An odd and ultimately disappointing entry in the Fallout cannon. The many experiments it attempts mostly fail, and collapse in on each other one after another. Every mistake made in the game's development compounds into another mistake. The bad dialogue system which leads to removed skill checks which both lead to less player choice which compounds with the settlement system requiring the majority of the game's locations to be boring farms and/or raider hideouts. I can sill appreciate what the devs did, and the DLC shows there's some hope for the main series yet (thank god 76 is a spin off) but this is still rather weak over all.

Note: I was a dev. God what to say about this mess. I'm still proud of the side quests, Legion content and Crusaders MQ, but the NCR MQ is just an utter trash fire. The world design is weird in large part because we as a team didn't communicate the best. The companions are generally pretty good. The whole thing is janky as frick. 80% of the lore is a patch job because nothing included was really planned before a few steps in front of us. More should have been cut, and different things (namely more vaults) should have been added. I'm still proud of it, but god it's a mess.

The level design and gameplay of Mankind Divided is leaps and bounds ahead of Human Revolution, but it's the story that lets it down. Discounting the fact the game is essentially only half of the whole planned story, it's thoughtless use of BLM imagery and it's less coherent yet somehow more straight forward conspiracy tale pales in comparison to the plot and themes from just one game ago. It's still a titan of the immersive sim genre, but if Square Enix Europe had gotten their act together it could've been so much more.

Honestly it's not that bad on it's own. Andromeda is about comparable to Mass Effect 1, but with much better combat and traversal. In fact, that's exactly the problem. Mass Effect 1 was the start of a new IP by a relatively small AA dev at the start of the Seventh Generation. Andromeda is the fourth game in a well regarded IP by an experienced AAA developer released midway through the eighth generation. We expected better, and instead we got something comparable to the first, and up till now worst, game in the series. Vetra is cute though.

Extremely flawed, but still outstanding in spite of that. A rushed development cycle leads to the removal of the middle dialogue option and the story in general being a bit more linear. Despite this, the amount of reactivity is astounding, with choices compounding into each other to influence your perspective and motives. The DLC is some of the best in all of gaming. The combat is improved even further, and while I prefer the vibe of the second game's combat more, I can't deny this is the best combat in the trilogy. There is, of course, the ending, which is rubbish, but discounting that this is a spectacularly complex, emotional and heartfelt ending to one of the most recognizable trilogies in all of gaming.

Bioware's best game without a doubt. It takes the best part of any Bioware game, the characters, and puts them front and center. The result is an open ended, yet highly focused experience that expands the universe in new and interesting directions. This focus on characters does hurt the main story however, which is borderline non-existent at the best of times, not that you'll really mind as you'll be too busy blasting through recruitment and loyalty missions. In addition, combat has been completely retooled to be faster, deadlier and all together more satisfying. Side content outside of Loyalty Missions still suffers, but the side missions now are so short that it isn't really a problem.

An awkward, janky game that I love to death. The combat is rather bad, but that can't distract from the fun characters, interesting story and phenomenal world building. Unlike other RPGs with bad combat, it doesn't actively get in the way of the experience or your enjoyment and mostly just fades into the background by the midgame. The side content, however, is rather bad. Some quests, especially the ones on the Citadel, are actually quite good, but they're the exception. Good ideas are buried under cheap execution and reused environments. Having played through pretty much all of it, I can safely say you can ignore the vast majority of it. It certainly shows its age, but that doesn't stop it from being one of the best games of the Seventh Gen, even without the sequels backing it up.

A strange mix of Singe Player RPG with MMO world/quest design that mostly works but comes with a lot of caveats. Once again the characters are great, and the individual quest chains match the quality of prior titles, but the overarching story veers into a boring big bad evil guy plot arch where the big bad evil guy barely shows up and seems incompetent as a result. The open world is expansive and fun to explore, but the majority of side quests are unexciting MMO style filler, and traversal in general is just kind of awkward. The thing it does objectively better then prior entries is the combat, which maintains the strategic depth while making it punchier and more visually exciting. An odd game for sure, and one that kind of portended the dark times for Bioware.