Mass Effect 3

[capcom_suicide]

14 hours in, still loving it. Some small niggles:

- There is no loading on PC (less than a second) so why bother with the loading screen, it's gone before you see it.
- I would like to holster my weapons
- The journal doesn't tell you have far you have got on a quest, so it can be confusing in multi step quests
- The galaxy map doesn't show the highlighted side quest, no "Set active" button on quests
- The space bar is used for jumping, running and cover, so I end up sticking to cover all the time.
- The inclusion of jumping super fast and speedy enemies is always a risk, they fail in ME3 too.
- The outisde maps feel a bit too constricted and tight, when compared to landing on a moon with a rover and then finding a base to explore. I kinda feel something inbetween would be better, perhaps even a Just Cause openworld with space ports?
- Poor lip sync
- Limited visual enhancements for PC: No high res textures, DX11 effects or geometry enhancements

+ The story is super
+ Artistic style is wonderful and at 1440p the low res textures are easy to ingore when everything else looks so good
+ I like the new main missions, good variety and fun to do
+ I love that I can put the shooting part on causual, but remain on RPG setting, for me combat is not the strongest part of ME, so if I had uber hard AI too, I'd not play it through. Same as ME1 and ME2, the games for me are more like an interactive story, good that I can make shooting easy, but keep the story choices and upgrades manual.
+ I am getting a good emotional connection with many characters and scenes, I do really feel immersed.
+ Good voice acting, but I think Uncharted has the edge

I don't know how far I am, I just

->Open Spoiler<-

returned to the citidal to kick some arse

but after 14 hours the game is a "10" for a die hard fan like me, but if I was not such a fanboy I think the negatives could easily put this as an 8 or 9 for a review. Despite the weaknesses, the sum of it's parts just make it the perfect game for me.

Moving forwards the same sort of experience in an openworld would be interesting!

[Finsbury Girl]

Is there any more to the multiplayer apart from the "horde mode" that was released in the demo?

Anyone?

[Neon Ignition]

From what I can gather, the horde/wave mode is all there is.

[Finsbury Girl]

From what I can gather, the horde/wave mode is all there is.

Thanks CTN. A pity, however I did really enjoy the demo so not a deal breaker. They could've really integrated this into the main narrative with co-op missions v Reapers etc. That's the impression I thought they were aiming for - aren't you supposed to benefit in some way in the SP from doing the multiplayer?

[Daragon]

C_S, you can force the PC version to display (unsupported) higher resolution visuals using your graphics card's control panel. Try playing with 16x AF!

On a slightly unrelated note, has anyone that preordered from play.com received their bonus code? No sign of mine yet

[Neon Ignition]

Playing mp raises your Galaxy at War rating which contributes to which ending you get but not playing it causes the rating to fall back down to 50% with time so it seems best to leave the mp until just before the last mission then play it if you need to up the rating at the last leg.

[Mr_Skinny]

Thanks, thought as much. I think the quest is bugged

There's a side quest to collect intel, did you examine all of the computer terminals & data pads in the buildings?

[S3M]

Main trouble I'm having with mp is maintaining a game, it's so common for the host to die early on and then quit rather than spectate. Other than that and too many gung-ho quick to die, objective ignoring players its okay.

Not had that problem with MP more just people running off and getting killed and bad lag, seen a few bugs as well including unkillable enemies.

More than happy to play a MP match with anyone on 360, I'm goiing to have a shot and go for gold on each stage once I get my currect character to 20.

Haven't touched the single player but truth be told from what I've played it's a very avarage game, fun just average. I got Ghost Trick & Super Scribblenauts in the GAME sale and both are much better games than ME3.

[JSR]

Anybody tried the Kinect features in this? Sounds incredibly cool to be able to speak the lines yourself, and open doors by telling them to "open".

[sj33]

- The journal doesn't tell you have far you have got on a quest, so it can be confusing in multi step quests!

Urgh, the amount of times I thought a quest was bugged because it didn't seem to disappear when I thought I'd completed it. I've had to check guides on Google a few times simply because the journal information was so unhelpful.

One small critisism of the visuals, there appears to be a massive variation in detail between many of the textures. Overall I think it looks gorgeous, but little things like that stick out like a sore thumb (for example, how the resolution of the texture of the armour looks to be about a quarter of the resolution of the faces).

[capcom_suicide]

C_S, you can force the PC version to display (unsupported) higher resolution visuals using your graphics card's control panel. Try playing with 16x AF!

THANKS!!

16x rocks!

Really made a difference

[EvilBoris]

THANKS!!

16x rocks!






HD links:

http://matthewduke.com/ntscuk/ME3_16x_2.jpg

http://matthewduke.com/ntscuk/ME3_16x_1.jpg

Really made a difference

Now on top of that you want to turn on SMAA or FXAA too.
You could alternatively use it instead of going all the way upto 16x and boost up your FPS

I've got some 4k screenshots I took yesterday... I'll post them later.

[Garny]

Well i finished this tonight. Like most i think the ending(s) are a bit of a let down, but the biggest problem for me is you can only get the best ending(s) if you play the tacked on multiplayer. I can only assume it was the mighty EA with yet more of their great wisdom that lead Bioware to do this.

[rmoxon]

Well i finished this tonight. Like most i think the ending(s) are a bit of a let down, but the biggest problem for me is you can only get the best ending(s) if you play the tacked on multiplayer. I can only assume it was the mighty EA with yet more of their great wisdom that lead Bioware to do this.

You can still get the best ending if you complete most of the quests I think.

Even the achievments are tailored so you dont have to play multiplayer much if you dont want (as most of them say things like "reach either level 30 multiplayer or 60 in single player", in fact I dont think there is a single MP specific one, but could be wrong). Bioware clearly want us to enjoy the single player without thinking about the multiplayer much, so i dont belive for a second they made it so you need to play the multiplayer.

[SuperBeatBoy]

You have to play the multiplayer to get the best ending, finished it last night and i did almost all the quests. You need a readiness of 10,000 to get it.