This weekend I was all ready to avoid the Mass Effect demo. I didn’t want any spoilers at all, I wanted to walk into the opening of the game fresh so I could fully experience it as it was intended. I was doing a good job of avoiding the demo too, until news came out that the PC version was available for download and my resolve disappeared. Less than an hour later I was playing the PC demo and downloading the 360 version so I could check out the Kinect support as well. Before I get into the meat of the demo let me just say that the opening sequence still has the same emotional impact on me after 3 playthroughs as it did on the first and I can’t wait to get my hands on the full game in a few weeks.
The demo comprises two sequences from different parts in the game. Both sequences were showcased in the E3 demo last year with a few differences, most notably that they hold a couple more story sequences. The first sequence is from the beginning and is mostly a storytelling demo though it has a fair amount of combat. Players are reintroduced to the controls and the characters is a mostly guided affair. There are a few dialogue options that give players a sense of what to expect from the Kinect features. Players can say their preferred dialogue option instead of selecting it manually. It’s a pretty cool feature but I felt really weird speaking for my Shepard especially considering that the actual dialogue is different than the player prompt and that Shepard sounds nothing like me. Now that I think about it, it’s probably a good thing that Shepard doesn’t like me, nobody would take him seriously if he did. The sequence ends with Shepard back on the Normandy, which is looking beautiful in Alliance black and blue, as he heads off to rally the troops to repel the Reaper invasion.
The second sequence takes place later on in the game as Shepard and his team race against Cerberus operatives to save a fertile Krogan female. While there are a few dialogue choices throughout the sequence, the primary focus is on the combat and updated skill trees. Initially, the skill trees very closely resemble those of Mass Effect 2 with each class having about seven or eight different abilities to put points in but the difference is in the details. Once the player gets past a certain point on a given ability, the player is given two options for each subsequent upgrade. It’s similar to the specializations from Mass Effect 2 but each ability now has three specializations allowing the player to increase damage, range, and duration of specific abilities. Enough about that, back to the combat. The controls are a little tighter, movement is more fluid, and enemies have a lot more tricks up their sleeves this time around. Let me just say that after putting up with a lot of Cerberus goons in Mass Effect 2 it felt great to finally get to shoot some of those guys. The sequence ended with a mini-boss battle against an Atlas Mech. It felt a little easy to me on the default difficulty but it was still enjoyable.
Before I wrap this up I’d like to take a moment to talk about the graphics. The Mass Effect Franchise, to me, has been one of the banner franchises for this generation of console hardware. I remember seeing the first gameplay demos of Mass Effect about five years ago and being floored by the graphics and then Mass Effect 2 came out and it looked even better. It was a night and day difference between the two and I honestly have a hard time looking back at the first game now. It isn’t as big a leap forward from 2 to 3 and it was from 1 to 2 but everything just looks sharper and crisper. The difference is especially noticeable on the PC version, it’s just amazing. This is one of the best looking games made in the Unreal engine. Period.
This was a very solid demo for what looks to be a very solid game. I highly recommend that fans of franchise and newcomers alike give this demo a try. To me, it feels like Mass Effect 3 has blended the best parts of the previous game into what looks to be an epic and fulfilling end to the trilogy.
