With the conclusion of the Mass Effect Trilogy, it was unclear where they might go with the newest entry in the Mass Effect universe. Upon starting the game, the first thing I noticed was that the graphics and game play were somewhat diminished compared to the pre-release press of the past few years of development. Granted, they did make a point to label all of the early art and videos as “Not actual game play”, but the contrast was still somewhat startling. By the time I bought the game though, the initial patches had already been released so I missed some of the early animation glitches that annoyed so many people. The game play is pretty much what I’ve come to expect from Mass Effect games. You and two members of your team drop down to a planet and do your thing, but in a divergence from the older game play, in that the planets are vastly larger fairly open areas to explore and launch the missions from. Instead of the small-scale hubs such as the Citadel, Omega and Illium, they have taken the concept from the original Mass Effect and expanded the size of the planets that you can explore and while fewer in number, they contain the majority of the missions that you will go on. The prologue and initial mission to introduce the basic game play mechanics and setup the story line are about like those in Mass Effect 3, but can take much longer to do if you explore and try to accomplish as much as you can, anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes before you ever get your personal ship and head out to Eos to begin your career as pathfinder. The game lacks the sense of urgency that came with the reaper invasion of the original trilogy. When you arrive in the Andromeda galaxy, the Kett have been there for the better part of a century and are well established by this point. Instead of playing a running retreat as in ME3, the roles are somewhat reversed and you are now the one playing the role of colonizer and expanding your holdings across the galaxy. You explore the planets, setup supply drops to extend your influence, complete objectives to tame the planets and make them ready then establish colonies and move on to the next world. The mechanics of the game have been changed a bit by the addition of jump-jets to your combat armor. This allows for more creativity in world design making things a bit more interesting instead of being limited to pretty much flat interior style areas. Your own armor choices are varied and can be purchased prefab or looted with preset stats or you can craft your own armor/weapons and add enhancements during the crafting process. There are also enhancements that can be socketed and swapped for both looted and crafted items as well. Party members have now been scaled back to simply being able to manage their skills/powers. The change from Mass Effect to ME2 and ME3 where armor options were removed has now progressed to your squad’s weapons as well. With the switch back to exploring planets, we once again get behind the wheel of our own vehicle. While it lacks the armament of the Mako and the Hammerhead, it does get a wide selection of paint schemes that you can swap out, defensive and performance enhancing modifications and such. A turret would be nice though, just saying. All things considered, I found the game to be fun, interesting and overall fun to play. Are you Commander Shepard running and gunning through the galaxy, kicking Reaper ass, saving the galaxy and looking awesome doing it? No. But you are Pathfinder Rider, running and gunning through the galaxy, kicking Kett ass and making Andromeda a safer place to live. It’s still a fun universe to play in.

After Commander Shepard sacrificed himself to save the galaxy from the reaper threat, I turned back to the realm of Tamriel, this time arriving in the nation of Skyrim. Having waited a bit over a year after release before getting it, the Dawnguard and Hearthfire DLC was already available so I got those and installed them before my first game started. Once again, my adventure begins as a prisoner (seems like it always does) but this time, just for a change of pace, I appeared to be on my way to a date with the executioner’s ax. I see something of a trend here. In Morrowind, I started out on a prison ship and was released at the processing office. In Oblivion I was in the dungeons and received a fairly royal pardon of sorts which I don’t feel had any real merit due to the death of the emperor. And now I am saved from the ax due to the fact that pretty much everybody who knew about my pending execution got roasted by a dragon. On a side note, I did try Elder Scrolls Online for a few hours and was rather astonished to discover that I was starting out already deceased. I can understand the point behind it, it lends itself toward the clean slate starting point, but it still feels like they hate me a little. But back to Skyrim. The graphics are a huge improvement over Oblivion. I found the story more engaging as well. While the ruins can be a bit on the repetitive side at times, it is nowhere near as bad as the identical caves and oblivion gates. The combat system is similar enough to Oblivion that there was not a severe learning curve as there was with Morrowind to Oblivion. The journey of the Dragonborn is a long one, fraught with danger, excitement and mudcrabs. As previously mentioned, the journey begins as a prisoner on your way to the chopping block. After going through the typical character building phases (Race/Gender/Appearance/etc) I find myself suddenly freed from custody by a well-timed dragon attack and I continue on into the world with nobody bothering to remember that I was supposed to be executed. The main storyline was good, the usual mix of go here, find that and go there kill that. The creature attacks can get a bit annoying sometimes, but it’s nothing compared to Morrowind’s Cliffracers so it’s not as bad as it could be. The DLC is fun and adds a bit of playtime. The Dragonborn DLC actually adds the isle of Solstheim from Morrowind. I have played it off and on for over 5 years now and while I have completed the main story and the main quests of the DLC packs, there are still some quests that I have never gotten around to.