PLATFORMS
Microsoft Windows, PS4, Xbox One
IN A NUTSHELL
Kiss, kill, and glitch your way across a whole new galaxy.
Game Review
CONTENTS
1. Six Hundred Years Later… | Story & Missions
2. Brave New Worlds | The Andromeda Galaxy
3. Neither Paragon Nor Renegade | Dialogue
4. Something For Us | Characters & Romances
5. Fight Like a Krogan | Combat & Gameplay
6. The Sounds of Space | Music
7. My Face is Tired | Animation & Glitches
8. One Small Step | The Future of Andromeda
I came to Mass Effect: Andromeda like the sleepers of Ark Hyperion came to the Heleus cluster. After what felt like six hundred years since the last Mass Effect game (in actuality five years, but whatever), another adventure was about to commence in a new galaxy. There shimmered the promise of “golden worlds” and the exciting prospect of the unknown. But upon arriving (slightly late to the scene, as I usually am), I discovered that things weren’t quite so golden after all, and that there’d been an uproar of discontent from a once-believing following.
The fan base, as you might already know, is not one to quietly accept whatever they’re given. Remember what happened when Mass Effect 3 served up its unsatisfactory – and borderline nonsensical – ending? Only an extended cut and a DLC chock-full of unabashed fanservice-y goodness could (somewhat) placate us.
On one hand, the outcry against Andromeda was understandable. The game lacked polish, to put it lightly. Furthermore, it would have to withstand a gruelling test of worthiness if it truly wanted to join the ranks of its predecessors. The original Mass Effect trilogy brought us the legendary N7, Commander Shepard. It brought us the Suicide Mission. This was the series that brought us Garrus freakin’ Vakarian, for goodness’ sake. Andromeda had shoes of astronomical proportions to fill.
On the other hand, it’s hardly fair to compare Andromeda to three games’ worth of character arcs and epic exploits. Many of us knew to rein in our expectations – but even so, is the game such a glitchy, tedious mess that it deserved the backlash that it got? Is it a blemish on the beloved franchise? Or is it a good game that only seems ugly when viewed through the rose-coloured glasses that some nostalgic Mass Effect fans wear?
I’ll admit that my own lens are very rose-coloured, but I will try to level out my bias with fair assessments in this review. Although Mass Effect: Andromeda was less-than-stellar in some areas, it still shone in others, and I believe that it holds the potential to rise as the original trilogy did, if just given the chance.
1. Six Hundred Years Later…
The game reveals that, during the era of the original Mass Effect trilogy, thousands of Milky Way citizens, human and alien alike, signed up to an Initiative that would whisk them light years away to a new life in the Andromeda galaxy. Mass Effect: Andromeda kicks off roughly six hundred years later, when Ark Hyperion, carrier of the human voyagers, arrives to chaos. The Heleus cluster, their new would-be home, is wracked by a mysterious and dangerous phenomenon called the Scourge, which has made the planets of Heleus uninhabitable. You play as Ryder, the Pathfinder for humanity. Your job is to make the cluster livable again by activating the technology conveniently left behind by an advanced but long-gone alien race (Heleus’ equivalent of the original trilogy’s Protheans). And as with the original games, you have your ship, your motley crew, and the fate of a galaxy in your hands.
It’s a strong premise, and the interwoven story threads layered over it make things even more intriguing. One of the main story threads leads you head-on with a race of hostile aliens called the kett, led by the big bad Archon. Another thread takes you on a journey through memories to uncover Ryder’s surprising family secrets. Yet another beckons you to find out what happened to the turian, asari, and salarian arks that were meant to arrive alongside the human ark. Andromeda boasts a wealth of promising material, more ambitious in its scope of content than I remember the first Mass Effect game to be.
However, this ambition buckles under the weight of its swathes and swathes of side missions. There are simply too many that are inconsequential, with little to no material or emotional reward. If you want me to to go planet-hopping to scan every strange rock and edible plant in the cluster, I’m going to need more incentive than a pat on the back and a handful of XP and credits. (The original Mass Effect had me rock-hunting as well, but at least the number of side missions in those games was manageable.) The prospect of sinking time into these “Additional Tasks” just distracted from what really mattered to me – like gathering snacks for a movie night. (Saving the galaxy can wait; Blasto films are the priority, hands down.)
Even more frustrating is the fact that many of the missions seem to send you from Point A to B to C for no reason other than to extend the mission time, and the space you cover while completing them. You’ll have to endure countless instructions to “go here” or “go there”, only to find when you reach your destination that your target has already moved location – and when you reach the next location, they’ve moved again! Exasperating.
Simplicity can be underrated, and perhaps Andromeda could have benefited from trimming the fat. At times the game droops into tedium, the pacing disrupted by pointless, uninteresting, and unnecessarily prolonged tasks. But thankfully, there are also high points to offset the dips – critical plot points incite suspense and shock, some of the loyalty missions strengthen your investment in your crewmates, the final mission drives the game to a truly engrossing speed, and the ending leaves tantalising loose ends to be picked up in the future.
2. Brave New Worlds
When I heard that the new Mass Effect game would take place in an entirely new galaxy, I was pretty excited. I had hoped to relive the sense of wonder I’d felt on my first visit to the Citadel, way back in the very first game. That was the moment that drew me in – seeing the vibrant diversity of aliens, and learning about each of their fascinating characteristics and backgrounds. How long I must have spent conversing with everyone in sight, from the jellyfish-like hanar who communicated through bioluminescence, to the militaristic turians, to the slow-speaking, elephantine elcor. Whole planets’ worth of imaginative cultures, all gathered in one place – it solidified the feeling that, no, you definitely weren’t in Kansas anymore.
So I was disappointed when I realised that the Heleus cluster would only introduce me to two new alien species – the angara and the kett. The angara’s culture has decent depth and nuance to it, and there is potential to bring it out to greater effect in sequels. But the kett seem flat and unengaging as enemies, apart from the dissension that we later see arise amongst their ranks. Their culture may be richer than it appears on the surface, and this is probably detailed in the codex entries unlocked throughout the game. The problem with world-building through text like codex entries, however, is that most players aren’t going to read them. Let’s face it – most of us are too lazy for that. It would have been nice to see a little more of their backstories emerge through the dialogue, actions, and movement of the story.
The concept of a galaxy central hub is recycled – so while the original games had the Citadel, Andromeda has the Nexus. But unlike the Citadel, over half of the original trilogy’s alien races are not present. The quarians, the volus, the hanar, and elcor, the drell – all on arks that also went astray, and all sorely missed. The absence of the volus, hanar, and elcor deprives this galaxy of more golden opportunities for comic relief. At least the asari, turians, and salarians are still around, yet even then, there are hitches. For one, the asari all look identical except for Peebee. The original Mass Effect games gave each asari a unique face, but in Andromeda, even your crew’s doctor, Lexi (voiced by Natalie Dormer AKA Margaery Tyrell), is a carbon copy of those asari clone extras roaming in the background. Come on, guys – Natalie Dormer deserves better than that. These factors contribute to the appearance of monotony where we should find thrilling novelty.
On the bright side, the worlds themselves are sights to behold. Each planet has its own distinctive look and peculiarities: you can’t stay out long in the bone-chilling cold of Voeld, and the planet Kadara is pocked with acidic pools which can make your vehicle literally explode (yes, I may have parked in a pool of sulfuric water just to see what would happen). Having to brave these environmental hazards makes it even more rewarding when you activate the alien “Remnant” technology and start taming the planets. Funnily enough, activating this tech comprises of solving some alien sudoku, which, while not being the most original minigame, provides some relaxing and stimulating downtime (unless you’re a sudoku hater).
And you can’t help but admire the graphics of some of the landscapes. Havarl’s jungle surroundings were my favourite, with their overgrowth of gorgeous blue-and-purple jewel tones. You’ll also be treated to views of stunning skies as you’re driving through Andromeda’s worlds.
Your trusty vehicle, the Nomad, is a new and improved version of the original Mass Effect’s Mako, and thankfully doesn’t replicate the issues of the Mako in the first game. (One of my fondest Mass Effect memories was the first time I tried driving that beast, when the slightest tap of a key sent it rocketing off a cliff edge, to my characters’ early demise – good times, good times.) Although the Nomad doesn’t do sick flips or defy physics quite like the Mako, it has some tricks of its own. You can switch between four-wheel drive for flat land and six-wheel drive for uphill slopes, and add upgrades to improve the vehicle’s shields, speed, and so on. Unfortunately, the Nomad doesn’t have guns, but you can still mow down your enemies with the ol’ hit and run. You also get to change up the Nomad’s paint job, so you can look stylish while roving around. Some looks are inspired by previous games, such as the “N7” and “Archangel” paint jobs. My personal choice was the “Midas Touch” paint job, which turned my Nomad into an obnoxiously blinding, pure gold monstrosity. Nothing screams “saviour of the galaxy” quite like that. All in all, the Nomad is a smooth-cruising steed that makes it relatively fun to travel across new alien terrains.
3. Neither Paragon Nor Renegade
The Mass Effect games have always been dialogue-heavy, and the original trilogy excelled in this area. Part of the games’ brilliance lay in the fact that you moulded your Shepard through the dialogue choices you selected. Andromeda likewise gives you dialogue options for Ryder – but rather than being divided into goody-goody Paragon, neutral, and hard-ass Renegade, your options here generally fall into four quadrants: “emotional”, “logical”, “professional”, and “casual”.
The dialogue therefore shapes the demeanour of your Ryder without the emphasised moral slant. This avoids a simplistic black-and-white approach to ethical questions, but it also makes for less dramatic encounters. The difference between goofball Ryder and professional Ryder isn’t quite as sharp or entertaining as the contrast between I-want-to-help-everyone Shepard and I’m-going-to-shoot-you-in-the-foot-then-push-that-guy-out-of-a-window-and-punch-a-journalist Shepard.
This is not to say that you aren’t confronted with moral choices. Andromeda asks you to make some tough calls, and many of them are not clearly delineated as “right” or “wrong”. Your actions have an impact on the direction of your interactions, and while some may not seem to have long-standing effects in this game, it’s implied that there will be ramifications in sequels. The moral greyness of Andromeda’s scenarios make great food for thought, and heightens the challenge of decision-making. This is commendable in the way it forces us to gaze deeper into how we define heroism.
But let’s take a look at the writing itself. Andromeda has been criticised on numerous occasions for having stilted dialogue. If you read the dialogue in isolation, it sounds fine for the most part. There’s a mixture of serious notes and cheeky banter, and the lines usually don’t sound too cheesy or overdone. And yet, when placed in the game, something doesn’t seem quite right.
The other day, I was playing an old “Mass Effect Trilogy Funny Moments” YouTube video in the background, and the difference in tone between the original trilogy and Andromeda struck me harder than I expected. Maybe it was just my rose-coloured glasses warping my view again – because I really was enjoying the nostalgia trip – but the dialogue in the original series somehow seemed more natural and, when appropriate, avoided taking itself too seriously. Even when it tripped into Clunkyville, it had heart and a naive charm which resonated with me.
In her review of Andromeda, Brenna Hillier speculates that the dialogue’s stiltedness in Andromeda may have something to do with mistiming, and in a separate review, Alex Donaldson points out the jarring clash when light-hearted lines are delivered within heavy contexts. To add to the list, I suggest that perhaps the writing plays it too safe at times and tries too hard to make the main characters likeable, rather than letting the dialogue be a natural expression of their personalities, whether we end up liking them or not. Joker from the original games is a prime example – his sharp tongue made for hilarious quips as well as stinging observations, but they all extended with ease from his wise-ass self. Ryder can be a funny character as well, but I have to agree with Alex Donaldson that some of the lines just don’t sit right. There’s a moment just before you make first contact with the angara, when you can choose a “casual” dialogue option. Ryder will say with a playful wave of a hand: “If this goes badly, if I get eaten alive by aliens – even if it’s hilarious – please, destroy the vids”. The line by itself isn’t terrible – light humour like this can be excellent – but this example of comic relief doesn’t feel entirely comfortable coming from a figure in leadership like the Pathfinder, and at the brink of such a momentous occasion as meeting a new alien race.
This isn’t to say that humour has to be avoided in serious situations – it just has to be executed in the correct way. Take this example from Mass Effect 3. Shepard and two squadmates are battling their way to their objective, while a massive machine called a Reaper tries to crush them and blast them with lasers. Another squadmate’s voice crackles through the receiver: “Shepard, get that second hammer going!”, to which Shepard replies, “THERE’S A REAPER IN MY WAY, WREX!” Wrex banters back, “I know; you get all the fun.” The interaction perfectly hits an amusing note without diminishing the tension of the situation. Largely thanks to Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer for their incredible voice performances as female and male Shepard, Shepard’s dialogue and the delivery of the line still conveys the appropriate urgency, while Wrex’s contrasting laid-back manner suits his personality and the fact that he is not in the thick of it at the time. Here, the comedy works.
The original Mass Effect crew also expressed their inner struggles in ways that hit home more frequently for me. In Andromeda, comparable moments sometimes seem like robotic and transparent attempts to prompt a sympathetic response from the audience. Cora’s reaction after the completion of her loyalty mission, and even Jaal’s displays of emotion, did not strike a chord in me. I was starting to think I was just a heartless jerk, but others seem to agree that something is off. As YouTuber YongYea suggests, the emotional scenes may be falling flat due to a combination of factors – the dialogue, the voice acting, and the facial expressions. I only disagree with his negative appraisal of Peebee; out of the Andromeda cast, I actually felt that Drack’s and Peebee’s dialogue and performances sounded the most convincing.
All that being said, the writing isn’t completely bad. You’ll catch snippets of funny conversations as you wander past your squadmates on your ship, and while driving in the Nomad. The occasional stiltedness may just be a mild case of first-game-awkwardness that will correct itself as the series progresses. I can see the future holding more lines that will become classics just like Garrus’s “calibrations” – which, while not being exactly Shakespearean, contributed to the original games’ iconic humour without clashing with the gravity of the story.
4. Something For Us
As with the rest of the Mass Effect games, you get to customise your Ryder – their gender, appearance, and training. I was pretty stoked that I could finally make an Asian character without her ending up looking like an alien herself (which is what would have happened when creating Shepard in the original games). Even better, you also have the opportunity to customise the protagonist’s twin, who is the opposite gender of your Ryder. That’s right, double customisation! As a character creation addict, I was in heaven. Your customisation can inform the appearance of Ryder’s father as well, so that there is some consistent Ryder family resemblance.
It’s hard not to compare Shepard and Ryder at times, but comparisons may be unreasonable (unless we’re talking about their dancing ability – that’s pretty similar). Unlike the seasoned N7, Ryder is relatively inexperienced, trying to muddle their way through the monumental task that has befallen them, and for which they have not been prepared. It’s almost a “rise of the underdog” story – a formula that we all know and love. Most of us enjoy cheering on the little guy in fiction, and watching them prove others wrong against all odds. Ryder is perhaps more privileged than your typical underdog – especially since they were thrust into the role through straight-up nepotism – but I still felt growing satisfaction following my Ryder on her journey as she slowly but surely earned her title. I didn’t feel as much of a bond with Ryder as I had with Shepard, perhaps due to the inconsistency of characterisation in the dialogue and its delivery, but there is definitely potential for Ryder to grow into a strong, well-rounded, and beloved figure.
And then there’s the staple of every Mass Effect game: your dysfunctional space family, otherwise known as your crew. The original Mass Effect trilogy had a memorable cast, with each set of traits standing in sharp relief against the others. The personalities of Andromeda also show individuality, but some do feel like echoes of the old crew: the irreverent krogan and the cool turian, for example. Are they as well-developed as the original cast, though? Is Vetra truly “the female Garrus”, as she has been called? And did I feel as connected to my Ryder’s squadmates, Peebee and Jaal, as I did to my Shepard’s ride-or-dies, Garrus and Tali? Well, no, but I won’t hold it against Andromeda. After all, the characters of the original trilogy had three whole games to flourish and become fan favourites, whereas the members of Andromeda are still in their budding phase.
One of my main issues with the characters in Andromeda is that they were treated as if they had virtually reached their full potential by the end of the game. The cast of the original Mass Effect started off awkward and vulnerable, and retained some of those qualities even by the end of the first game. This gave them room to grow. Andromeda’s characters, in comparison, seem too self assured, too early on. It felt like the writers were trying to deliver a whole series’ worth of character arcs within one game, and they felt unnecessarily rushed.
But what bothered me the most was the failed attempts to portray moments of bonding between Ryder and their crew. My favourite part of any RPG is the silly stuff – the downtime where you get to see the characters mess around and you can connect with them on a more relatable level. As I hinted at before, I don’t care as much about saving the galaxy as I do about movie nights and alien parties and heart-to-heart conversations over drinks. Andromeda tries to incorporate these moments to give us insight into the characters, and to establish the family-like ties of the crew – but as with the character arcs, most of these scenes feel too rushed and ultimately lacking in substance. A side mission given by Drack was one such disappointment. Drack invites Ryder to play a game usually enjoyed by krogan children, and of course the game bears the ridiculous name of “Firebreathing Thresher Maws of Doom”. You meet Drack at the bar, and he explains some of the game’s elements while you wait for the other krogan to arrive. Except they never do. Drack stops speaking, the cutscene ends, and the mission is complete.
Excuse me?
You can’t just entice me with a game involving mini flamethrowers and not show me how it actually pans out. Or better yet, why not turn it into a minigame and let me play it for myself? Man, I was really looking forward to setting the bar on fire while laughing with my krogan buddies. Half-baked “character bonding moments” don’t do anything but build up false expectations and frustrate players.
Thankfully, there are some bonding moments that were done well. Vetra’s side mission, “A Moment Planetside”, sees some friendly competition between Ryder and the turian, and a touching moment as they take in the scenery. More scenes like this would have made players feel more deeply for the game’s characters.
But let’s turn to the fun stuff now – the romances. The Mass Effect games have jokingly been referred to as “alien dating sims”, thanks to the likes of Garrus, Thane, and Liara sweeping gamers off their feet in the original trilogy. Mass Effect: Andromeda promised to heat things up even more, since the developers are clearly aware that their fan base is mainly made up of xenophilic perverts (not me though, of course). From what I can guess, the non-human and non-asari romance scenes are still kept pretty tame, but I can’t actually confirm because I have not watched any of them outside my romance choice in the game, and I don’t particularly feel like wading through that much space porn. (I know, I know; how can I even call myself a Mass Effect fan?)
From the moment I watched the trailer, I had already decided on Jaal – because who doesn’t want to date a purple lion alien? Unfortunately, I found the romance kind of … boring. Jaal was one of those characters who felt too forced, as if the developers had listed all the things they thought fans would find romantic and likeable, and crammed them into this character to the exclusion of almost all else. The way the character was written was sweet but bland, and this made for a sweet but bland romance. I much preferred the sarcastic wit and adorable awkwardness of Garrus, or the dangerous yet sentimental tortured soul that is Thane. But that is just my opinion, and I do not mean to offend any Jaal fans out there!
The romantic exchanges were hit and miss, and I hear that female Ryder fares worse with awkward dialogue than male Ryder. While looking up other people’s reviews of the game, I had the displeasure of watching female Ryder’s confession to Suvi – and let me tell you, “cringeworthy” does not begin to cover it. I strongly related to the onlooking pilot, Kallo, who reacted with the classic: “Kill. Me. Now.”
I can’t comment on the other romances, having little knowledge about them, so perhaps they had more sparks and heart-melting moments. From what I have seen, there seems to be a need for deeper connections forged through more genuine encounters, and greater attention paid to the finer details. Sometimes it’s the small things that matter the most.
5. Fight Like a Krogan
The combat is where Mass Effect: Andromeda shines the brightest. It’s good fun and smoother than in previous games, with some tweaks to make the experience more versatile. You can still sprint and duck behind cover as you did before, but you can now also do things like cloak and use your jetpack to hover while raining bullets from above. Battles flow at a satisfyingly fast pace, and the visual and sound effects seem to have improved as well, adding a dramatic flair to powers unleashed.
As with the original trilogy, there are three main areas of specialisation: Combat (which focuses on your prowess with weapons), Biotics (think along the lines of telekinetic powers), and Tech (which allows you to utilise technology to assist you, and sabotage the enemies’ technology too). You can mix and match skills from each area to suit your play style – and although you choose your character’s training background which dictates your starting abilities, you are not locked into playing any particular class. Rather, you have “Profiles” which you can switch between throughout the game, and even mid-combat. There is a different Profile for each specialisation, as well as their hybrids. Each profile has its own strengths, but you can still unlock abilities outside of your specialisation by spending Skill Points. This allows for some experimentation and flexibility on the battlefield – unless you’re boring like me and stick to the same Profile and loadout for basically the entire game. (My Ryder was a staunch Infiltrator – a tech/combat hybrid – with a penchant for sniper rifles.)
Unfortunately, you have limited control over your squadmates. Although you can choose how to spend their Skill Points, the choices are restricted to a mere handful for each squadmate. You can’t choose their weapons or armour, and while in battle, you can only instruct them to take up certain positions on the field, but not which abilities they use. You’ll therefore have to count on your Ryder to execute battle strategies on their own. This didn’t bother me at all, since I prefer to fight solo anyway, and my strategy is simply “spam as many bullets and abilities as often as you can”. But for you tacticians out there, it may be a disappointment that you can’t utilise your team more efficiently.
The game has a decent system for crafting and customising your armour and weapons, with augmentations and modifications available as well. Be careful though – for some unfathomable reason, a few of these add-ons actually make your weapons weaker. (I’m looking at you, “Electrical Conduits”. Firing electrical projectiles sounds so cool in theory, but sadly, it is pathetic in practice.) Naturally, I really only used the crafting system to create asari swords, because nothing is more wicked than swords in space.
My only real complaint here is the user interface. Can someone please tell me why it is so difficult to tell what I already have equipped? It is also inconvenient that you can only swap out your gear when you loot something new, or on the “loadout” screens – yet not on your regular menu. If we can change Profiles and skill sets on the fly, why not armour, weapon wheel options, and consumables too?
Even with these slight issues, battles are an enjoyable experience, especially when the game throws a particularly challenging enemy your way: taking down one of those gargantuan mechanical alien-made worms sure is satisfying.
6. The Sounds of Space
I was surprised to hear that Jack Wall and Sam Hulick were not reprising their roles as composers for the newest Mass Effect game. Instead, the mantle was picked up by John Paesano, composer of the Maze Runner movies. He brought a different sound to the game, setting it apart from the original trilogy, while incorporating elements that still manage to establish some continuity: the orchestra-and-synth combination has been carried over for that epic science-fiction vibe.
While re-listening to the soundtrack on YouTube, I was scrolling through the comments (a dangerous place, I know) and saw a flood of complaints about Andromeda’s soundtrack being stale, forgettable, and underused. Unfortunately, I have to agree for the most part, but we should recognise that there is a degree of subjectivity to these judgements. As with a lot of modern games, there is a move towards sweeping orchestral scores where instruments blend into each other for an ambient effect, rather than strong melodies. Ambient music is more familiar to us in the context of cinema, and may not appeal to those of us who prefer the catchy, hummable tunes gifted to us by games like The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy franchises. I prefer video game tracks which I can listen to on repeat outside of the game itself. But that isn’t to say that this is the only worthwhile type of music. Some may prefer music to be less “in your face”, relegated to the background to complement the experience without distracting you from the task at hand. If you have this preference, you probably won’t have a problem with Mass Effect’s score. If you’re like me, however, you might wish that the music wouldn’t slip so far into the background that it sometimes fails to be noticed.
I wouldn’t call myself a music expert, but I’ll give my two cents anyway because, hey, what else are reviews for? In my opinion, the battle music has oomph, but greater variation and less repetition might make it even stronger. More synthetic sounds could be woven into the orchestral, to really make the music pop. A focus on developing the melodies and motifs would make for more iconic tunes so that gamers within earshot would immediately sit up and go, “Yep, that’s Mass Effect!” To some extent, the song “Heleus” has this recognisability, and the main theme of Andromeda, “A Better Beginning” – the first song you hear – builds a sense of mystique and grandiosity to set the scene. But even they just don’t have the same uniqueness and melodic impact as the main theme of the original Mass Effect. That section at the 1-minute mark of the song is so thoroughly “Mass Effect” that you could never mistakenly associate it with another game series.
Most importantly, I want the music to make me feel something. Make me hold my breath in suspense like “Suicide Mission” did in Mass Effect 2. Punch me in the heart like “I Was Lost Without You”. Make me bawl my eyes out as I did when I heard “Leaving Earth” and “An End, Once and For All”. Andromeda’s “A Trail of Hope” does hit the affective notes wonderfully – uplifting and soaring, with a twin sense of wondrous hope and impending danger. The game would have burst with a lot more emotional colour if the soundtrack had contained more songs like it. But with some optimism, we can hope that any sequel games will bring raised stakes to the story, and more emotive tracks to match.
7. My Face is Tired
When talking about Mass Effect: Andromeda, there’s no ignoring the elcor in the room. If you were following gaming news after Andromeda was released, you may have heard of “Facegate”, the term slapped onto Andromeda’s facial animation fiasco. I only started playing the game after multiple patches had been released to help fix the mess, so I missed the worst of it – but some of the issues persisted even in the updated version of Andromeda.
The poor quality of animation manifested itself in both entertaining and immersion-breaking ways. For example, Ryder would bear an almost creepy smile while delivering what should be devastating news. I’ve seen other players’ Ryders plagued with bulging eyes, making them look permanently stunned – but one advantage of having a Ryder with Asian eyes was that I didn’t have to suffer through that same ordeal. However, my character did keep threatening to do an Exorcist-style 180-degree headspin, even during the most serious conversations. And who could forget Foster Addison, the character who became the icon of Facegate-related memes, with her disturbingly wooden expression and hilariously fitting line of dialogue, “My face is tired”? (What does that even mean? Can someone enlighten me? Anybody?!) In terms of the widespread reactions from fans, memes sat on the relatively harmless end of the spectrum, but on the other and more worrying end of the spectrum, some fans targeted Andromeda’s animators in despicable acts of harassment.
Jonathan Cooper, an animator for the game developer Naughty Dog who had worked on the original Mass Effect trilogy, jumped to the animators’ defence by explaining what may have gone wrong. In essence, he pointed out that a game like Andromeda, with so many diverging dialogue branches, is very different from a game with set dialogue and cutscenes. If there is only one possible piece of dialogue and reaction for every instance, the facial and body animations can be tailored to suit every beat. But in Andromeda, the sheer variety of possible character responses made things much more complicated, and demanded a different method. Cooper surmised that the game probably ended up relying too heavily on rough algorithms due to time constraints.
It seems that rushed production was one of the biggest tethers that held Andromeda back, resulting not only in subpar animations, but also a myriad of glitches. Characters would spawn clones; enemies hovered and T-posed in the middle of a battle (very considerate of them, since it made them easier targets for me), and my squadmates seemed to gain ghostly powers at random and walk through solid walls. There were a few bugs I didn’t encounter but wish I did, like Ryder scuttling around on bent legs like a crab, Sloane Kelly showing off her bizarre contortionist skills, and non-playable characters blasting off into the sky while you’re trying to have a conversation with them (quite rude, if you ask me).
For the most part, the glitches didn’t bother me – after all, glitches can be beautiful things, as Bethesda games have shown us. However, there were some glitches in Andromeda that detracted from the experience. Some were nuisances – such as the time I got stuck in a plant and had to reload my game. (Plant = 1, Jump-Jets = 0.) More damagingly, some glitches deflated the emotional impact of certain scenes. In a flashback of Ryder’s family, my Ryder’s twin was completely missing from the cutscene. Every time it was his turn to deliver a line, the camera swivelled to a blank space and played silence; and as Ryder walked out of the room, she put her arm around thin air where her twin should have been. What was intended as a sad and somber moment devolved into unintentional comedy.
Even so, I believe that the backlash from fans was blown out of proportion. Yes, the animation issues and bugs were disappointing, and should not have been as numerous and frequent as they were. But I believe that the issues around the writing and the characters were the true problematic heart of the game – not the animations or glitches. The latter problems could presumably be curbed in the future with more care taken to refining the details, more rigorous quality assurance, and less impatience to usher a game to release. I’m sure that most of the gaming community would agree that a high-quality game is worth the wait.
8. One Small Step
Although patches were made to fix the main offenders in the game, the development team announced that they would not be releasing any single-player story DLC. This was a missed opportunity to capitalise on some of the hanging strands left at the conclusion of Andromeda – in particular, the hint of finding the Quarian ark. In the same announcement, it was promised that comics and novels would fill in the story gaps instead. I still believe that it would have been more rewarding and suitable as playable content. Furthermore, the future of Mass Effect: Andromeda seemed uncertain, with fans fearing that any plans for a sequel would be dropped, or indefinitely delayed, following the negative response to Andromeda. The shakiness of the sequel’s future, along with the cancellation of DLCs, exacerbated the feeling that fans were being let down. It almost seemed like the team had accepted defeat and was giving up on the franchise, inciting even more backlash from the fan base.
But hope rose anew on November 7th 2018, N7 Day, when BioWare released a video to mark the occasion. It announced a patch for the XBox One X which enhances Andromeda’s graphics – a reassuring sign that BioWare hasn’t forgotten about the franchise and is making strides to improve it. But the focus of the video was a question: “What does N7 mean to you?”. The video features different responses from different people, but fans’ ears would have pricked up at the final response, given by the General Manager of BioWare, Casey Hudson, who drops the teasing line, “It means coming into the studio every day, dreaming about what the next great Mass Effect game will be”. We can only guess that this is a sly hint at a sequel for Andromeda. It may be a while before we get any confirmation, especially as BioWare is currently concentrating on its latest ambitious project, Anthem – but we can expect that there is at least a whisper of a plan for something in the pipeline.
Mass Effect: Andromeda may have been far from perfect – and yet it was still a decent and enjoyable game. It had its strengths, such as the fast-flowing combat and beautiful sceneries, as well as a gripping premise and vision behind it. There is courage in trying something different, and we should still applaud the risk taken in attempting something bigger and better. Such potential lies in the series to improve and mature as the original trilogy did – the developers have planted the seeds of many interesting story concepts to be explored, and intriguing questions begging to be answered. I’m personally hoping for new characters to add more pizzazz to the cast, and more species and mysteries to set this galaxy apart from the Milky Way we left behind.
If the development team takes on-board the constructive criticism it has received – and if they return to the franchise with renewed resolve, belief, and life – then a sequel could shoot to new heights and take its place among the stars that Andromeda had hoped to reach.
8-Bit Rambles 