Mass Effect: Andromeda at Gameplanet NZ

Mass Effect: Andromeda PC review

Wed, 22 Mar 2017 15:01:00 +1300

Judged purely on its own merits, [i]Mass Effect: Andromeda[/i] is a good game. But this is BioWare, and [i]Mass Effect[/i] being merely good feels like a failure. It's a little clumsy in places, and daft in others, but I found it mostly endearing despite these quirks.

It all started as I hoped and expected. I click the game icon and I am greeted by the glow of a beautifully rendered planet and the warm bass-rich synth of the menu screen’s music. This feels right. I continue and go through the now familiar motions of creating my avatar and selecting her skills. While the character creation felt strangely limiting, I am more than happy with her look, and feel I have a solid base of abilities to begin my adventure.

The opening cinematic rolls and espouses the virtues of determination, hope, and discovery and I start to feel them as well. The short introduction closes with the completion of a 600-year journey to a new galaxy. A new beginning, and a new adventure. My body is ready!

We open with a slow tracking shot of the cryogenics bay of the Arc Hyperion and my character waking from her centuries long hybernaOH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED TO HER FACE?! My screen is filled with a contorted expression somewhere between final push haemorrhoid inducing constipation and glassy-eyed orgasmic release. That was one hell of a wakeup call! How could this happen to someone? Well, I was soon to find out as I was to pull this very face more than once in the following three dozen-plus hours.

Mass Effect: Andromeda review

Mon, 20 Mar 2017 21:20:00 +1300

[i]Mass Effect: Andromeda[/i] is a paradox: it's both disappointing and excellent. A mammoth title, it delivers tons of great content, but hamstrings itself with a poor first few hours, a few horrible systems, and some uninspired scenarios. Even so, it's pretty great!

Mass Effect: Andromeda has a great set-up. Presumably sick of jokes about lactose intolerance, the dwellers of the Milky Way Galaxy band together and send thousands of each race to the nearby Andromeda Galaxy to set up a new colony. The human contingent is travelling on a vast spaceship called the Ark Hyperion, and plans to meet other races at the Nexus, a huge space station that is to act as the centre of operations for both terraforming and zero-g partying.

The journey these ships take is one of 600 years, which is almost long enough for people to stop complaining about the end of Mass Effect 3, and definitely long enough for the habitable worlds we scoped out before leaving to be thoroughly owned by a many-tendriled space cloud that resembles Pink Batts called The Scourge. Andromed'oh! Basically, humanity boarded an overnight train to Hiroshima on August 5, 1945, and woke up dazed and slightly angry that its surroundings no longer matched the brochure.

To make matters worse, The Scourge also ravaged the Nexus, killing all its top-ranking staff – or so the station's fry cooks-turned-new overlords claim. That leaves all races in something of a pickle: there's nowhere to live, resources are hard to come by, and there's the small matter of the 20,000 or so bodies in cryo that will probably want to be awoken by something that hasn't evolved beyond skin and bones. You also quickly discover that the Nexus was in a state of near-mutiny, and that a hostile race of space lizards known as the kett are pretty keen to weave the skin of the other assembled races into a big, multi-textured rug.

Here's what the previews are saying about Mass Effect Andromeda

Fri, 24 Feb 2017 09:52:00 +1300

Last week, a number of outlets (including Gameplanet) were invited to check out a preview build of BioWare's upcoming ARPG Mass Effect Andromeda.

Unfortunately we couldn't make it to the session, but I've scanned the internet and compiled what appear to be the main takeaways, from publications that played anywhere from 90–240 minutes of the game.

Overall, it's shaping up nicely

Mass Effect: Andromeda has a release date

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 08:55:00 +1300

Mass Effect: Andromeda will be available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC on March 23, BioWare has announced.

The date reveal was made by BioWare general manager Aaryn Flynn on the official Mass Effect site.

"We appreciate your patience (and in fact, even your lack of patience in some instances) as we’ve been focused on completing the game," Flynn wrote, calling the game the most ambitious Mass Effect to date.

Mass Effect: Andromeda interview

Thu, 22 Dec 2016 10:07:00 +1300

Q: What is Mass Effect Andromeda genre-wise? Is it an RPG with an action focus like Mass Effect 1, a story-based shooter like the latter ME games, or something else?

Mike Gamble: [Laughs] Okay, so this is a bit of a non-answer, but it is actually both – probably more than ever before. When we started development, we focussed a lot on the RPG roots, bringing back many of the systems that we had not done in 2 or 3 like crafting and certain elements of progression. So we built up a lot of stuff around that. Originally I would say yeah it would be more of an RPG, but then in the last number of years we've had the ability to push our combat to an entirely different place than it was previously on the trilogy. It's a lot more fluid and a lot more smooth, and jumping and different gameplay mechanics really change it. So I think we've had pretty modest games across the board in both of those. It's not like ME1 or ME3 – I think it takes the best of both and kind of combines them.

Q: What can you tell us about Sarah and Scott Ryder?

Mass Effect: Andromeda – Andromeda Initiative Orientation Briefing trailer

Tue, 08 Nov 2016 09:01:00 +1300

Congratulations on your acceptance into the Andromeda Initiative, and welcome to orientation. Stay tuned in the coming months as we’ll continue to provide critical pre-departure information and training for our mission.

Mass Effect: Andromeda official cinematic reveal trailer

Tue, 08 Nov 2016 08:29:00 +1300

The journey to Andromeda begins now. Navigate the uncharted reaches of the Andromeda Galaxy to unravel its mysteries, discover vivid alien worlds, and lead the charge to find a new home among the stars. How far will you go to become humanity’s hero? Mass Effect: Andromeda - Coming Spring 2017 to PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, and Xbox One

Mass Effect: Andromeda will bring nuance to morality

Thu, 23 Jun 2016 17:21:00 +1200

Mass Effect: Andromeda will not include the Paragon/Renegade morality system known to the franchise.

BioWare creative director Mac Walters noted in an interview with Gamesradar that Andromeda will offer a more nuanced sense of morality in its gameplay, with more complex choices.

"We’ve been looking ... to engage more of those shades of grey"

BioWare creative director Mac Walters