Raithe

I think they could have done more with it if they tried to do less. There does seem to be that feel as if they ran out of time or money or both and things they had planned to develop never happened.

As far as I know, the Apex Strike Missions are just a little extra hard for better rewards compared to the normal Strike Missions. They're all basically a fluffy reason for the multiplayer, and simply give you the option to use the fluff of them with the single-player game. Also I believe it's set up so you can "seamlessly" go from single-player to multiplayer within the game, or at least, that's the theory they gave. Mechanically, there's no connection to any of the story. Edit: You get the option to host or join someone else who has hosted it. You get people playing the MP side will create the matches because Apex Missions give greater rewards, but do something like boost the damage of the enemies (or something along those lines) that increase the difficulty.

It does have a bit of an awkward pacing. The first 10-15 hours of it is pretty much that big opening sprawl of introduction and showing off gaming mechanics and initial lore and setting out the situation. It's that "First planet - prologue: Becoming the special one", then "This is your Hub" followed by "This is your ship and companions" then the "This is the 2nd planet and you'll find out what it means to be a pathfinder ; plus story stuff" kind of run. Then it proceeds to introduce you to the native intelligent species and you start to get a few choices of where you go in the cluster over the next 5 or so hours. You get the final companion as part of that process. I think the game stats have that at about the 25-30% mark done? For all they've gone on about the exploration side and flying around the galaxy, there aren't really that many options once you get past the flying back and forth between 3 planets and the hub for that first quarter of the game. I'm enjoying it as it goes, but there are a fair few niggling things that I'm having to ignore and rely on the good bits to balance out the rough spots. The first loyalty mission I did was definitely a highlight of the story/mission design I've seen so far. The one thing that annoys my minor OCD is the amount of "Task: XXX" missions that get tagged into your journal. They aren't important per se, and about half of them are the "Collect X variety of thing or such" without any map points to aim for. And a few variants that require you to find and scan 3 or 5 of the same items across multiple enemy camps to be able to decipher/triangulate or such.... the problem being none of those camps are marked in the wilderness and it seems that its a random chance that the item you need to scan will appear in any camps you do find. So lots of just driving around the wilderness hoping to find the damn unmarked camps. However, supposedly, doing some of those Tasks will result in reduced difficulty for certain specific missions that you have to do as part of the main plot.

Why American farmers are hacking their tractors with Ukrainian firmware

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp_Fw5oDMao&feature=youtu.be

I did one of the Loyalty missions last night - Liam's, and it turned out quite amusingly entertaining. I'm curious how it could turn out if I'd made different choices earlier in the game - not to put too much spoilers on it, but certain colonists turn up to help out.

The real question would be, would you feel happy and productive working if your office was at the centre of that arch?

I still went ahead and picked up a copy of the game (and technically I might have used VPN to start playing it Tuesday rather than wait till Thursday for the UK release). Picked up from where I'd run through on the trial play and carried on. I'm going to say outright that there are issues with it, it's got a fair few niggling flaws in the background, but it's also got a handful of interesting concepts and attempts. For what it is, I'm enjoying it and can see it being value for money. The main issue is that it doesn't actually feel like an AAA game, which is definitely at variance with the hype train they had running for the past year. It's the odd little flaws, and the lack of polish that seem to set this apart from previous Bioware games (heh, it does have a certain Bethesda feel to it in that matter). There's a few odd triggers that click in unexpectedly - you meet a companion npc on a planet and are obviously intended to complete that story branch that has them join you before returning to the ship, because if you return to the ship before they join you.. you can still end up overhearing that companion who isn't even on the ship having conversations with your other companions. There is some fun dialogue and some god-awful ropey dialogue. The animation is.. what it is, and there do seem to be a bit of awkwardness with texture popping with characters. The planets and backgrounds are gorgeous and lush. The music, while not bad on its own is very subdued and unlike previous ME games, they don't seem to use it to add emphasis to any emotional moments. There's no really soaring tunes to carry you along when you step forth onto a new world, or suggest the beginnings of action. But what is there is decent , standard action-rpg wander around and do stuff and explore lore, shoot things and talk to people. I'm wondering if it'll really open up once you've gotten the initial Angara thing dealt with. They talked much about the open exploratory nature, but so far it's still been fairly constrained in where you go. And the fact that 15 hours into a game and they're still introducing new gameplay mechanics does make you wonder on the pacing - but then it makes a certain sense that you're not going to deal with colony/outpost expansion until a point you can start establishing them. The return to Eos after some time has passed and seeing how it's changed in that time, and how some of your earlier decisions have shaped it is nice, so I'll be looking forward to seeing how well that carries on in the future and with any other colonies established. All in all, it's going to be an interesting journey as this game goes along. I'm pretty much expecting a lot of unpolished diamond and rough edges but to still be entertained as I ignore the occasional jarring animation and odd glitch.

One thing that's somewhat disappointing is the music. Don't get me wrong, the music itself is quite decent in itself, however it is very subdued and understated and is very much minor background rather than sweeping space opera exploration. It doesn't quite have the emotional kick/carry off that the music from the ME trilogy have.

From one of my American friends..

Having that late night re-watch of John Carter. There is something about that film that I just enjoy. A certain pulp adventure silliness that starts to cross into space opera. That, and Ciaran Hinds and James Purefoy obviously just having fun bantering between each other once again after Rome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TIvv7FMshU The bit to really pay attention to is Patrick Stewart's comments around the 3:11 mark... On the widely separate subject, this might interest a few folks: FilmSchoolRejects - The Purity of John Wick

For the somewhat random "feel good humanity" piece in the midst of all the politics and such shenanigans... BBC - George Clooney surprises 87 year old fan with birthday flowers

Welcome back, even if it is just a flying visit.