Effective

Mass Effect Andromeda is a fun game, the end!

...

Okay, I suppose I can write a bit more about it:

I'd been slightly apprehensive heading into this game. Between the shift to a new studio (BioWare's Montreal division rather than the core Edmonton studio) and a new protagonist (the original trilogy exclusively followed Commander Shepard), there were enough unknowns to cool my normal anticipation for a new BioWare game. I didn't pre-order or get any of the special editions, just grabbed the game at release and dove in.

On the whole, I really like it. It pulls off a challenging trick, both continuing and reinventing the franchise. The hallmarks of the series are still present: dialogue-heavy gameplay, fast-paced squad shooter combat, beautiful planets, awesome space battles, a wide variety of alien species to meet, fight, and love. But it also upends a lot of the elements from previous games. Instead of a narrative that focuses on an existential threat that requires urgent force to combat, it's a story about exploring and building in a new galaxy. The tight binary dichotomy of Paragon and Renegade has been replaced with a more varied and textured set of tools for personalizing your character's attitude. Crafting has grown more complex. We're exploring a series of open zones rather than bespoke levels.

The end result is that it shakes up the series while keeping it recognizable. Everyone will have things that they like and dislike about those changes, but by the end of the game I was very much on board. I hesitate to say that it's better than the original trilogy, but it does certain things better, and seems confident in its own approach.

The change that most impacts gameplay is probably the shift to "open world" gameplay. I think that technically these are large zones; I tend to think of "Open World" as being a single contiguous map, as in GTA or Elder Scrolls, rather than a series of huge maps, like Shadow of Mordor, Rise of the Tomb Raider, or Dragon Age: Inquisition. Both designs result in a similar outcome: lots of player freedom, in that you can proceed at your own pace and direction, wandering around the map and doing things as they catch your interest; outside of a few critical plot missions, you can even stop a mission partway through and just go do something else for a while.

For years, I've been on the record as saying that my ultimate dream game would be an offspring of Bethesda and BioWare, which unified a large and immerse open world with vivid characters and a compelling plot. I've now gotten two of these games, with Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda. And... I don't love them as much as I feel like I should? Don't get me wrong, I do still love them (especially DA:I), but given my earlier statements I would think that I'd be ecstatic.

While playing Andromeda, I pondered this. Why wasn't it as awesome as it "should" be? I don't have a solid answer, but I do have a couple of thoughts.

First, when anticipating these mythical "ultimate games", what I'm really wishing for is something like Ultima VI or VII, but better: modern graphics and interface, and a deeper story. Thinking back on those games and comparing them to contemporary RPGs, I think part of the difference is how "gamified" the new RPGs are. That's a silly thing to say! What I mean, though, is that in the classic Ultimas, the world was something that existed in its own right, not as a source to mine for more gameplay. For all the time I spent wandering in Britannia, almost none of it mattered: there's no compelling reason to wander into fields, to chat with the farmer, to milk the cow, to churn the butter, to mill the grain, etc. If you just want to play the game, you can ignore like 80% of the world. But the fact that it's there, and deep, elevates the game: you feel like you're participating in the world, that it's a fully-realized place, which makes the big plot stuff feel all the more important: you know that this war will affect that farmer, even though he doesn't have anything direct to say about the threats facing his country.

In a modern RPG, though, that world would be seen as a wasted opportunity. You would have a Task for Visit Every Farmfield, yielding bonus XP upon completion. There would be an Achievement to Milk 100 Cows, granting you a special badge on Steam. Churning butter would unlock a new Codex entry. This would all be placed in service of increasing the total number of hours of "gameplay": "Yeah, you can beat Ultima XXI in 30 hours, but a completionist playthrough should last you 120 hours."

New and old RPGs both embrace open worlds, but they end up with opposite effects. New RPGs are Skinner boxes, training us in OCD behavior, doling out little morsels of mini-quests and lore nuggets to keep us engaged. Old RPGs were unstructured sandboxes, giving us the total freedom to wander or not, to sightsee or not, to come up with our own stupid ridiculous goals like dragging a cannon from Castle Britain to Yew or stealing every spoon in the game. Those old games felt relaxing, places I would want to spend hours wandering. The new games generate mild anxiety, a fresh checklist that I must complete before I'm allowed to stop playing.

The worlds themselves feel different too: games like Andromeda and Inquisition are "detailed" more than they're "real". They look incredible, but have relatively little interaction: you can't pull books off of shelves or rifle through desk drawers or pick fruit off the table. That isn't necessarily a bad thing - curated environments can be wonderful, and BioWare has a strong track record of making great ones. But it's another thing that creates a sense of distance from the truly "open" worlds of the past, where your character could do anything physically possible, from smashing an armoire into bits to flinging dishes into the street. These BioWare games are still essentially about telling a story, and not simulating a universe; but now that story has dozens or hundreds of subplots to resolve, and few or no plots you can create on your own. (The Bethesda games come much closer to the realism level of the Ultimas, though they still fall short - there's more detail than before, but very few opportunities to modify the game world apart from small objects.)

Ultimately, though, I think the big difference here is probably just myself. I find myself dreaming of an unstructured world that I can explore and enjoy at my leisure; but if I had that kind of game, would I realistically play it? There's a world of difference between the kid who played Ultima games and the adult playing Mass Effect. Back then, I had plenty of time and no money; I loved losing myself in those virtual worlds, telling stories as much as listening to them. Now, though, video games play a small (but, obviously, precious) part of my life, and I'm very conscious of everything I'm not doing when I'm playing a game. If a game can come in, get out, and make me feel something, then I consider it a good game. If it can do that in a few hours instead of dozens, then I consider it a great game. I just don't have much appetite for losing myself in virtual worlds for its own sake. That doesn't mean that this goal is bad or that there aren't plenty of folks who would enjoy it. But I probably need to start doing a better job of aligning my pre-existing notions of what would make a great game with what experience has taught me that I actually enjoy playing.

The above stuff probably sounds negative, so I should re-emphasize that I did enjoy all of the dozens of hours that I played Andromeda; it just set off that particular train of thought. "Waah, this game isn't perfect!" There are definitely advantages to shedding the more streamlined and linear gameplay of ME2/ME3, and it feels great to see the evolving impact that your actions have on the planets and connect with the land in that way. Unlike, say, Rise of the Tomb Raider, which would have been a very enjoyable game without its open-world component, Andromeda benefits directly from its freer gameplay, both narratively and mechanically. I quibble, but it's something they did for a clear reason, and it has strong advantages.

On an unrelated note: I was disappointed by the clubs in this game. They've been a strong element of all three Mass Effect games, reaching a zenith with Afterlife in ME2. There are several clubs you can visit here, but they're all pretty miserable. Most of them are dead, with just a bar and a few patrons awkwardly standing around. There's a single club that looks cool - Tartarus in the Kadara Slums - but the music here sucks, which makes all the partying folks look ridiculous. Sigh. It feels like they have the tools to make something great... there's great lighting, tunes, and modeling in the game, they just never all come together in an appealing way. It's a small thing, but was always a highlight of the earlier games for me, and I was a little bummed to not have that here.

MINI SPOILERS

The dialogue in this game can be good, but the written stuff is excellent. Emails and crew bulletin messages and other electronic communication tends to be really funny, and can also be poignant and touching. The absolute highlights for me were the terminal messages on New Tuchanka, which have turned the Krogan into my new favorite species.

I dallied a little with Vetra and Peebee early on, but quickly focused on Suvi as my love interest for this playthrough. That was largely driven by her fantastic voice, but I was also intrigued by her character. She is the ship's science officer: not a core member of your away team that you adventure with planet-side, but a consistent presence on your ship's bridge, along with Kallo the Salarian pilot. Her main role in the gameplay is to notify you of interesting astronomical phenomena you encounter; story-wise, she's involved in analyzing unusual technology you encounter and inventing original techniques and devices to accomplish goals.

Given that scientific occupation, you would assume that she would be a hyper-logical, Spock-like character. She ends up being a lot more interesting, though. She's driven by a sense of wonder and passion, delighting in the beauty of the universe and the mysteries it contains. In an early conversation, she reveals that she is religious, and sees the handiwork of God in the creation she so loves exploring. She doesn't see any tension between her faith and science: every new discovery she makes deepens her appreciation for the creator.

I thought that was cool. At first I thought it was really original - I can't think off hand of another human character in the franchise that has addressed religion. (The Asari have a vague religion. There were a few Codex entries describing in general terms that Earth's religions went through upheaval after discovering intelligent life on other planets, but none of the humans we've met have had much to say about it.) I tend to think of the BioWare folks as being genial secularists, and was pleasantly surprised to see a positive representation of a character of faith.

But then I remembered, duh, Dragon Age: not only have they included multiple characters with religious convictions, but I invariably end up romancing them. They've covered a wide range of backgrounds and explored different aspects of faith, but always in ways that feel genuine and respectfully engaged. Leliana in Origins is a conversion story: someone who walked in a dark path, then had a religious experience, and has become much more fervent in her beliefs than those born into the faith. Merrill is a cultural believer, whose sense of history and faith are strongly intertwined, and who looks to that background for support and direction. And Sera is a seeker, with an unarticulated sense of longing, trying to find answers to the existential questions that fill her with dread. Now, to this collection we can add Suvi, whose belief provides a framework with which she can analyze and take joy in the experiences around her.

Anyways, I shouldn't be surprised: regardless of what faiths the developers may or may not have, religion has been and continues to be a significant force in the world, and it's a valuable element in building characters. I'm sure that lots of people write about war and death when they've never killed another person, so why not explore this other vector of human experience?

I do think it's interesting, and pretty cool, that Sera and Suvi have both been people of faith and lesbians, without mining that for any angst or conflict. These are imaginary worlds, after all, and it's really refreshing to see those aspects able to live in harmony rather than pitted against each other.

Speaking of lesbians... after a couple of these games, I'm increasingly happy with the "mosaic" approach towards representation in BioWare games, where potential love interests are spread across a spectrum of heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual characters (with a birdie from Iron Bull in the pansexual department). It does occasionally lead to in-the-moment frustration ("Why doesn't Cora like Sara?!"), but I think there's a ton of value in representing the different types of people in the world. Dragon Age 2-style "everyone is bi" feels better in the short-term, but is ultimately a flatter experience, and feels manufactured around the player character rather than an organic environment into which they have arrived.

That said: this is the second game in a row in which homosexual characters have felt a bit like second-class citizens. Mass Effect 3 was the first game with "pure" same-sex relationships, and both of them were support staff who hung out on the Normandy but would never join you in the field. They were still really cool characters, eminently likeable and with good arcs of their own; but since they weren't present during any of the missions, they had an order of magnitude fewer lines and less impact on the story around you. I think the literal amount of "romance content" was fairly close for heterosexual and homosexual characters, but they couldn't be a part of your life in quite the same way, fighting side-by-side with you and bantering with your friends and commenting on the obstacles you encountered.

I don't want to make a big deal out of this - again, they are good characters, and I don't want a checklist of boxes that diverse characters must check - but I did raise my eyebrows when the exact same thing happened again in this game: once again, two same-sex characters, and once again, they're the support staff, confined to stay hidden at home while the rest of you head out into the world.

As usual, I think Dragon Age shows a more positive alternative. First of all, they mix things up quite a bit more, with Dorian and Sera as two fantastic companions, Cullen and Josephine as engaged advisors. While the advisors in Dragon Age are also kind of support staff, I feel like they got to be very present: you're regularly interacting with them for the various War Table missions, receiving frequent reports from them, assigning them to go on tasks, listening to them banter among the other advisors. It's still a step down from life in the party, but a shorter step, and would be more of a consolation.

Representation is definitely a hot topic these days, which everyone (including me) wants to weigh in on. I think that's a good thing, especially with the contemporary conversations taking place these days in the US and elsewhere. However, it is a little disheartening that many fans (including me!) reflexively reduce characters to simple gender/orientation pairings. "Gil = Gay Male", "Josephine = Bisexual Female", and so on. Characterization continues to be BioWare's strongest suit, and these labels aren't helpful at communicating their personalities: Sera and Traynor might fall into the same bucket, but they're worlds apart.

I think a big part of the reason for that is because romance is so important to us BioWare fans, and gender and orientation are the two factors that determine whether or not we'll be able to pursue a particular character. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about this: it does seem odd for those to be the sole factors in allowing or forbidding a relationship. In the real world, the odds that a random heterosexual man and woman will have a successful relationship are extremely slim. There are a whole host of factors, both definable and obscure, that come into play. Why not start considering some of those as well in our games?

This actually was more common in earlier RPGs. Baldur's Gate 2 was exclusively hetero, but still had restrictions: potential love interests had certain racial preferences (Aerie isn't interested in half-orcs, and Jaheira won't waste her time with gnomes) and alignment preferences. Fans created mods that added new queer love interests, but also added requirements of their own: Nalia got a fantastic new romance, which she would only pursue with a strong fighting man.

This all feels more realistic. Is it really more fun, though? Throwing up even more obstacles in the way of love would frustrate players even more. My current crazy idea (which I like in theory but would probably be untenable in practice) would be for characters to have a range of preferences, with romance possible above a certain threshold. So, for example, Cassandra is generally attracted to men; but, if the right woman comes along who looks a certain way, who makes certain kinds of choices, who follows a certain profession, etc., then she might be curious enough to experiment. I dunno... that would probably make it too complex and frustrating in a different way ("Why doesn't Cassandra like my jerk dwarf thief?!"), but it might make for an interesting experiment.

I've written many paragraphs without talking about Andromeda. Yikes.

MEGA SPOILERS

One last thing before moving on from representation: was anyone else weirded out by the Gil/Jill storyline? I know several gay couples who have had children, and nothing that comes close to what's depicted here. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt... norms might have changed significantly over several hundred years, and we're still in the first generation or two of recognized same-sex families, so maybe those bright lines are more important now than they will be in the future. Still, my eyebrows rose MANY inches during that last conversation with Gil. I feel like this would have made a lot more sense if humanity was directly facing a Battlestar Galactica-style species-extinction event, or a Genophage / Children of Men type of reproductive disaster. Within the context of settling Andromeda, though, it seemed deeply weird to me.

Back to the game itself: I generally enjoyed the plot and world-building, but was left a bit cold by the choices. Not always for the same reason, either. Sometimes they felt frustratingly limited, as in the murder investigation: you need to pick between two silly extremes instead of the middle road that the situation demands. Others are just dumb, like dealing with the Salarian traitors: given that they've already betrayed the ark, specifically to acquire information, there's really no reason why they wouldn't share their intelligence with you, since that was the whole point of them doing it in the first place! And quite often, the choices felt severely unbalanced, without any compelling reason for a particular side. Turn the remnant drive core over to the Krogan, and you can re-integrate this immensely powerful force back into the Initiative as friends and protectors, and start a new settlement on the planet. Keep the core for yourself, and...... what, exactly? Or, near the end of the game, you can decide to cut a secret deal with the Kett second-in-command, to abandon the Archon and allow you a clearer path to kill him. Why wouldn't you take that deal? Those aren't necessarily bad choices, but it feels like they forgot to explain the downside to making them.

In general, the choices don't seem to affect much. I rescued the rogue Angaran AI, which did lead to some very amusing dialogue back on the Hyperion, but never actually impacted things one way or another. Picking to save or destroy various Pathfinders affects future cutscenes and dialogue, but doesn't seem to make a mechanical impact on the game. Honestly, though, I think this is more or less in line with the choices in the earlier Mass Effect games. Stuff like saving the Rachni queen in Mass Effect 1 seemed like huge choices with galaxy-shaking consequences, but ended up only having a minor flavor effect on the game. Over the course of the trilogy, there were really just a handful of decisions that had significant impact on the game itself: like Virmire and the Suicide Mission.

One recurring theme of playing Andromeda was making me even more deeply appreciative of Dragon Age. Particularly in the choice-and-consequences department, DA has been especially strong at altering the course of the game: from Connor Guerrin to the Landsmeet to the Dark Ritual to Hushed Whispers to the Pool to... well, there are a lot, which can have both immediate and long-lasting reverberations, drastically altering the tone of subsequent play-throughs. I don't want to rag on Mass Effect - it's always been pursuing a more cinematic experience than Dragon Age, and tells its story very well - but it's a story with fewer variations, and the people who play Mass Effect will have similar experiences to one another, in contrast with the wider-ranging journeys taken in Dragon Age.

In some ways, though, Mass Effect seems to be picking up good features from Dragon Age (much as Dragon Age has inherited better cinematics). One particular thing that jumped out at me was the great final mission on Meridian. This reminded me in a really good way of the Arbor Wilds sequence in Inquisition: you're leading a small squad, but at the same time an entire army of your allies, in a fast-paced and enthusiastic pursuit of your foe. I love these "all skate" endings, which Dragon Age has always done well: it's thrilling to see Bann Teagan and Enchanter Irving and your various armies arrive to battle the archdemon, or Cullen and your other party members arrive to fight Meredith, or Briala and Celene arrive to lead Orlesian troops against Corypheus. I don't think that's been a part of Mass Effect endings before: narratively, there's a huge battle taking place at the end of ME1, but it doesn't actually affect what you personally are doing much. Here, though, it was a blast to take the field with Sloane and Kandros and the other friends I'd made along the way.

END SPOILERS

Anyways, hopefully that's a good sign! While I do enjoy Mass Effect, Dragon Age remains my first love, and it's very encouraging to see more and more of that DNA spreading across.

Last but (maybe?) not least, here are my albums! After all my complaining about not being able to take screenshots, I finally came up with the most ridiculous, jury-rigged daisy-chained work-around ever (running Origin through Steam so I could double-overlay the game and finally capture the dang screen). I have a bunch of photos, but they start from maybe 40 hours or so into the game. Lots of spoilers, I guess. I realize I didn't talk much about the actual game itself in this post; there's more of that in the captions to these shots.
Here are some pictures
Here are some more pictures
The last mission
The ending of the game

And, in a non-spoilery vein, here's an album just of outer-space screenshots. I have a crazy theory that this is a very pretty game that looks nice, and I think these images support that theory.

That's it for now! I've finally determined that the secret to making SAM stop talking is to stop playing the game, so that's what I'll be doing for at least the next couple of weeks. I will probably come back to this after some future patches, and will almost certainly be picking up whatever expansions come out. I'm not sure yet if I'll actually do a second playthrough or not... I've only ever done one with the original trilogy, and apart from the other romances, there isn't a whole lot that I want to experience which I haven't already done here. Still, there's enough left to do in the world that I might continue Valiri Ryder's story for a while longer, spending more time on those beautiful planets and taking the excuse of unfinished tasks to go on another voyage.

Massive Effect

Just another quick check-in on Mass Effect: Andromeda. I’m now about 50 hours into the game, which I think is just counting the singleplayer portion; I’ve probably played about a dozen hours of multiplayer on top of that. I’m still really liking it. I have plenty of complaints, but that’s par for the course with a huge, ambitious game like this.

I wasn’t expecting this, but ME:A has felt a lot like Dragon Age: Inquisition. The original trilogy of ME was very distinct from the first two DA games, in technology and tone and interface and design. At the surface, these games are still pretty different - Mass Effect is a sci-fi shooter while Dragon Age is a fantasy roleplaying game - but a surprising number of underlying mechanics are shared between the two. Some particular examples that jump out to me:

Resource collection. Collecting elfroot has turned into mining aluminum. As with DA, there are multiple ways to acquire these resources: personally picking them up within the world, or ordering your organization to handle it for you.

Influence in DA:I has become Andromeda Viability Points in ME:A, and Perks have become Cryo Pods. They’re sorted similarly: Forces / Secrets / Connections / Inquisition now map onto Military / Science / Commerce. Many of the specific perks provide the same upgrades: larger inventory, automatic resource collection, special inventories unlocked, discounts on transactions, etc.

The War Table in DA:I has become Apex in ME:A. It’s a similar link between in-game actions and “missions” that take place in the real world. The fiction behind both is pretty much the same: you recruit folks and then send them off to perform tasks that your main character can delegate. Rewards are similar as well (credits/gold, research/influence, resources/resources). There are a couple of differences - most War Table missions were unique one-time affairs while all of the Apex missions are repeatable, you actually level up your Apex operatives over time, and you can fail Apex missions.

Multiplayer is pretty similar, both the in-game fiction (Inquisition forces in DA:I, Apex strike teams in ME:A) and the overall progression. So far I’ve been enjoying ME:A’s multiplayer a lot more; I think I prefer the unlocking/upgrading mechanic of DA:I, but the actual matches in ME:A are more enjoyable, and while it has issues so far it’s been less buggy than DA:I’s.

The Mass Effect series seems to be taking the same evolutions over its predecessors as Dragon Age has. Where earlier games were more focused on the exceptional actions of one extraordinary individual and their cool friends, the latest game places that person in a position of authority in a larger organization. You aren’t on a quest to save the world: you’re rallying a civilization behind you, growing its influence and shaping its policies. On the flip side, both franchises have shifted from largely bespoke, custom environments to more sprawling open-world-ish zones. And added jumping! We now have huge, gorgeous areas to wander through, but also more fetch quests and a less focused narrative.

And, of course, the shared core BioWare DNA drives even more similarities between the franchises: the dialogue wheel, focus on companions, epic plot line, generally diverse cast, lots of customization options for the player character.

There are also changes from the original trilogy, beyond “making it more like Dragon Age”. A couple that spring to mind:

Paragon and Renegade are gone. I’m generally happy with this - Paragon/Renegade is way better than Good/Evil, but I still vastly preferred Dragon Age’s more complex and situational morality. That said, the new system is a lot less impactful. It reminds me a little of Dragon Age 2’s “tones”, which included categories like Diplomatic, Sarcastic, and Aggressive. There are a bunch here: Emotional, Logical, Casual, but they don’t seem to carry as much weight. Which might be a good thing… I’ve never gone, “Oh, I’m playing a Logical character, so I need to click the gear to proceed.” But there also doesn’t seem to be all that much difference between the choices.

They’ve also replaced the old Interrupts (which had to be either Paragon or Renegade) with a new system of “Impulsive Action”, which is always a binary choice to do something or not. I really appreciate how, like in the original trilogy, you sometimes (maybe often) DON’T want to take the action. They seem to be a lot less common than in the old games, but it’s been a while since I played them and I may be mis-remembering their frequency.

ME:A continues the Dragon Age tradition of putting big ole’ hearts next to the buttons that you click to initiate or pursue a romance with another character, which is a change I 100% approve of. As in DA:I (and ME3) there are a variety of sexualities represented, which is cool to see. ME:A also adds a new type of icon, called “Friendship”, which… I don’t really get? So far I’ve only seen it pop up for a single character, and my Ryder’s line-reading of those choices sounds several levels more intimate than pure “friendship”.

Ryder is growing on me even more. I’ll always love Jennifer Hale’s Shepard, but I really appreciate how Ryder’s background lends itself to a more purely fun personality. Shepard was military, and by default adopted a gruff, no-nonsense attitude. (The perk being, when she DID turn sarcastic, it was unexpected and awesome.) Ryder is more quippy and seems to be enjoying her job and the thrill of exploration and making new friends more.

I think the companions are, across the board, more pleasant to be around. This isn’t NECESSARILY an improvement - some of the most memorable BioWare companions have been the divisive ones with strongly negative qualities. But I think the cast here is one of the most purely likable of any recent BioWare game; there’s no equivalent to broadly-disliked characters like Jacob or adversarial companions like Anders/Ashley. (Though this might change by the time I finish the game! I’ve done everyone’s loyalty quest so far but I’m pretty sure I still have a ways to go in the main plot.)

A few more complaints to append to my previous list:

The economy is janked. I’m not super-surprised; it’s never been great in any BioWare game, and is especially hard to do well in open-world RPGs. But I think this is the worst of any game I’ve played lately. I’m about 50 hours into the game, and have built up about 41,000 credits in small increments of 40 and 50 credits, and there’s absolutely nothing that I want to buy. Here’s the sum total of everything I’ve purchased:

• 20 credits to respec my character
• A couple hundred to buy unique quest items to complete specific missions
• A couple hundred for collectible ships (zero gameplay benefit, just for fun)
• I guess some nomad upgrades? Let’s say a few hundred credits total. This is the only mechanically useful thing I’ve found yet that’s worth buying.

That’s IT. There’s no point in buying any weapons or armor: you find plenty while questing, and the stuff you can craft is an order of magnitude better than anything you can buy. There’s no point in buying resources: you get a ton while playing the game (or even while NOT playing the game, based on your Apex / Cryo choices), and the stuff that’s actually rare like Remnant Cores aren’t available to buy. There aren’t any money sinks at all that I can find. DA:I’s economy wasn’t great, but at least it had somewhat-meaningful options to dump the excess, where you could buy raw Influence or cosmetics. I have no idea why I’m still earning money, when I’ve spent almost none of it and have nothing worth saving for.

Skill economy is pretty bleh as well. I just reached level 40, and have no idea what to do with all of my skill points. You can only have up to 3 active skills at a time, which will take a total of 63 points to max out. You can put more points into passive trees, but I’ve already maxed all of mine out, including the useless ones in Biotics and Combat. It made a bit more sense in the earlier games, where you could have more active skills at a time, but I’m baffled at what I’m supposed to do now. I suppose I’m probably supposed to invest in more skills, and switch between different sets depending on the situation? But constant remapping of keys seems like a huge pain to me.

But also a few new bright spots:

While the hair is still bad, it isn’t AS bad as in DA:I. In particular, I’ve found one NPC with a ponytail that I like, so, yay, we know that good hair can exist in this galaxy!

I like how there isn’t any fall damage. It makes exploration more fun. It also makes perfect sense within the context of the game world: Ryder is wearing a jetpack, after all, and could definitely ease the descent. (There are some annoyingly well-hidden crevices in underground maps that lead to infinite falls, especially on a few combat maps where you’re moving around quickly without a lot of time to plan your route, but fortunately these just strip some health and set you back at a safe location rather than insta-kill you.)

Here’s my wish list for changes to this game, sorted from most important to least.

1. Shut SAM up. I’m at the point where I would gladly pay for a five dollar DLC to permanently disable him. Though it would also be cool to research and develop a “mute” switch for him. Or just an in-game audio option. I don’t care. Just make him stop talking, please.
2. Add a screenshot button, or convince their friends at EA to add one to Origin.
3. Mirror of Transformation-style thing to re-morph Ryder’s face in-game. I’m generally really happy with her, but would love to just touch up her lipstick a little.
4. For character creation and armor customization and any paint-related thing, add a “revert” option. It’s easy to mess something up, and (as far as I can tell here, as in DA:I) impossible to switch back to what you were using before, short of saving and re-loading.
5. Better goals for multiplayer. I really miss the old weekend challenges, and the new nameplates are a lot less cool than the old banners.

BioWare is apparently making an announcement tomorrow, so we’ll see if they answer any of my wishes!

MINI SPOILERS

I’m really digging the loyalty missions so far. In particular, I think Liam’s is my favorite one of the entire Mass Effect series, and maybe better than the Dragon Age ones. Everything about it is wonderful: the tone, the plot that keeps spiraling further out of control, the comical music cues, the timing, cinematography, creative level design, squad bonding… it’s so tight and so focused and so packed with personality. I love it so much! I was lukewarm on Liam before this, but now he’s one of my favorite squaddies.

So far I’ve been in my “romance everyone” phase. There was a relatively early hookup opportunity with Peebee that seems to be along the same lines as Morrigan in DA:O and Isabela in DA2: a “just for fun” fling that simultaneously terminates the romance line. Learning from my mistakes in those earlier games (and with some nicely guarded guidance from my brother, who has already beat this freakin’ game) I took the easy out rather than stringing her further along. I really like both Vetra and Suvi, for very different reasons… I’m currently learning towards Suvi, who has a fantastic voice (and the odd but endearing character quirk of “tries to eat things that she really shouldn’t”). It looks like I’ll need to continue the plot further to lock in the romance, though.

MEGA SPOILERS

Thus far, Valiri Ryder’s primary objective has been building up the Initiative/Angaran alliance, which has been the deciding factor in a couple of major decisions so far. When deciding the fate of the Kett “exalting” facility, Ryder’s generally compassionate and companionable orientation was overridden by the explicit plea of the Moshae. While Valiri generally gets along with Jaal, it seemed more prudent to appease a crucial figure like the Moshae.

Apart from the alliance, Valiri is mostly driven by a general desire to help people: make the galaxy safe, reconcile the Exiles with the Nexus, encourage and support her team. Some of the decisions give good opportunities to explore and express these values; others just seem dumb. The murder investigation is an oft-cited example of an annoying quest, where a complex situation gets reduced to a rigid binary choice that satisfies nobody (though, in my case, the epilogue seemed to end things in a better way than I had expected, with the murderer voluntarily re-entering stasis). Another one that seemed dumb was the protestors who were demanding their family to be release from cry. Which… for what?! The Initiative is still trying to feed and house the people it already has; bringing more people out will just make them miserable. It isn’t hurting anyone to keep them in longer, and if we DID start thawing out people, why would we set the precedent of unfreezing the relatives of people who complain the most? Things like that could have been more compelling with different parameters (life-or-death, or deciding the order of revival after the colonies have been secured), but as delivered it just seems weird.

The game seems to put a lot of emphasis on Ryder’s family relations. I didn’t feel particularly invested in the paternal bond, so I’ve been picking the options along the lines of “we weren’t that close.” Which I’ve been pretty happy with and the game seems to be honoring; I get annoyed when a game pushes the idea of “the player character feels very emotionally invested in this character!” (one of the most frustrating aspects of ME3), and it’s nice to be able to opt out of that bond while still letting it be an important element of the plot.

That said, the quests and choices seem to have been getting better and more interesting the further I get in the game. I was ambivalent about Sloane’s regime on Kadara for a long time: her methods can be cruel, and I want to encourage exiles to return to the Nexus rather than establish opposing power centers. Still, at the end of that quest chain, I ended up saving her and shooting Reyes: not so much because I agreed with Sloane’s political platform as because Reyes personally irritated me. Sloane may be corrupt, but I can work with her; Reyes is even less trustworthy, and without any solid information from him on how his victory might benefit the Nexus, I wasn’t at all inclined to support his move.

Let’s see, what else… I saved the probably-evil AI on Voeld and set her up with SAM. I suspect this will have disastrous consequences, but want to see how it plays out. It reminds me a bit of the decision with the Rachni queen back in the original Mass Effect. (And, now that I think of it, it's also very similar to how I handled APEX in Shadowrun Dragonfall. Hm, there may be a trend here...)

I’m sure there’s more; I’ll probably do a full run-down in a post-game post, as well as a more structured reflection on the story as a whole.

END SPOILERS

Okay, back into it! I’ve been digging the game a lot so far. I think I still have a fair amount left to go; up until now I’ve been following my standard operating procedure for RPGs and focusing on all of the side quests. Sooner or later I’ll roll back onto the main priority missions and blast through to the end. Looking forward to seeing where this story goes! It’s been fun on its own terms so far, and is also a promising indicator for what the future of the franchise might look like in Andromeda.

How Far I'll Go

This is just a preliminary check-in on Mass Effect: Andromeda. I'm still very early in the game, but am enjoying it so far.

VERY MINI SPOILERS

Highlights:

• It looks GORGEOUS. The science-fiction design and artwork has always been a hallmark of the series, and continues to shine, from the gleaming spaceship interiors to the nebulae and black holes you encounter while flying.
• I'm really digging the voice acting so far. I miss Jennifer Hale, of course, but Ryder sounds great, and the rest of the cast is really solid as well. Particular shout-outs to bureaucratic Salarian Kumail Nanjiani, sweet doctor Natalie Dormer, and lilting Suvi.
• Combat feels really good. I'm still finding my feet, but the jetpack adds a great new dimension (literally!) to movement and strategy. I'm also happy that tech and biotic powers now have synergy with one another, which gives more flexibility in team composition.
• Some excellent writing, particularly in drunken email messages.

Things I miss from the original trilogy:

• Whenever I talk to SAM I think about EDI and get sad at the comparison.
• So far, no character is filling the Joker role.
• The Vortex feels like an incredibly pale imitation of the awesome clubs in the earlier games. I'm hoping that either it upgrades over time or other entertainment outlets open.

Early complaints:

• No screenshots! I feel more stunned than upset about this. I can't believe that in the 21st century I can't easily show off a video game I'm playing. There's no built-in screenshot function (although there is a "Screenshots" folder), and Origin doesn't have a Steam-style capture option. I've been investigating some third-party alternatives (FRAPS,  Ansel), but they have limitations that crimp my process (FRAPS captures in BMP, Ansel doesn't work during conversations or cut-scenes). I suppose it's a benefit to readers of this blog, though... no more albums filled with hundreds of photos! The main thing I regret is I can't show off my Ryder, who I think looks pretty good.
• Some of the dialog is groan-inducing... but that isn't really new for the series.
• Multiplayer randomly crashes to desktop without any error messages. Which is a shame, because I loved the ME3 multiplayer and have been enjoying Andromeda's when it actually works.
• Inventory management whyyyyyyyyyy. They fixed this after the first game! It's my pet peeve about RPGs, and I hate spending tons of time sorting through items in menus instead of actually playing the danged game. The fact I have to do it at all is irritating; actually processing stuff is even worse, since you need to move between multiple physical locations to equip/unequip items, remove mods, and sell items. The carry limit is so low that you need to do this after every major mission. Ugh.

END SPOILERS

That's it so far! I'm sure I'll have plenty more to say later, but in these early hours I'm really digging the game.

Take a Look at Banner, Michael!

Hey, look! I got my banner!

I've been pretty surprised at every stage of my experience with Mass Effect 3 co-operative multiplayer. At first, I was surprised that it even existed: who put online multiplayer in my single-player RPG? Then I was surprised that I was playing it: why did they create the Galactic Readiness system that "forced" me to play multiplayer to get a better ending in single-player. Then I was surprised that I was enjoying it: hadn't I given up online multiplayer after the original Half/Life? Then I was surprised that I was getting good at it: who would have thought that a nearly-naked space monster setting all the things on fire would appeal to me so much? And now, I'm shocked that I've beaten all the challenges and, somehow, gone out near the top of the huddle.

I've already described how I started out as a Bronze-only player, just repeatedly playing an Engineer (Human or Salarian, rarely Quarian) up to level 20, then promoting and doing it again. That was pretty fun. I started to expand my horizons a bit by participating in the Weekend Challenges. Early on, these were insanely difficult challenges that I wasn't even tempted to tackle; I think that Week 2 was "Extract against Reapers on Gold," to which my response was "Hahahahaha NOPE." But, there were also Community Challenges that you could participate in (for example, a total of 10,000 extractions against Reapers for all players on all difficulties), and achieving these would give lesser but still nice rewards.

Later on, the weekend challenges got more specialized, to the point where even weaker players like me could beat them. Something like "Score 50,000 points against Cerberus" would go much more quickly for Gold players, but I could do it just by playing enough Bronze games. And, as I started beating more of the weekend challenges and getting commendation packs, I started getting some really good weapons like the N7 Hurricane.

My purchasing system was all messed up throughout the entire game. I later realized that, as everyone says, what you should do is buy nothing but Recruit packs at first, which will upgrade your starter weapons and, more importantly, give you Common Mods for those weapons. A mediocre weapon with good mods is actually often better than a strong weapon with no mods. Along the way, you'll occasionally unlock Uncommon characters and weapons. After you've maxed your mods, move on to Veteran Packs, which will unlock another six characters and a higher tier of weapons and mods. Finally, once your Uncommons are maxed, switch over to the top tier of Spectre, Premium Spectre, Reserves or Arsenal Packs, which will give you the highest tiers of weapons, characters, mods, and gear.

The advantage of doing it this way is that the middle-tier cards in your packs will give you more high-level single-use consumable equipment. From the beginning, though, I had pretty exclusively purchased Premium Spectre Packs, which guarantee 2 rare cards and a higher chance of ultra-rares. This was actually pretty exciting... sure, it would take 6 Bronze games to buy a single pack, but I was able to get early access to some fairly exotic items like the Vorcha Soldier, Volus Engineer, Omni-Capacitors, Shredder Mod, and Black Widow sniper rifle. So that was cool. The down-side, though, was that the middle slots of my packs were often unlocking, say, the Avenger II or the Shuriken III. At the time, that didn't really matter. However, much more recently when I started making the transition to Gold, it was frustrating to be so short on consumable equipment, and I started to wish that I'd followed a more conventional path from the beginning.

However, because I'd been so good at unlocking Rare characters and weapons, I was actually able to make a ton of progress on the Challenge system once they added it to the game. Many challenges take one of the following forms:

• Extract 10 times as character X.
• Complete 200 waves as character X.
• Score 140,000 points with weapon Y.
• Score 50,000 points with power Z.

 So, with access to so many weapons and characters, and their corresponding powers, I could make huge progress just by playing lots of Bronze and Silver games. In fact, in some ways this made things easier, at least for the Extract and Waves challenges, since that tends to go much more quickly on the easier settings.

Along the way, I was being gently encouraged by both the weekend challenges and the standing challenge system to try new things. It broke me out of my Engineer Only rut and made me appreciate newer characters. Sometimes I would just use them until a single Challenge was over, and then never use them again. Other times, though, I would really click with a certain playstyle, and put them into a permanent rotation.

I definitely became a much better player as a result of all these changes. Playing weapons-heavy classes forced me to improve my aim, sharpen my reflexes, and figure out exactly where the head was on every enemy. (It's not always where you'd expect!) Playing power-based classes prompted me to dig deeper into the surprisingly rich and strategic Explosions system, and helped me learn how to coordinate my build in the lobby with other players (even in the absence of any microphones). Playing tanky classes made me acutely aware of which enemies had a sync-kill and when and where they could use them. And on, and on.

For a while, I thought that I'd retire my Mass Effect multiplayer playing once I unlocked either the Squad Elite or the Spectre Mastery banners. The former requires a wide variety of interesting achievements, including reviving squadmates, using your missile launcher, and extracting a certain number of times. The latter is more of an endurance achievement, and requires scoring a large total number of points, completing a large number of waves, and winning many medals (of any kind).

After I won the Operator title by completing Squad Elite, though, I decided that I wanted to take a crack at Gold. For my very first game, I took my favorite character, a Vorcha Soldier, loaded him up with my best equipment, took a deep breath, and launched into a Gold match against Reapers on Firebase: Ghost. It was... painful. Embarrassing, even. This guy is a beast on Silver, able to tank lots of high-level opponents at the same time. On Gold, though, I died on the very first wave, facing nothing but 3 cannibals. I learned my lesson, started playing more conservatively, and, with tons of help from my squadmates, we made it to a successful extraction.

Since then, I've spent the last month mostly playing on Gold. It's a much tougher challenge than the games I'd been playing before, but also seems to attract stronger players, and has pushed me to continue improving myself. I started to think that the Best of the Best banner might be achievable, and looked at what it would require. The biggest obstacles were the "200 waves as X" challenges, which would be time-consuming but could be done easily in Silver; the N7 Mastery challenge, which would require promotion 60 characters from Level 20; and the Map Mastery challenge, which would require a minimum of 120 Gold games to complete.

I decided to try and tackle these in parallel as much as I could. As an ideal setup, I would be using a new character (for 200 waves), with a new weapon (for 140,000 points) and/or power (for 50,000 points). I would start with him or her in Silver for at least a few matches to get used to their mechanics and develop a strategy. Depending on how confident I felt with them, I might jump up to Gold as soon as level 12 (for a character like the Batarian Soldier), or wait until nearly hitting 20 (like the Asari Valkyrie), or forego Gold altogether. As soon as I hit level 20, I would promote the character. Then, I would pick the highest-level class of my remaining characters, see what Challenge I could beat with that, and then start the cycle again. Thanks to character cards, I could usually get my classes up to level 8-10 before I even started playing them, so I could jump right into Silver with a somewhat-decently-leveled character.

By the time I finished up my Aliens challenges (with the 200 Waves requirements), I was getting close to N7 Mastery. I promoted a few more times while running characters around in Gold, then stopped once I reached 58 promotions, figuring I'd stick with my favorite classes at Level 20, and then promote them at the end after finishing my Map Mastery requirements. By this point I had basically settled in on a favorite kit for each class, and in the absence of any requirement for a particular challenge, I generally stuck with them:

• Adept: The vanilla Asari Adept was my go-to, particularly in a lobby with other Biotics. (Weirdly, the Asari Justicar was one of the very last kits I unlocked, even though she was added to the game long ago.)
• Sentinel: The Vorcha Sentinel is a more-powerful version of my beloved Vorcha Soldier. He's still a high-risk character to play... I often end the game at the top of the score charts, but also die more than anyone else.
• Soldier: Lots of good options here. Batarian Soldier is probably my favorite, but the Turian Marksman was fantastic for completing Weapons challenges, and the Turian Havoc has great survivability.
• Infiltrator: My favorite class to play in Gold. I unlocked the Turian Ghost very late in the game, but he ended up as my single favorite kit to play. The AIU was another late addition, and she was a lot of fun; I switched to her whenever I had a lot of Shotgun Rail Amps. The Geth Infiltrator is also fantastic, and my go-to when I have a stockpile of Drill Rounds.
• Engineer: Weirdly enough, the Volus Engineer was my favorite to play in Gold. It's tough to get a handle on playing Voluses because they have so dang many options at their disposal (cloak! boost! bubble!); once you have the hang of it, though, they're incredibly survivable, and if you play them well, they can be a big asset to your team. I loved pairing him with the Scorpion; on certain maps, I could single-handedly block off an entire corridor or room against any number of enemies with him, thanks to the endless mines and explosions and staggers.
• Vanguard: It's unimaginative, but I do love the Krogan Battlemaster Vanguard. I try to play him exclusively against Geth, but he's a beast, and can easily tank two Primes simultaneously.

Early on in ME3, I primarily relied on the wiki to research kits and plan out builds and strategy. The official forums have a lot of useful information, but the signal to noise ratio is pretty abysmal. Fairly recently, though, I've found a fantastic resource in an unlikely place: Reddit's MECoOp subreddit, which has collected together an amazing set of incredibly pertinent data: the Big Bad List of Builds, a ranked collection of different builds for each kit, along with often-useful discussion on the quirks of each build; and the ME Co-op College, a set of essays that clearly explain every aspect of the game: shield-gating, armor, the store, moving from silver to gold, soloing, etc. This was the perfect find for me, since all the information was located in one place, and it was curated such that I could find the most useful data quickly without wading through a lot of fluff.

Along the way, I stopped finishing near the bottom of the score charts, and now often end in first or second place. Of course, score doesn't really matter in this game - credits are what everyone wants, so as long as a mission is completed everyone will be happy - but it makes me happy to feel like I'm elevating my team and performing at a higher level. In a weird way, it makes me think a little of my changing attitudes towards physical fitness. When I was in school, I absolutely hated sports and gym class, which were focused on dividing into teams and creating winners and losers. (The fact that I often lost couldn't have helped.) In my adulthood, though, I've discovered the satisfaction that comes from pushing myself personally to improve and grow stronger, whether it's through hiking, cycling, whatever. Similarly, I have no interest in video game systems that force me to defeat another person, or suffer that ignominy myself; but, I love tracking my own progress and seeing myself improve over time. If I can help other people have better games because of the actions I take, so much the better!

As a side-note, it was interesting to see how my rankings changed as I played. When multiplayer first launched, there was a single ranking, the N7 rating. This tracks how high you have leveled your classes, and how many times you have promoted a character. I'm pretty sure that it was intended as a quick indication of how experienced a player was, but in practice, it wasn't very useful: many of the best players had N7 ratings of just 120, since they liked playing multiplayer and always kept Level 20 characters around without promoting; other players like me had significantly higher ratings, but weren't terribly talented.  Once BioWare added the Challenge system, though, the Challenge rating gave much more useful information about how experienced players were. If a player had one of the more difficult banners, like Hardcore or Nomad, then you would know that they had played the game a lot to achieve it; conversely, if they had one of the weekend challenge banners or no banner, they were probably fairly new to the game and/or a casual player. Similarly, a higher challenge rating tended to correspond to a stronger player. Finally, players with higher-upgraded rare weapons often were veterans; granted, they could have simply bought them with Real Money, but even then they tended to play better.

(Why does this matter? It doesn't, really, at Bronze or Silver. On Gold, though, most players will be investing limited consumable resources in their games, and spending a lot of time, and they really want to complete that Wave 10 objective. If you're in a lobby with 4 players who all look experienced, have strong weapons, and have Level III/IV equipment, then you can probably cruise through a Gold challenge in less than 20 minutes. But, if most of the players have a Challenge rating of less than 100, and are wielding weapons like the Avenger IV, and don't have any equipment, then either the team will wipe, or one more experienced player will end up burning all of his Cobras, Medi-Gels, and Ops Packs, and it will take him or her 45 minutes to drag them all through to extraction. That's not fun. These quick looks help experienced players rapidly evaluate their lobbies, and either quit or, in rare cases, vote to kick if some people don't belong there. Not that it's the players' fault; for some asinine reason, BioWare set the default search for matches to "Any Difficulty" instead of "Bronze Difficulty," so there's a steady influx of unprepared newbies trickling into the higher difficulties.)

I also noticed some trends in my relative standings over time. In addition to your raw N7 and Challenge point ratings, the game also tracks your overall standing on a global leaderboard. I'd taken a multi-month break from multiplayer, so when I returned, I think my Challenge ranking was just something like 50%; interestingly, my N7 was still quite high, I think something like 10%. It didn't take very much playing for me to rocket from Top 50% Challenge ranking up to Top 10%; I strongly suspect that most players will only casually play a couple of games and score a few incidental Challenge points, so anyone who starts actually playing multiplayer for the fun of it will quickly outpace the crowd. However, after I reached 10%, I stalled out there for quite a while, even when I was actively playing a few matches every day. Based on this, I would venture a guess that roughly 10% of the player base is fairly active; so, even though I was winning points while playing more matches, the other 10% were also gaining points at roughly the same rate, leaving us at overall similar rankings.

Then, within a relatively short timespan, I moved from 10% up to 5%. I wish I could remember exactly when this was, but I think it might have been around the time I transitioned to Gold. That makes sense on a few levels - Gold matches offer a lot more points, so it's quicker to complete point-based challenges (which includes every single Weapons challenge) on Gold than Silver; also, I was now accessing an entirely new set of Challenges, and so had a larger pool in which to progress. As an alternate explanation, since I was typically working on multiple challenges simultaneously, I also tended to go for a while without completing any of them, and then wrap up a bunch at around the same time. There are big point bumps from the top-tier challenges, and hitting a few of those at around the same time may have been what vaulted me up.

From there, it was a slow and gradual progression upward. I ended up in the top 2% of both N7 and Challenge ratings. So... yeah, I really can't consider myself the "Best of the Best" if I'm not even in the top percentile; but still, it's something I'm pretty happy with.

Some final random thoughts follow.

• Favorite map: Probably Glacier. It's tiny, and claustrophobic, and brutal, and fast-paced, and incredibly fun, especially when you're with a strong team who can crush everything in record time.
• Prettiest map: There are a lot of good ones. Hydra is probably the nicest. Jade is also great. 
• Least favorite map: This depends a lot on objectives and team composition. London can often be stressful.
• Hardest map: Hazard Ghost (but I do really enjoy this map - it's tough, but great atmosphere, and a lot of fun).
• Ugliest map: Either Giant or Reactor.
• Easiest map: Depends on the team, but probably Glacier, Giant, or White.
• Easiest to solo: I swear by Ghost. I did both of my Gold Solos here. It's big enough that you can draw enemies away for the 4 Devices or the Hack objective, but broken up enough by the buildings that you can easily escape the enemies' line-of-sight.
• Favorite kit: Ghost Infiltrator, with runners-up of Batarian Soldier, Vorcha Sentinel, and Geth Infiltrator.
• Favorite sniper rifle: Black Widow. The Javelin is really cool, but requires more patience than I have.
• Favorite assault rifle: Cerberus Harrier! Probably my favorite weapon in the whole game. I actually used to use the Geth Pulse Rifle a lot, mostly because I had it at Level X and it didn't weigh anything. Now that I understand how armor works, I'm a bit embarrassed by that.
• Favorite SMG: Probably the Hurricane. I used my Collector SMG a lot on my Ascented Collector Adept, though, and that was a lot of fun too.
• Favorite Shotgun: I didn't use shotguns a whole lot. The Reegar is probably technically the best, though it doesn't feel like a shotgun at all (apart from the limited range). Likewise, I loved throwing the N7 Crusader on my Turian Havoc, but it's very un-shotgun-y. I did like the Raider, whose two shots made it a bit more forgiving than the Claymore while still packing a huge punch.
• Favorite pistol: Really hard to pick just one. The Acolyte was my most-often-used pistol in the endgame. The Eagle is a lot of fun to use, if not a particularly effective gun. The Blood Pack Punisher was both fun and effective, though challenging to use. The Arc Pistol was my favorite gun in single-player, and a great fit for certain classes. The Scorpion was a ridiculous and enjoyable gun. The Carnifex and Paladin were solid, satisfying shooters. And the Talon was a terrific pairing for most casters who didn't need the Acolyte.
• Hardest enemy: Collectors, by far. In the early days of co-op, though, it was the Reapers, before Bioware toned down the Banshee's ridiculous reach.
• Easiest enemy: Depends on the class and map, but usually Reapers (for any kit strong against armor) or Geth (for melee units or kits strong against shields).
• Most frustrating enemy: Either Cerberus (sync-killing Phantoms, stomping Atlases, and charging Dragoons) or Geth (endless staggering stunlocks!)
• Favorite ammo: Incendiary! Hey, I just love setting things on fire!
• Favorite armor equipment: Highly class-dependent, but it's always fun to slap Adreneline III on anything. Putting it on a Drell Adept is just ridiculously awesome.
• Favorite gear: Max Grenades, Warfighter Package, Shock Trooper, or Omni-Capacitors. I love the idea of the Geth Scanner, but never got mine up to a very high level.
• Best weapon mods: Anything with piercing, on any weapon, stacked if possible. Follow-ups: Smart Choke on Shotgun or Extended Clip on Assault Rifle.
• Favorite heavy melee: Batarian, with Krogan a close second.
• Favorite dodge: Asari, though Vorcha was the most fun.
• Favorite grab: Vorcha, hands-down. (And throats-off.)
• Favorite cheer: "*Kssshhh* Let's get paid!"
• Favorite activation sound: Vorcha howl.
• Favorite weapon sound: The Harrier is very satisfying, but I'm going to go with the Javelin.
• Favorite weapon look: Collector sniper rifle (firing) or Black Widow (stationary).
• Most lamented missing race: Elcor, with Hanar a close second.
• Favorite banner, apart from Best of the Best: I really like both of the Council Operative ones. The alternates for Earth Mastery and Lone Wolf are also cool.
• Easiest mission: Assassinate targets.
• Hardest mission: Almost always the 4 devices one; depending on map and team, it varies from annoying to impossible.
• Favorite mission: Escort and Retrieve are challenging but really fun and tactical.
• Favorite play-style: Run-and-gun as a squadron. It took a while before I could manage this as a caster class, but it makes things so much safer, faster, and more fun.
• Biggest teammate annoyance: Lone wolf types who rush off killing things during a hack objective and die on the far side of the map.
• Biggest annoyance: Credits that disappear after you leave a lobby. (Close second place: getting disconnected during the Extraction wave and losing everything [including your equipment!]).
• Favorite sight: The shuttle flying in for retrieval in the last moments before the LZ is overrun.

So, that's that! And I do mean it. Despite my having said the same thing multiple times before, I'm pretty sure that I'm done with multiplayer - it's still fun, but my other gaming has suffered a serious slowdown while getting my banner, and I'm itching to jump back into Neverwinter Nights and a few other projects. I'll gladly hold onto my banner for posterity's sake, and bask in the weird pride that comes from having killed tons of fake monsters in a video game.

Hold a Candle To

Two games have presented me with very different multiplayer combat in the last few weeks. First up, Fallen London. Back when I joined about a year ago, I saw a few references to a game-within-the-game known as Knife & Candle. It was already defunct, so I never experienced it myself, but it sounded interesting: a gentlemanly game of polite murder, pitting one person against another, with the winners stealing money from the losers and gaining prizes, including some otherwise-unobtainable items and lodgings.

In all honesty, I felt quite happy to not have the game as an option. I tend to dislike multiplayer games in general, and competitive multiplayer games in particular. One of the things I love most about Fallen London is that it can be very rewardingly played entirely solo: having friends makes certain aspects of the game easier, but nothing requires you to recruit new players to advance or other awful things that most "social" games require. I actually only started engaging in the social aspects of the game after I had reached the level cap, and I'm now at the point where I occasionally visit the forums, help out other players, and participate in in-game holidays like the Feast of the Exceptional Rose.

Speaking of which, it was at the Feast that I acquired a unique item, a Mirrorcatch Box. These were very rare, and required players to solve a very oblique puzzle in order to obtain. That made me happy - it was a fun process that involved a lot of speculation and collaboration - but also wary, since the game clearly warned players of the risk of Box Theft. Up until now, I'd been happily ensconced in a purely reciprocal social model. Any time one person wished to take an action (like give a gift), the other party would need to approve it (like accept that gift). Even theoretically competitive actions like the Tournament of Lilies require both the attacker and defender to approve of a bout. The idea that someone, somewhere, could snatch my box out of my hands without me being able to defend it... well, it was dispiriting, and seemed a notable departure from the friendly atmosphere among players that pervades Fallen London.

It turns out that this was a quite deliberate departure: the introduction of the Mirrorcatch Box was the first step in a planned rebirth of the Game of Knife & Candle. We box owners all received invitations to join the so-called Underground League. In the fiction of Fallen London, Mr. Irons runs Knife & Candle, and officially disapproves of this unsanctioned sport; however, he seems to be actually orchestrating it from behind the scenes, to some unknown purpose.

I dislike competitive games, but love Fallen London and particularly new Fallen London content, so I joined the Iron Leagues and started to play. It was an interesting system, a bit like paper-rock-scissors, where people choosing certain Forms were more likely to defeat others, and some Forms were better at defending themselves.

Torn between a desire to participate and a distaste of stabbing, I decided to compromise: I would be the Reciprocal Murderer, and only attack players after they had attacked me. Attacks were rare, just one or two a day. I held attacks in reserve, and would savagely retaliate. I don't know whether it's necessarily fair, but it seemed like a vaguely moral position.

After moving up to the Bronze Leagues, though, it got much more intense. Failbetter published a list of all the players in the leagues, and suddenly I was inundated with attacks. Which, again, felt unfair; some players would attack unprovoked multiple times, and I would often receive many attacks in a short amount of time. I later learned that, due to a quirk of the notification system, I was actually defending myself successfully a fair amount of the time; but just judging from my email, it felt like I was drowning under a wave of assaults.

Fortunately, the game does offer several means of respite: one can escape in their boat to Zee, or retreat to Flute Street, or purchase a safe stay in a cottage on Watchmaker's Hill. In my case, I simply abandoned my Form, which made me ineligible to make or suffer attacks. I figured I'd spend some time away from the game and see if things calmed down before deciding whether to take back up a Form or not.

While examining my options for safety, though, I had stopped by Wolfstack Docks to check on my options for traveling the Unterzee. There, I noticed a gold-bordered plot that I hadn't yet played, a Spider Council's lair. I thought that it might be a new addition, or else something I had skipped in my rush to reach the Labyrinth of Tigers. In any case, I thought, "Oh, this will be fun! I like stories!"

The storylet described entering the lair and meeting the spider, who purrs some words about the Correspondence and your lovely eyes. I had three options: attack, or run, or talk my way out of it. Well, given that my character is entirely oriented around the Persuasive and Watchful abilities, I barely hesitated before selecting the final option.

Big mistake! The spiders attacked. The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the slow boat. Noooooooooooo! I have very carefully kept my Wounds below 8 for the entire year-plus that I've played Fallen London, specifically because I want to be sure that I can return to the Surface with no ill effects. I hadn't even known that it was possible to be killed with fewer than 8 wounds; granted, I'd received some wounds from the attack, but they were still only at about 3 or 4. I felt devastated, and a little betrayed (appropriately enough for one who had only just escaped Knife & Candle): in every other case in the game where something bad can happen to your character, Failbetter is very good at putting warnings by those options: "Don't do this. That would be unhinged." or "Turn back now. This is a very bad idea." Being a reasonable person, I always heed such warnings. And now I'd been murdered!

Being in Knife & Candle was a mixed blessing. I had to surrender all of my Tokens to the Boatman, but he was willing to heal my wounds in exchange. I hope that this means that I didn't actually die, and I'll continue to believe that until proven otherwise.

Then, to add grievous insult to mortal injury, someone stole my Mirrorcatch box. Bah! Perdition upon all their houses!

Safely back in London, having only spent a few minutes away but feeling profoundly shaken as a result, I decided to swear off the Game altogether. I'm glad that it exists, and people seem to be delighted to play it, but it's entirely too rambunctious and harrowing for an upstanding citizen such as myself.

No, what I enjoy is: cooperative multiplayer! Specifically, Mass Effect 3 cooperative multiplayer! I actually started playing this around the same time as Fallen London, and I wouldn't have thought that I would still be playing and enjoying it so much more than a year later. It comes in waves for me - I'll happily ignore it for several months, then the itch to set Reapers ablaze will return, and before long I'm running around on Firebase London cackling maniacally. Good times!

When Bioware announced back in March that they were ending support for multiplayer, I had feared that the game would swiftly fade. That hasn't been the case, though. At least on the PC, at the times I tend to play, I never have trouble finding a game. I can usually quickly find an enemy/difficulty combo that I want (like Reapers/Silver or Geth/Bronze) in less than a minute. If I don't, I just start a new public game and solo the first wave or two. By the time we reach the first objective wave, I always have a full group of four. Players seem to be really good, too... I don't see much stupidity or selfishness these days, and people are good at cooperating to achieve objectives.

It's really interesting to look back over the past year and see how the game has evolved. It's definitely gotten much more feature-rich, thanks to the multiple free DLC packs that Bioware released that added an astonishing number of new character kits, weapons, mods, and gear, as well as a half-dozen new maps. But beyond that, player habits have changed too, and I love seeing how the community has slowly evolved and shifted, spontaneously developing new mores, standards, and habits. In the early days, most successful teams would hunker down in defensible positions, protecting each others' flanks and surviving the series of waves. People generally despised players who "ran off on their own." Today, teams are almost always mobile, and constantly roam around the map. It's a more challenging playstyle, but actually more successful: if you're constantly roaming, you'll never get swarmed by bad guys, since you'll always be able to retreat to the area that you just cleared. I think it's something that people started picking up on when they spent more time in the more challenging difficulties, and it's slowly filtered down to the easier levels, to the point where it's now frowned upon to camp in a single spot. There are other, subtler social changes as well. Microphone usage, never very common on the PC, has become virtually extinct. Players now often greet one another by performing a heavy melee at the start of a wave or match. Players automatically un-ready and re-ready to give teammates more time to adjust consumables between matches. And so on.

As for myself, I'm still definitely not an expert player, but it's been very encouraging to track my progress and see how I've improved over time. I have some big news to share: I've beaten my first-ever Gold match! It was extremely challenging, and I felt like I had about a dozen heart attacks during the match, but I pulled through, and even ended up in the #2 position on the score chart at the end. I played it with my most comfortable character, my Vorcha Soldier, against Reapers. I used all of the high-level consumables that I've been saving forever: Level III Explosive Rounds, Assault Rifle Rail Amp III, and Power Amplifier Module IV. I'd equipped them because I wanted to be ready if the game dropped me into a match; I ended up in a lobby with a much more experienced player who had queued up Reapers on Firebase Ghost. He immediately readied. I gulped: I'd have no trouble duo-ing or even soloing on Silver, but for a first Gold match, I was nervous. I waited as long as seemed socially acceptable for other players to join in. Nobody did. So, heart in my throat, I readied up, and we began.

The first two waves were embarrassing. I tend to play my Vorcha as a highly mobile incendiary tank: I generally lead charges, focus on early kills to get my Bloodlust rising, and set up fire explosions that my teammates or I can detonate. Since it was just the two of us, though, I trailed my teammate and followed his lead. I'd known intellectually that enemies hit for more damage on Gold, but there's a difference between knowing something and truly grokking it. I waded into a few situations that I should have been able to coast through - like facing four Cannibals - only to end up bleeding on the ground. In the first few waves. How embarassing!

Fortunately, things got better. Two more players joined us in Wave 2, and I think I only died once or twice more in the waves after that. There were tons of time when it was close, though! Gold is insane. Brutes start appearing in Wave 2, and Banshees in Wave 3. Cannibals disappear entirely by Wave 6, so the weakest enemies you'll face are Marauders. In the last few waves, the field is entirely dominated by heavy enemies, with multiple Banshees, Brutes, and Ravagers threatening everything.

For as awful as it felt, though, it also felt awesome. The team was rock-solid, everyone coming together to complete a challenging escort mission in Wave 6. I contributed rockets to our assassination efforts on Wave 10. Everyone helped revive everyone else as the need arose. Perhaps most encouraging of all, not a single person got sync-killed over the entire half-hour duration of the match. These were all clearly bright, experienced, talented players, and I felt super-lucky to have my first Gold experience with them.

Gold is financially rewarding, too. I think we earned something like 80k credits for the match. Considering it lasted just about ten minutes longer than a Silver match, and earned close to three times as much, that's a fantastic return. (The counter-part, of course, is that I probably took a year off of my life due to stress.) I won't be making Gold a habit any time soon, but it felt great for my first outing to be a success, and I hope to return in the future.

At the moment, I'm actually switching between all three difficulties quite often, and having a blast. I'm working on my N7 Mastery challenge, which requires promoting characters. For a while, I had left all of my classes at Level 20, since that's the strongest build and let me more reliably earn more credits. Now, I play on Bronze until around level 12-15, then on Silver until level 20, then I either play a Gold match or promote the class and start over again. This also has the benefit of increasing the value of the character promotion cards I get in packs: unlocking new appearances doesn't really help you mechanically, but being able to take advantage of the bonus XP can help me reach those promotions more quickly. I'm doing this with a variety of characters. Other challenges often require either extracting with a kit 10 times or completing 200 waves with them, so I'll play a kit for 10 games, promoting as possible along the way, and then switch to another kit for the next challenge. I'm making good progress: I have beaten the Earth challenge, am almost done with Rebellion, and decently close to finishing Resurgence.

Switching between so many characters and difficulties has given me a great incentive to try out still more combinations and techniques that I otherwise would never have tried, being content to stick with my more familiar tools of Salarian Engineer and Vorcha Soldier. In the past I've almost exclusively played power-based classes, focusing on light weapon loadouts and keeping cooldowns low so I can focus on tech or biotic damage. Recently, though, I've been able to play with characters who can completely ignore cooldowns, like the N7 Demolisher, N7 Destroyer, and Batarian Soldier. That has let me try out some heavy shotguns and assault rifles, and an entirely new playstyle. It's a lot of fun!

Just before I started playing my Batarian Soldier, I finally unlocked the Cerberus Harrier assault rifle. I'd read some of the glowing accolades players have lauded this gun with, gushing over its superior damage and high accuracy. So, I loaded up my Batarian Soldier with the Harrier and my Reegar Carbine, another often-beloved but hefty gun that I've eschewed on my cooldown-dependent kits. All I have to say is: holy cow, everyone is right, that is an awesome gun. It kills things so quickly, even on Silver! As people have noted, ammunition can be a problem; but with my play style, it's actually not bad, since I tend to move around the map a lot, and can easily drop by ammo boxes en route.

I've been generally pleased at my comfort level on Silver in general. I remember when the thought of bringing anyone other than my beloved Vorcha soldier into Silver filled me with terror. Now, after I've played at least a match or two on Bronze to get comfortable with the character, and have reached a decently high level, I don't really hesitate to take it up to Silver, and generally do well there. The exact level varies depending on the kit; my Batarian Soldier was topping charts in Silver at Level 10, but my Geth Engineer waited until he was 18 to make the jump.

Possibly the most fun character I've had, if not technically the most successful, was my Geth Infiltrator. One of the very first YouTube videos I'd seen of Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer gameplay gave an arresting view of a semi-exploitative (but perfectly legal!) way to play this guy by cleverly combining several game mechanics. The Geth Infiltrator, like a few other Geth, has the Hunter Mode power. This murders your shields, and makes your screen hard to see, but gives you a lot of nice perks (faster movement, more weapon damage) and, most importantly for this built, allows you to see enemies through walls. Well, that's good, for starters: situational awareness is a really good thing. Now, for the second part of this build, we equip the Javelin. This is a very heavy sniper rifle, which is doubly challenging: I very rarely use sniper rifles, and its weight will make Tactical Cloak slower. So, why do we take it? Simple: it is able to shoot through walls, at a distance of up to 1 meter. Pretty good. Next, we attach a Piercing Mod to the rifle. This lets bullets penetrate through up to 1.35 meters. It is cumulative with the Javelin's innate piercing, so combined, we can fire through nearly 2.5 meters of solid metal or rock. (If you wanted to go truly crazy with this build, slap on some Drill Rounds as well, which can get you up to 2.5 additional meters, letting you fire through pretty much anything.)

So, what does this mean? Basically, you can kill enemies long before they see you. Hang out in another room, watching their heat signatures. Then, bam! Even firing through walls, a single shot can take down any Cannibal or Trooper, and a headshot can down a Marauder or Centurion. It's especially comical on Firebase Dagger, where you can shoot through the floor and take out enemies far below you. The whole experience is surreal, and entirely unlike any other kit I've played. Which, of course, is part of why I love ME3 MP so much, and keep coming back to it. Playing a Vorcha is nothing like a Human Engineer, and a Batarian Soldier is nothing like a Geth Infiltrator. Your strategies change, your techniques change, your basic attitude shifts between aggression and caution, leading and supporting, close-distance and long-range, diversion and accomplishment. And, of course, every single game will change depending on your other teammates, their kits, their styles of play and skills, not to mention the map and enemy you face. It seems like there are multiple aspects of the game to master - your specific kit, each individual enemy, each map - but there's enough variety in the game that it never feels repetitive. Or at least, I have yet to experience any repetition.

Anyways! I did love the infiltrator, but couldn't take as much advantage of him as others have; I'm not great at aiming for head-shots, so I generally went for the center of mass, which was pretty effective but kept me from maximizing the kit's potential. I've since moved on to other kits, but I might dust that guy off again after I have some more sniping experience under my belt.

So, yeah... hooray for cooperative multiplayer! It's great to see the community still going so strong, and it feels like there's been a steady influx of new players over the past month or two, which makes me think that ME3 is enjoying a decently stable shelf life. I hope that this continues to bode well for whatever Bioware Montreal does with the franchise in the future - they're the ones who created the multiplayer game, and its staying power makes me feel more optimistic for the post-Shepard world of Mass Effect.

EDIT: Wow!  In the brief time since I started writing the post, I've had a few more awesome experiences. I completed another Gold match, this time as a Krogan Vanguard. It was even less smooth than my Vorcha, but I held my own all right... I personally delivered both of the objects on Wave 10, before stupidly getting sync-killed by a Banshee while running to revive a teammate. After promoting that guy, I've started playing with the Batarian Sentinel. I'm actually getting a ton of utility out of his Submission Net, which is pairing quite nicely with the Kishock Harpoon Gun. The net will freeze unarmored targets in place for a brief time, which gives me the half-second I need to line up a headshot with my sniper rifle. Sure, it's a bit of a crutch, but a great one that opens up some gameplay that previously had been too difficult for me to attempt. Man, this game keeps on getting better!