. There are certain mysteries kept in reserve to allow a sequel game, which is part of good story telling. The game makes the player feel like he/she is making extremely long lasting choices that could conceivably totally change their experience in the next game. In fact, there were a couple of moments where I was shocked that I could make the story play out exactly how I wanted.

    Saying all this, ME:A doesn't stack up against MEs previous titles as well as hoped. The flow of previous games is much superior. ME:A's end game isn't as monumental as hoped, in particular the musical score isn't well matched to it's cut scenes. ME:A features alot of dialogue that occurs as you move around, but move too fast and you get two words worth and it stops - very annoying. This game isn't bug free, I had to restart a couple of missions; I wouldn't have minded if it wasn't the final boss mission!

    The only part of the story that wasn't done well enough to my standards is a revelation regarding one of the ingame species, I barely registered the discovery in mission so was a bit shocked when my crew were talking about it...

    The musical score for action scenes needed work, but the space opera music was lovely.

    There were a few parts of the game that were underutilised as well, E.g. outposts, I would have liked some more action with these, perhaps even getting to design them to an extent like Fallout 4.

    But overall I really enjoyed this game, and I really hope that the issues in the development that came up are sorted now so that the team can move on to progressing this new story line in their next title with more flow.    … Expand
  57. w13510n
    Apr 10, 2017
    7
    (Had to review my review after the 1.05 patch)

    To put it in a nutshell: 1.05 makes the game quite playable with only minor bugs left in SP - even the animations and faces were improved to the point where they no longer are completely grotesque. Now i have started a NG+ on Insanity and it is quite living up to the expectations. It certainly needs more polish since the initial release was    (Had to review my review after the 1.05 patch)

    To put it in a nutshell: 1.05 makes the game quite playable with only minor bugs left in SP - even the animations and faces were improved to the point where they no longer are completely grotesque. Now i have started a NG+ on Insanity and it is quite living up to the expectations. It certainly needs more polish since the initial release was very rushed, but now it's taken the right direction.

    What's still to fix:
    - MP is still basically unplayable, even with a rock solid broadband internet connection like mine it is disconnecting in 80% of the games, has severe lag spikes or shuts down the entire game without any notice.
    - Sounds can have an extreme delay in being played or don't get played at all.
    - The menus are really really bad in terms of usability and logical placement.
    - Mouse clicks sometimes are not registered, for instance certain popups can't be clicked, they must be dealt with the keyboard.

    When MP becomes really playable and the other issues are solved, it will certainly become a 8-9 out of 10.    … Expand
  58. Framer
    Apr 29, 2017
    5
    Game breaking bugs, boring predictable story, and very discriminatory against white people and attractive people in general! Who's the main audience? ugly people or LGBT community it seems
  59. MR67
    Jun 5, 2017
    7
    I honestly cannot understand why this game is getting so much hate. Admittedly, Bioware did drop something of a clanger by releasing it too early considering the monumental expectations it had to live up to with the Mass Effect name attached to it and a 5 year wait for this title, but to their credit, I think they have done their level best to listen to fan feedback and implement patchesI honestly cannot understand why this game is getting so much hate. Admittedly, Bioware did drop something of a clanger by releasing it too early considering the monumental expectations it had to live up to with the Mass Effect name attached to it and a 5 year wait for this title, but to their credit, I think they have done their level best to listen to fan feedback and implement patches as quickly as possible.

    I've played around 40 hours total in the game (starting over multiple times owing to untimely deaths), so I think I can give a bit of a qualified review on this.

    Cons:
    - Absolutely no options to select your companions' gear or to control them in battle apart from directing them where to go. Their AI is not great either.
    - FPS style gameplay means you can only map 3 different powers to your controller, which encourages you to play more as a soldier type character with firearms. You can specify 4 "favourite" profiles with 3 powers mapped to each, but the gameplay makes it a bit tedious to have to pause combat to switch between these profiles.
    - Character animations have improved from the initial release, though some minor characters still look a bit patchy and the quality of the dialogue is not the greatest, though not as bad as some critics have made it out to be.
    - Your own dialogue options are limited and result in more or less the same outcome, regardless of what you choose. Scrapping of the old Paragon/Renegade system means you always end up giving generally bland, inoffensive responses, even when you want to be an utter dickwad towards somebody who deserves it (looking at you, Addison).
    - Enemies tend to respawn too quickly and often unrealistically. Example was when I went down into a vault to finish a side quest by retrieving a dead scientist's lost research notes. Vault was guarded by a huge robot which took ages to bring down. I defeated the robot, searched the vault, found some stuff and departed. Barely 10 minutes later I noticed that quest tracker was still active, so I returned to the vault to search it again more carefully as it seemed I had not yet found the research notes. Guess what? Huge robot is back again.....!

    Pros:
    - Combat system is more dynamic and more fun than in previous Mass Effect games. Ryder can use a jet pack to zip and jump around all the place while enemies tend to be more mobile and will try and outflank you where possible.
    - Open world type setting allows you to go off the beaten track, explore to your heart's content and gives you more freedom to finish quests as you see fit. I reckon you could easily sink 200+ hours into a playthrough if you so wished.
    - Nice new touches such as extreme planetary conditions (which cause damage to your vehicle and space suit), forward stations (where you can replenish your gear and change your loadouts while exploring), option to send other teams on missions that you can either participate in as a multiplayer game or else have these happen in the background in single player (and these earn you loot and credits), and a customisable vehicle that is more fun to drive around than the Mako from the previous games.

    Overall, I think this is a good game, but not quite a great one. I would say it is marginally better than Mass Effect 3 but not as good as the first two.    … Expand
  60. AfroSpectre7
    Apr 15, 2017
    5
    Never got to finish the game. Only played the first hour. Release day. Game is a mess. Bugs and glitches is not how you introduce one to your game. It's sad that incomplete and unpolished games are the order of the day. Real buzz killer for me. I remember when games didn't need patches because they had to be completed as we didn't all have access to the internet. I'll hold onto my copyNever got to finish the game. Only played the first hour. Release day. Game is a mess. Bugs and glitches is not how you introduce one to your game. It's sad that incomplete and unpolished games are the order of the day. Real buzz killer for me. I remember when games didn't need patches because they had to be completed as we didn't all have access to the internet. I'll hold onto my copy though, wait patiently for it to be patched and completed and hopefully by the time it is ready for me I will have forgotten it's poor start. It's a Mass Effect game. We the fans love Mass Effect. In the meantime it is just down right disappointing right now. See you in 2018 Andromeda. I hope Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't steal me away from you like Witcher 3 did from Dragon Age Inquisition. You better hope it never comes out.… Expand
  61. Goby
    Apr 24, 2017
    5
    Arg, the ending almost makes me want to avoid saying anything negative about the game, but frankly it's FAR BELOW the quality standards set by the previous Mass Effect games.

    I'm not even going to complain about the faces or glitches, I'd have less of a problem with those if the rest of the package were delivered well. Unfortunately they flopped it. Bioware has seemingly become a victim    Arg, the ending almost makes me want to avoid saying anything negative about the game, but frankly it's FAR BELOW the quality standards set by the previous Mass Effect games.

    I'm not even going to complain about the faces or glitches, I'd have less of a problem with those if the rest of the package were delivered well. Unfortunately they flopped it. Bioware has seemingly become a victim to the recent trends in open-world gaming. Trends like artificially extending gameplay time by having the player engage in mind-numbing repetitive tasks and quests, poor design solutions for the process of resource collecting (which you require to unlock some bonuses or to experiment with new gear - not essential, but in order to research and develop all the gear offered you'd have to waste a huge amount of time better spent elsewhere)

    RESOURCE COLLECTING, RESEARCHING FOR GEAR
    It's a grind, because the best way to accumulate resources is to pick them up by hand. That means you are expected to stop for them and hold a button for two seconds or worse, deviate from your mission to engage in this distraction that should have never left the MMORPG genre. That design solution for collecting resources sounds bland on it's own, but unfortunately the slightly more interesting options like planetary scans yield significantly less resources for the time invested and even that process becomes dull due to lack of variation.

    QUESTS
    I sorely missed those side quests from the original games that felt like they were significant in one way or another. 9 out of 10 side quests in Andromeda feel like they have all life sucked out of them and they consequently end up being a huge to-do list in which you'd rather not do anything because there's a 90% chance you're going to be disappointed again. Honestly the overall quality of the dialogue didn't leave a lasting bad taste in my memory, but a lot of the narratives felt rushed and incomplete. Oftentimes it's your generic MMORPG quest: talk to an NPC, go to a location, interact with an object or kill some enemies, collect your reward. Sometimes if you start to feel invested in a quest it just all of a sudden concludes and you'll feel like nothing even happened and everything you did was for nothing (you may be rewarded with some useless garbage for your troubles or perhaps to offer some solace for feeling unfulfilled). There's plotholes too, likely resulting from a tunnel-vision approach when writing. What a pity... If you have to try out Andromeda, avoid all task type quests. There are a lot of terrible ones in Allies & Relationships as well, but those are generally better, albeit still not as interesting to do as in the original games.

    SAM THE PATHFINDER'S AI
    I want to bring this thing out separately because I believe it to be the culprit that steals away a lot of the potential goodness this game could've been. Sure, it's immensely helpful in your pathfinder travels - it's a know-it-all AI that can solve pretty much any problem you throw at it: decipher alien languages, interact with alien objects on the go or even know what a random piece of alien tech is designed to do. I have a huge issue with this because it rips this game of SO MUCH potential for fascinating side quests and makes too much room for that fast paced shooting-oriented gameplay that was never at the heart of Mass Effect. SAM is always telling you where to go and what to do. I don't remember a time when I had to think about what I should be doing next or even feel mystified by anything, it's always just GO GO GO and if something gets in your way, KILL KILL KILL.

    OTHER ISSUES
    * Squad AI system is utterly useless. You're more likely to get yourself killed trying to give out orders to your squadmates, so just don't bother with it and let them stand in the middle of gunfire if that's what they choose to do.
    * Certain idiotic dialogue situations. I completely avoided Liam in my squad because of it.
    * Ambient dialogue (e.g. a squadmate talking to you or a radio chat via comms) is constantly cutting off, triggered by you moving into a different area. It really doesn't take much at all for it to happen. It doesn't even have to be so that a new line of dialogue could start.
    * There's two Asari character models in the game - one is Peebee, and then there's everybody else... How is this even possible!?
    * Planets feel very small with so many locations packed together.
    * Too much forced smalltalking, it's exhausting...
    * Coordination between crafting, development, store and loadout user interfaces inconvenient.

    THE GOOD
    * Impressive graphics
    * Main storyline interesting enough
    * Some interesting characters - I personally liked incorporating Peebee and Jaal or Drack in my standard squad loadout
    * Ambient dialogue and reactions (perhaps even progressions) in quests vary based on which crew members you brought on a mission.
    * Sound engineering
    * Well optimised

    Overall, Andromeda felt uninspired and rushed.    … Expand
  62. majxik
    May 17, 2017
    6
    Ok, it is complicated. First, bad things, after it good things. So graphic is not bad as overall, but, facial animation is awful, it is far far from a realistic look, and some of the characters are like after botox - no emotions expressed at all.

    The second problem is in gameplay, they tried to create an open world, but there is one big problem, that open world is empty, as in space as    Ok, it is complicated. First, bad things, after it good things. So graphic is not bad as overall, but, facial animation is awful, it is far far from a realistic look, and some of the characters are like after botox - no emotions expressed at all.

    The second problem is in gameplay, they tried to create an open world, but there is one big problem, that open world is empty, as in space as at planets. Most planet (like 14 from 15) you can't visit, you will just look at them from space, but you need to move to them to have 100% of a survey in the solar system, so for 100% completion, you will waste few hours to just looking at monitor while moving between planets. When you get lucky and find one of a visitable planet (don't worry, all are in main quest line), they are huge, and not much to do on them, at least, there is new vehicle :).

    And side-quest, some of them are buggy, some are boring and you can live without them. By buggy I mean, you can't complete them, because something didn't happen, for example, I did one job for the Angara, he congratulated me, and nothing happened, the quest is still active, and I can't speak with a person which I should deliver it.

    And now good stuff, the main quest are good, it is making sense, it is interesting, there some twist, and your colleagues have their side quest, which is actually interesting enough.

    Battles are sometimes challenging, and cover systems work for you. Enemies are stupid just from distance. And special power system is in good shape.

    The game is not good, but in overall, if you will skip side quests and you will play it as MA2 and MA3 (you will cut open world to a minimum) only main quest line + crew mission, you will probably enjoy this game much more, than with 100% completion.    … Expand
  63. TimeOfTheChimps
    Jul 25, 2020
    7
    One of the best things I can say about Andromeda is that the game feels, looks, and plays like it's the same universe I just left when I finished ME3 three days ago. All of the races, the environments, the technology, sound design, etc. is noticeably Mass Effect and that was a big must.

    The squadmates practically carry the game this time around. Like every character in this game, your    One of the best things I can say about Andromeda is that the game feels, looks, and plays like it's the same universe I just left when I finished ME3 three days ago. All of the races, the environments, the technology, sound design, etc. is noticeably Mass Effect and that was a big must.

    The squadmates practically carry the game this time around. Like every character in this game, your teammates all have different backgrounds and experiences you can talk about and there are so many details it makes you feel like a part of the world rather than it revolving around you and only you. My favourite characters in particular were Jaal, the human/squid/cat man who feels like an outsider until Ryder gets him to open up, and is somehow the most adorable, human character ever written in a Bioware game, and Vetra, the hardass, snarky reptilian space mom shaped by years of having to fend for herself. After the halfway point, I never swapped those two out because I liked them so much.

    While they're all unique and fascinating to hear banter back and forth between each other, the same cannot be said for Ryder, the main character. And I don't know if it's female Ryder's voice acting or something, but the main character is just not all that interesting and sounds kind of bored? I didn't really connect with them until the finale because they don't feel like they have a personality to speak of until that point. In addition, Ryder's brain AI SAM has a legitimately irritating voice and I hope they recast that entire part in the future. His constant, incessant updates were the only truly low part of the game.

    The story is a bit slow-paced but picks up steam just at the halfway point. Not going too in-depth here but the Kett had revelations that kept them from otherwise being generic alien enemies to shoot at (which they mostly are anyway), and the whole Remnant/terraforming plot provides a fascinating apocalypse scenario to raise the stakes (on a much smaller scale). The finale is explosive and reminded me of the end of ME1 in a lot of ways, and a wonderful touch is that every one of your squadmates is fighting alongside you for the final boss, a first for Mass Effect. As a whole, the story was serviceable and I don't have much more to say about it.

    I would talk about gameplay (which combat-wise is the best in the series), but to keep it short: Andromeda is a fun game, boosted by strong supporting characters and world-building, but held back by a blank-slate main character and the annoying AI voice in their head. I would gladly play the sequel though.    … Expand
  64. gloriouspotato
    May 13, 2017
    7
    Mass Effect: Andromeda laid the foundations for something potentially great but spoils it by taking the game in the same direction as Dragon Age: Inquisition. The influences are pretty apparent - the poorly utilised open world format, the cookie cutter side quests, the focus on quantity rather than quality. These stand out as the main issues that stop ME: Andromeda from being anywhereMass Effect: Andromeda laid the foundations for something potentially great but spoils it by taking the game in the same direction as Dragon Age: Inquisition. The influences are pretty apparent - the poorly utilised open world format, the cookie cutter side quests, the focus on quantity rather than quality. These stand out as the main issues that stop ME: Andromeda from being anywhere close to the ideal RPG. Not only this, but the game's presentation suffers from mediocre facial animations and numerous gameplay or visual bugs. This is probably the least polished Mass Effect game I've played.

    Nonetheless, there was a certain charm to the general setting and universe of the game. I appreciated the characters and story for the most part, and the combat mechanics worked well enough, so ultimately I did enjoy the game. But again, this has all been done better before and isn't what I hoped Mass Effect would come to.    … Expand
  65. leSange
    Jan 16, 2018
    6
    Ну я зачистил на 98% пацаны, нормальный Инквизишн в космосе с покатушками, очень комфортный геймплей, а Dolby Vision в 4к на ультрах смотрится потрясающе, а лицевая анимация такаяже как Инквизишн, даже багов поменьше
  66. Frahma
    May 14, 2017
    5
    Voglio essere onesto e do 5 senza farmi prendere dalle emozioni.
    Allora, il gioco di per se' è enorme, si viaggia oltre le 60 ore in un amen e questo è un punto a suo favore. I combattimenti sono frenetici, coinvolgenti e generalmente ben strutturati; dopo la prima patch non ho più trovato rallentamenti, bug o crash (prima invece si', eccome!). Mi è piaciuta la novità del jetpack.    Voglio essere onesto e do 5 senza farmi prendere dalle emozioni.
    Allora, il gioco di per se' è enorme, si viaggia oltre le 60 ore in un amen e questo è un punto a suo favore. I combattimenti sono frenetici, coinvolgenti e generalmente ben strutturati; dopo la prima patch non ho più trovato rallentamenti, bug o crash (prima invece si', eccome!). Mi è piaciuta la novità del jetpack. L'impatto visivo dei mondi esplorabili è decisamente di qualità, anche se senza squilli. Meno belli gli interni ed il Nexus. Il crafting di armi e corazze è migliorabile. Tuttavia le magagne, i problemi, le lacune, i "buchi" sono talmente tanti e talmente palesi che tutto quel che c'è di buono crolla come un castello di carte.
    Graficamente, dopo 4 anni di lavoro, non dico che mi aspetto The Witcher 3, ma quasi. Siamo nel 2017! Le animazioni dei personaggi sono assai mediocri, buffe in certi casi, mentre per quanto riguarda le animazioni facciali nei dialoghi c'è da piangere (o bestemmiare a seconda dei gusti). Qui sono rimasti a ME, a 10 anni fa. E lo stesso dicasi per la varietà dei PNG che sono vestiti uguali, pettinati uguali (ok cambiare il colore della tuta, ma...) e caratterizzati in maniera pessima. In 4 anni di lavoro, con budget milionari, sono riusciti a fare sto lavoro qui? Ma su questo "si potrebbe" anche passar sopra, molti gochi hanno fatto fortuna con la storia, con il carisma dei protagonisti...non è il caso di ME:A! La storia è un brutto copia-incolla di ME e di altri giochi sci-fi: le prime 2 ore sono agghiaccianti, pessime, imbarazzanti. Ti vengono affiancati due compagni invisibili, di nessun interesse e poco migliora con l'ingresso di Drack (forse l'unico che si salva), Vetra o Peebee. L' Angara poi è talmente insignificante che non l'ho mai considerato. Siamo lontani parsec da quanto visto nella saga di ME. I PNG fanno pietà nella loro inutilità, nel loro piattume. Non importa cosa dici o fai che tanto non cambia una virgola. Tuttavia la cosa peggiore, quella che fa più andare in bestia è la storia: brutta, senza colpi di scena particolari, scopiazzata, raffazzonata e ripetitiva all'ennesima potenza. Non ti trovi mai a dover fare una scelta che abbia un vero impatto sulla storia. Ad esempio si deve scegliere tra salvare uno di una razza piuttosto che uno dell'altra: quella che non scegli chissenefrega, non cambia nulla, amici come prima. In ogni pianeta si deve fare sempre la stessa cosa e poi si passa al successivo. Si salvano solo le missioni lealtà, mentre le secondarie, a parte un paio, sono riempitive e ripetitive fino alla noia. Ci sono una marea di pianeti da scansionare...ma perchè? Cosa servono? Per arricchire la banca dati codex? Giri con la nave, scansioni il tal sistema ed il tal pianeta in un loop sfiancante e senza motivo. Altro punto negativo riguarda la varietà dei nemici. I kett con il nemico finale sono piatti, stanno lì, ti sparano, li ammazzi, ripulisci il tal accampamento, ti allontani e dopo 2 minuti ritornano come nulla fosse. Ma perchè? I saccheggiatori, le bande di esuli e quant'altro non hanno significato, sono vuoti, insipidi, inutili, ma soprattutto tutti identici, uguali, senza personalità. Gli unici sono i ribelli angara che almeno hanno un motivo per combattere e allora hanno un perchè. Stesso discorso per i remnant: son quei 3 lì più gli architetti. La fauna è composta da 5-6 bestie...cioè in una galassia ci sono solo 5-6 varietà di animali? Ma per piacere! Ore, ore e ore così, a fare le stesse 3-4 cose per pianeta, a girare con il fuoristrada, saltando dialoghi su dialoghi (bestemmia in un GDR!!!) per l'inutilità di essi, tanto non c'è nessuna scelta morale che influisce in maniera concreta sul gioco, su Ryder, sui compagni o sul nemico. Tutto piatto, senza sussulti, si sa già come va a finire. Il finale è in linea con il resto del gioco: vai nel tal posto, fai le stesse cose che hai fatto sui vari pianeti, arriva l'Arconte, blablabla e finisce il gioco. Le scene finali poi son tirate via al massimo.
    Sono affranto, una delle serie più belle è stata devastata, rovinata, ammazzata dal dinamico duo Bioware-EA. Come non fosse bastato lo scempio di Dragon Age, ora anche ME è stato spazzato via.    … Expand
  67. misfit5
    Jan 20, 2018
    7
    I have finished this game: 76%, played almost 40h version 1.10. The game is a struggle for the first few hours or so. There no denying that it can be unnerving at times. I didn't care as much for my companions as in previous ME games or Dragon Age games. All that said I really have enjoyed how this game makes everything we do in game as a team effort, and provides this feeling that theI have finished this game: 76%, played almost 40h version 1.10. The game is a struggle for the first few hours or so. There no denying that it can be unnerving at times. I didn't care as much for my companions as in previous ME games or Dragon Age games. All that said I really have enjoyed how this game makes everything we do in game as a team effort, and provides this feeling that the whole Nexus expedition helps you in your endeavor to make Helios cluster home for every race. If you are a mass effect fan don't hesitate to play this game.… Expand
  68. ahrek
    Jun 22, 2020
    7
    the game is great. it has cool new gameplay combat and explorations mechanics. and finally, we can see both genders of all aliens races (at least those that are currently in andromeda). though I am not happy with the excuse they found to not show half of the milky way galaxy species, as well as children. facial designs and animations could have been better. the game needed more polish.the game is great. it has cool new gameplay combat and explorations mechanics. and finally, we can see both genders of all aliens races (at least those that are currently in andromeda). though I am not happy with the excuse they found to not show half of the milky way galaxy species, as well as children. facial designs and animations could have been better. the game needed more polish.

    there are two big disappointments though. the biggest one is that EA did not release DLCs to continue important stories, and instead choose to put them in the novels. also, there needed to be more content connecting to the original trilogy.

    the second issue is the music. the original trilogy is full of wonderfully memorable tracks. this game did not have even one. all the music is forgettable.

    the open worlds and exploration are great, though a deeper lore and more memorable minor characters would have been appreciated. still, this game set a lot of material to exploit in future games. it got a somewhat sloppy start, but this game is by no means bad.    … Expand
  69. Fingers
    Apr 10, 2017
    5
    Story - poor to the point I don't really give a **** about what's happening why it's happening - contrary to the previous games, bar ME3 and the **** ending. I feel zero connection to the characters in the game. The story is bad had that been on par with ME1 to ME3 you could forgive the flaws but as you don't really "feel" anything towards your squad or the other races in the game youStory - poor to the point I don't really give a **** about what's happening why it's happening - contrary to the previous games, bar ME3 and the **** ending. I feel zero connection to the characters in the game. The story is bad had that been on par with ME1 to ME3 you could forgive the flaws but as you don't really "feel" anything towards your squad or the other races in the game you don't get drawn in. I've played about 105 hours now and I found my self thinking to myself this game is just average to below average I'd give it a 5.5 out of 10

    Graphics - The environments look great however the character models are awful and have regressed much like the mentality of the people involved with the development of this game. That excludes the facial animations which are just bad bad bad.

    Game play - it's OK nothing special an improvement over 3 but you can see it's a shooter masquerading as an RPG now. The transitions when travelling to planets were annoying after the first few hours not to mention the scanning quests - tedious beyond belief.

    Value for money - nah not at the moment wait until the **** is fixed and the price has dropped by about by 50%.

    BW has problems - diversity hires, feminism, gender nonsense, inexperienced cos players masquerading as writers and animators. They need to get their **** together and forget real life and focus on making good RPG's again - Coherent rich story, in depth characters, good game mechanics, good visuals are what matters unfortunately ME:A lacks several of these which are important.    … Expand
  70. Merithyn
    Apr 17, 2017
    5
    Music: What happened? Composer change? They supposedly (as they put it) "modernized" already established music from the original trilogy. But in reality If you ask me they cut the good parts out and what was left is pitiful.

    Combat: Great actually. Exploring space: Please no more zooming in and zooming out. I got a headache after 3 planets! And guess what it cannot be skipped.    Music: What happened? Composer change? They supposedly (as they put it) "modernized" already established music from the original trilogy. But in reality If you ask me they cut the good parts out and what was left is pitiful.

    Combat: Great actually.

    Exploring space: Please no more zooming in and zooming out. I got a headache after 3 planets! And guess what it cannot be skipped.

    Story: There is a ton of MMO style side quest which make playing the game feel like a chore. The main story is not actually that bad but could be much, much better. Weak start, weak middle and then at the end there is a ton of action, revelations, emotions and dialogues all packed into maybe 2 hours?
    As it is the epilogue just painfully points out all the lacking things leading to it.

    Dialogues: Didn't feel like there was any choices at all. And jokes... so many jokes. Why put in so many jokes in the space opera? It felt dumbed down. If the target audience is young children I understand otherwise...    … Expand
  71. HeadyWook
    Aug 27, 2017
    6
    Finally got around to playing it. It was fun but it got pretty boring after the initial 2-3 planet terraforming completions. It was an entertaining game while the moment lasted but I wasn't even inspired enough to finish the main story line.
  72. Hirdannen
    Apr 9, 2017
    7
    This second review is based upon completion of the Game on a lower-end PC. It includes some of the modifications from patch 1.05. I sold my PS4 game, bought at discount the PC version in English. I played the PS4 version in french, where voiceover was just tragical... In English it's slightly better. Game is more playable thanks to the controls. On a Asus G75VW with a GTX660M, MEA runsThis second review is based upon completion of the Game on a lower-end PC. It includes some of the modifications from patch 1.05. I sold my PS4 game, bought at discount the PC version in English. I played the PS4 version in french, where voiceover was just tragical... In English it's slightly better. Game is more playable thanks to the controls. On a Asus G75VW with a GTX660M, MEA runs fairly well I must say and I'm astonished to see very few difference with the PS4 version in terms of graphics. Facial animation is equal to my graphic quality, so i'm less shocked by it now.

    Mass Effect Andromeda has shocked upon its release because it couldn't be compared to older brothers ME2 & ME3. And it is the case, if you remove the Mass Effect Unvierse, it has very few similarities with its ancestors. However, it is still a game worth of your time if you like Science-Fiction or Action-TPS. And if you really like Mass Effect, it is still a pleasing experience given time.

    My first review on PS4 was based on the beginning of the game which was poorly written. Also I had much more trouble playing MEA with a gamepad than with the keyboard + mouse. Some of the defaults I pointed out are still there, but you can adapt to most of them.

    Characters don't start as intereseting but their interactions and loyalty sidequests make them more interesting with time. The interactions between your companions in the Nomad Buggy are better than the rest, and some puns are actually funny. I began to interest myself in them because of these moments. Also in the end of the game, they become useful despite their poor AI (the Krogan ressurects itself, Cora regenerates your shield constantly, that kind of things...).

    The planets are bigger once you've "unlocked" them and in the latter game. I find the first 3 planets to be boring compared to the last ones, which is why I found exploration to be useless at first. But you will spend a lot of time in your buggy just rolling around, mining and fighting to get some loot. There is a lot of little sidequests everywhere which feel exactly like ME1, but with a lot more content.

    Crafting is difficult to understand at first and very costly in terms of materials, which makes experimentation very difficult. It's very easy to make a completely useless weapon with this system. However when you know what you do, you can make some weird but enjoyable weapon combinations (a continuous laser blaster whose ammunitions bounce everywhere, a sniper rifle transformed in some sorts of overpowered cluster grenade launcher or a rifle which uses your health to fire without ammunition or reloading) which make it worthwhile to scout the galaxy in search of precious materials.

    Combat favorites are unintuitive when you come from ME2 and ME3. You can really enjoy them when you've got a lot of experience points to spare to make builds for each type of encounter. For example my Ryder is a Adept/Engineer with pure biotic builds, sentinel builds and engineer builds depending if I fight humans, robots or armored enemies.

    Game is still mostly buggy, but at least it never crashed on my pc. Bugs can be overlooked when it doesn't stop you from playing 11 hours straight.

    In the end, I raised the note to a 7, because I still enjoyed the game. The combat is the best part for sure, the universe and social interaction are less than ME2 or ME3 but still better than competition. And frankly I don't know many better sci-fi games than this one actually.    … Expand
  73. MRItech1211
    Apr 5, 2017
    5
    60 hours in so far....The story is unoriginal, there is no sense of urgency. The planets are essentially a list of chores to do. The combat is good, but not good enough to make up for the rest of the games shortcomings. Environments are very nice. Human and Asari character models are horrendous, but most people know that already. There is enough bugs to make Bethesda cringe, most of which60 hours in so far....The story is unoriginal, there is no sense of urgency. The planets are essentially a list of chores to do. The combat is good, but not good enough to make up for the rest of the games shortcomings. Environments are very nice. Human and Asari character models are horrendous, but most people know that already. There is enough bugs to make Bethesda cringe, most of which are not game breaking, but on several occasions, made me lose progress and have to backtrack through a broken quest. I have encountered other game breaking bugs such as endless loading screens. The game has some redeeming qualities, but it falls way way short of what I expected from a 2017 game, after playing games like the Witcher 3, horizon zero dawn, this feels like a complete let down. The writing flat out sucks overall. There's a few moments where it shines, but there are way more moments that make you wonder what the heck the writers were thinking. In short, if you're a die hard mass effect fan, get it when it goes on sale for half off, and its been patched up. If you're a newcomer to the series, go play Horizon Zero Dawn. Way better sci-fi action RPG for the price tag.… Expand
  74. Firewing2
    Apr 3, 2017
    6
    I've almost completed this game after completing nearly every side quest (some were bugged and I couldn't finish them). About 90 hours played...

    i'm a huge Bioware fanboy going back to Baldur's Gate, and this game is just disappointing. Not bad... but no where near what it could have been. I'm not one to knock a game because of bugs, especially if they're not game breaking, so I'll    I've almost completed this game after completing nearly every side quest (some were bugged and I couldn't finish them). About 90 hours played...

    i'm a huge Bioware fanboy going back to Baldur's Gate, and this game is just disappointing. Not bad... but no where near what it could have been.

    I'm not one to knock a game because of bugs, especially if they're not game breaking, so I'll leave those issues up to the internet, but the animation is this game are not broken, they're just bad. Pee Bee is the only character whose face moves in anything like a normal persons. Half the conversations I'm in, I spend distracted by a face with a flat affect and seemingly random, jerky eye movements... which wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, except that the writing is equally bad. Dialog is flat and character development is non-existent. There are characters with really interesting backstories whose in-game personality is: "flat-toned shrug" (Cora, Vetra, Drack). 1400 year old Krogan who can remember the time before the Krogan rebellions and the genophage? Meh... sorta vaguely cranky old man, but not really... just mostly likes to hit stuff.

    While not quite perfect, the original trilogy is probably my favorite video games of the last decade+. This game, I got bored 75% of the way through the story and forgot to play it for a week... How is that possible, BioWare? You can't even blame EA for this. The game isn't rushed, or incomplete, it's just not great.

    That said, visually, the game is stunning. Space has never looked so good, which is great because it will force you to watch a 15 second flying animation every time you: Take off from a planet, land on a planet, fly to a new star system, fly to/between a planet in that star system, etc. My 90 hours of game play has to include 2-5 hours of watch my ship land, take off, or move between planets.

    The combat is pretty solid. A step up from the original series, which is great, especially if you're a fan of ME:3s multiplayer, which is back in this game, more or less identically, which is not a complaint, I'm a fan.

    But single player is the kind of underwhelming experience that makes me want to fire up ME:2 and 3 again, just for the pallet cleanser. I've never left an ME playing experience not slavering for the next game before...    … Expand
  75. post_no_bills
    Mar 4, 2018
    5
    This game is not terrible. But it is certainly not particularly good.

    One rule of thumb for video games, at least for me, is that they should be more interesting than re-watching shows on Netflix. This game does not pass that test. Here is how I see it: If you played Mass Effect 2 and loved it, then you will probably not like this game. It is very much like they took everything    This game is not terrible. But it is certainly not particularly good.

    One rule of thumb for video games, at least for me, is that they should be more interesting than re-watching shows on Netflix. This game does not pass that test.

    Here is how I see it:

    If you played Mass Effect 2 and loved it, then you will probably not like this game. It is very much like they took everything I either disliked or was indifferent to in the ME series and multiplied it by 100, and everything that actually made the series great was reduced.

    I never really liked wandering around planets in that stupid truck. That is about 70% of the game now.
    I never really liked scanning things. That is a huge part of the game now.
    Mining? Didn't care for it. Hugely expanded.

    And the stuff I did like? The combat missions that were the core of ME2? They are still there, but you have to suffer through hours of tedium between them. Most of the game seems to be driving around looking for people I don't care about to give me meaningless missions I don't care about which results in more driving around. Oh, and mining. And lots of puzzles. Yay, puzzles.

    I spent a day and a half of my weekend playing this, and frankly I wish I'd spent it watchin Dr. Who reruns, or maybe cleaning my garage. In that entire time there was maybe 2 missions that were even close to what the normal missions in ME2 were like.

    So, to sum it up:

    Driving the truck around planets is boring.
    Talking with people you don't care about is boring.
    Solving puzzles is annoying.
    Mining is boring.
    The characters are not compelling.
    The story arc is not compelling.
    The interesting combat missions are too few and far between.
    Tiny little meaningless battles in the middle of nowhere are absolutely no replacement for actual ME2-style missions.

    I'm done. Thank God it was only $13. If I had paid full price I would be really annoyed.    … Expand
  76. ravenned
    Jul 11, 2017
    5
    Bad, bad game. A serious let down from the original trilogy. There are actually little to no good points about this game.
    First off, the graphics. In battle and while exploring, I wouldn't say that it's good. At this day and age, the graphics are actually only average. The in game cut scenes though... Oh god are they ugly as hell. Especially character animations. Even real humans don't    Bad, bad game. A serious let down from the original trilogy. There are actually little to no good points about this game.
    First off, the graphics. In battle and while exploring, I wouldn't say that it's good. At this day and age, the graphics are actually only average. The in game cut scenes though... Oh god are they ugly as hell. Especially character animations. Even real humans don't have pores as ugly as that. Characters move as if they have strings attached, like puppets. Their lips... oh god. Bioware should've known better... Have you ever wondered why people could be so stupid? Hundreds of staff, and no one spoke out about the animations?
    Then let's talk about gameplay. Even in game the character feels like a puppet. Extremely difficult to move maneuver. Your character gets caught in little things, so you often go from a run to a stop. And every single time you do, there is a little period where your character has to accelerate to a decent speed. It's as if you're in a car, and the driver accelerates really slowly, only for the driver to slam the brakes just when you get to a comfortable speed. Again and again. Can you imagine how ridiculously annoying it is? Then there's the shooter experience. It's extremely shallow. Shallow as in it does not engage you at all. There are the little things that good shooters have that immerses you in the battle. Games like overwatch. Even destiny, that had **** amount of reviews for it's lackluster content, had at least one good thing about it. The satisfying shooter experience. The little things like screen shake, or a faint projectile trail to know that you're hitting your target, or the target looking like it took a shot when it's hit. There's none of that here. You shoot as if you're using a peashooter, and the target gets hit as if it's getting shot by spitballs. You don't feel as if you're holding a gun in game. But you see blood spurting, from bullets that feel like spitballs and it looks ridiculous. But there is one good thing about the battles. The battle system itself is well thought out. Things like the skill system, weapon design and variety. But other than that, battles are disappointingly shallow.
    THEN there's the writing. Oh god. Even a random 20 year old on the street would cringe. HOW OLD WERE THE WRITERS?? I dare say that I could deliver a story that it more engaging. Some lines were good. But most were not. Feels like the team of writers are at a age where they just hit puberty, with only one adult among them doing what he/she can. Cheesy and cringey lines that are borderline childish can sometimes create humor. But not when that's the entire theme. Not like this. The overarching plot is decent though. But how can a story be well delivered when the writing is this ****?
    I've already been through the graphics, gameplay and writing. What more is there to say? Okay, I'll deliver one more blow to the game. The UI. It LOOKS nice. But that's all it is. Looks. Once, again, it is unresponsive. For example, while exploring, you often have to bring the map out. But once you do, you have to press 'esc' twice to get back into the game, It doesn't take long, but for a UI, it feels annoyingly slow, and totally breaks the immersion from the game... not like there was any immersion anyway.
    Seriously, I think I've said enough. I think most people would already have read about the troubles the developers faced. Bioware montreal was a bad choice. They should've stuck with Edmonton. The game that they were working on could not be more important than a franchise that was that successful. Even if we had to wait for 5 more years for Edmonton to complete what they were doing, and then work on Andromeda, I think we'd have gladly waited.    … Expand
  77. Master_Kosa
    Jul 24, 2017
    7
    So few days ago I got my hands on Mass Effect Andromeda and after 24h in game I have to say WTF all those bad reviews are about? The game is very good, it has everything I expected from Mass Effect series except for Paragon/Renegade system which I miss a bit. Story and characters are on par with previous games in series, in fact there is one dialogue that made me laugh so hard, somethingSo few days ago I got my hands on Mass Effect Andromeda and after 24h in game I have to say WTF all those bad reviews are about? The game is very good, it has everything I expected from Mass Effect series except for Paragon/Renegade system which I miss a bit. Story and characters are on par with previous games in series, in fact there is one dialogue that made me laugh so hard, something that I fail to remember to happen while playing a game.

    Yeah, the game is maybe a bit too complex in a way how many things you can do but for explorers it is a heaven because there is so much to do.

    Maybe the story is not on par with RPG’s like Planescape Torment but PT is one game none other can ever hope to be equal story wise. Compared to other ME game, as said before, it comes right in the middle. Dialogues are OK too, sometimes stupid but nothing that would make me want to stop playing.

    Honestly the only thing I’m going to complain so far are glitches like enemies disappearing into building that cannot be accessed and still being active, weird camera angles when I start dialogue from a jump or from behind a wall, dead enemies that do not fall, AI that lets me shoot them from a distance and nothing happens and few other things like scripting failures in case of few side quests (one “if” is missing apparently but given how big the game is it is understandable). But nothing too annoying, just weird.

    So the conclusion on my side so far (I haven’t finished the game yet) is that game deserves at least 7.5/10. It would have been 8 if the scripting and glitches did not happen.    … Expand
  78. LaszloR1
    Apr 16, 2017
    5
    ME:A is the most mediocre game I've ever played. The story for industry standards is not that bad, but still doesn't live up the ME standards. They had enough time to polish the game, but they couldn't or just didn't want to. Bioware had a good reputation to this point, but they managed to ruin it. This is just another shooter with some RPG elements, and what is an RPG without a greatME:A is the most mediocre game I've ever played. The story for industry standards is not that bad, but still doesn't live up the ME standards. They had enough time to polish the game, but they couldn't or just didn't want to. Bioware had a good reputation to this point, but they managed to ruin it. This is just another shooter with some RPG elements, and what is an RPG without a great story? The game had some cool mechanics, but this game just doesn't live up to the expectations. The game became a meme with many glitches posted to youtube and other social media sites. The facial animations are just amateur, I can't believe they could push out a game like this. I don't know if they made female characters worse looking, than males for the sake of social justice or just for being incompetent, altough they tried to fix it with a later patch. They are trying to fix the game as much as possible and I respect them for trying, but the game still remains mediocre. If you want to spend your hard earned money on something that is worth it try to avoid ME:A.… Expand
  79. Causese
    Apr 4, 2017
    6
    Pros:
    - Graphics are amazing.
    - Mainquests / Sidequests related to "important characters" are fun. (except remnant vaults, quite repetitive) - Cutscenes are good - Combat is fun but it lacks the necessity to interact with squadmates. (even on insanity difficulty) Cons: - "wait is that it?" kind of ending. - Dialogues are lackluster. - 90% of the time you are fighting the same    Pros:
    - Graphics are amazing.
    - Mainquests / Sidequests related to "important characters" are fun. (except remnant vaults, quite repetitive)
    - Cutscenes are good
    - Combat is fun but it lacks the necessity to interact with squadmates. (even on insanity difficulty)

    Cons:
    - "wait is that it?" kind of ending.
    - Dialogues are lackluster.
    - 90% of the time you are fighting the same species. makes the game feel repetitive
    - same/very similar creatures appear on various planets/clusters.
    - sidequests from locals are incredibly boring.
    - flying to planets is really slow and awkward. it's so bad that you want to alt tab inbetween. you notice that it's just a camera going from a to b, then awkwardly zooming out.
    - Crew sucks. There's not a single interesting person on the crew
    - open world objectives are't engaging
    - inventory/research/crafting is a mess. not engaging
    - new aliens you meet are too human. they lack something. making them look alien is not enough.    … Expand
  80. Signatus
    Apr 9, 2017
    5
    Andromeda is mostly mediocre and only a pale comparison to its predecessors on many levels.

    The combat is the strongest part of the game and largely very enjoyable. The addition of jump jets works and stays fun even though there are not that many enemy types in the gigantic worlds. Very customisable weapons and armour are also great. Unfortunately one can only equip three active powers    Andromeda is mostly mediocre and only a pale comparison to its predecessors on many levels.

    The combat is the strongest part of the game and largely very enjoyable. The addition of jump jets works and stays fun even though there are not that many enemy types in the gigantic worlds. Very customisable weapons and armour are also great. Unfortunately one can only equip three active powers at a time and switching mid combat is always a bit annoying. The squad mate system is a huge downgrade compared to the older games, it's not longer possible to control what powers/weapons squad members are using. In the old games I carefully built my squad around my own character, in Andromeda I mostly didn't care what toys the bad team AI had to play with.

    Bioware went for another open world experience and many of them look quite impressive actually. Driving the Nomad around the place is fun enough but an abundance of stupid fetch quests and other completely forgettable side quests don't really help bringing those places to live. This game will have you occupied with an overflowing quest log at all times (it doesn't help that the menu UI is really terrible) but apart from some missions that got a lot of love (i.e. loyalty missions) most of it is just mindless busywork.

    Compelling writing and building interesting characters, once considered a trademark of Bioware fall short by a long shot in Andromeda. Dialogue can vary from very good to cringe-worthy stuff that feels like ME fan-fiction made by a teenager. Sadly there is a lot of the latter. It doesn't help at all that facial animations for Humans and Asari look awful at times (after patch 1.05 still), which is at odds with how good the game looks in general.

    As of this review the game is still filled with bugs, which range from minor graphical glitches (i.e. characters being stuck in default T pose) to breaking quests and dead end save files. I had to redo hours of content because I ended up with saves that were too broken (i.e. being stuck on an empty spot of the galmap, falling through my ship to an endless death spiral or quests that should have been completed but didn't trigger their stages properly). For a game of this size quest acting up are (unfortunately) not unusual, but in comparison to other bug fests (like your usual Bethesda game) the console function in ME:A is not capable of "repairing" quests to allow you to progress without having to redo the same stuff again. Oh also there are no manual saves during priority missions and no quicksave function, who thought that was a good idea?

    Altogether this game offers a competent 3rd person open world shooter but delivers a rather disappointing RPG experience further diminished by what feels like a too early bugged release.    … Expand
  81. AleksanderJ
    Jul 4, 2017
    6
    It plays like an MMO, as a hardcore Mass Effect fan it feels more alien than it should.
    Its another Galaxy but still, the lip synching is not good.

    I wish they learn something from this one, im really trying to keep an open mind but its hard when it feels time and time again like star trek online on foot. Another bug after latest patch keeps me from playing fullscreen on my laptop.
  82. dc948
    May 8, 2017
    5
    The metric of any sequel should be, "If this wasn't a ____ game, would I want to play/spend money on it?" This game fails this test. If this were not a Mass Effect game, I would not want to play this. The combat/action is genuinely good, with some really exciting fights when storming an enemy stronghold. The movement mechanics are good. In short, PLAYING the game can be fun. EverythingThe metric of any sequel should be, "If this wasn't a ____ game, would I want to play/spend money on it?" This game fails this test. If this were not a Mass Effect game, I would not want to play this. The combat/action is genuinely good, with some really exciting fights when storming an enemy stronghold. The movement mechanics are good. In short, PLAYING the game can be fun. Everything else is a big step back for the series. Writing, bad. Characters, forgettable. Protagonist, grating. Plot, laughable. So much fluff and the huge environments just end up feeling empty. Crafting and collecting space junk to sell is painfully boring. Everything that made previous games so compelling is missing.… Expand
  83. Rilke21
    Oct 2, 2018
    6
    This review comes after 48 hours of play, low expectations and a bunch of patches. The verdict? Andromeda is by no means an excellent game, but it's not terrible.

    The Pros -Except for some wonky animations (female faces in general), the game is beautiful. -Voice acting is generally strong. -Multiplayer is fun...in short doses. -Combat is excellent. They really nailed it. The Cons    This review comes after 48 hours of play, low expectations and a bunch of patches. The verdict? Andromeda is by no means an excellent game, but it's not terrible.

    The Pros
    -Except for some wonky animations (female faces in general), the game is beautiful.
    -Voice acting is generally strong.
    -Multiplayer is fun...in short doses.
    -Combat is excellent. They really nailed it.

    The Cons
    -Generally horrific level design. You blow hours scanning for glifs, trying to get over mountains or wondering "what the hell am I supposed to do next." Locations become repetitive fast. Whoever first equated "procedurally generated" with "fun" should be shot.
    -The map. Oh god the map. Terrible optimization that leads to plenty of mindless wandering.
    -The story. It's not all bad. Actually, I was quite drawn in by the first half of the game. But...the quests...are almost entirely miss-able. The end game content is dreadfully boring.
    -The fun factor. Or more specifically, the lack of it. Because of all of the above, there is just too much about Andromeda that isn't fun. Driving in circles for hours? Ughhhh. Lackluster quests? Meh. Lack of any real narrative? ...Why?

    I should say, for most of my experience, I was thinking..."this is a 7 game. I don't understand why it's getting so much hate." It wasn't until the entirely underwhelming endgame content that the "unfinished" quality of this game becomes unforgivable.

    I bought Andromeda for $30 and I don't regret it. Will I be playing it more than once?

    Meh. Doubt it.    … Expand
  84. Kambo
    Mar 28, 2017
    5
    The good:
    Game feels huge, in a good way, I've sunk over 50 hours and I still have loads of stuff to do. I'm even planing a second play through some time soon.
    The combat is smooth and fast paced...ish.. when compared to the previous mass effect games. I quite like the freedom of choice and the selection of (newish)weapons, although I found myself gravitating towards my favorites from    The good:
    Game feels huge, in a good way, I've sunk over 50 hours and I still have loads of stuff to do. I'm even planing a second play through some time soon.
    The combat is smooth and fast paced...ish.. when compared to the previous mass effect games. I quite like the freedom of choice and the selection of (newish)weapons, although I found myself gravitating towards my favorites from the past titles.
    The nomad is fun to drive around. The environments are so stunningly beautiful that I found myself just going for the drive rather then teleporting to the nearest forward station.

    The bad
    The plot and the characters. The plot being quite vague and the characters... Well the most memorable moments came while I was driving around. Your team mates will occasionally have some bants or bash your driving style.

    The disappointment
    I really don't want to bash a dead horse, but the animation is so bad.. It seems to me that bioware just grabbed some homeless alcoholics from the street, gave 'em some drinks and asked them to do the animations. The lack of professionalism and quality control is simply unforgivable.    … Expand
  85. FormerHuman
    Apr 22, 2017
    5
    I played all three original Mass Effect games over and over again, and I like each of those games for it's individual merits, including the third game, which I felt had some of the best narrative strokes of the trilogy (ending notwithstanding, but then I see the whole game as an ending, and not a happy one at that - and that's what I like about it). With Andromeda, I was looking forI played all three original Mass Effect games over and over again, and I like each of those games for it's individual merits, including the third game, which I felt had some of the best narrative strokes of the trilogy (ending notwithstanding, but then I see the whole game as an ending, and not a happy one at that - and that's what I like about it). With Andromeda, I was looking for something of a more open blend of the best elements of the original trilogy. I have to say, though, that you should be careful what you wish for. Bioware have made the combat more dynamic, but most of the weapons feel insubstantial and the enemy selection is a serious weak point, with way too much repetition, especially compared the heightened variety of encounters in ME2 and ME3. The inventory system is a return to the systems of ME1 in the worst ways - it is convoluted, dull and unclear. Narratively the game simply doesn't have the urgency or the character development to keep you engaged through what is admittedly a fairly long campaign, which gets off to a slow start and continues to drag through a series of dreary Halo-esque cyber-caves, conveniently respawning encampments of bandits that result in firefights that are over in seconds. The new enemy, the Kett, come across as ultimately very generic, and the new friendly alien species lack any real charisma or interesting backstory. This is definitely more Star Trek: Nemesis than Wrath of Khan.

    In the end, it would seem the game's troubled development caught up with it. The writing is inconsistent at best, trite at worst, something that really wasn't such an issue in the original trilogy. There are flashes of brilliance in there, and some amusing dialogue, but the selection of squadmates is uninspiring for the most part. The game tends to veer into feeling like a slog that, although occasionally striking visually, strangely also shows it's age despite sharing the same engine as Star Wars Battlefront. As is notorious by this point, the games character animations don't appear to have improved at all since the last trilogy, which in itself was driven by an aging Unreal Engine 3. It's inexplicable that the game simply doesn't have better visuals in this department, and it's jarring with the otherwise decent fidelity on offer. The game simply doesn't have the sense of urgency that the last games had, especially by ME3. Bioware have gone too far to provide lip service to fans of the original game, at the expense of the narrative and pacing lessons of ME2 and ME3. ME1 was a very flawed game that had a special atmosphere that persisted beyond it's faults. Andromeda doesn't really have any excuse by this stage.    … Expand
  86. tagos
    Aug 22, 2017
    6
    It's now down to £17, the price of a good Early Access indie game.

    As such it's a solid 6/10. Mediocre animation that does an okay job. Mediocre to downright hopeless voice acting. Meandering storyline that in the opening hours does all it can to make you die of boredom. Characters that range from uninteresting to downright irritating. On the plus side - nice exploration and    It's now down to £17, the price of a good Early Access indie game.

    As such it's a solid 6/10. Mediocre animation that does an okay job. Mediocre to downright hopeless voice acting. Meandering storyline that in the opening hours does all it can to make you die of boredom. Characters that range from uninteresting to downright irritating.

    On the plus side - nice exploration and combat.

    For an indie game it's okay, if somewhat pricey.

    For a AAA Mass Effect game it's very poor.

    People scoring it 10 or 1 are taking the piss. It's not that good or that bad.

    It's just okay for £17.

    It's just not a full price game. It's just not worthy of The Mass Effect name and certainly not worth a second play through.

    Treat it as a cheap generic scifi action RPG produced by a small indie team, none of whom were writers and it is okay for the bargain basement price.    … Expand
  87. thisisevilevil
    Apr 17, 2017
    6
    Even after patch 1.05 this game is still a mess, unfortunately. There's still too many bugs. I would have given it a 5/10 but the story is still good (Though not as good as ME2/ME3). There's just too many shortcomings here, and when you put the "Mass Effect" title on your game, the expectations is high.

    Just a short summary of some of the shortcomings/annoyances: -Planet exploration is    Even after patch 1.05 this game is still a mess, unfortunately. There's still too many bugs. I would have given it a 5/10 but the story is still good (Though not as good as ME2/ME3). There's just too many shortcomings here, and when you put the "Mass Effect" title on your game, the expectations is high.

    Just a short summary of some of the shortcomings/annoyances:
    -Planet exploration is a hassle. Too many cutscenes (And you still can't skip most of them, even after patch 1.05)
    -Character animations are still buggy
    -When engaging in conversation, the conversation option doesn't even nearly reflect what your character will actually say.
    -A lot of quests is still broken as of patch 1.05. Reloading your latest save usually solves it for most quests though.
    -Some very annoying side quests yield very little reward. Take for instance the quest where you have to scan minerals on a few planets. After completing that quest, you got a 200 credit reward.....
    -Some side quests/assignments feels like a chore. I know the ME4 development team said they wanted to imitate what the Witcher 3 did with their side quests, but the quality of the side quests in ME4 is not even near The Witcher 3.
    -The Quest tracking system is nothing short of horrible.

    I see lots of 1's, 2's and 3 ratings in here, the game is really not that bad, but I do believe this just underlines how disappointed the ME fans is with this game    … Expand
  88. Averum
    Apr 5, 2017
    5
    Been a real struggle to get very far in this game. Oddities with graphics, glitches, poor voice acting, poor writing. I've only been able to stomach it about 4 hours into the game. At this point, I am going to put the breaks out and come back later. It is by far the weakest of any Mass Effect game so far. I am extremely disappointed in the quality of this game, after having spent so muchBeen a real struggle to get very far in this game. Oddities with graphics, glitches, poor voice acting, poor writing. I've only been able to stomach it about 4 hours into the game. At this point, I am going to put the breaks out and come back later. It is by far the weakest of any Mass Effect game so far. I am extremely disappointed in the quality of this game, after having spent so much time in the previous gems. If I can't eventually pick this one back up and play through it, I won't have any reason to pick up the sequels down the road.… Expand
  89. Stronin
    Apr 30, 2017
    6
    I just finished crit path + most of the side content for a total of 67 hours at 95% content complete. Yes that’s quite a bit longer than the previous games, at least versus my usual playtimes.
    Concluding thoughts, for those who are curious:
    I was originally critical of the quality of the animation in the game, and I still am, but at least Bioware released a patch which helps somewhat in    I just finished crit path + most of the side content for a total of 67 hours at 95% content complete. Yes that’s quite a bit longer than the previous games, at least versus my usual playtimes.
    Concluding thoughts, for those who are curious:
    I was originally critical of the quality of the animation in the game, and I still am, but at least Bioware released a patch which helps somewhat in this regard…somewhat. It’s still apparent the game needed several more polish passes, but I’m guessing that was another year’s worth of work they couldn’t afford, which is a shame.
    The writing in this never quite gets past being mediocre. Depending on your personal tastes a couple of your teammates will be fun to get to know, but it’s real hard to avoid noticing how green the writing team was on this, versus the previous ones.
    The combat systems allow for a much higher degree of customization than any of the previous titles did, which is neat. If you wanted an ME with better combat, then this’ll probably scratch that itch. Personally, I don’t play ME for the combat, but, yeah that’s a thing.
    The high-level concept of getting to colonize new worlds seems super cool...until you realize how tedious and time consuming said process is, thanks to 1001 fetch/alien killing quests, and it becomes especially soul crushing with the realization that most of the habitable worlds you land on will require the same tedious process all over again, and again…and again.
    If there’s any advice I can give you, it’s to try and avoid getting too caught up in ground missions, you do not have to finish all of them before completing the main story, especially the ones labeled as tasks, and if you try to complete all of them before finishing the main plot you will likely die of utter boredom because omg, they get so painful to finish after a while. So…you’re welcome.
    Which brings me to the next point, the game doesn’t end after the main plot is finished. I like this quite a lot. You can then go back and shoot as many generic npc baddies as you like to finish the god-forsaken busy work they want you to do. Or, or not…
    I like the ending, and it almost validates the 2 million times I had to scan things with my hand scanner. Not quite, but more so than I expected at least? Ties into the previous games a bit better than I expected initially too. (Make sure to complete the locked memories quests!)
    So, in conclusion, if you’re an avid fan of the franchise, there’s...almost...enough story content here that it might be worth the trouble. Clearly I did finish it, but only because I love the series enough to bare through a heck of a lot of tedium and buggy cutscenes to complete it. I would not recommend it for casual fans of the previous games.
    With that said, I think the ending of this game set the stage for what could be a legitimately good sequel. I think they could have done that in 30 hours instead of 60+ but still, there is that at least.
    So, here’s to hoping they learn from the mistakes of this release and focus on a more polished, less tedious, story driven 5th game. Also if I never have to see my hand scanner or the nomad off-road vehicle again I’d be perfectly happy with that, that would be fine…please do that Bioware.    … Expand
  90. FrayDabson
    Mar 25, 2017
    7
    I have to wonder if many people who gave this game a poor review actually played it, or are judging off what they saw online.

    I decided to go on a whim and got the game for about $40 Graphics look great, I am not bored yet, story has kept me interested so far. I have not run into any of the animation issues I have heard oh so many things about. I have not run into any bugs yet.    I have to wonder if many people who gave this game a poor review actually played it, or are judging off what they saw online.

    I decided to go on a whim and got the game for about $40

    Graphics look great, I am not bored yet, story has kept me interested so far. I have not run into any of the animation issues I have heard oh so many things about.

    I have not run into any bugs yet.

    This is not an amazing game-breaking game, and may not be nearly what ME fans hoped it would be, but it is no where near as bad as people are making it out to be and I dont understand the mass hate for it at all.    … Expand
  91. Mordin
    Mar 29, 2017
    6
    I've sunk almost 60 hours into this game because I'm a completionist and honestly, this game is enjoyable, but not enough that I would recommend buying it without it being heavily on sale. Like, a half off sort of sale.

    For some reason they've decided to shift the focus of a RPG game HINGED on story telling and characters to combat and exploration. Exploration isn't a bad thing and    I've sunk almost 60 hours into this game because I'm a completionist and honestly, this game is enjoyable, but not enough that I would recommend buying it without it being heavily on sale. Like, a half off sort of sale.

    For some reason they've decided to shift the focus of a RPG game HINGED on story telling and characters to combat and exploration. Exploration isn't a bad thing and neither is combat, but when the MOST energy goes into those things and are still glitchy and bugged even after patches, it makes the game empty on a level the original series never dropped to.

    DIALOGUE - There are some really good moments, but theyre drenched in amateurish writing made even worse by lackluster voice acting that sounds like each person was sat in a room, given no context to anything and told to read off all their lines in one day. Too many conversations sound truly off. I'd say Jaal, Drac, and Peebee probably have the best acting and sounded like they tried. Which is sad.

    CHARACTERS - It takes WAAAY too long to get a feel for other characters. Its honestly sad that the most interesting conversations and revalation of personalities are hidden in side quests, emails, when you walk around the Tempest and happen to hear your crew interacting, and the codex. The **** codex. I was excited to go talk to all of them when I got on the tempest, but only a few of them really interested me.

    QUESTS - Honestly, some of the quests are rather fun and make you feel like you're really making a difference and doing something. Like there are certain quests that are just so **** satisfying. But, the majority are busy work or seemingly heavy/important quests ruined by lackluster acting/writing. For instance, there's a mission where you need to save people within a certain time period. If you fail, only one person survives. You don't suffer any consequences. The remaining scientist is vaguely thankful and runs off. It seems meaningless.

    Another good example is during a main quest for the main plot. You have to make a tough decision. Save one person versus a group of people that one of your crewmates have an attachment to. If you decide not to save the group of people, it feels meaningless. Your crew member is angry at you when you try to talk to them (ONLY ONCE THO) but it feels so flat, because the next time you talk to them they're calling you kid and gungho to follow you. THAT and it makes it seem integral to your enemies next move. But its NOT.

    TL;DR: they basically took the feeling you got from encountering the end of ME3 and spread it out through the whole **** game.

    COMBAT - This is one of my favorite parts. Which is sad. It can get repetitive but it's dynamic, exciting, and I mostly look forward to fighting new enemies.

    PLANETS - They're suuuper pretty for the most part. However, you can tell it's half assed. The same animals are found in literally every planet you visit, but with switched color palettes. Like, what's the point of making highly different enviroments if the animals and problems are all essentially the same on each planet.

    PLOT - Could've been better for sure. Again, it seemed like it fell to the wayside. They pushed the political and dire situations (which are the MAIN situations) to the side, and just sort of focused on the Archon, the main villain and beating him to his endgame. The game makes sure to point out how obsessed with Remnant tech the Archon is, but honestly this game is JUST as obsessed. Instead of focusing on how you and your other main cast are trying to navigate salvaging and coming through successful in a very dire situation, really immersing in the things that have gone wrong and pulling through, your REAL goal seems to be to kill the Archon. Right off the bat. While you're heavily crippled all around.

    The very beginning mission where your father dies is sort of unbelievable and set the ton for a very sloppily written plot.

    honestly, this might have been a bit harsh, as I'm still playing this game and do feel myself getting immersed and lost in it, but that's because I'm **** disappointed at how lack luster this game is compared to even ME3 which was arguably the worst one of the trilogy (not including the ending of course).    … Expand
  92. BeFaLcon
    Apr 6, 2017
    5
    £50 for a half finished game. The story was good. Graphics were awesome when they weren't bugging out. combat was good (when the AI worked) crafting was long, the skill trees were alright. amount played was worth the money but it still felt like it was half finished. If i could get a refund i would this game was not worth it for me
  93. Cell1e
    Apr 12, 2017
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. (I’m redoing my initial review again!) I have spent 142 hours playing this game, completed the main quest and all of the companion quests as well as most of the side quests. I have played all three Mass Effect Games and their associated dlc. In my first play through I romanced both Reyes and Peebee (she was by accident) and in the second I romanced Jaal. Here are my impressions.

    The character Creator is terrible! It’s very difficult to make a character that looks good in cut scenes, the hair colours are bad, especially the light ones. As usual the hair styles are limited and not that nice.
    Romance Options for straight females aren’t great. The alien Jaal: sweet personality but so unattractive, his lips are horrible, brown teeth, the romance with him felt uncomfortable. I was also surprised by how little hugging he gave. Not so much happened with him until the very end. When my character ‘died’ in one of the main quests he just said, ‘it has been a pleasure’, he wasn’t upset before or after the fact, so a bit hard to believe he had any feelings for her. It was funny and awful at the same time. (I really don’t like alien romances much anyhow. Couldn’t bring myself to romance Garrus or Thane in ME2 and 3 either)
    Liam is really a ‘brotherly type’ with bad skin and terrible hair who comes across as being very young. He just stays in the friend zone for me, nothing there to make a girls heart miss a beat.
    Now Reyes is a different story, he has a certain bad boy appeal and that accent, oh la la! Shame he can’t be recruited. I loved every scene with him and actually reloaded my save on my second playthrough to romance him again! Hehe!  I’m hoping for a Reyes DLC from Bioware!
    The armour- only 6 or so designs all of them heavy () Cora has light type armour, why can’t there be more similar types of light and flexible armours for our female pathfinders? That heavy/bulky armour has to go. I find it hard to believe that the armour hasn’t evolved to very light and flexible styles. Bulky is not intuitive for jumping and fighting anyway. With all the shielding and other technologies it seems so silly to have to wear lots of metal/plastic too.
    The on-ship wear is very limited. It would be nice to have a dress for the date with Reyes or to wear on the Nexus.
    The Crafting system is terrible. On my second playthrough I gave that a complete miss. It would be nice to be able to make extra special designs in crafting but the designs I researched were just more of the same. Blah.
    The journal and quest tracker could be improved a lot.
    The tracking down silly things for crew and other people.’ Just No!’
    Not being able to save during main quests. . Havarl is too dark.
    Planets didn’t change once Meridian was started up- shouldn’t they have become golden worlds?
    The story is ok and I really liked the ending however I think this game could have been so much more. How about a Dragon Age Origins type beginning, whereby you choose the ark you want your story to start on? It means people could have the chance to play as any species, salarian, krogan, human, asari or turian. There could be a different story intro for each species and ark, replay-ability would be awesome!
    Some of the character scenes were lovely especially movie night; great humour and great to see everyone together.
    The graphics are pretty in places.
    It was lovely to have a new RPG game to play with so many characters and romances. But quantity doesn’t always mean quality. Companion quests were a bit long winded for me, although I’d be happy to do a lot more for and with Reyes if I got the chance! (Wiggling my eyebrows)
    I like the strike teams and seeing did they complete their missions, that was fun!
    The Jet Pack was great, I loved it!
    My assault rifle was cool. Loved the shooting, would have liked another power or two.
    The Mass Effect Archives is really good, I will use that!
    The Banter between crew members is really nice. I loved hearing the craic between the characters, as we went out and about.
    I’m going to let the game be for a while and return when it has been fixed up some more. Oh and I’m hoping for a hairstylist or make up booth to be added as dlc too! A girl can dream!
    Overall I think a solid 7 is fair for this game.    … Expand
  94. asminastan
    Nov 10, 2017
    7
    Mass Effect: Andromeda is a game very much like Dragon Age Inquisition, expansive open world with a limited story due to the developers assuming you will spend time exploring the world they created. The combat is fun and there are tons of tactics that you can use, you won't find many people who play similarly. To give a clue on game length, i did about 90% of the content and it took meMass Effect: Andromeda is a game very much like Dragon Age Inquisition, expansive open world with a limited story due to the developers assuming you will spend time exploring the world they created. The combat is fun and there are tons of tactics that you can use, you won't find many people who play similarly. To give a clue on game length, i did about 90% of the content and it took me roughly 50 hours for my first play-through.

    Is it worth buying? Yes.

    I'll go through some things in the game so people can check it out to see if this is something you want to experience.

    Pros:
    - I enjoyed the characters, Cora has a very coy thing going on for her romance which was cute. Liam seemed like a well intentioned idiot whom I didn't appreciate but hey it's a character. Vetra is the responsible/cool type. Jaal was truly alien to me which is good (he is a part of the non milky way galaxy species). Dreck was a grizzled veteran. Peebee was a very mercurial and selfish character who was surprisingly not unlikable. The side characters were nice as well and they all have their own quirks. Are these characters equal to Mass Effect 2? No. Are they better than James Vega? Yes.

    - As I said above, combat was enjoyable and had highly customization

    - Story was good, some nice twists and a hanging mystery which I assume will be handled by DLC.

    - The bad guys are bad guys, they are refreshingly evil. The "grey" bad guy archetype i've been seeing in most media now a days has been annoying me and this really hit the spot.

    Cons:
    - You'll see plenty of this, if you choose to look, but Female Ryder is not physically appealing, Male Ryder looks 100x better (there is a very good reason for Sara's specific ME:A commercial to have her with a helmet on 90% of the time and the other 10% the scenes are heavily shadowed AND super quick.) Facial animations are kind of wonky as well, but it is possible to overlook.

    - Female Ryder equates to Male Ryder personality wise and they share almost every line/inflection, I may be remembering this wrong but I remember female Shepherd having a distinctly feminine edge to her even though she was a soldier and shared many lines with Male Shepherd. Female Ryder's personality/line reading seems off and I couldn't shake the dissonance in my head while I was playing.

    - ME:A shares the same issues as other mass effects, the higher the difficulties the more "bullet-spongy" the enemies become.

    - Your allies are poor fighters, they use their powers pretty much on cool-down but if they aren't using their abilities they are hiding behind a wall. It's standard AI.

    - The planets are huge, but there is little reason to explore. The game has WOW problems where you will always be following waypoints to your quest destination. Speaking of:

    - Waypoint system, I understand you need this for a game so large but it doesn't change the fact that I missed most of the multiple planet's beauty that dozens of animators poured their heart into because I was looking at the waypoint tracker at the top of the screen.

    - Running over enemies with your "mako" doesn't insta-kill like it did in Mass Effect 1. I was crushed when I figured that out.*wink*

    Final Thoughts:
    Mass Effect: Andromeda is a nice game and a great jumping point for the new series. There are many faults with the game from a gameplay/graphics side but the developers assembled a nice cast of characters that make the game purchasable.

    Side note:
    Watching YouTube reviews of the game (which prompted me to give the review) I've seen a lot of mention of SJW propaganda going through the game. While I was playing I did not notice it. Make of that as you will.    … Expand
  95. elrofrost
    Mar 22, 2017
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ok, just a short note. this game is not a 2, But it's not a 10 either. I'd say 6 or 7 depending on how BW responds to fixing the bugs..

    The story is comparable to the usual Hollywood blockbuster crap disaster film we see every summer. So don't expect serious drama. But it does have it's moments. Some touching. And some funny.

    The game is beautiful. The planets, space, your ship - just beautiful. The human NPC, are not. Sadly, BW seemed to focus on the aliens and not humans.

    I'm not gonna go over the animation issue - that's been hashed out everywhere. But I will say this: do not play the default female character - Sara. She's just bad. If you want to play default, choose the brother, Scott. He's much better. Or run your own.

    There other issues, none of them game breaking. But some are just damn annoying . like no Quick Save.

    The romances are meh. If you want to play a gay character (male) good luck. There are two and both are crap. The best I've hear so far are lesbian and straight Ryder (of course). BW took a step back in this regard. If you played DAI, you'll remember Dorian. One of the best and beloved characters from that game. Do not expect any characters like that in this game. The companions can not compare to any previous ME game. They aren't bad. But they just can't compare.

    There's in no Garrus, or Kaidan, or Wrex in this game. BW tries, but like I said, it mostly falls flat.

    The combat is fun. And if you've never played ME before you probably won't be too upset about the characters. But if you have, you will miss the older characters.

    Maybe as i play more they will get flushed out    … Expand
  96. ihavacoolname
    Mar 22, 2017
    6
    I started playing at launch, and I was bored within 30 minutes of character creation.

    I was disappointed 28 minutes before that. The writing is bad. I will break the game's pros and cons down so that you can get a feel for it and for the lens that I'm using to make my statements about this game, but that's the short version of why this game is borderline unplayable. Here is the    I started playing at launch, and I was bored within 30 minutes of character creation.

    I was disappointed 28 minutes before that.

    The writing is bad. I will break the game's pros and cons down so that you can get a feel for it and for the lens that I'm using to make my statements about this game, but that's the short version of why this game is borderline unplayable.

    Here is the long version, starting with the writing's issues.

    There are too few pieces to the plot and too little depth to those pieces, so the game doesn't impart any particular feeling of grandiosity or mystery. This is partly because of how the game paces its reveal of the plot elements, giving too much away and expecting the player to immerse themself with minimal assistance from the game. This is to say that immersion feels more like an exercise in role-playing than a rewarding dive into an living narrative.

    In other Mass Effect games, the rich and varied perspectives that characters shared with you engage you emotionally and get you thinking about what is happening in the game for reasons other than your first-hand experience of the story. You had a character interaction for its own sake; you gained an incisive perspective on the narrative as a side effect, which gave your enjoyment of the game new layers. In this game, however, there isn't a single character that a reasonable person above the age of fifteen would find compelling. Without exaggerating, I can say that they all come across as unintelligent and, in some cases, affected to the point that they are not believable as characters. This includes the protagonist, Ryder.

    That is the main issue with the game. Everything that follows could have been overlooked if the writing was good. I'll even say some nice things below; almost tragically, there are a lot of good things about this game that hardly matter because of the writing and the pointless mess of a UI. These things are so good that, if the UI were good, too, I would play this game for the action and non-story RPG elements.

    Alright. You have probably heard that the game's facial animation is bad. It's true; the animation is worse than it was in the first Mass Effect. The conversations are about halfway between interactive movie and visual novel because of it. As you might guess based on that, facial animations often sync up especially poorly with player-designed faces. This effectively limits your options for appearance-customization. That's nothing new to Mass Effect, but if, like me, you are profoundly unimpressed with the default appearances for Ryder, you're not going to be satisfied with how your character looks at any time that you can see their face.

    When the face is out of view, safely enshrouded in the 'helmet always on' setting or whatever your solution is, the armor's pretty good. In fact, the game is visually stunning overall if you can disregard its hitches. On my high-end build, the only graphical issues I have are choppy cuts between shots and a strangely flat look to the world, the latter of which I am now realizing is partly a projection of my lack of desire to move forward in this game's 3D space.

    For others, the game has serious performance issues that I won't go into here. Just sniff around for a few minutes; you'll find them, especially for console (even though you're in the wrong review section for that, you hasty clicker you).

    Combat is decent for three main reasons. The first is the graphics, the second is Ryder's maneuverability, which includes vertical movement, and the third is Ryder's leveling and ability progression. You don't select a class; you choose from all of the game's available powers when spending points gained from level-up. This means that you can approach combat the way that you want; Ryder almost feels like he/she is yours in combat because of just how much you can personalize your combat style. Almost every time you use your powers looks and feels special because of the graphical quality and the ways that enemies are affected by your attacks; those animations and effects are interesting and believable. Together with fairly good hitboxes, this means that intense observation of and adjustment to your enemy mid-firefight is more rewarding. Knowing that paying attention to the details in the beautiful graphics yields rewards in gameplay enhances my enjoyment both in combat and in exploration.

    If you want to know about exploration and side quests, just look up Dragon Age: Inquisition. Essentially, side-quests are too random to care about and exploration is too time-consuming to be worth it, even though you gather resources for weapons and armor by exploring. The successful integration of the side content into the game only injects dead periods into the already questionably paced main story.

    BioWare, if you've suffered through this, just get your gameplay elements into a tighter flow and smack whomever was in charge of your writers' direction. By the way, 5k.    … Expand
  97. estelgilvala
    Mar 22, 2017
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I loved the trilogy so I was excited for this but then this was such a disappointment. Don't get me wrong combat was good, I really liked it but this took five years to make right? Well what's up with some of the animations? How would we feel connected to the squad (like the trilogy) if they had dead eyes? Limited character creation as well, how come there's some unnecessary dyes for hairs but we can't make our characters white? Should've kept the way Inquisition cc had but improved. This has lazy writing as well, do you think some of the lines were funny? NO. They're cringeworthy. Trilogy wasn't perfect at it but at least it was good! And this problem you had with M/M romances, Cora has full on sex scene but Gil just fades to black? You literally promoted your game that it would have amazing romance scenes! I don't hate you BioWare's Mass Effect new team but all I can say is that I'm disappointed. You could've done so much better if you didn't rushed this.… Expand
  98. mrholiday
    Mar 22, 2017
    7
    I'm not going to go into the story. I'm 20 hours in and 28% through, so far the story is simple yet complex with all of it side missions and stories. Having to find this, get's put on hold, then it's not on hold etc etc. What i want people to know, my 7 isn't static, it could get better and could turn into something higher or lower. I'm not a graphic junkie so it'll rarely effect myI'm not going to go into the story. I'm 20 hours in and 28% through, so far the story is simple yet complex with all of it side missions and stories. Having to find this, get's put on hold, then it's not on hold etc etc. What i want people to know, my 7 isn't static, it could get better and could turn into something higher or lower. I'm not a graphic junkie so it'll rarely effect my decision. I feel people come into this expect Mass Effect 4, you can't do that... it's a different beast all-together. You'll get some things that link to the old games, because they're in the same universe but different galaxy. So, open your minds and expect a brand new game, not mass effect 4.

    Positives:
    -Graphics are beautiful (even with the occasional wonky face and glitch)
    -Controls are easy to use and very easy to customize.
    -The Mass Effect 1 item system is back
    -Dialog galore
    -Combat is fun
    -Characters clash, feels like the trilogy.
    -Keeps the look and feel of the original games.

    Negatives:
    -NO QUICKSAVE or ability to save on a mission.
    -Faces can be wonky sometimes
    -The constant having to watch your ship fly in and out of orbit of planets and into each system...
    -Dialog galore, yes it's a positive if that's your thing. They did go a bit overboard with with random NPCs.
    -Some conversations don't make much sense.
    -CUSTOMIZATION OF YOUR CHARACTER SUCKS. You get 9 choices, edit those choices, but not enough to make a character unique, you pick face 1? It will always look like face 1, you can't change it enough to make it unique.    … Expand
  99. GuerrerosdelPc
    Mar 22, 2017
    6
    Hi,first I have ME Trilogy and I dislike,That : animations fos this specs lack work, more when I played many time in conversations that's annyoning. My partners,I can't customize and I can't do it combined attacks. The menus to works may be can confused.The multi player The multiplayer are poor performance.I like the combat mode are fine except bugs in animations.The story don't wantHi,first I have ME Trilogy and I dislike,That : animations fos this specs lack work, more when I played many time in conversations that's annyoning. My partners,I can't customize and I can't do it combined attacks. The menus to works may be can confused.The multi player The multiplayer are poor performance.I like the combat mode are fine except bugs in animations.The story don't want sympathy with player. My score 6/10 for Bioware ,they run for launch without finished job.Sad… Expand
  100. Hivetyrant7
    Mar 24, 2017
    5
    Game i gorgeous. No argument there, visually striking, atmospheric and the sound direction is great as I would expect from a Mass Effect game.

    What I don't expect from a Mass Effect game in 2017 however are these bloody awful facial animations and character models (Heads mainly). I couldn't get far on the first planet after running into the aliens as the game engine would completely    Game i gorgeous. No argument there, visually striking, atmospheric and the sound direction is great as I would expect from a Mass Effect game.

    What I don't expect from a Mass Effect game in 2017 however are these bloody awful facial animations and character models (Heads mainly). I couldn't get far on the first planet after running into the aliens as the game engine would completely wonk out on random slopes and initiate that hilarious foot shuffle thing that stops you from moving. This along with the absurd auto saving interval meant I was replaying large sections every time I died from game bugs.

    Mass Effect is my favorite series of all time (Hell, I even liked the ending of 3) but this one is really just not for me.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

1
#1 Most Discussed PC Game of 2017
1
#1 Most Shared PC Game of 2017

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
72

Mixed or average reviews - based on 37 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 37
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 37
  3. Negative: 1 out of 37
  1. Riot Pixels
    Jun 5, 2017
    55
    Postcard-pretty landscapes is pretty much all that there is good about Andromeda. They serve as backdrops for a boring, cliche-ridden, somewhat demented story with forgettable characters and even more forgettable missions.
    Read full review
  2. PC PowerPlay
    May 11, 2017
    80
    Enough of the classic Mass Effect, with enough new mechanics to keep the game fresh. [Hollingworth; Issue#261, p.55]
    Read full review
  3. Edge Magazine
    Apr 27, 2017
    70
    An earnest attempt has been made to create a new identity for a series here, but the question of how to best frame Mass Effect's narrative strengths is, once again, left open. [June 2017, p.90]
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