

It’s a hard act to follow for sure, and we spent three games and hundreds of hours with Shepard and company, so perhaps that was to be expected, but it’s still worth noting. The voice acting in general is pretty solid, and there’s some good performances from the ensemble cast.įrom the Ryder twins – a neat narrative device that sees the character you don’t select involved in the plot as an NPC – through to the key crew members and the random folks you meet along the way, the characters in Andromeda struggled to grab us in quite the same way as their predecessors did. In terms of the chief protagonists, there’s a touch more sass than we’re used to from past games, and Fryda Wolff and Tom Taylorson both do a decent job of bringing them to life (even if Scott Ryder does sound just a teeny tiny bit like Nathan Drake). For a game of this size and scale, and having not long seen this very same thing done right in Horizon: Zero Dawn, it’s hard to be positive other than to say that even a broken clock is right twice a day, and sometimes the blank stares of the characters evoke an accidental thoughtfulness that fits the moment.īioware has an almost unparalleled reputation for strong writing, and some of that quality has made its way into Andromeda, but there’s also a surprising amount of dialogue that fails to hit the mark. Bioware has always struggled a little with eyes, and that’s no different here, but rigid faces and blank expressions also work to undo much of the emotion delivered in the script. Funny walking wasn’t a problem during our playthrough, but we can’t deny that some of the facial animations are shockingly poor at times, often undermining the conversations they’re supposed to enhance. We’ve seen people sharing Ministry of Silly Walks-style gameplay clips, and others mocking the painfully awkward facial animations.

Much has been made of Andromeda’s technical faults. It’s going to be divisive, make no mistake, and while most will be able to forgive its many idiosyncrasies and enjoy the adventure that lies within, others will bounce off the limitations of a game that already feels as old as Mass Effect 3. There are a lot of factors at play here, and despite (perhaps also because of) the series’ heritage, Mass Effect: Andromeda has ended up a sprawling, glorious, terrible, engrossing mess of a game that does plenty right as well as a few things wrong. The latest tech news, global tech news daily, tech news today, startups, usa tech, asia tech, china tech, eu tech, global tech, in-depth electronics reviews, 24h tech news, 24h tech news, top mobile apps, tech news daily, gaming hardware, big tech news, useful technology tips, expert interviews, reporting on the business of technology, venture capital funding, programing language
