Mass Effect 3 demo brings the action, misses the point

By BatRastered — February 17, 2012
Tags: demo preview

The Mass Effect 3 demo came out this week, offering a peek at both the single player and the new multiplayer modes.

The Mass Effect 3 demo served as a reminder of the direction the series has taken since the original game (my favorite). That is to say, the demo is all action third person shooter with cutscenes. Forget the fact that the single player demo offers you the choice of RPG mode (default), Story mode (less fighting, more cutscenes) or Action mode (no dialog trees, the game makes choices for you), those are ridiculous, but the real problem for me was that even in RPG mode I felt like the decisions I made in the dialog weren't represented on-screen. At one point Commander Shepard finds a little kid hiding in an air vent, you're given the nice "let me help you" option or the "get out of there now!" option. Shepard is a badass, and the world is under attack from aliens, this is no time for being nice, so I picked the get out of there now option. During the cut scene Shepard shows none of this hurry up attitude, instead pleading with the kid to "take my hand". Come on man... I can't help but fell like they spent too much time giving these different game modes and not enough and the in-game decisions and actions.

Speaking of action, the shooting is just like the previous 2 games. Take cover, pop some shots, use your power wheel to help take down the baddies, move to the next area and repeat. Not that that's a bad thing, I had a good time throwing singularity at the enemies, lifting them off the ground from behind cover so I could shoot their helpless bodies as they floated in the air. If this was your favorite part of the ME series, then you'll love this demo. Nowhere in the demo was I able to customize my armor or guns or pilot the Normandy spacecraft around the galaxy (my favorite parts of ME1).

As for the multiplayer, well it's just a horde mode, there's no vs which is a bit of a disappointment. I didn't have too much fun playing it either. The objectives weren't very clear nor was it clear who you were shooting at as some of your allies can look a bit like the enemy depending on their class and species.

I really wonder if EA/Bioware had not spent the time worrying about multiplayer, kinect, and the useless story & action modes, that the game would be out already. Either that or the main story could be better or longer (but I don't know how good or bad that is yet). As it is, team Gouki is only buying one copy of this game, as we don't feel a need to play the horde mode.

You can see some of GoukiJones' experience with the demo from twitch.tv

Mass Effect 3

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Release Date: Mar 6, 2012

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Mass Effect 3 demo brings the action, misses the point

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