FYI, that's how the game works. There's no more menu screen; everything's on Battlelog. Still stupid, but nothing to do with Origin. Well, except for the fact that it can only be played via Origin. But if you could play it with something else, you'd still have to use Battlelog.

/threadderail

 

The fact that the demo's multiplayer seems so much more polished than the single-player mode isn't doing much for my concerns that Bioware might have decided to crap all over the single-player campaign in an effort to turn Mass Effect into a Halo/Gears of War clone.

That was the thing that really bugged me about ME 2; half the things that made the original Mass Effect unique and interesting were hastily shoved out the door and replaced with nonsensical generic blandness, like "heat clips."

 

I'm not so much complaining about the fact that there wasn't much story, rather that what there was sucked basically. It's possible that you're right and they picked the parts with the least/worst story details, but I'm just saying that what we did see wasn't a good indicator for the game's story (and by this I'm speaking about dialogue and choices for the most part) as a whole.

It is also possible that Bioware removed dialogue options from the demo, but I honestly do not see what the point of that would be. They are trying to give a good impression and demonstrate what the actual game is about, so that people will be buy it. Cutting large parts of one of the games greatest features would be a stupid idea.

 

The field of view is awful, it feels like you're wearing an eyepatch over your left eye. It leaves me feeling paranoid to be able to see so little. The inability to holster my weapon was somewhat annoying too. I'm not sure why but its always bothered me to see my character running forward, brandishing a weapon, with no enemy in sight.

 

I remember when the Dragon Age 2 demo came out and people kept saying that they cut things out from it. Then... it came out, and that was exactly what we got in the game. I'm betting that this isn't any different.

 

Yeah, my confidence level in Bioware took a big hit from how badly phoned-in DA 2 was. I really hope they don't ruin the Mass Effect series with a weak third act.

 

This. The absolute shit that was DA2 after the epicness of DA1 just soured me on them. Mass Effect 2 was still worth the playing, but it was so watered down it was saddening.

 

Single player was about what I was expecting. Gears of War themed, even heavier on cover based combat. Didn't care for it, but the story if it's still epic will make up for it. I liked the Kinect based voice commands for squad powers, but they'd throw them where my cursor was pointing instead of their current target they were firing on, which is really, really annoying.

Multiplayer.... I can't say. I spent awhile looking for a quick match, got into one with a few others, the host left, migrated hosts, one person disconnected, one was ready but never made it into the game, so I died on the first wave. After similar problems happened twice in a row I said screw it. Looks like simple survival waves? Hope there's more to it then that otherwise screw that. Death matches or something, and even then it wouldn't be balanced for piss.

I know I've said this a hundred times about console games, especially any that are crossplatform, but what the bloody fuck is it with them sticking the camera literally 3 feet off the shoulder blades of the hero and giving him a 70 degree field of view, if that? You can't see shit, and it gives me a headache.

 

There is more to the multiplayer than just waves of enemies. Certain rounds throw different objectives in there, like hold the point, or capture 4 objectives. Then again, it's just the demo, so Im expecting more come release.

As far as the camera goes, I agree with you for the most part. It's disorienting at first, but I eventually got used to it and started headshotting things like a boss.

 

Is there no way to play the demo without going through shitty fucking Origin?

After that shit decided to scan my computer files, I instantly removed it.

 

Well... you could buy a console and go through Xbox Live / PSN, but even then you probably need an Origin account.

 

To keep the Demo under the required 2 GB limit would be a great reason as to why there were zero investigate options or middle dialogue choices.

 

Shame; I liked Mass Effect 1, and Mass Effect 2 was...different.

Not as good as the original, but then again sequels rarely are...

But then A) the Mass Effect 3 demo is apparently shit and flawed at the game design level, and B) Origin came into play.

Why do I get the feeling that Bioware is going to go the way of Blizzard?

 

I thought the 2gb limit was only there for Xbox arcade games on the 360?

You do need to log into your EA account to play on consoles as well.

 

Disappointing and I somehow knew this was going to happen, especially considering the shit that was DA2. I'm just happy I didn't preorder ME3...

 

Everyone seems to be freaking out about this demo and honestly - I can only agree with maybe half of what's being said. Maybe I'm wrong for having a bit of faith that Bioware will pull through, but whatever.

There was huge fan-outcry to the proposed multiplayer. So, as others have said, Bioware likely focused on beefing up that section of the demo rather than the single player to soothe fan woes. The single player could feel dated because, iirc, it's the same fucking levels as from E3. Bioware is a total cocktease about story at the best of times, so I'm not surprised that we didn't get more story.

This demo was likely designed to show off the gameplay, not the story. That itself could be an issue - or a worrying trend at least. There are things I miss about ME1 (hello overheating and wicked biotics) but the gunplay has gotten consistently better with each installment. Will it ever be as smooth as gear of wars (which I am not a fan of btw)? Probably not. But is sure as hell is a lot more responsive than it used to be.

That said I had many of the same reservations as others after finishing this (on my roomate's PS3 though, so I can't complain about keyboard shit). Animations are wonky (Sheppard's arms during the classic, "let's walk somewhere dramatically" scene made me cringe) sometimes and the facial animations are sort of blah from what we saw on Earth (I was playing as femshep fyi). The field of view is also weird, but that's already been mentioned and is something that I had gotten used to by the end of the demo.

Dialogue options are also sort of sparse, but they probably don't want to wrex anything for when we actually get our hands on the finished game. I think it's also worthwhile to point out that the demo was only like 20-25 minutes long (for me anyway) and we saw the intro stage (which is always going to be grounded in exposition) and then what seems to me to have been the end of a longer quest chain.

It bears mentioning the Bioware has always sort of sucked at the whole intro-level stuff. I know I almost dropped ME1 several times before I got past the beacon. ME2 wasn't much better in that regards in my opinion.

My biggest gripe, asides from the slightly hamfisted narrative, is the colour palette and whatever. I miss my oranges and blacks and dark second arc.

tl;dr wait for the game to come out, this was a demo

 

It's not supposed to be as smooth as any FPS. It's supposed to be a RPG. They did so well with ME1 that EA had then change shit to be less story, more shooty bullshit to try to suck in the console idiots who only play FPSs. I mean fuck there's even an option there to let you ignore the story, have everything decided for you, and blast your way through. That's not right to me, I don't want a RPG where that's even included in the design doc.

 

Say what you will about the demo, but they can make a sick trailer.
Link

 

I actually thought that was pretty bland. Nothing special in any way.

 

This is the biggest problem with demos; too many people make their assumption that the demo IS the game.