Used Bin Review: ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ or Accountability, The Final Frontier

I have poured more hours into the Mass Effect (ME) series than I am openly willing to admit. I have minor gripes with tiny mechanical issues here and there but have been completely fulfilled in playing each entry over the course of time. Since Electronic Arts have pulled the plug on the single player campaign support, it’s about time to give the real dish on the dichotomous nature of Mass Effect Andromeda (MEA). This ain’t the ‘I need to give this game the go-ahead review before release so the game companies like and sponsor me’ review. This the, ‘It’s been out for months and I have seen it at its best and worst moments, plus I paid half price for it for it because if I return it I only get back a Bazooka Joe, a floppy disk, and bus fare home’ review.

Gameplay and Camera

I’ve always been a proponent of the gender/sexuality options offered at the onset of character creation in Mass Effect. It’s still tightly bound to the binary of male/female, but I’ll give props for first steps. The ability to engage in romantic relationships in-game has become a benchmark of the series, and Andromeda does not disappoint. You can bag just about anyone on your crew with the right dialogue branch. “Ay yo, Turian with the lubricated mandibles and preference for sniper rifles! What’s good?!”

Removing the ‘Paragon/Renegade’ system was met with some community pushback (outrage), but without that dynamic, it becomes much easier to explore the many possibilities of the single-player campaign witho…