Happy Mass Effect 3 Demo Day!
Today, the demo for Mass Effect 3 was released. I immediately downloaded it and fired it up. I was not disappointed.
The first bit is the familiar character customization. You need to decide your gender, how you look, and then your class (same 6 as
last game). It also asks about your past (as it did in Mass Effect, or if you started from scratch in the sequel), but adds a new question asking about losses. Your options are Numerous, Kaiden, or Ashley. This is from the first game where you had to choose to let either Kaiden or Ashley die. The result of this shows pretty quickly in the demo as I ran into Ashley on my way to talk to the alliance heads.
One other new thing was a question asking me what kind of game I liked. It appears to let you customize the came between Action (more combat oriented), Role Playing (normal mass effect game play), and Story (less intense combat). I also noticed there’s an option to automate dialog (so that you don’t have to make any decisions if you don’t want to do so).
On to the game…
SPOILER ALERT: Reapers are landing on the planet (Earth) and everything goes to heck right quick. Anderson tosses you a pistol and you head out, trying to get to the Normandy so you can take off (and hopefully alert the Council).
Assuming you make it, the game skips ahead to a later mission (read: you gain a bunch of levels) with Liara, Garrus, and Wrex visiting a Salarian world (where Mordin is present). You get to take advantage of your class abilities and fight all kinds of enemies. Also, while on my adventure I found a new weapon, some new weapon parts, and some gear. It would be nifty if this unlocked the items in the full game, but I doubt that will happen.
Overall, this game is very similar to Mass Effect 2 and I’m definitely looking forward to my copy arriving next month. If you haven’t ever played any of the Mass Effect games, well there’s still time for you to start from the beginning (or even the middle) and get psyched for Mass Effect 3.
The Collector’s Edition for Xbox 360 is currently sold out at Amazon (and has been for awhile now). Though if you can navigate to the page (via the link above for instance), you see this amusing message:
Due to high demand (and possibly the imminent Reaper invasion), we have unfortunately run out of our pre-order allocation for Mass Effect 3 — Collector’s Edition. We are looking to secure additional allocation from the publisher and will update this page if that occurs. Please note — if you have already pre-ordered this edition — do not cancel as you may not be able to re-order.
I’ve also been informed that it is Valentine’s Day, so enjoy that as well, though I think the demo is much more exciting.