Opportunity Lost

The failure to move forward with a high-quality movie is keeping Mass Effect from being the next great Sci-Fi franchise.  I was killing some time this weekend and ended up watching some Mass Effect compilation videos on YouTube.  It made me think about whatever happened to the Mass Effect movie and perhaps a huge opportunity being squandered by EA/Bioware and “Hollywood” to bring the next great Sci-Fi movie trilogy to non-gamers.

Some of the videos put together by other Mass Effect fans are awesome.  If you haven’t you should watch a couple of the ones that take all the cut scenes and make them into a movie of sorts covering Mass Effect, ME2 and ME3.  Mass Effect fans have some serious video capture and editing skills way beyond mine.

As I recall Legendary Pictures was to produce the movie and it had a substantial amount of steam at one time.   A quick Internet search using Google pulled these two articles; “Universal May Have Just Announced the Mass Effect Movie” and  “Original ‘Mass Effect’ Movie Writer Says Game Was Too Difficult to Adapt.”  Seems like these two articles contradict each other.  Maybe some other sites that follow Hollywood movie productions might have some insight.

The second article is interesting because it includes a interview with the writer of the first ME script. The writer says he was adapting the first Mass Effect for the movie.  I like the idea of adapting the three games as a movie trilogy.  Although gamers would be familiar with the plot generally the public would not.  Mass Effect would be a breath of fresh air for the rest of the moving going public.  

The story line of the games is solid enough that with minimal Hollywood interpretation they can be made into quality movie scripts.  If you can add to that quality directing, actors and special effects you’ll have a great movie.  Of course that is a lot of ifs that need to come together.  How many poor sci-fi movies have you seen based on quality source material?  Perhaps the “John Carter” movie based on Edgar Rice’s books or the Chris Roberts “Wing Commander” movie based on the “Wing Commander” video game come to mind just to name two.  (Speaking of Chris Roberts his new “Star Citizen” game funded through crowd sourcing looks impressive.)

Here’s a interesting article about the upcoming WoW movie and why Legendary Pictures’ ME movie isn’t moving as fast as the WoW movie did.  So perhaps a ME movie is still a possibility.  This is interesting too because they talk about how all the WoW lore helped them to make the movie and how all the ME lore is hurting the movie.  Just an fyi, I used to play WoW and really enjoyed the lore.

 

What if Mass Effect was a television series on the scale of the recent remake of Battle Star Galactica on the SyFy channel?  I would certainly support that and could see a four or five year arch to cover ME, ME2 and ME3.  Star Trek started as a television series that spawned movies, books and several video games.  (None of games I played were very good.  I even gave Star Trek Online a try and didn’t find it my cup of tea but I know many people enjoy the game.)  Star Wars started as a books but it was the movie that made it famous and has spawned a whole new era of books and several video games.  From that perspective Star Trek and Star Wars are complete opposite.  Now you have Mass Effect whose genesis is a video game, a few books and it might transition to movies or TV.

I’ve always liked Sci-Fi of all types.  Of course in the space arena I like Star Trek and Star Wars.  However both of these franchises feel old and stale to me.  J.J. Abrams did a good job with the last two Star Trek movies but I can’t say I was really excited about them.  I’m sure I’ll see the new J.J. Abrams Star Wars movie, perhaps when I can rent it on Apple TV, but again I’m not really excited about it.

So what is it that Mass Effect has that Star Wars and Star Trek don’t?  I’m not exactly sure.  All three have huge expansive universes.  They each have interesting and developed characters. I think the difference is interactivity.  In Mass Effect I was actively a part of the story.  In the other movies and TV series I was a passive observer.  That interactivity somehow makes me more invested in the story.

Mass Effect 4 and Dragon Age Inquisition to share the Frostbite engine

Bioware stated that Mass Effect 4 and the new Dragon Age Inquisition will both be built on the Frostbite Engine.

Although I’m not invested in the Dragon Age (DA) series I thought I’d play Dragon Age Inquisition to get a feel for the Frostbite engine and see what we might expect to experience with Mass Effect 4.  I did partially play Dragon Age II and it was horrible on oh so many levels.  Most people and game reviewers who have played DA say the DA Origins was excellent and DA II not a worthy follow up effort.

So I'm 25 hours into DAIQ and so far I'm not impressed.  To be fair I am playing on a Xbox 360.  Perhaps DAIQ on Xbox One or PS4 is significantly better than Xbox 360.  I'll buy an Xbox One when the new Mass Effect comes out.  Wish they would make it for Mac, but I digress.

I'm not a techie and know very little about programming and writing code etc so my experience is just my perceptions as a gamer playing so I don't know if the problems are with Frostbite, Bioware programming or any number of issues that can affect game play.

The first thing that I noticed is that the sound keeps shutting off.  I have to go to an external menu and return to the game to fix the sound.  Occasionally that doesn't work and I have to exit the game completely and reload to get the sound back.  

To continue the sound theme, the sound is often broken up like it isn't properly synched with the animation or the sound can't keep up the video.  This is a frequent problem and is annoying.

Visually the Xbox 360 looks good but there are many instances where the screen doesn't render seamlessly.  This usually affects a section of the screen that doesn't look right then you can watch it fill in.  That might be because the processor, graphics card and available random access memory of the Xbox 360 doesn't have the horsepower to handle the requirements.  Any techies have an explanation?

The game mechanics are similar to Mass Effect with the familiar wheel etc.  You can choose three other characters to be part of your team for missions.  The War Council is somewhat like going the galaxy map on the Normandy in Mass Effect.  Unlike Mass Effect you can switch between characters controlling any toon in your party.  I'm not sure how I feel about this. It is fun to switch occasionally but switching makes me feel like I'm less invested in the character I created to play the game.  For example I created a mage.  But if you get bored and want to check out the abilities of a warrior or rogue you can do that and switch back to your character whenever you want.  I'm sure others may view this as a good feature.  I'm not against it but not sure I want to embrace it either.

Moving through the game zones is a problem.  You are able to mark the location you want to go to and a little graphic in the bottom left corner shows your field of vision and your mark giving you a straight line azimuth to your target.  The problem is that this graphic is blank.  It doesn't show you the terrain between you and your target.  So you'll find that you can't move to the location because there is a terrain feature such as a mountain range between you and your target.  Ultimately you end up having to follow some type of terrain feature going out of your way to get someplace.  You can exit to the menu screen to look at the game map which shows you the terrain around you.  The terrain it shows isn't terribly detained but that ends up taking significant time from actually playing especially if you have to do it frequently to find your way to the target location.

More DAIQ updates to follow.

Mass Effect; The Final Fight

Your squad for Shore Leave.

Well I finally got around to downloading the “Citadel Shore Leave” DLC.  So three games and every DLC later I’m finally at the end of the Mass Effect trilogy.  It’s been quite the ride.

I really like Mass Effect.  First I’ve always enjoyed science fiction but there were three things that I really liked about the Mass Effect series.  Mass Effect had a great story line, fun/interesting characters and more than any other game I’ve played I felt like I was actually the star of this interactive movie.  Other than the original horrific ending of Mass Effect 3 Bioware/EA did a great job overall with this game.  I do think the ending was horrific. 

But TV doesn’t seem to be able to do endings any better if you look at how “Dexter” and other popular TV shows have ended.  So perhaps Bioware/EA should get some slack for the ending.  But seriously were people there actually looking at the ending and saying, “wow, great ending guys, outstanding job?”

So as far as the “Citadel Shore Leave” DLC goes it was fun.  It was a chance for you to go on one last mission with the characters who have been with you for the last couple years with some notable exceptions. 

Spoiler Alert

Some covering fire from your squad.

The Normandy gets sent to the Citadel for some repairs and since the ship is in space dock you get the chance for some much hard-earned leave.  Lucky for you Admiral Anderson decides to give you his apartment on the Citadel so now you have your own home.  You get an email from Joker inviting you out to sushi for dinner.  You meet Joker and discover that each thinks the other sent the invitation.  About that time an Alliance lieutenant joins the party and tells you people are out to kill Shepard.  Immediately after she delivers the warning a hit team attacks and you’re off on your adventure around the Citadel.

Turns out Cerberus made a clone of Shepard who has decided he want’s Shepard’s life and is trying to steal his identity, SPECTRE codes and of course the Normandy.

So the whole gang comes out and helps Shepard stop his evil clone giving you a chance to take some old friends out on a couple missions once again.

Most notably my two favorite characters, Miranda Lawson and Kasumi Goto, weren’t included in this DLC.  Miranda and Kasumi also received the most lame cameos in Mass Effect 3 of all the Mass Effect 2 characters.  So other than that disappointment it was fun to catch up with old battle buddies.

Liara with a pun for Shepard.

In ME Ashley and Garrus were usually my squad members.  In ME2 it was usually Miranda and Kasumi once I did Kasumi’s DLC.  In ME3 it was usually Liara and Garrus.  I took the opportunity to take Wrex (who Ashley killed in my original ME play through) as well as Garrus and Ashley on a couple missions.  I never liked Vega in ME3 so the only mission he ever went on was the Mars mission you had to take him on.

If you haven’t played “Citadel Shore Leave” and have some spare cash laying around go ahead a buy it and give it a try.  It costs about the same as going to the movies so it won’t bankrupt you.

After you finish the mission you get to have a party in your new Citadel digs.  Hang out, joke and dance etc.  They put in a number of jokes and puns that you’ll get if you’ve been along since the beginning.  I always found some humorous lines in Mass Effect but you can tell they really tried more than usual. 

After saving the universe you deserve to party with your friends.

Mass Effect: Paragon Lost

So I was scrolling through movies on Hulu Plus the other night and came across Mass Effect:Paragon Lost.  Since I hadn’t seen it yet I decided to watch it.

I can’t say I’d recommend this animated movie to a Mass Effect fan.  I wouldn’t use it s an introduction to Mass Effect for a noob either because they most likely won’t be coming back to ME.

First off I thought the quality of the cartoon graphics was on the low end.  It just didn’t look high speed.  The facial structures had that Anime look to them if you know what I mean. (Generally I'm not a fan of Anime.)

This animated movie is supposed to be a prequel to Mass Effect 3.  However it seems like it is just a rehash of part of Mass Effect 2.  At its core the producers just picked a segment out of Mass Effect 2 and made a cartoon. 

The story line was confusing even for somebody like me who has played the games, read the books and comics because it didn’t seem to match the timeline in the games.  In Mass Effect 2 Commander Shepard discovered that the Collectors were harvesting Alliance colonies and ultimately undertakes the "suicide mission" to stop them. The Mass Effect 2 story centers around a Collector attack on an Alliance colony to capture humans, using insect drones to paralyze them, and then process them into DNA to use in creating a human Reaper.  Sound familiar? 

And I thought Commander Shepard had already been there and done that...

If you think about the “Remember the Normandy” pin Vega wears and other plugs in the script about Commander Shepard being dead you could take a leap of faith that Paragon Lost is happening after the opening of Mass Effect 2 when the Normandy is destroyed and before Mass Effect 3.  But if that is the case why does Cyberus have to send the reconstituted Commander Shepard to find out why Alliance colonies are disappearing when Vega and the Alliance have already discovered the answer?

Glad I saw this on Hulu Plus and didn’t pay to see it, my Hulu Plus subscription withstanding.

If a Mass Effect movie ever comes out I hope they do it justice.  Maybe a HBO series; something like they did with "Game of Thrones" instead of a movie?

How awesome would be if a great studio produces the movie?  It could be a epic summer movie block buster spawning several sequels, think Batman or the Transformers.  Hopefully like the new Star Trek movies or Star Wars in quality. The other side of this equation is to think of all the bad sci-fi flicks you've seen in your life; weak animation, script writing, actors and producers etc. 

I guess only time will tell.

Mars Mission - Insanity

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Alliance Prothean archives and research station on Mars.

Its been a few months now since Mass Effect 3 came out and I played the single player campaign game.  Since completing the single player campaign I’ve mainly been playing Mass Effect Multiplayer.  I decided to take another run through of the single player campaign mode on insane level.

During the initial introduction to Mass Effect 3 we find out what has happened to Commander Shepard after the destruction of the CollectorBase beyond the Omega 4 Relay and his parting of ways with Cerberus.

The Alliance hasn’t been to kind to Commander Shepard locking him up for a kangaroo-court court martial related to the Arrival DLC that took place after Mass Effect 2 and resulted in the destruction of the Batarian Mass Relay and subsequently millions of Bartarians.

Shepard's destination, the Mars Prothean archives.

We find our protagonist locked up in a plush Systems Alliance brig awaiting his court martial.  We are introduced to James Vega, a new character to the video games, in the opening sequence.  I never warmed up to Vega in Mass Effect 3 and I’m sure that won’t change in this run through.

Eventually Shepard’s day in court arrives and Vega comes to take him to the court martial.  Along the way we run into Admiral Anderson and now Lt. Commander Ashley Williams.  During the beginning of Shepard's court martial the Alliance starts losing contact with its outer bases and space stations.  Soon a massive object is spotted closing quickly on the Earth.  Then contact is lost with the moon and the Reapers attack Earth.

During the initial Reaper attack the Systems Alliance headquarters council, which is also also the court martial board, are all killed.  Commander Shepard makes his way to the Normandy with Admiral Anderson.  Rather than escaping on the Normandy Admiral Anderson decides to stay on Earth to lead the resistance against the Reapers.  He reinstates Shepard into the Alliance military and gives him command of Normandy instructing him to go to Mars.

Dr. Eva Core gives Ashley a beat down.

Upon arrival at Mars Shepard gets a break because the Reapers have not attacked Mars.  After landing Shepard discovers Cerberus troops control the archives.  Shepard, Vega and Ashley fight through the Cerberus troops to gain access to the Mars facility.  Inside they find Liara, who had been doing some Prothean research, dispatch a trio of Cerberus troops who where attacking her. 

Liara tells them of her research and the designs of a possible Prothean weapon for use against the Reapers.  They quickly agree that Cerberus is after the same information.  The team is now in a race to beat Cerberus to the Prothean data.  The Cerberus task force is lead by Dr. Eva Core, who unknown to Liara is actually a android disguised as a human.

Omega DLC Play Through

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Shepard is getting a bit Capt. Kirk like.

I enjoyed the Omega DLC.  No surprise there as a Mass Effect fan I’m sure you all knew I would.

All these DLC missions EA/Bioware puts out after the launch of Mass Effect 3 always leaves me feeling a little funny.  Since Shepard dies at the end of ME3 (surely at this point this isn’t a spoiler for someone) its always odd to see him pop up as if nothing has happened.  But as I’ve said before it’s always good to have some more quality time with Shepard and friends.  To get started with the Omega DLC go to Shepard’s email on the Normandy and you’ll have an email from Aria asking you to meet her at dock 42 on the Citadel.  Head to the Citadel and you’re on your way.

General Petrovsky

Aria was one of my favorite non-player characters in Mass Effect 2 so I’m glad we get to go back and close the loop on a couple loose strings.  As a result of the Shepard’s and Aria’s actions in Mass Effect Aria is ousted from her position of running Omega.  Forced to flee to the Citadel due to the Ceberus attack and occupation she’s been spending time gather resources and developing a plan to return and take her throne back at After Life.

Rampart Mech

In this new DLC the stage is set and now its time for Shepard to hold up his end of the agreement and help Aria retake Omega.  With her forces assembled and a plan in mind Aria sends Shepard and email.  On Omega you’ll fight to expel the Cerberus occupation lead by General Oleg Petrovsky.  Along with the usual assortment of Cerberus troops there are also two new enemies to deal with; Rampart mechs and Adjutants.   

 

Adjutant

The Rampart mechs seem to be upgraded versions of the LOKI mechs we all know so well.  They also have shields and an omni-blade they use to dispatch victims in hand to hand combat.

The Adjutants are creatures Cerberus brings back from beyond the Omega 4 Relay.  After the events of Mass Effect 2 Cerberus establishes a base through the Omega 4 Relay to exploit any technology it can from what is left of the Collector base.  As with all Reaper based creatures Cerberus wants to control them but can only exert limited control.  Since Cerberus can't truly control the Adjutants they settled with trapping them in a section of Omega that is now a no-man's land that nobody enters.  Hope they don't get out.

 

You also get to crawl through the under belly of Omega using a flashlight to see much like the Mass Effect 3 missions in Utukku where we come across Grunt commanding the Krogan Aralakah Company.  

The is certainly a good deal of action in the Omega DLC.  I ran through it using the Striker and Cerberus Harrier assault rifles.  During this mission Aria demands that you come alone so you’re usual Normandy crewmates aren’t with you.  To round out your team on missions you get Aria and Nyreen.  Nyreen, a female turian, is a new character introduced during Omega who has a long history with Aria. 

Throughout the mission we get filled in piece by piece about their complicated relationship.  After Aria fled the Cerberus occupation Nyreen stayed behind on Omega.  Eventually she became head of the Talons, one of Omega’s many notorious gangs.  General Petrovsky uses his troops and the Adjutants to wipe out the various gangs on Omega.  This leaves Nyreen and the Talons as the last bit of organized resistance to the Cerberus occupation.

Once Aria's attack to retake Omega begins General Petrovsky puts up one road block after another.  Essentially you fight your way through the bowels of Omega until the final confrontation with Petrovsky.  The General has not surprisingly chosen Afterlife to be his headquarters.  At the end you have several choices; mainly to let Aria kill Petrovsky or save him.  If you save him he becomes a prisoner of the Alliance and provides information about Cerberus that adds to your galactic war readiness against the Reapers. Regardless of Petrovsky's fate Aria honors her agreement providing troops, ships, red sand and element zero that also adds to your overall galactic readiness.

By biggest criticism is the cost.  At $15 this DLC costs more than any other other DLC so far.  While a good play I don't think it was as good as other DLC costing less such as Mass Effect 2's "Lair of the Shadow Broker" or Mass Effect 3's "From the Ashes."

(I had a couple hours of captured video to review.  Perhaps a bit long but I thought two 10 minutes videos would be better than a longer video.)

Omega DLC Now Availaable

Update:  Dec 3, 2012, A great deal of recorded video from Omega.  It will take a couple days to pull it together into a video outlining the mission.

The much anticipated Fight For Omega downloadable content is now available.  I just purchased it for Xbox 360 for 800 MS points which is about $10.  Fight For Omega takes up 1.99 GB of space on your hard drive.

This new DLC takes us back to Omega, a sierra hotel of a space station, where we first meet local crime queen Aria T'Loak and spend a good deal of time in Mass Effect 2 learning the ins and outs of this rough and tumble part of space.

As you may recall in ME3 Aria drove a hard bargin for her support in the war effort.  As a result of Aria's support of the war effort Cerberus has taken over Omega from Aria and her band brigands.  Now it's time to pay off that debt and help Aria regain her throne as crime queen of Omega!

Talon Symbol

To complicate matters the Talons, a band of Turian mercenaries,  also are laying claim to Omega.  In ME2 they tried to put the squeeze on Aria until she hijacked their Red Sand shipment and laid the smackdown on the Talons running that show.  Afterwards they reluctantly accepted Aria as the crime queen of Omega but secretly have wanted Aria out so they can take over.  Is this their time?

Hope to have video up and a review in a few days.  Got to play it first!!!!

Assault Rifle Mastery – Mass Effect Multiplayer Challenge

I just completed the Mass Effect Multiplayer Assault RifleMastery Challenge on Silver.  So no banner for me!  But Assault Rifle Mastery is a fun challenge.  It reminded me that one of the things I’ve always liked about Mass Effect was the wide variety of all types of weapons and the ability to modify them.

Like most people I have a couple favorite assault rifles that I habitually use; the Harrier, Collector Rifle and Saber.  Doing the Assault Rifle Mastery Challenge forced me to use assault rifles I generally don’t use anymore and some that I never really used at all.

So here is my run down on the assault rifles I used.

The Best

Not surprisingly I thought the three best assault rifles where the Harrier, Collector Rifle and M-99 Saber.  I used the Harrier II and yes, I have Harrier X envy.  The Harrier is, I think, the best assault rifle in the game.  It is accurate, has low recoil and does the most damage.  The main drawback of the Harrier is that it holds a low amount of ammunition, 80 and 20 in the clip and has a high rate of fire.  The Harrier has a high rate of fire so your 100 rounds go quick and you are always looking for the nearest ammunition crate to replenish your rounds.  The good news is that you can generally kill basic enemies in less than 20 rounds.

I used the Collector Rifle IV and found it to be a close second to the Harrier.  Like the Harrier, the Collector Rifle has a high rate of fire.  The damage on the Collector Rifle IV is about equal to the Harrier I.  A big advantage of the Collector Rifle is that it holds three times as much ammunition so you don’t have to desperately know where every ammunition crate is relative to your position.  The Collector Rifle is accurate and has light recoil so you can hit the target with most of shots.

I really like the Saber.  I used a Saber V for this challenge.  The Saber is like using a sniper rifle that fires quickly.  The Saber is highly accurate, does damage on the level of a sniper rifle and has light recoil.  It holds a little over 40 rounds plus 8 in the clip.  Even though it has low ammunition I never feel like I am low on ammunition like when you use the Harrier.  Two to three rounds will drop any basic enemy.  The disadvantage is the low fire rate.  While much faster than most of the sniper rifles it is slow compared any assault rifle in the game.  Sometimes it feels like forever when you are one shot away in a close in fight waiting for it to reload and your biotics/shields are recharging.

Honorable Mention

I also used the M-8 Avenger X, M-15 Vindicator VII, M-37Falcon and Phaeston X assault rifles for this challenge.  All of these are decent weapons.  The M-8 Avenger is of course the classic Mass Effect assault rifle.  It is the base line for all other assault rifles.  As I’ve said in other posts you can’t really go wrong with the Avenger.  Damage is a bit light.  But it is lightweight so recharging biotics is good, holds lots of ammo and is accurate. 

The Phaeston X was much better than I remember.  It was my standard for a long time.  The Phaeston is another solid rifle for any map or enemy.  It is accurate, has moderate kickback, does moderate damage and holds a good deal of ammunition.  

 This was the first time I used the M-37 Falcon in multiplayer.  I must say it was pretty good.  The Falcon, essentially a grenade launcher, does high damage but has low a accuracy and a low rate fire.  Besides the high damage it also stuns enemies.  This is great when firing into a crowd or facing something like a Geth Pyro.  The stun gives you a chance to move out of range or pump in a few more shots.  It’s also fun to watch the enemies hit by the Falcon.  Sometimes they go flying through the air or their heads explode.  

 The Vindicator is one of those assault rifles I rarely use.  It turned out much better than I remembered it.  The Vindicator fires five-round bursts.  Its accuracy is moderate and has high kickback.  But the kickback is moderated by the five-round bursts.  So all in all its not too bad.  It does moderate damage, holds a moderate amount of ammunition and its weight is light, which is good for recharging.  Generally speaking all these assault rifles are all pretty good overall.

The Most Fun

The most fun was the M-76 Revenant X.  This rifle is fun to play with if you’re not seriously trying to outscore everyone on your team.  It has a high rate of fire, sounds awesome, good muzzle flash, holds a high amount of ammunition and does moderate damage.  It is not highly accurate and has substantial recoil.  You have to modify the weapon or use equipment upgrades to reduce the recoil to an acceptable level.  It is ok at close range targets but even at moderate distances it loses what little accuracy it has.  I found the Revenat to be more accurate if you fire it in short 2-3 second bursts.  The problem is it is hard to do this because it so much fun to just hold the trigger and watch it fire.

The Worst

The worst was without a doubt the Geth Pulse Rifle X.  It has three positives; it is accurate, has little recoil and holds a lot of ammunition.   The bad news is that you’ll need all that ammunition because its damage is so low it takes forever to kill anything.  It takes an entire clip of 80 rounds to kill just the basic Cerberus Trooper, Geth Trooper, Cannibal or Collector.  Just avoid this assault rifle.  I didn’t think I’d ever get to 100%.  Then of course I got to 99% just so that I could have one more game with this lame rifle.

Firebase Giant and Ghost Alternative Maps

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Firebase Ghost

Looks like EA/Bioware added some new alternative multiplayer maps.  So that is total of three alternative maps that I've seen so far.  Today I played the alternative Firebase Ghost and Firebase Giant map.  Not as much as a change as the Firebase Dagger map was.  The alternative Firebase Ghost map is a huge rain storm, see video, that downpours, then stops leaving puddles of water and then starts again.  The rain doesn’t really affect visibility like the sandstorm does on Firebase Dagger.  It is also light wise darker than the normal Dagger map.  Perhaps because of the rain clouds blocking the sun or maybe it is supposed to be night rather than day like the original. 

The Firebase Giant alternative map is just more of a light show than anything else.  It doesn’t affect you unless you stand there and look at the lights.  There are some cannons firing into orbit that light up the sky and the map area.  I didn’t turn my recorder on to catch it as it wasn’t really interesting enough to cause me to stop playing and turn it on.

Update
I came across the Firebase Giant alternative map playing multiplayer tonight so I turned the recorder on and captured a few minutes of video, see belos..  As you can see its a bit darker due to night time.  You can also see the cannons firing into orbit and the flash it creates.

Mass Effect 3, Multiplayer: Retaliation

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Mass Effect 3’s new multi-player downloadable content (DLC) "Retaliation" is now available.  So log on and down load that new content.  There some interesting things I’ve noticed just playing a couple bronze missions and not reading lists of stuff from the professional gaming sites.

It's free and it’s good.  Get it.  One of the first things you’ll notice is the menu screen is different with the addition of a challenge tab.  For you badge and achievement collectors your time has come.  There are to many categories to talk about but it appears EA/Bioware took a page out of “Call of Duty” and other similarly structured games where you can earn achievements in certain categories by doing certain things or maxing out a skill or item.  For example there is an Assault Rifle category where you need to get to 100% with each assault rifle in the game.  Not sure how they are calculating but I don’t think anybody will be finishing up the achievements tomorrow.

An old enemy is back to throw a wrench in our plans.  The Collectors who we spent a good deal of time fighting them in Mass Effect 2 and especially the climatic final “Suicide Mission” are back.  (See post "I Like Miranda and Won’t Apologize For It" for video of the "Suicide Mission.")  The Collectors even killed Commander Shepard in the beginning of ME2 filling us with self-doubt until we sorted things out.  It’s good to fight the Collectors again and get some more pay back.  It also adds more variety in the enemies you can fight.  The Collectors bring their usual techniques but have a few tricks up their sleeves.  At one point I came across a “Collector Web.” Not sure what it did I figured you didn't want to get caught up in it so I fired it up and destroyed rather easily.  Seeker Swarms are back and if you're in a weakened state and they attack you'll need to use a pack.

With the Collectors the Husks they control are “possessed” and they explode when destroyed.  If you happen to be in weakened state and one is destroyed next to you it is like a heavy-duty grenade going off.  Most likely you won’t make it.  So try not to let them close in on you if your shields are down.

Flipping through a Premium Sprectre Pack I saw some new ammunition; Drill Rounds, Explosive Rounds and Phasic Rounds to name a few.  I had a chance to use the Drill rounds and liked them a great deal.  I also picked up a new N7 Particle rifle that I didn’t care for.

I saw a Volus player, with a jet pack, not sure what class he was off the top of my head. Never seen a Volus move so fast, perhaps that fat boy had an upgrade?  lol There are also new alternative maps to mix things up.  The video above features the Firebase Dagger alternative map.  On this map visibility is cut short by a sandstorm. I believe there is an alternative map for each map, effectively doubling the number of maps.  (If I'm wrong someone let me know.)

I’m sure there are many new changes I haven’t mentioned.  These are just some I noticed after playing a couple of bronze games to check it out.  So log on and find them out for yourself.  Good luck with those achievements.