>can't you simply ignore this stuff? are you missing out on
>important story beats or gear if you don't partake in these
>side missions? i imagine there is some desire to seek that
>stuff out because of the quality of the side quests in the
>previous entries in the series but it seems like it's a
>quantity over quality thing in ME:A and therefore easier to
>not pay attention to

You can ignore a lot of things, but it seems like you'll get basic or worse ending if you do. Everything you do gets you points that account for something. You can build outpost on plants once the planets viability is at 40% but who wants to live on a planet with that percentage? So you grind that little shit and try to make it too 100%. Also you gain points that you can invest in certain perks. I'm trying not to spoil what that part does but it seems like something you may want to max out. I'm maxed out now so I'm ignoring most stuff under the "additional task" portion of the quest log. If a quest marker doesn't show up on my map then fuck it at this point.



>how is the writing? especially compared to ME 1 & 2. i read
>that the writing of ME:A is more "bro"-y and/or discount joss
>whedon

It's typical sci fi which I'm cool with. I heard some people say this game is more Star Trek than the last few movies and I'm inclined to agree. I dig the main story. We are the aliens here trying to make it in a galaxy we're trying to make livable. I think people forget that in the first few games Shepard is already an N7 rank and got made a specter at the start of the game. This dude doesn't know shit really other than basic military stuff. He got thrown into this in a pretty fucked up way. Everyone knows he did, and they constantly remind him until he starts to prove himself. The loyalty missions are fantastic. Especially Liam's. The game honestly made me want to smack the shit out of him for how he got us into this mess, when it was done I wanted to high five him.


>this is probably it. one person posted the myriad gifs,
>images, and videos of weird facial animations, stiltled
>dialogue, and what are generally considered to be unshippable
>bugs and everyone else on the internet kept reposting and
>memeing them

A lot of the complaints are valid. Like we've seen with most games this big they're going to have some glitches. I've honestly have more with games like Fallout 4 and Skyrim. I feel like I've put close to 100 hours into this game and its froze on me twice. I haven't seen the goofy run glitch at all. I had one cut scene where the other person wasn't visible at all. All fixed by restarting the game. This is a new team working on Mass Effect, and they went to the frostbyte engine instead of Unreal like they've used before. Makes me feel like everyone just posted their strangest glitch and made it seem like the game was unplayable when it's all combined.