Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 – Early Impressions

Mass Effect 3 has finally landed and it is now time to save earth. Strap your space boots up soldiers cause this is gonna be one hell of a intergalactic ending to the Mass Effect trilogy. So how are the first couple of hours of Mass Effect 3′s story campaign? Good. Its good so far but let me give you the run down of my experiences via this early impressions article. First off yes i am playing Mass Effect 3 on my Playstation 3 which right about now has me feeling pretty fail honestly. The reason being I played and beat the first two on my Xbox 360 and had all of my  import save files on there. I simplay wasn’t thinking when I ordered it at the time. Its ok I still have my M-55 Argus Rifle from my pre-order at Amazon.  Mass Effect 3 is a RPG developed by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The game is out now.

Setting Up Your Character

Just like with every Mass Effect game before it you initially have to set your character up if you have no import data. You start out having to Choose Your Experience which tailers Mass Effect 3′s gameplay accordingly to your liking. Here you can pick between Action, Role Playing and Story. I choose Role Playing since that is how the older two games played which helps me feel more comfortable playing Insanity. Classes: Soldier, Infiltrator, Vanguard, Sentinal, Adept and Engineer. For my class i choose Sentinal since that class is strong with biotics and engineer powers and it doesn’t help that Sentinals can use all weapons and have special biotic shields. I am playing my first playthrough on Insanity difficulty.

Next you have to go through your psychological make-up and soldier history options. You have to either pick Space Cadet, Colonist or Earthborn. Since Mass Effect 3 is about saving Earth i went with Earthborn (felt appropriate). You then have to choose between Sole Survivor, War Hero and Ruthless. I choose War Hero since I plan on being good Shepard this playthrough. Next you have to pick who died in your previous playthroughs (Mass Effect) serving Commander Shepard. Here you can choose that both Ashley Williams and Kaiden Alenko died serving. Or you could choose Ashley Williams separately or Kaiden separately. I went with Kaiden because he was the first to die when I played Mass Effect my first time while tracking down Saren Arterius.

The Game

The Button layout for the Dual Shock 3: LS-move, RS-camera, Dpad-Up: squad attack, Right: squadmate 2/attack, Down: ralley, Left: squadmate 1/move, attack, L1-tight aim, L2-mapped power/ weapon wheel, Select-quick save, Start-mission computer, R1-shoot, R2-mapped power, Triangle-mapped power, O-melee, X-use/take cover, quick vault/storm, Square-reload/switch weapon. This is the first time i ever played Mass Effect with the Dual Shock 3 and guess what? It works! It has more to do with Mass Effect 3′s default button set-up and mainly its mapped powers. Performing combos are seamless (so far). It also seems like when you manual biotic command like Throw or Warp from quick select it connects to your target more effectively than previous games The melee looks and feels totally different. You can melee from behind cover (I did it to a few Cerberus guards already).

Combining powers is a effective strategy while playing on Insanity. Early in Mass Effect you meet back up with Liara T’soni on Mars investigating a old Prothean archive. Liara comes equip with a biotic called Singularity (creates a small blackhole around enemies and sucks them into it). They don’t literally get sucked in though. My strategy has been to use Singularity on a small group of enemies then quick command either Throw or Warp. From a combat perspective its effective and quite easy to perform. The controls aren’t perfect however. I still experience getting stuck on cover and walls. The new roll strafe takes some getting used to as well. I must say the controls do seem more action based when controlling Shepard. I wonder how the sprint and roll works in multiplayer.

The beginning of Mass Effect 3 starts out on Earth in the midst of a huge Reaper attack filled with giant Dreadnoughts and small ships dropping down Husks and Cannibals. Earth is basically being demolished at a fast rate. Captain David Andersen reenlists Shepard and tells him to travel to the Citadel Council to enlist there help but first I had to make a trip to Mars. The Mars sequence is filled with Cerberus agents in search of information that can stop the Reapers. I notice Weapon Benches during the Mars mission. At Weapon Benches you can pick your team’s gun loadout and mod weapons (but only at the benches). You pick up quite a few armor pieces early in the game gauntlets, chest plates etc. There are a few weapon mods laying about as well.

To unlock new abilities such as the Grenade Lift you have to reach level 6 first. I’m level 5 (so close). As far as leveling up your class powers there is a new design that branches out into a tree-like branch pattern. Say you want to upgrade Warp. You gain XP by collecting, killing and story progression to acquire upgrade points. Warp’s upgrade interface goes from rank 1 to 6 with 8 slots to fill that takes different upgrade points. Some slots increase damage and recharge speed for Warp. At the bottom of the screen you can see Warp’s stats as you choose an upgrade. I like the new upgrade system. It more in-depth and adds some RPG back into this RPG if you catch my drift.

Early in Mass Effect 3 you meet James who is a ex Cerburus agent now Alliance member (interesting). You meet up with Ashley Williams who servs with Shepard in the game’s first mission. You hook back up with Liara T’soni on Mars (like i alluded to above). You communicate with Joker on the Normandy but don’t see him. EDI the Normandy’s AI is back. As far as where I am in Mass Effect 3 I escaped an attack on Earth to get help. I flew to Mars to get information on how the Protheans were about to defeat the Reapers. I’m still currently at the Mars station fighting Cerburus Guardians and other grunts. i died a few times but purely out of carelessness.

As far as everything else goes Mass Effect 3 is solid. The cinematic opening game’s tutorial was fantastic. The gameplay so far is really good with the classic Mass Effect dialog trees. Combat is more fast pace and visceral. The guns feel really unique. The voice acting and writing are good so far. I’m involved in the game’s atmosphere and its holding me in which is the the sign of a great game. There are some performance issues regarding cutscenes (choppiness and stuttering frame rates). During gameplay there are performance issues but not nearly as noticeable like it was in cutscenes.

Its early but Mass Effect 3 is showing me some good things. Its a different Mass Effect but its also a very good Mass Effect so far. If you want to check out my multiplayer impressions and final review make sure to visit Videogames Source in the next few days. Thanks.

Mass Effect 3 – Demo Impressions

*SPOILERS* will be present throughout this article. (Before i begin i want to thank Moonwalker1982 over at the Gametrailers forum for alerting me of the early access demo for Mass Effect 3. If you’re wondering you can  try and win the demo here. Mass Effect 3 is a role-playing game developed by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts. It releases March 8, 2012 for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. So how was the demo. Its Mass Effect albeit a different Mass Effect. If your ecpecting this game to play exactly like Mass Effect 2 your going to be sightly disappointed.

The title screen featured menus of  Single Player demo, Multiplayer, Extras and Quit Demo. The Multiplayer is locked as of  February 11, 2012. From what i understand there will be a way to attain an early pass to the multiplayer  demo. I would stay connected to that Bioware facebook fan page link if your interested. Next i jumped into Single Player Demo to get this party started. I had to pick between Male or Female for my Commander Shepard.

Choose Your Experience

In Mass Effect 3 you have the option to play through the entire story campaign in three different ways.

Action: With Action the game moves faster. You jump right into the action as Shepard. Combat difficulty is adjustable and all conversations play out as cutscenes. I stayed away from the Action mode. However i might try it later.

Story: You customize your character. Story mode tones down the combat of Mass Effect 3 in favor of experiencing and controlling the interactive story. I also stayed away from this mode.

Role-Playing: For purposes of this article i choose this mode to do my demo playthrough. Role- Playing mode is classic Mass Effect mode in a nutshell. Its the most traditional mode there is to play Mass Effect 3.

After picking my gamemode (Role-Playing) i had to customize Commander Shepard. You know the routine here, you create a name and change his or her looks accordingly. Next you have to pick Classes.

Classes/Super-Powers

There are six default classes in Mass Effect 3 which includes: Soldier, Infiltrator, Vanguard, Sentinel, Adept and Engineer.

Soldier: Adrenalin Rush, Concusive Shot, Frag Grenade, Incindiary Ammo, Disrupter Ammo and Cryo Ammo.

Infiltrator: Disrupter Ammo, Cryo Ammo, Incinerate,, Tactical Cloak, Sticky Grenade and Sabatage.

Vanguard: Incendiary Ammo, Cryo Ammo, Biotic Charge, Nova, Shockwave and Pull.

Sentinel: Throw, Warp, Lift Grenade, Tech Armor, Overload and Cryoblast.

Adept: Warp, Throw, Shock Wave, Singularity, Pull and Cluster Grenade.

Engineer: Incinerate, Overload, Cryo Blast, Combat Drone, Sabotage and Sentry Turret.

I’m sure you caught a few of the new  abilities and gadgets above like Nova and Lift Grenades. Whats more important is the Class you feel most comfortable with. I picked the Vanguard for its high risk reward style of gameplay. Plus i beat Mass Effect 2 on its hardest difficulty as Vanguard my first try so that helped. I also wanted to check out Nova but to no avail. Every new ability was locked in the demo.

After you choose your Class you then proceed through a few Psychological Profile questions. For these i choose Earthborn and Kaiden Alenko. You had to pick between Ashley, Kaiden and “Numerous” who died from previous games. So i picked Kaiden as the soldier that died. It reflected immediately on the Earth portion of the demo as you see Ashley again. For Service History i picked War Hero. Now its time to play the game.

Gameplay Sequance  1: The cutscene starts off with views of earth and text describing the human’s role in the galaxy. The scene shifts to Shepard who is on Earth and been relieved of his duty. Admiral Andersen escorts Shepard to a Defense Councel meeting, you see Ashley along the way.  Shepard and Anderson witness the Reaper attack up close and personal at the meeting. During the attack most of the councel was killed except for Shepard and Anderson. The two soldiers make there way out of the huge structure to witness the attack first hand.

You can see a giant Dreanought attacking buildings like it was ripped out of War of the Worlds. You see chaos as Reaver ships drops hordes of husks down. The scene looked impressive visually. Next a tutorial sequence happens. You learn how to sprint and jump with Shepard. I absolutely hate the sprint animations of Shepard in Mass Effect 3. Asides from maneuvers, you learn how to take cover and shoot enemies called Cannibals. Cannibals sorta look like Husks except they shoot back. Much of the Earth demo is about Shepard reaching the Normandy in time to call for help at the Citadel. As you make your way through the level (which isn’t big) you meet a kid who is hiding from the chaos. The kid dissapears and after some item looting and scavenging you learn the Heavy Melee attack.

Shepard charges up his biotic fist and the camera zooms back then rushes forward as Shepard melees. it looks pretty awesome. You find a radio near a crash site and radio the Normandy to pick you up. Shepard leaves but Anderson stays in hopes of defending earth. Commander Shepard gets reinstated right before the Normandy leaves. The first sequence of the demo ends. There was a few Uncharted and Michael Bay moments in that first sequence that i didn’t really like and didn’t seem “Mass Effect” at all. There were many cutscenes and some dialog conversation trees but not many.

Gameplay Sequence 2: The second sequence of the demo has Shepard paired up with Wrex in search of rescuing a female Krogan captured on Mordin Solus’s Salarian home world. Also along for the ride is Liara and Garrus. Since you have a full team at this point i’ll list the guns from this section of the demo.

Guns: M-22 Eviscerator, M-9 Tempest, M-3 Predator 1, M8-Avenger 1 and M-92 Mantis 1.

During this sequence there is much more gameplay going on. As your trying to release the female Krogan your team is ambushed by Cerberus agents. Lots of gunfights while using your wheels came into play here. As far as using your team’s biotics, switching weapons etc its pretty much the same. What has changed is the maneuvering. You can roll side to side while in cover. I think it feels weird personally Mass Effect always had a grounded feel to its characters movements. Now you can just roll around real fast and at any direction. The shooting doesn’t feel as visceral as Mass Effect 2.

The controls while in cover feel more clunky and not as grounded as Mass Effect 2. The gameplay feels a tad bit different all over judging from the demo. As i made my way towards the end of the level you have to fight a huge human operated mech. I used the shotgun with incendiary rounds to take him out. As far as AI goes that part remains the same and was solid. You meet up with Wrex on the ship where he tries to be romantic with the female Krogan but fails as she rips the shotgun from him and shoot two Cerburus agents before they could kill her. The demo ends shortly after.

Other Stuff: the demo is pretty long maybe 40 minutes depending on your gamemode. I was able to reach level 14 after defeating the mech. Its Mass Effect but its different. I personally thought the demo was sorta a letdown because the “feel” of the gameplay is different. I don’t really care about the Uncharted and Michael Bay cinematics but when you start changing the gameplay feel your going down a slippery slope. Thanks for reading.

Mass Effect 3 – Multiplayer Trailer

Here is a trailer for Mass Effect 3′s multiplayer. Battle the Reapers online as a Human (Soldier), Quarian (Engineer), Drell (Vanguard), Turian (Sentinel), Asari (Vanguard), Salarian (Infiltrator) or Krogan (Soldier). There are plenty of  enemies you will be fighting as evidenced in the trailer below. Matches where hacking computers to win looks like a interesting gamemode. I do like the fact that their are different races and classes. But most importantly each class has his or her’s own unique powers to balance out gameplay. The Vanguard looks pretty good.

I beaten Mass Effect 2 on the hardest difficulty my first playthrough as a Vanguard so i might go with that class in multiplayer. I know gamers are a fickle a bunch and get scared of change. Stop worrying about the single player people it will be fine. The multiplayer looks like fun in my opinion. Mass Effect 3 is a sci-fi RPG developed by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts. You can pick up this finally to Mass Effect’s space opera for your PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 March 6, 2012. Thanks Machinima.