A Veritable Pile of Andromeda News

As the March 21st release date for Mass Effect:  Andromeda inches closer to reality, more and more information is becoming available.  This week seemed like a treasure trove as there was another Andromeda Initiative briefing released, a new gameplay video, and the system requirements were finally announced.  I also read a few pieces about early previews and for the most part they seemed positive.

Let's break it down!

Andromeda Initiative--Part 5 of 6--"Weapons and Biotics" Video

1.) Four classes of weapons will be available.  Pistols, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and shotguns.  It looks like submachine guns have gone the way of the dodo.  There is specific mention of being able to add mods to each weapon in the field to make it unique.  The video details "laser shells" as being an upgrade for the shotgun and an electrical field that can be added to the assault rifle.

The "over the shoulder" third person combat looks comfortingly familiar, but I noticed that the assault rifle in particular looks to have more recoil than in previous games.  I don't know if that was caused by the installed mod, or if the rifle is intended to act more naturally.  I am also a little weirded out by the fact that the character in the video is aiming with their left-side.  Is that going to be something we can choose?  Is it finally time for left-handers to get their due?  As a righty, it makes me feel kind of....off.

2.) Biotic abilities look like a mix of older abilities and some newer ones.  I think this could be a good thing as I always found some of them to be awkward when not used in combination with other abilities--pull in particular.  Biotic charge, biotic punch (I don't remember what this one is called), singularity (woot woot! Finally get that as a player ability!), throw, and pull are all featured.  I wasn't sure which ability was featured in the combo part of it--that one looked new.

3.) Tech abilities also look largely unchanged, but they do perform slightly different than in previous games.  Rather than flinging a weird targeted disc of fire or ice at a target, you now channel it in a stream in front of your character.  This is going to necessitate a much more up close and personal style of play.  The cloaking ability looks very similar to previous games and will be handy for sneaky/snipey kinds of characters.  The ability to drop a turret will be a nice way to take some heat off of your character.

4.) Jump jets!  Personally, I am very excited about this addition.  We've never had the ability to jump before in Mass Effect and it could lend itself to a less horizontal style of play.  In one early preview I read (here) the reviewer said that for him the most difficult part to get used to was the movement.  It's much more fluid and even something as simple as jumping takes some getting used to.

After watching the gameplay video about combat, I didn't feel like this briefing added anything that wasn't already detailed.  I will gladly check it off of my free helmet list though.

Gameplay Video--"Combat Profiles and Squads"

1.) You can pick any combination of talents you want and aren't limited by a standard "class" specification.  Beyond that you can also pick a "Combat Profile" which does seem like the more traditional class system.  In a way it is nudging you toward certain playstyles but the "Explorer" profile lets you gain bonuses for all three trees--combat, tech, and biotics.  The bonuses looked much smaller than if you simply focused on one set of talents.  I'm a little confused by this system as it seems to say "pick what you want" while simultaneously saying "one focus is better."

2.) You can customize "favorite" abilities and swap combat profiles at any time.  This type of adaptability to situation is amazing and could make for some really fun play.

3.) There's finally some mention of your squadmates and their abilities!  I've really been wondering about this as there has been very little talk about their role.  It still appears as if players will have the ability to issue commands and set up combos.  I noticed that issuing commands appeared much quicker and more fluid than in the previous games.

System Requirements

Andromeda looks amazing and it's going to take a decent PC to run it at recommended settings.  Here they are:  (source)

Minimum:

OS: 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core i5 3570 or AMD FX-6350
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Video Card: Nvidia GTX 660 2GB, AMD Radeon 7850 2GB
Hard Drive: At least 55 GB of free space
DirectX: DirectX 11

Recommended:

OS: 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core i7-4790 or AMD FX-8350
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Video Card: NVIDIA GTX 1060 3GB, AMD RX 480 4GB
Hard Drive: At least 55 GB of free space
DirectX: DirectX 11

Are you cheering or jeering?  I'm happy because I was a little worried that my 2-3 year old PC might not make the cut, but I think I will be alright.  I probably won't be running it at max settings or anything.

That's the round up of Andromeda news for this week.  Enjoy!

The Sad Story of Crashville

Mass Effect:  Andromeda news has occupied a large portion of my time and thoughts lately.  I feel guilty about dedicating too much time to it--I just can't wait!!!!  (P.S. I haven't pre-ordered and deserve a medal for self-control and following the "don't pre-order" principle) Enough about that.  After finishing a marathon game of Dragon Age:  Inquisition I decided it was time to return to one of my more recent favorites--RimWorld.  (I've written about RimWorld before right here....give it a read if you aren't sure what I'm talking about) Since my many catastrophic attempts to defeat permadeath mode, RimWorld has undergone some significant updates.

Those updates include adding a spherical globe that, I suppose, is slightly more realistic (you still have to settle on one landing area).  Probably the most significant part of the update is the ability to form caravans.  You can designate a group of survivors, supply them, and then designate a destination.  This feature alone makes the world seem much larger than the small square your colony occupies.

For this go round I decided that I would play what I consider to be the most difficult of the pre-made scenarios.  I picked the option to start with a group of five survivors at the tribal level (on challenging difficulty with Cassandra Classic as the storyteller).  It's nice to have a few extra people in your camp to start with, but having your tech level be at the neolithic level is a little brutal.  The amount of time to research anything takes significantly longer.  This is especially true when you get to the higher tiers of research.  Gathering food and keeping it fresh is also more complicated as the lack of refrigeration makes stockpiling much more difficult.  Producing tons and tons of pemmican takes up a large amount of space and requires gathering both meat and plant matter.

Once I had the food situation somewhat under control a new set of problems arose--every single attacking faction outclassed the technology of my group.  My ragtag group of survivors wielded spears, knives, bows, and one pila.  Here's where I admit to the decision to allow some light to heavy save scumming.  Yes, I saved!  And I loaded!  And sometimes I reloaded!  There...that is out in the open.  It felt somewhat justified since I picked a more difficult scenario.

Lots of happy couples in this playthrough.  Do it for the mood boosts.

Managing to survive a few random attacks (and a few reloads.....) my colony finally seemed to be thriving.  I noticed a few major differences from the permadeath parade.  Firstly, I seemed to get a large amount of cargo pods.  It felt like every few days yielded some new swag from the heavens.  Secondly, permadeath seems to really try to kill you.  I had some really difficult random events--one that included radioactive fallout that slowly poisoned and killed everything on the map and another where a volcano erupted and the amount of sunlight that reached the planet was significantly reduced.  I didn't encounter anything that crazy this time.  Oddly enough I also had a very high number of colonist marriages (and, as a first, one divorce).  Marriages are the best for many reasons--each marriage is a happy occasion that involves a party and a long lasting mood boost.  Married colonists enjoy a more positive mood and can receive a boost when there's "lovin'" involved.  The high rate of coupling might have also been caused by the fact that my colony became quite large with eleven colonists.  I usually like to keep it around 6-8, but learned quickly that now, if you rescue someone from a downed escape pod they will automatically join your group.

Eventually I made it to the point where I could begin researching and building the coveted ship.  This was made even more difficult by the fact that I had picked a map that had a very limited number of components but fortunately had a large amount of steel.  My villagers mined a veritable boatload of steel and then crafted it into components (aided by a few crashed cargo pods with components inside).  Research takes so long at the neolithic level that I had time to completely mine the entire map and begin the laborious process of gearing up my colonists by building weapons and armor.  There was still a copious amount of downtime....so much so that I actually thought about scrapping the whole thing.  This was further complicated by the fact that I didn't realize that you now need uranium to build ship cryptosleep capsules and the reactor.  Uranium is exceedingly scarce and I completely forgot that it could be mined with deep drilling.  Once I had Googled the lack of uranium and had the epiphany that I could deep mine it.....sheesh, did I feel dumb.

The colony of Crashville managed to escape from one of the most painful scenarios that I have played.  My next goal is to conquer permadeath.  It's going to happen.....hopefully.  I thoroughly enjoy RimWorld but there are still a number of small things that irritate me (remember that it is early access).  My biggest irritation comes from the inability to assign colonists to stack items--stockpiles are frequently overflowing due to the fact that items often get strewn about at random in small stacks. I really wish they would assign a task for organizing or some sort of organizational personality trait or skill.

I attempted to form a caravan but quickly discovered that the nearest colony was twelve days away.  The amount of food to supply a three person caravan (sure, I could make a smaller one, but what if they got attacked?) for twelve days is absolutely insane.  Starvation seemed to be in the cards for these poor souls so I cancelled the caravan.  There needs to be an easier way to choose routes and specify the amount of food that a specific route would take.

Oddly enough, if you are completely mining out a mass of rock you can suffer from "roof collapses" that can crush your colonists to death.  I don't know if I'm missing something obvious, but this seems a little nuts since there really isn't a way to destroy the "roof" on rocks.  It would be nice if this was remedied.

I plan on returning to RimWorld and dooming another group of unfortunate colonists in the dance of permadeath doom.

Being Combative

Today a new trailer detailing the combat in the upcoming and highly anticipated Mass Effect:  Andromeda made it's way onto the interweb.  There's ton's o' fighting and plenty of smaller details that serious fans will want to delve into.  Here is the video:

The beginning re-iterates the whole Andromeda mission but after about thirty seconds the good stuff starts.  There is plenty to dish about and I like to make lists so I'm going with that.

1.) Combat fluidity.  I have noticed from this video and from an earlier one that combat looks much more focused and less interrupted.  There hasn't been any sign of pausing to issue commands or switch weapons.  When I look at the UI it seems like you still have the ability to command your followers--there are two buttons with little faces on them that have to be for your squadmates.  This fluidity could be a welcome change from repeatedly mashing the spacebar to set up different combinations.  One worry I have with this more focused system is that follower abilities will be considerably diminished and the whole idea of building a squad of complimentary powers is going to be less important.

In the previous games I always enjoyed configuring my squad for each situation.  Taking EDI and Tali on missions that were synthetically oriented or grabbing Liara and James to blast some reapers.  Are squadmates going to be important in combat or are they simply story elements?  I still don't feel like there has been any solid information about that.

2.) There's going to be less rolling around on the ground.  This is something that is thrilling as I always found the combat rolls and movement to be slightly jerky and odd.  The jump jet seems to make Ryder glide around and there's even the option to briefly hang in the air.  Shooting from above could provide a unique way to pick off enemies in cover.

3.) "A new dynamic cover system that allows you to use almost anything for cover."  Umm...like we all didn't secretly hide behind weird stuff in the previous games.  I would regularly park the Mako and dart back and forth behind it in Mass Effect.  The addition of a better cover system is welcome as it provides players with more freedom to operate and choose how they navigate different encounters.

4.) The oodles of weapons.  Not only do we get to choose from an almost traditional list of guns (did anyone else notice that submachine guns were missing from the list?  That's probably a good thing.) but we also get to choose melee weapons.  For the most part I try to avoid melee, but there are some classes where I could see having a sword or hammer equipped as being beneficial.  Biotic charge + a hammer swing or some stabbing action could be highly enjoyable.  My brief jaunts into the co-operative multiplayer of Mass Effect 3 usually saw me playing a Krogan biotic with biotic charge and crazy high melee skills.  It was so much fun to run around the map punching things to death!

5.) Guns, guns, guns!  Weapons now come in different classes and in a very wide variety.  I found it particularly interesting that one class of weapons uses the same overheating mechanic as in the original Mass Effect.  No ammo to collect...but shooting too much results in an overheated weapon and downtime for cooling.  Overheating was never one of my favorite mechanics but it does lend itself to the more futuristic/sci-fi aspect of weaponry.  The plasma based abilities of one of the classes means that you don't have to aim.  I can't say I am thrilled with that option--I like aiming and find it more accurate when I do it myself.

Another nice feature that is being added is that all weapons are available to all classes.  They seemed to really do away with the class specific loadouts in ME3 and I am glad that they are sticking to it.  I wonder if there will still be a weight limit or some sort of limitation on the number of weapons you can carry?  I'm guessing yes even though it wasn't directly referred to in the video.

6.) No class restrictions but open skill trees.  The ability to choose talents at will is very exciting.  It was always a little frustrating to be pigeonholed into a very specific set of talents.  I do wonder about the effectiveness of randomly picked abilities.  I have a feeling that even though there is the option of picking and choosing that sticking with a more specified class make up will be more effective.  I will admit that the possibility of creating your own combination abilities looks extremely fun.  There's one shot cryo abilities used in concert with biotic charge to set up a nice combo.

The skill trees themselves look fairly similar to those from the previous games.  The branching options from ME3 are still integrated into the talent system.  The biotic abilities do look significantly different--the part of the video where Ryder is lugging around the limp, captive body of an enemy soldier and then slams it into another group of soldiers is an interesting new twist on the old Pull ability.

There's just the right amount of new and familiar to make the combat of Andromeda look like a lot of fun.

Something Old, Something Hakkon, and Something New

My latest and longest trek back into Dragon Age:  Inquisition has come to an end.  Oddly, I felt a weird sense of relief but after playing through the Trespasser DLC I was also slightly confused.  I spent $20 to play through DLC that is over two years old, and for the most part I felt like it was well spent but was glad that I didn't pay the original full price for it.

The Jaws of Hakkon
This DLC adds a brand new zone to the Fereldan side of the map--the Frostback Basin.  Frostback Basin is a mix of the junglier biomes and some really janky geography.  There have been times where I've wanted a little more variety in my zones, but after trying to navigate the gaping chasms and narrow tree root natural bridges, I am not so sure.  Much of my time in the Frostback basin was spent trying to find things that were either at the bottom of gorges or on hillside cliffs.

Once you've grown accustomed to navigating the terrain you will get the opportunity to mix with some old friends.  In your earlier explorations of the Fallow Mire you encounter a group of Avvar who have captured some of your Inquisition soldiers.  The Frostback Basin contains two different groups of Avvar--the friendly group from Stone Bear Hold and the aggressive branch calling themselves the Jaws of Hakkon,

As you befriend the friendly Avvar at Stone Bear Hold you get an opportunity to learn more about their culture.  They like climbing cliffs, communing with spirits, fighting, and disposing of bodies by chucking them off of the aforementioned cliffs.  Befriending them is important because their trust must be gained in order for them to provide the valuable information used to located the remains of the first Inquisitor.

There are new astrariums and ocularum to discover and unlock as well as Tevinter ruins to explore.  The loot in Jaws of Hakkon is so-so.  If you have a thing for frost-based weapons you will enjoy many of the items.  I had played the The Descent before Jaws and the loot from it is slightly better.

Overall I'd give it a 7/10.  It stuck to the same formula as the other zones while introducing a new faction and some new but slightly annoying scenery.  The story wasn't anything fabulous but it kept me interested to see it through to the end.

One of the scenic vistas in Trespasser.

Trespasser
I didn't really know what to expect from Trespasser.  I expected some closure to the major cliffhanger at the end of the main storyline but didn't expect the story to play out anything like it did.  There was always something slightly weird about the story ending and then being back in Skyhold with nothing to do (but wait for future DLC--well played EA....well played).  It gets even weirder.

Trespasser starts two years after the events in the finale.  Corypheus is dead, you're a big hero, Solas is MIA to parts unknown, and the Inquisition is currently sitting around with no actual purpose.  A large, unoccupied military force is making the nobles in Orlais and Fereldan feel uncomfortable so they've decided to have a meeting to discuss the future of the Inquisition.  It's back to the Winter Palace for this episode.

At first I got a distinctly Citadel (the goofy final DLC from Mass Effect 3) feeling as I guided my Inquisitor character through discussions with squadmates who had been off living their own lives for the last two fictional years.  The discussions are light-hearted, silly and provide players with another opportunity to reconnect with past favorites.  There are some new features added in that some might find handy--a vendor that sells every herb, leather, cloth, or metal.  The prized "golden nug" which will sync up your collections across all playthroughs (for all the hardcore completionists out there who want to finish everything) is a nice addition.

The main storyline sees the Inquisitor trying to unravel a plot by the Qunari (who we haven't heard much about since Kirkwall) to attack the Winter Palace.  Wading through piles and piles of Qunari eventually leads to long chases through various eluvians and their locations around Thedas (and possibly the Fade...but it was confusing).  As the story unravels you learn some astonishing factoids about elves, the Veil, Fen'Harel, and the Qunari plot itself.  I won't spoiler it here, but it's not at all what I expected.  It also leaves the door wide open for speculation as to the setting and possible storyline in the next chapter of Dragon Age.

If you're really into the vagaries of random plot points you will enjoy Tresspasser.  I was expecting something considerably elfier with Morrigan guiding me through eluvians and the odd world of the crossroads.  Loot-wise there are some interesting items including a 4 piece set with stacking bonuses that actually looks badass (Sera was pretty decked out by the end and looked way more serious than at any other time in the game).  Like Jaws of Hakkon, Trespasser isn't anything fantastically new.  It does provide closure and give players a chance to re-visit all the characters that they love.  I would also call it a 7/10.

Phew!  It's been a long journey (I would estimate an additional 30 hours of DLC) and now my Inquisition can come to an end.

A New Nemesis and Some New Friends

My schedule has been a little hectic lately and I haven't had a lot of time to play much.  I'm still trekking through Dragon Age:  Inquisition and haven't completed any new DLC to write about.  Fortunately my unending obsession with Mass Effect and the upcoming Andromeda release means that there is plenty of non-playing material to analyze...like the recently released cinematic trailer #2.

If you've been keeping up with the Andromeda Initiative briefings then most of what is in this cinematic shouldn't be too surprising.  There's the ark ships which were detailed in one of the first briefings and the references to the "golden worlds" that are the main targets for exploration.  To me the most interesting and important part of this trailer is the looming presence of a dark alien force.  If you forward the video to about 42 seconds you hear a voice that seems very, very familiar but is coming from a different source.  My first reaction was "HARBINGER!"  Listen to it....do you not get a distinctly Reaper-esque feeling?  Could this new species with its "archon" be some sort of Reaper offshoot?  At 45 seconds you get a very brief look at the face of this alien.  It reminds me slightly of Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy.

The next shots show male Ryder rallying the troops to take on this new alien menace.  You see Peebee grabbing a gun and we get to hear Vetra ask Ryder if he's thinking of confronting them on his own.  Of course not!  Teamwork is one of the core principles of every Mass Effect game you silly Turian!

Ryder doesn't just tangle with the mysterious Reaper-voiced aliens, we also get to see him meet another species that looks much more friendly.  At about 1:05 there's a shot of a shuttle landing and Ryder approaching a group with hands up in a sign of peace.  We get a glimpse of some sort of squashy-headed, monocled alien leader.  They seem nice.

There has been very little mention of the mysterious Krogan team member that Ryder boasts about and who we see knocking the crap out of people.  Who is this Krogan?  Do the decisions about how to deal with the genophage relate at all to this character?  I am insanely curious and want some more details!

Most of the videos have been devoid of the more romance-y aspects of the game and there's a very brief exchange with Cora Harper.  Love it or hate it, the relationship aspect has been an integral part of the Mass Effect series.  According to this article relationships are going to be a lot different in Andromeda.  I'm interested to see how this new "more mature" relationship system plays out.

The video winds down with some intense scenes of Liam shooting at something and Peebee urging others to run.  Then there's the classic scene of the Tempest outrunning some sort of pursuing alien ship--the pulse pounding running for dear life aspect of Mass Effect is in full force to wrap up the video.

So what do you think?  Did this video leave you feeling excited or are you worried that there's a little too much that seems way too familiar?  I felt a mix of both emotions--I am intrigued by the new crew members and alien species but there's something about the "enemy" aliens that feels way too much like the Reapers.  There's a part of me that wants a very clear departure from the whole Reaper storyline but that could also understand if there was a connection.