Mass Effect Andromeda Has Perfect Combat
But it still fell on its face. Or should I say faces?
You’ve probably seen this picture of Mass Effect Andromeda’s Peebee pointing a gun backwards at her own face while she looks at nothing off to the side.
It’s not only the perfect metaphor for the game, but also for the way it was received both by its fan community and the mainstream gaming press.
Mass Effect Andromeda has been officially branded as a Bad Game(tm). Its review scores weren’t great. Its sales dropped off quickly. Electronic Arts stopped funding additional DLC and patch development.
But here’s the thing…
It’s probably the best Bad Game I’ve ever played.
1) The Combat Design Is Brilliant
Mass Effect Andromeda has one of the most fluid combat systems ever created.
I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. It’s running on DICE’s tuned-for-shooters Frostbite engine. The combat gameplay is from some of the same folks who honed the old Mass Effect titles to a sharp point in Mass Effect 3.
Everything here works so well.
You can effortlessly and quickly traverse the battlefield, thanks to the new jetpack, and it’s constantly fun. The jetpack has a great arc to its jump. The dash is fast, useful, and well-balanced with the pause that happens when you come to a stop. Floating in the air to shoot down at enemies adds a vertical element to the gameplay that Mass Effect, and most other shooters, don’t really have.
And the cover system!
Since the Tomb Raider reboot launched in 2013, I’ve been waiting for other games to borrow its seamless, dynamic cover system.
Mass Effect Andromeda can proudly join that tiny table.
The old cover buttons have been remapped to the jetpack abilities. Now, you just take cover by getting against a cover object. And it feels great. And just like in the modern Tomb Raider games, it works every time and you never have to think about it.
The result is combat that’s fun to play each and every time, whether you’re in single player or multiplayer. It’s faster, more frenetic, and more exciting than almost anything else out there.
2) It Still has Numbers and Loot
In spite of the brilliance of its action-heavy gameplay, you can still firmly feel the RPG roots underneath Andromeda.
These systems are even more prominent than they were in the last two Mass Effect games.
The skill tree is massive, and offers so many options that it’s almost overwhelming. Much of the loot in the game is randomized, and the numbers really matter. You can easily feel the differences in the gameplay.
I was playing a multiplayer session recently, and I happened upon a gun out of a chest unlock that could kill most basic enemies in one shot. It was dramatically more powerful than my old one. This happens in single player too, and it’s very satisfying.
The original Mass Effect trilogy was well-regarded for its ability to split the difference between fun and accessible action gameplay and the sort of RPG complexity that hardcore fans love. I think Andromeda actually does this better than any other entry in the series.
3) *Most* of the Visuals are Amazing
Okay yes.
Look.
I know that many of the faces and facial animations in the game weren’t well-received….
But on the whole, this game is still in the top third of games that came out this year so far, graphically, in my opinion.
The environments are vast and the draw distances are exceptional. The lighting is the same wonderful lighting we’ve come to expect from Frostbite games. The combat animations, clearly the focus of the over-stretched animation department, chain fluidly together and help sell the design and controls I mentioned above. The framerate is rock solid even on consoles.
And the facial animations got a bit better after the patches. It might not be as good-looking as other huge 2017 games like Horizon, or as polished as graphical leaders of this generation like The Witcher 3…but I can’t imagine a world in which I would classify the graphics as bad.
4) So What Let This Game Down Then?
Writing, Nostalgic Expectation, and Scope Problems.
Let’s tackle these one at a time.
Writing
This game was written by a mostly-new team that didn’t really work on the story direction of the original trilogy. They had the frankly impossible task of writing a story that could simulatenously reboot the Mass Effect franchise while still keeping series fans happy.
If that sounds like a weird, awkward middle-ground…you’re right!
The result is a weird, awkward story. The main story arc has some moments…but it’s stuck having to introduce a whole new antagonist and a new galaxy.
I totally get folks being upset that most of the races and creatures in this game came right out of the old games…but I’m guessing that was done to give players a dose of the familiar, and to lower the big challenge of having to introduce so much other new stuff already.
If I had been in charge of writing this game, I would have pretended that the original series never existed. Take the underlying concept of Mass Effect energy, and write a whole new story around new characters and galaxies. I know that would have scared both the EA executives and fans of the original games, but I think it’s the tenuous connection to the original games that inspires so much general distaste for the new one in the fanbase.
Nostalgic Expectation
For many gamers and journalists, the Mass Effect Trilogy was a measuring-stick for single player narrative games.
And rightly so!
In an era where so many companies were announcing trilogies, Bioware was one of the few to actually deliver all three games. You could take your decisions with you across all the games…and then they’d sort of crash into each other nightmarishly at the end of the third one.
How could the ending of the third game have ever lived up to everything players were expecting? They had spent years of their lives building up their character, exploring the games, and being attached to the storyline and characters. It was inevitable that people would feel a bit let down by the ending of Mass Effect 3.
Andromeda had this same problem…compounded a thousand times. It’s the sequel to a Narrative Event that millions of people loved…and were let down by. It calls back to games that won tons of game of the year awards. It uses so much of the same iconography, language, and visual design, that it can’t help but remind players of all the emotions they built up playing the old games.
In trying to capture Mass Effect fans, it couldn’t help but disappoint them. It was time to let go a little, instead.
Scope Problems
Andromeda started out as a No Man’s Sky-style “explore millions of planets” game…and then had most of that cut out late in development in favor of a more traditional Bioware experience.
That’s documented in so many other places out there, and largely the reason for all the execution missteps in an otherwise immaculately-designed game. The gameplay and technical competence show that Bioware still has plenty of talent on-board. It’s no wonder the game has some rough edges considering its last-minute changes in scope.
Something had to come out, and something did. I think this scope change is responsible for the “Weird feeling” a lot of the game has.
You can tell that so many of its systems were built for a larger game that simply… isn’t there.
The game that’s left has some awkward pacing and size problems as a result, and this weird invisible gaping hole is its biggest actual issue.
Final Thoughts
I think Mass Effect Andromeda would have done better as a game titled Andromeda.
I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out. You’d lose all that Mass Effect baggage…and the expectation right along with it.
Imagine a new science fiction experience that had a whiff of the old games you loved, from the talented folks at Bioware.
Even with the same level of polish it has right now, I bet the game would have done better.
Executives would have been fearful of releasing a game without the name recognition of a franchise, but they still would have drawn in Bioware fans because they would have followed it anyway.
And new players might have been less scared. They wouldn’t have felt like they were jumping into the fourth game in a franchise.
Andromeda is actually a perfect experience for newcomers, as it stands, and I bet players who were new to the franchise thought it was better overall than fans who’ve been with it since the beginning.
I hope Anthem does well for Bioware. I hope Dragon Age 4 is a quality game. And I can’t help but be sad that this not-terrible game is what tanked the Mass Effect franchise.
