Mass Effect: Nexus Uprising by Jason M Hough, KC Alexander

I wish I'd read Mass Effect: Nexus Uprising by Jason M Hough and KC Alexander before I played Mass Effect: Andromeda. It would in all likelihood have changed much about how I played the game and offered me a much better understanding of the dynamics between the different characters. Be that as it may, Uprising presents a lovely bit of backstory about the troubles that arises on the Nexus before our plucky human Pathfinder arrives.

Security Director Sloane Kelly has her hands full when she awakens out of her her cryopod to a critically damaged space station, thousands of light years from help and the home they've left behind. With life support systems failing, hydroponics all but destroyed, and food supplies running low, the survivors are dropped into a race against time to get things back online before the first arks arrive from the Milky Way.

Of course, things are not smooth sailing, and what Nexus Uprising does well is show how all good intentions can go horribly, horribly wrong as factions start working against each other in a desperate bid for survival in a hostile environment. Kelly finds herself in a difficult position, playing middle woman between the decision makers and the security and engineers who are trying to keep it all together. Sometimes the right decisions are not always the easiest, and this is how we discover why Kelly ends up where she does in-game. A hint: she's not all bad, like you might assume the first time you meet her on your play-through. I won't spoil.

As always, if I have to pick favourite, it's the krogans. I really hope we get to see more of them in the future. It's so tempting for me to eventually replay ME:A just so I don't make some of the terrible choices I did in-game the first time around. Especially knowing more of the backstory that I know now. Overall, Uprising is a slow-boil thriller with a devastating conclusion that sets the tone for what our Pathfinder discovers once they arrive. I suspect this story won't be to everyone's taste, but I loved the characterisation, the way that all the characters were portrayed as being morally grey. It's always so tempting to make someone the big bad, which none of them really are. 

If you're looking for a space survival SFF story stuffed with intrigue and machinations, this one may well tick the boxes. Perhaps not as fast-paced as some would expect, it nonetheless provides context for events in-game that make this a valuable addition for the lore it offers.

Mass Effect: Nexus Uprising was included in my Audible subscription and is wonderfully narrated by Fryda Wolff, who voices Sara Ryder in Mass Effect: Andromeda and is a well-known voice artist for the gaming industry.

Mass Effect Andromeda: Annihilation by Catherynne M Valente

Tie-in fiction can often be a little hit and miss, and from what I've read of BioWare's offerings that supplement the games has often left me feeling somewhat let down. But then, on the other hand, I love the lore, can spend hours picking it apart, so there is that. And it's for this reason that I'll dig into the supplementary content because let's be honest, who has time to game much these days. 

I will admit that Mass Effect Andromeda was my starting point with the ME games, which is possibly not the best place to dig into the franchise, but there we have it. And while MEA didn't hit me with a cosmic 2x4 the way Dragon Age Inquisition did, I still enjoyed the game, glitchy as it was. As a noob to the ME world, I will also admit that I didn't have an established context for half the details taken for granted by others.

There's a lot of potential for content in the ME games, and I vaguely recall that the two books that tie in with MEA were meant to supplement the main storyline – and in Annihilation by Catherynne M Valente, we discover the fate of the Quarian Ark, the Keelah Si'yah.

The plot is very much a case of 'let's make a list of anything that can and will go wrong on a space-faring vessel' ... and then some. And considering when the novel came out, it was, ahem, oddly prescient in investigating how people deal with a pandemic. Part 'whodunnit', part MacGuyver-style quest, our desperate team must battle against the spread of a deadly disease and lack of resources, all while a metaphorical clock is counting down. No one ever said colonisation was easy, and if you're 600 light years out from your home world, there are no do-overs. You must make do, instead.

This was my introduction to most of the races that I didn't get to meet in the game, and I particularly loved the elcor doctor Yorrik with a penchant for Shakespeare. I will also admit that I struggled to tell my drells apart from my voluses, so if you've not played any of the games, you may want to visit the Wiki before plunging into Annihilation. 

This was, to my knowledge, the first Catherynne M Valente book that I've read – and she's been on my radar awhile now, and I reckon she does a good job with this story. It's a bit slow-moving, I suspect, for some tastes, but I enjoyed the gradual unfolding and ramping up of tension. And ick, the pandemic theme was a little too close to the bone for me. Tom Taylorson does a bang-up job narrating, and I have no complaints there.

While this hasn't been the greatest hit I'm going to crow about in reviews, this was still an enjoyable read for someone who's wanting a better frame of reference for the ME universe. Alas, poor Yorrik. 

Mass Effect: Andromeda – final verdict

Okay, so this is a follow-up from my review for Mass Effect: Andromeda that I wrote here when I had a fit of pique about aspects of the game that annoyed the ever-living crap out of me.

I haven't really changed my opinion of the game, though granted my first play-through was for the story rather than gameplay. If you're looking for the impact that BioWare stories have that every raves about the earlier games, you're not going to feel it here. I ran with the Jaal romance on this play-through and though there'd been much anticipation about this before the game's release, I was underwhelmed to say the least. And I'm not sufficiently invested in the game to immediately play it afresh but with different romance options like I was with Dragon Age: Inquisition. That says something.

As friends of mine noted, the primary quest for ME:A doesn't take all that long, and it was mostly go to this location, take out a few consoles here, free these peeps, kill that dude, and then GTFO. I think because I was playing the game on casual setting, I missed out on pushing the combat system to its full capabilities, and should I have the time and motivation in the future, I'll most certainly take longer and focus on combat, crafting and technique, and play the game on a harder level ... and take my sweet time with it. Which means I'll probably not play through the entire game again by the time I get bored. Because, let's face it, there's a kind of monotony to every quest in ME:A. I heard folks bitching that Dragon Age: Inquisition was already bloated with fetch quests, but oddly enough they didn't bother me as much as they did in ME:A.

There was a huge lot of frothing about bugs and glitches about the game, and unfortunately my play-through had its fair share. Perhaps the most annoying was the times when saved games bombed the game upon a return between gaming sessions, and if it weren't for the earlier autosaves, I'd have lost entire chunks of gameplay. And yes, there was that bloody annoying permabroke issue with the Nomad. Okay, it's not totally a permabroke thing but for the love of fuck, get all your forwarding stations set up before you spend more time on Elaaden. Don't be like Nerine who needed that forwarding station and ended up trashing three hours of game play because there was no way for her to fix her fucking Nomad. Yes, that made me boiling mad.

What did I enjoy? Okay, once I got used to driving the Nomad vehicle, it was loads of fun. And I really, really enjoyed my Remnant-tech sniper rifle. In fact, should I decide to play this game again, I'm going to focus on building up Rem-tech research points and spend time crafting a sick armour and weapons set-up. There was something seriously satisfying in being out of visible distance and taking out all my enemies before they saw me. [Says she who'll most likely either play mage or archer in RPGs]

What's nice also is that you're not locked down to a character concept. Although I started out as a biotic but then upskilled with more sniping skills. My secondary weapon ended up being an Asari sword. My tactic ended up being sniping as many kills from a safe distance, then going in blasting with biotics and my sword, so that I ended up almost like some crazy-ass Jedi. That was loads of fun.

Team members I opted for eventually were Cora, because of her sick shield boosting, and Jaal because he ended up being real bad-ass back-up for my sniper Ryder. Vetra wasn't bad either, and Drack was perfect for when I needed a serious tank.

The lack of any real consequences to choices was the main issue for me with the story. What Dragon Age got *so* right was the emotional wringer they put me through. When I finished Trespasser I moped for weeks after, cursing a certain bald apostate hobo elf roundly. (I honestly felt as if I'd just been dumped.) And there was That Thing with A Certain Party Member that was a real consequence of action taken during the main game that hit me in the feels so hard I felt really, really horrid.

The only thing that made me feel horrid in ME:A was a decision I made that impacted Drack. Yet even that wasn't as heavy as Varric asking me "Where is Hawke?" during one of my DA:I play-throughs. (And the reason why I never ever leave Hawke in the Fade ever again because fuck I love Varric so much and I don't ever, ever want to do anything to make him cry.)

Can you see what the issue is here? There is none of that passionate "oh my god I love these characters so much I'magonna puke" I get with Dragon Age. I was fond of Drack. Jaal's voice reduced me to a slight quivering in my ladybits, and Cora was like a reboot of Cassandra, which is why I took her with me. Everywhere.

Yes, the terrains are lovely, but the wildlife, such as it was, was much of a muchness. The same fucking little bird critters flying around Elaaden are right there in Havarl. It's like BioWare didn't take much time to create enough variance in the eco-systems to give each planet enough of a stamp of individuality. Yes, they're still fun to roar through, and the fact that the environments start out toxic, makes some of the travel quite challenging, but it all started to feel the same but slightly different flavour. Oh, this planet is freezing, this one's radioactive, this one's got poisonous water...

The theme of a twin Ryder was kinda neat, but I feel from a story-telling side they could have done more with it. Though things did go pretty dire for my Scott Ryder, I never really felt that he was in any true danger, and was a bit disappointed that he couldn't play a more active role in the story. His involvement halfway through felt more like an afterthought than anything else.

Anyhoo, I didn't totally hate ME:A, and it's really not a bad game (and the environments are lush). The multiplayer was pretty fun too, but I am honestly not invested enough in the game to spend any more time on it than I already have. It has replay value but its repetitive nature and fetch quests can become stale quickly.

Mass Effect: Andromeda (update)

Right. I'm now 50% through Mass Effect Andromeda, and I've come to the sudden realisation that I've stopped caring about the game. None of the characters truly hit me in the feels – I honestly don't have that squishy, emotional mushiness I had with games like Brothers or Dragon Age. The much-vaunted romance frustrating. The gameplay is repetitive. I know I'm OCD, but there are only so many fetch quests I can stomach.

Sure, the maps are lovely, but after last night I feel as if the game is a chore. What nearly did my head in yesterday was the perma-broke glitch with the Nomad on Elaaden. Apparently there is a way to fix it, but then you need to have activated the northern-most forwarding station (which I hadn't). So, guess what? I lost 2 hours of gameplay going back to an earlier save where I still had a functioning Nomad. Fast travel didn't fix the fuck-up either. Nice one, BioWare. Nice one. [grumbles]

My overall conclusion about the game, after reading this article and having a good ponder about my own experiences thus far, is that it was doomed from the start due to multiple reasons, and the fact that it was rushed through to shipping with so may glitches, I just can't even. I'm going to give myself another weekend or two to finish the main quest, and then I'm done here.

I'm really disappointed, as ME:A has so much going for it, but it's cumbersome, badly put together (I mean, haring halfway around the galaxy on Yet Another Fetch Quest and then another ... and then another). BioWare bit off too much with this game, and it's a Frankenstruct of some really schwaai ideas that kinda lumber around making groaning noises while knocking over furniture.

Things going for it include the neat combat system, which was fun (and challenging). And I must thank ME:A for teaching me how to play a shooter, because I was horribly resistant to the idea of playing a shooter up until this point.

Next up on my plate will be Horizon Zero Dawn, however, sooner rather than later. I've been told that even though I still refuse to play Witcher 3, I MUST MUST MUST give Horizon Zero Dawn a chance. (And yes, I have a soft spot for archers, so this is likely.)

A thought on open-world gaming: There is a reason why Skyrim is such a timeless classic, despite there being a skeletal story (and it justifiably being called the "golf" of RPGs). It feels like a second world you can live in, where you can customise the kind of experience you want. As a world it feels cohesive. ME:A just feels ... sparse, hastily populated, where you never really feel as if the choices you make have any real impact on the final outcome. I know that a good RPG plays with the idea that you have the illusion of choice, but I felt with Dragon Age this illusion carried through a lot better, and the game just felt tighter. I'll happily play all the Dragon Age games again (and again). I'm just not sure whether I'll be returning to Mass Effect, even if it's to play the older games.