Mass Effect: Andromeda PS4 Review: "An enjoyable and worthwhile journey, let down by the lip sync and facial animations."

Mass Effect Andromeda Ps4 Review

Don't forget to follow us via Twitter or Facebook to be among the first to learn of new reviews and updates.

Patch Version: 1.10

Mass Effect: Andromeda is one of those poorly received games that I started writing reviews for in the first place.  Not to blindly defend it, but to give it a fair assessment after it had been patched to see if the issues plaguing it at launch had been fixed or if the bad reviews were even warranted.

So, is Mass Effect Andromeda worth your time and money now it's been patched and out for around 19 months?  Are all the serious issues fixed that made it 'apparently' such a 'bad' experience? Let's find out together.

Mass Effect Andromeda is yet another franchise that I've never had the pleasure. Having selected to start a new game, the thing I am presented with first is a rather in-depth character customization menu.  There's a lot you can change and alter here as the below image shows.

What’s important to note, however, is that these customizations are far from being only cosmetic. The training option, for example, will allow you to choose your background career; the choice you make here will determine a special activated starting skill in game.  What’s more, if you alter the ethnic appearance of your character, this will also change the look of other key characters in the story, a nice touch for sure.

Having made all your choices and confirmed the decisions, Mass Effect: Andromeda begins with a rather high-quality cutscene describing how humankind has conquered the Milky Way Galaxy having discovered some alien tech on Mars, this the event that propelled them forwards scientifically.  It's a golden age. (I’ve heard this golden age line before *cough* Destiny *cough*)

However, humans, being a curious bunch, decide to pursue a new adventure along with a fresh start in the Andromeda Galaxy.   Plausible I guess.

With this cinematic ending, our character awakens.  From here, we are then introduced to the typical Bioware multiple choice conversation system, your answers linking to a particular tone.  I have no idea as yet as to if these replies can alter what unfolds, but we shall find out.

Sadly, I have to report that the release reviews circling this game like buzzards would a corpse were not entirely false.  The lip syncing so far has been hit and miss, bordering on really primitive.  I’ve seen worse, don’t get me wrong, but this is Bioware we’re talking about, right?

What also seems off is the facial animations. Sometimes they aren't all that bad, again, I’ve seen worse, but so far, most of the expressions have been really wooden, I’d even go as far as saying lacking facial emotions entirely in some cases.   I don’t know if this is a bug or what, but it does detract from the story when they are delivering emotional lines in emotional scenes.  Again, I am playing a Bioware game, right?

However, graphically, the game looks amazing, it's really impressive and I have no complaints whatsoever on that front.

It's also not long before I get my first taste of the action.  The massive vessel we are on called an Ark colliding with some sort of mass in space. It is here where we get our first taste of the movement and the mission system. Interestingly, I have a scanning tool, and as part of the mission are tasked with investigating a key machine that has broken.  Simple so far.  Nothing groundbreaking.

Control wise it’s all good, in fact, everything handles really well. The only thing in this area that is jumping out as a little annoying until you get used to it and can compensate for it, is your character won’t instantly stop when you want him to, instead, will do a couple more steps before halting, I guess for realism, but this is nip picking really.

Anyways, having completed this first mission we are then tasked with meeting up with the Pathfinder, who, for those who don't know is the sort of leader in charge that makes all the important decisions.  He is also our father, so that's bound to be a fun experience.   However, our problems are about to get a hell of a lot worse.

I won't spoil it for you, but you will eventually wind up on a planet.  (The trip down, a rather fun experience I might add.) Afterwards, we get our first taste of combat.

I have a sidearm, which I can hip fire or hold the left trigger to ADS, a boosted jump, a boosted dodge, and my career skill that allows me to fire a heat-seeking projectile.

Combat feels actually rather good.  Moving, jumping, shooting is all smooth and fluid. The animations are fine and seem very polished as well.  No complaints here.

I also really like the cover system, which causes your character to auto enter cover when they have their gun out when approaching environmental objects. Hip firing will see you shooting over or around the cover you are at, whilst ADS will make you stand up and fire.

It’s also is really fluid when leaving cover too since there is no snapping or locking you into the cover system.  To leave, all you need do is move away from it. Nice.

The story so far has also been interesting, I’d even go as far as saying it’s gripped me, I’m definitely intrigued.

All in all, after three hours with Mass Effect Andromeda, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still enjoying my experience.  What’s more, I'm struggling to understand where all the hate came from about the game? Yeah, the lip syncing is bad, and the facial animations are lacking, but set this aside, this seems like a solid game so far.

However, admittedly, it's still early doors, time will tell if this solidity will droop or hold its form.

Initial Score after 2 hrs of play

Full Playthrough Score after 55 hrs of play

Overall Impression

Having completed Mass Effect Andromeda, a journey that saw me playing it for around 55 hours, I can honestly say I enjoyed it.   It’s important to note that the main campaign did not take me 55 hours to complete, and had I have chosen to dedicate my time solely to it, I could have completed it in around 15 to 20 hours or so.

First though, let’s address the elephant in the room:

YES, the lip syncing and facial animations are as bad as people have been saying they are, more so on human and human-like characters in fairness than other alien species, but YES, it does detract from the story at times in dramatic moments. 

But’s let’s get real for a second, I have seen FAR WORSE, or should I say, games that have been just as primitive.  And if you look at the above and below images, the quality of the models in game are superb, but this only makes the bad lip syncing and lack of facial anims stand out even more, which is a shame.

Still, this isn’t a defence for a developer that normally creates solid and realistic story experiences.

I think the problem in Andromeda's case though is that it was too ambitious.  There is literally hours and hours of cutscenes, both for main and side missions and also cinematic moments too.  I think they honestly bit off more than they can chew and the facial animations and lip syncing paid the price.

And the more I played the more I started to realise the problem that perhaps fans of the franchise were finding difficult to overcome.  And that was, after a while, you switch off and stop caring about the lip sync and facial animations and just enjoy the ride, the problem is, you switch off to it too much, and the story becomes background noise that you drift apart from.  This is a shame because you meet some interesting characters and every mission does have some depth to be fair, but again, because you are switched off, you don’t connect and feel anything for these encounters.

As for the story itself, it starts strong and piques your curiosity, such as who are the Kett? Who made those machines on the planets that you visit?  Why did Scots father lock out his memories?  What is the Scourge?   There are even a few twists, not forgetting to mention that the dialogue choices and decision you make will impact elements of the story too, but again, because I was switched off from feeling anything for the story in the end and was playing only to answer the questions it had initially implanted in my mind, the impact of these twists and moments were not what they should have been.

I could pull out a few questionable dialogue lines, but in the grand scheme of things, considering how many scenes there are, to do so would be petty.

But I will say this, if you are refusing to play Mass Effect Andromeda because of the lip syncing and facial animation problems, then you’re missing out on an otherwise enjoyable game, and in truth, it seems that the female version of your main character, for some reason, is more afflicted with these problems than the male.  So if you do intend to give it a go, then I advise against choosing the default female.

Right, now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what makes up for the game’s aforementioned shortcomings.

Combat, for example, is well done and polished.   And as I said in the initial part of this review, it was fluid and remained fluid throughout.  However, you quickly learn that if you set the difficulty too low, combat will quickly feel extremely basic.  
The humanoid A.I. enemies you face, for instance, don’t do anything particularly special, they’ll use cover, sure, and fire over it, but they seem to do this because they are programmed to, rather than using it because of the actions of you and your companions.  They felt like more of an obstacle slowing you down, opposed to intelligent entities to outmanoeuvre.

As for the non-human enemies, the machines, these are equally basic, more so in fact, but should not be underestimated.  They can pack a punch and will drain your shield and health quickly if you don’t take them seriously.

There are even animal-like creatures you’ll have to fight too, some like attack dogs in behaviour, whereas others are just native wildlife you’ll encounter whilst exploring.

As for the weapons you’ll use against them, your character can equip two weapons initially, which can be improved allowing you up to four.  There are also four types of weapons.  Pistol, Auto Rifles, Sniper Rifles and shotguns, and you also have a melee slot that allows you to perform a simple melee attack, which also serves as a devastating ground slam if you trigger the melee attack whilst you are airborne.

However, you have to be careful as to which weapons you choose as they will draw from your energy.  If you go over the recommended level, this will reduce your charging function for other abilities that draw from the same pool.  You can, of course, reduce this energy requirement by spending skill points that you’ll earn every time you level up.

Speaking of skills, I was very impressed with the array available.  It can be complicated at first glance to get your head around it, so I’ll go through this step by step.

Firstly, it’s important to note that the skill system ties in with the SAM system.  SAM is the name for your artificial intelligence programme that can modify and enhance how your body functions.  An interesting connection that I thought was smart.  At first, though you’ll only have access to the one profile that relates to the career you selected during your character customisation at the start of the game, others will become unlocked as you spend points in areas of the other two skill trees.  Though the other two skill trees have aspects that are locked off within them, which is due to your initial career choice at the start of the game I mentioned, like the profiles, as you spend more points in those trees, the locked out skills will also become available.

However, within the initial profile that you choose, you’ll have a whole host of skills and abilities that are available.  Some that are passive, but most being trigger-able.   It is here where we encounter the game’s first 'real' problem, the limitation of the ability system.

This limitation is brought about because you can only equip three abilities at any given time.  This seems odd considering a profile has way more than three equipable abilities for you to choose from.  What is odder still is that you can also enhance these abilities even further by spending more points within them.

You could argue that some players will gravitate to certain abilities and only spend points in those paths, which normally would be true if it wasn’t for the fact that the more points you spend in a profile increases the bonuses your character receives whilst that profile is the active one.  This ultimately means that you’ll have to spend points on and in, abilities that you’ll never probably use which not only feels like a waste but is a waste.

And this limitation starts to become more of a problem as you unlock more and more of the profiles, which in turn gives you attain access to more and more abilities, yet can still only equip three at any given time.   It seems highly irregular to me to have so many abilities but be limited in equipping them.

You do, however, earn a lot of skills points every time you level up (I reached level 54, but it seems the max level is 80), so it’s doesn’t exactly feel like a slog to earn them, but still, towards the end I started spending points for the sake of it without even thinking about where I spent them.  There is even an ‘AUTO’ spend/assign skill points button, removing the process of you needing to think even further.   I didn’t understand this feature at all.  Are some players that lazy that they don’t care, or did Bioware understand the limitation I outlined and decided to accept it and just give players a way of spending points quick and easily?  (You can even respec these points for credits from within the Tempest in the med bay, as to why considering how many skills points you can attain I do not know.)

This all felt like a shame to me.  I normally really enjoy games with in-depth skill trees, but in Mass Effect Andromeda, once I found a set I liked and allowed me to create combo effects that worked well, everything else was superfluous and redundant.

Though you can assign and interchange these abilities whenever you wish via the skill menu from the pause menu, your weapons can only be equipped and unequipped via the loadout menu.  A menu that can only be accessed when first embarking upon a planet, after that, you’ll have to find a forwarding pod, which will land and serve as operational stations as you explore a planet’s environment.

This, unfortunately, means that if you loot a cool and powerful weapon, you won’t be instantly able to equip and try it out.  And sadly, depending on your perspective, at around the 20-hour mark, this is what happened.  I looted a super rare quality auto rifle that made me feel like a badass.  Why is this not a good thing?  Well, it rendered the requirement to need any other weapon, again, redundant.

In fact, the only real reason to equip more than one weapon is in case you run out of ammo, a fact that becomes more likely as you increase the game's difficulty because it takes more ammo to kill your adversaries.

Replenishing your ammo though is easy enough, and is done by moving next to an ammo box, boxes that are conveniently placed all over the worlds you explore, even in places humans have never ventured, which did break the emersion a little for me, but it's a gamey solution to a gamey problem so I didn't really get hung up on it too much.

The same goes for your activated abilities.  Some draw from your energy, so have no ammo requirement and only have a cooldown, whereas others, like missiles, for example, do have a finite supply.  And just like your ammo for your weapons, you can replenish these in the same way by finding the related ammo box.  And where you find one, you will find the other.

Remember me briefly talking about the scanning tool in the initial part of this review?  Well, now would be a good time to talk about the features it feeds into.  

Not only will you use it in missions for various purposes, but when you do you’ll earn research points.   These points are split into three sections depending on what you scan.  [Milky Way Tech, Heleus Tech and Remnant Tech]  And whilst exploring the game, always be on the lookout for the little D-pad icon in the bottom left as it will hint to something in your close proximity that you can scan.

These points are then used to research armour, weapons and mods that you can then build.  There’s a lot to the crafting system in fairness, because not only can your research a particular item, but you can also research upgrades for the same item to enable you to make better versions of it.

Once you've researched the blueprint, now comes time to build.  This is done from the same interface by switching to the development side where you can locate the item you researched and see what ingredients you require to build. it.

The ingredients can be gathered from a variety of locations, such as vendors and directly picked up whilst scavenging and looting the planets you explore.  So I encourage you to do this whenever you have the opportunity.  The game will even tell you how to attain these ingredients, so don't worry on that front, you won't be left scavenging like rats in the dark.

Most of the actions I have described so far can be done via the Tempest.  This is the vessel that will be your home from home whilst you explore the Andromeda Galaxy.

This is also where your companions will live when you are not planetside.

The companion system is another staple of Bioware games, and Mass Effect Andromeda has them in spades.  This is actually one aspect of the game that shines.  You have two to begin with but will acquire a few more as you explore and follow the main campaign.

Each companion has its advantages over the others, but unless it’s tied to a particular mission, you are free to choose which two companions you take on a mission with you.  Like weapons though, you can only swap via the loadout menu.

These companions also have their own skill trees too.  When you level up, they too will acquire points.  Their trees are not as diverse as your's mind, but they do have a little depth to them.

Another aspect I enjoyed was the banter between you and your companions, and the companions between themselves too.  And when you do interact with them be mindful of your responses and choices because if you are wondering if you can romance them, you can.  In fact, romance them is probably not the right word.  If you play your cards right and make the right decisions when it matters most, you can end up in some really ‘interesting’ positions, and when I say positions, yes, I mean sexual positions that are rather graphic, to say the least.

Companions even have their own missions, which are far more than simple fetch quests.  Each are well thought out and story driven.  It’s well worth doing them for sure.

To be fair though, the side missions in general that you’ll pick up as you explore the galaxy are also well done.  It was rare that I found a mission that bored me.  This is equally so for the main missions, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy them either.  In fact, some missions really make you consider the morality of a decision, so much so that I found it difficult at times to choose.  It’s never black and white, it’s grey.  So choosing what to do is up to you and it won’t always be easy.

The only missions that made no sense to me were the memory triggers that your father scatters all over the galaxy in places he had never set foot.  It didn’t really make sense as to why they were all over the place.  How did they get there?  It bothered me.  I did them though, and doing them is extremely worthwhile as you learn some very interesting plot points.  So don’t let this insignificant gripe put you off them.

One aspect though I would like to mention that isn’t minor is that there are some missions that place a real urgency on completing them quickly, yet there is no timer counting down reinforcing this fact.  This would have really upped the immersion and tension in missions where ‘time’ was apparently key, yet you had all of time and space to do them.  I figured this to be excusable at first until I reached the final few moments of the game, where low and behold there are missions that have a timer! I thought this was very odd.  Why do it for some, but not for others?

I will say this about the ending of the game though, it wasn’t dull, far from it.  In fact, the pacing was perfect.  Never have I played a game where the last few missions had so many cinematic moments,  I loved it.

Before embarking on this final set of missions you are even told that after doing so you will be able to continue any content that you have not finished yet.   And to top it off, there is even new missions that crop up once you do complete the game.  Hat’s off to Bioware here, they really pulled out all the stops.

One aspect that played a large part in making the whole game’s mission experience more enjoyable was just how fun and fast it was when it came to getting around most of the worlds.  This was because of a vehicle called the Nomad.  This is the name given to the vehicle that can be unlocked whilst trying to set up your first planet’s outpost.  After that, all you will need to do to unlock it on another world is unlock a forwarding station pod.  After that, it’s plain sailing.  In fact, only one planet won’t allow you to drive the nomad, this world being rather small and not really being suited navigation wise, but all the others were large indeed.

The Nomad though has two modes, fast, which allows you to travel quickly.  And slow which gives you more grip and allows more traction when going up slopes.  You also have a chargeable boost along with some thrusters to aid you, but mostly the thrusters were useless and I rarely saw a need to use them.  All these elements can be upgraded though, and you can even add new aspects to it to make it more useful in the field.

The Nomad is also how you mine the locations that you visit.  This feeds into the ingredients that you need for crafting that I talked about.  

In the below image, in the top left-hand corner, you will see a little mining notification message. When this is expanded, a graph will be presented that shows how large the mineral deposits are at your present location.  Mining is simple and is done with a button press.  After that, it's all automatically done for you and you are not limited in the number of mining drones you can deposit either.  It's not as relaxing as say mining is in games like Eve Online or a game that was once close to my heart before it was closed down, called Earth and Beyond, but still, you can mine, so I mention it.

In truth, I normally hate games with driving aspects to them, but I loved how manoeuvrable the Nomad was.   It took some getting used to at first, and often you will get annoyed if you forget to swap modes as the environment changes, but you really have free reign in regards to your direction.  I can count on one hand the number of times I was forced to turn back and find another route whilst driving.  No matter where I needed to go I could find a way.  I loved that aspect of the game.

Another aspect I enjoyed and thought was well done was the planets themselves.  There are five in total that you can land on, the main campaign taking you to each as you progress through the story, but there are also a few more locations that you’ll visit, but I’m not going to spoil it for you by telling what they are.   What I will say though, is to reach these planets and locations, you will traverse the galaxy via a star chart interface that fills out as you progress through the campaign.  The ironic thing is, though you can only visit a handful of planets, there are a plethora of other locations you can travel to.  It's a shame that in most cases you can only orbit them.  However, this is another way for you to attain ingredients.  Certain moons, comets and floating debris can be scanned and stripped of their contents.

Each of the landable planets though are very diverse, what's more, harbours a danger that you must overcome. Let it be pools of acid, scorching heat or sub-zero temperatures.  Your environment suit will protect you for a time, but once that suit’s protection ends, you will need to find shelter or return to a location with stronger shielding, like your Nomad or a forwarding station.

I'll say this much though, when you are first exploring a location you really feel like you are traversing dangerous unknown locations for the first time, or at least, the first time for a human.

This is where the main premise of the game comes in.  The whole point of coming to Andromeda, to begin with, was to make a fresh start.  And your top priority in most cases is to set up outposts on the five worlds that the Initiative initial marked as golden.

One aspect about this I feel I do need to point out though is the game places a huge emphasis on the type of outpost you first build.  Will it be military based or research orientated?  I chose Research for the first, thinking that I’ll be able to choose military for the second.

However, each subsequent outpost you unlock is locked to your initial choice.   This actually annoyed and surprised me.  As for what impact this had on the game overall I had no clue.  Nor did I see any moments that hinted or connected to my choice, making the initial choice pointless.  If there was, I missed it.

Unlocking outposts though isn’t pointless, because as well as carrying the story forward, for every planet you do build an outpost on will give you pod points to spend on the Nexus.  The Nexus, by the way, is the sort of mother space station that all the arks dock at.  

These pods are the stasis pods for all the personnel that were frozen in the long journey to the Andromeda quadrant. 

You can spend these pod points in three areas as shown above.  Doing so will grant bonuses to gameplay in a variety of ways, some more useful than others.  So think carefully before you spend them because unlike skill points, pod points are very hard to come by and cannot be changed once you have.

However, before unlocking these outposts and earning these pod points you will have certain challenges to overcome.  This comes in the form of planet viability because each planet turns out to be far from golden.  And before you can set up an outpost you need to reach at least a viability rating of 40%, but on some planets, this still won’t before enough and will require you to complete certain key missions first.

Earning viability points though is fairly straightforward.  Completing missions & setting up forwarding stations is one way, and you don’t need to complete all missions on a planet to 100% the viability either, so don't worry there, but the best way to get an initial boost of viability is to unlock the alien tech that each planet houses.  This alien tech belongs to what the Initiative calls Remnants; a robotic race that have vanished for some reason.

However, once you unlock the three monoliths on each planet, a process that requires a little bit of scan-sleuthing first to get the alien tech codes, followed by a hacking riddle, which is shown below, you will then gain access to the remnant vault below.

Re-booting these vaults will terraform the planet in a different way.  Remember those environmental challenges I mentioned, well, vaults will rid the planet of them making it more hospitable.

The vaults themselves reminded me of the dungeons in Horizon zero dawn, only, less intricate.  I definitely saw some similarities, but I also saw some resemblance to one of the raids in Destiny.  I’m not saying they copied, but it definitely sparked my nostalgic metre.

I should like to point out though, that once you do activate a vault, you will have a race against time to escape what the game calls a ‘cleansing field’.  This is the process that cleans the vault before it powers up, for health and safety reasons I guess.  Joking aside, the key point to note here though, is once you do trigger this state, if you hadn’t finished exploring the vault fully first, anything hidden or secret therein will be lost to you as you cannot re-enter these areas again.

I forgot this fact on a couple of occasions, so don’t forget!

I was also a little disappointed in all honesty when I first exited the first vault having powered it up.  Firstly, the terraforming change afterwards is rather small.  And secondly, as time progresses, the planets don’t continue to change any further.  Sure, a world might not be scorching hot anymore, but you won’t see that desert environment slowly change to harbour plant life.   This was a shame and I felt it would have been a nice touch to bolster that sense of realism as you re-visited these worlds, which you will do as you progress through the story.

However, saying this, the game isn’t without its little details.  For example, if you’re exploring a sandy environment your suit will show sand particles gathering on it, as will your nomad.  Your suit will be likewise afflicted if you are exploring the freezing cold tundra of some ice planet, only, in this case, it will frost over.  Its touches like this that make the other aspects of the game like the terraforming feel like they are lacking.

I use the word lacking very lightly, because overall in relation to the graphics, the game does look very good indeed, so please don’t perceive what I have said to suggest otherwise.

Bug wise, there were a few that jumped out over the 55 hours that I played, nothing game breaking, but still, it did grow a little annoying when the game notably stalls on the larger planets as you speed through them in the nomad.  The streaming system, which to be fair does a good job for 90% of the time, clearly struggling on the PS4 as it attempts to keep up.

The only other aspect of note that did annoy me was the compass and mission marker system.  This was because, at times, whenever there were multiple ways to an objective or the objective was on a different level it could be confusing to find it.  This resulted in me running in circles on more than one occasion.

There was also the odd moment where you will see people spawn in, and VO will play over the top of other VO lines if you are too quick when interacting with things.  However, when you consider the scale of the game, I would have expected to see more problems, but I didn’t.  So in that regard, Bioware should be commended.

In summary, Mass Effect Andromeda made some mistakes; it can’t hide nor deny it, but if you set the obvious aside and choose to play as the male version of Ryder opposed to his sister, those issues won’t be as in your face.  This won’t fix the lack of emotional expressions the game also suffers from, but it will make playing it more palatable.

I can’t say if the story is better or worse than the previous versions, as I said, I’ve never played them, but I can honestly say that I enjoyed this incarnation and felt like it was a worthwhile journey.  I wasn’t knocked off my chair mind, but it certainly had its moments.

It also has a hell of a lot of features and mechanics, which also work nicely in unison for legitimate reasons that tie in with the plot.  Some lack depth, others don’t, but compared to other games, Mass Effect Andromeda outshines them in this area for sure.  There's even a newgame+, if you're that way inclined, which allows you to carry over level, skill points, powers, research data and any non-mission related items. Everything else is reset.  Interestingly, you even get the chance to switch your gender.  So if took my advice and played as Scott, you can experience his sister, if you forgive the choice of wording.

Overall, I don’t regret playing it one bit, and to say I clocked up 55 hours with it and can honestly say I didn’t get bored once, that should stand for something.

If you are a fan of the franchise and haven’t played it because you heard it was bad, it isn’t, and in truth, I’ve played and completed far worse I can assure. 

On the plus side, it won’t break the bank to buy it now, right?  So give it a go, it deserves a fair shake.

This… is Agent S.

Found this review useful?  Why not share it using the below links.