I am unsure why there isn't a thread about this, but, well, the title speaks for itself.

Since I have already completed the demo, I figured I'd throw this up for the people who haven't heard about it. If there is anyone, at least.



Have fun.
http://www.masseffect.com/about/demo/#

 

I'd be all over this if it wasn't on Origin.

 

Appreciated that they included the character creator, though I'll note that my female Shepard (couldn't import directly, but I can paste the face code in) looks... odd. They changed some things with the design, and I'm not happy about it.

I'm appalled at how little input I got. There were like, five conversation options. That's it, in the entire demo, with RPG Mode on. And the options that were there were astoundingly limited. Fuck. That. I don't feel like I'm playing as my Shepard anymore.

Speaking of which, the dialogue felt very cliched and taken straight from something like Transformers at multiple points. That scene at the very end with Wrex and the female showing off "gurrl power" or whatever was particularly cringe-worthy. Those supposed Admirals in the beginning were fucking retarded. There's no reason for everyone to be clamoring around Shepard like children, squealing " oh no, waddle we dooo?" It also shows VERY much that it's appealing to the fucktards who want to start this series with the third game, because some shit-for-brain in EAware thought that was a good idea. (Wouldn't it be a better idea to market it so that new people buy all three games instead of just this one?)

That kid felt tacked-on and useless. It's like, "Aww, see, Reapers are bad. You're supposed to feel sad now." And how did the Normandy SR-2 sit there completely unharmed during that scene with a bunch of Reapers blowing up everything around it? Not to mention how it managed to get out of Earth orbit uncontested, apparently. We've seen from the Collectors that its stealth systems don't work on Reaper-tech.

I played as an Infiltrator, but the weapon loadout I received in the second part sure didn't seem like it. I didn't have a sniper rifle for some stupid reason, but I did get a shotgun... for some stupid reason. Sub-machine guns are still useless and hike up way too much when firing to be viable for me, and they still don't hold them right. I don't appreciate how none of the guns sound like fucking GUNS anymore either. They sound like laser-tag guns or something, going "pew pew" not "BLAM BLAM."

Controls felt off, but I've been playing ME1 recently and I'm not used to ME2/ME3's configuration, so I'm willing to let that slide for now.

I did like the music.

Overall, I'm worried.

 

Yeah, it was kinda meh. The graphics looked like crap (though it could have been on min textures - there wasn't a way to change them that I noticed), the running animations looked (literally) retarded, and I agree that faces looked a little funky.

The story itself looked decent, if with a few plotholes, from the little snippets that were revealed, but as Red Aviary said, the dialog options were pretty lousy.

Mechanics-wise, they kept the clips (boo) and the cover system (meh - it's better than before, but still not great), and I'm really not a fan of the off-center target reticle.

At this point, I probably wouldn't buy it right off- wait for it to go on sale or something. Unfortunately, I already pre-ordered :facepalm

 

Only the submachine guns sound horribly pew pew like.

I noticed that the mattock like rifle that you get as an inflitrator in the second part actualyl sounds like a fucking rifle.

Also the Avenger has been updated it seems to also be more like a rifle. Lower fire rate but smaller spread then ME2.

Also again sounds more like a rifle then a souped up smg.

Tempest I noticed in MP is only very good in very short to short range. I took that over the shotgun I got in the starter pack once I unlocked it. Shotguns... are pos as always. I mean its a heat clip. Why am I cocking after each shot? It should be like a automatic shotgun. Keeps firing for as long as the trigger is squeezed. Then I cock it to eject the thermal/load a new one.

As for the single player yeah the missions seem... really cut down. Then again this might be because its a demo and they cut out a lot of dialogue.

Who knows. Im still going to preorder it though.

As for Origin: I had my reservations about it. As it is I dont mind it running in the background when my game starts up ie. BF3 and later ME3. I just manually exit it after im done.

 

It's worse than ME2 by a long shot. Shooting mechanics are far worse, and on the PC, everything you do uses the spacebar, which pisses me off. Guns don't sound very good - like Aviary said, they sound like toys, and for the most part, they have the impact of toys, too.

Lip syncing is really bad, and there's some really weird body language. The game as a whole is really ugly, and not just in terms of textures. Human faces are a whole lot less detailed.

Level design is a little more believable, but a whole lot less playable. What's the point in being able to roll between cover if you can only do it once or twice per mission?

I've also got to wonder why the Reapers needed the Citadel relay in the first place, when they only take a maximum of 6 months to a year to reach Earth from wherever they hid in dark space.

 

God... this is such a pity. The first game was so amazing.

 

It was never about traversing the distance quickly -- that was only a convenience. The main use in the Citadel Relay was because they could use it to shut down the Relay network and isolate everyone, decapitate the head(s) of government and hack into all the records kept there like census data in one move. The only reason anyone has a chance to organize and fight back at all in this game is because the Citadel Relay was cut off to them in the first.

 

Yeah, I'm just going to wait for the game to actually come out. Based on what has been said above, I wouldn't want to ruin my excitement and anticipation by playing a sub par demo. Still first day buy for me.

 

Definitely. They have very few facial options in the demo, and it appears that they chose parts of the game that had very little dialogue to avoid spoilers. A bit of a disappointment, but I figured it'd be like that anyway.

To be honest, I prefer the new gun combat. I definitely prefer the few biotics I got to try out. They're not as good as Mass Effect 1 biotics, but they don't appear to be as castrated as they were in ME2.

Of course, I didn't get to try out all of them, I haven't replayed the demo several times to test out different ability combos. So take this with a grain of salt.

They always switch around the keyboard controls. It's irritating, like everything being tied to the spacebar, but they changed shit in ME2 too. But they have always allowed you to change your keybindings.

ME2 controls different? I changed them back. I assume the same option will be available upon full release of ME3. If it isn't, this point definitely would stand, but I doubt it.

Also, Origin is like Steam, except with barely any games on it. Hardly something that should make or break your purchase. Although the updates every now and then are mildly irritating.

 

Since EA is using Origin with ME3, I'm not buying it. Origin is even worse than Steam. I tried playing BF3 with origin, and it used the stupid web browser to open the game. Fuck that bullshit. Origin can gtfo, kthxbye.

 

You can change them in the demo; the only problem is that interact/sprint/cover are inextricably linked. You can't assign keys to each function - it's all or nothing.

 

Hmm, well now that's mildly annoying. Hopefully the feedback they'll get on the forums will lead to them giving you the option to separate them.

 

Didn't you go and shit all over Diablo 3 as well?

Anyway, TotalBiscuit did a video on the ME3 Multiplayer, and at the start he said that he really really enjoyed the single player demo. Didn't seem to mind the multiplayer either.

 

As someone who's played the MP I have to say that I was pleasantly suprised with the end result. It actually struck me as more polished than the single player portion fo the demo, which may be do the the more chaotic nature of the experience, but I think probably speaks to what the intent of the demo actually is. I don't think that either EA or Bioware are worried about people being disappointed in the singe player experience, so they probably got that done early and quickly, so I suspect that the Single player portion of the demo probably isn't as close to representative of the final build on that end as people suspect. I think a lot more work was put into making the multi-player portion of the demo because there was a fairly large amount of fan outcry at the announcement and people keep saying how worried they are at its inclusion.

Combat is for the most part smooth (a few hiccups here and there, mostly to do with the use of the space bar as the take cover/storm/interact button), it presents a decent challenge even on the lowest 'difficulty' and there are a decent number of customization options (though, annoyingly they have to be unlocked through random purchases, but that'll likely be easier after retail once a wider variety of purchaseables are available (only 2 currently)). All in all I've found the MP portion of the demo more than satisfactory.

 

Just finished the single player demo (I have no interest in MP at all) and thought it was pretty terrible all round. There was literally less than five dialogue options, and they were hardly even important options.

Bioware needs to learn I don't play Mass Effect for the gameplay - I'd play Gears of War or something for that. Sure, it's important but I care much, much more about the story.

So much for all those people aruging that multiplayer wouldn't detract from the SP experience, and that just because Bioware was implementing 'Action Mode' or whatever they weren't going to try and appeal to more casual players buy lightening the RPG mechanics.

I know the game isn't out yet, and I should reserve judgement - but I've been replaying Mass Effect 1 lately and I really can't help but be dissapointed in the path Bioware has taken with the series.

 

I'd suggest you at least give the MP a try, if you don't like it, you don't. But I went in expecting to be disappointed, and came out happy.

I have a suspicion that a lot was cut out from the SP side of the demo, just to avoid spoilers/giving too much away/get the demo down to size. In fact I felt that the scene at the begining where you say 'We Fight or we die', etc was one of those places where Bioware would've normally have a bunch more dialogue so you could give a whole long speech like at the beginning of ME1 and the end of ME2. I could be wrong of course, in which case I'll be disappointed.

I'm just glad you said you didn't play Mass Effect for the gameplay, because I've actually seen people claim that the gameplay of ME1 was better. And I just don't know hwo to describe fully the levels of wrong that is.

 

You're on Earth because you're on trial for the events of the Arrival DLC from the last game (though, uh, can't help but notice that there's no actual trial... making the DLC pretty worthless, no?)

Most of the team gathered from the Suicide Mission have disbanded to do their own thing. You've got Ashley/Kaidan at the start as well as Vega, I think, and you get Liara on Mars, which is right after the Earth prologue. I don't know when you get Garrus and the rest. A lot of the old team won't be squad members, or will be temporary members.

 

You realize that they specifically made the demo of ME3 with no spoilers in mind yes? Ie, the lack of any real story in the demo.