Mass Effect 3 DLC Appears Pre-Launch
The first Mass Effect 3 DLC pack appeared briefly on the Xbox Live Marketplace today, almost two weeks before the launch of the game. The DLC is called From Ashes, and the description itself included some spoilers for the game: the DLC unearths some secrets from the past.. and adds a new character to your squad: a Prothean. Via VG247.
Mass Effect 3: Take Earth Back
BioWare have released a cinematic trailer for Mass Effect 3, showing the beginning of the War for Earth..
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBktyyaV9LY]
The demo is available now, on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, with both singleplayer and multiplayer sections. The full game will be available on the 9th March.
Our impressions of the single-player demo can be found here.
Mass Effect 3 – Demo Availability
The demo for BioWare‘s highly-anticipated action RPG Mass Effect 3 is planned for launch on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on February 14th.
Single-player will be available to all, and features two sections from the game: the opening level featuring the Reaper attack on Earth, and a level from later on in the game, where Shepard travels to an alien home world to request assistance in the war effort.
The co-op multiplayer demo is only available to those who have a an activated Battlefield 3 Online pass: this part of the demo opens up to everyone else on February 17th. This demo features two maps: Slum and Noveria.
Xbox 360 players can win codes to get early access to the demo via a Facebook app, or via Twitter giveaways such as this one.
Our impressions of the single-player demo can be found here.
Mass Effect 3 Demo Impressions
We got hold of an early access demo key to BioWare‘s Mass Effect 3, so instead of getting on with one of the many games I’m part-way through, I fired up the 360 to play.
I’ve not played the previous games in the series, although friends have; so I’ve heard plenty about the various companions in the games.. either for their fighting abilities or lack of, or for the romance options which I think are optional. In fact, that was almost all I knew about the series, along with knowing about the dialogue choices that affect the storyline, and the ability to carry your character over from one game to the next.
I was surprised to see that players are given the option to choose the mode of the game: Action, Roleplaying or Story mode.
Action Mode means adjustable combat difficulty, and replaces dialogue options with cutscenes, whilst Story Mode enables character customisation and dialogue options during conversation. Roleplaying mode allows you to customise your character, choose dialogue options and still adjust combat difficulty: this is how the previous games worked, and sounded like a good balance to me.
The next choice was what class to be.. which came down to the mix of combat, tech or biotics I wanted to use. They all sounded interesting.. stealth, powerful close combat attacks, the ability to deploy combat drones.. but I picked Adept as the ability to fire micro singularities at my enemies sounded pretty awesome 🙂
After that, there were a few other choices for background, reputation and potential psychological issues.. whether you’re an orphan who manages to survive disasters while all around you die, or whether you’re an army kid prepared to risk yourself for your team mates and so on.. I suspect these choices come into play during the story, or influence your available dialogue options.
The first part of the demo sees Shepard being brought to the Defense Committee, who are worried as they have been receiving distress signals, and lost touch with colonies and so on. Shepard says it’s the Reapers, but the Committee are still unsure, until the Reapers actually arrive on the scene..
The Reapers destroy the building we’re in, killing the Committee, and when we get outside it’s obvious they’re destroying the rest of the city too.
Impressive, massive machines.. 🙂
I followed the Admiral out of the ruined buildings and across rooftops, heading for a landing zone and pickup from the Normandy.
I’m not convinced by the constant aiming.. Shepard only lowered the gun when sprinting, so there was a point where I was running along aiming my empty gun at nothing in particular! The controls felt great with just one odd bit: running with the A button, then melee with B.. I think that would make running and hitting a bit awkward.. but maybe melee combat only really comes up in closer quarters. Playing as an Adept, I would probably be using the Singularity and then shooting the enemies trapped in it, and avoiding melee.
The dialogue options were fairly simple: at different points in the conversation, a few options appeared on a little circle at the bottom. You just pick the one you want, and Shepard says something with the same general meaning.. I think this has little effect on events in the demo, but it’s nice to feel involved.. and in the full game this should mean different reactions and endings depending on what you picked.
The second part of the demo is a mission to collect a female Krogan from a Solarian base.. there’s a bit of drama to start with because the Solarians don’t like Rex, the male Krogan on your team. Going to get the female, though, requires fighting through Cerberus forces on the way up through the building.
This action was good fun, moving from one area to the next, flanking enemies, hitting them with singularities and using cover. Cover has been improved from the previous games: you are able to move around the side of some objects while using them for cover, though the game has been designed so that you can’t just pop your head out and kill all the enemies without moving.
Just before we finally got to the female Krogan, a huge mech was dropped into the building..
He had shields and armour to get through, and though I used cover, it didn’t protect me complete from the rockets fired by him, or the grenades thrown by the Agents who appeared to back him up. One tough, but very satisfying fight.. I ended up moving around the whole map to get some distance and avoid the rockets, as well as dealing with the Agents.
I’m now looking forward to this game.. we’re probably going to get it on the 360 to share, rather than buying a copy each on Origin (yes, it does require Origin on PC).
Mass Effect 3 is due to be published by EA on the 6th March in the US, and the 9th March in the UK and Europe.
Dragon Age: Origins
Along with Darksiders, I’ve also been busy with BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins..
I started off as a Human Noble, in Cousland Castle. At first, I have to admit I was a little put off by the amount of cutscene dialogue, which just seemed to interrupt me in exploring the castle. These were needed to set the scene though, and I don’t think the game would have been the same without.
So, after being awoken by an attack in the night, and finding that my family have been betrayed, I go off with Duncan and Dogmeat (the dog) to become a Grey Warden.
My first stop is Ostagar, an ancient fortress surrounded by Darkspawn. As part of my induction, I’m sent out into the wilds to kill some darkspawn and collect a few vials of their blood.. and then yeah.. interesting cutscene.. 🙂
Fighting is done by clicking on your target and then either allowing a normal attack, or using special moves from the quickbar. Pausing the game between turns is definitely the way to go as it allows for more fine-tuning on your attacks. You can also control your party members the same way, or if you prefer not to worry about them, you can use the tactics system to give them instructions for various conditions. I found myself using both methods, with the tactics system as a fallback.
Graphically, the game looks great – with the exception of the blood spatters over your character and party following a fight, which just don’t look right at all.
I accidentally found one way of getting rid of these though.. which was a little disturbing, if not downright revolting. I had Dogmeat in my party near the beginning of the game, and after one such fight I clicked on him while trying to loot the fallen enemies.
One of the speech options that appeared was something to do with “getting rid of this gory mess”, which I assumed to mean getting rid of the bodies and leaving the loot behind.. Selecting this, however, initiated a cutscene of him stepping towards my character, and the screen going black for a moment. After that, my character was spotlessly clean again.. 😮
So, aside from being bathed by my dog, there were also a number of funny lines from my party members, including sniping and put-downs between some characters, and my character being chatted up by Alistair and Leliana!
I’ve not finished my first play-through yet, but I’ve already decided I’m going to play this through again but with an evil, twisted character, and access the options that my goody-two-shoes character this time just won’t do! 🙂