I remember waiting for this one to come out and playing it on the first day all day and the next day. Fun times. With a massive catalog now consisting of 4 major titles and about a dozen dlc’s BioWare’s Mass Effect series is a must for anyone into sci-fi rpgs, cyberpunk settings, technomagic settings, or just plain old space operas. Like shadowrun or Nier without all the grittiness. Surprisingly, to me at least this game seems to have a lot of negative reputation online. Most of this is probably due to the legacy of the first three mass effect games which have now sold over 10 million copies and are certainly standouts in both the rpg and 3rd person shooter genres. Let’s face it despite the criticisms of the third game’s finale, Colonel Shepard has become something of an iconic character and without him, running around the galaxy blowing up space aliens is just not as memorable. So there’s no personal and immersive backstory for this one and no overpowered custom built carry-over character, but on the upside he is replaced with some fairly interesting protagonists in Scott Ryder and his family of space colonizers. Let’s see how there adventures in the new Andromeda galaxy goes…
The story is centered around the colonization of the new galaxy and the troubles the humans and aliens of the Initiative have in making home in this distant corner of space. Immediately upon reaching our long hoped for golden world, things go very wrong and the player finds himself ducking behind boulders and other space debris shooting it out with the hostile alien Kett race who seem to be somehow destabilizing planets meant for human colonist. No matter Alec Ryder and his team have stolen Shepard’s guns and biotics and are prepared to save the day by facing down the Kett on any world, in any environment. This includes deserts, jungles, frozen tundras, ancient monoliths, acidic wastelands you name it. As usual BioWare throws a few plot twists and big reveals and there’s simulated romances, sex, and character relationships to play around with but the best parts of the game are its return to a true open world design which we haven’t seen since 2010’s Mass effect 2. So the age of the great hallway simulator has ended and Scott Ryder can once again take his ship to any world he wants whenever he wants to do so. Which is where you’ll find the real draw of Mass Effect Andromeda out there in the Nomad roaming around.
Which brings us to the mechanics which is probably the biggest difference between the old series and this installment. Unlike Shepard, Scott can jump, climb, jetpack, and just run away much quicker and with more coordination than Shepard ever could. This makes combat a big improvement over that seen in any of the three previous games. You can also do more extensive weapon modifications and the list of biotics and skills has become more interesting and nuanced depending on your approaches to combat.
The verdict. While from a narrative perspective space opera fans and Shepard adrenaline junkies wont find as many heart-wrenching moments or epic choices as there were in the first three games of the blockbuster series Mass Effect : Andromeda is still a decent story that offers a huge world to explore with pretty great combat.