Tag Archives: mass effect

The Android's Casting Magic Missile (RPG), The Android's Deranged Killing Spree (Action), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World)

Mass Effect 3

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Well, it’s time to eat my words. I’ve been playing this since getting it on Friday (Thanks to the bizarre insistence on releasing games on a Friday here in Blighty) and I have to say, my impressions from the demo were pretty incredibly off the mark. This game is amazing so far. Weirdly the intro section is still very lightweight and relatively poor, and as you may know there is a HUGE backlash at BioWare regarding the very end of the game (I imagine I’ll write a post about that specifically at another time), but everything between that is solid gold.

Also, and very surprisingly, multiplayer has turned out to be very enjoyable as well. When I first heard they were including it I was surprised and dismayed – it seemed like a game where a tacked-on multiplayer was inevitable, and would take resources from other aspects, but it works very well and is very much a great way to spend some time with a couple of friends. The form it takes is that of a co-operative mode of up to four players, lasting for eleven rounds (Of which the final is to escape the area). On rounds three, six, and ten, you’ll have special objectives to meet; kill particular enemies, or defend a specific room, for example. Success gives great rewards whilst failure ends the mission there and then.

It doesn’t quite reach Gears of War levels of desperation and panic, but it is still excellent, as I said, and fully worth investigating if you’re not convinced of its merits so far.

Going back to single player now, the game isn’t without its flaws. Most specifically to me is that some of the choices from ME1 are handwaved away (One specific choice which should have significantly changed things here made me a bit annoyed when I saw it was ignored). Nonetheless things from ME2 are much more closely tied into this game and I’ve already had a notably different experience from friends at some parts. The spread of enemies is very narrow, but the ones which are there are extremely well-designed, detailed, and superb to fight.

Why does she need a gun? She can just stare a Reaper into going home.

The voice acting and writing is, for the most part, very good as well. My character is FULL RENEGADE and has been since ME1, but everything I’ve seen has been done well as a renegade – my choices are very rarely, if ever, needlessly unpleasant or cruel. They are, rather, cynical and stern, and the series has definitely come a long way in making these choices seem immediately serious and consequential. The ending, of course, destroys all this entirely, but that’s an aside. My character has done some truly atrocious things in this game and yet it makes sense and has had positive effects.

In short, my mass is once again erect.

The Android's Casting Magic Missile (RPG), The Android's Deranged Killing Spree (Action)

Disappointment and Regret and Addendums

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Being a bit slow (due to playing a stupid amount of Paradox games) to get around to it, I just played the Mass Effect 3 demo. You may recall I recently said I was determined to see this through even if I wasn’t tremendously hopeful about it, but I’ve just cancelled my preorder on the ‘strength’ of the demo. I’ll get around to it sometime, I’m sure, but I’ve got no desire to pay a bunch of cashmoney for something so strikingly mediocre and unenjoyable.

Oh don’t get me wrong, seeing old faces like Wrex, Garrus, and Anderson was great. The Reapers attacking Earth looked pretty cool too (Though there was no sense of impact or weight to it; more on that in a moment), and I approved of… well actually no, those two things was about all I approved of. Everything else was standard and run-of-the-mill at best.

The controls are floaty and don’t respond as I wanted them to. Maybe I’m just getting too old for this, but I distinctly don’t remember having similar problems with 1 and 2. Here though I kept trying to do one thing, and another thing happened, such as diving out of cover into the open. Cue death of Shep. The graphics seemed weirdly low-res, maybe it was just to save space for the demo download but it wasn’t impressive. The weapons and combat is some of the most lacking in impact and weight since I played BioShock, a game that managed to make crushing skulls with a huge wrench feel uninspiring. And that was really the heart of it; everything else I could tolerate or forgive, but the combat was just so completely meritless, so downright unenjoyable, left me feeling so detached and removed from the action, that I just don’t think I can bring myself to play this anytime soon.

It does not, in short, make my mass erect.

Edit:

Last night I went and gave it another try, and I’m going to have to admit my judgment was a little premature. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still seeing quite a few problems, but the gameplay itself was definitely quite a bit more enjoyable now that I’ve played around with a couple of classes. In previous ME games I could grab any class and have a great time; that seems not to be the case here.