Being a bit slow (due to playing a stupid amount of Paradox games) to get around to it, I just played the Mass Effect 3 demo. You may recall I recently said I was determined to see this through even if I wasn’t tremendously hopeful about it, but I’ve just cancelled my preorder on the ‘strength’ of the demo. I’ll get around to it sometime, I’m sure, but I’ve got no desire to pay a bunch of cashmoney for something so strikingly mediocre and unenjoyable.
Oh don’t get me wrong, seeing old faces like Wrex, Garrus, and Anderson was great. The Reapers attacking Earth looked pretty cool too (Though there was no sense of impact or weight to it; more on that in a moment), and I approved of… well actually no, those two things was about all I approved of. Everything else was standard and run-of-the-mill at best.
The controls are floaty and don’t respond as I wanted them to. Maybe I’m just getting too old for this, but I distinctly don’t remember having similar problems with 1 and 2. Here though I kept trying to do one thing, and another thing happened, such as diving out of cover into the open. Cue death of Shep. The graphics seemed weirdly low-res, maybe it was just to save space for the demo download but it wasn’t impressive. The weapons and combat is some of the most lacking in impact and weight since I played BioShock, a game that managed to make crushing skulls with a huge wrench feel uninspiring. And that was really the heart of it; everything else I could tolerate or forgive, but the combat was just so completely meritless, so downright unenjoyable, left me feeling so detached and removed from the action, that I just don’t think I can bring myself to play this anytime soon.
It does not, in short, make my mass erect.
Tuni Edit:
Last night I went and gave it another try, and I’m going to have to admit my judgment was a little premature. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still seeing quite a few problems, but the gameplay itself was definitely quite a bit more enjoyable now that I’ve played around with a couple of classes. In previous ME games I could grab any class and have a great time; that seems not to be the case here.
You started this post with that joke in mind didn’t you.
Why yes orange, yes I did!
How very interesting, I have to ask what game settings you put the game play at because for me it was like picking up an old book and starting where I left off.
Personally I love that there are not only the normal difficulty modes but also the ‘storyline mode’. It allows someone like me who cares more about the story then combat to enjoy the game without hitting my head against the wall. I know there’s a difference because my husband, whose never played any Mass Effects games before, took a few tries killing the mob at the end of the 2nd demo level.
As another blog post put it, the demo is only there to get our desire up for something most people already had pre-ordered. I admit, I have not pre-ordered this but I will get it and gladly let myself fall back into that world.
I played on the middle one, Role Playing or whatever it’s called. I don’t like the look of either of the others – I don’t have a problem with difficult combat (Heck I’ve played through ME1 starting with a new, level 1 character on Insane) but I do have a problem with it when it happens because of bad controls or level design or whatever else might be going on.
Hehe, I didn’t think you would have problems with combat but I was curious if you set your combat settings down too low for your enjoyment which made the fights irrelevant.
I played the demo on the PC (I’ve always played ME on PC) and I found the controls to be the same as the last games.
I think my biggest complaint with the demo is the second level. I don’t think Bioware thought about the person who has never played an ME game before; I know my husband really had no idea when he got shoved into the 2nd lvl.
I am sorry the demo disappointed you though; I admit it made me miss everyone and I had to find the Salarian Pirates of Penzance song on YouTube after playing it *giggles*.
I do not think I can change your mind, but I greatly enjoy the combat in this one compared to the first two, and especially compared to the first one and did not have problems with the controls. I thought the texture resolution looked great, too. My big complaint was that the “lip-synching” (read: not actual lip-synching but whatever you call Bioware’s algorithm that moves the mouths with the speech) was worse than it’s ever been. It’s like it was dubbed or something.
I just started playing Mass Effect recently and am currently on about my 5th play through. I usually run a character through ME1 and import to ME2 and finish before going back to ME1 for a new character. I think the combat and movement of the characters looks good but what has turned me off a bit is actually the graphics. The scenery is great but the character models seem to be off. It is like the faces are way to high rez as compared to the previous games. I actually prefer the models in ME2.
Yes, after playing some ME1 and 2 I’m even more weirded out by the graphics in 3, something about them just does not seem right.
Talking about dissapointments.
I recently come back to WoW. Get free 7days and wanna check what happened.
Get bored in fisrt five minutes.
My server never was heavy populated. Now is half dead.
I visit my guild and talk some but it looks like WoW isnt changed at all.
Farm honor farm heroics farm everything.
Its boring.
Boring as hell.
With great tool like Dungeons Finder its even more boring.
At last I have some great adventures with old LFG system. Meet new people know them better kill some stuff togheter.
Now its all gone.
Whole mechanics of combat is not funny. Recently played Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Game is decent. Story is not great but it have solid leveling system and fun combat. It is dynamic and full of dogdes blocks and combo attacks.
Meh.
So I log in to WoW only to give away my stored items and gold. Meyby somebody will have some us from this. Also I whine. A lot.
Waiting for Gulid Wars 2.
Yeah, I tried it recently and I had the same experience! I just could not enjoy it anymore. It’s a shame, but I think for me at least WoW’s time has passed.
Glad to hear you tried it again. Yay for open-mindedness.
Yay indeed!
I save my hardheadedness for political debate xD