Mass Effect 3 Combat Demo

Is it March yet?  Sigh.  The more BioWare gives us about ME3 – the more the game just looks amazing.  If you haven’t checked out the collector’s edition yet, do it HERE.  With their release of a combat demo, Eric Fagnan (Gameplay Designer) and Corey Gaspur (Combat Designer) talk about some of the changes in combat abilities and mechanics in Mass Effect 3.  While the video is below, you can also read them in this article.

Each class Shepard can play is receiving a new unique melee attack.  The two shown in the video are for the adept and engineer.  The adept charges up force in his / her fist and shoves the target back a solid distance.  The engineer’s melee does a fire based attack.  From the explanation, it seems like the attack will actually be ‘fire’ and not just a different visual.

While on the topic of the engineer, some of the engy’s abilities have gotten a tweak.  The engineer’s unique sentry turret can now be seen through walls.  The anti-shield ability, overload, can now be upgraded to cause a chain reaction effect on near enemies.   Lastly, the engineer can now hack enemy turrets – such as the ones the enemy Cerberus engineers will drop.

The vanguard’s popular (yet normally suicidal) charge ability is still there.  In addition to this ability, is the new ‘Nova’ ability.  Shepard slams the ground to cause a shockwave around him doing high damage and knocking foes to the ground.  This ability removes your shield though so it will be costly in certain situations.

Certain combat situations will be made easier by your class.  For example, the new enemies who hide behind their physical tower shields will be hard to shoot at.  The adept can use pull to rip the shields from them leaving them exposed.  There is also a new Krogan shotgun being added for more up-close fun.