Mass Effect 3 Demo Impressions [Online Open To All]

hlhbk said:
Oh so you are one of those it's not RPG enough for you crowd. Again it has been obvious the direction they were taking with this series since ME 2, and it was obvious what they wanted to do with ME 1 but weren't sure how to do it.

I am in it for the story, and damn does it not look amazing in ME3. Finally a game that will reward the faithful that stuck with it since day one.
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I really didn't understand why people hated the living shit out of ME2 because it had a better TPS mechanic than ME1, and apparently it's because some of them think that actual aiming and shooting has no place in a RPG and it should be decided with rolling dice, passing checks on stats and see your characters shoot enemies like in Starcraft or something.

At least, that's what I understood from reading someone's anti-ME2 comment. I suppose that works well with Dragon Age Origins (which people love because it has the whole 'RPG' aspect of it), and while I did like DA:O, I wouldn't have played ME or enjoyed it that much if it worked like that. Yes yes, I like Third Person Shooters, I'm such a codbro, my brain cells are stupid and my controller reeks of Tostito's with dip and I'm killing gaming. I really, really think that people's problem with Mass Effect is the fact that it is indeed a third person shooter, and maybe if Bioware or EA weren't involved in Mass Effect, it wouldn't get that amount of hate.

Then again, it's a guess. I respect people who doesn't like or hates ME with the fury of one thousand suns, but it's something that has been on my mind for quite a bit.
 
Huh, guess I don't get most of the complaints Gaf seems to have in general. Yeah, ME2 did away with some RPG stuff, but Bioware has already noted they brought a lot back for 3, and you could tell some of it from the demo.

The demo was great in my opinion. Yeah, it was more of the shooty sections, but that's a demo for you. So far it feels like the RPG elements of ME1 with even better combat than ME2, and a solid piece of story.

Gaf just hates Bioware I guess. *Shrug*
 
Metalmurphy said:
And why was that a problem? Why do all th characters have to be extremely attractive now?
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I'm not talking about from an attractiveness standpoint.

I'm talking about from an artistic modeling perspective. It's just poorly done.

Look at Bonnie in Red Dead Redemption, she is a modest woman who isn't the most beautiful person in the world but the execution of her model is really well done.
 
KieferCrimson said:
I really didn't understand why people hated the living shit out of ME2 because it had a better TPS mechanic than ME1, and apparently it's because some of them think that actual aiming and shooting has no place in a RPG and it should be decided with rolling dice, passing checks on stats and see your characters shoot enemies like in Starcraft or something.
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Removing dice rolls in the shooting is not why people hate ME2. Or it's low on the list at least.

It's all the other stuff they removed.
 
Just played through the PC demo. Combat itself has definitely been improved, but the combat animations are jerky. As for the visuals, they're hit and miss. The first part looked terrible, but the second part looked alright, if lacking texture resolution.

I hope they allow you to holster your weapon and explore as well. It would suck if the whole game was either spent shooting people or watching interactive cutscenes.
 
IcyBlueStrawberry said:
Just played through the PC demo. Combat itself has definitely been improved, but the combat animations are jerky. As for the visuals, they're hit and miss. The first part looked terrible, but the second part looked alright, if lacking texture resolution.

I hope they allow you to holster your weapon and explore as well. It would suck if the whole game was either spent shooting people or watching interactive cutscenes.
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Yes, especially when shooting angle is so bizzarely zoomed.
 
Vamphuntr said:
But the more important part is to know if she's still a racist...
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Honestly I would hope so. There is nothing wrong with them changing the character model. Ashely can change her apperance and so long as it doesn't change the character in a significant way for no reason then it's no big deal.
 
Derrick01 said:
Removing dice rolls in the shooting is not why people hate ME2. Or it's low on the list at least.

It's all the other stuff they removed.
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I often see that "ME2 is now a shooter so it sucks" is on the top of the list, IMO. I didn't really mind doing away with the hilarious Mako and the lack of the Inventory (because it's so RPG to have bazillion items that you don't need), and while I missed the level up system and customization, I liked how ME2 handed shooting a lot better than the first one, with glaring flaws, but still.

But at least with the customization making a comeback with 3 and having an improved shooting system, I'm really think this will be a great mixture of the best things that ME has.
 
pmj said:
It actually is brown, this can be seen in the beta shots of her. It's the weird lighting and severe black crush that makes it look pitch black most of the time.
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Crush the blacks... it´s not racist... it´s a video editing term!

I think bioware is watching a bit too much freddie and meal time.
 
Did anyone find good use for rolling? The only times I used it in combat were by mistake and it really screwed me over once when I wanted to take cover but instead mistakenly rolled out in front of the mech.

I'm struggling to think of when rolling would actually be useful. Does it have invulnerability frames?
 
To me the essentials of RPG is Role Playing. With Mass Effect 2, all the in depth dialogue trees remained and you still had a progression of leveling. Even though the over-arching story may be disappointing to some - the game remained a character focused adventure. I thought the additions of Mordin, The Illusive Man, Legion and Miranda were all interesting add ons.

Stuff like inventory management and stats is not what defines the genre to me personally.


pmj said:
Did anyone find good use for rolling? The only times I used it in combat were by mistake and it really screwed me over once when I wanted to take cover but instead mistakenly rolled out in front of the mech.

I'm struggling to think of when rolling would actually be useful. Does it have invulnerability frames?
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Absolutely, if a grenade is tossed at you, you can dive out of the way. Getting to cover in a wide open space is much easier and quicker now as well.
 
Billychu said:
You can't talk crap about me. I bought BOTH Collector's Editions of ME2 (PC and 360). I bought Mass Effect 1 3 TIMES. I AM IN DISTRESS.
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Well you have only played a demo, an extremely limited and edited demo at that. I cant tell you what to think and how to feel, but despite what they represent and are meant to do many game demos arent actually very good representatives of their game. To pass full judgement at this time in my opinion is bit foolish since theres still so much of the game we havent had any experience with. Just for your own sake it might be a good idea to just let things slide until you get the full game, cause youre probably putting yourself in a lot more distress than you need to be. If you still hate the game after that go nuts.
 
pmj said:
Did anyone find good use for rolling? The only times I used it in combat were by mistake and it really screwed me over once when I wanted to take cover but instead mistakenly rolled out in front of the mech.

I'm struggling to think of when rolling would actually be useful. Does it have invulnerability frames?
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While not in the singleplayer demo, there are a lot of melee enemies who you might want to get away from while still being able to shoot in their direction.
 
I'm sick of you people, seriously.

Stop the ME hating already and someone please make a gif with the Anderson running from the first section of the demo. Heck, add a "gotta go fast" text on it as well.

Please?

(I'm being sarcastic. Except for the gif thing, that thing needs to exist)
 
Vire said:
To me the essentials of RPG is Role Playing. With Mass Effect 2, all the in depth dialogue trees remained and you still had a progression of leveling. Even though the over-arching story may be disappointing to some - the game remained a character focused adventure. I thought the additions of Mordin, The Illusive Man, Legion and Miranda were all interesting add ons.

Stuff like inventory management and stats is not what defines the genre to me personally.
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Same here. I loved how dialogue and character interaction was handled in ME2. To me that's the stuff that's actually role playing, not trying to emulate a pen and paper campaign. Having engaging and fun gameplay between the quality conversations is what makes the series so unique and fantastic.
 
Widdle Wade said:
CLUNKY, is the perfect word to describe the demo.
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I don't know if the PS3 version is worse than the others (could be, the 1 hour trial of ME2 on PS3 has ABYSMAL framerate), but I'm in the beginning of this demo and all I have to say so far is this is some of the stiffest animation I've ever seen in a current gen game. In the area where Shepard was walking with Anderson and Vega and there's people in the background was the most affected. I can't tell if the framerate was playing a part in it or not but Bioware needs a huge upgrade in animation.
 
Derrick01 said:
I don't know if the PS3 version is worse than the others (could be, the 1 hour trial of ME2 on PS3 has ABYSMAL framerate), but I'm in the beginning of this demo and all I have to say so far is this is some of the stiffest animation I've ever seen in a current gen game. In the area where Shepard was walking with Anderson and Vega and there's people in the background was the most affected. I can't tell if the framerate was playing a part in it or not but Bioware needs a huge upgrade in animation.
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The animation is just as awful at 60fps on the PC. Really dated stuff.
 
Nirolak said:
While not in the singleplayer demo, there are a lot of melee enemies who you might want to get away from while still being able to shoot in their direction.
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All right. Swarming melee bullet sponge enemies in ME2 could be a real pain so I guess this might help with that.
 
Vire said:
To me the essentials of RPG is Role Playing. With Mass Effect 2, all the in depth dialogue trees remained and you still had a progression of leveling. Even though the over-arching story may be disappointing to some - the game remained a character focused adventure. I thought the additions of Mordin, The Illusive Man, Legion and Miranda were all interesting add ons.

Stuff like inventory management and stats is not what defines the genre to me personally.
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I'm the exact opposite. I like stats and inventory management and I look for that in an RPG. I think they are at the base of characters builds and strategies. I found ME2 to be insulting at time. You would get upgrades of +20% of your damage for a weapon but you were not even able to check the actual damage the weapon does :lol. That was silly. ME 1 had a terrible inventory system which always ended up filled with trash loot but they could have improved it instead of erasing it entirely.
 
Derrick01 said:
I don't know if the PS3 version is worse than the others (could be, the 1 hour trial of ME2 on PS3 has ABYSMAL framerate), but I'm in the beginning of this demo and all I have to say so far is this is some of the stiffest animation I've ever seen in a current gen game. In the area where Shepard was walking with Anderson and Vega and there's people in the background was the most affected. I can't tell if the framerate was playing a part in it or not but Bioware needs a huge upgrade in animation.
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Animation has always been pretty canned and crappy in the series. I just played ME2 through a couple weeks ago and it always surprises me how bad it can be.
 
KieferCrimson said:
I'm sick of you people, seriously.

Stop the ME hating already and someone please make a gif with the Anderson running from the first section of the demo. Heck, add a "gotta go fast" text on it as well.

Please?
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Hate comes along with love on boards man. As a FF XIII fan I know this only all to well.

Anyway.

I had a very hard time controlling Shep during the demo. I go to be honest and say that I've never been a big fan of stacking commands on a single button.

Between rolling, getting in cover, out of cover and sprinting the Bar is just doing to much. The boss killed me twice because when I got out of cover I stepped into him and he OHKO'd me and several times I died to the turrets because I was just having a hard time getting it to do what I wanted.

Granted this is all user error, and while I don't believe Bioware or any company should have to support Pad on PC, I am tired of them not fully supporting keyboard on it given it's the primary input device for several parts of the game.

All that and for all crying over Wrex in ME2, the part with him left me incredibly meh.
 
Really liked it. I was gonna wait to purchase it, but I'm thinking launch day now.

Although I was completely lost when the demo started plot wise. I beat the first two, but I guess I need to play the DLC in order to understand exactly what's going on? Kind of BS, but whatever
 
It's BioWare's fault for the demo's quality, but I do find it a bit weird people are using it as a gauge to judge the quality of the final product. All you get is a heavily scripted, linear opening level, and a short shooting level not unlike anything in ME1/ME2. That's it. Mass Effect is a whole lot more than these things.

You'd be a bit loco to try and draw "THERE'S NO ROLE PLAYING" from this, given you don't get to sample galaxy exploration, questing, longer dialogue trees, armour customisation, weapon customisation, the full scale of the loot system, hubs, and all that other stuff that makes up the series.

EDIT: Oh, and I'm pretty sure ME1 didn't have any dice rolls in combat. Or really anywhere for that matter. Scrubs.
 
I can't get the facebook app to work properly. I recruited a friend and they linked their origin account, but it still says I haven't recruited a friend.

This is very irritating. I just want to play the damn multiplayer. :|
 
Can someone explain why they broke the Adept? A class based around skill synergy has abilities with cooldowns so long the effects run out before I can actually combo. THE BROKE THE CLASS
 
thetrin said:
I can't get the facebook app to work properly. I recruited a friend and they linked their origin account, but it still says I haven't recruited a friend.

This is very irritating. I just want to play the damn multiplayer. :|
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Yeah, I think it is borked.

I may end up treading into the dreaded BSN to get answers.
 
Billychu said:
Can someone explain why they broke the Adept? A class based around skill synergy has abilities with cooldowns so long the effects run out before I can actually combo. THE BROKE THE CLASS
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Already been discussed multiple times. The new weight system hammers the class because of the demo setup.
 
Billychu said:
Can someone explain why they broke the Adept? A class based around skill synergy has abilities with cooldowns so long the effects run out before I can actually combo. THE BROKE THE CLASS
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The cooldowns are long because you are carrying many weapons in the demo (it's based on weight). If you only bring one, you should be able to combo skills.
 
Woo-Fu said:
Do they have more compelling evidence to work with?
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For hands-on play, no. But availability of evidence isn't as important as quality of evidence, and this demo lacks the latter. I mean come on. Using this as a gauge to judge the numerous elements of the series that don't appear in the demo at all is a little bit premature, don't you think?

As the old saying goes, the absence of evidence isn't the evidence of absence, and the demo was absent of numerous significant Mass Effect elements, not because they're not in the game, but because the demo does not let you experience them.

Billychu said:
Can someone explain why they broke the Adept? A class based around skill synergy has abilities with cooldowns so long the effects run out before I can actually combo. THE BROKE THE CLASS
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Cool down is shaped to load out, which you couldn't customise in the demo.
 
Eek.

That was . . . disappointing. Mass Effect is (was?) my favorite series at the moment, and I've put in entirely too many hours into the previous two installments. I played through ME 1 five times and ME 2 four times, with each playthrough taking 35-40 hours each. So . . . I like it a lot.

I loved ME 1 despite its flaws (inventory was a mess, the skill tree was designed for people who think Excel is fun, and exploring mountains in the Mako was annoying), and while I think they went too far with some of the changes in ME 2 (it was a little too streamlined, and did someone actually think mining was a good idea?), I thought the sequel was great as well, just a little different.

This demo managed to almost make me not want to play ME 3. The first half of the demo was so bad I was almost cringing (the writing was bad, everything was rushed as hell, and my god, what's up with the running animations?), and the second half didn't feel very good either. It was a hell of a lot more "shooty" than I'm used to. Perhaps that's just an issue with the demo, but I've traditionally preferred adept or engineer-based combat (Vanguard, Sentinel, Adept), and in ME 2 there were fights where I never even fired a gun. You'd be surprised how much fun it can be to spam the throw ability and repeatedly bash people against a wall to kill them. In the demo, it felt shooting was the only practical option a lot of the time, and the cover mechanic was a mess. I imagine it's something you get used to, but I kept getting stuck in cover and had problems maneuvering around.

I don't know. I'm hoping this demo wasn't representative of the final product. I'm reluctant to believe they could screw things up that badly (I've heard the complaints about Dragon Age 2, but I never played any of the DA games and can't comment on them).
 
Vamphuntr said:
I'm the exact opposite. I like stats and inventory management and I look for that in an RPG. I think they are at the base of characters builds and strategies. I found ME2 to be insulting at time. You would get upgrades of +20% of your damage for a weapon but you were not even able to check the actual damage the weapon does :lol. That was silly. ME 1 had a terrible inventory system which always ended up filled with trash loot but they could have improved it instead of erasing it entirely.
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Agreed.

Stats are a method of defining your character's intrinsic qualities, allowing the character to succeed or fail based on HIS skills, NOT the player's. This is the basic gameplay mechanic behind all RPGs...NOT things like "picking dialogue" or "making choices." Those are narrative features, not gameplay mechanics, and game genres are defined by the mechanics unique to them. Choice and dialogue make for a richer RPG experience, no question, but they're not a defining characteristic.

As for the subject, I made long, angry, semi-coherent post on my blog in which I make no attempt to be even remotely objective about just how utterly disappointed I was with it.

Strangely, in spite of my deep pessimism, I still maintain a faint hope that the actual game will be terrific and the demo is just a bad case of making a terrible first impression. Of course, I fully expect the game to crush my foolish naivete when it finally comes out.
 
Billychu said:
Can someone explain why they broke the Adept? A class based around skill synergy has abilities with cooldowns so long the effects run out before I can actually combo. THE BROKE THE CLASS
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You haven't been paying attention. Cooldowns are affected by encumbrance.
 
Okay guys, I found something that I am fairly curious about. According to many in this thread Mass Effect 1 and 2 did not have controller support of any type and I read a post from a Bioware employee in their forums saying that Mass Effect 3 does not have controller support as well. I played the PC demo today but I simply cannot stand the keyboard controls so it guaranteed that I would be purchasing the Xbox 360 version.

HOWEVER, I was just reading the Official F.A.Q. for the Mass Effect 3 demo when I came upon this very interesting excerpt:
Official F.A.Q. said:
Which controllers does the PC demo support?
There is no official support for controllers beyond the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows.
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(I added the underlines)

Now, I am currently busy at the moment (and just deleted the demo) so I cannot test this out. But, could someone who still has the PC demo, has an Xbox 360 controller, and has a wireless receiver (if the controller is wireless) please test this out for me and tell me if Mass Effect 3 does or does not support this controller. It would be great to play the game in 1080p, have high-resolution textures, and 60fps gameplay all while using my wireless Xbox 360 controller.
 
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