So, mixed impressions.

The opening sequence, especially played at a high res (my native is 1920x1080) looks genuinely awful in places (be sure to zoom in on the 'fleeing civilians'). Super low res textures and the animations are really stiff. Random NPCs still haven't received the same attention to the faces as the main crew and seem unnatural and plastic-y as a result. Combat feels clunky, although movement is much improved generally over 2. Guns feel better to shoot but it's still no Gears.

Also, no gamepad support. This is definitely NOT a game where you want to be up close to the monitor considering the quality of some textures. Can't remember if ME2 had this or not though.

Second level in the demo is vastly superior, both visually and mechanically. Main characters look amazing (although facial animation is still very stiff) and the lighting has clearly seen some upgrades. Also goes some way to actually convince me that the combat is more than playable. Enemies still take too many hits to go down but it plays well. Stupid universal cooldown is still in effect which I've always taken issue with. Limits tactical play and seems like an easy cop-out to not have to balance all the powers well so they're not game breaking when used in tandem.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: I also started playing the multiplayer recently and it's probably the best take on Horde Mode I've seen in the past few years. Seriously, I'm shocked. And completely addicted. The levelling/progression system is ripped straight out of the singleplayer so it feels every bit as in depth, the graphics look better than the campaign, the maps are well designed, the classes varied, the enemy waves have a great balance and, overall, it's stupid fun. Was not expecting that. At. All.

I played both the 360 and PC demo and I and definitely prefer the PC version. The aiming and movement felt a bit floaty on the Xbox while the PC felt very accurate. Yeah the Ttxtures do look bad in the first level which is a bummer. If you go into the game configuration, you can raise the Anisotropic Filtering which helped a little. Maybe they will release a HD texture pack like they did for Dragon Age II. If you noticed they removed the heal from the universal cooldown and put it separate which is nice.

Overall I liked it and am excited for the game, but I was before the demo so nothing new there.

Downloading!

It still looks very Unreal Engine, and the textures give it away. Same as the previous two games. Yes, they are low resolution in a lot of cases but it's a console focused game. I'll enjoy it anyway. Love the shooting.

@Vitor: I had the same issues as an Adept when I first played it.

Apparently this is because the weapons add weight and slow down your cooldown.

If you went just pistol it would be the same like in the beginning of the game. The demo doesn't give a clue nor does it allow for that option though...nice job bioware.

That being said...I really didn't like what I saw. The demo didn't win me over. But I'm still excited to see what the multiplayer portion looks like when it unlocks so I can play with my friends as a Krogan Vanguard or an Adept.

EDIT: Also Shepard moves like a cartoon character with his run and roll animations.

I thought the shooting was better, but there was a pause between zooming in weapons that kind of threw me off, unlike ME2 where it seemed to be some camera movement with it. Still looks like an Unreal game. Was anyone else surprised to see the "carry weight" stat when you zoomed in on either fitness or assault mastery, playing as a Vanguard.

Crashed. Restart Origin. Start intro.

Mash spacebar because I'm going to have to see this stuff in the main game anyway.

Boring, excessively long "pistol and basic powers" tutorial section. "Hold for extraction" for 5 minutes against enemies that have no chance against Singularity and Warp with no ammo in sight.

Started second section, took a couple minutes to assign powers. Wonky menu, have to go to a separate menu just to upgrade each power? Unintuitive.

Tried to hotkey powers. Bugged and can't. Game crashes 2 seconds later.

Start up, crash. Restart Origin. Start game, back at intro. Exit.

Goddammit. It ran really well, but this demo is incredibly discouraging.

I was thinking about downloading the PC demo but I guess if it's not vast improvement i'll probably stick to the console version at release.

The run up to this game's release has been fucked, EA seems to have totally lost control of marketing ME3. I see thread after thread of complaints about almost everything related to this game and now they've released what appears to be a not fully optimized or at the very least earlier build of the game that doesn't do it a tonne of favors.

I played it for 360 and it seemed below ME2 standard in spots, which isn't the end of the world for the game but right now things are looking really sketchy for the sequel to 2010's GOTY, and what was almost a shoe-in for 2012's GOTY deliberations seems to be treading a fine line between 4 and 5 stars.

I've avoided all of the leaked story stuff but if the game comes out and has a dreadful ending I think the series will be dead.

I barely considered that ME3 wouldn't be a 5 star game but it's dawned on me that this might be the case.

I played on the 360 and thought it was great! :D

After playing the demo, I think a lot of the loud protests about the game aren't looking at the game objectively. They've reintroduced a lot of the RPG elements back into the game, and made the shooting more robust. I just don't see where the vitriol is coming from when looking at the game outside of critiquing all the marketing schtick.

@JeanLuc said:

I played both the 360 and PC demo and I and definitely prefer the PC version. The aiming and movement felt a bit floaty on the Xbox while the PC felt very accurate. Yeah the Ttxtures do look bad in the first level which is a bummer. If you go into the game configuration, you can raise the Anisotropic Filtering which helped a little. Maybe they will release a HD texture pack like they did for Dragon Age II. If you noticed they removed the heal from the universal cooldown and put it separate which is nice.

Overall I liked it and am excited for the game, but I was before the demo so nothing new there.

Didn't notice that about the heal but know that you mention it, you're right. That's a good change but I still think the whole universal cooldown system is pretty dumb.@Doctorchimp said:

@Vitor: I had the same issues as an Adept when I first played it.

Apparently this is because the weapons add weight and slow down your cooldown.

If you went just pistol it would be the same like in the beginning of the game. The demo doesn't give a clue nor does it allow for that option though...nice job bioware.

That being said...I really didn't like what I saw. The demo didn't win me over. But I'm still excited to see what the multiplayer portion looks like when it unlocks so I can play with my friends as a Krogan Vanguard or an Adept.

EDIT: Also Shepard moves like a cartoon character with his run and roll animations.

I had no idea. That's worse than the 'unexplained timer' problem that myself and many others had with ME2. That was just an isolated incident, not explaining something like this could affect someone's entire playthrough.

I did see that my cooldowns were taking longer when I was using the rifle in the second level. Interesting choice and a nice touch I have to say, but it needs to be explained in the full game.

I agree with the run animation. Rolls are also weird. And the option to vault over cover should never have going into cover as a prerequisite. It just slows things down too much. Give me a dedicated jump/traverse button.

Just a heads up for people who might not know.

If texture sharpness is your priority, anisotropic filtering is your best friend and is essential.

I'm just happy they expanded the range of mouse sensitivity.

ME2 on pc doesn't have gamepad support either. For some reason they think people on pc don't want it but its definitely a game you want to sit back and watch like a movie, rather than be hunched over a computer screen like playing an RTS.

All my characters and dlc are on 360 and seeing the pc version will only really benefit from 1080p and 60fps, I think I'll go with 360 for this.

@warxsnake said:

Just a heads up for people who might not know.

If texture sharpness is your priority, anisotropic filtering is your best friend and is essential.

That's only for texture work that's fading into the distance at an angle, usually a road or building. My issue is with the character's clothes and close up textures in general. Very blurry.

Pretty sure I had all the settings maxed out also, unless there's something I need to enable via the control centre and not in game.

The shooting felt much, much better to me. It's not Gears but it makes ME2 seem clunky in comparison. I was on 360, by the way.

Now, I didn't really notice the graphics. I thought they looked pretty good, though I'll concede that people don't really look all that great. There are some low res things here and there but nothing bad, and probably just from an old build. I hope. Either way, I'm not the kind of person to be bothered by them at all.

I like that it seems more RPG-ish, at least in the numbers sense. It has actual skill trees now. Sort of. Anyway, it's better than ME2's list of like 4 things to upgrade here and there, but nowhere near as expansive or interesting as ME1's long list of things to upgrade. At least they made an effort to bring the RPG parts of this game to more attention, the numbers part of RPG's anyway. Which brings me to...

...the story and writing. Now, I know it's just a demo, but something seemed off to me as far as the writing goes. Shephard was a bit hammier this time around, what with his "rousing speeches" and what not. The human council says "what are we supposed to do?" and Shephard goes "FIGHT!" and it didn't come across very well to me. It felt contrived and forced. The rest of the dialogue was all right. Action movie quips seem to have also snuck in, which isn't a bad thing as long as they aren't overused or too hammy. The game itself seemed focused on delivering action and not story, which again is not necessarily a bad thing but it doesn't illustrate that this game's predecessors had a very heavy emphasis on talking to people. I can see why this one would be a little heavier on the action, but I would not have played through ME 1 and 2 if I did not enjoy the writing and talking. It's disheartening to see Bioware and EA fail at showing us anything more than a shadow of the talky parts, with half-assed and inconsequential "choices" spread here and there. Normally I wouldn't be worried but this was also in the Arrival DLC, which I didn't like much.

So there's my poorly worded opinion piece on this demo. Did I like it? Yes! Did it get me more excited for the game? Yes! Is there a slight bit of wariness in me? Unfortunately, yes, but it isn't going to stop me from pre-ordering it if I can.

@JeanLuc: I noticed that too... Aiming felt so much better on the PC which was nice.

After playing the 360 demo over the weekend, the pc version looks waaaaaaaay better, the 360 version is a blurry low res mess, and i prefer the kb/m controls for these games oddly.

@Vitor said:

@Vitor: I had the same issues as an Adept when I first played it.

Apparently this is because the weapons add weight and slow down your cooldown.

If you went just pistol it would be the same like in the beginning of the game. The demo doesn't give a clue nor does it allow for that option though...nice job bioware.

That being said...I really didn't like what I saw. The demo didn't win me over. But I'm still excited to see what the multiplayer portion looks like when it unlocks so I can play with my friends as a Krogan Vanguard or an Adept.

EDIT: Also Shepard moves like a cartoon character with his run and roll animations.

I had no idea. That's worse than the 'unexplained timer' problem that myself and many others had with ME2. That was just an isolated incident, not explaining something like this could affect someone's entire playthrough.

I did see that my cooldowns were taking longer when I was using the rifle in the second level. Interesting choice and a nice touch I have to say, but it needs to be explained in the full game.

I agree with the run animation. Rolls are also weird. And the option to vault over cover should never have going into cover as a prerequisite. It just slows things down too much. Give me a dedicated jump/traverse button.

Well of course it's going to be in the main game, probably the first time you go to a weapons bench. You're criticizing a demo.

Didn't know there was a PC demo, should help decide if I get the PC version or stick to 360. Also, if you pre-order on Origin you get Battlefield 3 free...

@mosdl: Have battlefield 3 so that doesn't really help my decision that much.

I am loving the PC demo, it feels so much better than ME2 did when I played it on 360

game controls basically the same as Mass Effect 2(pc version), i have no problems with that. don't care much about the textures, they were bad in ME2 as well but that didn't stop me from playing it.

Shame about lack of controller support. This is definitely a couch game. But it was totally expected after ME1 and ME2 did the same.

@mosdl said:

Didn't know there was a PC demo, should help decide if I get the PC version or stick to 360. Also, if you pre-order on Origin you get Battlefield 3 free...

Wait, SERIOUSLY? SOLD.

@Brodehouse: You say that, but Bioware do have a track record of poorly explained mechanics. DA1 for instance is only hard when you don't know what you're doing and that's a big part of why so many people found that title tough.

Gonna play the ME3 demo on PC tonight. I'll try it on PS3 later down the road. Played ME1 & 2 on a gamepad (the first one on PC nonetheless). It's absolutely essential for my enjoyment of conversations. I hate to sit-up during dialog. I like to sit back and take it all in - laid back and in peace. With my gamepad in hand. Might just opt for PS3 soley for playing it on a gamepad.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME ABOUT LACKING GAMEPAD SUPPORT - BIOWARE?

*sry - but that had to be shouted*

Not tried ME3 because I already know I'm going to buy it and I'm not going to spoil it, but I can say that playing ME2 on 360 and on PC on the same 720p TV it looks pretty much exactly the same. Unlike the Dragon Age games which look vastly superior on PC compared to 360 even at the same 720p resolution. Mass Effect is not a PC franchise.

No 360 controller support for a console port in 2012 is unacceptable. Even most indie games support it so there is simply no excuse for a huge release published by EA to not support it.

I just wish the PC demo hadn't made it so I can't play Mass Effect 2 anymore because of some stupid Physx issue...

Why is it so goddamn hard to put the roll somewhere else on the keyboard?

Controls are somewhat clunky, cover is really goddamn clunky, combat is overall fun when you're not stuck in something though. Dialogue - big step down in the demo at least.. Vega - are you kidding me? That dude will face the same fate as the ultraboring spaceracist Ashley. It was allright.

My biggest disappointment was the fact I was playing an infiltrator and the game never gave me a sniper rifle to actually play as a sniper. I will play the full version even though I didn't like Mass EFfect 2.

It felt very much like ME2.. but ugh the story was so bad - yes, it is hard to catch up if you are new to ME2.. but shepard doesn't have anymore insight than anyone else just because he fought some of them. I hope it gets better.

The graphics looks fine. The pre-rendered crap was low res pooo (console res) but the rest was fine. Face shadows can be a bit odd, but that is bioware :)

Here is the first mission on a PC if you want to know what the game looks like at 2560x1600 (change the defualt playback res with is 360p):

I do wish it did support the 360 controller. It isn't like combat is hard and i need the fine control of a mouse. This would be a fun game to play on the HTPC/HDTV... but no biggie.

I still find the space bar an odd choice to use for sprint/interact. I keep hitting shift when i want to run and "E" to interact. (yes, totally minor and it takes only 10-15min before you get used to it)

Seriously, no gamepad support ? Fucking Dear Esther has gamepad support ! Fuck you Bioware !

Yes Mass Effect 1 and 2 had a custom interface on PC, but so does Kingdoms of Amalur but it switches instantly when you plug in a controller.

There is no reason not to have this...

Got arround to trying the PC demo today.

Boy oh boy what a mess. Absolutely horrendous textures, every npc is jerking in the cutscenes/dialogues. The running animation on both you and Anderson is hilarious, characters don't feel like they are even touching ground, in several places Shepard simply slid across the floor out of sync with his walk/run. The end of the cutscene where Normandy is hauling ass is sped up of something? everything seems to happening in 1.5X speed making the normandy flyng away and the reaper movements afterwards comical. I suppose this is because theing demo mission is devoid of context, but I felt 0 emotional punch, the way Earth gets invaded is like a limp dick flopping about, there is absolutely no sense of dread.

Switched to the co-op multiplayer. Heyo 3 abilities, i see what you did there Bioware. Personally i'm ok with the MP being designed with a controller in mind. Seems logical anyway. Had issues getting into games, where it would find games but hang in loading screen (pre squad deployment) for several minutes with no way to quit out and restart the search. At one point after I biotic charged at straight after being revived my dudette disconnected from the floor and started floating above the level. Nice to see this good old bug from ME2 make a return.

I already have my ME3 preordered since I'm going to play it regardless. But man that PC demo was a pile of trash.