CRITIQUE: Mass Effect: Andromeda - A Terrible Game

Quick note: I'm aware I make a bit of a hash of pronouncing "Moshae" a couple of times in the video. I struggle with this kind of thing, and no matter how many times I listened to the word in the game audio, it just kept coming out in different ways why I read from my script. I also say "ansari" a few times instead of "asari" and I have no idea why.

The Krogan were used to put down a rebellion and then disposed of, what an innovative idea for an alternative Mass Effect Galaxy.

Nope, maleshep was the one to go for in the original triology. People just didn't understand because they were to focused on the girl stuff.

I couldn't stand changes made to alien races. Salarians looked much taller, turians no longer stood straight-legged, female krogan body shape change and the asari all look like the same head with different colors and markings. I don't know why they felt they needed to redo them because it kind of makes it look like cheap versions of already designed races. Like what you would see in a knock-off B movie

the uk game interviewers make assumptions of bad gameplay or story when they never play the levels right they do this with the metro series terribly everybody knows thats a cult classic survival game the shooting feels diff the movement lighting stealth they dont know what settings to optimize their game, they typically do a blind gameplay which is cool but before playing any game i get a hang of the controls in the tutorial mode if there is one but if the game is good those things will be learned as you play the game some games are heavily story and cutscene based this is mass effect its semi rpg its not a good combo its just the nature of the game makes it feel contrived

Male Shep is better. I can't understand why people think otherwise.
Better voice acting (FemShep is fine, but c'mon) and obviously better romance options.
Ashley is at least more interesting than Kaiden (I also like her quite a bit more)
Miranda is really capable, confident, but also very interesting (deeply insecure beneath her focused, initially brusque, almost arrogant attitude), and she has maybe the best arc in any of the Mass Effect games
Jack is tough and easy to like; the biggest problem with her is her arc, which isn't nearly as interesting as Ashley's or Miranda's by far, but that's because she starts off a lot easier to like. She doesn't have quite as far to grow.
Plus Tali, who gets run in both ME1 AND ME2, the only romanceable character to appear, as a squadmate, in both. And her personal quest in ME1 is interesting, great world-building, and her quest - both recruiting and personal/loyalty - in ME2 is among the best in the trilogy.

FemShep has Garrus in the LE. (Maybe in original ME too? He wasn't romanceable in original ME1, I honestly don't remember if they changed it in original ME2 or if it took until LE. I'm pretty sure LE, honestly, but I may well be wrong.)

Both have Liara.

it's set in 2185, but it takes them 600+ years to reach andromeda? So... They left in medieval times?

can you reverse the playlist so ME1 plays first and andromeda plays last?

Anyone know why the Asari look like babies in this game? 🤣

Your take on Starfield would be interesting.

I only like Mass Effect one two and three that’s it

Howcome no one ever mentions how ugly the charachters in this game are. Definitely don’t fit the part of soldiers or explorers in any way

Maybe they should have written a story where you play an angaran whose relative peace is broken first by the kett, and then later by the milk way expedition, or perhaps first humans and co., then the kett emerge, maybe as a radical response to being colonised. Just spitballing with the two races the game has

I've enjoyed Andromeda almost as much as the first 3 Mass Effect games. I suppose it's a matter of taste. Also, I suppose it depends on what you compare to. I played Greedfall just before Andromeda and, wow, MEA seems like a dream in comparison. otherwise I think the game looks good, handles good and the story wants me to carry on and see it through til the end. Not saying its perfect. Yeah, some non-human species look pretty poor compared to the first three instalments, some of the random chat scripting forgets to take mission progress into account and there are some silly bugs with mobs appearing inside solid objects or under the surface texture but those latter are pretty rare. Slow Kadara doors, long landing/take-off scenes and illogical side-quests I can live with. "Terrible"? No. I can't agree. There are better games out there, true, but MEA is far from terrible. I suppose, if you insist on focusing on only the negatives and have made your mind up that you hate a game then that's it but it's hardly objective. To be fair, I would have been disappointed if I had done something as uncharacteristic as buying the game at full launch price but I've never had a problem with waiting until a game hits the budget shelf ;)

That ravine teleport was my kryptonite I almost quit

I was going to say something but i forgot already .

6 years into the future...nothing has been fixed. Maybe just the performance, I didn't notice a single framerate drop on PC. But who cares about that when everything else is garbage aside from combat. 10/10 review

You were wrong thinking we would only get one DLC!

Never played Mass Effect 1? That's by far and away the best in the series and it's not even close. It gets a 9 2 a 7 and 3 a 6.

"Waves of ket" Devs were probably hoovering it up while making this.

Also this is kind of a nitpick, but I find it incredibly lazy that some of the lines your companions say in combat were just... copied from the original trilogy. Particularly Jaal, saying "one less to worry about" and "Never saw me coming" which are distinctly Garrus's lines, but... with worse delivery. They seriously couldn't think of a different phrase?

What's funny too is thinking about the exiles, people like Sloane Kelly who escaped to Kadara and are gang leaders now. Why were these type of people the first to be taken out of cryo? The first people out of cryo would be scientists, high-ranking military, doctors, etc. And it would have been far more compelling to see these people who became criminal leaders who were actually respectable and incredibly smart people. But that would require them to have interesting motives, and the writing team clearly has no idea what a motivation even is

I started playing that crap a few days ago. I now miss Jacob.

I feel like Jaal's devastation from finding out the kett were angara was a little... hollow. Like yeah, I get the sadness and conflict, but it feels a little hollow that he's so devastated that he's been killing his own people when you've been fighting angara in the roekaar. You'd think the sadness was that this was happening to them, like seeing your friend turned into a zombie, not so much sadness of 'I've been killing my own people?!'

Why did you make Sara "Trump" Ryder??

I never thought this was anything other than an average game. Probably below average. But somehow i still enjoyed clicking on a planet and traveling to it and exploring ancient ruins. Not a lot of games where you can do that kind of stuff. The combat abilities also were kind of fun ig. Other than that it was garbage. 4/10

"Now i know what makes you....special"
Fallout music plays

It might not be the best but its still worth trying out its only 15

also for that bug you find in the office i always thought it would be neat if he gets loose when the kett attack if you decide to keep it for research and does more damage chewing through wires and ends up accidentally helping you while your trying to get to sam node, little touches like that from side quests where people pop back up and have effects in other quests that arent too drastic is what makes them worth doing sometimes

i feel an easy fix for not sharing the helmet is that the air is toxic in some way that messes with the lungs and cases them to spasm so you cant effectively hold your breath and sharing the helmet back and forth would just result in them both breathing in more and more of the air so only one of them could keep it on, since sams fond of exposition simply have him state that and that the helmet is damaged beyond the limits for repair so the father makes the sacrifice for his child knowing it will kill him, a last spurt showing his character as being family oriented despite his military personality

It's not a bad game at all.

Does anyone else hate you are not an N7

Lol nah. The game was great and the story was amazing. You're a damn fool. You're just comparing it to the OG3. It's not the best ME game, but it's still a good game.

Terrible launch, but once it was fixed it was amazing.

definitely dodged a bullet by not playing this game

Andromeda is an insult to mass effect.

I bought it for only $5, so it was definitely worth it

Why didn’t they set it during the First Contact War or better yet the Rachni Wars? Imagine a sci-if game with no humans in it, that would be awesome. And why didn’t they make more alien alien races so to speak, the two races that were introduced were way too human-like.

45 hours? Oof. No thank you. Big preesh you suffered so I don’t have to. Nice overview too, very in depth.

I figured out why the humanoid characters look weird. The eyes look disconnected, and their faces look like masks worn over a too small head.

I played Andromeda. I finished Andromeda. And now, five years later I don't recognize any of the characters, I can't even remember the plot. Is like my brain was tired and deleted everything about this game. A very forgettable game.

I hope this IP makes its way into the hands of competent designers again some day.
This atrocity is a thing which will never occupy my storage: utterly vapid 0.5-dimensional bullshit.

Omg the games graphics look worse than ME1

I didn't completely hate this game I just saw it as a mindless distraction from life. Actual mass effect games provoke thought, consideration and planning.

Meh

Hey just a question: Was ever explained in this crapfest how the MW races were able to comunicate with the Andromedanians in game, like if their in suit translstors were speedy updated?🤔😒

Long story short -

The A team stayed behind to fight the reapers.

The B team was sent to Andromeda.

There was really only 1 true great mass effect game and that was mass effect 2. 1 aged poorly, and 3 was a dumbed down EA generic 3rd person shooter. The story is what carried the whole series, but 2 had all the gameplay, characters, and world building we all loved masterfully done. It still holds up great as I replayed it again last year.