Mass Effect 3 Hands-on Impressions, by Ray Muzyka

Since he’s the company co-founder, there is an obvious amount of bias in Ray Muzyka’s hands-on impressions of Mass Effect 3 on Kotaku, but considering that we’ve already been reading through Jessica Chobot’s previews of the game on G4 for months, I figured it was only par for the course. A hefty excerpt:

“It’s like Decision-making with a capital D,” Ray said. “Every time there was a big decision when something bad happens and or good something impactful happens with consequence when you make a decision. There’s lots of them through the game, they all feel like, ‘˜Yeah that was appropriate, but holy shit! That was expected, but boy, that was hard. I’d still make the same decision, but boy that was interesting. That was compelling.’ There are kinds of moments in the game that I think people will talk about years from now. It’s a significant game in that respect.”

That was in the previous games, but it’s been intensified, Ray said.

Look, Ray is pumped for this game. He just rattles off all these things he likes about it:

“A lot of the [series’] elements have been refined: the progression system, having a weapon bench so you can tinker with your weapon and mod them, it’s really fun. It’s cool. The mining experience. using it to find materials that are required for quests. It links together really well. The multiplayer, the way it’s integrated in and the seamless way it helps amp up your galactic readiness and gives you more resources to build your fleet, your alliance against the Reapers. They’re very thoughtful the way they’re apportioned and is building on a foundation from ME 1. I think it’s really taking the best of what we’ve seen and added significant elements of innovation too.”

I’d played a little bit of Mass Effect 3 myself. Some multiplayer and a mission on Mars in singleplayer, both at events set up for members of the media like me.

Ray is not a member of the media. By having played through the whole new game, he has seen a whole lot more of it than me. So I asked him if the side stuff really was better. It always seemed like the weak part of these games. The mining and exploration? Kinda mindless and sometimes tedious, no?

Ray said that everything I mentioned has been addressed in this game.

“The exploration in this game is really cool,” Ray assured me. “The system involves a Reaper threat. The Reapers are on the edge of the system. By scanning the worlds, the Reapers actually get engaged more and more. You have to scan the planets to find key objectives, to find away-team missions, to find resources that actually solve RPG quests back on different planets. You have to bring things back to a planet and talk to people and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, cool, I’ll help you now’ and that kind of thing. If you scan more the Reapers start coming in and you have to evade the Reapers in the system by literally having to drive the ship around. It’s actually kind of fun.

“There’s no limit on scans now,” he added. “There’s no limit on probes. That’s not a constraint anymore.”