Outside of the villain and a Krogan accomplice, I don't like the writing in Mass Effect: Andromeda. There's things they could do to create superior context, but there's simply too much of it for it to be an accident. They specifically chose this tone, an emotionally stunted, quasi-memetic cadence that often diminishes the reality of the game, and said "straight on 'til morning."

They succeeded at their aim, but it's a questionable aim. I wonder what a new player thinks of this entertainment product: for me, the bedrock, the ground floor beneath the experience is my affection for Mass Effect. If you came in with this one, and I'll have to ask around, but I don't think they earn the emotional checks they're trying to cash even out of the introduction.

Unless it's purely a console beast, which happens in several notable instances, RPG is a genre I play on computers. And I do wonder if that's part of my problem: diddling planets with the mouse is not… functional, in the classic sense. And I thought I was just daft for a bit, but I think now that crafting isn't handled sensibly. Part of this is that there's no real on-ramp to the practice in-game, and part of this is that the way you interact with this on PC is hostile. The menus in general are hostile, and without reason. There is a point at which you press Escape to confirm. I'm not really sure what to say about that, outside of "no." A modder would have fixed this already in a competitor's product. I'm not saying that is, you know, the best outcome or whatever, simply that it's true.

I finally found my cadence, "pathfinding" a few key forward bases on a world and then fast travelling from there, and I entered a new system only to have the game crash. We have reached a land beyond metaphor here, but I have one I've gotten good use out of: This is like being stuck in traffic on the way to a party you don't even want to go to. I think that in playing enough of it to understand why it didn't work for me, I got caught in enough of its gravitational field to want to close the loop at least. I'll let you know.

Followers keep materializing on my Tweeter, I assume because of the new D&D Shit we're doing, but it's always a little funny to see it happen because I sort of figured that everybody knew about our deal and had already made a decision about it. When you have been at something for like twenty years you feel sort of ubiquitous, and if somebody doesn't follow my thing it's a compliment to them in a way. The idea that there is somebody who is like, "Comics? Role Playing? Nerd shit? What's this?" is the most exciting thing I can think of. I had been content, more or less, to fall into the atmosphere and burn up. But this prospect - starting again, in a way? I can feel it in my S-Zone, or "skin."

But, for the newcomer. You can and should follow our Twitch. You can watch the page for updates on when our shit hits YouTube or the Podcast RSS, but can also gain this mystical insight simply by gazing into our Subscrorb, so that when new episodes of First 15 or Acquisitions Incorporated: The "C" Team you will shudder with wisdom.

(CW)TB out.