Mass Effect: Andromeda Review (PS4)

There’s been a lot of bad press about Mass Effect: Andromeda, and I’m going to take my stand now – I disagree with almost all of it.

There’s a lot to like about the latest Mass Effect game. It’s huge, as you’d expect. It’s got some very cool alien weapons, some heart-pumping missions and some agonising choices at key points through the game. You can spend hours just driving round new planets, finding hidden weapon caches or clearing out enemy outposts, stumbling upon hidden secrets or just trying to make them more habitable. And that’s before you even worry about any of the dozens of missions each planet offers up throughout the game.

Combat is great too, and although the cover system is a bit awkward, once you level up a bit and get hold of some strong weapons you’ll have a great time. Sniper rifles than shoot exploding rounds, shotguns which send electrical shells at opponents, there’s loads. And if that’s not enough you can research and build your own weapons, combining blueprints with extra abilities to make a devastatingly powerful arsenal of guns to take with you on your travels.

Sure it’s not perfect – a few missions end suddenly with no obvious after effect, and it’s quite easy to get stuck in the structure of some buildings at times, but I can’t see why people are complaining. I’m 45 hours in, still have huge amounts to do and can’t stop going back to it. For me this is every bit as good as I’d hoped, even if it’s not quite on par with Mass Effect 2.

Mind you, what is?