To start with, we need to rewind our understanding of the ME timeline, and stop all of our Milky Way history right about when Shepherd defeats the Collectors. That's about the time that the Andromeda Initiative freezes their entire crew and fires them off on their 600 year tour of the universe on the SS Minnow.
Jump forward 600 years and everyone is now in a galaxy that is at least 2,537,600 years OLDER than any observations made in the Milky Way prior to launch. That's right. That's the fastest any kind of information could possibly travel from Andromeda to the Milky Way. Now, I can suspend a LOT of belief here. As a civilization we're only in the last few years beginning to identify planets within, say, 100 light years of Earth. And those observations are of things that happened 100 years ago. See what I'm getting at here? If we launch super fast ships at a galaxy 2.537 million light years away, we better damned well know where it ACTUALLY is, if it actually exists, and where it will absolutely be in 600 years.
I'm just saying that the math doesn't leave a lot of room for small significant digits. Science lesson over.
Mass Effect: Andromeda
Okay, so presumably it's 600 years after ME2. And you wake up on a ship that's just run into a galaxy-sized pot-hole, lovingly called "The Scourge". It's everywhere and it's one of the scarier and cooler ideas in this game. Except MEA basically says "The Scourge is bad, m'kay?" and then proceeds to take away any reason to be concerned about it.
In fact, the absolute weakest part of this game (apart from it needing about 27 updates to be functional) is the story and its telling. For a Bioware production, people should be damned embarrassed. Whatever editor signed off on this should have either a) been fired for gross incompetence or b) walked off the job with all the writers because some asshat executive made them spend 3 years writing garbage.
Basically, I could spend pages and pages talking about how bad the dialogue is, and how painful their attempts are to recreate the brotherhood and unity you had at the end of ME2 (or, if you liked it, ME3).
I understand that Bioware felt the NEED to create a rich environment, with engaging characters, and epic storyline, etc. But what they ended up writing were LITERALLY the same characters from ME. You get... Not Miranda, Not Garrus, Not Liara (okay, this is a win in my book), Not Wrex/Grunt, Not Ashley (as a boy), and one new character named Jaal.
Jaal is an Angara, one of two new sentient races you'll encounter in Andromeda (that's right, MEA is so DAMNED LAZY they only bother creating two races for an ENTIRE F*$&ING GALAXY). The Angara basically look like Star Wars Twi'Leks with a lot more thought about what happens below the neck. They have a natural ability generate an electric charge and use it in combat. They've been at war with the other sentient race, the Kett, for their entire written history. And the explain their entire culture by saying that they value emotional expression, and then proceed to really not express any emotions any better than the Elcor from ME... Seriously, Jaal never sounds angry, happy, sad, outraged... for an alien that is supposed to let his emotions fly, he really doesn't have a broad spectrum of emotion..
And you've got your non-combat ship crew. Not Joker, and Not Dr Chakwas are about as plain yogurt as they get (I'd save "vanilla", but it has flavor). There is also Doctor Don't Flirt with Me, and Engineer PLEASE FLIRT WITH ME (seriously, he's begging for it). Finally there is Bad Irish Accent, your science officer.
One other character you get is SAM. The true AI that has an implant in your brain with one huge shortcoming. You can't shut him the hell up. SAM is full of useless information and never fails to tell you when the ice planet is cold, the desert planet is hot, or explain how to "mine resources" if they happen to be near by... EVERY. DAMNED. TIME. It's like having a tutorial on for the entire game. Half the reason it took me five months to get through this game is that SAM doesn't shut the hell up.
Okay, I mentioned the Kett. They're organic (non cybernetic) Borg. That's it. They're not scary. They have no personality. They're goal is to turn everyone into Kett. And the story tries to make this interesting and engaging, but it isn't. It's shite storytelling on Bioware's part. You can run around on planets all day long and collect information on the Kett that eludes to what they're up to or you can just play a few missions and learn about it fairly quickly with zero ceremony.
There is also another.. well, not a race, but an old technology generally referred to as "The Remnant". Literally Halo's Precursor race as an old AI that is prevalent within the entire galaxy. Basically it's a robot race that you fight all the time but there's literally zero interaction.
Now, I mentioned the storytelling is awful. And the plot is very weak for most of the game. It's not so much plot holes as a long train of bad choices getting into a wreck in a dumpster... Told very poorly.
The "Plot"
So the Milky Way crew shows up in a bunch of arcs (one for each major species) and the Nexus, which we could easily refer to as the Not Citidel. You're brought out of cryo stasis when the human arc is damaged by the scourge, and your dad, the Pathfinder, says "well, we're here, let's go look at this golden world" where you immediately crash land and start fighting the Kett, and exploring a Remnant site. It's implied that your dad has been out of cryo for a bit longer. He seems to know a lot more than he should, but you'll never find out why.
At the end of the mission, your dad has to decide between saving you, or himself. And, honestly, he makes the wrong decision. He gives you his helmet and makes you the Pathfinder. Wait, what?! Your dad was an N7. He practically designed the Initiative. He did design your annoying as hell AI (thanks, daaad...). And despite the fact that there was someone who was VASTLY more qualified than you available (and officially next in line) he sacrifices himself for a guy who stood guard duty at a mass relay and knows nothing about survival or combat.
Sidebar.. While everyone had no problem talking about your dad while using his first and last name, they just call you "Pathfinder" all the time. It's a bit annoying. There are four other pathfinders that use their names, but not you. This surgically removes the ability to feel any sort of camaraderie, because no one will use your damned name.
You get back to the Nexus and, surprise, you're the only arc that's checked in. When you hop on board, it's Lord of the Flies time. You'll find out that the Nexus has been parked for about a YEAR, and shit went south. Apparently, in that year, enough essential personnel had been sprung from cryo for TWO complete rebellions to make new factions and make multiple settlements. These renegade settlements are managing to survive despite the harsh conditions on the "golden worlds" and constant attacks from the Kett. Yet since there are no Pathfinders reporting in no official settlement has been able to take hold. The Kett just wipe them out over and over.
This makes no bloody sense. Why were thousands of people out of cryo so soon? If the answer is there, I honestly couldn't bear to listen to MEA drone on about it. So many people had left the Nexus that there are roving bandit, pirates, etc on all the worlds you'll eventually colonize. It's been a year and already the new galaxy is filled with just as much crime and destitution as the Milky Way was.
Either something physiological changed in every being in cryo, or the Initiative gave literally zero craps about who would end up being frozen for their glorious 600 year journey, and just filled the pods with whatever depraved monsters they could find. You'll find out that the project was rushed a bit, but that's not really going to account for all this madness.
So your first Pathfinder task is to establish a real colony, but all the planets' environments are death traps. So each planet you find will involve a half dozen fetch quests with some sudoku before the planet becomes livable enough to bring down a colony. And the first time you establish a colony the entire remaining Nexus governing system makes it very clear that there is a HUGE decision coming up. Do you want it to be more military or science based? Like, this is going to change everything.
And then... Nothing happens. Absolutely nothing.
In MEA, your choices don't. Mean. Squat. Unless you're trying to get freaky with someone in particular, nothing you do or say means anything. There is no renegade/paragon. The conversation wheel has been replaced with four contexts in which you can emote. I think they're emotional, logical, professional, and wise-ass. And you'll learn very quickly that there is no point in picking one to stick with, because nobody cares how you act. Sure, they may point out that you're being an ass, but it never makes a lasting impression. I can think of one mission in the entire game where it is possible that your choices might make a difference. And at the time I thought, "Should I reload and see if I can change this? No, because then I'd have to talk to these people again..."
Naturally, since the storytelling was already garbage, I just picked wise-ass whenever it was available. It's... an epic disappointment coming from Bioware.
The worst part is that when you near the end of the game, the boring ass stuff that has been happening sort of starts to get explained. But they don't bother with it. There's an ENORMOUS revelation about one of the races close to the end of the game. They could easily have added hours of game time (or thrown it in the middle and made a better overall story) based on this one bit of knowledge and it's given a single conversation. I was thinking to myself "ah, here's where shit gets interesting".
Playing the game.
Exploration is even more boring than the last three games. You go to your map, select a system, planet, etc. Run the scanner like in ME3 (if an anomaly is there, Bad Irish Accent will be sure to tell you). Look at planet, scan, leave. That's it.
Then when you do visit a planet you're in the Not Tank. Which you don't even get right away. It's an afterthought. Whomever set up the Initiative didn't think you'd need any way to get around on the planet once you've landed so you have to basically steal an APC. And for all the technology available in the ME world, this thing is a POS. It has less horse power than some of the first automobiles on Earth. Even with its 2 wheel drive and 6 wheel drive mode, this machine is pathetic. 2 wheel drive is only good for level surfaces and going down hill. 6 wheel drive mode is meant to get you up mountain sides and hills, maybe. Eventually you'll find ways to upgrade it so it can travel up slight inclines, and 6 wheel drive will scoot up hills pretty well in the end game, but until then you may as well get out and push.
When exploring there are environmental hazards (heat and cold) that SAM will never let you forget about. Apparently they forgot why people have a HUD. And, if you're exposed too long you'll run out of life support and die. This is frequently used as a gameplay mechanic, where you have to stay under the smoker's heaters long enough to warm up, go back into the fight, and find the heater again so you don't die. Then, as quickly as the platforming fights could be interesting, they abandoned it with the rest of the story...
To drive home the point that Bioware stopped caring about this franchise you can actually pick different perk profiles to augment your favorite abilities. Classes are out the window. You're no longer locked into a set of skills. If you don't like charging around as a vanguard, just start spending points in soldier or tech abilities. It doesn't matter, because you've got infinity points!! Or, just respec for free!
Oh, and remember how in ME how you could direct your teammates to attack a target or take a certain position, or use an ability so that you could use their unique skills to get through difficult situations? GONE! Hey Jaal, can you set me up for a combo detonation? Nope! Jaal and the rest of your teammates, despite what they might say if you talk to them, are all firm believers in the mantra of the Honey Badger.
I had a very difficult time finding reasons to even bother with combo detonations, anyways. Literally anything that had a shield couldn't be primed for detonation. Armored enemies could be primed with incinerate, so all I ever did was light people on fire and run into them. The other power generally would be reserved for something that took down shields, but those powers were so ineffectual, that I just said screw it and started carrying the heaviest sniper rifle I could find since it could break the shields faster than any powers.
While running amok you'll use your AI powered scanner to scan literally everything you see. It's novel at first but gets annoying as hell. It's never quite as bad as Metroid: Other M, but it gets close. And you can't skip it because if you don't scan things you can't get research points. And if you don't get research points, you can't unlock better equipment to build with the scant materials you find. And if you don't unlock better equipment it won't randomly drop. That's right, you have to research guns, mods, and ammo BEFORE anyone carries them. There must be a mole in your ranks or something.
Oh, and gathering resources is more of a pain. In previous games you'd just find some occasionally or probe things so you could get at them. And it was sort of a "gathering resources mode" of play. Annoying, but it worked.
In MEA, you'll find resources in the a few ways. First is the Dragon age, "Oh, there's a small pile of Eezo sitting over there. I just picked up 18 Eezo.". Next is driving around when SAM won't shut the hell up about driving through a place that's rich in resources, you press a button at the right spot and you get an ordinate amount of resources as shown on your scanner. Finally, there is the planet scanning. And let me be perfectly clear. This is pure bullshit. You find an "anomaly" on a planet. Oh, a big pocket of eezo?! SCORE. Send in your probe and... You get 18 eezo. You'll eventually say screw it and never scan another planet. It's not worth your time. In face, if you need to 100% the game, pay someone else to scan planets. It's almost as boring as most of the dialogue in the game...
The game also has a lot of fanfare for settlement points (or something like that) where the more livable the galaxy, the more "nexus resources" you unlock. Let me assure you, these are useless. They make it sound important. They made it sound like base building a couple years ago. It isn't. You can more or less skip this.
Multiplayer
I LOVED the multiplayer in ME3. The game... was not the best in the original trilogy, but the multiplayer was great.
I haven't bothered with MEA multiplayer. Probably won't.
Conclusion
Bioware has fallen. My faith was shaken heavily when they phoned in ME3. My faith in Bioware is now gone. I'm certain that there is a great fount of talent in their ranks, but ineptitude, petty politics, or I don't know what has decisively destroyed this franchise.
I've played through the ME games multiple times each. Yes, even 3. And I don't think this one is ever getting more play time.
MEA's story is like jumping on a roller coaster that has about a 3 degree decline. You get on, the brakes let up a bit. Then you sorta just coast... riding the brakes... for hours. Then you see it. A giant hill for the coaster to go up. But the closer you get, the more you realize that it's your brain making a mountain out a mole hill. The hill is there, but the clicky part is only about 10 feet high. You go up... and then the ride is over. Exit to the left... Thank you for visiting Bioware. We hope you enjoyed your stay. You don't even feel disgust. Just pure disappointment. You look at the rest of your ride tickets... and let them fall to the ground. It's time to find a better park.
I like the multiplayer in MAE. It's kinda fun.
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