E3 2011: Mass Effect 3 Fails to Disappoint

Maybe in a few years when our site is earning six million page views a day, we’ll get premiere VIP access to EA’s E3 lineup, but this year I had to beg, pursue and cajole the booth staffers (PR, Producers, etc.) into getting into the closed door Mass Effect 3 demo. Everyone involved in the presentation wasn’t afraid to hide their pride in the success of the franchise, as the entryway was covered with Mass Effect 2‘s accolades and awards. I foolishly explained how eager I was to see the game based on my playthroughs, before realizing how banal of a comment that must sound to them, so I quietly waited in line – feet burning and lower back screaming with the simple desire to get in the door and have my expectations satisfied. Thankfully, an hour or so later at the very last showing of the night, I squeezed into the back row of their already cramped sci-fi aluminum space shuttle theatre. Bioware’s Executive Producer in charge of Mass Effect, Casey Hudson, was giving the presentation.

What’s clear from each cut scene and action sequence on display is that for all intents and purposes, this is the final Mass Effect game. Yes, there will inevitably be sequels, MMOs, portable games, novels, comics and enough mass market media to choke a horse, but this is the culmination of the Mass Effect trilogy as we currently view the franchise. The Earth is hopelessly under siege, much like the Covenant invasion in Halo 3‘s epic conclusion (ha!). Shepherd won’t have the opportunity to “finish the fight” with the weapons or crew at his disposal at the outset, and the Reapers are simply too powerful. Again, s/he will have to scour the galaxy for support, and this time you’re not just searching for a few bad ass mercenaries and psycho bald girls with tribal tattoos. Shep’s going to have to gain the allegiance of each and every race willing to fight for the survival of organic life in the universe. With the Reapers on the ground vaporizing the cradle of human civilization, I wouldn’t think this would be too hard of a sell to elicit the full military support of the Salarians, Turians, Krogan, etc., but it wouldn’t be a Mass Effect game without intergalactic travel, conflict, tough choices and punching female reporters in the gob (if you’re playing as a Renegade, of course).

The combat has seen some added variety and refinements from what was being shown. Grenades are back from ME 1 and this time they are thrown in an arc, much like those from all other first and third person shooters. The cover mechanic looks to be visually enhanced to communicate the exact direction the player is headed once they leave cover or initiate a cover-to-cover maneuver. You’ll be able to make some weapon modifications again, but with a simple interface and what appears to be a fairly limited selection of mods. The most bizarre addition to the game’s combat is the new omnitool blade, which appears to grant Shepherd a one-hit close quarters melee kill, which seems like a great idea, but looks absolutely ridiculous. The omnitool is a human/machine interface mostly used for hacking, so it’s just bizarre to see an angular virtual blade protruding 8″ from the wrist.

The demo was running on an Xbox 360, but thankfully none of the Kinect features were being forced during the demo. Buildings toppled, classic crew members played a huge role in every sequence and the drama of each situation was naturally running very high. They did take one misstep towards the end. Shepherd has the chance to save a human child in a besieged building, but despite his efforts, the child appears to be killed. I talked about this a bit with the Videogamer.com crew and for me, I’m starting to get very sensitive to games using child death as an emotional device. They brought up Dead Island (which I had forgotten), but it seems some games devs (Kaos Studios’ Homefront is another) are willing to stoop low to pull at the audience’s heartstrings. Yes, children die in war and it is a very real and horrible thing; however, I don’t think Mass Effect is a game that’s lacking in emotional depth. I believe Hudson’s line introducing that sequence was something like, “here’s where we are going emotionally with Mass Effect 3“. I wish I had an audio recorder to get it exactly right, but that was the gist of the message.

There’s more to ME3 than Reapers killing kids or holo-blades. Every aspect of the game looks on par or surpassing the quality of ME2. They’ve offered that this won’t be the kind of upgrade we saw between ME1 and ME2, and it’s not. But for those of us – and we are legion – who want nothing more than to leap back into the space boots of Shepherd (Fem-Shep too, ladies) come next March you will have little excuse. EA’s Johnny Ric promised they wouldn’t release another title without multiplayer, but they’re keeping schtum on the subject as of now. Co-op Cerberus hunting, anyone? I hope Ashley doesn’t mind that I switched teams and made a love connection with Jack, but Ash is sporting that sexy hair now, so maybe I made a mistake – only time will tell.