Everyone who got excited about the game beforehand should have already known most of the material in the demo - the very opening section, which we've all expected in one form or the other, and the salarian homeworld segment with the female krogan, which was demo'd by some Bioware dudes a while back already. Gameplay is really fine-tuned and polished from ME2 - it plays much faster, guns shoot faster, sprinting is unlimited, iirc, and going in, out of and over cover is much more fluid.
I love the Mass Effect Universe, but admit that I got completely disconnected right after the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, so this is all news to me. I probably didn't gave the single player of M.E. 3 enough credit: I really really like it. To only complain about some velcro cover is actually testament of how refined the experience is. I'm nitpicking, I'm sure of it.
On that note, the multiplayer segment is tight. Way tight. Soupah fuckin' tight. Anal fisting tight. It's level progression, customisation on several depths, with the addition of the lack of pause-play that exists in the single-player. Which arguably makes everything even faster, so now it players like Gears of War Horde except with a great deal more depth in this single game mode. It's exactly the way I expected it to turn out, and the ones being all butthurt about multiplayer gettin' up in all their RPG can go fuck themselves. It's a very polished product on both fronts, and from the demo I wouldn't believe for a second that the effort placed into the multiplayer detracted from the story mode in any way.
I have the weirdest bonner right now! I haven't been able to play the multiplayer on the demo, but I sure want to now that you put it like that.
I was actually against the multiplayer decision at first, but time has given me the much needed perspective I needed. I just hope is fun and a quality product.
The only thing I would complain about is (for the PC version) the developer's insistence on giving keyboard buttons a bajillion different functions. On the default mapping, spacebar does sprint, stick to cover, unstick from cover, dodge roll, talk to people, and activate objects. Its the same issue I had with the previous game. I don't actually have a gripe with the first four things, just the last two. It's a fucking keyboard. The peripherals can handle it if you need another button or two to do some little things. Also I tend to remap the keys so that spacebar does the pause-play thing and shift does all the running and sticky-cover, but that's just my preference carried on from the very first game
I agree with this to a molecular level.
Is it a wierd thing that I have the exact opposite impressions about ME1 and 2? I thought the "reset" arc as you put it, was a clever idea because it blindsides players, who've (emotionally) invested anywhere between 40 to 80 hours into this character, his/her ship and squad, and given them a motive to get back at the dudes who caused all kinds of shit to Shepard's life. It's a very clear WTF moment that really sets the right tone for roleplayers.
Also, I feel ME1 was probably the only game out of these three that deliver on the shooter-RPG hybrid. There was just infinitely more exploration, more miscellanea and more choice than ME2 had to offer (not that ME2 was lacking for choice, but definitely had that corridor feeling when it came to the combat). Also, it'd be nice if they brought back more open-world exploration, although given the direction of ME3, that's probably not really likely. The Mako sections at least had a tangible sense of exploring this bigness of outer space, discovering new shit and traversing some wild terrain using a gravity-defying vehicle; ME2 reduced that to a computer screen where you sort of bleeped and blooped over a picture of a planet and launched what we were told to assume to be probes to fill up some numbers we could spend as currency.
And in that regard, the Firewalker DLC was fucking awful. For all the flaws of the first game, I think there were some things lost in translation when it came to bringing the positives into the sequels, so I'm actually looking foward to experiencing again some of what I miss about these games. So despite the tedium, which I can't deny exists in ME1, I'll certainly have enough stomach to play it again.
Oh, and I'm really glad they gave Shepards the full range of weapons to choose from again. Really opens up a huge amount of possibilities
I agree with you in the sense that it is cleaver; I still didn't like it.
When the Mass Effect Original Saga ends, you are left with a tremendous momentum forward: some very tall walls have been blasted away, old dogmas shaken and square protocols eroded. I was pumped and actually thought that the Mass Effect 2 intro sequence might just be going to be off the fucking hook, deep into an impossible situation, action packed to the butt and more fluid story-wise.
I still loved Mass Effect 2, hell, I bought the collectors edition and played it 6 different times to completion.
Now that I read your points, I do think that the M.E.2 was not just cleaver, but very cleaver. It wasn't the experience I was left wanting after M.E.1 , but that doesn't make it bad at all.
I also agree that M.E.1 felt much larger in scope, but for the sake of everyone I hope both the Mako and the Planet probing stop.
Both soundtracks are great too, but I'm enamored of the M.E.1 Vangelis-esque tempo they opted for. Hope that makes a comeback, at least for a few bits.
Mass Effect 3 is still a bit shy of a month away, but the feeling I'm left lingering with is that M.E.1 just doesn't feel much like M.E.2, and M.E.2 doesn't feel much like M.E.3. I completely understand the need to evolve, and in no way I'm implying things should stay a certain way. What I am saying is that the experience, all in all, feels uneven. A perfectly understandable situation considering the 3 games are years apart, and that years in this business means eons.
Still, some changes feel changes in genre: from what you could loosely call an hybrid R.P.G. to what you can call an Action Game, to... I don't know what M.E.3 will be like.
I honestly wish Bioware would remake the entire story-arc with a unified vision, and an identical version engine. Pack everything together, D.L.C.'s , weapons, armor, codex, and all...
Thanks for the post Satsugaikaze, it gave me perspective.