I'm surprised actually... At first I was 80 percent excited about this, then I saw the early access game demo, and I became 100 percent excited. Now though? I'm only about 95 percent. If I wasn't a fan of Mass Effect because I've never played it before, and tried this demo out, my opinions wouldn't have changed. It's not the game play, but my question is, how old really is this demo? Now, the one thing I have to nit-pick is something that may annoy people, and maybe for good reason, or maybe it's justified, I don't know. Although I wouldn't want to use the word ugly to describe the graphics, because they're not necessarily ugly, but when it comes to expectations and when comparing to the first two?

I'd say (somewhat) ugly is a good description for the majority of it. It's oddly different from the other two in very many, though subtle ways. I'm just wondering if this is an old demo, and it's not a representation of what we're supposed to expect and receive in the actual game. I'm just wondering why they'd show that as a demo if it weren't though. Maybe they know fans will buy it anyways? Did anyone else notice it? I hope so, 'cause I know it to be true, and if no one agrees, then I feel like I'm going to be mocked for complaining about something others don't see, when it's apparent. All I'm saying is that I hope the great game play and story has fine visuals to back it up. I'll be surprised if you don't notice, and I'll be more surprised if you don't care. I'm not a "graphics whore", but still.

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EDIT - Fuck. OK, sorry. I just went through it (a day later, just now) on Insanity. My problem with the graphics, were somewhat justified to me in a way, in most others though, I feel I was a little harsh and the things I said weren't as bad as I thought they were. I'm not entirely sure why I felt the way I did, maybe it was because it was in 720p since my brother likes to put the 360 on 720p, but I always like to put it on 1440x900, which looks better of course, and that may have been the problem. Anyways, there's still some small problems that I feel by the time the game comes out, they'll will be fixed. About Insanity, did anyone find it a lot easier than ME2? I did, I only died once at the very first part because I didn't exactly understand the health off the bat. Also, was the ending part fixed just for the demo? 'Cause the thing Mordin and the female Krogan were in had the health go all the way down, but it never blew up, like the only way to "fail" was to die. Alright, well! Hopefully the small problems that are in the demo get fixed for the final product, but I'm again 100 percent excited.

I'm confused when I played the demo (just now) and got to see the city under attack I was amazed how beautiful it lookeed. But I played first two Mass Effects on my shitty laptop that barely ran them on minimum settings.
My only real complain about the demo was that I didn't get to play with a sniper. If I get to choose a class that specializes on sniper usage I kinda except to be able to test one out in the demo. But even that is a minor complain and against the demo and not against the game itself.

Erm, a demo was released? I missed something.

There's enough to be said about it, but it looks super cool and the combat feels...well...decent enough.
I was even against buying it, and I'm a sick fan of this series, until I played the demo...
 
Now I'm a believer!
 
(But I still dislike EA!)

@RedCricketChase said:

Erm, a demo was released? I missed something.

Same here... I hate time differences!

Anyway I watched the full demo on IGN and despite the guy playing like total noob I really enjoyed it. Everything I saw I liked and I can't wait to get my hands on it to see how it feels. I bet the gameplay feels awesome!

@Apsup: Wait, how are you confused? By the way, I thought it looked great in areas, like, I thought the ships were on par with what I expected, but everything else was a lot worse. No, when I was playing it, I kept saying in my head that this isn't a matter of opinion, it is in fact not as pretty as it should and could be. I think ME2 looks better, the only thing improved, or at least is different, is the character animations, which was noticeably better (if only by a little) in the second part, but worse in the first. I just hope this isn't what the final game looks like.

loved the gorgeous environments, i feel like they really stepped up on that.

was on the fence about the new action-y feel about the combat but i grew to get used to it and i think i'll really enjoy it once i play the full game.

didn't really like how bad the characters look now and how poorly they animate, i guess i never really noticed it in a mass effect game before but man all the characters just look dated.

@Thoseposers: Actually, as nice as the environments could be, they look artificial more so than the previous games environments. When you go to Sur'Kesh (the Salarian home world), the background environments (like the trees) look like paper or cardboard instead of an actual living place. In the first part of the demo, right when you step out to see the Reapers and just before jumping over the broken ground to then climb a ladder, you can look down, and you'll see a vehicle, and a bunch of humans (I'm guessing), like also look like paper as well, similar to that of what you see in the original Syndicate or something. Those are to name a few of the graphic mishaps. The game play is fine, but it's somewhat hampered to me from the visuals. I'm hoping it the final game looks better. I SWEAR! The first two in a lot of areas just look a whole lot better.

Looks worse than ME2, laggy menus, silly running animations and the little kid bit was kind of melodramatic when you first meet him, the music kicking in was dumb. 
 
But I'm still excited to see how the game turns out, I'm pretty optimistic, the menus will be fixed and perhaps the graphics will be improved too. It didn't look much worse than ME2, just rougher around the edges. (also darker)
 
Hopefully it's just an old demo.

That first demo section on earth isn't fucking around with your emotions.

New default Lady Shepard don't suit her voice, or maybe I'm crazy. Could just be because I know what the actress looks like in real life.

I loved everything else though. Plays like you'd expect, and looks great.

I thought the second part of the demo looked like a level from Mass Effect 2 because of the same color scheme and hallway designs.

The multiplayer is pretty fun if a bit janky in it's current form.

Anyone know the reasoning behind releasing the PC demo at 12PST? Microsoft and Sony paying to get it a few hours early?

Eh. It felt pretty much like you'd expect Mass Effect to feel. Action still doesn't control as well as I would want, but it's serviceable. The animations stuck out to me as kind of rough all around. As a showpiece for the game I didn't think it was great, but I'm invested enough in the ME franchise to play it anyway.

Demo was INCREDIBLE (I'm a little biased of course), but it looks like the same demo they previewed at E3...

played bout 4 hours of multiplayer, it's allright.

I only played the 1st half of the demo, but didnt play the 2nd half because I want to go into it fresh. 1st half was really great though.
 
Pre-ordering it right now.

I've had the demo for a couple of days since I got it from Facebook, but it's the 360 version, when the hell do I get my PC demo? And also why don't I have access to the multiplayer portion?

The singleplayer levels were pretty awesome though, really want that game, badly

I'm on the ME3 website. Where is my demo?

:'(

I'm really glad that they improved upon the level-up system, and that the bypass mini game has been taken out. The combat felt solid, good graphics and performance, fantastic voice acting (as expected), good looking interface and good audio design. Judging from the demo it will be another solid Mass Effect game, hopefully even surpasses ME2.

Now, if I only knew how to get my omni daggers in Kingdoms.

Having more fun with the multiplayer then I expected to. Its pretty neat. As for the single player portion, well its great but thats no surprise.It plays like ME2 only better. I loved that first mission quite a bit. Great opening to what will hopefully be a satisfying conclusion to this trilogy. Cant wait for the full game to come out!

Is it out for PS3?

@AngelN7 said:

Is it out for PS3?

Later today.

Anyway, Singleplayer is definitely a nice improvement over the first two. I hope the combat doesn't get too dull later on though.

Did anyone else notice how Vanguard plays a lot like Terry Bogard? Anyone? There has the be some cross over with ME and KOF fans.

I thought it was a good taste to get me back into it. I am ready for ME3, I wish I could be playing it right now. I thought about half way through the demo it was over, then it continued and I said out loud, "Holy shit, its still going?"

Can't play any of the multiplayer stuff but that's not really why I'm playing Mass Effect in the first place.

I think I've played about as much as I'm going to (two playthroughs up to about the same point, and with no saves I'm not about to slodge through the opening scenes for a third time.

Both Dragon Age 2 and the design philosophy from it that seemed to be carried over to Mass Effect continue to worry me.

The gameplay remains excellent. You *need* to play this on Insanity to understand why. It's absolutely frustrating, yes, but I rarely feel like I beat a difficult combat scenario by luck. I feel like I beat it because I used the right tactics. A real combat puzzle.

The additions I don't like... well, one glaring one is the combat roll. Coming off of Mass Effect 2, where everything felt exactly snappy and responsive as it needed to be, the Mass Effect 3 demo felt clunky, partially due to strange combat arena designs, but mostly because of that goddamn roll. I used to be able to slam down on the A button at a reasonable distance from cover and expect to make it there, planning my strategy for what happens next whilst the animation played out. Now, I end up doing that cursed roll about 70% of the time, which leads to a swift and unnecessary death on Insanity. The roll doesn't save me nearly as much as it gets me killed.

It also seems like you don't snap back to cover almost instantaneously when halting fire, like you did in Mass Effect 2. It's something I have to learn to compensate for.

And generally, I feel like finding cover spots on oddly shaped environments was hit-and-miss. I found myself too often mashing A to take cover against a wall that seemed defensible, only to find out that I wasn't at the exact correct angle to "attach" to it, or couldn't attach at all.

I want Anderson to be a full squad mate, and have serious doubts about that possibility after playing the demo. Are they not okay with paying Keith David?

I think the graphical inequalities people are seeing come only from the Earth scenes. There was something majorly off about that section of the demo. Everything after that looked on par with Mass Effect 2, and I'm okay with that.

The attempt to make more organic animations failed. I don't like the run, the roll, the leaps, the cinematics where they take control away from you... I guess that's another one I'll have to give a shot to. It feels like they're trying to somewhat alleviate the parts where they cut away to obvious cutscenes and try to integrate them into the gameplay. I obviously feel uneasy about it, though.

Mostly, however, I'm left with the impression that Bioware needs a better coordinator for their game demos. They throw way too many random slices of gameplay at you. I get that they want to fit in all the highs into a game too long to do so in one continuous sequence, but the jump cuts felt so awkward and out of context, when all I really wanted was a chance to roam the Normandy and try out a couple of early missions. They aren't targeting me, the "fan of the genre," though. Still, I feel like it would disorient the newcomers too greatly.

@Solh0und: Thanks, I can't wait to try it myself the gameplay improvements seem very cool so far.

Audio design is a huge leap from ME2. Biotics sound so good.

@Encephalon: Agree, that building exploding was awesome and that Reaper slamming down in the video had great audio

I loved both Mass Effect, I was happy they where making it into a more action game, the RPG elements have definitely been improved than part two, its not as stripped down as in part two, weirdly its the combat in the demo that I didn't enjoy, it felt clunky, movement was slow, going into cover sometimes didn't happen, the roll was kinda irritating, changing weapons take you out cover and still no blind fire? I was hoping that it terms of combat it would be more like Gears of War 3, but it just felt allot slower and clumsier, the graphics look nice though.

Still excited about the game, hopefully they make the combat smoother.

The Combat feels supertight, the menus look a lot more cleaner and the multiplayer was surprisingly enjoyable as well -- it's not going to be a bad game!

@Encephalon said:

Audio design is a huge leap from ME2. Biotics sound so good.

And the new gun sounds are fantastic. I heard the Battlefield audio guys helped them out which explains a lot.

Overall I really liked it. I'm a Mass Effect super fan so obviously I'm a bit bias but if I liked it then that's all that really matters to me. Seeing Captain Kirrahe made the fanboy in me squeal :)

also does anyone know if the PC demo is out yet? I really want to try it out and see the difference.

@Bawlsz said:

I loved both Mass Effect, I was happy they where making it into a more action game, the RPG elements have definitely been improved than part two, its not as stripped down as in part two, weirdly its the combat in the demo that I didn't enjoy, it felt clunky, movement was slow, going into cover sometimes didn't happen, the roll was kinda irritating, changing weapons take you out cover and still no blind fire? I was hoping that it terms of combat it would be more like Gears of War 3, but it just felt allot slower and clumsier, the graphics look nice though.

Changing weapons takes you out of cover? I never had that happen to me.

Awesome awesome awesome! No matter how the story turns out, at least it's going to be fun to play. Though I agree with everyone about the running animation... Anderson joggin' around like he needs a shit just looks goofy and took me out of the overt-seriousness of the situation. Plus there was this one moment where I got in front of him near the end of the first mission, and his model was accidentally pushing me through the level. Was hilarious to just see me standing there inanimately sliding across the floor like a lazy reinterpretation of Driving Ms Daisy.

Only played the single player, and it was enough for me to go online and immediately order a collectors edition for $100 with the fastest shipping offered. I want this game inside me.

Was okay. The sprinting and dodging felt, off... wasn't as smooth as I thought it would be. Gunfire sounds need to be improved, the Assault Rifle sounds like a pea shooter. Nonetheless, still excited to play the retail version.

I can't wait! I imagine experiencing it will be akin to the Nazis opening the Ark of the Covenant.

Downloading it on PC now, I am ready to remain uncaring.

@TaliciaDragonsong: Completely agree, I'm wasn't ever not going to buy the game, but see how much EA was rubbing off on Bioware was getting me angry. Luckily Bioware, at least the Mass Effect team, now's what there doing and Mass Effect 3 is turning out to be a pretty awesome game.

The combat feels a lot better and the leveling is a million times better than ME2's crap leveling. Also the MP is a nice addition I enjoyed it a lot, 181 on the leaderboards, and now I'm more excited for this games release.

@Hitchenson: Who, what, where, how?

I just played the first 30 minutes to see how it runs and how it looks. Visually it's not a huge improvement, lighting maybe a bit better here and there. But the textures are still ass, the AA doesn't work, menu stuff like the dialogue wheel are super small. Probably because the game has been optimized for 720p. Lack of hot keys is also annoying, i mean why cant  i just press "i" to go to my inventory and why cant i press "c" to go to the character creation screen. And to top it all off the game doesn't have controller support either. I really hope these issues wont carry over to the final release. Otherwise i'm just gonna wait for a STEAM sale...
 
Oh wait

2 hours of single-player? fuck that shit, I'm waiting till friday for the multi-player to open up. 2 hours is too big a chunk of time I want to experience using my shepard. the real shepard.

Still downloading ... dang it intewebz move faster D:!!!!!!

OK wow the movement and aiming on the PC demo feels way better then the Xbox 360. Its very precise. The interface is a lot smaller then the previous games with I also like. I'm very happy with the PC version from what I've played.

@Appuh: Origin, tab at the top that says free games on the store page. You'll see the demo ad then.

Still waiting for it on PSN :/

The shooting feels much better than 2 and the multiplayer is very very fun.

Super scripted. At least the first part was. ME2 opened so strong just throwing you in there right away with an amazing atmosphere. This one opened pretty weak. I don't know - it basically just seems like more Mass Effect - which is good, but I'm glad they're done after this.

I though it started kind of slow and I didn't really like the running around with Anderson, but by the end of that whole sequence I was completely in it again. The second part felt very ME2, which is a good thing. Overall this made me even more excited than before, which I didn't really think was possible.