Our First Impressions Of Mass Effect 3’s Multiplayer Demo

When it comes to modern RPGs, the Mass Effect series is at the top for me. It’s much better than Persona 3, Fallout 3, and even Skyrim. For the main games, you got fantastic cinematic storytelling, an extremely immersive universe, and most importantly, excellent characters that you really care about. It’s also interesting to see how the game evolved from an RPG similar to Knights of the Old Republic to an extremely competent hybrid of 3rd-person shooter and RPG, and when it was announced that it would have multiplayer, I was worried that it was the first potential sign that Mass Effect 3 would not be as great a game as the first two. To my surprise, when the demo was released and multiplayer was open to everyone, it was fantastic…! Intense game play that plays EXACTLY like Mass Effect 3’s single player campaign, strong co-op, and a really fun experience, the multiplayer certainly has a lot going for it.

Mass Effect 3’s Multiplayer has you playing as part of a squad whose task is to survive wave after wave of enemy forces until an Alliance shuttle can extract you and your squad from danger. You and three other players have to survive ten waves of enemies, with special tasks to accomplish at the 3rd, 6th, and 10th wave. These usually involve deactivating/activating 4 targets on the map, or fortifying a specific location to allow/stop the upload of intel, and after the final wave, you fortify your starting location for 2 minutes until a friendly shuttle can pick you up and end the mission. At this time, there are only two maps with three difficulty levels, but it’s still fun to play.

What’s great about the multiplayer is the sense of teamwork you get from each match as you need to work together in order to survive. It is possible to play by yourself or with one other person, but the maps do not adjust the amount of enemies in relation to how many players are in a single match, especially since the enemies are actively pursuing you in Mass Effect 3, unlike Mass Effect 2 in which the majority of enemies only advanced when you moved from your position. In order to win, it’s best to have at least 2 other people to back you up. At the end of each match, you get experience to level up your character and credits to buy different packs of items, which include weapons, mods for your weapons and armor, weapon upgrades, consumable items, and the ability to unlock further customization for a specific class.

When you start multiplayer, you choose a class and then you choose a character. There are 4 characters to each class: Two humans (Male and Female) and two aliens. As of now, only one character is unlocked, and I’m assuming that as you buy more item packs, you can unlock the other characters. Each race per class has unique abilities, so if you want a specific power set, try to unlock that character as you play more of the game. After you name your character, you can adjust his primary armor color and highlight color, with other customization options waiting to be unlocked.

Afterwards, you’re brought to the character menu in which you can choose and upgrade your powers like in the main game, change your weapon loadout as well as mod your weapons with scopes and other add-ons, add special enhancements for a single match via the Equipment option, or buy more item packs from the store. With weapons, you can only equip two guns total and you can’t carry two of the same type (IE, can’t carry two shotguns at once), but you can choose whatever guns you like, so it’s a good balance. One disappointing thing is that while you can create more than one character per class, you can’t delete your character. If you’re playing a human, you can move to the other gender since humans have the same skills in each class, but if you mess up with any of the other races, you’re stuck with a bad setup, and at this point, I don’t know if there is a way to re-adjust your powers.

When you’re done perfecting your character, it’s time to join a match. You’re able to join any match via Quick Match, create a new match and see personal and global leaderboards. Regardless of whether you choose quick match or create new match, you get to choose your map and your difficulty level. With creating a new match, you can choose to make it public, so anyone using quick match can access your lobby, or private, so that only your Origin friends can access the room. You can examine mission settings, adjust your character settings as if you were in the character screen, and adjust options here.

When you’re ready to play, click “Ready”, wait for everyone else, and in 5 seconds, you’re dropped into the match.  Another disappointing note is that there’s no general lobby where you can pick and choose player rooms, so you can pick the ones with a decent internet connection. When I used Quick Match, the hosting player’s internet connection was unstable half the time, which meant plenty of lag and matches ending prematurely when the hosting player is disconnected. This is probably the most disappointing part of the Multiplayer, and I hope that when the full game is released, there is at least an option to pull up a general lobby to pick your matches.

All in all, the multiplayer for Mass Effect 3 is very solid, and it is a good example of how to do co-op multiplayer well. The aggressive enemies and increasingly difficulty help reinforce working together as a team, and that is definitely the best part of the multiplayer altogether. It also feels more immersive than the main game at this time since you are playing as your own character in the Mass Effect universe rather than your version of Shepard. However, the disappointments that I pointed out will definitely turn off some players, especially those who play mostly for the multiplayer. Bioware/EA has at least some time to fix these issues, and if not, there will hopefully be a patch that addresses this in the near future. I definitely recommend checking out the single player campaign before you dive straight into the multiplayer, just so you can get an idea of how it works. You can download the demo and get more information about Mass Effect 3 at masseffect.bioware.com.