E3: Mass Effect Andromeda

            

The Mass Effect Trilogy is, without a doubt, one of my all-time favorite videogame franchises.  When I first got my hands on a copy of the first game it blew me away.  The sheer amount of space that you could explore was incredible and the characters were all immediately memorable.  It contained a universe full of deep and rich lore and told an interesting story, full of plenty of twists, tragedies and betrayals that immediately endeared itself to me.  Mass Effect 2 vastly improved the writing of the characters as well as the graphics and gameplay and was the first game I ever played that actually showed the consequences for the choices we made in a previous entry.  Mass Effect 3 managed to be an epic climatic end to the trilogy that, for the most part, ended the character’s story lines’ in satisfying ways.  That is, once the Extended Cut Ending was released and fixed that horrid ending that even to this day Mass Effect fans are still mad about.  But in spite of that horrible ending, the series is still a great one and one that I come back to every now and then and still greatly enjoy.  What a shame then, that the E3 trailer for the franchise’s latest entry has done nothing but piss me off.

            Now, before I go any further, let me make one thing clear.  What we do see of the game doesn’t look bad.  In fact, the idea of a game centering around a crew as they explore a completely unknown galaxy is the best idea that the franchise could have come up with and feels like a natural continuation of the series.  The problem is that the trailer on display here is so pretentious and so scattershot in presentation that it’s impossible not to hate.  The first and foremost problem with this trailer is that the developers put WAY too much of themselves into this supposed gameplay trailer.  A good chunk of it is the developers showing themselves draw and animate the various things that will supposedly be in the game and all but directly comparing themselves to great explorers and pioneers of the ages, making it sound as if they themselves had gone to the Andromeda Galaxy and are about to tell us how awesome it is.  While watching the trailer I found myself wanting to grab the developers by the throat and yell at them to stop pretending that they were making something that would change the face of humanity forever.  The whole thing is not at all helped by the fact the upcoming No Man’s Sky is promising to do this exact same thing and is due for release in about two months and is promising far more.

            What little we do see in the way of actual gameplay footage seems promising enough but as far as I’m concerned, it’s completely untrustworthy.  Everything about it just reeks of “Made for E3” material with most of it probably only ending up in the pre-title screen cut scene and not actually factoring into the game itself.  What actual, definitive gameplay we do see tells us absolutely nothing about how the game plays or what features it will have outside of the fact that it takes place in an utterly alien galaxy.  This is not at all helped by the fact that the trailer tells us nothing about the plot or characters.  We know that it takes place in this new Galaxy but nothing about what we will encounter in it or what quandaries the player will face.  We know that our new protagonist is another member of N7 and apparently has an Asari friend but that’s about it.  Now normally this would not bother me.  Developers are vague about their IPs all the time when the game’s release date is years away.  But this latest Mass Effect game is supposedly due for release in March of next year and the fact that the developers has released so little in promotional content for their own game is more than a little concerning.

            In the end, this trailer is just infuriating to me.  I hate how self-aggrandizing the developers are in this trailer.  I hate how what little we see are just a few snippets of gameplay footage.  I hate how it’s been over four years since the release of the last game and this is all that they have to offer.  But what I hate most is how much I hate this trailer.  I love Mass Effect and I want to love this game and I really wanted to like whatever BioWare released of it at E3 this year.  But they just aren’t giving me a lot to hope for here outside of vague promises.  And sadly my faith in the gamer industry requires a bit more then vague promises.

            So until next time, please follow the site, like the Facebook page and follow me on twitter and let’s hope that whatever I look at next shows a bit more promise.