Countdown: Launch minus N1 day (and 70 Trailers) thread

Hmm?

I always go out of my way to keep myself in the dark about any new ME game. For example, I had no idea pre-ME2 that Shep would die or who any of the crewmates would be. This may seem minor except that, in retrospect, looking back on ads it seemed that at the very least Grunt and maybe Garrus or Thane were spoiled. I've done my due diligence to avoid spoilers on Andromeda as well. Unfortunately, one video spoiled that we'll likely get a Turian, a Krogan, and a potato-faced human woman. Oh, and also that another human woman runs a bar or something.

I have, however, managed to avoid those for Andromeda thus far. Don't spoil anything, please. I'm not even sure of the plot beyond that it apparently revolves around a group of mixed species taking off for a distant nebula during the reaper invasion in case all other life gets wiped out.

I first heard about Mass Effect in 2007 when I caught this teaser on TV:

So that was the earliest ME trailer I've seen. Not the first. Saw it years later, even after ME 3 came out the first time. Always was a bit curious as to why in the demo you could switch to different squadmates, like Inquisition, but not the final game. Though I do not do it often, for ME it could have been really cool. Probably would have been playing as my squad much more this way then with Dragon Age.

Strang I don't remember losing my temper with Garrus that often. Onc or twice with Wrex maybe but never Garrus.  He's too cool and smooth to mess about.

Did Ash originally have a different VA? That doesn't sound like her at all - her voice sounds really grating in this trailer (I kinda noticed in the last one too, but she said so little I thought I'd imagined it). It's also interesting that they show more cinematic dialogue during the mission than what we got - if I remember right we hear chatter from our squadmates there but that's it. It's kind of unfortunate, though I understand why they would have cut it out if it was taking too long to do for every mission. Also, the UI looks so different! They really do tweak that until the very end don't they?

Anyway it's pretty eye-opening seeing these. Makes sense with how fans have started speculating on every detail in trailers like these for them to wait to show us anything of depth now. So much can change!

This is when I heard about Mass Effect, so 2006 apparently. I remember the bit of the trailer about the dialogue wheel. As a fan of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, I kept track of what BioWare were doing. It was a shooter for a console I didn't have, though, so I didn't pay much attention. I was also still salty that they weren't making any more Forgotten Realms D&D-style RPGs. Which is why I'd also foolishly ignored KOTOR.

Didn't play Mass Effect until 2011 though, when ME2 was made free on Origin for people who bought DA2. Decided there was no reason not to give it a chance, despite it being a shooter. Played it, loved it, bought the first game, then played them both. And then again. And once more for luck right before ME3 came out a year after I'd first played 2. So I'm definitely looking forward to ME:A, despite some trepidation about some of their apparent gameplay decisions.

Gosh, I remember all these trailers when they first came out. Now it's really weird seeing everything so rough, proto-Shemploo, Garrus' visor-less look, Ashley's original/placeholder VA, etc.

As far as when I first heard of Mass Effect, I can't pinpoint the exact year. I was already well-entrenched in NWN and Baldur's Gate fandom and waiting for Dragon Age when Mass Effect was first announced. The earliest clear memory I have of ME1 was reading a Game Informer article about it, particularly the graphics and dialogue approach with improved expressions, cutscenes and whatnot. I remember thinking it looked amazing at the time, but bummed out that it was an Xbox only release at that point.

Eventually it didn't matter. There was enough coming out on the Xbox to warrant purchasing it and by the time ME came out I had a bunch of extra money stashed, so I bought a 360 and some extra games. I actually bought Mass Effect a week or two before I bought the Xbox - it came out right before I had to go home for the Thanksgiving holiday, so my ME copy had to sit in my college dorm for a few extra days before I was able to grab a console to play it on and come home.

Even after returning, I wasn't able to go out to the store to buy the 360 until in between classes the next day. I may or may not have left my last class of the day early to play ME as soon as possible.

Agreed but I'm glad of the way Garrus turned out though because he's definitely the kind of guy you'd want watching your back in a firefight.

Launch minus N66 days to 3.21 Mass Effect Andromeda. (Counting down 70 trailers of Mass Effect)



Mass Effect Launch Trailer - November 15th 2007

"We face extinction..."

Here's the Mass Effect launch trailer from November of 2007. Seems to give a good deal of the plot regarding Saren away.

Did you play the game at launch? If you recall the trailer, were you spoiled by this?