So... here are my impressions/review of the game.
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I came to this game with the totally wrong expectations.
In all fairness, it was Bioware itself that gave those expectations to me. The way the game had been marketed so far (as little as it was), with the interviews and whatnot, I heard two common threads going:
"You can explore EVERYWHERE."
And
"You can bang EVERYONE."
I want to say , as a preface, that I am a long-time Ultima fan and player. I love Origin. I also loved Maxis and Westwood. I saw in real-time how these studios were acquired by Electronic Arts and began releasing rushed, incomplete and oftentimes terrible sequels after the acquisition, until EA took the studios to the back shed and shot them dead.
Bioware, so far, seemed to be resisting the taint of EA. But when I saw the very... bizarre releases about Andromeda, I had a fear. A fear that the EA taint had finally taken.Still, I thought to myself, if Mass Effect had to go down the crapper further (after that third game ending, whoo!) at least it looked like it could be a fun, kick-up-your-heels over-the-top ending.
Explore everywhere. Bang Everyone.
Come on, people. If it had been true, think about it: Bioware could have created the first James T. Kirk: Space Exploration and Space Venereal Disease simulator. And that would have been one hell of a hilariously awesome way to go.
Unfortunately, that turned out to be only so many Molyneaux acorns.
What I found was a buggy, mostly-unfinished game with characters giving me the thousand-yard stare, who walked like they hadn't gotten the message that dildos and bedposts are not the same thing, and had the facial expressiveness of Hello Kitty, pretty terrible dialogue... and rather restricted exploration (the hell, that is all we get to see of Aya?) And that 'bang everyone' hilarity I was hoping for, in order for my Shepard Ryder to have a hilarious space harem so I could rechristen the Tempest into the U.S.S. Austin Powers? Yeah. If you happen to want to play a gay male Ryder you get two romance options, the most boring of them all to boot, and not a single companion.
The. Fuck.
Seriously, Bioware, when Saints Row IV can provide me with a wider and more considerate choice gamut (even if it is tongue-in-cheek) than the allegedly 'We are serious storytellers' company, you've got a problem here.
So the rollicking hilarious crash into the sun I was hoping this game would be was just... a crash into the sun.
No, check that, because it wasn't even that spectacular. It was just a crash into a boring brown asteroid with no distinctive features.
In my book, if you're going to go out, you go big, and Mass Effect: Andromeda feels so safe, it could be the goddamned Safety Dance.
The combat is improved, when the camera and the control scheme don't get in the way (or you fall through the floor), but everything else from the story (Chosen One. Again.) to the worlds (one new friendly alien species, and the Kett are such a forgettable amalgam of the previous threats that they are boring), to the architecture (seriously, fuckers? Every bit of architect in this new Galaxy is similar to the architecture from the Milky Way? Can't we have ONE precursor civilization discover the use of curves as a major architectural feature? How about colors other than metallic grey-green?) feels like Electronic Arts definitely was looking at its hands and clapping for safety. The concept sketches show something that was so different, took some risks...
And then, I can already see it, Electronic Arts came in and went "Change baaaad, make everything more like other game!" and that was the end of it. It wasn't as bad as Ultima IX, but the franchise is certainly limping that way. I'd say it has achieved Ultima VIII status. May god have mercy on our souls for the next offering from the hollow husk that is Bioware, full of Electronic Arts' maggotlings. It might just be the thing that outdoes UIX.
The menu system, though, is a dumpster fire.
For the record, I have a history with Electronic Arts, where I have seen their incompetence first-hand. I shared my history on Portalarium's forums, but I have also linked it on Pastebin, so this post doesn't become enormous... buuut I figured it would also give context to how much I do not believe in Electronic Arts, nor in the survival of any company acquired by them.
And I think Bioware has now shown the signs that there's a spot behind the shed marked just for them.
I have to admit that I haven't bothered to play after the patch, because my major gripes aren't with cosmetic issues. I can live with those, I COULD live with those if the game itself made up for it.
But the patch required to bring me back will need to be pretty massive... and it will likely never come.
