the year is 1995. i'm sitting in my
grandparents living room
in lower manhattan across the street
from the world trade i watch old
jetson's reruns
complete with their utopian view of the
future the year is 1999.
i watch discovery channel specials that
imagine the future they predicted in the
year 2015
we'll have flying ambulances and
advanced healthcare
the year is 2020 i have not left my
house i have not crossed the threshold
of my front door
in over 45 days i find myself clinging
to games not only for work
but for an escape i miss the utopian
view of the future
that we've seemingly lost i longed for
an adventure to
explore vast worlds things that are
especially welcome in a world where
isolation
means survival and so i looked for hope
in the last game i'd ever thought to
mass effect andromeda
[Music]
i'll address this right off the bat
while i believe the issues with the game
around launch were overblown
no it wasn't great thankfully modding
let me write a lot of its wrongs
i managed to balance combat and mobility
to be much more pleasing
i found fixes for odd character designs
and textures and even some great
character creation options
so just know that my experience this
time around was very different from what
we saw
at andromeda's initial release and i'll
tell you how to do the same
for those of you who've forgotten and
many wouldn't blame you mass effect
andromeda drops you into the space boots
of a pathfinder
charged with finding and terraforming
humanity's next home
after a 634 year journey in cryostasis
humanity finds itself in the grips of a
dark energy storm that threatens the
entire mission that proves only to be
the beginning of their problems
as an enemy known as the ket take a
particular interest in the pathfinder
and an ancient race of aliens has left a
string of mysteries across the andromeda
galaxy
if you're going to survive you and your
band of alien buddies will have to
figure out how to awaken ancient tech
that can terraform andromeda's various
planets
revisiting this story struck a
particularly different chord with me
this time around throughout the
archiperian and even the nexus
you can see grand monuments to humanity
and the alliance races
there's an air of pride for how far our
species has come and how much further
we're about to go
playing this during the first year of a
new decade one that i felt held a lot of
personal promise
only to encounter some fresh challenge
daily felt similar
that uncertainty almost desperation felt
palpable in a new way
one that had admittedly been lost on me
previously
in fact between the monotony of working
from home binge watching the latest
shows and squeezing in a workout
i found myself wanting to jump back into
andromeda more and more
even after completing main story
missions on andromeda's various planets
you can make planets more stable more
viable for a human outpost
you can even return to make a few
limited choices that affect their
ultimate growth address local concerns
and complete side quests
i found myself clinging to the expansion
of those outposts
mass effect andromeda became my escape
in that way it allowed me to become this
space-faring adventurer writing wrongs
and helping people at a time that i felt
somewhat powerless in real life
whereas previous mass effect games
provided straightforward quests
andromeda provides opportunities for
building success
those additional tasks i mentioned
helping out your settlements and serving
the needs of settlers
could lead to yet larger side quests
down the line
it offers the pleasure of incremental
successes as well as more conventional
quests
and i have to tell you that during a
time where we can't do much that
incremental success
becomes much more compelling just look
at animal crossing a game built entirely
on incremental goals it felt much more
satisfying this time around to not only
be adventuring
taking down hostile alien races and
retaking that dream of making a new home
in andromeda but building that
futuristic utopia as well
another big reason for my newfound
enjoyment in this underdog of a sci-fi
adventure
is modding i had a shockingly easy time
with absolutely zero crashes
frosty mod manager the tool that makes
it all happen even gives you a warning
if a mod was created for an older
version of the game
and even then i found no issues with the
older mods that i tried
speaking of which a few of my favorite
mods helped deal with some of the issues
that we saw at launch
namely character design choices and
facial animations
mods like pb tweak no mask made a few
adjustments that i found to be an
improvement
as well as addison tweak which improves
her textures to take the emphasis off
some of the weaker parts of her facial
animations
young sloane is another facial mod that
returns a character to her pre-release
glory
i point those out specifically because
they were characters that many
complained about around release
however the most impactful mods in my
load order run more than skin deep
balanced weapons manages to make various
weapons a bit more viable
especially later on in the story and
increase weapon damage overall
making combat much snappier better squad
a mod by the same creator
buffs the passive bonuses of all squad
mates allowing them to stay in the fight
a bit longer
suddenly my squad mates felt more
capable and deadly and less like i was
babysitting them
hyper mobility is another absolute
must-have for pc players
as it makes your character more reactive
by cutting unnecessary animations and
extra frames
like when rapidly changing direction it
also increases sprint speed
rocket jump height and directional
thruster capability making you much more
mobile
across the field this greatly altered my
gameplay as i would normally stick to
cover based shooting
the mod had me zooming about the field
adding verticality to my tactics
and finally mea fix pack which is a sal
for many in-game woes
that range from minor bugs like npc
glitches to glitched quests and crafting
and balances
but can mods actually salvage such a
controversially received game
i have to admit i'm quite biased i adore
the mass effect universe and mass effect
2 is quite possibly my
favorite game of all time all things
considered i don't want to hate another
game in the same universe
and i was hoping i'd find something new
this time around that my opinions would
change
given time space and yes those trusty
mods
while many compared mass effect
andromeda to mass effect 3 i found
myself comparing it to the first mass
effect
it's the beginning of a new journey with
new companions in a completely different
corner of the universe
i wanted to feel thrust into the unknown
the way i did in the beginning of mass
effect
to have this sense that just beyond the
thin metal walls of my ship there's an
entire galaxy of adventure
just waiting for me but after a while i
managed to push that frame of comparison
out of my mind and enjoy the game before
me i found it refreshing to no longer be
playing as commander shepard
as by the third game i had this sense
that whatever i chose would be right
or i could just make it right somehow
later on i'm commander shepard after all
playing a pathfinder an unproven
protagonist made me uncertain
it made me rethink my choices a dozen
times the way i had when i first dealt
with the reknight queen
as a fresh spectre i found myself
enjoying getting to know my crew
the way i had before i ever stopped the
reapers alongside the likes of garrus
and liara
i managed to enjoy meeting each new
character and gave them a fair shake by
not comparing them to my previous crew
in short i found the mass effect
adventure that had been obscured behind
animation scandals
online outrage and developer abuse
everything i enjoy about the mass effect
universe
the grand scale and the minor details
are in andromeda
the vanilla version of the game just
made them harder to find or rather
harder to focus on small details still
manage to create a charming space
adventure
like finding plants vs zombies plushies
in your crew mates bunk
reading the ship's bulletin board for
funny crew interactions and
even organizing some much-needed r r for
everyone
and making larger decisions like forging
an alliance based on trust
understanding and a common goal was
refreshing as someone who'd like to see
more of that in real life
especially right now i also fell in love
with the worlds i was exploring
like aya the beautiful homeland of the
angara
this game isn't as lacking in depth and
detail as i thought
after my first playthrough which was
admittedly rushed so that i could figure
out the initial hype and controversy for
myself
i will say however that many of the
familiar and beloved aspects from mass
effect games past
are buried under new and frustrating
design decisions or quest structures
and that feeling isn't helped by an
ever-growing sense that the team aspired
for more
but had to abruptly ship a game which
only becomes more prevalent
as you near the game's end so yes
mass effect andromeda is pretty good
with the caveat that heavily modding it
helps
i gave it a second chance and if your
computer can run it maybe you should too
while i don't condone unfinished games
being rushed out before they're truly
ready
i don't see a need to continue hating on
games that have ultimately been
revitalized by a loving mod community
so give it a try you might just find
something to love among andromeda's
stars
you