I played a shitload of Mass Effect: Andromeda over the weekend. The game has really sunk its hooks into me. For me, the planet of Kadara was a real turning point. Everything prior to that was cool, and I was really digging the 'explorer' vibe, but Kadara is where I really got into the story, and where I really started to like my companions. I'm now about 60 hours into the game, and a little less than halfway to completion.
I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but reading Nexus Uprising has added a lot of cool background information to my experience. If you've played MEA at all, you can gather from the title what it's about.
Really, I'm having a harder time than ever with the critical abuse that this game has taken. I'm not gonna expound on why people act like hateful lemmings, but let me explain how you should approach this game.
One, it's a new games that takes place in the Mass Effect universe. A lot of mechanics, weapons, species, and more will seem familiar. However, it is NOT ME4, in any sense. It has a 'feel' that is vastly different from the other three games, and story-wise, it's a clean break that references back to ME1 and ME2 a little bit.
Just go into it loving the universe, but not expecting more of what you know, and you'll fall in love. I really feel, strongly, that this was a great move for the franchise, and I really wanna see more in Andromeda.
As always, Torment is what I'm hitting a bit each week, and it'll shift back to being my 'main' game once MEA wraps up. Torment is a hell of a game.
Meanwhile, I've been on two betas. One was Dawn of War III, which I sniffed at briefly, but just never made time for because of MEA. The other, I can't talk about at all because of an NDA, but I'm enjoying the hell out of it.
PRE3
We're in the last seven weeks before E3. It's getting so close, I can start to feel the hum of excitement coursing throughout the gaming world.
Typically, leading up to E3, I set some gaming goals for myself. Nothing really hardcore or crazy, just for fun, and to nudge me a bit to clear my pile of shame somewhat.
This year, we're targeting Mass Effect: Andromeda, Torment: Tides of Numenera, and the Elder Scrolls Online campaign, which I've been sitting on the end of for over a month now.
What's tough is that between now and E3, we're seeing Dawn of War III drop this week, Prey next week, and Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind on 6/6.
And I haven't even mentioned the PS4 games I still haven't finished.
The pile of shame is going to swell, and then hopefully, the summer sees a drought of releases. 2017 has been nuts in terms of releases.
Oh shit, I also accidentally bought Ghost Recon: Wildlands! Don't ask! But it's really fun!
Beyond that, I'm going through the joyful exercise of slowly building my E3 week. Every day, I scour the internet for more dates and times and anything that might add to the week. I build quite an experience for myself every year, and this year shall be no different.
So far, we know about EA, Microsoft, and Bethesda's pressers. We're still waiting to hear from Ubisoft, Sony, and maybe PC Gamer. I hope they do another PC Gamer Show at E3. I've really enjoyed those.
It'd be interesting to see someone else push their way onto the scene. Squenix has done PRE3 pressers on occasion. Acitivision or Blizzard would be interesting.
What's been getting harder each E3 is the fact that EA owns BioWare, and EA's presser is worse and worse every year, and they just haven't leveraged BioWare well in a long time. This year will be interesting, since we're going to see a new IP from BioWare.
What I'm expecting, though, is that Andrew Wilson will come out, lead off with two minutes of a shooter that everyone but me wants, then talk about BioWare for maybe 90 seconds, and then we go into 90min of fucking soccer.
I hope not.
I'll do a full EA preview when we get closer to the actual event.
What about you? You hyped for E3? What do you wanna see?
-Blaine
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