Mass Effect 3 Previews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on July 1st, 2011

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(We got a lot of feedback from fans that [the customization options] were too cumbersome, so we totally removed them for Mass Effect 2,) producer Jesse Houston told Wired.com at the E3 Expo earlier this month. (We might have cut a little too deep with that.)

Houston says that rather than remove the customization feature entirely, BioWare will make it more intuitive. Instead of juggling a screen full of numbers, players will be able to alter specific, functional aspects of a weapon like the size of its ammo clip or the frequency of its firing rate.

Some fans have expressed concerns about Mass Effect 3 feeling too much like a shooter or too much like an RPG, depending on which type of gamer you ask. BioWare's goal is simply to balance both genres, says Houston.

(One of the big things that we're trying to do is give players more choices,) Houston said. (A lot of players wanted to get up close and personal, but didn't have the tools to do that.)

Now they do, thanks to the Omniblade, Mass Effect's version of a lightsaber. Every class has its own version of the powerful melee weapon, which can be used not only to take out enemies in one-on-one combat but also to sneak around and back-stab them from behind.

In making things more mainstream, one can expect that BioWare brings it in terms of production and action sequences. And they do. Battles in Mass Effect 3 will be fought on a larger scale than on any previous Mass Effect game. The demo started off with Shepard jumping onto the turret of a tank and fighting a huge Reaper spider (think Halo's Scarabs) in an on-rails gunning sequence. Tank turrets not your style? How about taking a Cerberus Atlas mech for a spin? Because they've got that too.

We were told that players will be able to take multiple approaches to these battles, so the choice of whether or not to get on the turret would be up to the player. There's a lot of potential in this statement. The different approaches one can take on the battlefield given these large-scale firefights would do well to deliver a lot of new experiences for those who have grown tired of the series' (firefight-to-dialogue) or (dialogue-to-firefight) formula.

Many gameplay elements will return, which will make Mass Effect 3 feel familiar for the fans. Although there was very little information given on any new elements, we do know that weapon customisation is a lot more elaborate this time around. You can completely disassemble your weapon and customise and change it in numerous ways. The game, according to Bioware, will also require more combat tactics. To support this, Shepard can now throw grenades and use the OmniBlade, a heavy melee holographic sword.

The demo shows how Shepard yet again has to make some tough choices. As he runs into a small child hiding in a vent, he tries to help; but the child crawls away. Shepard is in doubt, but eventually continues his own mission. As he later watches the same kid run to a ship that is supposed to get him out of the danger zone, the ship is shot out of the air seconds later. Shepard knows the kid is dead, and he knows he may have been able to prevent that.

Right away you can see the improvements made to the combat system. No longer is there a need to dislodge yourself from a wall before you can take cover behind the adjacent one. Shepard seems to have picked up a few new tricks from Marcus Fenix and is now able to flawlessly slide from cover to cover like some kind of graceful ballerina. This of course gives you great opportunity to use the context based stealth kills with the awesome new Omni-blade Shepard is sporting, and we have to say, he can be quite brutal with the thing. We only hope this will enable the designers to add more stealth based gameplay to Shepard's crusade across the cosmos.

RPG nuts will be happy to hear that proper weapon customisation has now returned to the Mass Effect universe! Mass Effect 3 features a more refined version of the system that was found in the original, whereby you will be able to add different components to your weapon to increase certain statistics. This will give players a little bit more freedom on how they wish to equip their party instead of relying on the fairly static upgrades found in Mass Effect 2.

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