Science fiction is seldom visited in computer or console role-playing games. The vast majority of the time it’s all about the swords, sorcery, dragons, and castles. Basically, fantasy rules the roost when it comes to these sort of games. So, when something sci-fi comes along, I perk up an ear and take notice. As a kid, it was Phantasy Star that scratched that itch for me (and still does to an extent), and as an adult Mass Effect was one such series that satisfied my desire for aliens, spaceships, and high tech shenanigans in an RPG setting.
Recently, though, my interest in the series has fallen off a cliff. Witnessing the behavior of various members of Mass Effect: Andromeda’s development team on social media left a bad taste in my mouth. Whether it was Manheer Vier’s blatant anti-white racism, or the SJW talking point saturated comments from the likes of writers like Sam Maggs, I started to become a bit concerned that this game would be a train wreck.
I’m not against politics and social issues in games, but up to this point, folks who conduct themselves like this tend to be bad storytellers. They hamfistedly shove ideas into games without a care for nuance or subtlety. People have been criticizing music and film for years as being preachy when it’s called for. Video games certainly shouldn’t be any different. When Mass Effect 3 ended, I wasn’t terribly pleased with how things wrapped up. It just wasn’t good writing. Bioware did try to remedy this to an extent with DLC and a story update down the road. Andromeda, however, has me worried that this could be a game that has been made into a hot mess from the ground up.
There are clearly people with a political agenda who worked on this game, and they have no qualms about virtue signaling to anyone within earshot. Their day-to-day behavior hardly projects an appreciation for subtlety, so why should I assume that their game design ethos will be any different.
While there isn’t much to go on with regards to story in Andromeda outside of an intense feeling of skepticism based on the conduct of those working on the game, the graphics are an entirely different matter. I can see those now no problem, and wow do they look bad. Everyone has terrible complexion, and the women range from plain Jane to outright ugly. Some people seem to take exception to attractive people in creative mediums, and, unfortunately, they’ve found their ways into positions of control at various studios in recent years (the haters, not beautiful people).
This has resulted in places like Bioware going out of their way to make characters in their game look unattractive. Oddly, it seems to only be women who are ugly in Andromeda. The men look just fine. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to play as an attractive woman in a video game, but the folks at Bioware seem to think different.
Lastly, there’s the animations in Andromeda. Perusing the cavalcade of videos and gifs floating around the internet, there is no lack of questionable content out there. From bizarre walking to dead faces, things look downright amateurish. There are more than a few occasions where characters look like they’re walking like a gorilla or have a load in their pants. These actually happen during cut scenes, so you know this isn’t even a matter of a player intentionally trying to make a character walk weird and pass it off as otherwise. They have no control over this. It’s the game itself that is making the characters walk in such a strange manner.
Meanwhile, facial animations are atrocious. We’ve already discussed the general ugliness of females in the game, but crap facial animations affect everyone. This ranges from unresponsive doll eyes, to stiff faces that make characters look like they’ve undergone about a half dozen Botox treatments and / or suffered from a comparable number of strokes recently. If you were to take footage of someone talking in Andromeda, and then compare it to the original Mass Effect, the old game actually does a better job of facial animations, and the thing came out in 2007!
Anyway, this brings me to the whole point of my article. With all of the “Don’t go anywhere near this game!” messages that Mass Effect: Andromeda is projecting my way, it has gotten me a lot more hyped for another game: Cyberpunk 2077.
All we have to go on is some very basic information, a brief teaser, and concept art. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, it’s probably safe to put a fair bit of faith in CD Projekt Red here because they have a very good track record with their games, which the company has not squandered, unlike Bioware. CDPR brought us the Witcher trilogy, which is arguably one of the best RPG series ever made. It’s been extremely well-received by both critics and fans, especially the third game. They’re games that managed to successfully tackle complex issues in a compelling manner. They’re also games that didn’t shy away from having a cast of very attractive characters.
Taking what we’ve seen from the Witcher games and combining it with the knowledge that the studio responsible for them is now venturing into the realm of science fiction is a huge reason to get excited. The potential is huge. Sure, there’s always the possibility of Cyberpunk turning out bad, but CDPR has given us no reason whatsoever to think this. They’re riding high on a massive wave of success, having proven themselves very capable of making excellent role-playing games thanks to The Witcher. Now with Bioware dropping the ball completely with Andromeda, people are going to be more thirsty than ever for a good RPG in a sci-fi setting. This is the perfect situation for CD Projekt Red to swoop in and become the king of the hill for such games.
- Written by KusoShiteNero