Live-Action Mass Effect 3 Trailer Makes Its Way to Earth

[Mike Kayatta]

Live-Action Mass Effect 3 Trailer Makes Its Way to Earth


Watch Shepard run past Reapers, rioters, and romance in the newest Mass Effect 3 trailer from BioWare.

Maybe it's just me, but having now seen five or so trailers for BioWare's upcoming sci-fi behemoth Mass Effect 3, I'm starting to get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, Earth gets attacked by the Reapers or something. This most recent trailer for the game does nothing to prove my nagging little assumption wrong, as we watch a standard selection of major world cities start to go boom in this recent live-action promo, moderately titled "Fight." Of course, denizens of said cities react exactly as you'd imagine when the Reaper death squads arrive, with an impressively calm, well-organized urban exodus. It's a good thing they listened to Shepard and knew this was coming, otherwise there would probably have been a good deal of screaming, rioting, and unnecessary causalities. Oh, wait ...

This trailer recently premiered during an episode of AMC's The Walking Dead, in a move perhaps designed to remind the general populace that there are many "cool" ways to wreak havoc on mankind, and not all of them involve zombies. And while the video may seem to have more in common with a Michael Bay movie than a deliberately-paced, story-driven RPG, I'm not sure it was even designed for the core Mass Effect player base. After all, the majority of those fans have been around for at least two games now, and have been fed more than their share of trailers, making-of videos, and demos to date. Maybe "Fight" was simply designed for those unfamiliar, those who need to see something advertised in what, to them, may be the more comfortable medium of film before getting interested.

But even keeping BioWare's likely purpose of producing a trailer like this in mind, there's still one thing that disappoints me. Couldn't we have seen just one of the crew members other than Shepard dodging those doom lasers between the broken-down cars? Personally, I couldn't care less about seeing a living Shepard (I tend to imagine he just looks like that other Shephard guy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Shephard], for better or worse) but come on! Show us a Turian, Krogan, or Drell! Heck, I'd even have settled for a conservatively-garbed belly dancer being passed off as a Quarian.

Permalink

 

[The Random One]

Jack Shephard does look a lot like Canon Shepard.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I just wish that Earth wasn't such a high focus. I know most of the game takes place off planet, but it looks like it will be the place for the final showdown, like the Reapers are going to take months to kill one planet.

I still wish they'd gone the Titan A.E route, and blown Earth up at the start, and the survivors would have to warn the rest of the galaxy.

 

[Josh123914]

I just wish that Earth wasn't such a high focus. I know most of the game takes place off planet, but it looks like it will be the place for the final showdown, like the Reapers are going to take months to kill one planet.

I still wish they'd gone the Titan A.E route, and blown Earth up at the start, and the survivors would have to warn the rest of the galaxy.

I would have liked it better if they hadn't started off with earth being attacked. Maybe take some time for Shepard work his way back into the Alliance military, Then have the Reaper invasion actually acknowledged for ONCE and Shepard trying to recruit Allies before they reach Earth.

The Sol system is located midway from galactic center and the Reapers are waiting out in intergalactic space. They still have to use the Mass relays, which are on a fixed network. Considering the amount of time they're wasting on this insubstantial backwater, someone should have been able to get off a warning before they got to us. Especially considering that they took the time to wipe-out all our colonies first.

oh, that and pretty much every Batarian planet (there's a reason we see Batarian husks in the Earth Demo/Intro) but nobody really cares because Batarians are effectively the North Korea of species in Mass Effect.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Wow. That was some REALLY shitty CGI. Like, terrible. Worst ME3 trailer yet.

I just wish that Earth wasn't such a high focus. I know most of the game takes place off planet, but it looks like it will be the place for the final showdown, like the Reapers are going to take months to kill one planet.

I still wish they'd gone the Titan A.E route, and blown Earth up at the start, and the survivors would have to warn the rest of the galaxy.

Not to mention Earth is completely inconsequential in the other two games. Spend two games trying to prove man's worth in a galaxy where he's utterly insignificant, and the third game is suddenly all about Earth as some rallying point? I hope not. I wanna see Earth get flattened in the intro and spend the rest of the game getting revenge. But I fully expect to be disappointed in that regard.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Oh wow, that looked like ass.

You'd think they would have made an effort to make the CGI look better.

 

[Veloxe]

Show us a Turian, Krogan, or Drell! Heck, I'd even have settled for a conservatively-garbed belly dancer being passed off as a Quarian.

This one won't feel safe unless Blasto is saving Earth from the Reapers. This one doesn't know if this "Shepard" character is up to the task.

 

[The.Bard]

Wow. That was some REALLY shitty CGI. Like, terrible. Worst ME3 trailer yet.

I just wish that Earth wasn't such a high focus. I know most of the game takes place off planet, but it looks like it will be the place for the final showdown, like the Reapers are going to take months to kill one planet.

I still wish they'd gone the Titan A.E route, and blown Earth up at the start, and the survivors would have to warn the rest of the galaxy.

Not to mention Earth is completely inconsequential in the other two games. Spend two games trying to prove man's worth in a galaxy where he's utterly insignificant, and the third game is suddenly all about Earth as some rallying point? I hope not. I wanna see Earth get flattened in the intro and spend the rest of the game getting revenge. But I fully expect to be disappointed in that regard.

I'm banking on them focusing on Earth because it's the beginning of the game. I would be so very angry if Bioware sent out spoilers of what happens 2/3 of the way through. If Earth is just chapter 1, then it would account for why they are pushing it in all of the marketing.

Remember ME2? They marketed that by saying Shepard could die and showing footage of the Normandy in flames. And all of that happened in like the first 10 minutes of gameplay. I'm hoping the same applies here, and 90% of the game will have nothing to do with earth.

 

[Ravnican]

I'm banking on them focusing on Earth because it's the beginning of the game. I would be so very angry if Bioware sent out spoilers of what happens 2/3 of the way through. If Earth is just chapter 1, then it would account for why they are pushing it in all of the marketing.

Remember ME2? They marketed that by saying Shepard could die and showing footage of the Normandy in flames. And all of that happened in like the first 10 minutes of gameplay. I'm hoping the same applies here, and 90% of the game will have nothing to do with earth.

I'm with The.Bard on this one.

OT: The trailer would have been alright if the CGI wasn't so bad. I was watching it with my younger brother and was embarrassed through the whole ordeal. He liked it, though.

 

[Gatx]

Not to mention Earth is completely inconsequential in the other two games. Spend two games trying to prove man's worth in a galaxy where he's utterly insignificant, and the third game is suddenly all about Earth as some rallying point? I hope not. I wanna see Earth get flattened in the intro and spend the rest of the game getting revenge. But I fully expect to be disappointed in that regard.

I dunno what you have against it, seems like a logical progression to me. I mean, it would be the result of your efforts in the previous games to prove humanity's worth.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

The CGI trailers show that a movie would be awesome. Although the live trailer was boring. At one point i thought he was fighting a reaper with a machine gun.

Me, i wont to know how an army of reapers managed to attack earth without anyone knowing. It seems like a surprise attack. How did they attack earth without having to fight half the galaxy to get their? If the galaxy hid while the reapers travelled to earth then screw the galaxy. Worthless bastards.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Show us a Turian, Krogan, or Drell! Heck, I'd even have settled for a conservatively-garbed belly dancer being passed off as a Quarian.

Seems straight from ME1 every human was a xenophobe. Every team member you had was, its why i never had them in my team. Just pathetic.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I just wish that Earth wasn't such a high focus. I know most of the game takes place off planet, but it looks like it will be the place for the final showdown, like the Reapers are going to take months to kill one planet.

I still wish they'd gone the Titan A.E route, and blown Earth up at the start, and the survivors would have to warn the rest of the galaxy.

I would have liked it better if they hadn't started off with earth being attacked. Maybe take some time for Shepard work his way back into the Alliance military, Then have the Reaper invasion actually acknowledged for ONCE and Shepard trying to recruit Allies before they reach Earth.

The Sol system is located midway from galactic center and the Reapers are waiting out in intergalactic space. They still have to use the Mass relays, which are on a fixed network. Considering the amount of time they're wasting on this insubstantial backwater, someone should have been able to get off a warning before they got to us. Especially considering that they took the time to wipe-out all our colonies first.

Hang on...

Plothole fixed! The leaders of the ME universe are idiots and assholes!

But seriously yeah, it is quite a big plothole, but I'm guessing that no-one knew becuase they took out/silenced outposts on their way to earth.

 

[Terminate421]

Well the last time they did that they had a man dress up in a Garrus Suit, it ultimatly looked like a fucking bobble head. (I have a picture of it on my iphone)

 

[Zen Toombs]

I actually really liked the first part of the trailer. But once [live action]Shep appeared, there was nothing that could be said.

 

[The Pinray]

Was that very amateur looking or is it just me?

 

[LiquidGrape]

Well that was terrible.

Mass Effect 3 really seems to have it in for the "PLEASE EMPATHISE WITH THE STUFF WE THROW ON THE SCREEN OH AND ALSO EXPLOSIONS" approach, and it's just as transparent and sentimental as it is when the likes of the aforementioned Michael Bay adopts it.

They should've asked some of the Dragon Age writers to help them out with all that annoying 'substance' stuff which seems increasingly unlikely to be present in the final game. Or maybe they blew the budget on Ashley's horrid makeover.

I'm not very optimistic at this point, did I mention that?

 

[Somebloke]

You know... I KNOW that these trailers are not made to attract me and I KNOW that there is no need to target me with advertising for this title, since I'm part of the "assured sale" crowd, who played the first two games and I am sure that Bioware/EA are well aware of how this crowd can safely be neglected. I am ok with this.

But recently...

I have stood unaffected through everything that has gone on since after I played the first Mass Effect; From the way ME2 eschewed some things I liked from ME1 and put heavy emphasis on others that I was less fond of, to the way each new episode of the trilogy has been heralded as "the best point to get into the story". From the tacky "reality show" treatment given to one of gaming's few relatively unobjectified leading women, to the whole Origin matter. Even the Prothean DLC thing.

I have disregarded all these things. I like this experience, I am going to see it through to the end and I am convinced it will be well crafted and that I will enjoy it immensly, despite everything that the bean counters and marketers have done to put me off.

I knew that marketing and aspects of game design would be pure Michael Bay stuff to draw in a market segment that I do not belong to and I am ok with that.

Still... Now that the game is on the verge of launch, I find... that I do not care - I no longer care for the game and have lost my desire to get it, at least right away.
I don't know... some kind of fatigue, I suppose; Maybe, during a moment of unwary relaxation at the imminent release, the sum of of the past months managed to get to me, after all.

The trailers tell me: "This game is not for me". I knew they would and up until recently I didn't care one jot - heck, I still don't -- I know that they are not very representative of the game and that it will be great.
Yet... Yet: "Meh"