Mass Effect 3 Previews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on June 12th, 2011

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Now, while the two previously mentioned sections were certainly impressive and action packed, the closing portion of the demo was breathtaking on an entirely different level. The sequence is actually from the opening of the game (seen briefly at the end of the live action E3 2011 trailer), just after Shepard's military tribunal hearing is interrupted by the all-out Reaper invasion that kicks off the events of ME3. When the scene opens, Shepard and admiral David Anderson, are on a rooftop looking out over an alien invasion straight out of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Hundred-foot-high mechs litter the landscape, as fire and smoke fill the horizon. The sheer scope and level of detail in the scene is staggering, and the sound design is off the charts. Every few seconds, the mechs let out a brain-shaking boom, again, straight out of War of the Worlds, but the best part about the booms is that they are somehow tied into the musical score as a kind of environmental bass note. Like I said, stunning.

Shepard maneuvers through the rubble, leaping over gaps (there will be a lot more exploration and verticality this time around) and fighting through waves of zombish Husks and gnarly cannibal hordes, before eventually facing off against a soldier in a drivable mech suite that players will have the chance to use themselves later in the game. After bringing it down, Shepard and Anderson move ahead, until Shepard encounters a little boy hiding in a ventilation shaft. Shepard is given the option of offering to save the kid or leave him behind. Shepard offers to take the kid with him, but the boy says it won't matter anyway and runs away.

Shepard and Anderson push on, only to find themselves overrun by waves of cannibals. After a certain point, the Normandy comes screaming overhead, bombing the hell out of the cannibal stronghold, and once again perfectly blending between gameplay and mini-cutscene. With the path clear, Shepard scurries to get onto the nearby Normandy. Anderson doesn't board, telling Shepard that there are a lot more people who still need help. Before the ship departs, Anderson tells Shepard he's been reinstated and that he needs Shepard to gather every ally he can and return to earth to repel the Reaper invasion. As the Normandy pulls away from the chaos below, Shepard spots the little boy from earlier. The two locks eyes just before the boy scrambles onto one of two transport ships evacuating people from the area. Shepard watches as the two ships lift off, with a towering Reaper in the background. After a few seconds in the air, the Reaper's lasers blast the ships out of the sky.

By the looks of it there have been some huge changes to the battle system for Mass Effect 3. First and foremost is that the cover system looks far more comparable to the better third person shooter cover systems. Shepard was able to deftly move from cover to cover with quick switches across hallways and sneak up behind a guard using the room's divider to hide himself and then take out the guard by dragging him over the divider and smashing him in the face.

They then showed off some more tactical gameplay. Cerberus soldiers carrying heavy shields were moving towards Shepard and his team and the developers talked about the ways you could defeat them. These included using powers like overload to take out the shield or lifting the soldier up into the air to get around the shield, but they took perhaps the most mundane option of simply outflanking the enemy. Another TPS staple added to Mass Effect this time around are hand grenades. Not much more to say on that, they're small orbs that explode into shrapnel and kill people, wiki it if that isn't enough.

A very well-received new melee weapon, which looks like a Halo power sword and was referred to as a (holographic switchblade) by Bioware, also made an appearance. It isn't clear whether this will replace the standard melee attack, but if it does it'll be interesting to see how this alters the general ebb and flow of the combat. We only saw the weapon being used as a last resort, but it appears to be extremely powerful dishing out one-hit kills every time with no sign of a power gauge or status meter.

Hand grenades are another new addition, and you can now modify your weapons by using the stray mods that are scattered around each world. It wasn't revealed if these mods are also going to be available to purchase from traders, although this is obviously likely. Shepherd's movement is now much more fluid, he runs much faster and nipping between pieces of cover is much more intuitive. Using cover shrewdly is said to be a very important aspect of some of the game's most pivotal skirmishes.

Returning from the first Mass Effect are grenades, which were tossed around liberally during the demo for explosive fun times. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any biotic techniques, since the demo utilized default Soldier Shepard. The weapons and abilities menus still appear as wheels that pause the game and haven't changed much. Your character sheets, however, now look like a cross between their Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 designs. Skill descriptions take up a larger part of the screen and every party member has a Paragon/Renegade meter off to the left side.

Many of you will also be pleased to know the peculiar tribal veins have been replaced by a more understated bloody haze, which looks more like actual blood, complete with dark red specks. Way less intrusive, for sure.

Whether the story will be delivered in more of the open world style of the first game, or the more linear progression of the sequel hasn't been revealed, but some hints were given. While Hudson was explaining that Mass Effect 3 is still about galactic exploration, a video of the same ship navigation system as ME2 played in the background.

Upon zooming in on a selected planet, three different points of interest were marked on the surface with the available quests noted alongside them. It seems unlikely that the developers would use footage of an already-explored planet from ME2 in the demo, so there's a good chance that ME3 will be implementing a node system more similar to that of Dragon Age 2.

Sorry Mako fans, it's all but confirmed that the exploration of the first game has been permanently removed. Whether planet-scanning will still be present wasn't mentioned, and the developers certainly aren't volunteering any details.

"Grow the audience and make it more accessible," was EA Games boss Frank Gibeau's to-the-point answer when Eurogamer asked the question.

"Mass Effect has a fairly complicated combat system. You've got story and choice. For some fans that don't buy 12 games a year and maybe buy two or three, some of those things can be intimidating. We wanted to open up the accessibility without hurting the depth or the quality. Kinect is a fantastic technology that allows us to do that."

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