Posted March 20, 2012
OK, so EA managed to lure me into trying out the ME3 multiplayer, thanks to this whole Galaxy at War business, and much to my surprise I'm having an absolute blast.
If you heaven't heard about it yet, it's a 4 player co-op mode, featuring a handful of maps and classes and three different enemy factions. A single session normally takes between 20 and 30 minutes, during which the players have to defeat 11 waves of enemies and occasionally take care of simple objectives within a time limit. The focus is very much on helping your squadmates out, all the XP and credits the players earn get added together and everyone is awarded the full amount, so it's all very nice and friendly.
There are 3 difficulty levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Bronze is normally very doable, unless you have to fight the Reapers in a super cramped map, or two of your guys drop out during the session or something. Silver is a good challenge, and Gold is... intense. I've only tried it once. We had to fight the Reapers, and it was an absoulte slaughter. There was just no way of fighting back, we were just trying to survive for a few more minutes. But it was great. We were laughing through our headsets, it was so hysterical.
The first two classes I tried were an Asari biotic and a Turian tanky guy, and those were fine, but the class I'm currently playing is something else. It's called Salarian Infiltrator, but that doesn't really describe my guy very well. What does describe him well is the term motherfucker. He's basically a pure sniper, but not the kind that does nothing but sit around in a remote corner of the map all the time. What he does all the time, is cloak, run up to an enemy, and shoot him in the face with his sniper rifle. Actually, there's more. Because he really is a motherfucker, and because I need all the help I can get, he has an additional skill he can use to stun enemies. While remaining cloaked. He's completely insane and I love him like a brother.
I haven't really played online shooters for quite a while, so maybe this is a bit of a case of low standards, but there's just so much I enjoy about the multiplayer mode. There's this powerful monster that's called a Banshee, which anounces itself with a terrifying scream, making everyone shit their pants, or the Cobra Missile Launcher, which one can use twice per session, but which one somehow doesn't want to have to resort to, since it feals a bit ungraceful and dishonourable (unlike, you know, turning invisible and then shooting helpless enemies in the face with a sniper rifle), right up until the moment when one has enough of the endless onslaught of enemies, curses all the gods, whips it out, and blasts two heavy mechs away with one single shot.
So, yeah. I urge everyone who has, like me, bought ME3 for the singleplayer camaign to give the multiplayer a shot. It might just be a lot of fun.
If you heaven't heard about it yet, it's a 4 player co-op mode, featuring a handful of maps and classes and three different enemy factions. A single session normally takes between 20 and 30 minutes, during which the players have to defeat 11 waves of enemies and occasionally take care of simple objectives within a time limit. The focus is very much on helping your squadmates out, all the XP and credits the players earn get added together and everyone is awarded the full amount, so it's all very nice and friendly.
There are 3 difficulty levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Bronze is normally very doable, unless you have to fight the Reapers in a super cramped map, or two of your guys drop out during the session or something. Silver is a good challenge, and Gold is... intense. I've only tried it once. We had to fight the Reapers, and it was an absoulte slaughter. There was just no way of fighting back, we were just trying to survive for a few more minutes. But it was great. We were laughing through our headsets, it was so hysterical.
The first two classes I tried were an Asari biotic and a Turian tanky guy, and those were fine, but the class I'm currently playing is something else. It's called Salarian Infiltrator, but that doesn't really describe my guy very well. What does describe him well is the term motherfucker. He's basically a pure sniper, but not the kind that does nothing but sit around in a remote corner of the map all the time. What he does all the time, is cloak, run up to an enemy, and shoot him in the face with his sniper rifle. Actually, there's more. Because he really is a motherfucker, and because I need all the help I can get, he has an additional skill he can use to stun enemies. While remaining cloaked. He's completely insane and I love him like a brother.
I haven't really played online shooters for quite a while, so maybe this is a bit of a case of low standards, but there's just so much I enjoy about the multiplayer mode. There's this powerful monster that's called a Banshee, which anounces itself with a terrifying scream, making everyone shit their pants, or the Cobra Missile Launcher, which one can use twice per session, but which one somehow doesn't want to have to resort to, since it feals a bit ungraceful and dishonourable (unlike, you know, turning invisible and then shooting helpless enemies in the face with a sniper rifle), right up until the moment when one has enough of the endless onslaught of enemies, curses all the gods, whips it out, and blasts two heavy mechs away with one single shot.
So, yeah. I urge everyone who has, like me, bought ME3 for the singleplayer camaign to give the multiplayer a shot. It might just be a lot of fun.
