Mass Effect: Andromeda
How do you distance yourself from an unpleasant
memory? It’s been five years since Mass Effect 3
graced us with its polarising ending, and Bioware
has taken the distancing concept literally - by setting
its newest Mass Effect title thousands of light years
away and six hundred years in the future. Shepherd,
the Reapers, the Geth, all are long gone, and you’re
presented with a whole new galaxy to explore.
This time you’re one of the Ryder twins, who inherits
the title of Pathfinder for the human Ark that was sent
into the Andromeda galaxy. Promised a beautiful
golden world to inhabit, events immediately turn
sour as it becomes apparent that your new home is
an uninhabitable, storm-swept wasteland. Naturally,
it falls to Ryder to find mankind - and the Turians,
Krogan, and Salarians who have also travelled to
Andromeda - a new place to live.
Meet Ryder. He’s... a bit of a dick.
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The environments you’re given to explore are huge,
sweeping vistas packed to the brim with items to
discover and side-quests to solve. You’ll roam each
map establishing forward bases, using your Nomad
vehicle (a much better sibling of the original game’s
Mako), surveying for minerals and gradually
transforming the world into a place to live. There’s
a definite satisfaction to be gained by cleaning up
each planet, even if the in-game rewards for doing so
are less compelling. There aren’t that many separate
planets to explore, but the ones you do visit are
enormous in scale and densely packed with things to
see and do. And they look great, even if they aren’t
all that inventive (apparently the Andromeda galaxy
is full of deserts, snowstorms and tropical forests).
The environmental details and sense of scale are
breathtaking at times.
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