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

[mxfox408]

Alright, just finished the demo (Thank you Microsoft ExpertZone!). Feel free to ask anything I don't answer.

First off, the demo contains the introduction (Escape from Earth) and part of Sur'Kesh, which we've all seen in the demos. I played the demo as generic soldier Shepard, and chose that both Kaiden and Wrex survived, as well as being a Spacer Sole Survivor. The former has relevance in the demo, the latter not so much.

GENERAL:
- The game looks pretty good overall. Body textures are still somewhat low resolution, but human faces in particular seem to have seen a massive overhaul.
- Animation work is still a little shaky. Some areas look fantastic, while others look stiff. Facial animations seem to have suffered a bit of a quality loss, much to my dismay.
- The music...oh god the music. It's a blend between Mass Effect 1's synethetic and Mass Effect 2's orchestral (leaning towards the latter), but it's fantastic, and the callbacks to old tracks (like Normandy, from ME1), is wonderful.
- The game sounds great too, with weapons sounding like sci-fi should, and explosions sound pleasantly heavy.
- Voice acting has improved across the board, with Mark Meer showing dramatic improvement. Haven't tested FemShep yet, so I can't gauge that.


GAMEPLAY:
- Bioware weren't bullshitting when they said they upped the difficulty. "Normal" kicked my ass more than once.
- The omni-blade, surprisingly, didn't get old.
- Squadmates can be revived by running up to them, a la Gears of War
- Cerberus has enemy combat engineers that can deploy turrets on the battlefield. They are a pain in the ass.
- Several glimpses of the new level-up system were shown, and it appears to be a friendly combination of the prior two games, with more of ME2's "Choose this upgrade OR this upgrade."
- Frag grenades and sticky mines are fun.


STORY/CHARACTERS:
- Wrex is still bro of the galaxy all galaxies.

Spoiler

- The line about Cerberus soldiers being indoctrinated has been removed, much to my delight.
- Kirahee makes a return, albeit brief, and an awesome one at that.

- The Earth intro sequence plays out almost exactly like we saw in the E3 and leaked demos, but with several substantial improvements to acting (particularly by Meer), and visuals.
- The Reapers are not personified at all, but goddamn if they don't look and sound intimidating.
- Combat/gameplay banter has been MASSIVELY improved, with squadmates having new lines of dialogue in pretty much every room you enter, as well as being extremely talkative in combat.



Now for the bad.

- As I said above, the animation seems to be downgraded in areas. Facial animations are occasionally very stiff, and the same goes for bodies.
- Some of the texture work is downright abysmal (take a look at the water in Vancouver. Dear christ).
- Vega is in the demo for a grand total of 30 seconds, and he still manages to look DERP the entire time.
- The human council is clearly mentally deficient (or badly written).
- Wrex's voice acting appears to be a little inconsistent.
- The demo is short; an hour at absolute most. Though, it does encourage multiple playthroughs with all classes, so maybe that helps.
- An Origin account is required for multiplayer/online activities, regardless of platform.
- Mordin and James Vega's voice acting both appear to be placeholder still. Mordin sounds a lot like Michael Beattie, but there's something...off.
- The demo is heavily stripped down. No weapon/armor customization, no codex, no journal.
- Conversation system is incredibly streamlined (for the demo, I'd imagine). Shepard says most of the stuff for you, and the six or so times you're actually allowed to choose what you want to say, there are only two options (slightly paragon or slightly renegade). Very disappointing.


That's about all I can think of right now; I'll post more as I think of it. Any questions, feel free to ask.

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.

Your work on mass effect 2 was awesome and I use a lot of your hi res mods, how did you get your hands on a mass effect 3 demo?

 

[Jadak]

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.

I'm not certain it's even that, also possible that you have a predetermined win or lose picked out for you regardless of what you click.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Are there any unlockables for mass effect 3 in the demo? I probably won't play it unless there's stuff for the game in there haha.

Playing the Mass Effect 3 demo unlocks the Omni Daggers and a Shepard inspired armor in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Playing the Kingdoms of Amalur Demo unlocks ME3 goodies. I can't recall exactly what, though.

 

[Smiley Face]

Why recast Mordin? I mean, of the ME2 newcomers, I think it's fair to say he was the favourite - why change the BEST thing about it? (Shakes head in disdain).

Also sad about the over-combaticizing, but in all fairness, I don't know if I see how they might have done the demo different - allowing free-roam might be too much for the demo, I dunno.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

From the little of what I saw, combat is superb. You feel the kinetic impact of the guns a lot more than any other game and the sounds of combat are orgasmic. Some of the best I've heard.

The dialogue is much better written this time around as well. A definite buy for me.

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?

I think you get a code for liking their facebook page, though I could be wrong.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

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

Wrex was never playable in any Mass Effect game.

Apparently you never played the first game...as he joins your squad about an hour or so into it.

 

[Joccaren]

Apparently you never played the first game...as he joins your squad about an hour or so into it.

That makes him a squad mate, not playable. You play Shepard and only Shepard, and that is likely what Pagan was referring to.

As to whether he will be a squad mate, IDK. Besides that fact its only a short demo, and you can't really gauge that sort of thing from one or two missions.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

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.

I think it was done intentionally to stave off criticisms. Didn't like the demo? Don't worry, all that stuff that's good is in the full game, so buy it! This demo was totally made too early to be indicative of the final product.

It's the saving face scam that they always pull when someone says the demo (that mind you, if supposed to give you an idea of what the full game should be like) sucks.

 

[Zen Toombs]

GODDAMN EA.

I hear they're pretty cool guys. What're your feelings on the subject?

Wrex was never playable in any Mass Effect game.

By that logic, Shepard was never playable. S/he was just controlled by the person holding the controller/mouse in various combat and non-combat situations.

EDIT: TOTALLY NINJA'D. PLEASE DISREGARD MY RUDENESS AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE EXTREMELY COOL [USER]RJ 17[/USER] ABOVE.

OT, instead of making snarky remarks: Great review, but I'll be sure to not check out the demo m'self. I want to see the game as it is once it comes out. Thanks for avoiding spoilers, by the by!

 

[Duskflamer]

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!!

By any chance, was your Shepard's first name Link?

 

[Zhukov]

I think it was done intentionally to stave off criticisms. Didn't like the demo? Don't worry, all that stuff that's good is in the full game, so buy it! This demo was totally made too early to be indicative of the final product.

It's the saving face scam that they always pull when someone says the demo (that mind you, if supposed to give you an idea of what the full game should be like) sucks.

Wouldn't that be counter-productive?

It seems to me that leaving stuff out of the demo would invite criticism and discourage sales, not the other way around.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Seems like most of the problems are related to it being an unpolished demo, so I hop that by the time the actual game comes out they will have smoothed most, if not all of it over.

 

[PaganAxe]

Snip

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

Wrex was never playable in any Mass Effect game.

Apparently you never played the first game...as he joins your squad about an hour or so into it.

Shepard is the only character you can directly control. You can't play as a squad mate.

 

[Shavon513]

Thanks for your imput. I'll be living off of demo reviews until Valentine's Day. =/

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

Snip

Good lord people...yes, fine, I should have said "squadmate" in the first place, but I would sincerely have to hope that - as we're all Mass Effect fans here - you'd have known what I was talking about in the first place. No need to be splitting hairs here.

 

[DanielNicholl]

Is the combat varied? Mass Effect 2's combat was good but needed more variety in terms of some of the level structure.

 

[Nohra]

After having played ME3's demo, I have to say...the new GoW-like aspects are pretty poorly implemented. Evasive rolls are slow and don't move you very far, and there's lots of walls that look large enough to provide cover that don't. I like that there's a bit more development in the skill trees (there are now three this-or-that choices), I'm not terribly sold on the weight -> skill cooldown mechanic (going from a pistol and level 0 to pistol, SMG, assault rifle, and shotgun = a difference of 17 seconds in the cooldown of Adrenaline Rush, for instance). Unless you can carry less than "all of the guns," it'll be really damn annoying. Mostly because all I ever needed on a soldier were an assault rifle and a sniper rifle.

I can wait until it drops in price and gets its DLC released.

 

[Nohra]

Is the combat varied? Mass Effect 2's combat was good but needed more variety in terms of some of the level structure.

I played the Vanguard and Soldier, and they pretty much played exactly like they did in ME2. The 'tutorial' level is pretty straightforward, but the second level is a bit more varied than most ME2 maps were. That said, they were both awfully small.

Also, the scavenger hunt stuff from ME2 is back. And be prepared for an Escape from Butcher Bay/AvP 2010 style health system.

 

[MetalMagpie]

What's this Origin everyone keeps talking about? I played ME2 to perfection and got my save files ready to go, but is there something extra that I need?

You just need an EA account, I'm guessing.

Which is the same thing as a BioWare Social Network account, or a Star Wars: The Old Republic account, etc.

If you plan to play the game on PC you also need to install Origin, which is EA's version of Steam. Just like Steam, you can buy games through Origin (and certain titles will only start with it running) but it only includes EA games. This is the reason behind many/most/all EA titles being removed from the Steam library.

Something to be aware of: There's been a fair amount of controversy around Origin as the Terms and Conditions state that it collects information about your use of Origin (which is normal), what hardware your computer contains (less normal), and what other software you have installed (a little unnerving).

Anyway, the site is here: http://store.origin.com/

 

[JediMB]

What's this Origin everyone keeps talking about? I played ME2 to perfection and got my save files ready to go, but is there something extra that I need?

You just need an EA account, I'm guessing.

Which is the same thing as a BioWare Social Network account, or a Star Wars: The Old Republic account, etc.

If you plan to play the game on PC you also need to install Origin, which is EA's version of Steam. Just like Steam, you can buy games through Origin (and certain titles will only start with it running) but it only includes EA games. This is the reason behind many/most/all EA titles being removed from the Steam library.

Something to be aware of: There's been a fair amount of controversy around Origin as the Terms and Conditions state that it collects information about your use of Origin (which is normal), what hardware your computer contains (less normal), and what other software you have installed (a little unnerving).

Anyway, the site is here: http://store.origin.com/

I assumed that SweetLiquidSnake was playing the game on Xbox 360, which would explain the confusion about what Origin is. Xbox 360 players will still, to my knowledge, need an "Origin" account to sign into in the game to get access to the multiplayer, which basically means they'll need a regular old EA account. Hence my response.

Personally I've been using Origin (or the EA Download Manager) for about four years, and know all about the controversy. I just didn't think it seemed relevant.