Which is a subjective opinion of yours. That’s fine, but all you have done here is say “I don’t like it.” with a 1000 words instead of 4.
That is exactly the thing you are taking Mr. Walker to task for.
Besides that. This is the link tot he review you are saying is “completely unmoored from some objective description of the game”
But that article is awash in objective descriptions of the game. Here a very few examples among many:
(Description of game premise)
“This is the story of the inhabitants of the Milky Way venturing to a new galaxy. A group of one hundred thousand or so members across five races (Human, Turian, Asarian, Salarians and Krogan) making the extraordinary trip across dark space to go somewhere completely new. A six hundred year cryo-frozen journey, to explore what might be.”
(Introduction of a key storyline driver)
“The AI, SAM, is an invention of your father’s, and is a key aspect of the game. You and he communicate all the time, and you are required to use a scanner all the time, with SAM adding colour commentary on what you see. So of course the matter of AI becomes a crucial one in the story, what with AI having been banned in the Milky Way, and people very nervous of it now after their experiences of the Geth.”
(Hours played, game size, replayability)
“I’ve played for something like 75 hours. I was being thorough, focusing on what to me seemed the most important tasks, but endlessly drawn into side quests and mini-adventures. And yet there is a wealth of game remaining, even after the official ending. It let me do that, play the way I picked (or, as the case really was, the most bearable way), and that’s a huge achievement, something very rarely seen outside of Bethesda games. And in that time, I found what I enjoy in Mass Effect Andromeda, the aspects of an utterly enormous game that let me have some fun.”
(Description of the major character focus mechanic)
"You can choose to focus on three aspects, combat, tech and biotics, which correspond to fighting, mechanics and magic. Each has its own (samey) skill tree and you can put abilities together in groups of three, and then switch between the groups on the fly. I began by putting everything into biotics, but then running out of uses for skill points there (when you’ve maxed out an ability, it’s a waste of time really to start on another that does almost the same) and so have improved the passive skills in the other sections. I focused on pistols, sniper rifles and biotic Pull and Throw, which can be used together for fun combos.
Description of gameplay as it related to similar games)
"In play, this works out like any other third-person action game really, except with the ability to blast baddies into the sky for entertainment. Headshots, ducking in and out of cover, sitting back and letting rival enemy groups beat each other up for a bit… You know the score, and it’s all delivered well enough. "
(More description of scope, multiplayer options, maps, voice acting, etc)
“It cannot be understated just how much there is of this game. And not just in the way it’s a big stack of explorable maps smothered in icons (thanks Ubisoft for your contagion sweeping through all of gaming), but in the way that there’s recorded dialogue in what must be unprecedented quantities, more side quests than every other game in history put together, and a genuinely impressive variety in ways to play. There’s charging about in your six-wheeler over planets, uncovering enemy encampments, having cover-based shoot-outs. There’s exploring ancient temples of the Remnant. There’s chatting with absolutely everyone you come across. There are lengthy missions (that play out like raids) in special locations. There are (optional) multiplayer games tied into the main plot. And there’s trying to do sex on everyone you encounter.”
That is just from the first 1/3 of the review! Yes, there are also swatches of opinion, interjections of opinion, perhaps even curmudgeonly ejaculations of opinion along with descriptions etc… but that is literally a game’s writer’s job.
Saying that is has no descriptions of the game is manifestly untrue.
Did you actually read that thing before citing it?
I have no idea what Mr. Walker did to personally offend you, but your criticism (as you had laid it our here) seems entirely disconnected from reality.
