Infamous barely begins to scratch the surface when describing Mass Effect Andromeda. A release that was surrounded by disappointment, criticism and upset. The return of a much beloved series (a personal favourite of mine, too) ended up being another notch in the bedpost of EA’s disaster-ridden recent years.
Suffice it to say, I neither had the money nor the inclination to get back into Mass Effect upon release. In fact, I was perfectly happy with the full arc of the original trilogy, and I was hesitant to see what they’d do to the series.
Time has passed, mistakes have partly been rectified, and well……it was about £6 in the Xbox summer sale. So, a game that’s been panned, been out some time, seen some patches, and is now cheap enough to take a punt? Sounds like the perfect fit for the Ninja Refinery review treatment.
It’s quite literally my main motive here, to give games a chance and hopefully some positivity a little later on in the release cycle.
Mass Effect
As a bit of a heads-up, I loved the original Mass Effect trilogy. The adventures of my Shepard and the guys I saved/killed by decisions, still stay with me now.
With the ending of the third game causing complaints and controversy, people saw it fit to complain and eventually get a new ending put in by BioWare. I wasn’t one of these people. I made my decisions, took the action I chose, and got the ending I got.
Truth is, I was satisfied. Sure, it wasn’t this dream ending that people apparently expected, but it was fine. The weight of my decisions and the impact of them, was more than enough to keep me solidly attached to the game, and I felt that I got adequate closure.
I’m not entirely sure there’s good reason to build upon the franchise any further than there, but here we are. The potential to milk fans was obviously too good to miss out on. Heaven forbid a studio like BioWare were able to create something new and original again…..(although I’m not convinced by Anthem yet, either).
Andromeda
After the furore surrounding the release of Mass Effect Andromeda, I was even less enthused to give it a go than I was upon realising that something wonderful was going to be milked for more cash.
Loads of fuss about facial animations, loose-ends (seemingly inevitably to be picked up in DLC or a sequel), and just lots of “it isn’t up-to-scratch”.
Now, let’s not forget that BioWare have created some amazing games in their past and they have a lot of well-earned good faith from fans. So to hear such complaints straight out of the gates took me by surprise.
How could BioWare get it so wrong? Let the EA witch-hunt begin…….again……
Truth is, it put me off and I’ve not batted an eyelid until the other day, when I saw it was so cheap.
Is it that bad? Has there been enough post-game support to make it a decent game now? As it stands in present day, is Mass Effect Andromeda a good game?
I have no idea, but I’m going to find out. I’ll be taking the my more traditional route of breaking it up into a few parts. “Initial thoughts”, “further thoughts” and “final thoughts”. I haven’t broken a game down like that for a while, and it seems like the perfect opportunity to get that full treatment.
Here’s hoping that a lot of the drama was exactly that, just drama. Let’s be fair, online fans of anything these days are capable of taking things to extremes, based on very little being actually wrong. Was it all just noise? I don’t know, but lets see what Mass Effect Andromeda has to offer.
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