Not sure why Mass Effect Andromeda gets so much hate

This weekend PSN has a deal on Mass Effect Andromeda. After reading all complaints about the game, I’d decided I’d play it much, much later…like when it was ‘free’ on EA Access or something. But after a friend of mine finished a 100 hour playthrough and started a 2nd playthrough just a week or two later, my curiosity (and an $18 discount) got the better of me, so I snagged a copy.

So far I’m digging it. Now it’s hard to be completely unbiased this far after the launch. I’m influenced by friends liking it, but I was also braced for absolutely horrible character models and facial animations. AND I just finished playing Sleeping Dogs which has not held up well in terms of character models. So all in all I was going into MEA expecting something horrible and was prepared to just deal with it.

So from that point of view, the game is fine. I mean yes, it could be lots better and I was unable to create a character that wasn’t kind of hideous (my dude came out looking a little like middle-aged John Travolta) but it’s not an issue to where it is really detracting from my enjoyment of the game. Ditto the voice work. Yes, there are some clunky lines and some weird cadence/pacing issues here and there but I actually enjoyed smart-alecking my way through a battle with Liam at my side. It actually felt pretty authentic. Here’s two guys in a horrible situation who decide to deal with it by being cavalier about the whole situation, even if that attitude is forced.

What has really surprised me about MEA is how much I enjoy the combat; it’s really fun. I mean its not a Destiny-level shooter but for an RPG it’s pretty great. My Ryder is a techie kind of guy who can leech shields and fire some kind of incendiary beam. And that’s at level 2. Who knows what he’ll grow into. I also find the jetpacks stupidly fun and I spent a lot of time jetpacking up to the top of things just because.

In fact my only complaint so far is that at one point someone pointed me to a weapons cache and I accidentally replaced my assault rifle with a shotgun and couldn’t switch it back. I guess you can only tweak your loadouts at specific areas and in that first mission I couldn’t find one. Having to take on the first big battle with a shotgun (I hate shotguns, I’m a hang-back-and-kill-em-from-range kind of guy) was a little frustrating. But now I know.

Now I’m back at the Nexus, which thankfully doesn’t seem to be as big as the Citadel. I tried to play the original Mass Effect 3 or 4 times and the Citadel always crushed my desire to play that game. It was so big and dull and confusing and tedious.

I mean clearly this is a very very early opinion. I have maybe 4 hours in so far? Essentially that game hasn’t even really gotten going yet. So I may change my mind. But so far, I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I’m enjoying myself.

Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag

Tonight I finished the story line of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. I’ve started a few Assassin’s Creed games, but I’ve never finished one or even come close. I’ve always known that the games were about the endless war between Assassins & Templars, but I had no idea how deep down the rabbithole they went. Not that Black Flag offered a lot of answers, but it certainly posed some questions that I look forward to having answered via other games.

Overall I had a blast with this one but I think it’s a little unusual for an AC game. For one thing the main character, Edward Kenway, isn’t an assassin. He’s a pirate who got caught up in the struggle after he tried to pass himself off as a templar in order to get a reward.

What I really enjoyed is that at least the first part of the game is based on history. In fact it’s the same basic story that the Starz TV show Black Sails tells. You’ll encounter the same characters, from Charles Vane & Ben Hornigold to Woodes Rogers and Edward “Black Beard” Thatch. Even Anne Bonny shows up. The pirates occupy Nassau, England sends Rogers to offer amnesty to any pirate who’ll swear to give up the life, and Hornigold takes the Crown up on its offer, to the dismay of his fellow pirates.

So that was fun, though by about 2/3rd of the way through the game we’ve left that story behind, and Edward is more actively working with the Assassins. I felt like the game was a little long for the amount of story it held, but with open world games I never know if that’s really my fault. Maybe I spent too much time dithering around chasing side quests. My save file was at about 35 hours (and 65% completion) as the credits rolled.

The “outer” story wasn’t as compelling. This time the modern day part of the tale has you as employee of Abstergo Entertainment. You’re using an animus to gather material that Abstergo will use to make an entertainment product out of. You don’t know that Abstergo is run by the Templars and it’s not clear how many (if any) of your co-workers know it either. There’s one dude who is undercover — an assassin — and he uses you as a pawn, but that story doesn’t go very far. Although you do meet Juno briefly. Who or what Juno is, I don’t know. But she (?) seems to predate humanity.

I think all in all I enjoyed the Black Flag part of the game more than I enjoyed the Assassin’s Creed part. By the end I was really sick of tailing people and eavesdropping on their conversations. Exchanging broadsides with a Man ‘O War never got old, though.

I started playing this game back in 2013 when it came out. When I picked it up again a few weeks ago, I started fresh. In some respects the game still looks great. The character models haven’t aged that well, but the ships and the sea and the weather all still look great. Playing on a 60″ TV, I’d get up and feel like I needed to get my land legs back. Y’know when you’ve been on a boat all day then you come ashore and it feels like the ground is rising and falling? The feeling of sailing the Jackdaw was authentic enough to give me that feeling.

At first I felt like ship-to-ship combat was too shallow, but by the time I’d been in 50 or 60 naval battles I appreciated that each one wasn’t a long, drawn-out affair. Sure it doesn’t feel authentic to have ships constantly ramming each other and dropping tons of mortar rounds on the enemy, but it kept things fun.

Oh and the music! First rate. Your crew is constantly breaking out in sea shanties and by the end I’d be singing along with them.

I’d give the piratey parts of AC: Black Flag a 5 out of 5 rating. The assassiny parts were just OK. Like many of the AC games, your character seems way too sticky. I was constantly jumping onto things I didn’t want to jump onto. Plus as mentioned, tailing bad guys grew stale pretty quickly.

Still, no regrets. I’m really glad I went back to it. Well worth playing, IMO.

Bouncing off MMOs

I’m not sure if Belghast of Tales of the Aggronaut came up with the phrase “bouncing off” a game or if he borrowed it, but I heard it first from him so I’m giving him credit. It’s a great phrase so I’m also stealing it. When he says it, I imagine a game as a globe. You can hit the surface of the globe, pass through and immerse yourself in the world of the game, or you can bounce off the atmosphere and leave it behind. I assume that’s generally his meaning, though I never asked him.

Anyway, I just ‘bounced off’ MMOs again. I’ve been focusing pretty much exclusively on single player games for a while, but a couple of weeks ago Skyforge hit the PS4 and I decided to give it a go. I played casually for a week before getting bored, then moved on to trying other MMOs on the console. DCUO lasted a couple nights, then Neverwinter entertained for about a week, then I was back to Elder Scrolls Online for a few days, and now I’ve left the MMO planetary system and sailed off into space, only to splash back down into Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag’s sweet, sweet single player bliss.

It was probably the shortest trip into the MMO-sphere that I’ve ever taken.

Now I live in my cozy little bubble so I’m probably completely off-base, but it seems to me like MMOs are losing traction and not just with me. Maybe it’s just my social media circles? I dunno. But folks who used to talk about playing MMOs now tend to talk about games like Overwatch instead. I think most of my MMO-loving friends still play their MMOs casually, but the genre just doesn’t seem to be as much of a focus as it used to. Maybe it’s just that no big new releases/expansions have hit recently? Just part of a cycle? What do you think, oh anonymous reader? You’re probably exposed to a broader cross-section of gamers than I am. I hope I’m wrong. I LOVE the idea of “virtual worlds” even if I’m not currently playing in one.

Indeed, I’m glad I’m out again. I tried to push my comfort boundaries this time. I PUGged in both Neverwinter and TESO, something I normally don’t do. And honestly both experiences were fine. I didn’t encounter any asshats or anything. But doing group stuff still kind of stresses me out, even when I’m having fun. I play games SLOW. I like to peek into every corner and potter about. In a group I have to move with the group and the pace always feels kind of frantic to me. Each night I PUGged I couldn’t get to sleep later that night, I was so wound up and stressed out. (I’m sure that would go away if I did it more.)

I know I can solo in my MMOs and go at my own pace but eventually you hit that wall where you really need group content to advance, OR you just start to feel like you’re missing out on the coolest content by not doing dungeons/instances.

It’s awesome that there are decent F2P MMOs on console now so when I do get the itch I can dive in for a few days/weeks/months. And though this last dive was brief, it was fairly deep. I spent about $20 on Zen for Neverwinter and signed up for a month of ESO Plus for $15, so my intent was to stick around. But in both cases I just suddenly didn’t want to log in.

There’s a lot of reasons I prefer single player games these days but right now as I’m writing this post the #1 reason is: they end. There’s a TON of games I want to play, but an MMO is forever (not literally but you know what I mean). Curiously, I used to prefer MMOs, even playing them solo, BECAUSE they had no end. So I’ve totally flip-flopped as far as that goes. Even though I’m enjoying Black Flag, I can’t wait to finish it because there’s like 4-5 other games I really want to get into.

SO many awesome games and there’s no sign that new great games are going to stop arriving any time soon. Remember when we use to have “gaming droughts” at certain parts of the year where we’d tackle our backlogs? That’s pretty much a thing of the past, eh? I guess maybe late-spring/early-summer is a little dry but otherwise we’re getting awesome games all year long.

I’m babbling, so I’ll quit for now. I have lots to say about Black Flag but I’ll wait until I’m finished. I know everyone is eager to hear my thoughts on a 4-year old game. LOL.