Mass Effect: Andromeda - review
Apr. 8th, 2018 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaI love the Mass Effect trilogy. It’s one of my favourite stories; one of my most treasured narratives. I’ve spoken about it extensively here, so (given that I think I have to admit the effective dormancy of this journal), it seems right to resurrect this place in order to add my thoughts about Mass Effect: Andromeda. In short, I am disappoint.
Listen, I’m not here to yell at anyone for what they love. The cliff’s notes version is that I enjoyed the game enough to finish it, but kept waiting for plot resolutions and thematic coherency that never arrived. Sadly, the longer I sat with the story after I had finished it, the more it frustrated me. Basically because it’s colonialist as all hell and half the plot is never resolved.
If that’s not something you want to read, that’s cool. You may disagree with me. You may agree with me and like it anyway. I am all about being able to love and critique at the same time. You are glorious, savvy media consumers and none of you need a permit to operate this game responsibly.
But, If you want to follow me down a rabbit hole of frustration and disappointment, read on. (Safety spoiler: don’t worry about me, I still love the original trilogy.)
(Spoilers spoiler: spoilers for the whole game.)
Let’s get right to it. This game is screaming colonialism from start to finish in a way that made me feel legitimately uncomfortable on more than one occasion. The behaviour of the Initiative is actually shocking.
The first thing to note is that the Initiative are not refugees. In a point I’ll circle back to later, Ryder does eventually discover part of the shadowy agenda behind the funding of the Initiative was the Reaper threat and a desire to ensure the Milky Way species’ survival in case of the worst. But the game gives the impression that this was a hidden agenda on the part of a late-arriving funder, not a core part of the original intentions of the project’s founder, nor information available to anyone still alive by the end of the game’s prologue.
There is an ethical ocean between a refugee and an explorer. An explorer has choices. An explorer who does not respect others’ choices, or recognise that they may be exploring others’ spaces, is an invader.
Here is a choice the Initiative makes:
They choose to arm themselves as standard operating procedure. There is a first contact protocol – that you are not to fire unless there is clear hostile intent. That might sound lovely, but it also establishes that you are willing to defend your right to explore with deadly force. The presumption that the Alliance’s presence must be accepted because they aren’t hostile (by their own, very shaky, definition of hostile) is a repeating issue that is never addressed. It also seems like a woefully inadequate directive in the face of aliens with no common language, aliens who might never have seen other aliens before, aliens who may be able to recognise that you have arrived armed for a fight, aliens for whom your very presence may be considered hostile provocation. It seems woefully inadequate when it’s clear the Pathfinder team has received no first contact training beyond “Um, hope they’re nice?” When the team leader offers a one-line reminder about not killing the natives if possible after ordering everyone to show up to the party with guns.
The opening chapter of the game sees you faced with a first contact situation and – in a story about exploration – makes you shoot the alien in the face. If you won’t, your comrade will. You do this in order to save a third member of your exploratory party. He has a broken leg and can’t accompany you further. Make sure you kill some more of them, he says to you. As if the two already murdered aliens lying nearby aren’t enough retaliatory violence for a broken leg.
It’s true, Ryder can express that perhaps, if aliens had arrived on Earth, we would not be reacting much differently. Ryder can lament that they did not want first contact to happen this way. We later discover that the aliens in question are the Bad aliens. The Horrible Invading Horde that are supposed to distract from the genteel, helpful colonialism of the Alliance. And finally, it is true that the game that legitimately cannot throw away its roots as a shooter. It is true that I never expected to play Andromeda and not end up shooting a bunch of Andromedan aliens at some point.
But honestly, Ryder’s words feel hollow when the game refuses to allow any moderation in your violent behaviour, and when your comrades react with jingoistic anger and dehumanisation (“He looks angry!” Liam jokes, “Maybe because I shot him in the FACE!”)
This is, for all you know, as the player and as Ryder, the first ever contact between Milky Way and Andromedan species. I felt the weight of that. The writing did not.
Yes. Brave explorers. In the finest human tradition.
To be fair, I thought, some of the problems here are likely video game convention, and it will get better. It did not.
One would imagine that, freezing yourself for 600 years while you travel to a brand new galaxy based on some low-detail geographical surveys would be self-evidently risky. And yet, when faced with their “Appointed Worlds” not being empty, tropical paradises, they fall into a civil war. In itself, perhaps narratively forgivable. People don’t always react as they expect under pressure. Exiling their criminals to worlds they know are inhabited? Less excellent. At this point the Initiative have created a population who have no choice but to take what they need by force to survive and unleashed them on the already struggling local populace.
(Let’s also take a moment to talk about terminology. The Initiative “appointed” themselves to different worlds, seemingly never considering that they might already belong to someone else. The game’s writing may allow Ryder to hang a few verbal lanterns on the issue, but it never really addresses that fundamental tension; the notion that those worlds were there for the taking.)
Let’s talk about the impacted population, let’s talk about the Angara. The Kett’s assault provides the moral pretext for our own colonialism. Of course, no pretext is needed to help our would-be neighbours, but there is more to this narrative construct. The relationship between the Angara and the Initiative is not reciprocal, in fact I’d characterise it as paternalistic.
There is a viscerally uncomfortable evocation of Manifest Destiny in the way the Initiative arrive and “tame the land” by restarting the Remnant’s terraforming systems. The Initiative also effortlessly uncover the secrets of the Remnant ruins even though the Angara have lived alongside them for generations. SAM is protrayed as crucial to these efforts and the Angara have a distrust of AI. In the context of the franchise’s historical treatment of Artificial Intelligence, that distrust is more complex than simply portraying the natives as suspicious of superior technology and scientific understanding. That said SAM is not portrayed as dangerous, the Milky Way AI-skeptics are portrayed as paranoid and violent and ultimately while it may not be simply portraying the natives as supicious of our superior scientific methods… it’s still ultimately portraying them as exactly that.
Dependent on the Milky Way visitors to stem the Kett invasion and their developing ecological apocalypse, the Angara’s entire religious and spiritual worldview is then thrown into question when Ryder discovers the secret history of their species’ genesis.
Ultimately, the Initiative manages to crash a ship onto Meridian, the constructed world upon which the Angara were created – holy ground if ever such a thing could exist. In the epilogue the Initiative seems to have claimed Meridian as its new home world without any textual questions raised about the appropriateness of doing so. An in-game email update makes clear that the Angara are very keen to gain access to Meridian in light of its historical importance to their species, but don’t worry, folks, the Initiative are happy to “host” them. This world was literally created for the Angara and they are now guests in their own home.
After the game’s final mission, Ryder participates in a conversation where, absent any official Angaran representation, Initiative members discuss their plan to create a governance structure based on the traditions of the Milky Way. They decide that a) there should be an Ambassador for the Heleus Cluster, b) Ryder should be the one to appoint this person and c) it’s fine not to pick an Angaran. If you choose the only Angaran option (saying, “Did you discuss this new proposed political structure with our Angaran allies?” or “It should be an Angaran and since I only know like six of them, maybe we should ask them for a list of qualified candidates,” are not options), Director Tann immediately laments your decision to cede so much influence. Addison laughs, “That’s the point, you colonial ass!” as if we are so terribly progressive.
Control over Meridian and Tann’s status as a colonialist ass aren’t issues without wider ramifications, either. Meridian is the hub of the Remnant terraforming network. Do you trust Director Tann not to threaten dissidents with ecological chaos if they don’t comply with his wishes? I don’t. Look what he did to the Krogan. Even if I did, the Angara have no representation within the Initiative; they shouldn’t have to live hoping a group completely outside of their control doesn’t change its position on using this as a negotiating tactic. That kind of power needs to be shared, or it will be rightly crippling to trust and societal cohesion.
So, what do the Angara think of all this?
Jaal is the primary Angaran character in the game, but he is not the primary character through which the Angaran perspective on the Initiative is presented. Jaal is how Ryder learns about the Angara, and frequently presents factual or cultural information, but rarely weighs in on the wider politics of the situation. He wants to resolve the threat posed by Akksul and the Roekkar because of his personal ties, but his general characterisation is not political. He wants adventure and excitement and discovery. Set against a youthful, unprepared Ryder, there is a romance to that; to learning about each other’s culture and worlds through a friendship that is fiercely individual. Jaal isn’t interested in whether Ryder’s people represent a colonial invasion, that’s big and ephemeral and in the future. Jaal wants to know whether Ryder is his friend today. Jaal cares about bonding as warrior-brother-lovers. Jaal cares about personal relationships and family. That’s fine. That’s lovely even. Jaal can be that person. But I don’t think Ryder can – at least not responsibly.
That’s an issue that repeats over and over in this game. I haven’t played the shit out of it the way I have the others in the series, so I do own that I may be missing nuances that come from different choices. Even so, I chose a fair mix of dialogue options, and regardless of what I chose I often felt Ryder’s underlying approach was to muscle through with a mix of personal charisma and either optimism or force.
What Ryder wants to be true: Jaal and I are best friends, so obviously we can all get along. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.
What Ryder rarely seems to think about: the arrival of the Initiative, the Exiles and the Krogan will impact the Angara in drastic and unpredictable ways and my personal relationship with Jaal is not necessarily an indicator of any of them.
What Ryder never seems to append to that thought: and I am spearheading this arrival.
It’s not that Ryder chooses to behave immorally. Ryder can frequently makes choices that are clearly designed to indicate a concern for Angaran wellbeing and respect for their existence. The problem is that it is always from a limited, personal perspective – one I (perhaps cynically) feel is intimately tied to Ryder’s existence as a player avatar. These are configured as the choices of an individual, not the leader of an organisation who may have to take responsibility for actions they neither agreed with nor commissioned. But that’s the kind of unindulgent bullshit that riles core dem-bro-graphics.
Ryder presents the Pathfinder team, and, more widely, the Initiative as somewhat hermetically sealed from the Exiles and the Krogan, and even from the Initiative’s past behaviour. Ryder is never truly put in the awkward position of having to take responsibility for the harm caused by the Exiles, or explaining why it’s safe to trust the Initiative despite their betrayal of the Krogan. Because of this, it’s easy to forget that Ryder represents an organisation that very much was responsible for these choices, an organisation that is still under the same leadership that made these choices, and an organisation with no new checks or balances to ensure the same choices aren’t made again.
Under those circumstances, I frequently felt the “trust me, I, specifically, am a nice human” approach to diplomacy had the potential to be actively harmful to the Angara. I felt my Ryder was writing cheques she could not cash.
There is some token acknowledgement of the validity of Angaran distrust. Evfra, the leader of the Angaran military, for instance, has a great line about the way invaders often use exploration as a pretext. Ryder waves off this concern and then goes out and kills a ton of Roekkar – the Angaran faction that distrusts all aliens. It’s true that their assumption they must all be the same as the Kett is incorrect, but their belief that the Milky Way aliens will kill them just as dead is proved correct every time you engage them in combat. Ultimately, the “good” ending to this plotline is to refuse to martyr Akksul – to prove to his followers that you are not the violent brutes he has led them to believe. Why, then, was there no earlier option to attempt nonviolent negotiation? To avoid Roekkar territory for as long as possible? To choose not to invade their space in order to further your own agenda? From the player’s perspective the answer is clear – the plot will not progress unless you fight your way through the hostile Roekkar hordes. From the writers’ perspective the choice seems rooted in traditional game design without thought to wider thematic coherence.
The logic is recursive. The Roekkar are insular, paranoid, their concerns aren’t to be taken seriously – they are outliers and their views are not worthy of reasoned consideration and respect. That’s why it’s all right to kill them. They’re so obviously wrong! Yet, by acting that way, you prove those concerns entirely valid. To return to some of my opening arguments about exploration and invasion, the game confirms that we do not need to repsect the views of those who will not welcome us, that they have no right to forcibly remove us, and that they can be murdered when they get in the way.
Which is to say, the Initiative is an aggressive colonial force in pretty much every way, but because the Kett are worse, the text never really engages with it in a meaningful fashion. Even this distraction relies on the frankly racist trope of an ugly, faceless horde demanding religious conversion on pain of death.
I mean, the Initiative arrive uninvited, having already carved up the local real estate in their heads, with no backup plan should they not be allowed to settle except a shooting war. As soon as things go south, they exile their unwanteds, unleashing a crime wave. Instead of being punished for this, the narrative rewards them by letting them brush it all under the carpet because the Angara are now dependent on them for physical and ecological safety. There are some Angara who aren’t best pleased with this, but they’re paranoid outliers, most of whom can be shot with impunity. Finally, showing true superiority, the Initiative solve the mystery the Angara didn’t even know needed solving, announce they’ve discovered Angaran Eden, but posession being nine tenths of the laws they brought with them, the Angara get custody every other weekend. To top it all off, they begin establishing a new cluster-wide system of government without consulting a single Angaran.
This is a snarky summary, but not a fundamentally inaccurate one. I didn’t want to feel this way about the game’s treatment of colonial themes. When I heard about Andromeda’s presence, the possibility of a colonial clusterfuck did occur to me, but I genuinely didn’t expect it to be this bad. I’m also left wondering if I’m the only one who sees this. There have been a few articles noting the issue, but nothing high profile and tumblr – which I would have expected to be a bastion of outrage – seems deathly silent on this point. This is probably the best article I’ve found, although it sees the game’s attempts at engaging with the topic as laudible rather than lip service. Given then execrable level of discourse around violence and aggression in most video games, I can understand why, but it didn’t work for me here. Not because I thought it wasn’t good enough (I mean, it wasn’t, but I had reasonably low expectations), but because the reactions, diagetically framed within the game, make everybody look criminally ignorant. “Maybe we shouldn’t be upset that the aliens are shooting at us. I mean, if aliens with guns showed up on Earth, wouldn’t we do that?” is not – to me – an opportunity to establish Ryder as anti-colonialist, it’s an opportunity to establish Ryder as fucking stupid. Really? This is the first time you’re thinking about this? This wasn’t a scenario you discussed and prepared for because it’s pretty much the most likely thing to go wrong? Really? Good grief.
So yeah. Like. Apparently I’m in this corner on my own, but the colonialism in this game is awful.
It’s also not the only thing that makes everyone involved in the Initiative seem dangerously incompetent. Let’s move on to talking about the plot failures!
Attempted murder doesn’t exist in Andromeda! One of your first sidequests is investigating “Andromeda’s first murderer” (cus you know, pre-colonial history doesn’t count). He says he didn’t do it. Witnesses say he did. You eventually find out he didn’t do it, but he did try to. Then you have a big dilemma. Do you keep him in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, or free him, knowing that he’s a terrible person. Clearing him of murder and then putting him on trial for attempted murder is not an option that anyone, at any point, discusses even a little.
The Initiative needs to assign an ambassador to the Angaran homeworld of Aya. When Ryder meets this person she explains that she’s really a sociologist, but she’s had to step up. Because...we came to a brand new galaxy and didn’t think to bring any diplomats, or first contact experts? I mean, maybe they all died. Maybe they were all smart enough to look at the Initiative’s cluster fuck of a first contact plan and refused to sign up, but for crying out loud, tell us that!
Jien Garson, founder of the Initiative, was murdered, you discover, after a ton of sleuthing. You never discover who killed her or why. You discover that she was taking money from someone she knew was shady (probably the Illusive Man) and it’s implied that perhaps she was getting closer to the truth of the Reaper Invasion than someone wanted, but like…was that why she was killed? What could she possibly reveal that would damage anything now that they’re a fucking galaxy away? Who knows? Not me, that’s for sure!
Ryder’s mother is secretly in stasis. We do nothing about this. I mean, to be honest, as a dangling narrative thread, it’s not that egregious. Having her there as a future plot hook is fine in theory. But the Kett have amazeballs skills when it comes to genetic manipulation, and no one even mentions that perhaps that’s something that might eventually yield information that could save her. While we’re on that point, I mean, Daddy Ryder’s plan is kind of batshit, right? I can’t save her, but perhaps a new galaxy can! Like, he didn’t know there would conveniently be a group of genetic savants living in Andromeda. I mean, the man was desperate, so I’m not gonna judge that bit of writing too hard, but it does add to my general, all-purpose Daddy Ryder reaction: “And you thought this was a good idea, why, exactly?”
I mean, the way Ryder becomes the Pathfinder doesn’t help with this. I originally assumed that Alec decided to save his child, and then transferred SAM because the alternative was to lose SAM’s extra integrated-with-a-human abilities entirely. But later a member of the turian pathfinder team says he knows the Pathfinder isn’t dead because he hasn’t inherited his SAM. Which means Alec chose to cut out Cora, which is hella dodgy. I mean, I’m guessing it’s because he wants to keep Ellen’s situation a secret? But that’s still basically nepotism, right?
I spent most of the game wondering what, if any, background checks and psychological aptitude tests had been given to prospective colonists and whether I could fire the person responsible. A good way through the game, SAM discovers that many of the exiled colonists are suffering from a chemical imbalance in their brains making them more violent than they would be otherwise. This is treated as a minor sidequest. The resolution is a text message in an email terminal that’s easily missed, which confirms that protocols to prevent this from happening to newly awakened colonists have now been put in place. Why is this not an enormous issue? This is huge! Do we hold the exiles responsible for their behaviour if they were acting under the influence of an illness brought on by their time in stasis? Are we curing the people who are still suffering from this imbalance? Have we checked everyone already released? Didn’t anybody else notice there was something very wrong here? Are we back to the Initiative just looking completely incompetent from the ground up (Supernintendo Kesh aside).
Ryder discovers that the Reapers invaded and the Milky Way is probably a blasted wasteland. Ryder muses that perhaps one day this should be released to the public, but not right now. It is never mentioned again. This is an easter egg for the player. For the characters in the game this shocking, terrifying, frightening news. Ryder may have known that they would never be going back to the Milky Way, but knowing that the people they left behind probably died violent deaths, very shortly after they left, is the sort of thing that should be given narrative space. The decision to conceal or reveal this should be a weighty one. Particularly given that the presentation of the Initiative as explorers rather than refugees was a narrative decision that gave rise to a good deal of the uncomfortable colonialist themes in the first place.
Alec Ryder’s work on SAM was illegal under the Council’s strict laws governing AI research, yet somehow SAM is integral to the Initiative’s strategy. Alec might be concealing the true extent of his own SAM’s sentience, I suppose, but a self-aware AI is bound to each of the four Pathfinders, and its self-awareness is the very reason it is considered such a problem-solving asset. The partnership of a Pathfinder and an AI is important enough it’s included in the Cultural Centre aboard the Nexus – it’s hardly a secret. Yet we have AI protestors attempting to remove Ryder’s implant, apparently horrified by the danger SAM poses. This leaves a bunch of questions, none of which are answered. Did the Initiative secure a legal exemption from the Council regarding SAM’s creation, or is he an illegal AI? If he’s an illegal AI, did they advertise this as part of their recruitment drive, or keep it a secret? If it was a secret, then the protestors are absolutely right to be shocked and upset, but that also makes the Initiative look shady as hell, and doesn’t explain why it’s being casually referenced in their Cultural Centre as if it’s common knowledge. If it was legal somehow, why did a bunch of people who have such a deep-seated hatred of AI sign up in the first place? Either the Initiative are criminals or the protestors are idiots.
While it’s not a plot hole, the Jardaan storyline essentially ends right as it gets interesting. The idea of the Scourge as a minefield, or a chemical weapon that has left space polluted does leave the outline of an interesting war story in its wake. But it goes nowhere. They’re set up as the Protheans of Andromeda, but again, Mass Effect 1 gave us a resolution to that plot line on its own terms. We spoke to a Prothean VI, we found out the purpose of Ilos, we heard of their last days and learned why they left. Added to Jien Garson’s murder and Ellen Ryder’s presence in stasis the whole game feels like it ends just as things are getting interesting. It feels like a set-up for a trilogy, except we were told no trilogy was planned (and now it seems almost certain no trilogy will occur; we are not even getting DLC).
There are certainly things I like about this game. As I mentioned, I thought the idea behind SAM was excellent and I enjoyed his interactions with the wounded, and almost certainly malevolent, Angaran AI. The game is often at its best during the character interactions with the Tempest crew. On more than one occasion, a character mission resolved in a way I didn’t expect. Peebee joyfully choosing a woman she hates over an item she covets because life is more important. Liam’s attempt to jailbreak t he paradigm of the Initiative’s existence, and constrained frustration at its adherence to the banal expectations of a long-gone galaxy – that was a frustration I shared, even if I didn’t enjoy his refusal to share his plans. Liam having to face the natural consequences of his half-cocked frontier approach because he didn’t share. Taking Vetra and Drack out in the Nomad and listening to them talk about parenthood.
In these moments I saw reflections of the writing I expect from Bioware, and despite my frustrations with the wider game, I genuinely came to care for those aboard my ship.
Reyes Vidal, to me, stands with the best Bioware characters – brilliantly written, genuinely ethically complex, and, almost alone among the characters I met, I felt he understood the weight of what was happening. He felt like someone who would act, and then accept responsibility for acting. Nearly everyone else – including Ryder – seemed more likely to act, and then explain why what they did it, why it was the best choice, why they didn’t see any other option. Act, then justify.
But if we are talking about the wider world – if I compare Andromeda to the future the original Mass Effect trilogy presented, or to Thedas in the Dragon Age games – I cannot help but find it dissappointing. They aren’t above critique, but Dragon Age: Inquisition allows the player to participate and then lead the Inquisition from a wide variety of sociocultural positions. It is possible to embrace, reform or disavow the organisation’s links to wider colonising institutions such as the Chantry. It is possible to play an Inquisitor who is angry and critical with regards to the Inquisition, but no such option exists for a Ryder who is shocked at the conduct of the Initiative. Individuals can be criticised, but there is no place to question its premise, or even to suggest a radical change in leadership. We don’t get to replace Addison or Tan with Leliana the Murder Pope.
Similarly, I’m not about to point to Mass Effect as the high point of science fictional worldbuilding. The Asari are an interesting idea about gender and reproduction wrapped in a sexy, voyeruistic girl-on-girl package. Girl turians have tits. But there is an interesting idea wrapped up in the sex-sells visuals, and while most of the major species are humaoid bipeds with recognisable social and emotional cues, who speak verbally, there are also space jellyfish who communicate with light, and elephants without facial expressions, and several species who need pressure or environment suits. It has always been a mashup of ideas that included commercial, triple-A game imagery.
In Andromeda, I feel like that balance shifted. It all feels like so much more…surface. The Angara are barely alien at all. They have broadly cishet, broadly nuclear families, just large ones. They have two biological sexes. We are told they are extremely emotional, but I don’t know that I would have described them as such had the game not done so; their emotional nature wasn’t particularly beyond the bounds of human norms. I remember, when you are finally allowed to land on their capital planet, one of the Angara approaches you, fascinated, and begins asking fundamental questions about your trading philosophy and whether the Milky Way uses currency. What a fucking interesting question! Why wasn’t the game all about asking questions like that? Why weren’t some of the answers different?
The kett’s ability to absorb DNA, creating a hybrid species has a lot of potential, both in terms of actual science fiction and more visceral body horror. It could be deepened the way the science of the Genophage deepened in ME2, but at the moment it does not reach the basic complexity presented in ME1. It’s hidden behind a lazy “transformation” graphic, that reminds me of the Rakhghoul plague in the first Knights of the Old Republic game. And I love that game! But it’s like 20 years old and I have higher expectations of my pretend science. Give me a Mordin to explain how this works. Present me with medical advances that kett technology will now allow. What if Ryder’s mother could survive as a kett? What if Ryder’s mother could survive as a human, but only by helping a kett scientist with some ethically dubious experiments? In fact, where were any of these difficult, impactful decisions?
Mass Effect has always herded the general narrative towards similar conclusions. In terms of the overarcing narrative, individual choices were rarely revolutionary. But on a personal level, they often were. My Ryder chose to save the Salarian Pathfinder rather than a Krogan squad, knowing that this would deeply upset Drack – one of my favourite squad members. Drack was angry for…perhaps sixty seconds and then it was never mentioned again. I did not listen to the Moshae’s advice on how to deal with the kett after her rescue. As a result she told me she did not trust me and I wondered how that would hamper my ability to deal with the Angara going forward. It didn’t. It affect my interactions with her either, she was extremely nice to me.
Again, I admit that – as I never managed to motivate myself to replay the game – I’m sure I’m missing some of the nuances and consequences that the game allows. Still, playing through it, I felt the game failed to hide its mechanics. Many, many years ago I was playing this tabletop RPG, Vampire: the Masquerade. There was this Malkavian (a Vampiric clan characterised by psychologically fractured worldviews) known as “The General”, who ran an army surplus store. He had a bunch of blood bonded humans he treated as his squadron, affected a gruff demeanor, presented himself as this stern, commanding figure, but was always totally accommodating of the player characters and very willing to help us out. Later in the campaign, we needed a Malkavian representative for the local government and another player suggested this guy. I objected because I’d realised he was totally passive and followed orders from others without question. This was the contradiction of his existence – this was his psychological damage. I pointed this out to the other player and he stared at me like I had two heads. “What?” he said. “I thought that was because he was an NPC...”
That’s how I felt about a lot of the characters in Mass Effect: Andromeda. They couldn’t hate me, not really, because they were NPCs.
And the plot was frustrating.
And it was colonialist as hell.
And I guess that’s about all I have to say about the game.
Listen, I’m not here to yell at anyone for what they love. The cliff’s notes version is that I enjoyed the game enough to finish it, but kept waiting for plot resolutions and thematic coherency that never arrived. Sadly, the longer I sat with the story after I had finished it, the more it frustrated me. Basically because it’s colonialist as all hell and half the plot is never resolved.
If that’s not something you want to read, that’s cool. You may disagree with me. You may agree with me and like it anyway. I am all about being able to love and critique at the same time. You are glorious, savvy media consumers and none of you need a permit to operate this game responsibly.
But, If you want to follow me down a rabbit hole of frustration and disappointment, read on. (Safety spoiler: don’t worry about me, I still love the original trilogy.)
(Spoilers spoiler: spoilers for the whole game.)
Let’s get right to it. This game is screaming colonialism from start to finish in a way that made me feel legitimately uncomfortable on more than one occasion. The behaviour of the Initiative is actually shocking.
The first thing to note is that the Initiative are not refugees. In a point I’ll circle back to later, Ryder does eventually discover part of the shadowy agenda behind the funding of the Initiative was the Reaper threat and a desire to ensure the Milky Way species’ survival in case of the worst. But the game gives the impression that this was a hidden agenda on the part of a late-arriving funder, not a core part of the original intentions of the project’s founder, nor information available to anyone still alive by the end of the game’s prologue.
There is an ethical ocean between a refugee and an explorer. An explorer has choices. An explorer who does not respect others’ choices, or recognise that they may be exploring others’ spaces, is an invader.
Here is a choice the Initiative makes:
They choose to arm themselves as standard operating procedure. There is a first contact protocol – that you are not to fire unless there is clear hostile intent. That might sound lovely, but it also establishes that you are willing to defend your right to explore with deadly force. The presumption that the Alliance’s presence must be accepted because they aren’t hostile (by their own, very shaky, definition of hostile) is a repeating issue that is never addressed. It also seems like a woefully inadequate directive in the face of aliens with no common language, aliens who might never have seen other aliens before, aliens who may be able to recognise that you have arrived armed for a fight, aliens for whom your very presence may be considered hostile provocation. It seems woefully inadequate when it’s clear the Pathfinder team has received no first contact training beyond “Um, hope they’re nice?” When the team leader offers a one-line reminder about not killing the natives if possible after ordering everyone to show up to the party with guns.
The opening chapter of the game sees you faced with a first contact situation and – in a story about exploration – makes you shoot the alien in the face. If you won’t, your comrade will. You do this in order to save a third member of your exploratory party. He has a broken leg and can’t accompany you further. Make sure you kill some more of them, he says to you. As if the two already murdered aliens lying nearby aren’t enough retaliatory violence for a broken leg.
It’s true, Ryder can express that perhaps, if aliens had arrived on Earth, we would not be reacting much differently. Ryder can lament that they did not want first contact to happen this way. We later discover that the aliens in question are the Bad aliens. The Horrible Invading Horde that are supposed to distract from the genteel, helpful colonialism of the Alliance. And finally, it is true that the game that legitimately cannot throw away its roots as a shooter. It is true that I never expected to play Andromeda and not end up shooting a bunch of Andromedan aliens at some point.
But honestly, Ryder’s words feel hollow when the game refuses to allow any moderation in your violent behaviour, and when your comrades react with jingoistic anger and dehumanisation (“He looks angry!” Liam jokes, “Maybe because I shot him in the FACE!”)
This is, for all you know, as the player and as Ryder, the first ever contact between Milky Way and Andromedan species. I felt the weight of that. The writing did not.
Yes. Brave explorers. In the finest human tradition.
To be fair, I thought, some of the problems here are likely video game convention, and it will get better. It did not.
One would imagine that, freezing yourself for 600 years while you travel to a brand new galaxy based on some low-detail geographical surveys would be self-evidently risky. And yet, when faced with their “Appointed Worlds” not being empty, tropical paradises, they fall into a civil war. In itself, perhaps narratively forgivable. People don’t always react as they expect under pressure. Exiling their criminals to worlds they know are inhabited? Less excellent. At this point the Initiative have created a population who have no choice but to take what they need by force to survive and unleashed them on the already struggling local populace.
(Let’s also take a moment to talk about terminology. The Initiative “appointed” themselves to different worlds, seemingly never considering that they might already belong to someone else. The game’s writing may allow Ryder to hang a few verbal lanterns on the issue, but it never really addresses that fundamental tension; the notion that those worlds were there for the taking.)
Let’s talk about the impacted population, let’s talk about the Angara. The Kett’s assault provides the moral pretext for our own colonialism. Of course, no pretext is needed to help our would-be neighbours, but there is more to this narrative construct. The relationship between the Angara and the Initiative is not reciprocal, in fact I’d characterise it as paternalistic.
There is a viscerally uncomfortable evocation of Manifest Destiny in the way the Initiative arrive and “tame the land” by restarting the Remnant’s terraforming systems. The Initiative also effortlessly uncover the secrets of the Remnant ruins even though the Angara have lived alongside them for generations. SAM is protrayed as crucial to these efforts and the Angara have a distrust of AI. In the context of the franchise’s historical treatment of Artificial Intelligence, that distrust is more complex than simply portraying the natives as suspicious of superior technology and scientific understanding. That said SAM is not portrayed as dangerous, the Milky Way AI-skeptics are portrayed as paranoid and violent and ultimately while it may not be simply portraying the natives as supicious of our superior scientific methods… it’s still ultimately portraying them as exactly that.
Dependent on the Milky Way visitors to stem the Kett invasion and their developing ecological apocalypse, the Angara’s entire religious and spiritual worldview is then thrown into question when Ryder discovers the secret history of their species’ genesis.
Ultimately, the Initiative manages to crash a ship onto Meridian, the constructed world upon which the Angara were created – holy ground if ever such a thing could exist. In the epilogue the Initiative seems to have claimed Meridian as its new home world without any textual questions raised about the appropriateness of doing so. An in-game email update makes clear that the Angara are very keen to gain access to Meridian in light of its historical importance to their species, but don’t worry, folks, the Initiative are happy to “host” them. This world was literally created for the Angara and they are now guests in their own home.
After the game’s final mission, Ryder participates in a conversation where, absent any official Angaran representation, Initiative members discuss their plan to create a governance structure based on the traditions of the Milky Way. They decide that a) there should be an Ambassador for the Heleus Cluster, b) Ryder should be the one to appoint this person and c) it’s fine not to pick an Angaran. If you choose the only Angaran option (saying, “Did you discuss this new proposed political structure with our Angaran allies?” or “It should be an Angaran and since I only know like six of them, maybe we should ask them for a list of qualified candidates,” are not options), Director Tann immediately laments your decision to cede so much influence. Addison laughs, “That’s the point, you colonial ass!” as if we are so terribly progressive.
Control over Meridian and Tann’s status as a colonialist ass aren’t issues without wider ramifications, either. Meridian is the hub of the Remnant terraforming network. Do you trust Director Tann not to threaten dissidents with ecological chaos if they don’t comply with his wishes? I don’t. Look what he did to the Krogan. Even if I did, the Angara have no representation within the Initiative; they shouldn’t have to live hoping a group completely outside of their control doesn’t change its position on using this as a negotiating tactic. That kind of power needs to be shared, or it will be rightly crippling to trust and societal cohesion.
So, what do the Angara think of all this?
Jaal is the primary Angaran character in the game, but he is not the primary character through which the Angaran perspective on the Initiative is presented. Jaal is how Ryder learns about the Angara, and frequently presents factual or cultural information, but rarely weighs in on the wider politics of the situation. He wants to resolve the threat posed by Akksul and the Roekkar because of his personal ties, but his general characterisation is not political. He wants adventure and excitement and discovery. Set against a youthful, unprepared Ryder, there is a romance to that; to learning about each other’s culture and worlds through a friendship that is fiercely individual. Jaal isn’t interested in whether Ryder’s people represent a colonial invasion, that’s big and ephemeral and in the future. Jaal wants to know whether Ryder is his friend today. Jaal cares about bonding as warrior-brother-lovers. Jaal cares about personal relationships and family. That’s fine. That’s lovely even. Jaal can be that person. But I don’t think Ryder can – at least not responsibly.
That’s an issue that repeats over and over in this game. I haven’t played the shit out of it the way I have the others in the series, so I do own that I may be missing nuances that come from different choices. Even so, I chose a fair mix of dialogue options, and regardless of what I chose I often felt Ryder’s underlying approach was to muscle through with a mix of personal charisma and either optimism or force.
What Ryder wants to be true: Jaal and I are best friends, so obviously we can all get along. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.
What Ryder rarely seems to think about: the arrival of the Initiative, the Exiles and the Krogan will impact the Angara in drastic and unpredictable ways and my personal relationship with Jaal is not necessarily an indicator of any of them.
What Ryder never seems to append to that thought: and I am spearheading this arrival.
It’s not that Ryder chooses to behave immorally. Ryder can frequently makes choices that are clearly designed to indicate a concern for Angaran wellbeing and respect for their existence. The problem is that it is always from a limited, personal perspective – one I (perhaps cynically) feel is intimately tied to Ryder’s existence as a player avatar. These are configured as the choices of an individual, not the leader of an organisation who may have to take responsibility for actions they neither agreed with nor commissioned. But that’s the kind of unindulgent bullshit that riles core dem-bro-graphics.
Ryder presents the Pathfinder team, and, more widely, the Initiative as somewhat hermetically sealed from the Exiles and the Krogan, and even from the Initiative’s past behaviour. Ryder is never truly put in the awkward position of having to take responsibility for the harm caused by the Exiles, or explaining why it’s safe to trust the Initiative despite their betrayal of the Krogan. Because of this, it’s easy to forget that Ryder represents an organisation that very much was responsible for these choices, an organisation that is still under the same leadership that made these choices, and an organisation with no new checks or balances to ensure the same choices aren’t made again.
Under those circumstances, I frequently felt the “trust me, I, specifically, am a nice human” approach to diplomacy had the potential to be actively harmful to the Angara. I felt my Ryder was writing cheques she could not cash.
There is some token acknowledgement of the validity of Angaran distrust. Evfra, the leader of the Angaran military, for instance, has a great line about the way invaders often use exploration as a pretext. Ryder waves off this concern and then goes out and kills a ton of Roekkar – the Angaran faction that distrusts all aliens. It’s true that their assumption they must all be the same as the Kett is incorrect, but their belief that the Milky Way aliens will kill them just as dead is proved correct every time you engage them in combat. Ultimately, the “good” ending to this plotline is to refuse to martyr Akksul – to prove to his followers that you are not the violent brutes he has led them to believe. Why, then, was there no earlier option to attempt nonviolent negotiation? To avoid Roekkar territory for as long as possible? To choose not to invade their space in order to further your own agenda? From the player’s perspective the answer is clear – the plot will not progress unless you fight your way through the hostile Roekkar hordes. From the writers’ perspective the choice seems rooted in traditional game design without thought to wider thematic coherence.
The logic is recursive. The Roekkar are insular, paranoid, their concerns aren’t to be taken seriously – they are outliers and their views are not worthy of reasoned consideration and respect. That’s why it’s all right to kill them. They’re so obviously wrong! Yet, by acting that way, you prove those concerns entirely valid. To return to some of my opening arguments about exploration and invasion, the game confirms that we do not need to repsect the views of those who will not welcome us, that they have no right to forcibly remove us, and that they can be murdered when they get in the way.
Which is to say, the Initiative is an aggressive colonial force in pretty much every way, but because the Kett are worse, the text never really engages with it in a meaningful fashion. Even this distraction relies on the frankly racist trope of an ugly, faceless horde demanding religious conversion on pain of death.
I mean, the Initiative arrive uninvited, having already carved up the local real estate in their heads, with no backup plan should they not be allowed to settle except a shooting war. As soon as things go south, they exile their unwanteds, unleashing a crime wave. Instead of being punished for this, the narrative rewards them by letting them brush it all under the carpet because the Angara are now dependent on them for physical and ecological safety. There are some Angara who aren’t best pleased with this, but they’re paranoid outliers, most of whom can be shot with impunity. Finally, showing true superiority, the Initiative solve the mystery the Angara didn’t even know needed solving, announce they’ve discovered Angaran Eden, but posession being nine tenths of the laws they brought with them, the Angara get custody every other weekend. To top it all off, they begin establishing a new cluster-wide system of government without consulting a single Angaran.
This is a snarky summary, but not a fundamentally inaccurate one. I didn’t want to feel this way about the game’s treatment of colonial themes. When I heard about Andromeda’s presence, the possibility of a colonial clusterfuck did occur to me, but I genuinely didn’t expect it to be this bad. I’m also left wondering if I’m the only one who sees this. There have been a few articles noting the issue, but nothing high profile and tumblr – which I would have expected to be a bastion of outrage – seems deathly silent on this point. This is probably the best article I’ve found, although it sees the game’s attempts at engaging with the topic as laudible rather than lip service. Given then execrable level of discourse around violence and aggression in most video games, I can understand why, but it didn’t work for me here. Not because I thought it wasn’t good enough (I mean, it wasn’t, but I had reasonably low expectations), but because the reactions, diagetically framed within the game, make everybody look criminally ignorant. “Maybe we shouldn’t be upset that the aliens are shooting at us. I mean, if aliens with guns showed up on Earth, wouldn’t we do that?” is not – to me – an opportunity to establish Ryder as anti-colonialist, it’s an opportunity to establish Ryder as fucking stupid. Really? This is the first time you’re thinking about this? This wasn’t a scenario you discussed and prepared for because it’s pretty much the most likely thing to go wrong? Really? Good grief.
So yeah. Like. Apparently I’m in this corner on my own, but the colonialism in this game is awful.
It’s also not the only thing that makes everyone involved in the Initiative seem dangerously incompetent. Let’s move on to talking about the plot failures!
Attempted murder doesn’t exist in Andromeda! One of your first sidequests is investigating “Andromeda’s first murderer” (cus you know, pre-colonial history doesn’t count). He says he didn’t do it. Witnesses say he did. You eventually find out he didn’t do it, but he did try to. Then you have a big dilemma. Do you keep him in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, or free him, knowing that he’s a terrible person. Clearing him of murder and then putting him on trial for attempted murder is not an option that anyone, at any point, discusses even a little.
The Initiative needs to assign an ambassador to the Angaran homeworld of Aya. When Ryder meets this person she explains that she’s really a sociologist, but she’s had to step up. Because...we came to a brand new galaxy and didn’t think to bring any diplomats, or first contact experts? I mean, maybe they all died. Maybe they were all smart enough to look at the Initiative’s cluster fuck of a first contact plan and refused to sign up, but for crying out loud, tell us that!
Jien Garson, founder of the Initiative, was murdered, you discover, after a ton of sleuthing. You never discover who killed her or why. You discover that she was taking money from someone she knew was shady (probably the Illusive Man) and it’s implied that perhaps she was getting closer to the truth of the Reaper Invasion than someone wanted, but like…was that why she was killed? What could she possibly reveal that would damage anything now that they’re a fucking galaxy away? Who knows? Not me, that’s for sure!
Ryder’s mother is secretly in stasis. We do nothing about this. I mean, to be honest, as a dangling narrative thread, it’s not that egregious. Having her there as a future plot hook is fine in theory. But the Kett have amazeballs skills when it comes to genetic manipulation, and no one even mentions that perhaps that’s something that might eventually yield information that could save her. While we’re on that point, I mean, Daddy Ryder’s plan is kind of batshit, right? I can’t save her, but perhaps a new galaxy can! Like, he didn’t know there would conveniently be a group of genetic savants living in Andromeda. I mean, the man was desperate, so I’m not gonna judge that bit of writing too hard, but it does add to my general, all-purpose Daddy Ryder reaction: “And you thought this was a good idea, why, exactly?”
I mean, the way Ryder becomes the Pathfinder doesn’t help with this. I originally assumed that Alec decided to save his child, and then transferred SAM because the alternative was to lose SAM’s extra integrated-with-a-human abilities entirely. But later a member of the turian pathfinder team says he knows the Pathfinder isn’t dead because he hasn’t inherited his SAM. Which means Alec chose to cut out Cora, which is hella dodgy. I mean, I’m guessing it’s because he wants to keep Ellen’s situation a secret? But that’s still basically nepotism, right?
I spent most of the game wondering what, if any, background checks and psychological aptitude tests had been given to prospective colonists and whether I could fire the person responsible. A good way through the game, SAM discovers that many of the exiled colonists are suffering from a chemical imbalance in their brains making them more violent than they would be otherwise. This is treated as a minor sidequest. The resolution is a text message in an email terminal that’s easily missed, which confirms that protocols to prevent this from happening to newly awakened colonists have now been put in place. Why is this not an enormous issue? This is huge! Do we hold the exiles responsible for their behaviour if they were acting under the influence of an illness brought on by their time in stasis? Are we curing the people who are still suffering from this imbalance? Have we checked everyone already released? Didn’t anybody else notice there was something very wrong here? Are we back to the Initiative just looking completely incompetent from the ground up (Supernintendo Kesh aside).
Ryder discovers that the Reapers invaded and the Milky Way is probably a blasted wasteland. Ryder muses that perhaps one day this should be released to the public, but not right now. It is never mentioned again. This is an easter egg for the player. For the characters in the game this shocking, terrifying, frightening news. Ryder may have known that they would never be going back to the Milky Way, but knowing that the people they left behind probably died violent deaths, very shortly after they left, is the sort of thing that should be given narrative space. The decision to conceal or reveal this should be a weighty one. Particularly given that the presentation of the Initiative as explorers rather than refugees was a narrative decision that gave rise to a good deal of the uncomfortable colonialist themes in the first place.
Alec Ryder’s work on SAM was illegal under the Council’s strict laws governing AI research, yet somehow SAM is integral to the Initiative’s strategy. Alec might be concealing the true extent of his own SAM’s sentience, I suppose, but a self-aware AI is bound to each of the four Pathfinders, and its self-awareness is the very reason it is considered such a problem-solving asset. The partnership of a Pathfinder and an AI is important enough it’s included in the Cultural Centre aboard the Nexus – it’s hardly a secret. Yet we have AI protestors attempting to remove Ryder’s implant, apparently horrified by the danger SAM poses. This leaves a bunch of questions, none of which are answered. Did the Initiative secure a legal exemption from the Council regarding SAM’s creation, or is he an illegal AI? If he’s an illegal AI, did they advertise this as part of their recruitment drive, or keep it a secret? If it was a secret, then the protestors are absolutely right to be shocked and upset, but that also makes the Initiative look shady as hell, and doesn’t explain why it’s being casually referenced in their Cultural Centre as if it’s common knowledge. If it was legal somehow, why did a bunch of people who have such a deep-seated hatred of AI sign up in the first place? Either the Initiative are criminals or the protestors are idiots.
While it’s not a plot hole, the Jardaan storyline essentially ends right as it gets interesting. The idea of the Scourge as a minefield, or a chemical weapon that has left space polluted does leave the outline of an interesting war story in its wake. But it goes nowhere. They’re set up as the Protheans of Andromeda, but again, Mass Effect 1 gave us a resolution to that plot line on its own terms. We spoke to a Prothean VI, we found out the purpose of Ilos, we heard of their last days and learned why they left. Added to Jien Garson’s murder and Ellen Ryder’s presence in stasis the whole game feels like it ends just as things are getting interesting. It feels like a set-up for a trilogy, except we were told no trilogy was planned (and now it seems almost certain no trilogy will occur; we are not even getting DLC).
There are certainly things I like about this game. As I mentioned, I thought the idea behind SAM was excellent and I enjoyed his interactions with the wounded, and almost certainly malevolent, Angaran AI. The game is often at its best during the character interactions with the Tempest crew. On more than one occasion, a character mission resolved in a way I didn’t expect. Peebee joyfully choosing a woman she hates over an item she covets because life is more important. Liam’s attempt to jailbreak t he paradigm of the Initiative’s existence, and constrained frustration at its adherence to the banal expectations of a long-gone galaxy – that was a frustration I shared, even if I didn’t enjoy his refusal to share his plans. Liam having to face the natural consequences of his half-cocked frontier approach because he didn’t share. Taking Vetra and Drack out in the Nomad and listening to them talk about parenthood.
In these moments I saw reflections of the writing I expect from Bioware, and despite my frustrations with the wider game, I genuinely came to care for those aboard my ship.
Reyes Vidal, to me, stands with the best Bioware characters – brilliantly written, genuinely ethically complex, and, almost alone among the characters I met, I felt he understood the weight of what was happening. He felt like someone who would act, and then accept responsibility for acting. Nearly everyone else – including Ryder – seemed more likely to act, and then explain why what they did it, why it was the best choice, why they didn’t see any other option. Act, then justify.
But if we are talking about the wider world – if I compare Andromeda to the future the original Mass Effect trilogy presented, or to Thedas in the Dragon Age games – I cannot help but find it dissappointing. They aren’t above critique, but Dragon Age: Inquisition allows the player to participate and then lead the Inquisition from a wide variety of sociocultural positions. It is possible to embrace, reform or disavow the organisation’s links to wider colonising institutions such as the Chantry. It is possible to play an Inquisitor who is angry and critical with regards to the Inquisition, but no such option exists for a Ryder who is shocked at the conduct of the Initiative. Individuals can be criticised, but there is no place to question its premise, or even to suggest a radical change in leadership. We don’t get to replace Addison or Tan with Leliana the Murder Pope.
Similarly, I’m not about to point to Mass Effect as the high point of science fictional worldbuilding. The Asari are an interesting idea about gender and reproduction wrapped in a sexy, voyeruistic girl-on-girl package. Girl turians have tits. But there is an interesting idea wrapped up in the sex-sells visuals, and while most of the major species are humaoid bipeds with recognisable social and emotional cues, who speak verbally, there are also space jellyfish who communicate with light, and elephants without facial expressions, and several species who need pressure or environment suits. It has always been a mashup of ideas that included commercial, triple-A game imagery.
In Andromeda, I feel like that balance shifted. It all feels like so much more…surface. The Angara are barely alien at all. They have broadly cishet, broadly nuclear families, just large ones. They have two biological sexes. We are told they are extremely emotional, but I don’t know that I would have described them as such had the game not done so; their emotional nature wasn’t particularly beyond the bounds of human norms. I remember, when you are finally allowed to land on their capital planet, one of the Angara approaches you, fascinated, and begins asking fundamental questions about your trading philosophy and whether the Milky Way uses currency. What a fucking interesting question! Why wasn’t the game all about asking questions like that? Why weren’t some of the answers different?
The kett’s ability to absorb DNA, creating a hybrid species has a lot of potential, both in terms of actual science fiction and more visceral body horror. It could be deepened the way the science of the Genophage deepened in ME2, but at the moment it does not reach the basic complexity presented in ME1. It’s hidden behind a lazy “transformation” graphic, that reminds me of the Rakhghoul plague in the first Knights of the Old Republic game. And I love that game! But it’s like 20 years old and I have higher expectations of my pretend science. Give me a Mordin to explain how this works. Present me with medical advances that kett technology will now allow. What if Ryder’s mother could survive as a kett? What if Ryder’s mother could survive as a human, but only by helping a kett scientist with some ethically dubious experiments? In fact, where were any of these difficult, impactful decisions?
Mass Effect has always herded the general narrative towards similar conclusions. In terms of the overarcing narrative, individual choices were rarely revolutionary. But on a personal level, they often were. My Ryder chose to save the Salarian Pathfinder rather than a Krogan squad, knowing that this would deeply upset Drack – one of my favourite squad members. Drack was angry for…perhaps sixty seconds and then it was never mentioned again. I did not listen to the Moshae’s advice on how to deal with the kett after her rescue. As a result she told me she did not trust me and I wondered how that would hamper my ability to deal with the Angara going forward. It didn’t. It affect my interactions with her either, she was extremely nice to me.
Again, I admit that – as I never managed to motivate myself to replay the game – I’m sure I’m missing some of the nuances and consequences that the game allows. Still, playing through it, I felt the game failed to hide its mechanics. Many, many years ago I was playing this tabletop RPG, Vampire: the Masquerade. There was this Malkavian (a Vampiric clan characterised by psychologically fractured worldviews) known as “The General”, who ran an army surplus store. He had a bunch of blood bonded humans he treated as his squadron, affected a gruff demeanor, presented himself as this stern, commanding figure, but was always totally accommodating of the player characters and very willing to help us out. Later in the campaign, we needed a Malkavian representative for the local government and another player suggested this guy. I objected because I’d realised he was totally passive and followed orders from others without question. This was the contradiction of his existence – this was his psychological damage. I pointed this out to the other player and he stared at me like I had two heads. “What?” he said. “I thought that was because he was an NPC...”
That’s how I felt about a lot of the characters in Mass Effect: Andromeda. They couldn’t hate me, not really, because they were NPCs.
And the plot was frustrating.
And it was colonialist as hell.
And I guess that’s about all I have to say about the game.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-08 07:55 pm (UTC)I was deeply, deeply annoyed that only the most human-like species were in the first arks. It might have saved on development costs, but it was a huge blow to the legitimacy of the entire project. At least give me a Quarian.
Damn, Bioware. Do better.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-11 07:10 pm (UTC)Firstly, argh, no access to Mass Effect! HORROR! But also I understand - while I was playing it, a lot of the fun of the gameplay itself and the moment to moment interactions with the crew made up for its shortcomings (I missed the combat wheel, but not as much as I feared, and overall I found it very playable). Even the stuff I didn't like became worse in retrospect. I hope I haven't soured you on your past experiences playing the game - particularly if you haven't got access to the others right now!
I'm pretty pissed about the lack of Quarians though. I mean, the elcor and volus and hanar too? But mostly the Quarians because 1) FAN FAVOURITES, PEOPLE and 2) they're fucking space dwellers. They're used to living on ships! They're also used to every environment being hostile! I bet they wouldn't have shown up, panicked because the worlds were crappy and then run out of food. They'd've just carried on. Cus they're badass.
In sum: Quarians!
no subject
Date: 2018-04-08 11:33 pm (UTC)I loved the ME trilogy a lot and think it was a masterpiece of interactive SF storytelling (even with its many flaws, dropped threads, and gross dudebro intrusions), but I'm not sure I even want to play Andromeda. I guess what I really want is the opportunity to get to know the new squad and hang out with them, without feeling complicit in a violent takeover of another galaxy and subjugation of the people who live there.
I own DAI but haven't gotten around to playing it yet either - it feels like the kind of game that will swallow me whole for a while, and I haven't felt up for that yet. I should try to make time for it... and maybe I should just give up the idea of playing Andromeda. (Though the squad looks so interesting, argh.)
no subject
Date: 2018-04-11 07:29 pm (UTC)For what it's worth, I think one reason most people didn't pick up on it is because playing it didn't feel, emotionally, like a violent takeover, so much as being like...a group of well-meaning idiots. So like, tonally, omgs, they MUST be harmless! It's just I'm sat here seeing all the stupidly offensive shit these idiots are saying out of ignorance not cruelty and worrying about the long-term consequences of that idiocy? IDK. I explained that badly.
I guess what I'm saying is, I found it okay to play through, getting to know the squad, while simultaneously maintaining emotional distance from the parts of the plot I didn't like.
DAI probably will swallow you whole for a while, to be honest. The plot itself isn't that huge - probably not bigger than most other Bioware games. But it has these biiiiiiig areas to explore, which you don't have to explore thoroughly, but if you want to it means that it can easily take like...three times as long to finish. And again I have a few criticisms of the game? But like...just on a basic level, it does so much better about letting you engage with a problematic organisation from a variety of starting points/opinions.
Like, Andromeda is pretty cheap now. I'd wait til it's on sale and then try it out. You can always put it away after a few hours if it's not for you, you know? You don't have to commit to the whole game to give it a shot and see if the good/bad balance is tolerable for you. For me, at least, my dislike of Andromeda didn't tarnish my great love of the trilogy.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-09 12:53 am (UTC)They would present you with two options, one which was the hard-line, dictatorial option, and one which was more empathetic, and neither of them would be sensible. Like the thing with the 'first murder'. Or the one that really struck me was when people were protesting about their relatives being kept in stasis, and your options were either to accede to them or have them arrested. It totally threw me because wasn't the obvious response 'agree to meet with the protesters and discuss how we prioritise defrosting people', regardless of whether you intended to listen or not? Neither of the options they gave would even have occurred to me!
And there was quite a lot that felt like that :-/
no subject
Date: 2018-04-11 07:37 pm (UTC)Plus to go to your specific example, those protesters annoyed me so fucking much. Why did they even want their relatives defrosted when there was no way to fucking feed them? There were very clear reasons for unthawing people at a reduced rate, and these protesters didn't even seem to be engaging with that on a surface level. They didn't disagree with the specifics of how the decision was made, or even have a valid argument for why rationing wasn't necessary. They were just like, GIVE ME WHAT I WANT. WHY IS FRONTIER LIFE HARRRRD.
Ugh.
And yes, there was definitely a lot that felt like that.
(Also, I just remembered after founding the first colony on Eos you get to choose whether it's military or science-based. And then you never have to make that choice for any other colony and it was also basically a meaningless choice. And now I'm pissed about that too.)
no subject
Date: 2018-04-09 12:46 pm (UTC)So yeah, I still haven't played so I can't add much to this yet, but I'm bookmarking it for another read once I have.
Based on what I've seen elsewhere about the plot of this game, plus this, plus our brief chat about it last Vidukon, I am pretty sure I agree with everything about the horrors of the colonialism in the plot, and I am furious/disappointed/frustrated at the whole damn thing. And at wider fandom, because yeah, I have not been careful about avoiding seeing what fandom is saying about Andromeda, and I have not really seen any discussion of any of this.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-11 07:43 pm (UTC)Honestly I'm...genuinely just confused as to how I'm so out of step with fandom on this. Like, the end of ME3, I obviously was WAY out of step, but I at least felt like I understood why, even if I disagreed. But this really surprises me, and also confuses me.
And saddens me too, of course. Cus like, Mass Effect is my favourite. It's shit that there's a shit one. :(
But if you do ever play it, do let me know what you think. I'm honestly wondering whether I was...not oversensitive, I think I have a good grasp on what's going on. But like, if I was picking up on stuff that was actually more subtle than I thought or something? Yeah. Anwyay. Thanks, as always, for your support in my Mass Effect ranting. <3
no subject
Date: 2018-04-14 06:05 pm (UTC)Also, no DLC? Is that because Bioware thought it bombed, or is there some other reason? That seems such a weird decision to make. (I feel mean, but I'm kind of glad it's not getting any sequels, and hasn't been set up as such).