#suvi is a very interesting and well crafted character

[sneakyneighboururchin]

I know someone is doing a good job roleplaying a complicated character when their protrayal makes me want to strangle the character. Unrelated, I just started listening to Worlds Beyond Number.

[johnboothus]

How Drinks Producers Are Defining Craft Around the World

The global explosion of craft brewing and craft distilling has led to an unexpected literary micro-genre: writing that attempts to define just what is meant by the term “craft” when it comes to food and drink. While essays on the subject can be found all over the place, the most significant contribution to the category probably arrived last year with the publication of the book “Craft: An Argument” by the British beer writer Pete Brown, whose attempt to explain the pros and cons of the term craft covers some 200 pages.

Brown might have offered the deepest thinking on the meanings, advantages, and shortcomings of the word craft to date, at least in English; but around the world, speakers of dozens of different languages have been working through the same issues. As drinks makers and consumers everywhere promote the idea of craft production, the way they explain or express that concept has interesting connotations and connections — and, sometimes, unexpected difficulties.

It’s not easy to find the right equivalent for “craft beer” in Finnish, according to Suvi Sekkula, a journalist, service designer, beer lover, and the chair of Kieliasiantuntijat ry, a Finnish trade union for language and communications experts.

“The question is a tricky one in Finnish, as there is no strong consensus,” Sekkula says. Currently, she says, three competing terms are being used in her country: pienpanimo-olut, meaning “beer from a small brewery,” käsityöläisolut, or “beer made by a craftsperson,” and erikoisolut, which means “speciality beer.”

The problems? The first term only refers to brewery size, but not to the quality of the beer. The second term has a connotation of coming from a skilled producer, but it is not as widely used or understood as the first term. And the last term has been adulterated through its use by Finland’s state alcohol monopoly to describe any beer that is not a mass-produced lager, no matter the size of the producer or how good the beer might be.

“So, a lot of people see ‘erikoisolut’ as referring to craft beer, and that drives beer enthusiasts crazy,” Sekkula says. “I use ‘pienpanimo-olut’ as the equivalent of ‘craft beer’ myself. Someone more pedantic would use ‘käsityöläisolut.’”

In other languages, saying “craft beer” can be close to impossible, at this point being “too new” a phrase to have a local equivalent. Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela, a brewer and consultant at Brewsters Craft in South Africa, says that she wouldn’t even know how to express the idea of a craft beverage in a language like Xhosa or Zulu.

“The concept is not new — Africans have been hand-crafting various items for years,” she says. “The traditional beers here have different names, but they all mean beer. Like one is called ‘utywala besintu,’ because ‘utywala’ is beer and ‘besintu’ means for traditional people or natives. But craft beer? Craft beer is still a new term. I don’t think we have a word for it.”

Missy Begay, co-founder and creative director at five-year-old Bow & Arrow Brewing in Albuquerque, N.M., says there is also no clear way to say craft beer in the Diné (or Navajo) language, even if the Diné word for beer has a wonderful etymology of its own.

“The Diné language is generally very descriptive for modern items,” Begay says. “Beer is bizhéé’ hólóní. To a native speaker, the word bizhéé’ in literal translation means ‘with saliva.’ There is no distinction between craft beer and beer.”

(Those familiar with chicha may assume there is a connection here, but that isn’t the case: Begay says that in Diné, the word is used to describe liquid with carbonation or a liquid with “spit-like” character.)

In countries with a long brewing history, the idea of “craft” production can seem particularly modern — and often quite foreign. The German language might have bier, a word that sounds like (and which means the same as) beer in English, as well as kunst, the equivalent of the English word craft. But instead of making a new word out of those traditional roots, the updated Duden dictionary lists a typical German compound noun with a clear English origin: das craftbeer.

Across the border in the lager-loving Czech Republic, Czech brewers and beer lovers have taken a different approach, adopting the phrase řemeslné pivo, a term that evokes řemeslo, which includes traditional handicrafts like weaving and pottery. While it might have sounded weird to many Czech speakers when it first appeared a decade or so ago, it has more or less come into common use, with local producers like Volf, Lobkowicz, and Morava all using the term řemeslný pivovar, or “craft brewery,” to describe themselves in recent years.

Some languages have had an easier time, especially the Romance tongues. Italian, French, and Spanish speakers have used their equivalents of “artisanal” to come up with terms for modern craft beer — Wikipedia includes pages for birra artigianale, bière artisanale, and cerveza artesana, respectively — which tend to sound traditional and well established. Beer fans in other languages have had to come up with more newfangled constructions, many of which are less than 10 years old.

Rick Green, author of the book “How to Drink Beer in Mandarin: An English-Chinese Craft Beer Glossary,” notes the relatively recent origin of the contemporary Chinese term for craft beer, 精酿啤酒, or jīng niàng píjiǔ. Composed of recognizable linguistic roots, that term only spread after being suggested by Xiao Bian’r of the Beijing craft brewery NBeer in a widely shared article in 2012.

“Basically, it means ‘fine’ or ‘skilfully’ brewed beer,” Green says. “Older people unfamiliar with the term may be a little confused at first, but they would know it is some kind of beer.”

That term, he says, replaced a couple of earlier phrases for craft beer that didn’t stick, for various reasons.

“According to Rocky Wang, head brewer of Bravo Brewing in Guangzhou, craft beer was initially referred to as 自酿啤酒, or zìniàng píjiǔ, which means ‘self-brewed beer,’ as opposed to being made in a factory,” Green explains. “Also in the south of China, they called it 手工啤酒, or shǒugōng píjiǔ, meaning ‘handmade beer.’ But in the current term jīng niàng píjiǔ, jīng means ‘fine,’ ‘refined,’ or ‘excellent,’ as in fine wine. So in Chinese, it gives an impression of what we in English would think of when we use the term ‘craftsmanship.’ Even though 手工啤酒, or shǒugōng píjiǔ, is more of a literal translation to what we think of as ‘craft beer,’ that meaning doesn’t give craft beer a suitable status in people’s understanding. Rocky likened it to the food made by street food vendors — handmade and cheap.”

At Four Provinces Brewery in Dublin, Ireland, co-founder Feargal Chambers says that the relatively recent Irish term for craft beer, beoir cheirde, echoes the current rebirth of the Irish language itself.

“In Ireland, ‘beoir cheirde’ was something that I started hearing maybe eight years ago,” Chambers says. “I take it as meaning ‘something built with your hands.’ It’s a new term in the Irish language — before, we’d just have used beoir. The people who translate and add the new words to the dictionary are quite sharp, because there’s a growing Irish-language community in Ireland, and they’re very much trying to bring it into the 21st century so it becomes just as relevant as English.”

While many tongues still don’t have good equivalents for “craft beer” or “craft brewery,” the growing popularity of craft beverages means that those terms might be found in Diné, Zulu, and every other living language at some point soon. And who knows? Perhaps we’ll see new essays originating in those other languages arguing for and against “craft” and what it means.

After all, it’s a great topic to write about.

The article How Drinks Producers Are Defining ‘Craft’ Around the World appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/how-global-producers-define-craft/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/how-drinks-producers-are-defining-craft-around-the-world

[felassan]

Assorted Andromeda info 7

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [part 6] [part 8] [part 9] [additional scraps]

This one is cut for sheer length (sry in advance for that and the scrappy nature of the notes). Note that these “assorted info” posts are 95% summaries of information that mostly comes from developer tweets. As such they’re mostly about gameplay/mechanics/Q&A on those sorts of things as opposed to characters and story. There was a looot of new information given on characters and story in today’s press previews, but only things developers tweeted about or responded to in tweet format are covered here. You can therefore expect a few spoilers for that sort of stuff, but only things that devs tweeted/responded to in tweets.

Q. “Where did you, the developers & writers get your Andromeda Galaxy info from? Did you use real life resources or sc-fi? Any response on how much is fiction & nonfiction in terms of the Galaxy & planets used?” -> A. “there’s always been a lot of science worked into the franchise, but @macwalterslives or @tibermoon may have more specifics” & “Largely fictional, since there’s very little we actually know about Andromeda. But it’s been interesting to see some very recent new discoveries and how well they fit.” [x, x, x]

Q. “Hi there. On PC, can you map 4 favorites to different buttons, mouse buttons for example? Switching them without using pause.” -> A. “yep” [x]

Q. “Can you upgrade "perk" skills like Sentinel's Tech Armor?” -> A. “Not directly--you rank up the profile itself by investing more in the right skill groups. Invest in tech & biotic skills to unlock higher ranks of Sentinel, for instance. Each rank has a unique name and better stats.” [x, x]

Q. “the favorites is going to have any quick button to change with no pause (f1/f2 or something) or just in that menu shown?” -> A. “On console: radial only (need dpad for squad commands & scanner) On pc: radial or (mappable) hotkeys for quick access” [x]

The galaxy map music make’s Ian’s inner fanboy (of the trilogy) very happy [x]

You can no longer use squad powers, but you can still combo with them. It’s just more organic now [x]

Q. “What is the logic behind the loadout system and not allowing PC to have 8 hotkeyed abilities/powers like the original trilogy?” -> A. “Very different combat design, designed around fluid use of 3-power builds you can switch between. It opened doors to more responsive controls, more visibly present squadmates, more frequent powers, more varied power input (tap vs hold), and easier use of self-combos” [x, x, x]

Helmet toggle returns [x]

Some of the zones in the game were designed around driving the Nomad through them [x], but they’re not big for the sake of being big (DA:I drew some criticism for this) [x]

We already knew that it was possible to respec Ryder and squad, but it’s now confirmed that this option “lives” in the medbay as in previous games [x]

If I’m interpreting it right, we’ll have 8 ability slots on PC like in previous games [x]

Ian re-emphasized that there are no profiles in multiplayer as those are unique to Ryder [x]. MP = set classes as in ME3

As in previous games, carrying more weapons makes power cooldown times last longer, but it works a bit differently in this game [x]

While we can customize the colors of our casual outfit and armor, we cannot customize the colors of our guns, without modding that is [x]

There’s aim-assist on PS4 on easy difficulty (specific I know lol!) [x]

This character is confirmed to not be one Gil Brodie [x]

Gil Brodie is confirmed to be a human character [x]

We only explore sections of planets not whole planets. Exploring whole planets would have required the devs to make everything procedural instead of hand-crafted [x]

Flynn re-emphasized that Reyes is not a quarian [x]

Q. “Aaryn, please don't go breaking my heart like that. Let there be hope of Quarians” -> A. “Maybe just wait and play the game and see what happens” [x] -> Q. “But Reyes was our last Quarian hope” -> A. “Maybe you're the last hope for quarians. Did you ever think of that?” [x]

The face-sharing feature can be used for your sibling too [x]

Tech armor returns as a feature of the Sentinel profile [x]

The animators are reportedly still working hard on improved facial animations and lip-sync [x]. Also, A LOT more fixes and polish have gone in since the press build [x]

Q. “How responsive that skill favorites menu is? Can I just hold hotkey for it down for second and flick selection with mouse?” -> A. “It's pretty fast, but on pc you don't need the menu at all--you can hotkey the faves directly” [x]

Q. “Hey, with ME:A is it right to assume on PC (M+KB) will also have the 'Favourite' Mechanic and can we keybind them?” -> A. “yes and yes” [x]

The Explorer profile has its own perks [x]

There’s controller support on PC (in case anyone was worried) [x]

We already knew that there is no level cap; now we know that the highest rank you can reach in each profile is 6 [x]

In case it wasn’t clear from the second deep-dive gameplay vid, you can use skills from other “profiles” while using a different one [x]

I think the woman in this new screenshot is a multiplayer infiltrator kit [x]

6 confirmed as the number of squadmates [x]

You can stick to one skill type and be fine, though on the hardest difficulty modes some diversity can definitely help you out [x]

Q. “On PC, can you map 4 favorites to different buttons, mouse buttons for example? Switching them without using pause” -> A. “Yep” [x]

Each power has an individual cooldown time (unlike ME3), so you can do some pretty crazy combos [x]

Combat drones return as a skill [x]

Q. “I see a lot of Biotic goodness from everything we've seen, but I feel as though weapons have a secondary feel. Is that the case?” -> A.  “Depends on your playstyle. If you play as a soldier/combat oriented build, then weapons are very front and center.” [x]

Q. “any specific reason for the switch to auto-cover instead of snap to cover?” -> A. “Primarily because we wanted more fluid gameplay, and to solve the "I accidentally got stuck on cover and died, dammit!" problem.” [x]

On the Tempest squadmates all have favorite spots but they do move around, like real people [x]

As we saw in the second gameplay vid, there are 3 power slots at once, and you can use the Favorites system to swap between them (for up to 12 powers total) [x]. You can bind the weapon wheel, which contains the faves. And you can bind each of the 4 faves individually [x]

All squadmates have their own skill points, it is not collective [x]

The Andromeda Initiative hoodie that Ryder can wear in the game as one of their casual outfit options is available to purchase as one of the hoodies from the AI hoodie range in the BioWare store [x]

Q. “Can you assign the same profile to more than one favorite? I.E. 2 favorites, 2 sets of powers, both with the Adept profile?” -> A. “Yup. If you want to have four separate Adept favorites, that works just fine” [x]

There is banter in the Nomad [x]

If you aren’t able to reach platforms using the jump-jet, you can pull yourself up [x]

You get “something special” for sticking to one skill type [x]

EDIT: FIXED. Suvi was written by Sheryl Chee [x]

Courtney Woods wrote Dr. Lexi [x]

[3parts]

77 hours down in ME:A since... Friday? I think. I’ve been playing a lot, school holidays landed at exactly the right time.

Impressions under the cut.

I’ve got 100% on Veold and Eos, and finished the first visit to Havarl, and landed on Kadara for the first time last night. Only completed Liam’s loyalty mission. Slept with Liam and Peebee with no further interest in either, haven’t decided between Vetra and Jaal for my main squeeze. I still really want to kiss Drack, but in lieu I would like an extra party slot so I can take Vetra, Jaal and Drack with me everywhere because they are the BEST.

The game is...

Quite buggy. I notice this mostly in conversations. While facial animations can be awful, they’re not too frequent. More often I get shit like the camera cutting off half of Sara’s face because it was set at male PC height; conversations repeating, especially quest convos that don’t acknowledge the quest is done and sometimes that the PC and NPC are in a totally different area; subtitles coming up for conversations out of earshot and overriding the subtitles for a convo happening right next to me. I’ve had one instance of zooming into a conversation only for the NPC to not say anything and no buttons coming up for me, and no way to exit, leaving me having to force close the game, and as I recall a few people had that problem in DA:I. Also, I’m learning that while the game encourages exploring, you had better not explore an area important to a quest before you get that quest because the fucking game won’t notice and you’ll get it all kinds of confused.

Environmental design can be... pretty bad. I like open world games. I do. I know a lot of people want smaller worlds with better stories, but I think that if the team thought they had the ability to write good, tight stories, that’s where their focus would already be. They don’t (as we can see), so we get something they do feel they’re good at. Except... sometimes, they’re really not. Kett bases that you open up to find a single crate inside are not good design. They’re not good for fighting, and they’re not good for usi8ng the space to tell a story, unless that story is that kett are stupid and wasteful. Lots of random crates scattered around might be fine for cover, but they tell me nothing about the world you’re trying to immerse me in. Give me a reason for the crates. The rooms with beds and table and chairs are interesting, I can learn from that. But a base full of kett that give them no living quarters? Explain to me why it’s there. Give me a data pad about this being a heavily guarded storage facility because the Cardinal’s second favourite set of robes are there and they’re too sacred for the angara to get their hands on. Tell me what the big circular poundy platforms are for and a reason for me to blow them up. COME ON. Add in lots of floating items, like entire rocky spires standing on nothing, and I think they could have used a bit more time to go over everything. 

The kett are becoming more interesting enemies, I’m liking this story arc, but I am still waiting to see if they can maintain it ad pull it off. I like the idea of competing factions, and the idea that our Archon is breaking the rules. I want to learn more about their history and operations in other parts of Andromeda.

I’m currently nursing a theory that by switching on the Vaults, we’re making the Scourge worse, and this is going to have major consequences later. I’m wondering if the kett are trying to find a way to shut it down to reduce the Scourge, or if they receive some benefit from it. I presume the Archon wants to find Remnant DNA to play with, but little evidence of Kett/Scourge interactions so far.

Also, the Scourge is a shitty name for it. Also shitty: the Vortex, the Nexus, some others that I can’t remember because I just woke up. They’re boring. They’re unmemorable. They feel like the first idea you had, you kept. Do better.

Also, the planets are boring. Ice planet, desert planet, jungle planet (also doubling as perpetual-darkness planet) All we’re missing is the underwater planet for the full set, and that SUCKS. This is BORING. You get to play with alien fucking worlds and this is the best you can do? At least make the sand blue or something, come on. And copy-pasting animals from one VASTLY different world and environment to another? Bad, bad look. Why are the animals on Eos also on Voeld? How did they get there? How did they adapt? Why can’t I rescan them to learn about the interesting adaptations that made them able to survive across so many environments, because right now? This is boring. 

I don’t like the lack of quick-save, and I hate not being able to save on main missions, especially as auto-saves don’t seem to happen all that often.

I have a lot of complaints, obviously, but I am enjoying it. I like the Nomad, I like that the capital of Voeld, the world of Australian-accented Angara, is called Estraaja - that made me laugh out loud. I like my team. Special shout out to Vetra and Cora, my favouritest ladies in Mass Effect, up there with Tali and Kasumi. Cora was described to me as Miranda 2.0 and HOW DARE YOU. Cora needs a very long hug and to be adopted officially into the Ryder family because she is my big sister now. I like that I have no idea where this thing with Scott is going (I told him the truth about their dad and Habitat 7 and OOPS). I like just rolling across the world, fighting everything that I see and accidentally starting new quests that tell me more about the world and the people in it. I like a lot of the rando NPCs I’ve met. Even if the quest is just a ‘Kill X’ or ‘Fetch #’, I don’t mind because the reasoning why gives me new information. I like the angara, they’re very cool people and I want the other five thousand pages of their law books now, please. I really liked Vivienne’s VA as the Moshae, she has great range. Jaal is adorable and I love him too, and I want to know so much more about Vetra, and flirting with her leaves me swooning every time. Flirting with Suvi is also WONDERFUL, Ryder’s lines are GREAT. I know there have been IRL issues with the VA and I get if people avoid playing female Ryder for it, but her voice is great and has really got me into the character. I like pretty much everyone on the Tempest bar Peebee, who annoys the shit out of me (which may be the intent. Not a critique of her writing, I know people like that IRL and they annoy me too), and having to choose between Gil and Kallo BROKE MY HEART. Please don’t do that again, game.

I’m playing Engineer with all tech abilities (overload, incinerate, the remnant drone) and some points thrown in combat to reduce weapon weight and add survivability and holsters. I don’t like being limited to three active abilities at all. I would rather have three offensive and three defensive, at least. I’m probably going to shove some points into tactical cloak and start switching between tech for all offence and infiltrator for more defensive styles, because MAN, stuff like the Architects really fuck me up, and I never get to enjoy fights with enemies like fiends because they seem to auto-target me (even if I haven’t attacked and my squadmates have) and I spend the entire fight just running in circles while my squad does the damage. Fuck biotics. Why play mage when you can play rogue?

Oh, and the UI is really bad. Navigating menus is ridiculous, and the R&D interface is so bad. No way to compare what you’re putting points or crafting unless you already have it equipped, so have fun writing down or memorising the stats of each weapon while you try to figure out what’s best. And then they don’t tell you that there’s another tier after the first five, so you get to do it again!

I’m having fun, though rereading everything it seems to be in spite of myself. Oh well. Time to put in another few hours before I have to go get groceries.

[game-refraction]

Game Review: Mass Effect - Andromeda (PS4 Pro)

Right from the start, Mass Effect: Andromeda felt lazy. The shift to a whole new galaxy with the dream of exploring strange new worlds and interacting with elements never before seen in a Mass Effect game held such promise. This dream, however, never comes to fruition as Andromeda never attempts to carve new ground or offer us new gameplay experiences and plays it far too safe for its own good. While the game can certainly entertain, and the final few hours are nothing short of breathtaking, the journey there is filled with a mostly “been there done that” approach, not to mention the technical shortcomings that are apparent everywhere, no matter your platform.

Mass Effect: Andromeda sees you play as one sibling of the Ryder family, choosing either a male or female lead. This choice will mostly dictate your relationships in the game as I never felt that my choice as playing as a female Ryder had any weight to the core story or my interactions with characters throughout the journey. The character creation system is fairly bare bones and just attempting to craft anyone even remotely attractive was a chore that took me almost an hour from start to finish, mostly due to the fact you create both male and female siblings. Once I was fine with the customizing of the Ryder family I set forth to do my part in the Andromeda galaxy.

Andromeda begins on the Ark Hyperion, a ship containing thousands of individuals in cryostasis as they made their 600-year journey to the Andromeda galaxy, specifically the Helios cluster. Your Ryder character is brought out of cryostasis as you approach a golden world, a planet that is suitable for supporting a new way of life for those aboard the ship. Certain events occur early on when you find one of these supposed golden worlds and you suddenly become the Pathfinder, an individual charged with tracking down new locations that can play host to settling down new colonies. You are also gifted an AI called SAM that is crucial to the work the Pathfinder needs to do, and a relationship that offers new discoveries that will lead to the very survival of the Andromeda Initiative itself.

Eventually, you’ll gain control of your own ship and can traverse the Helios cluster to explore these strange new worlds and seek out new civilizations, but you’ll soon discover that this large open map is mostly a sham, giving you only a few select planet’s that you can actually explore and the vast majority is there just to scan for resources. When I found my first derelict ship I was heartbroken that I could only scan the vessel for resources instead of boarding the ship and seeing what dangers would await me. Sure, you’ll come across a few ships that you can actually board but those are mission specific and not part of any free-formed exploration. This large sprawling space map is made even worse by the excessive loading times of panning out from one planet to the next, and while a recent patch has made this a bit more bearable, the 60 hours I spent pre-patch would slow the game to a crawl when I would bounce from planet to planet to scan for resources. There are even a few side quests that involve tracking various things through space and they are the most tedious activities I’ve ever seen in a Mass Effect game.

As you explore the Helios cluster you’ll encounter the Nexus, a central hub that is designed as the port for other Ark’s containing various species like the Asari, Salarian, and more. It is here that you’ll discover that not everything about the Andromeda Initiative is going as planned and frankly, they are shocked when your Ark actually shows up. You’ll visit this location so often that it tends to lose its charm after a while and you begin to notice how lifeless this game can be. You’ll rarely see NPC’s walking about or doing anything constructive. Sure, you’ll see dozens of people standing around, but that’s it, they are just standing around. There is much talk in the game about how the people that are unthawed from cryostasis are specialists and are important to the Andromeda Initiative, but you’ll see the same guy sitting on the same couch for the entire game.

Once you are given the task to find new golden worlds to colonize, you’ll start to be able to set down outposts on planet’s that can support life. The first planet to allow you to do this is Eos, a planet covered in various levels of radiation. Eventually, you’ll discover the Nomad, a six-wheeled vehicle that can shield you from most of that radiation, but not all of it. The Nomad is a blast to drive around and a huge upgrade from the Mako from previous Mass Effect games. As you explore Eos you’ll discover the Remnant, a race of sentient robots that look to protect locations called vaults. These vaults are crucial in making planets viable for life and are unlocked by solving sudoku style puzzles that can become fairly tedious to solve after a while. The vaults are large sprawling locations that are very enjoyable dungeon-like experiences with a few puzzle mechanics thrown in here and there. When a vault has been completed you will start to see the planet’s environmental hazards lessen and this is true on every planet you’ll visit that contains a vault. This will then open up more of the planet to explore after a while and give you more to do. I did find it odd that you only ever set up one outpost per planet despite the sheer size of said planet. I would have loved the ability to scan the planet from space and set down outposts on sections of the surface that showed high concentrations of certain resources, even if I couldn’t visit them. I feel this would have made the Andromeda Initiative feel more productive than what the game currently offers.

It was going to be impossible for a new protagonist to rightfully follow in the footsteps of Commander Shepard, and they more or less did an ok job here with Ryder. With the removal of the paragon and renegade system to dictate the path of your Ryder, the changes here are small differences in dialogue, but this system tends to fall flat. Ryder just isn’t consistently interesting and the dialogue doesn’t always convey what is actually said when picking certain options. There is even a dialogue choice with Suvi later on where both responses mean the exact same thing. This fumble with the dialogue system makes Ryder feel less like your own creation and more like a scripted strict-canon character. There are some strong moments with Ryder that make me hopeful the character gets better treatment the next time around.

The original Mass Effect games contained some of the most memorable and compelling characters of any video game franchise. Characters like Garrus, Tali, Liara, Mordin, and Thane, were just amazing and I could easily spout out half a dozen more. Even side characters that you couldn’t equip to your squads were impressive and felt like real people, fleshed out with well-written dialogue and believable interactions. Andromeda just doesn’t compare with even some of the series more bland characters and easily has the worst cast of the entire franchise. There are Cora and Liam who are by the book generic human characters who rarely have anything worth saying and never made me care about them at all. The Turian, Vetra Nyx, started off really impressive but started to fade and become less interesting the further the game went on. Nakmor Drack is the typical grizzled old Krogan and echo’s much of what we’ve seen before with a Krogan companion. I will say that Nakmor paired with certain people on a mission can result in some fun and often hilarious conversations, especially about a certain someone’s parentage.

The last two members of the team are Jaal and Peebee and are the only two characters that really stood out for me. Jaal is an Angara, one of the new races of aliens you will encounter in your travels. While he can feel written like this game’s version of Javik from Mass Effect 3, he becomes our window into the Angara race and one of the more interesting parts of the game. Peebee, however, stole the show for me and joins the ranks of characters like Jack, Mordin, and Thane. I flat out loved Peebee and she was never removed from my party since I first gained access to her. I’ve loved the oddball female companions in the past few Bioware games like Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition as characters like Merrill and Sera brought a somewhat fresh personality to an often bland genre. Peebee was fun, often hilarious and I would literally hang on her every word. She’s interested in alien tech and this can lead to many great discoveries like a little alien robot that can be added to your attack skills and can act as a fourth member of your three man team.

You also have a few other companions on the ship that serve as the remainder of your crew. There’s Kallo, Suvi, Gil, and Dr. Lexi T’Perro. These few characters can have a lot to say and can be fairly entertaining from time to time. There are Gil and Kallo’s arguments over the repairs to the ship, or Lexi’s constant reminder for you to watch your health, not to mention she’s voiced by Game of Thrones actress Natalie Dormer, who is just amazing here. I would have romanced Suvi as her accent is just to die for, but the final romance scene with her is just beyond disappointing. While many characters are able to be romanced in the game, complete with some very revealing scenes, there are so few characters that get the attention they deserve and it becomes very apparent that Bioware had clear favorites and spent far more time on a few characters than spreading the love around.

The main threat this time around is the Kett, a race with an origin deeply tied to the core narrative of the game. While the Kett can be an imposing threat and attack in large numbers, the basic design of them is lacking and not as well conceived as prior series villains. The Archon, for example, has a face that is almost hilarious to look at and I couldn’t help but smirk when we are first introduced to the character. Thankfully, it’s only the basic unit Kett and the Archon that suffer from a mediocre design as the remaining Kett all look rather impressive and look and feel threatening. I thought the way that the Kett were used here with regards to the story to be a refreshing change from the previous trilogy and with how the game wraps up, I’m eager to see what is in store for them in the future.

I also found it rather odd that when you meet the Angara for the first time that it is this huge deal and a rather important moment in the history of their race, but it never delves much into the fact that they are meeting not only humans but Asari, Krogan, Salarian and more, all at once. The game just sorts of skims over it like we are not supposed to focus on that and just move on with the story being told.

Despite several bland characters and some recycled game mechanics from previous entries, the combat here is absolutely fantastic and the best the series has seen so far. Each encounter is thrilling and fast paced and with the added use of a jet pack, it offers some interesting ways to combat the likes of the Remnant, Kett and the odd group of Scavengers. The combat isn’t completely revolutionary as it does feel like a more finely tuned version of what we had in Mass Effect 2 and 3. You have various Biotic skills and abilities to hotkey for instant use in a crucial moment of survival, or simply to just pick up an enemy with pull and then slingshot them over the edge of a mountain with your push ability. You can swap shoulders quick enough and can equip various guns that you’ll either find, buy or craft with blueprints and resource items you track down, each with varying levels of rarity. The jet pack allows you to dodge left or right rather quickly, or take to the skies in a temporary moment of vulnerability. You can also equip various melee weapons like Asari swords or the large, but slow, Krogan hammers. I never tired of the combat and the Remnant and Kett always had a trick or two up their sleeve to make battles intense and action packed. The game also uses a dynamic cover system that works without a button press and it can be a bit hit and miss in its execution.

You are equipped with a scanner that you’ll frequently use to scan various pieces of tech, vegetation, and organic life. These scans, as well as a few other methods, are the way you’ll unlock points to buy blueprints for new armor and new weapons, as well as augments needed to make them more powerful. There are various categories of goods to craft that each visually look impressive and have stats that can work towards your playstyle. Once I had enough points in my Remnant research I crafted a whole Remnant set that looked incredible and the guns were as equally impressive, not to mention you get to rename your creations. You can also change the color of the armor anytime you want in Ryder’s quarters aboard your ship, something I didn’t know until a few dozen hours into the game. The materials needed for crafting are easy to come by as long as you are paying attention while you explore. It’s not a drastically deep system but it functions well enough to be useful. You’ll also unlock perks that give you more inventory space and the ability to earn research points faster and more efficiently. I did find that inventory space was way too small as a maximum 60 items was just downright pitiful, but thankfully the game’s latest patch improves that to 200 items and makes collecting a set of each armor more realistic.

I’ll point out as well that despite the cool looking armor and guns that you can equip to Ryder, none of it can be equipped to your teammates, making them box-art perfect for the entire experience. You don’t even get a new flashy look if you complete their Loyalty quests. During combat, you can give them targets, but you cannot instruct them to use their powers in ways that you deem fit. I found the AI to be lacking and they’d stick fairly close to you unless you pressed the left or right of the d-pad and gave them targets to focus on. Thankfully, you can upgrade their own skills should you want a certain character to have access to certain skills or particular stat increases.

Accepting side quests and completing missions is as it has always been in a Mass Effect game. You’ll talk with your crew between missions to unlock their loyalty quests, various NPC’s standing around on planet hub’s that need something done, and important markers on the map that show which quest is active. The main core missions are well designed and very entertaining, but the side quests are what vary in quality and can drag down the experience here. There’s a side quest early on where you track down the truth behind a murder that while fun in execution, has a complete blunder of a resolution and that seems to happen for a lot of the side quests here. Each time a quest would see me travel from planet to planet or scan the various planet’s in the cluster would see me roll my eyes and let out a few choice curse words. There are, however; several side quests that take place entirely on the planet that are extremely well designed and thoroughly fun that I wish there had been more like them and less of the fetch quests that artificially make the game longer.

Multiplayer is back here and feels very much akin to what was offered the last go-around. You join a team of a few players and battle wave after wave until the dropship comes in and picks you up. You’ll level up various classes that have a specific set of equipment and skills and use those characters to earn points to unlock reward chests in the hopes of unlocking new gear, items and cross your fingers, more characters. I’ve played a few rounds as I already knew what to expect and it can be a solid good time with a group of friends, but I do feel it lacks staying power in its current form.

There has been much talk about the visuals in Andromeda and I’ll get the good out of the way first as the game is a pretty mixed bag. Environments look solid and planets like the ice covered Voeld or the jungle filled Havarl are gorgeous to look at and explore. Each location is packed full of detail and even large open areas like the deserts of Elaaden are interesting to explore, even if some structures on the map feel generically placed here and there. The creatures and non-humanoid aliens are remarkable and species like the Krogan and Salarian look really impressive. I found that differences between the PS4 Pro and Xbox One versions were that the Pro delivered better visuals for the environment and small subtle things for characters and their clothes, but nothing really drastic that makes one clearly better over the other, but for graphical purists, stick with the Pro version for now.

The game, however; fails to impress when you are dealing with any humanoid characters like the Asari and well, humans themselves. Before the current patch, eyes looked awful and characters had awkward stares and looks of disinterest or shock. Facial animations are also lackluster and in some cases, painful to watch. I’ve had small moments that were meant to be touching and heartfelt ruined because the characters arms were flailing around or they had no eyelids because of some sort of glitch. I’ve had characters drop from the sky when I would exit the Nomad to my companions walking through walls or falling into the floor. There were several times that I would see textures failing to load (see picture) or kept loading during an entire conversation. There were several times that I would shoot a single enemy and multiple more enemies would just suddenly appear to phase out of him, it’s bizarre to see. I’ve seen videos on Youtube of characters curling into a pretzel or crab walking up stairs, essentially what I am saying is this is not a polished game in any regard and feels like a step back from even Mass Effect 3.

Voice acting is pretty decent but somewhat hit and miss in several areas. I only found a few characters to really stand out and come off as providing a strong effort. I was also disappointed in Ryder, as while my experience with the game was as a female Ryder, I felt she lacked an authoritative voice like that of female Shepard in the previous trilogy. The gender of the Ryder you don’t pick is somewhat present in the game and you get a good amount of dialogue from them as well, giving me an idea of what a male Ryder would have sounded like, and man does he ever sound like Nolan North, which he isn’t by the way. Characters like Peebee, Lexi, Suvi, and Sloane Kelly were easily my favorite and it was really interesting to hear so many female Krogan as well. Bioware usually is heads and shoulders above the industry when it comes to voice acting, but Andromeda felt like a step back with what we usually expect from the studio.

Despite my issues with the game, and my god there are issues, I still enjoyed the core gameplay elements of Mass Effect: Andromeda. The story is ok at times and it wasn’t until you-know-what hits the fan that the game really got interesting and I was thoroughly enjoying myself. The first half of the game has some awful dialogue and piss-poor writing but that tends to go somewhat away after a few hours until the fan fiction level of quality rears its ugly head again from time to time. Andromeda definitely has the weakest cast of the series with only a small handful of them really being a solid effort put forth by Bioware and that translates into the effort I feel was put towards much of the other elements in the game. Andromeda is beyond glitchy and made me question if this game had even been play-tested at all. While the studio is hard at work correcting and fixing most-if-not-all of these glitches, that first impression is a sour taste for sure. Exploration can be enjoyable but I can’t help shake the feeling of it being semi-scripted in many ways. Mass Effect: Andromeda is a fun, but vastly flawed game that provides the bare minimum effort needed for it to feel like a new entry in the Mass Effect series while not offering us much of anything new. I enjoyed my time exploring vaults with Peebee as she’d talk about her family and the fact that her dad is a.. well, I guess you’ll just have to find out yourself.

Mass Effect: Andromeda was reviewed with a retail copy of the PS4 Deluxe Edition and played on a Playstation 4 Pro and all screenshots were taken via the share function via twitter. Xbox One comparisons were based on observations of the game being played.

as for that Pretzel animation? Enjoy.. or cringe.. either way..

Game Review: Mass Effect – Andromeda (PS4 Pro) was originally published on Game-Refraction

[fauxkaren]

My Mass Effect: Andromeda Thoughts

Putting it all under a cut so as to not spoil those who are still slogging through the many side quests and tasks!

First of all, let me briefly address what I felt were the negatives of the game.

Firstly, the zoom in and zoom out of every planet made planet scanning a pain in the ass and it felt so pointless other than to show off the graphics, I guess. It was such a time waster!

I also wasn’t a huge fan of the ‘favorites’ method of combat. I don’t like only having 3 skills at my fingertips at any given time! And if I want to switch mid-combat, I have to wait for the skills to recharge so I’m just stuck with my gun and melee weapon until they recharge. A major pain in the ass.

I know that some people like crafting and shit, but ugh, I do not. So to some extent, the weapons micromanaging that you had to do was annoying to me, having to equip/unequip upgrades and stuff is just tedious to me.

SAM NOT KNOWING WHEN TO SHUT UP. Oh my god, I get that this is a mining zone. I know how to deploy mining drones at this point! And yes, it’s a cold hazard outside. I know this! It says so on the screen. Stop saying it!

I understand WHY the character creator is so restrictive (wanting an Alec that looks like his kids), but I felt very frustrated by how limiting it was. I wanna choose the eyebrow shape of my characters, ok? My characters will have flawless eyebrows!

But in the grand scheme of things, those are minor nitpicks. Overall, I LOVED the game and there are a lot of positives.

The biggest thing for me is Ryder. I played as Sis!Ryder, so I can’t speak to Bro!Ryder other than his brief appearances. But I LOVED SARA SO MUCH? I think she’s the best Bioware protagonist since Hawke. Sure, we can’t necessarily shape her as much as Hawke, but she was so fun and likable. I felt like she had a fully formed personality and we really got to know her.

Similarly, the character writing for the companion characters was all really solid. There were a lot of cute little sidequests to do that helped you get to know your crew better in addition to the usual conversations on the ship. My favorite crew characters were... well all them, tbh! hahaha. The only one who really didn’t click for me was Drak, and I can’t really explain why. (Somewhat related note, having the galaxy map next to Kallo and Suvi was a good choice. I was often too lazy to walk up to the cockpit to talk to Joker and Edi in ME3, lol.)

I can only speak to my romance experience which was a FWB thing with PeeBee and then romance with Liam. But I honestly adored the Liam romance. It’s really cute and fun and sweet. It might be my favorite Bioware romance other than the Alistair romance. Though it did feel a little ‘early game’ heavy. Like not much happened later on in the game, I didn’t think. Idk though.

I think the game did a really good job of balancing two different larger plot arcs (the kett threat + the need to find places for Milky Way species to live) without feeling overwhelming. Many of the sidequests were fun and engaging (there were a few tasks that were definitely fetch quests that I had zero interest in completing) and served to develop the world and its characters.

Anyway, that’s my overall thoughts and impressions of the game. Let me know what you thought of the game!

[bellabooks]

“Mass Effect: Andromeda”: Sara Ryder is the kind of queer action heroine we need

*Contains spoilers for Mass Effect: Andromeda Sara Ryder is no Commander Shepard, and that’s actually a good thing. If you are like me and were a huge fan of the Mass Effect series, then you will have experienced the excitement and trepidation of knowing we were getting a new installment without our beloved Commander Shepard. How could anything compare to what is arguably the best action RPG space opera that’s ever been, and a heroine for the ages? Well, the first thing to do when embarking on the massive (and I do mean massive) Mass Effect: Andromeda, is to know that it is a new game with an entirely different protagonist. Sara Ryder is one of two main characters you choose from in Mass Effect: Andromeda, the other being her twin brother Sam. While the character creator was rather limited this time around, there were still a lot of options for crafting your Ryder. Seeing so many different FemRyder creations on Tumblr and Twitter, has been really lovely. Here’s mine.     Ryder’s story is much different than Commander Shepard’s. She’s only 22 to start with, and far from the experienced space war vet that Shepard was. In fact, she’s more science minded and pretty green when it comes to making life or death decisions. That all changes when her father the Pathfinder, basically the one human in charge of discovering new worlds for their species to live in, sacrifices his life to save hers and passes on the status of Pathfinder to his only daughter. Ryder, newly equip with the A.I. SAM in her head, has to find a way to finish what her father started and save the universe. No big deal, right? With the help of Cora, Ryder’s father’s second in command who expected to be named Pathfinder, and Liam, Ryder sets out to gather a team for her mission. That of course includes a lovable Turian (Vetra), a grizzled Krogan (Drack), a sensitive and broody Angaran (Jaal) and a kooky and brilliant Asari (Peebee) with ex girlfriend drama. There’s also Suvi, your science officer, Lexi (voiced by Game of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer) your ship physician, and your pilot, Kallo. So before we talk about Ryder and what makes her such a capable protagonist, let’s talk a bit about space sex and romance. The Bioware studio has been committed for the last decade to creating games with options for queer players, or players who simply want to create queer characters. They stumbled a bit when it came to romance options (a hugely popular element of the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games) this time around, especially for gay male characters. Ryder can romance Suvi, Peebee or Vetra, but only Peebee will lead to one of Mass Effect’s infamous sex scenes. That leaves the other relationships feeling a bit disparate, even thought Suvi and Vetra are perfectly wonderful love interests. It’s in these moments of flirtation and attraction that Sara proves herself to be something very different from the calm and confident Shepard: totally adorkable. Not only is Sara new to the whole hero bit, she’s also new to hitting on people. It shows a vulnerable side to her character that we don’t often get to see in video games. As she falls in love, she also finds comfort in her new role and her own skin. Sometimes Sara makes mistakes, or defers to someone with more experience. It doesn’t make her weak, it just makes her human. She can be analytical, or go with her gut, and the two options can co-exist. All these decisions make your Ryder who she is. Relatable, complex, and a real joy to get to play.   Sure, Mass Effect: Andromeda has issues with wooden character emotions or bizarre facial expressions, and perhaps it’s a bit too huge of a game (I’ve put in over 30 hours and I still missed 60% of the side missions), but it also excels at delivering a new kind of queer female character. You’ll agonize with Ryder over decisions and romantic missteps, and smile as she not only assumes the role of Pathfinder, but truly becomes one.  It’s not about her living up to Commander Shepard’s legacy. Ryder is building one all her own, and I’m looking forward to future games. There have to be! Just because Ryder saved the universe for the time being doesn’t mean that darkness isn’t lurking elsewhere in the galaxy, ready to regroup and strike again. And when it does, she’ll be ready.   Are you playing MEA? Share a picture of your Ryder in the comments! Here are some most excellent Ryder pics that the folks of Twitter shared with me. @heymermaid @brittahkiin @drizzle180 @snarkels  @taintedidealist @Pyrosoutherner1 http://dlvr.it/NmcKH5

[technologyasyouwish-blog]

Ten Things I Wish I Knew When I Started 'Mass Effect: Andromeda'

This week has been interesting. This is probably the most hours per day I have ever put into a game in order to hit an embargo in such a short time span. I woke up every day at 6 AM, started up Mass Effect: Andromeda, and played for 10 or 11 hours straight. 60 hours of the campaign later, plus some multiplayer, and here I am.

My official scored review went up yesterday, which is 3,400 words of detailed thoughts and opinions about the game. I suggest you go and read that if you want my full analysis, as today, launch day, I have a different task: To impart some practical wisdom from all that time spent with the game.

This is a game where you’re going to want to know a few things up front to help with your experience, so hopefully my advice will be useful. Here are ten things I wish I knew before I started Mass Effect: Andromeda. No story spoilers follow.

1. Don't Use Default Sarah Ryder

All anyone can talk about in the run-up to the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda has been the often awkward animations with human characters. While this is something of an issue, and I do wish more improvement had been made in the last five years, it does not define the experience. One thing I would recommend, however, is not using the game’s default Sarah Ryder model.

While Scott Ryder is a perfectly normal pre-rendered face, something is just off about Sarah Ryder’s visage. It’s based on a real-life model, but something got lost in translation, and it just does not look right in the game. A lot of the early game footage you’ve seen has her talking and it just looks uncomfortable. If you want to play female Ryder (as I did), I would definitely design your own rather than using Sarah. I spent a decent amount of time making my Ryder look acceptable, and lo and behold, that does translate into the game itself. While there are animation issues elsewhere in the game, I found that my custom Ryder never looked as strange as Sarah Ryder has in all these previews. Not to say whoever you make has to be some supermodel, but Sarah is not the ideal face for this game purely from an animation perspective, so I would suggest forging your own path in that regard.

2. Don't Quit After The First Two Planets

I said this in both my early preview and my review, but Andromeda does a very poor job introducing players to the new open world concept because of how bad the first two planets are. Eos is a radioactive wasteland that throws up invisible walls in the form of a toxic environment when you stray too far. Havarl is a confusing mess of a jungle planet where you cannot even use your car, and fighting enemies you can’t even see through overgrown shrubbery is a nightmare.

I’m here to say it gets better. Without getting into specifics, you’re able to make Eos a lot more friendly to exploration as the zone expands dramatically in size with its toxic barriers lifted. And the last three planets you find, Voeld, Kadara and Eladeen, are without a doubt the game’s strongest environments, both in terms of their visuals, and how fun they are to navigate. There’s also a bonus planet you’ll find later that’s the most fun to drive around by far, but I’ll leave that one a surprise. My point is that even if you think Andromeda has made a serious mistake going open world judging by the first two planets (which is exactly what I thought), power through and get to the other environments, which are way better.

3. Turn The Nomad Into The Mako As Soon As Possible

Part of how much you’re going to enjoy the open world is how much you enjoy driving around your Nomad, and for reasons that remain unclear to me, the vehicle is designed to make you hate it when you first start using it. It’s slow, sluggish and can barely navigate even the most basic of terrain like mild slopes.

You have the power to change this, and upgrade the Nomad into something more accurately resembling the Mako from the original Mass Effect. In order, the upgrades you should research in implement are six-wheel drive, which lets you climb slopes faster, a longer boost capability, better top speed, and a longer hover capability. Combine those together and you can race up pretty much every cliff in the game and get hang time over sand dunes and mountains alike. These upgrades were the key to enjoying navigating these planets, so get them as soon as you can. They’ll be in your R&D station, and new ones are added as time goes on or you find/buy more.

4. Invest In The Cache Finding Upgrade

As you play, you will get points to invest in the Nexus, unlocking different “cryo pods” that give you passive bonuses in the game, rather than specific bonuses to your character like the R&D system. A few of these are useful, like getting materials and such delivered to you regularly, but I would only deem one upgrade absolutely essential: the cache finder.

This upgrade will put a smattering of treasure chests across any planet you explore. These chests are in such remote locations most of the time, you would usually never find them without this upgrade, and they often contain very valuable gear that would have been much harder to find, craft or purchase otherwise. These caches will scale to your level, so don’t hunt them down all at once, and spread them out over the course of the game.

5. Here's How The Ridiculously Confusing Crafting System Works

I really, really hate the crafting system in this game, but by the end I mostly have it figured out. It’s convoluted and awful, but it can be used to make the best items in the game. Here’s what you need to know.

   The Research half of crafting uses three types of tech, Milky Way, Kett and Remnant. You get points in this tech for scanning objects in the wild. Everywhere you go, always check with your scanner to see if there’s something to add. If so, it will glow. Scan every type of enemy you come across as well, living or dead. Your controller will rumble if you’re by something very valuable to scan, but ABS – always be scanning.    You have to research each level of an item, and there are 10 levels of every item, not just five the way it initially appears. The problem with this system is that even if you have a lot of scanning currency, you will use up almost all of it on just a few items per class if you’re researching upgraded versions of items. Pick your favorites, and stick with them.    Do not bother researching N7 armor. It will obviously be attractive, but eventually you unlock a Nexus perk for vendors who will sell more “special gear,” and guess what? A full N7 set is part of the product line. I wasted probably 1,200 Milky Way research credits on this.    You can add mods to weapons and armor as you craft them, which will give you innate bonuses. But when you upgrade to the next level of an item, those bonuses are gone, right? No. The game does not explain this at all, but you can dismantle your old crafted item and get all those mods back for future use. You only get a fraction of the minerals and materials, but all the mods should come back. It is crazy this isn’t made clear.

That should get you started. I hate this system but focusing on a few specific weapons, I did manage to craft some pretty great stuff by the end of the game.

6. Squadmates You Don't Like At Hour Three You May Love By Hour Thirty

I’m going to take a guess and say that many of the characters, particularly the crew members, you meet in Mass Effect: Andromeda you won’t take to right away. I felt this way about the initial two squadmates the game gave me, Liam and Cora, and then I thought that the hyper Asari Peebee was going to annoy me all game. That was true at first, but you have to give them a chance.

Having conversations with everyone, taking them on missions, and doing their loyalty quests will make you bond with them. Liam and Cora became two of my best buds on the ship, and Peebee uh, well let’s just say we became more than friends, even though my original intention was to romance my science officer Suvi. I just spent so much time with Peebee that I liked her, and it seemed like the right path. These kinds of relationships take dozens of hours to develop, so don’t expect to love everyone right away.

Also, side note. At a certain point, your romantic “choice” seems to be permanent. While I could flirt with everyone for a long time, once Peebee and I declared we wanted to be “exclusive,” I no longer even had the option to flirt with anyone else in conversation. So if you’re presented with that sort of ultimatum by whoever you’re romancing, know that’s what it probably means. But yes, I know there is a way to have a three-way in this game, but you can find that on your own.

7. Loot Containers Are Very Easy To Miss

One thing I don’t really get about Andromeda is its desire to hide loot containers from players. Many games will highlight them either on a minimap or in the environment, but Andromeda does neither so they are incredibly easy to overlook.

One problem is that pretty much any shape in the environment can be a loot container, so you have to wander around pretty close to almost everything to see if you get a prompt to open it. Some containers have a light blue shading that highlights them a bit but many don’t and it’s often hard to see. Scanning does not reveal containers either.

Nearly all landmarks will have at least one “big” chest with more stuff in it, so don’t leave until you find it. Cleared landmarks with no more stuff to get in them will turn blue on your map, but I swear sometimes I couldn’t figure out what I was missing. Also, at the end of story missions during boss fights, look around for a big loot container that will usually have a hefty prize in it. I am positive I missed quite a few of these during my first few missions before I figured this out.

8. You Can Save Preset Skill/Specialty Loadouts

Combat is a lot of fun in Mass Effect: Andromeda, and it’s made even more fun by its flexibility. It took me a while to figure this out, but you can actually save up to four preset power/class loadouts for your character in the skills screen. This will save the three powers you’re using and their assigned buttons, but also your class. Unlike past ME games, you can actually switch classes on the fly, based on how many points you’ve sunk into Combat, Tech or Biotics. For example, I had a hybrid Biotic/Combat build which let me pick between Soldier, Adept or Vanguard classes that I could flip between. Pick your skills and your class and even in the middle of combat you can totally change your play style.

9. Shotguns Are Stupidly Overpowered

I would rarely call for something to be nerfed in a PvE game like Andromeda, but by the end, the damage imbalance between my shotguns and everything else I was using was absolutely crazy. If you have even a halfway decent sustain build (like mine, which focused on shields), you can shred pretty much every single enemy in the game with nonstop shotgun blasts. At first, shotguns are limited by their small ammo pool, but upgrades and skills fix that, and it got to the point where if I felt like if I was using anything else, I was just being inefficient. If you don’t know where to sink combat points, you really cannot go wrong with shotguns.

10. You Can Keep Playing Normally After The Story Ends

I am certainly not going to get into ending spoilers here, but in a game like Mass Effect, players are going to want to know if there’s a hard or soft ending -- meaning if they beat the game, if they can keep playing and do the stuff they missed. The answer is definitely yes.

The ending of Andromeda is structured that you can not only keep playing the game and doing missions you missed with no penalty, but it’s not even one of those situations where you’re playing in the final save point before being told to go to the last mission. No, the main storyline can end and you are free to keep doing stuff.

With that said, if you want to be safe, you may want to consider doing at least your crew’s loyalty missions and the main planetary story missions before the last few missions. I do not actually know if there’s a downside to not doing that, but that’s been the case in past games, so it’s possible you might be risking something here. But since I did them, I can’t say for sure what happens if you don’t. But yeah, the point is don’t worry about finishing every little thing before the end, which is what I did. It isn’t necessary.

Alright, that’s all the advice I have for now. I may be back with more, but that should be enough to get you started. Happy exploring, and enjoy.