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Mass Effect Andromeda: It’s complicated.

Review – written by James Michael aka Datashat.

This is my experience of the 10 hour trial of the game prior to release, played on Xbox One. I played the game over several sittings and spent a good amount of time on character customisation and the initial introductory planet. Below are my experiences and opinions of my time spent in the Andromeda galaxy.

I would class myself as a Mass Effect fan. I’ve spent numerous hours playing the first games in the trilogy and, as a whole, I have fond memories of my time with the games. I was excited about exploring the new upcoming ME universe, but a little cautious based on some of the footage I had seen, and some initial impressions from various sources about the game’s test play state.

After an initial few hours of feeling a mixture of hype and caution, I began to settle in. Almost as soon as the game started, I began to experience unconvincing animations, simple quests/missions and a sluggish user interface for item management. The dialogue options initially are not as extensive as I had originally hoped. It appeared that my fears were coming true in the opening sections.

Thankfully, Andromeda did improve. As I got past the first couple of hours, I unlocked new combat options, met characters with deeper appeal than my starting crew mates, and discovered a couple of new freely explorable worlds with a good level of detail and planetary exploration. I must have adapted to the jerky animations as I felt myself generally getting used to it, however there was always something a bit off with the features, especially the human faces. Firstly, the eyes feel dead, especially when compared with the success of the facial animations in the likes of The Last of Us, Uncharted and Horizon Zero Dawn. There were moments where I became completely absorbed into the world, but then a minor technical issue with the camera angle or a character pop-in during dialogue would draw me back out of the universe. Hopefully these issues will be fixed with a day one patch or within the first couple of weeks of release.

Andromeda boldly abandons the familiar story arcs and starts with a new protagonist, ditching the surname Shepherd and adopting Ryder, humanity’s newly titled ‘Pathfinder’. Ryder with his daughter or son (one of which is your character) is chosen to lead one of four arks filled with intergalactic explorers looking to found colonies in a distant star cluster. Soon you are filling your father's boots and becoming the new Pathfinder. Your role is to explore the Andromeda galaxy and establish the ‘Nexus’, which is an Andromeda version of the Citadel in prior games.

On the Nexus you find out that the other three arks are still missing, which contain the stasis pods for specific alien races. On the Nexus there has been food shortages and various resistance groups are causing problems for the current inhabitants trying to maintain order. As the leadership is a shambles and there are limited resources and power to bring back the cryogenically frozen colonists, the arrival of your ark brings hope and puts Ryder in a position of power.

Next comes the Tempest - skipping on a bit from the initial plot, you eventually get your own ship. I love the design and overall feel of the Tempest. It has echoes of Knights of the Old Republic onboard the Ebon Hawk. It’s an upgrade from The Normandy from the previous series, and feels sleeker and more spacious. There are more windows, showing stunning views of space outside, which gives you a better feel of the universe. Your ship needs to be a base, and a place to gain stability between missions. It seems to achieve this and it is where I spend most of my down time getting to know my crew better and building relationships. A small example is that my Salarian pilot Kallo Jath (replacing Joker in the original series) is quirky and intelligent and with a photographic memory, and was key in the building of the Tempest itself. He obviously loves the ship and acknowledges its uniqueness. He has squabbles with the chief engineer Gil, which you overhear before a dialogue interaction. When quizzing him he states that Gil is making unauthorised changes to the Tempest which bothers him, seeing as he built so much of himself into the ship during the build. He is now pilot and Gil does not acknowledge his authority when making decisions on the build of the Tempest. Their squabble is petty, but humanises the crew with lots of small key interactions that help produce an overall personal touch to the game. This is what I want more of in Mass Effect Andromeda. It’s the little things that add up - the interactions between you and the NPCs and between the NPCs themselves. As the dialogue options end, I wonder if this will be a problem later in the crew dynamics, or, as captain of the mission, should I intervene and try to help resolve the conflict, or stir things up? It pushes me to find out more about the crew and potentially unlocks new dialogue routes.

Combat is fun and the jump jet makes it - it is definitely more of an action game rather than a traditional RPG combat system. I have gone for a kind of jetpack stealth space ninja style of fighting. The sounds of me fading in and out of site are really well done, along with the initial jetpack sound. It is something I would love to have in real life to make that commute to work more enjoyable. Until then I’ll just have to make do with making my own sound effects. 

Enemy AI is adequate and the team mate command list is limited, but hopefully things might change as I continue my quest. I am looking forward to seeing how combat evolves in the mid to late game. I am going to save my opinions on multiplayer until release, but my initial impression is that it is a horde mode with good co-op and fun combat scenarios. It is tied into the main game by having the multiplayer separated as a sort of strike team mission, where you can send AI strike teams to gather resources in a set time that resets or you can play it yourself.

So far in, Andromeda, its worlds and its combat are impressive. But its on/off technical issues and simple side missions fall a bit short. As a Mass Effect game, Andromeda feels a bit like Star Wars Episode VII or the Star Trek reboot -entertaining - but not revolutionary to the franchise. For me, the series has always been about engaging characters (that I still think about today) and harrowing choices (*cough* except the ME3 ending *cough*). My impressions from the navigation star map are that the galaxy is vast and varied, and that's worth being excited about. After 10 hours, I’m eager to explore more.

[datashat]

Horizon Zero Dawn: Dinosaurs on ‘Zoids’ Review.

Review [Part one] – written by James Michael aka Datashat.

My first impression of Horizon Zero Dawn back at E3 2016 was shear visual amazement. Aesthetically, the world, character and creature design instantly caught my attention. The gargantuan robotic dinosaur designs ignited a certain nostalgia, with flashbacks of myself as a kid playing with Dino Riders and Zoids action figures. My expectations increased as promise was made of an open world that delivers fluid combat, crafting and skill tree management alongside a meaningful main story and side quests. 

The game has now launched and I’ve managed to get hands on with 20 plus hours of gameplay. I have not completed the main story and when I do I will produce a second part to the review. I will avoid spoilers in terms of plot lines and key events in the game. 

The game is arguably one of the best looking games on console to date. I was playing this on a normal PS4 on a 4K TV with HDR support. I will probably upgrade soon to a PS4 Pro if games continue to look this way. The lighting is superb - as I ran across a field or ravine during twilight I would regularly stop and spin my camera around to take it all in. It is very pretty. Hats off to Guerrilla gaming for the engine and art design. Not only do the visuals do the game justice, but the world feels alive (ignoring the death stomping robotic dinosaur boyz) animals and plants fill the landscape with scampering racoons, foxes, boar, trout, birds and rabbits. A good tip is to harvest and farm these early on in the game as they hold valuable crafting items to upgrade your inventory and ammo capacity. 

  Aloy (the main female protagonist) is a well-designed character with impressive facial animations and high quality voice acting by Ashly Burch. I acknowledge the fact it would have been easy to have a more silent protagonist. You actually get to put your own sway on character interactions with a good, bad and logical option to dialogue, which slightly personalises your play. I have yet to see any major consequences from dialogue options but my hope is that different choices could create different scenarios.

The robotic dinosaurs were interesting to watch while I planned how to get maximum resources from an attack. The Grazers, deer-like creatures with large mechanical antlers, mimic a sort of grazing action, spinning and churning up the earth. While their heads are down eroding the soil, they are vulnerable. Watchers are bipedal raptor-like robots with a large singular glowing eye, forever watching and scanning for any nearby threat to the herd (alerting anything nearby if they detect you). They patrol and circle herds of robotic animals, requiring you to take them down quietly in order to get to the Grazers. Once dealt with you can set up traps and tripwires before striking. Loud explosions can startle herds to run into your traps, stunning the Grazers and ensuring a kill. Sometimes the hunt would not stop there - a flock of robotic vulture type creatures would swoop down and land on the carcass of the creature you just spent time hunting, and start eating your resources. This then results in combat, requiring you to fight or take flight based on your current status. 

  At one point in the game, I was cautiously gathering materials and travelling between objectives, and I noticed a dark shadow quickly darting across my screen. I looked up, and blocking the sun periodically, there was a huge silhouette of a monstrous mechanical birdlike creature. It was so big I noticed its shadow across the valley. Taking a few moments to realise what was going on, thinking it had seen me as some sort of prey, my heart sank for 10 seconds - then I realised it was so big and far away it had no interest in me and probably wouldn’t have been able to see me. 

My main disappointment were the human enemies in the game. Combat ironically seemed to devolve when I came across human encounters. I would have the best intentions to use a stealth approach to bandit camps but I would always end up alerting enemies and fighting for my life. One of the problems is you can’t actually move and hide the recently deceased bodies, therefore I felt the stealth mechanics are lacking when compared to Metal Gear Solid V, for example. This is a minor gripe but it just stands out a bit as the combat against the robotic creature you face is far more superior and fun. 

As the adventure continues, I am foraging plants and animals as I try to survive towards my next campfire/settlement. The map is big with zones or worlds, dividing up different sections as you progress. It almost reminds me of the legend of Zelda on the SNES where you have an ice zone, desert zone and forest or woodland zone, which plucks another nostalgic string with me. Now and again the aesthetical transition between these zones was abrupt. Sometimes as I went from one area to another the lighting would jump around abruptly, rather than as a smooth fazed juxtaposition. But on a whole the world is vibrant, with a unique and engaging art style complementing the gameplay.  

At this stage my experience with Horizon Zero Dawn has been has been positive overall. If you’re an action RPG fan and looking for a unique, engaging, open world experience then you’re in luck. I’m going to continue my adventure with Aloy and hopefully uncover the mysteries of Guerrilla's new franchise.