Mass Effect 3 details revealed!

[phyzik]

http://lytherus.com/2011/04/11/mass-effect-3-details-revealed/

A brand new set of details about Mass Effect 3 have just come out. They reveal a lot of new information about the game and will also brief us about some important gameplay aspects.

Be warned, these are potential SPOILERS.
That being said, enjoy!

•Humans aren’t the only species that can be Husk-ified.

•ME3 begins with Earth’s assault by the Reapers, and things don’t look so good, but there’s something that is a silver lining, that makes it look like it’s actually possible to not lose against the reapers.

•TIM has sent his top agents to take down Shepard, The combat is going to be much harder and melee attacks are going to have more focus.

•Shooting specific armor parts can have certain effects, and the AI of the enemies will have them routing Shepard and will coordinate with each other.

•Battlefields are going to be a great deal larger, and combat will be very varied.

•Enemy Weapons can be picked up. Soldiers can carry all kinds of weapons, and other classes understandably less so.

•There is a larger skill tree and RPG aspects are going to be more integrated.

•Weapon Modding is a greenlight, with things like barrels and scopes.

•Modding your weapons will vastly affect their appearance and how they function in battle.

•So far the CONFIRMED SQUADMATES are: Ashley/Kaiden, Liara, Garrus, and James Sanders who is mentioned is an Alliance Marine.

•Species Loyalty cannot only get obtained via Quests.

•Levels will have ladders.

•Available Squadmates will still maintain a balance, if per say Garrus had not survived ME2′s events.

•Mass Effect 1′s decisions, such as sparing the Rachni, will have a grave impact in ME3.

•There’s no railroad to the end of the game, there are multiple paths to take back Earth.

[Xevious]

Good stuff. I like that they are reintroducing some of the PRG elements from the first game, as well as weapon modding, while improving on the combat from ME2.

It's going to be interesting to see how they handle the squad mates. Aside from Ashley/Kaiden, Liara, and the new guy, everybody else from both games could potentially be dead. I imagine all the possible love interests will be squad mates if they're alive. And it sounds like the new character(s) will be a different class depending on who is living or not to make sure you have all classes at your disposal.

I'm also interested in the choices you've made in dealing with the different species. While is seems like the "right" thing to do to cure the Krogan, spare the Rachni, or rewrite the Geth because they could all be potential allies against the Reapers... those decisions could come back to bite you in the ass later.

[vander]

ah shit, I don't have my ME1 or 2 game files anymore

[phyzik]

ah shit, I don't have my ME1 or 2 game files anymore

Here you go! :toast

http://www.masseffectsaves.com/ (for the PC version only though)

This webpage is gonna be an awesome resource to test out all the endings once I finish my game.

[mingus]

i'm gonna have to go back and play through Mass Effect 1 and buy Mass Effect 2, which i never even played. it looks like Mass Effect 3 is going to go back to the series' RPG roots. could have played Mass Effect 2 already, but when i needed my RPG fix and found out that Mass Effect 2 did away w/ a lot of the RPG elements from the first (like customization, as far as skills, armor, etc.) i went with Fallout 3 instead. can't say it was a bad decision, Fallout 3 is one of my fav. games ever now.

[ynh]

Mass Effect 2 is one of the best games I have ever played. Yeah the game play is sped up and there is less RPG and more shooter to it.. but the game blows Mass Effect 1 out of the water. The story is much better and the action is intense. I also feel there were greater consequences to your actions. You know me, Paul. I hardly ever finish games.. maybe 1 out of every 20-30 games I buy I actually completely finish. Mass Effect 2 was one of those games that I couldn't put down and beat in two days because I couldn't put it down. I didn't do the DLC though.. But yeah. If you have even a thought of playing Mass Effect 3 you are going to have to go play through Mass Effect 2 or you will be lost and you also won't see the consequences of your actions.

[vander]

ME2 was so hallway shooter I started to get claustrophobic, AI was terrible too

ME1 was awesome

[phyzik]

There's a pretty good article in the latest Game Informer magazine.... Reading it right now.

A few points of interest from the article....

- The game starts off on Earth with commander Shepard being scrutinized by the Alliance for the events that took place in the recent "Arrival" DLC.

- There are hints (according to the article) that Captain Anderson might be a party member. Most likely temporarily.

- The Normandy is back in Alliance hands and is being taken apart, studied and rebuilt with new rooms and area's to explore.

- Earth is lost at the very begining of the game, the opening scenes show whats happening in places around the world like New york, London and Japan.

- Instead of just gambling with the lives of the Normandy crew, Shepard may have to sacrifice entire civilizations to end the war with the Reapers. (one guess I have for this is probably choosing between the Quarians or the Geth seeing as the Quarians are trying to take back their home planet).

- Combat will be similar to that of ME2, with some optimizations such as being able to leap over gaps, and there are no weapon restrictions. Any character can use any weapon.

- Other confirmed characters that will make an appearance, but not necessarily be in your squad are: Wrex, Mordin, Legion, Anderson, Udina and the Illusive Man

- For those people like Vander who dont have their saves anymore, your in luck. If you start a new character in ME3, it does a sort of "story so far" sequence and asks you questions on what you would have done in the events from ME1 and 2. It's basically a save game creator.