The first mission of the demo appears to be the first mission of the game proper. Commander Shepard, stripped of his rank after events in the ME2 DLC Arrival, is brought before the Alliance Defense Committee to confirm their worst fears. The Reapers are coming to Earth. What follows is a psuedo-tutorial as you’re taught the basic controls and your goals for the rest of the game are made clear; Find help, unite the races, survive. The controls felt a little light when I began (I haven’t play ME2 in around 8 months so maybe they’re just like that) but the controls all came back to me after a while. You can still map your powers and select weapons in much the same way as before, which helps assign the new grenade powers to a button.

Speaking of which, I don’t like the new grenades, mainly because they seem like a huge step backwards from the ones in the original Mass Effect. The original grenades could be thrown like a discus and would fly for a while before attaching to an enemy or wall. They could also be modified to allow different effects, regardless of class. They were tits! In ME3, they’re just regular grenades that you lob and the only way to get different effects is to choose a different character class.

The second mission takes place further in the story on the planet Sur’Kesh, homeworld of the Salarians where you help evacuate a group of fertile female Krogan. What they’re doing there is not explained but it seems to tie into the animosity between the Krogans and the Salarians. It features more action and plenty of opportunities to use some of the new abilities and weapons.

The demo also features a multiplayer demo but I’ve not been able to play it yet. It’s been said that you can play the multiplayer without XBOX Live Gold membership but as I said, I’ve not been able to.

All in all, it’s a fun demo and just makes me more excited to get my Collector’s Edition on release day! You can find it now on the XBOX Live Marketplace and the Playstation Network in a few days.

Mass Effect 3 is available on XBOX 360, Playstation 3, and PC from March 6th in North America, March 8th, in Australia, and March 9th, in Europe.

Lunar: Dragon Song takes place 1000 years before Silver Star Story.  From here the story struggles to keep focus.  The previous games had story and depth and, yes, very predictable plot points, but this game seems to try and remove all but the staple plot points.  This makes the characters exceptionally flat, I’m talking nearly subatomic flat.  The game could have been a lot more if it had simply been longer and taken time to explain the characters’ motivations.  By the end of this game dialogue became more of a chore and finishing the game seemed like just an end point rather than a real conclusion.

Unfortunately, the story isn’t the only shortcoming.  The battle system was altered to a point that makes the game needlessly complex and sometimes harder.  First going into battle makes you choose between two modes, virtue and combat.  Virtue mode is the only way to gain experience from battles while combat mode is the only way to gain items from battle.  Versus all other RPGs I’ve played this is really counter intuitive.  In fairness, unless you want to collect all the enemy cards, virtue mode is what you will stay in during the game.  Also the designers thought they would be creative and use the DS’s microphone allowing you to shout commands.  Because there is nothing like yelling “run” at the top of your lungs, which on a sidenote if you leave this option on a lot of ambient noises can trigger the running away.  Beyond this the game uses a lot of standard RPG controls including using enemy cards for extra effects.

Due to the previous games I expect a lot from the music and graphics.  The good news is that the graphics maintain well versus the other remakes and improving the look.  I could have done with more animated cutscenes but I accept that there are limitations to what handheld systems can do. The music however is lackluster and boring.  The normal repeating loop is in the background and due to the limited story cutscenes there is no really dynamic musical portion.  Now a part that I don’t mind is the lack of voiced dialogue.  This could have been made even better had I been able to name the characters.  It made sense in the previous games where I couldn’t name characters due to voiceovers, but this game has no excuse.

If you want an RPG that represents the DS then steer clear of this game.  If you love the Lunar series also steer clear of this game.  If you want an RPG where you need not pay attention to story, hate good combat systems, and/or hate yourself then and only then should you even think about touching this game.