It's out! I'm about 15 hours in maybe? I guess it depends on how you count my exploring and sidequests. Early impressions:
Well, it's Mass Effect: Again. Gameplay not dramatically different from before. One thing I like is that the "class" system seems to be mostly gone. You get access to a full array of Combat, Tech, and Biotic skills and can level up whatever you like. There's also no restriction on weapon carrying or specialization in them, so if you want a cloaking shotgun user you can do that.
Combat, once again, is pretty easy. I'm only playing on the normal difficulty, though, so I didn't expect it to be that much of a challenge. The cloaky sniper routine has always kinda broken the AI. They added jump jets for a more mobile combat experience, but I find this doesn't add much to the combat. Being out of cover, even while airborne, just gets you shot more. The real addition for jump jets is, naturally, ****ing jumping puzzles.
Dear Bioware: Nobody likes jumping puzzles. You didn't need to add this. Also, **** your space sudoku. I'm fine with puzzles. But you literally made sudoku. I can get an app on my phone with thousands of sudoku puzzles on it, and it doesn't cost $60. I don't want to play alien sudoku in my space RPG.
The story is the usual Bioware style. Well-done, as always. Some of the choices allegedly have major impacts on the game. Like your first outpost in this new galaxy, you get to pick a science focus or military focus. They make it seem like a big deal, but as far as I can tell, this just changes some perk choices you unlock as you progress. Of course, there could be major plot changes for all I know, which I wouldn't know until a second playthrough.
Which, honestly, I don't think I'll do. There's a lot of repetitiveness to the game's sidequesting already. There's a lot of "encounters" that are clearly procedurally/randomly distributed but are basically copy/pasted onto the landscape. Big planet, not enough stuff to fill it with, so you plop down a random wrecked alien space fighter with the bad guy aliens around it. Go in, kill them, there's one box to loot. Oh look, over there are some bad guy aliens with a (static, just part of the scenery) vehicle. Go kill them, there's one box to loot. Etc etc.
I'll give them a pass on the wonky facial animations. These have always been part of Mass Effect, and it's really, really hard to get good facial expressions on a face with as many customization options as Mass Effect gives you. But there are just so many other animation problems that it becomes distracting. Flickering lights, characters spinning around twice to talk to me, characters leaning over a table but facing the wrong direction so it looks like they're trying to take a dump on it. This game really needed some more time in beta testing.
The game is fun, worth playing, but I think it fails to live up to the high expectations of the series.
