Alright. Lets do this. I think I stopped updating for some reason last year.
1.
Mass Effect Andromeda
EA/Bioware
44 hours played
6/10
There have been much controversy surrounding Biowares new entry into the critically acclaimed Mass Effect series, Mass Effect Andromeda. I mostly tried to ignore it and didnt watch any of the reviews, previews, or the mountains on gifs that showed off the game in a pretty negative light as I wanted to give the game a fair chance and didnt want my opinion spoiled or influenced by the negative press it was receiving. Being a huge mass effect fan and playing through all of them multiple times with different characters, I had high expectations for the game only to be massively disappointed in what the game ended up being.
MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD
My biggest issue with the game is Ryder. No, not the weird facial animations, or the subpar writing, or quests. It was Ryder. My main issue with Ryder was that it was Ryders story, not mine so I couldn't mold their backstory into whatever I wanted. While disappointing, I can still find ways to role play as long as the protagonist's story is good and compelling. The issue is Ryders story is boring and not worth seeing through. Basically, Ryders story is they thought your mom is dead but she isnt, your dad and SAM freezed her in cryo stasis and came to Andromedia to hopefully find a cure. I have three problems with this. One, why would Alec Ryder keep this from his kids? I either have to believe that he is a shitty dad who has no bond with his own children or that or there is something that keeps him from telling them but thats never explained in game so I guess we are stuck with option one. Alec Ryder is a shitty dad who was willing to let his kids say goodbye to their dying mother but for some reason wasnt willing to tell them why he wanted to go to Andromedia, to save their mother in frozen cryo stasis. So for most of the game, Ryder is in Andromedia for no reason really. You get asked and all you can say is either I like adventure, I like science or my shitty dad made me come. These are some seriously shitty reasons to travel 2 million miles away from home with no way to get back. So Ryders motivations make no sense for being in Andromeda and I cant role play a reason because its Ryders story instead of being a blank slate like Sheppard was where I could create a backstory for them to justify the reason. You also cannot be an asshole in this game. You can try but you just sound like you're being sarcastic most of the time instead of being an asshole. Basically, its an rpg with no role playing options available to the player. It makes playing the game a lot less fun since this is supposed to be an rpg.
The story in the game is actually decent I thought. Some of the main missions are actually pretty good especially some of the main ones where you go to meridian. The issue is, there really arent a lot of main missions. Theres only like 10 main missions making the game feel really short if you main line it. My two issues with the story is the villain who really wasnt all that scary and the last mission you dont even get to fight him. Its basically a horde mode where you dont fight him. You go to three areas, hit three buttons and defend and then he dies. Wow, great boss fight Bioware. If you're going to build him up as this threat, at least let us fight him. This push three buttons and he dies stuff is lame as hell.
Somehow the UI is worse than it's ever been in a bioware game. They have always been pretty bad in the Mass Effect games but in this game, its just terrible. Your quests are separated for some reason meaning that you have to go through each and every section to check and see what the quest is instead of it just being there on one screen. I just dont understand why its put together in such a shitty way. I mean, they could have made it so all of your quests are in one place and then you can click on them to either get more info or track them. But in ME:A you have to constantly go back and forth between screens in your journal constantly. Its infuriating. The R&D UI is just impossible to sort through because you pick up stuff that is useless but theres no way to get rid of it. You cant sell it, you cant break it down so it justs sits there and as you get more stuff, the list just gets longer and longer and theres nothing you can do about it. It's just a total mess and not fun to sort through.
LIke I said, the main quests I do think are good, but these side quests are just like the side quests in Dragon Age: Inquisition that were complained about endlessly. There are just mmo quests that have no value. They are just there to fill time. Some people who defend these quests will just say, just skip them. But what they dont understand is, that is a waste of resources. Someone took hours to write and design these quests regardless of how shitty they are. People spent a serious amount of time designing it only for it to be called trash and skippable. How would you feel if someone called your work trash or easily skippable? I propose instead of putting these crappy quests in the game, make the content that is in the game better. The game could use a better UI, more main quests, better animation quality, etc instead of these quests. That is the point. Just because you make an open world, doesnt mean you have to fill it with useless quests that add nothing to the game other than to fill time. The standards for open world quest design has been raised and having quests like this in game isnt acceptable anymore. I did find some most of the loyalty missions to be good though I was annoyed by Phebees mission with constantly jumping around from world to world for one damn thing. God, so annoying.
I thought the squad members were ok Drack was awesome, liked Cora, thought Phebee was annoying, and rest were kind of forgettable.
The worlds, similar to Inquisition, were kind of barren. Not saying there werent things on them but you would mostly drive and see nothing and then every once and awhile youd see a group of enemies or some mining deposits and that was it. The worlds just feel a bit lifeless.
The combat is better except for the fact that you cant control your teammates. That is the staple of Mass Effects combat and here its been taken away so you cant set up combos as effectively. So basically the only combos you can count on are your own which sucks. Also I think they may have nerfed the explosions of the combos. The explosions just dont seem to do enough or at least they dont do nearly as much as they did it ME3. That was the best thing about ME3. You could make a power build and not even use a pistol and be fine but I dont think you can do that in ME:A. I guess the guns make up for it but it was more fun to just blow up a bunch of enemies in ME3. The auto stick to cover is garbage. I think its gotten me killed more than helped me since the game decides what is cover and what isnt and sometimes Ryder will be standing up and get shot up because the game doesnt think that this rock or building is cover and Ryder wont stick to it. I know people have praised the combat and while it is fun, I think it takes a step back for me because of not being able to control teammates abilities, the auto cover, and the explosions doing like no damage now.
Finally, I think SAM is just way too powerful. He just does everything for Ryder. Because hes so useful, it kind of makes the rest of his team kind of useless. He is also kind of annoying when you are out in the world and he's like Temperatures at normal levels pathfinder, Temperatures dropping pathfinder, You can mine this area for resources pathfinder, You have email pathfinder. Like seriously would you shut the hell up? I dont need him to tell me these things every two seconds. Its seriously annoying. There were also some odds things like who killed Jien Garson and the benefactor was were never explained. They were just dropped for no reason. Hopefully that will be explained when the dlc comes out because that was honestly the most interesting thing about the story and it goes nowhere.
I think there is a good game in here somewhere but it probably needed at least another year to fix everything and then it wouldve been a good game. I think right now, its a game you kind of forget about because it has so many issues.
2.
Dark Souls 3 DLC: The Ringed City
From Software
6 hours
8/10
The bosses are fantastic generally (though I'm not fond of the old monk fight because its basically a gank fight which is annoying) and save the dlc for me or else I would think probably not like this dlc at all. Really hated the enemies designs like the angel with his machine gun laser and the swamp area where there like 4 or 5 knights and 4 or 5 big dudes all in the same area. I just run past them all because its not worth it to fight them. And two swamp areas ,and the dude who summons a bunch of archers at the ringed city to begin with and then he does it again in the swamp. Not of that was fun, just frustrating and annoying. There were some cool moments like fighting the dragonslayer armor and getting the set and patches but the boss fights really shine for me. Geal is probably one of my favorite fights in the series now. The bosses take what was probably a 6/10 for me to a 8/10 for me.
3.
Prototype 2
Radical Entertainment/Activision
PS3
15 hours
6/10
Man this game is fun as hell when you do dont actually do any of the story missions. Just running around and using your abilities is super fun. You feel like an unkillable machine. Unfortunately, this game makes you go through the story some of the most boring and laziest mission design I seen in a game. Like they are literally 3 or 4 different mission types and they are just repeated over and over again. Its always sneak into base, eat a scientist or soldier, steal some shit, and leave the base. Or its eat a dude and do an escort mission, or eat a dude and tail someone. Its just so goddamn boring and repetitive. The story was just a giant mess. I couldve sworn Mercer was the good guy from Prototype 1 but now hes the bad guy in Prototype 2? How?And why is he totally different? Didnt he try and save humanity buy sacrificing himself but now he wants to end humanity? His heel turn really makes no sense. You play as James Heller, who is basically a dumb soldier dude who gets infected by Mercer and now your goal is to basically kill Mercer because the virus he unleashed killed your wife and daughter. I mean, what kind of plot is that? Kill Mercer is the plot and thats exactly what happens. No twists or anything. I guess Heller comes off ok here but hes so one note in everything. His response to everything is to just kill them and hes CONSTANTLY YELLING. Like seriously, if you wanted us to like him, why would you make him so annoying with HIS CONSTANT YELLING ABOUT RIPPING PEOPLES HEADS OFF FOR SCREWING HIM OVER. He really just becomes annoying to listen to after a while.
The gameplay is fun as hell though. The abilities are really fun to use. My favorite is probably bio bomb. You just grab a dude and throw him into a crowd and he does a massive explosion. I think thats probably my takeaway from the game, the story gets in the way of having fun with the game because they really dont let you use your abilities in missions all that much. Near the end of the game, a lot of the missions you were in helicopters or tanks and defending someone. Like, why take away the funniest part of the game and put me in a damn tank or helicopter? Anyway, fun to mess around in the world with all of the powers really wish the story had any semblance of cohesion.
4.
Far Cry 4
Ubisoft
PS4
20 hours
7/10
Far Cry 4 is kind of a strange game in a lot of ways. The story is kind of a mess. It tries to set up these choices but they also don't really matter in the end because it always will end the same. Its just a matter of who you want have rule the country. I think they should've given us the option of letting you become king of Kyrat. All these people in the game are assholes making the choices mean fuck all anyway and the country is fucked, so why not let the son of Mohan Ghale take over?
Gameplay wise, its basically Far Cry 3 tho it was pretty fun running around with a launcher as a sidearm. Really feel like something has to change with the formula. Its gets stale and repetitive after a while. Hopefully Far Cry 5 takes some of this stuff out because honestly most of the stuff you do in the game is busy work put it to pad out the game. Just give me my 4 weapon slots early so I can be only my way instead of running around looking for bears to kill.