Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Impressions

Character Setup;

“Welcome to the N7 Special Ops Team.”  

Well first things first, they direct you to a store, where with a currency of credits (which you have zero and I cannot figure out how to earn more of) they give you a free starter pack that unlocked 4 items and a character.  The next screen is character select screen where you can choose from Adept, Soldier, Engineer, Sentinel, Infiltrator, and Vanguard – each of which are level one (except Soldier who is level 3 thanks to the free starter pack unlock of Krogan). Every class has one character available and 3 more that can be unlocked, each with a different look or race plus differing skills.

For my first attempt at a match, I went with Adept (Human Male with the skills Warp, Singularity and Shockwave) solely because that was my play style and skills used in Mass Effect 2.

Next you get to customize your Appearance.  Here you get to choose your Character Name, adjust your Primary Color and Highlight Color.  There are options for Secondary Color, Pattern, Pattern Color and Lights – all of which are greyed out at the start of the demo and say “Customization options for this character are unlocked with class XP bonus cards, available in reinforcement packs.”  I set my character name to ‘Tom E Gunn’ and went for black as a Primary Color, and white as a Highlight color – pretty much every color in the rainbow is there to choose from.

The multiplayer menu has 5 choices, Quick Match, Create New Match, Character, Leaderboards, and Store.

Going backwards, the Store has the Recruit Pack and Veteran Pack for 5000 Credits and 20000 Credits respectively.  The packs include 5 random items or characters.

Next is the Leaderboards, which has a window for Friends, Country, and Global and before playing I ranked as 1, 597 and 7351.  After five matches I was ranked 1, 509 and 6304.

Now the Character menu is a bit more complicated with options for Powers, Weapons, Appearance, Equipment and Store.  Selecting Powers beings you to a familiar menu from Mass Effect 2 where I chose to learn Warp. Surprize! A new menu, each skill has a skill tree of 6 ranks!  Selecting Weapons is a whole new menu where you can select from Sniper Rifle, Assault Rifle, Submachine Gun, Shotgun and Heavy Pistol.  You can also modify each weapon similar to how you can in previous games.  The major difference is you have a carrying capacity that directly affects your Power Recharge Speed.  The fewer weapons you carry, the quicker your skills reload, and the more you carry in your load-out, the slower your skills recharge. You can only select 2 weapons, and I went with an assault rifle, and a modified pistol with a sight attachment. Appearance is the same as before but the Equipment menu is totally new. Here there are options for Ammo Bonus, Weapon Bonus, and Armor Bonus – all of which are greyed out because I have none. And once again, Store is the same as before.

When creating a custom match you can make adjustments to Team, Location, Enemy and Challenge.  Team can be set to Public or Private.  Location is your map select. Enemy is locked onto Cerberus. And Challange can be set to Bronze, Silver or Gold which I am assuming is the difficulty.

And now...after all this writing, I finally get to click Quick Match...And it is the exact same menu as Create New Match except for options of randomization.

Searching for Games...

Gameplay Impressions;

So the multi-player is a 4 player co-op horde mode.  That is to say, 4 humans work together to kill waves upon waves of enemies.  Everything looks and feels pretty much the exact same as Mass Effect 2 except that powers’ ability to go around corners and attack enemies in cover is greatly improved. Also, the AI of the baddies is far superior to previous games, and actually quite intimidating...

I tried 5 matches, and well, I got stomped (quite literally) by the AI every match.

Match 1; the same as every first match of a game, discover the default is not inverted and proceed to invert the mouse.  Then admire the pretty colors until you are getting shot at, and then die. Plain and simple, I got caught in the open with my pants down having a nice wank to the amazing graphics.  While I was incapacitated I had the option to mash the X button (on Playstation) to slow the rate at which I bleed-out and give my human friends a chance to revive me.  Well, the AI got to me quicker, and stomped my face into little bits of goo and helmet...end match 1.

There is a pretty little debrief screen similar to that of Battlefield of Call of Duty that tells you how much experience you gained and if you levelled up.  Something I really appreciate and would like to note is that the amount of experience you earn on a kill is directly related to how much damage you did to the victim; unlike Call of Duty where points are just awarded for the kill.

I was then quickly thrown back into the load-out screen that lets you make customisations or level up before clicking ready to proceed to the next match.

Match 2; my allies and I thought we had a one up on the baddies by setting up a kill-zone around where they spawned last match...but guess what?  They AI spawning location is random, we got flanked, and for a second time my face met the boot of a Cerberus operative.

Match 3; I suspect this was when my allies realized this was a squad styled game, and that we have to work together – well 3 of us did at least... The one fellow who decided he would be a hero and ran off by himself was screaming to be revived over the microphone, and somehow the ‘hero complex’ infected me.  I ran out from cover, died, and got my face stomped by the AI – all within a matter of 15 to 20 seconds.  After that the two remaining allies, who were defending from cover, got bombarded with frag grenades until they were flanked and killed.  The debrief screen told me that I levelled up, so on the load-out screen I had 3 points to choose new powers with.

Match 4; things went pretty much the same in wave 1 – ally ran from cover, died, I ran to revive him, died.  But this time the two left made it to wave 2 so we all got revived!  This time we all stuck closely together, and tried to defend a location.  I did my Mass Effect 2 style of play of hiding in cover, then tossing a singularity at an enemy followed up by a warp to make them fly high into the sky.  This was working rather well, until the smoke screens arrived – the smoke prevents you from locking a power onto an enemy.  The AI tossed a few well placed smoke screens, along with frags, then once again flanked our cover and stomped our faces one by one.

This is when I decided that perhaps my team was cursed and I should try to find a new one.

Match 5; my last team was indeed cursed, and this new team was pro!  The trick seems to be sticking together, while moving together through the map from cover to cover to prevent the AI from surrounding and flanking you.  We obliterated wave 1, and in wave 2 I got my face stomped, due to falling behind the squad, but alas the team won and I was revived. Now wave 3 was a whole new ball game – in wave there you have 5 minutes to disarm 4 computer consoles.  This really puts this new found tactic of movement to the test.  We were successful in defusing 2 of 4, but while working on number 3 the room was flooded with smoke and my bomb tech friend was blown up by a frag grenade.  Once more I played into the motif of being killed while trying to revive my ally...and with that...the team fell.

Pro’s – I love it!  Amazing experience playing this game so far, it gets the heart pumping that’s for sure!  Very fast paced action, which I felt the old games lacked during action sequences. The AI has improved, directly changing the game play.  The multiplayer will be a great way to enjoy the game after beating the campaign besides just playing it again, and the levelling up in multiplayer gives the sense of progression and rewards the dedicated player.  I’m going to be buying this when it comes out, that’s for sure!

Con’s – I could not figure out how to customise the buttons that my skills are assigned to, which was extremely frustrating with trying to transition from my old play style and gut reactions. Oh, and inverted y-axis was not default.  That is all.

If you are a fan of the franchise, or have never played, I highly reccommend this game and suggest you head on over to Amazon and pick up a copy for either aXbox, PC or PS3 version to have it on your doorstep on March 6th, 2012!

Cheers!