ME:Andromeda...What is up with this?
Issues with Mass Effect: Andromeda
Yes, yet another disappointed customer. Story-wise I find ME:Andromeda entertaining...when I can play it. Auto saves corrupt a lot of the save files causing long ridiculous load times and screen freezing during cinematic transitions. I've ended up having to delete the 4-5 auto save files cluttering up my save/load game menu because for some reason having them there causes the game freezing during cinematic scenes but by deleting them the game freezing goes away. Don't know how that works but they corrupt your game experience this way, thus making me constantly delete them from my load menu. I've had to resort to using manual saves every time I'm about to launch a mission from the galaxy map because for some reason manual saves tend to not be corrupt 99% of the time compared to auto saves 100% guaranteed corruption. And then there's the ridiculous BSOD, aka Blue Screen Of Death, after updating to patch 1.05 which is supposed to fix quite a few bugs not bring in another one. Ever since this update I've had 5 BSOD and that was only 4 days ago since patch 1.05 was introduced. Sure you fixed facial animations so not everyone has Botox anymore but the two issues I have above are really killing the drive to play the game.
And then there's multiplayer. In my opinion its less entertaining than ME3's version. Race doesn't seem to be a factor in pros and cons of using different races. A Krogan Vanguard, who was a beast of a character to get in ME3 with high health, shields and melee strength, is not very impressive in ME:Andromeda. There was no point in using a Krogan Vanguard because he is basically a human vanguard with a different body. There is no point to using different characters and races because everyone starts off at 400 health and 200 shields whether your human, salarian, krogan, asari, turian or angaran. If I remember right from ME trilogy salarians had less than normal health but better shields, turians had better health, shields and better passive skill weapon damage, humans had normal shields and health, asari had less than normal health but normal shields/biotics, and krogans were tanks...KROGANS were TANKS, keyword = WERE as in past-tense. In ME:Andromeda Krogans are not tanks, their little rust bucket cars easily destroyed by one Kett Chosen foot soldier because they share the same stats as a human, 400 health, 200 shields. This brings me back to my point earlier, it doesn't make a difference in which race and class you decide to play as in multiplayer mode.
Whats also strange is your weapon damage varies from 44 damage per shot, charger pistol/smg, to over 1000+ damage per shot, widow sniper rifle. This should mean a charger smg does 44 damage per round when hitting an enemy but the rate of shield decay and health loss when actually in combat means enemy health and shields are at LEAST well over 800 health and 500 shields. Example, a fully upgraded and fully charged overload skill does 200+ damage to shields and another 50-100% bonus damage depending on perks chosen during skill upgrade. When cast on an enemy who has shields, only half of their shields disappear. This makes no sense. Doing the math proves my point above that enemy health and shield stats are levels above yours. These little facts annoy the hell out of me when deciding to play multiplayer mode because the character choices don't even have any tactical value. Krogans aren't real krogans in ME:Andromeda; Turians aren't real Turians, who had the best weapon handling and damage output passively in ME3. Now you have to rely on the skill 'turbo' to do the same amount of weapon damage as you used to be able to do in ME3. Energy drain is a little purple ball no different from incinerate now and useless compared to energy drain in ME3. Overload doesn't decimate enemy shields like it used to in ME3. Concussion shot is now basically a grenade skill and more useless than in ME3. Jesus, all these comparisons makes me personally think ME:Andromeda multiplayer mode is a dumb down version of ME3 multiplayer mode and I'm pretty sure the developers know it. They're just trying to sell it to customers with the typical infomercial scam, i.e., "but wait there's more. By purchasing ME:Andromeda you get a cool jump jet to use in-game" and people are buying into it without realizing the quality of the multiplayer platform has fallen.
In a nutshell, my critique of Mass Effect Andromeda is that the story mode is what interests me in playing the game. Other than that, game mechanics could be better. ME:Andromeda feels like it should have been kept in development 2-3 months longer to fix these annoying bugs and put more thought into multiplayer mode. On a side note they should also not have gotten on the SJW bandwagon because at the end of the day trying to be politically correct with todays culture has no meaning; at the end of the day appeasing SJW fanatics has no difference to the gaming community because these SJW individuals aren't even a part of the gaming community. Its also pointless because all the developers did was make all the female characters ugly while maintaining the realistic image of the male Ryder character. I mean look at the comparisons below:
SOMEBODY COME LOOK AT THIS!
Scott Ryder looks exactly like his male model counterpart whereas Sarah Ryder is an ugly version of her female model counterpart. They blew up the size of her lips, elongated her chin and jaw line, and gave her a bigger nose job literally. As an Art Major in college I can see these ugly, intentional face, eyes, nose, lips proportion adjustments. Even non-art majors out there can clearly see the developers changed all the facial proportions of the eyes, nose and mouth of Sarah Ryder as compared to the normal facial proportions of the female model Jayde Rossi; all this to appease the SJW feminists out there who aren't even gamers and don't even support the game. In a nutshell they don't even buy your products. Even the gamer girls I know prefer their female leads to be sexy because they want them to be sexy, strong, female leads. So please EA/Bioware stop appeasing SJW individuals who don't even buy your games. Video games are about living in a fantasy world and most of the time we want our characters we create for our gaming experience to be good looking. We buy your games, not the 30 year old woman holding up SJW signs to feel good about herself. Heck I'm ugly but I'm not upset other people are better looking than me. I don't need to hold up politically correct signs to make me feel good about myself and I don't see video game characters doing that either. When was the last time you saw an NPC in GTA holding up a sign with SJW messages on it? So please, again, developers don't buy into this BS because at the end of the day we gamers buy your product. If appeasing the SJW means more to you than your consumer base, best of luck with sales on your next product.
