Just played the Mass Effect 3 demo: Here are my thoughts.

[Loop Stricken]

A heads up to everyone: There is a facebook app that gives you a chance to get the demo now.

https://apps.facebook.com/xboxmasseffect/uk

You can retry every two hours.

Got it and played the demo, all in all i was more then satisfied.

I'd LOVE to use this bloody ridiculous app, if only it FUCKING LAUNCHED THE FUCKIGN APP WHEN I TELL IT TO AND NOT JUST BRING UP THE FUCKING AGE VERIFICATION SCREEN AGAIN GAAH!

I only just managed to get the bloody Xbox website working again in time to redeem all these goddamn DLC codes I'll no doubt be receiving for this game, and then i get THIS pile of wank failing in my face!

Edit: Okay, I got it working, and I won!
I won a Normandy prop.
... which I already had from a concurrent promotion. Which boasted 'limited stock'.

GODDAMN EA.

 

[Canadish]

A heads up to everyone: There is a facebook app that gives you a chance to get the demo now.

https://apps.facebook.com/xboxmasseffect/uk

You can retry every two hours.

Got it and played the demo, all in all i was more then satisfied.

I'd LOVE to use this bloody ridiculous app, if only it FUCKING LAUNCHED THE FUCKIGN APP WHEN I TELL IT TO AND NOT JUST BRING UP THE FUCKING AGE VERIFICATION SCREEN AGAIN GAAH!

I only just managed to get the bloody Xbox website working again in time to redeem all these goddamn DLC codes I'll no doubt be receiving for this game, and then i get THIS pile of wank failing in my face!

Glad to see DLC is going a good job of keeping you god damn dirty customers out of the game .

I wonder if you can play the demo without installing Origins? Probably not.

Eitherway, it sounds more Gears of Wary then I'd feared. Feels bad man.

 

[inutaisho7996]

Just finished the demo and it was pretty awesome. Something else I noticed is that you have an inventory again. (I don't think you could access it but I found a "carry weight" stat in the level up screens)

The combat felt a lot more fluid too, which was a plus. Also cover isn't almighty, the grenades and heavy fire definitely push you to keep moving.

Carry weight is the weight of the weapons you've equipped. The lower the weight, the faster powers recharge.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Just finished the demo and it was pretty awesome. Something else I noticed is that you have an inventory again. (I don't think you could access it but I found a "carry weight" stat in the level up screens)

The combat felt a lot more fluid too, which was a plus. Also cover isn't almighty, the grenades and heavy fire definitely push you to keep moving.

Carry weight is the weight of the weapons you've equipped. The lower the weight, the faster powers recharge.

Am I the only person to whom this doesn't make sense?
So we have a half-cyborg soldier Shepard, carrying an assault rifle, shotgun, pistol and heavy weapon, say.
The heavy weapon is REALLY heavy... so he can't fire his machine gun as fast as if he wasn't carrying the heavy weapon?

No. That's silly.

 

[Canadish]

Just finished the demo and it was pretty awesome. Something else I noticed is that you have an inventory again. (I don't think you could access it but I found a "carry weight" stat in the level up screens)

The combat felt a lot more fluid too, which was a plus. Also cover isn't almighty, the grenades and heavy fire definitely push you to keep moving.

Carry weight is the weight of the weapons you've equipped. The lower the weight, the faster powers recharge.

Am I the only person to whom this doesn't make sense?
So we have a half-cyborg soldier Shepard, carrying an assault rifle, shotgun, pistol and heavy weapon, say.
The heavy weapon is REALLY heavy... so he can't fire his machine gun as fast as if he wasn't carrying the heavy weapon?

No. That's silly.

I think he means abilities like Charge and Tech armour.

I actually don't think that's a bad idea, from a balance point of view.
It actually gives the player a reason to not carry around an Assault Rifle everywhere.

Though saying that: Soldiers are going to be REALLY boring this time round.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Just finished the demo and it was pretty awesome. Something else I noticed is that you have an inventory again. (I don't think you could access it but I found a "carry weight" stat in the level up screens)

The combat felt a lot more fluid too, which was a plus. Also cover isn't almighty, the grenades and heavy fire definitely push you to keep moving.

Carry weight is the weight of the weapons you've equipped. The lower the weight, the faster powers recharge.

Am I the only person to whom this doesn't make sense?
So we have a half-cyborg soldier Shepard, carrying an assault rifle, shotgun, pistol and heavy weapon, say.
The heavy weapon is REALLY heavy... so he can't fire his machine gun as fast as if he wasn't carrying the heavy weapon?

No. That's silly.

I think he means abilities like Charge and Tech armour.

Yes, but my point was the equivalent Soldier powers are tied into the weapon. So it wouldn't make sense.

 

[PaganAxe]

Just finished the demo and it was pretty awesome. Something else I noticed is that you have an inventory again. (I don't think you could access it but I found a "carry weight" stat in the level up screens)

The combat felt a lot more fluid too, which was a plus. Also cover isn't almighty, the grenades and heavy fire definitely push you to keep moving.

Carry weight is the weight of the weapons you've equipped. The lower the weight, the faster powers recharge.

Am I the only person to whom this doesn't make sense?
So we have a half-cyborg soldier Shepard, carrying an assault rifle, shotgun, pistol and heavy weapon, say.
The heavy weapon is REALLY heavy... so he can't fire his machine gun as fast as if he wasn't carrying the heavy weapon?

No. That's silly.

I think he means abilities like Charge and Tech armour.

Yes, but my point was the equivalent Soldier powers are tied into the weapon. So it wouldn't make sense.

Maybe it's how many he has on his back at once, not which one they're holding in their hands at the moment. As a soldier in ME2, the most time I spent using powers were switching between squad warp ammo and squad disrupter ammo, so I probably won't mind this change anyway.

 

[soren7550]

Snagged a code from a BSN member that had extra, and I've been waiting at least an hour for it to finish downloading. Right now, it's at 49% done.

I suspect it's going to play very different from the demo I played back in October.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

Was Wrex playable? Or is he just kinda hanging around/making a cameo?

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Wait! The demo is out?! Can I play this too, or were you special? I got Battlefield 3, but I traded it in long ago. Did it have something to do with that?

 

[archvile93]

Well that's informative, though I guess it doesn't really matter to me any more since the origin requirement killed any interest I had, despite being a big fan of the series. Origin justisn't worth putting up with as far as I'm concerned. Still I hope this helps other's who haven't decided one way or the other yet.

 

[westcoast1313]

Just played it twice my self and i agree with the OP.

Since i am used to the PC version of Mass Effect 2 which on my PC at least runs at 60 FPS with all Full ( currently playing through my ME2 characters since i hadant finished various DLC's with them ) i find the Xbox 360 at least to feel a bit laggy when it comes conversations. It somehow felt wrong. Not sure if its just me and what the frame cap is on the 360 version ( probaly 30 ) but it put off from playing the demo a second time. Other than that i had a great time playing it and i cant wait for my ME 3 CE for the PC to come

 

[Right Hook]

Much of this is likely limited to the demo, but it's disconcerting nonetheless.

Good review! Hopefully you are right and a lot of these problems will simply be limited to the demo.

 

[PaganAxe]

Snip

Was Wrex playable? Or is he just kinda hanging around/making a cameo?

Wrex was never playable in any Mass Effect game.

 

[MercurySteam]

A heads up to everyone: There is a facebook app that gives you a chance to get the demo now.

https://apps.facebook.com/xboxmasseffect/uk

You can retry every two hours.

Got it and played the demo, all in all i was more then satisfied.

Bioware must be pissing themselves laughing over how many people are trying and failing at this. What are the chances of actually getting a code anyway? Slim to none I bet.

 

[Something Amyss]

Overall the demo was decent, but my criticisms boil down to one very specific thing: The demo barely feels like Mass Effect. It feels closer to Gears of War in the Mass Effect universe. Much of this is likely limited to the demo, but it's disconcerting nonetheless.

I thought that was the intent.

 

[The Pinray]

Wait, so am I missing something with this mini-game? It seems like more of a crap-shoot to me. Pure luck.

Anywho, I'm excited for this demo. I can already tell that this title is going to be the best of the three.

 

[JeanLuc761]

Overall the demo was decent, but my criticisms boil down to one very specific thing: The demo barely feels like Mass Effect. It feels closer to Gears of War in the Mass Effect universe. Much of this is likely limited to the demo, but it's disconcerting nonetheless.

I thought that was the intent.

It's hard to say. What we've seen of the full game is massively different from what is presented in the demo, and a Bioware employee recently confirmed that the demo was heavily stripped down from what's present in the full game.

Why did they do this? Hell if I know.

 

[Nothing Tra La La]

I agree with most of what the OP said.
Something about the facial animations seemed...off. Maybe it was just poor face-modding on my part, but my femShep looked great in some scenes but then completely different in others.
I'm not thrilled with the change to squad points, it just seemed like something that didn't need to be tampered with.
Nice to see that thermal clips came back!! (/sarcasm)

On the plus side, the music was fantastic. I was terrified that it wouldn't live up to Jack Wall's work, but I am so excited to hear the soundtrack in it's entirety.
The combat was AWESOME. So much more fluid than the other two games. Only downside is that pressing a to run was, for me, often confused with pressing a to roll. So I was basically rolling my way through the mission... still fun!!

Does Wrex have the same VA as the past two games? It sounds completely different.

Anyway, the best part about this demo is that it got me even more excited to play the full game. Hell, I want to play the demo again!! It did an excellent job of pumping up the player while simultaneously making you really feel the impending doom.

I won't spoil it, but that scene with the shuttle take-off when the Normandy is leaving? My heart broke in multiple places.
If that doesn't make you want to kick some Reaper ass, I don't know what will.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

Does Wrex have the same VA as the past two games?

Yep far as I have seen, only Mordin has a change in voice. Which is barely noticeable since his voice is spend up.