And, yes, I noticed the lady from Expanse immediately in Tali’s trial mission. Shohreh Aghdashloo.
Her voice is amazing and immediately recognizable. I also recognized Saul Tigh from Battlestar as Captain Bailey over on Omega.
I am playing the DLC Overlord right now and it is laborious and annoying. You spend a huge amount of time flying a hovercraft/ship around. No proper direction where to go; I’m just stumbling along trying to keep moving forward without any confidence.
Yeah, Overlord is a bit of a slog. I guess it was thrown in for people who missed the vehicle combat from the first game, but it honestly feels like a drop in quality.
I thought they were joking when I started it and the Mako-Plane showed up.
That one is much better after the stupid hammerhead section
I just want to play nearly all of these games, so I am trying to play the DLC. I did another one way back at the beginning of Mass Effect 2. It was only the hammerhead and I had to collect information around a little map by hovering over it. It was like the world’s cheapest little add-on, but it did gather some easy XP and cash for doing almost nothing.
It was the Firewalker DLC.
I have a strong(in my opinion) amount of elements/minerals and a decent chunk of change. I am hoping some of this crosses over into Mass Effect 3.
Yeah, firewalled is godawful. No idea why that’s even in the game
Is it not where Zaeed comes from? It’s only been 20 hours of gameplay, but I’ll ask.
How did Zaeed get on my ship? Did I just get him? I got Kasumi by doing her DLC, which was the heist mission. Zaeed has just…always been down in one of the cargo holds?
I did his loyalty mission, but how did he join the Normandy crew?
I’m enjoying these games(especially 2) so much…dark I ask…how was Mass Effect Andromeda? I believe I heard it was a massive disappointment?
No, Zaeed is just there when you go to Omega for the first time and you automatically talk to him
How’d you acquit Tali? Since she was happy about the outcome, I can only assume you didn’t tell the truth about her father. She wouldn’t be loyal if that were the case. Did you yell at the Admiralty Board? Did you hug Tali when she found her father dead on the Alarei?
Are you staying true to your ME1 romance with Liara, or are you exploring other options in ME2? Have you done Liara’s DLC mission yet? That one is definitely worth doing. I never did get “Overlord”.
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I acquitted Tali with Paragon choices, I would say. Yes, there was a hug or I put my arm on hers when we found her father. I did NOT present the evidence as she specifically asked not to. I don’t remember yelling, but I do remember using the blue-paragon-choices and then it kind of suddenly went to their decision. I was worried they would convict or exile, but they released her. So, she was released and loyal.
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Staying true to Liara. I speak to everyone all the time, but haven’t really seen a lot of romance options. It may be that I am steering the conversations away, though. I have Shadow Broker, the Liara DLC mission, but have not yet done it. It is on my to-do list.
It definitely felt like a big step backwards in some respects. Remember in Mass Effect 1 when you would spend a bunch of time driving around from one mission location to another? And how a bunch of the side missions took place in the same two or three generic-looking buildings (i.e. re-used art assets)?
My main complaint was that combat seemed repetitive; so many of your fights would be in a generic outdoor location with a clump of Geth-like enemies, or a clump of Collector-like enemies, or a clump of bandits, or maybe some wildlife (repeat x100). The story was nothing to write home about, either.
I’d say Andromeda is still worth playing because the gameplay is fun, but I’ll admit the story is mediocre and a bit of a retread, most of the Big Important Choices it asks you to make don’t really seem to have any impact, and quite a few major mysteries just get left unanswered as Bioware isn’t likely to revisit that setting any time soon.
The problem with Andromeda is that the writing is bad, the characters are uninteresting and the story makes no sense. So enjoy!
Andromeda was kneecapped by EA in development, speedmarched to a premature and very buggy release. But even without that, it was never going to be good. It has a clever initial concept (an ark ship to another galaxy, with a story launch point midway through the original trilogy) that allows them to build on the aesthetics and lore of the established world without tying themselves to a highly variable game state. But after that jump-off point, they make every single bad decision possible.
The gameplay is generally fun, fast paced and action packed, but it also gets repetitive quickly, and the no-strategic-pause mechanic is a big divergence from classic ME. And some of the planetary environments are well done and interesting to explore.
Those are the only nice things I can say.
The most crippling problem with Andromeda, in my opinion, is the static nature of the central story. Everything with the Remnant has already happened and is done when you get there. You’re uncovering a mysterious explanation for a dead world after the fact. There’s no urgency, no engagement. It’s like walking around a museum pushing buttons to hear pre-recorded narratives on the various exhibits.
The urgency, such as it is, comes in the other stories they layer on top, simply to give you something to do. And some of this stuff is actually okay. But as others have noted, none of these stories complete, or pay off in any meaningful way. It’s all setup, with further development deferred to sequels we’ll never get.
The best distillation of the game’s fundamental misconstruction, I believe, comes in a side quest that pops up somewhere around the 60% mark. Your ship’s doctor calls and says there’s something weird about your fellow ark-ship colonists. They were selected and screened for their compatibility with this kind of mission, so it’s odd they’ve all gone rogue, abandoning the initiative to create their own independent (and mutually hostile) settlements. She asks you to scan them, and you discover that six hundred years of ark sleep has produced a low-grade psychosis in many of them. They’re not bad guys; they’re just sick, and maybe their mental health can be restored. You thank her for the insight, relay your findings to leadership, and then go back to shooting them without concern or consequence. It’s maddening.
Anyway.
Back to Overlord: Yeah, the opening vehicle section is super, super clunky. But after that, it gets better in a hurry, and closes with one of the most memorable story beats in all ME. So stick with it for a payoff.
Which of the weapon upgrades did you pick? I always go with the Widow - I find sniper rifles to be a lot better balanced in ME2 and ME3 than in ME1, and the Widow can potentially take Harbinger down in one hit with a headshot and the right buffs applied.
I don’t even know how to abandon a mission once you are in it. Is that even possible in something like this? Either way, I will continue to the end.
I switch primarily between assault rifle(I have the Collector one that the DLC/Legendary gives you), Assault Shotgun, and occasionally a sniper rifle or heavy weapon.
I took the Assault Rifle upgrade/training. The weapon it came with was less good than the Collector one I use, but I think it increased my damage capability in that skill?
“Hey…I loved that tank!”
I just finished it. I obviously let David go. It was definitely a DLC, but the end section was really good.
I’ll probably go help Liara now.