Mass Effect 3

[ATimson]

RyuRoots wrote:

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I apparently have never even SEEN this strange version of ME2 you seem to have played.

Pretty much what Skywalker posted. Or even not as a sole survivor, simply for what they did to Admiral Kohoku during ME1. My Shep would have shot Miranda & Jacob on the station at the start & stolen the shuttle, had she been given the option.

[Reverend]

Yeah, I wasn't impressed by the way they danced around that issue in ME2 either, but it's just a minor quibble IMO.

In other news, Casey Hudson has officially announced that ME3 has just gone gold (so anything that's still broken will have to wait for the 1.01 patch ) We're also apparantly in store for another salvo from EA and/or Bioware's marketing department.

[Hartzilla2007]

ATimson wrote:

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Pretty much what Skywalker posted. Or even not as a sole survivor, simply for what they did to Admiral Kohoku during ME1. My Shep would have shot Miranda & Jacob on the station at the start & stolen the shuttle, had she been given the option.

Where as mine is lets find out why they brought someone back from the dead who blew up some of their bases back from the dead as it might be important, epecially since there are later oportunities to blow up Cerberus bases.

After that it was either work with them or deal with the Council who want to stick their heads in the sand while the Reapers kill everyone, while everybody else seems to forget THEIR STILL COMING.

Besides My Shep probably crippled their organization by walking away with most of their non-racists nutcase members which is possibly most of their members period according to EDI, and I got a new ship out of it.

[John Clark]

I'm going to give the demo a try. (The PC one seems to be downloading from Origin at the moment)

[LeadHead]

^ Please let us know if it is spoilercity. I'm pretty sure i won't play the demo, but if it's not full of spoilers i'll hang in there for 3 more weeks.

[Arrqh]

The first part of the demo is literally the opening of the game, so I wouldn't really consider that spoilery. The second part, however, is a section from later on so if you're dead set against spoilers you should probably stay away.

The multiplayer portion of the demo, while limited, is pretty fun.

[John Clark]

LeadHead wrote:

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^ Please let us know if it is spoilercity. I'm pretty sure i won't play the demo, but if it's not full of spoilers i'll hang in there for 3 more weeks.

Will do but it'll probably be tomorrow or thursday. I'll probably only be playing the first level and messing with the character creation bit though. As Arrqh mentions, that shouldn't be too spoilery.

(I too am trying to avoid too many spoilers, but I also want a quick go to see how the various changes affect the game play)

Edit to add:-
Well, I gave it a quick blast and I'll probably be missing from the forum come early march. I'm going to be hooked again, but that wasn't a surprise for this series when it comes to me.

Non spoilery thoughts:-
It's faster paced (which led to me accidentally vaulting a wall when I meant to take cover behind it)
Character creation has been edited slightly but my imported Femshep looked ok. (Used the code to import as the demo doesn't import your saved game but that was expected. There is one quick question to answer for some background history though).

Origin didn't seem to screw things up for me

There aren't too many spoilers in the first level, but it goes straight onto the second mission of the demo without a pause and there are spoilers in the cut scene before that level starts.

[Skywalker]

Downloading the demo right now!

[Camren]

Demo was quite good. It contained a decent amount of story and action. Yes it's very much spoilery but if anyone has been watching the trailers and previews etc. then you should know what to expect.

Starts of on Earth, Reapers are attacking. Shep and Anderson fight their way to the Normandy. Ash is onboard but Anderson decides to remain on earth to help in the battle.

The demo then skips forward to a mission where a important female Krogan needs rescuing from Cerberus. Wrex is involved but doesn't join the party, the squad instead consists of Shep, Liara and Garrus. Mordin also makes an appearance. Female Krogan gets rescued, not before a fight with a massive mech.

[Skywalker]

Dear BioWare,

[Reverend]

Well that was certainly fun. They certainly fixed the problem of the battlefields being too much like shooting galleries. Several time I had to actually *think* about where I was in relation to the enemy and really work at protecting my flanks. If this was the new "normal" difficulty then they've defiantly stepping things up notch or two. It felt more like ME2's "hardcore" and in a good way. The enemy and squad AI was noticeably better and the enemies themselves were much more varied.

The new power upgrades look cool too. I've only played as a soldier so far but already I can see the drastic improvements. Not least of all 'concussive shot' has all of a sudden become *useful* and even better, it looks like a fully upgraded one would be devastating!

The weapons fell and sound a *lot* better! At one point I shot an enemy with a shotgun, at point blank range, with the cryo ammo activated, during an adrenaline rush and he *exploded* in a hail of tiny frozen pieces. My jaw. It dropped.

Nice to see more in-mission character banter; the bit between a certain Krogan and a certain Turian on the shuttle was priceless.

I do have a few (minor) complaints though. Firstly, while I do like the increased mobility, pressing 'space' to try and get out of cover tends to result in Shepard doing a jump-roll across the room. I think it's just a matter of getting used to pressing back ('s') instead to detach myself from a wall, but all that twitch muscle memory from ME2 is still pretty ingrained.

Secondly, I wasn't very happy the look of the custom faces. Like John Clark I used a facecode to recreate one of my Shepards, but unlike JC mine just looked...off. Sure the skin and hair textures look better (*especially* the hair!) but there was something odd about the proportions that made the face look somehow smaller. Also, the eyes...they have this off-putting milky plastic look to them.

[Skywalker]

Yeah, I had to adjust my custom faces to make them look right. They must have done some serious tweaks to the engine if the custom faces look so off now.

[ATimson]

Reverend wrote:

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Well that was certainly fun. They certainly fixed the problem of the battlefields being too much like shooting galleries.

They did? Funny, they felt even more constrained and linear to me than ME2 does...

Reverend wrote:

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If this was the new "normal" difficulty then they've defiantly stepping things up notch or two. It felt more like ME2's "hardcore" and in a good way. The enemy and squad AI was noticeably better and the enemies themselves were much more varied.

Well... I noticed that the "Veteran" difficulty was missing. I suspect that "Causal" became "Narrative", "Normal" -> "Casual", and "Veteran" -> "Normal" (with "Hardcore" and "Insanity" the same as before).

I wonder if Hardcore/Insanity will be unlocked from the go in retail? I wonder if I'm dumb enough to try them? Though coming in with a level 30 character will probably help.

Reverend wrote:

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I think it's just a matter of getting used to pressing back ('s') instead to detach myself from a wall, but all that twitch muscle memory from ME2 is still pretty ingrained.

I'd just argue that you ingrained yourself wrong - I always used back.

Reverend wrote:

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Secondly, I wasn't very happy the look of the custom faces.

I'm not sure the face codes were ever intended for use cross-game like that (especially since the 360 version doesn't expose them). I guess we'll see whether they get mucked up on import or not.

Personally, I found the opening mission a bit trite and convenient.

The Reapers just happen to ignore the Normandy and let Shepard escape? The Reapers really are... reaping... slow enough that the other Council races could actually help rescue Earth?

Honestly, with the Reapers invaded, I think the true best bet for survival would be an exodus a la Battlestar Galactica. Link up with the Quarians, they have experience.

[Skywalker]

ATimson wrote:

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The Reapers just happen to ignore the Normandy and let Shepard escape? The Reapers really are... reaping... slow enough that the other Council races could actually help rescue Earth?

Honestly, with the Reapers invaded, I think the true best bet for survival would be an exodus a la Battlestar Galactica. Link up with the Quarians, they have experience.

In ME1, Vigil said it took the Reapers centuries to destroy the Protheans. Even if it is just one planet, there are over 11 billion people on Earth. It's going to take time to...process that many people.

On another note, I thought the music was excellent. I can't wait to hear the whole soundtrack. It's too bad Jack Wall couldn't be a part of this, but it sounds like Clint Mansell has done a great job in his place.

[ATimson]

Skywalker wrote:

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In ME1, Vigil said it took the Reapers centuries to destroy the Protheans. Even if it is just one planet, there are over 11 billion people on Earth. It's going to take time to...process that many people.

That's true. Though my impression is that even if they didn't actually build the Citadel and mass relays, the Protheans still had a higher tech level than humanity.

I guess it depends on how much processing they do, and how much is simply them being the vanguard of our destruction. At the Citadel Sovereign seemed to be busy with killing, not assimilating.

Skywalker wrote:

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On another note, I thought the music was excellent. I can't wait to hear the whole soundtrack. It's too bad Jack Wall couldn't be a part of this, but it sounds like Clint Mansell has done a great job in his place.

It was good music, but I wish we'd gotten more than the one statement of older themes (that I frankly think was recycled from ME2).