Preview: Mass Effect 3 "Better with Kinect"?

Mass Effect 3 launches in New Zealand on March 9, concluding BioWare's three-part Sci-Fi epic. Originally an Xbox 360 exclusive, the series is now also available on PC and PS3. However, the third and final instalment injects a little of that exclusivity back into the equation with the addition of voice commands, only available with Microsoft's Kinect add-on for the Xbox.

Mass Effect is a game where you're almost always accompanied by one or two squadmates, whom you can issue simple commands to - go here, use your shotgun, shoot at that, follow me, send that dude there flying into the stratosphere... all using a pop-up tactics screen that pauses the game while open. It's simple enough, and works well for those who play the game more as an RPG than FPS. However, it does break flow for players that are more interested in putting metal on target than playing a slow-paced bullet-facey chessgame.

This is where the voice commands come in - they let you issue those squadmate commands, as well as changing your own weapons and performing basic interactions with the environment (opening doors, using terminals and such). Voice can also be used in the game's numerous, and often long, conversations to choose your questions and replies. In what I'm sure will leave many gamers sighing with relief, the Kinect's motion-sensing capabilites have not been shoehorned into the game at all.

Does it work? I was led into a little room in front of a big TV, handed a controller and left to go at it for half an hour. The only assistance I had came from a few 'cheat sheets' set up around the TV, listing the voice commands my squadmates would recognise; as the level I played was a couple of hours into the game, I suspect those commands would all have been covered in the game's early 'learning the ropes' stage.

Let me clarify two things before I continue: First, I'm a huge fan of the Mass Effect series, as you might glean from my review of Mass Effect 2. Between the first two games in the series, I've clocked up 425 hours of gameplay across multiple playthroughs - for a little perspective, that's equivalent to ten and a half weeks of full-time, 40-hour-a-week employment. Well, without the pay.

Second, all of my experience playing Mass Effect - or any vaguely similar game - is on the PC. I got into the series shortly after the first game poked its spacesuit-gloved hand out from behind the Xbox and gave PC users a tentative wave. In general, I am about as qualified to preview a game on the Xbox as I am to perform neurosurgery. However, when it comes to judging whether something with the Mass Effect brand stamped across it really is "Better with Kinect"? I'm your guy.



The hands-on demo started with a fair bit of dialogue, leaving me to converse with a number of characters by voice alone. Mass Effect conversations usually present you with just two or three optional lines of dialogue at each stage in a converation; with only those to differentiate between, the voice recognition proved superb.

From my brief experience, the Kiwi accent seems unlikely to prove an issue. The game never misunderstood a line from me, though as far as Kiwi accents go I'm not the best example. You'd hope the script writers and voice-command-programmers worked closely together enough that you'll never have to choose between "Please hand me beer" and [Release angry bear]. Only a full playthrough or two will answer that question.

As the dialogue concluded and the action began, I came across the first and only problem I would encounter: opening doors by voice command, a simple "open" while pointing at the door, only works about a fifth of the time at best. I'm told that many others have had the same problem, and thus it's something I'd hope to see rectified by launch. That's okay; pressing a single button on the controller is quicker when it comes to doors, anyway.

With the Kinect's small but noticeable delay in recognising commands, I found it faster and safer to switch my own weapons and use my own special abilities (or 'powers') via the controller. I say this as someone who regards a console controller as some kind of mystical device designed solely to attract bullets to my character's face, while directing my own bullets into conveniently-placed walls. If you're a regular Xbox gamer, you'll be far quicker with those things than I was, and definitely won't gain any advantage from Kinect.

Where the Kinect does present a gameplay advantage is when controlling teammates; it does work as advertised, shockingly well. I found myself dragging myself around awkwardly with the controller (again, noone's fault but my own), while much more comfortably moving my teammates around with quick voice commands. "James, shotgun. James, incendiary ammo." Point the crosshairs at a good cover spot. "Liara, Move." Aim into the centre of a group of enemies. "Liara, Singularity. James, Attack." In between my own frequent deaths, I'm fairly sure the characters did everything I told them to. Yes, there's a second or two's delay there, but it keeps you in the combat. No menus to pull up, no pausing the game -- it may not be a huge tactical advantage, but it's undeniably more fun.

That was the limit of my hands-on experience. More than anything, it's left me looking forward to Mass Effect 3's impending release. But will it really be better with Kinect? For Xbox players, yes. How can I say that definitively, with just half an hour's playtime? Because Mass Effect 3's voice commands are a nifty optional feature that adds to the immersion and ease of play, while costing you nothing. Think it's too slow in combat? Just use it in dialogue. Prefer not to talk to your TV? Don't use it at all -- the choice is yours. The addition of a fun, useful feature that you can ultimately choose to ignore if you hate it? That's a good example of 'better' in my book.

Prefer to play Mass Effect 3 on the PC, as I will be? As great as it would be, the Kinect SDK for Windows will not allow you to use the voice commands in the PC version. We spoke to an Xbox public relations consultant on the matter, who told us there were no current plans to offer support for the feature on the Windows platform. If someone hacks a third-party solution together, we'll let you know.

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