Mass Effect Andromeda wasn’t better than Mass Effect 2 by any means. But the efforts to try and write it off as a terrible game are plainly idiotic. It was in fact a fun game that did many things right. The gameplay was fun, the characters on the ship were interesting, the graphics were beautiful, and I enjoyed the…

ME:A was a disappointment overall coming from the trilogy, but the movement and combat was hands down the best of the series.  There were things that changed for better and for worse since the first game came out but those mechanics were only ever improved.

I’ve played the game a lot in single and multiplayer, and yes, the way the dialogue system works is definitely designed around multiplayer. Works great in those circumstances. In single player I just can’t get used to the idea of sending different characters in my party to initiate conversations to pass skill checks…

Also delighted by the game and still in Act 1, but I’ve also noticed those both issues.

Also, the multiplayer was solid.  It was a good evolution of ME3's multiplayer, and didn’t have any glaring problems (at least that I can recall, though I haven’t played it in several years).

You can’t really say an ending is canon when there are three options.  Canon will be whatever Bioware decides for ME5.  Probably the destroy option.  If they’re actually bringing back Shephard, it pretty much has to be the destroy option.

“We simply do not know” is absolutely not the same as “50/50", but sure.

That’s not how statistics work. The larger the universe, the larger the chances of finding intelligent life. It’s like if I ask you find a lost item of some sort in a room vs. on the planet. You technically don’t know for certain there’s even one to find, but your odds of finding it sure as hell go up if you can…

I’ll play devil’s advocate here.

I actually really liked the relationship stuff with Garrus in ME2. It started off very forced and cheesy dialogue exchages and even when he comes to Shepard’s room he’s trying so hard to seem like he’s suave and cool. There’s this sense that he’s not entirely sure why you’re into him…

This is what so heartbreaking to me as I do think that ME:A had a lot of really strong elements at the heart of it and you could feel the development team figuring things out as they pushed on with the main story and established certain elements of the larger story.

Not to mention every season of Picard went back to the well and dragged out the Borg. Season three was ten hours of "REMEMBER THIS?!"

I think that’s what makes the Star Wars: Visions series more compelling than the other series they’re putting out. 

Star Trek? Taking risks? Uhhh...

I can’t even imagine them recasting Luke Skywalker or Obi-Wan for a new movie, since they’ve started using CGI to recreate the old actors

And when you get to Tier 3 & 4, only pick up Sacred and Ancestral items. Stop picking up rare items.

Well put!  It rips your heart out and sets the stage for what has to come next.   And it damn well better, you hear me, Amazon?

One simple solution is to just stop picking up every single item. Like, you really have no need for common or magic items unless you completely run out of the components you get from them, which then means you can just grab them for a while and stop again.

I very much see your point with the second concern. But I also have seen that concern used as a cheap excuse. Yes, people SHOULD recognize that BG3 is a confluence of positive developments and luck. But also? Hard work. Giving a shit about the end user experience. Not letting the license entirely dictate the gameplay…

I had the same experience with the spider matriarch and felt like an absolute hero for pulling it off.  Note on the githyanki “romancing” - it helped me with immersion and when she was an ass to me later it definitely added to my feelings about it :)

Personally, I’m going to wager that the “ghost” company, made by VCs to extract value out of a specific market, by targeting that market’s most favored qualities (speed, notoriety, and food familiarity), is going to do fine during discovery, and during the trial. I agree with you that they won’t want to do discovery…