New ME3 multiplayer DLC is fun

Turian Ghost. Whee!

I think I've ended my last entry talking about how Claire's PC is now running with my old, failing PSU. Which is a bit of a stupid thing to say, considering I'm the idiot writing this blog and I could just look it up. Either way, the PSU died pretty much ten minutes after I've told the world that both our computers are running fine, so we had to order a replacement one, but now we're finally working with both PCs again, both of them running fine, I can do my job, we can play our games, life is good.

As it turns out, functionality had been restored just in time. A friend contacted me last week, saying they needed me for a Mass Effect 3 multiplayer session to show off some of the new DLC. I love Mass Effect, but my friends rarely ever play it, then there was Space Marine, Guild Wars 2, my computer problems... I'm sorry, ME3. I'm making excuses here, but the sad truth is that I haven't called as much as I should have. I haven't stayed in touch and we've not seen each other since March. And I feel shabby for having neglected you so long.

To be fair, you've been a bit of a bitch back when I quit and some of your DLC has simply scared me off. A krogan vanguard? What the hell were you thinking? It's one thing having a squishy human or an asari with the ability to fully restore their modest shields by bumping into an enemy. But the kroguard is twice as tough when it comes to both barriers and hit points, hits like a fucking truck and headbutts boss monsters into submission - which caused two forseeable reactions: Kroguards soloing gold difficulty and people kicking other players out of their sessions for wanting to play one of those overpowered toads.

Back in my day, turian sentintels were considered cool!

But a whole lot has changed in the meanwhile and I barely recognized the game when I got back the other day. New maps on earth. Well, "new" to me, anyway. Vancouver looks insanely dull and Rio has a blocky, pixellated bitmap "horizon" going all around the map. London is littered with lamp posts, which block biotic powers, rockets and just about any kind of force known in the galaxy. I want a suit of armor made of British lamppostium! But all my nitpicking aside, they're some of the coolest maps around in terms of playability. Quick and easy to figure out, the enemy can spawn practically everywhere around you and you can't just park your ass in a safe corner for the duration of the entire match to farm easy credits like on Firebase White. Which, by the way, has been fixed and can no longer be exploited. Yay!

Being a creature of habit and hating change with a passion, I dusted off ol' Hawkeye, my turian sentinel, and his M-96 Mattock. That stuff was great back then. You know, back when the game was still new, silver difficulty was considered a tough challenge and my stuff was still nice to have. It looked like this:

If you can't be bothered to sit through the whole thing, just look at this for some manly screaming and me saving everyone's day.
Basically, we're a bunch of old men playing a game on a low difficulty setting using fairly average guns and characters. The guy who recorded this session is mostly aiming for the crotch (apparently it's easier to hit than the head) with a basic M-8 Avenger assault rifle, because that's just the kind of stuff you get to work with at an N7 level of 20something. Skill levels in our little group ranged from inexperienced to 'been gone for months and got no fucking clue what's going on.' The latter would be me, in case you haven't noticed.

But I like having a clue, so I went and got one. Holy fuck, so much new stuff! Good stuff, too! First of all, the kroguard is no longer the one character to rule them all. Balance has been restored with the help of some incredibly cool new classes. There's the N7 slayer, who teleports through solid objects to appear behind an enemy and guts them with a massive katana. There's also a less cheesy version with dual laser-whips for massive AoE goodness. The fat little volus engineer boosts his team's shield rates to near-invincible levels. Sure, all the new guys still cover the same basic classes (soldier, engineer, sentinel etc.), but they all add some unique twists on old mechanics. For instance, the new turian havoc and ghost characters make up for their lack of mobility with a little propulsion pack, which helps them get away from grenades and other nasty shit. The ghots's stealth ability directly boosts damage on assault rifles rather than sniper rifles. The result is ridiculously powerful:

Not my most glorious solo ever, but it gets the point across.

Today, there are so many different weapons in ME3, it actually feels a little too much. Which game seriously needs twelve (!) different shotguns? There are 54 weapons in this game right now, not counting melee, biotic or tech attacks. To be fair, some of them are pretty unique and work a bit like stuff you'd expect to find in Unreal or Quake, not realistic shooters like CoD or BF. For instance, the Striker assault rifle fires a barrage of explosives, allowing even a completely blind retard with the inability to aim for the head to rack up dozens of kills. The Scorpion pistol shoots little mines, which can either be fired in front of a bad guy's feet or right at an unfortunate enemy, where they will detonate a few moments after. Launchers, upgraded, fully-automatic versions of basic weapons and self-recharging guns, which don't require ammo. It's all there.

With all the new stuff, finishing all waves on gold with a reasonaby well-geared squad isn't that difficult anymore. It's still challenging, but entirely doable. Soloing the toughest bits still requires exploiting the relatively stupid AI and the most powerful abilities and guns, so it's not the total cakewalk some folks on the official forums might claim it to be. And since gold mode can now be handled by a dedicated team of average Janes and Joes with better than average gear, there's an all new platinum mode, which more or less throws all the nastiest shit from the lower difficulty settings at you right from wave 1. Enjoy!

To make things even more fun, they've also added new baddies: Geth bombers, which will happily nuke the shit out of any group of players, Cerberus dragoons, who run around in heavy armor and spank you with their laser whips and, of course, the Collectors. You know, those zombified bugs, scions and protheans, who harvest entire planets. Bit weird, though, those protheans. Hyper-advanced species, millions of years ahead of mankind, their ridiculous, mushroom-shaped heads making up 30% of their bodies, yet they refuse to fucking wear some god damn helmets. But easy headshots or not, those guys are the new badass faction in ME3 multiplayer and they're harder to beat than any of the other guys. Fun stuff!

So... long-term motivation? Definitely. I may not care for every single gun or character in the game. Or every tiny achievement and the brand new titles and banners you get to show off in the multiplayer lobby. But they add a sense of progression. Sure, none of this is real, actual content, but it's a bit of an ego boost when a little medal icon pops up and tells you that you've just scored headshot no. 500 or you've just completed a hundred enemy waves on your current character. And it's nice when you actually get to unlock some new stuff every now and then (credit gain has been boosted a LOT since I've last played) instead of getting the same crap over and over again in every box. Which is exactly what happened before all the DLC came along and I simply had nothing left to unlock.

That said, unlocking stuff is also my biggest complaint. It's 100% random, which I hate. When I play CoD, I know I need this level or that amount of points to buy the gun I want. On ME3 I have to spend ingame credits or RL money on dumb boxes, which contain random shit. Some will find that exciting and just try stuff as they unlock it. But when you want to play one character in particular, use that one gun you're drooling over, then you're at the mercy of the almighty RNG. And when you really, really want that krogan shaman and a cool new shotgun and all you unlock is asari characters and pistols all day long, the whole thing will start to feel like a bit of a kick in the nuts. And they're deliberately doing this - a player, who is desperate for new stuff, is more likely to shell out real money  on item boxes, which may or may not hold the desired objects. Bastards!

But let's not be unfair. You may not get the stuff you want straight away. But the DLC is entirely free, the optional RL money item box purchase aside. New maps, new mission objectives, tons of new stuff, no cost. How's that for DLC pricing, CoD & BF?

-Cat