As you’d expect, there’s a Storyline going on, though
it rarely hits any impactful narrative beats and comes
across rather muddled, often lost in the noise of
the myriad of side-quests scattered throughout the
game. There’s an ancient alien civilisation - forgive
me if you’ve heard this one before - that possessed
incredible technology, and there’s a hostile alien
race led by a generic villainous type that wants the
technology for himself. Its all very sci-fi by-the-
numbers, and whilst it works, it rarely feels like
there’s much at stake, or any urgency to your actions.
It doesn’t help that the story is largely told through
dialogue sequences, which sounds logical enough
but the character models and animations of the
Andromeda crew always seem to look a little off,
whether that be making weird gurning expressions
or pursing their lips unnaturally when they speak, or
just staring with their dead eyes. The script isn’t too
great either; Ryder frequently comes across as either
a whiny teen or a brash hothead, no matter what
dialogue options you pick, and the characters are
sorely lacking the healthy dose of charisma needed to
carry the game. That’s not to say that the new squad
members don’t have their charm - female Turian
Vetra does her best to channel Garrus, grumpy
Drack is like a world-weary Wrex, and chatterbox
PeeBee has echoes of Dragon Age Inquisition’s Sera
- but much of their dialogue is written and delivered
inconsistently.
You’re now free to mix and match abilities from
different classes.
The game fares better in its moment-to-moment
action, which is some of the best the series has
seen. Andromeda returns to the third person cover-
based shooter template, but weapons feel much
meatier, enemies are smarter and more varied, and
the inclusion of jump jets and boosting abilities
make movement much easier. Although you’re
now limited to three abilities, you’re not limited to
a single character class - you’re free to spend points
in combat, biotic, and tech skills to mix-and-match
and create a character with the mix of skills that
complement your play style. You can no longer
control your squadmates, but they’re mostly capable
of standing up for themselves, and Andromeda does
a good job of presenting interesting combat arenas
to do battle in.
The Kett are one of only two new alien races introduced
in Andromeda. Hint: They’re not friendly.
Unfortunately, Andromeda is galaxy that’s filled
with bugs. Not gigantic alien eye-sucking bugs, or
even wriggly little insects. No, Andromeda’s bugs are
more of the ‘hinder your game progress’ and ‘make
things look screwy’ kind. They’re not totally game-
breaking, but they can certainly be game-damaging
at times. On more than one occasion the button
prompt for completing a quest objective refused to
appear, necessitating a reload of a previous save; my
squadmates talked about characters that I hadn’t yet
recruited and events that hadn’t yet happened, and
I’ve been stuck in scenery after exiting the Nomad
and had to fast-travel to escape more times than
I care to recount. Couple that with glitchy visuals
that cause textures and objects to flicker in and out
of view (even in cutscenes) and a massively unstable
framerate, especially in populated areas such as the
Nexus and New Tuchanka, and you have a game that
is capable of looking spectacular but frequently just
looks ropey.
Its ultimately difficult to come away from Mass Effect:
Andromeda without a sense of disappointment.
There are flashes of greatness, and the exploration
and combat mechanics are some of the series best. But
even without the frequent technical issues it’s hard to
feel very engaged in the storyline or characters. There
was a