A summary of everything we've seen so far. Let the invasion begin

Following something from the beginning is a very unique experience. I remember getting the first Mass Effect game for Christmas from my ex, and I can't really remember why I was drawn to it in the first place - this was before I was involved in the games industry properly, so I wasn't as wired into what was going on as I was now. Regardless of the why, I remember being completely suckered into its sci-fi world. Sure the first game had its problems, but it was still great. The second game - whilst cutting out a lot of the RPG stuff - took the cinematic experience to a whole new level, and was fantastic in its' own right. Now the third game is incoming, and to be honest it's hard not to be excited.
 

Gears kind of does it better, but the Horde-like multiplayer is still fun

But what do we know about it so far? Well, bits and bobs really - In terms of singleplayer (and in general), we know that the cover system has been improved to make it more 'Gears' like - although the aim was just to make combat more fluid. The AI has been improved as well as other little additions like grenades and your Omni-Tool can do execution moves. In terms of mini-games Bioware hasn't been that forthcoming, although we hear rumours that there's supposed to be Mako and Hammerhead missions.

In terms of the story, obviously we're going to be experiencing the conclusion to this current arc - the Reaper Invasion. We've all seen how it starts with a Reaper attack on earth, and something involving a female Krogan is also present - other than that, we only have a vague idea that Shepard needs to go around the Galaxy and rally all of the sentient races to withstand the invasion. Decisions from both Mass Effect AND Mass Effect 2 will come into play here, and if you were paying close enough attention you can probably already figure out what some of those decisions might involve.

Where-as Mass Effect was more of an old-school RPG, Mass Effect 2 streamlined a lot of things so that it was more cinematic - too much, some might say. For Mass Effect 3 they've moved the slider along again to try and find a balance between cinematic and depth. Whilst many past characters will return (unless they died), the actual amount that you can have in your party will be a lot smaller, allowing for more deeper one-on-one character relationships, including any romance options you may have to enter into/continue. There will also be weapon customisation, with five mods per weapon type (for a total of 25). Skills will also have branching trees when you get to the higher levels.
 

Mass Effect 3 gives you more opportunities to get up close and personal

And then of course we come to the new multiplayer mode - Galaxy at War. Rumours of multiplayer in Mass Effect 3 had been circulating for some time, and in a way it's a logical next step for Bioware - but is it needed? That's a hard one to answer - we'd like to think the Mass Effect brand is strong enough to stand without needing anything drastically new, like The Elder Scrolls, but someone, somewhere thought it would be a neat idea, and so here we are. Galaxy at War is a four player co-op mode, where you fight through a variety of missions in order to help boost your single player campaign.



The concept of Galaxy at War is that you fight for key resources or locations in order to help raise the 'Galactic Readiness' level - a bar of some kind that we assume affects how good an ending you get in the single-player. Whilst Bioware was keen to point out that it's still possible to get the best ending without doing multiplayer, the thinking is that it would make it easier. So far, all we've seen is a horde-like mode where you and your team need to defend against waves of enemies - either Geth, Cerberus or Reapers ( you can choose which 'set' to face). We're not sure if there's any other variation of game mode, it might just be they use the same one for every scenario - whether you're attacking or defending.

It's a shame there's no real point to multiplayer other than to feed into the single-player game - we can't see many incentives to play the online component just for itself, and there is no competitive mode either - perhaps the next game? You don't play as Shepard, instead you play as a generic soldier that you get to create, and you can customise their class, as well as what race - including Asari, Drell, Krogans, Salarians, and Turians. There are also ability trees, although you can only have two weapons. Multiplayer also has the weapons customisation that the single-player has, although nothing you do in multiplayer (apart from Galactic Readiness) carries over into single-player - they're both pretty separate.
 

Is it me, or does everyone look more badass in this game?

Mass Effect 3 is worth getting excited about, even though we should warn about the dangers of hype. The story is there, gameplay seem to be there... multiplayer may end up being the weakest link, but with any luck it won't detract from the overall experience. From what we've seen so far, Bioware may have found the right balance between the old-school loot-based RPG and the more streamlined experience of the second game. New players may find it difficult to into, who knows, but then in this instance it would be like watching the third Matrix film first or something. Still, we can't wait for March to roll around so that we can finally take the fight to the reapers. Mass Effect 3 is due out for Xbox 360, PC and Playstation 3 on March 6th 2012 in North America, and March 9th 2012 in Europe.

Most Anticipated Feature: The story - that's the only reason I personally play the Mass Effect games. I want to see how it all turns out.