Thanks to the good people at EA, Mark Ankucic (a.k.a. The Viking Gamer) and I (a.k.a. Me) were granted an opportunity to go hands on with the first hour or so of the story mode for Mass Effect 3.

The event was held at SOHO at Pott's Point. For those who have been there you'll know that Pott's Point is essentially King's Cross and therefore filled with all sorts of... "Colourful" characters wondering the streets and holding interesting rambling conversations. Mostly with themselves

But I digress. This was a closed event for Press members and whilst my peers were no less colourful in their own way, they certainly were more mentally stable. (Although I occasionally wonder about Mark and his Viking alter ego)

After drinks, a version of the Mass Effect theme by a band, a presentation by one of the esteemed members of Bioware and a screening of the two most recent trailers ("Reinstated" and "Take Back Earth") we got down to business.

For those who have already downloaded and played the demo, then much of this information may be familiar to you. The section of the game that I played through contained the first two missions, the invasion of Earth (which was contained within the demo) and the immediate mission after that; visiting an Alliance outpost on Mars to obtain crucial data for turning the tide of the war (which wasn't on the demo). Still, there are elements of gameplay and storyline that you might not know, so you may want to keep reading regardless.

I'll talk first about the gameplay, before moving onto the story. That way those of you who would prefer to remain spoiler free may skip the latter section of this article.

The combat. Faster, smoother and better than ever. If you've played the demo you'll know what I'm talking about. Action is more fast paced, the cover system is improved and you can finally pose a threat at melee range. How so? Both you and the enemy move a great deal faster than before. You can sprint near indefinitely. You can vault over cover without first entering it. You can perform quick rolls by tapping A whilst moving. You can roll into cover. You can roll out of cover. You can turn corners and stay in cover without ever having to leave it. And finally you can now put the hurt on folks at extreme close range without having to use powers now that you have heavy melee. This will look different depending on class but works the same way. It's also a welcome addition, especially considering how irritating enemies can be when they get within arms length of you.

Also of note is that the health system has undergone a revision. Apart from your ever recharging shield, you now have a segmented health bar. Your health will recharge, unless you deplete a section of it, in which case Medi-Gel will be required to restore said section.

Now onto the RPG elements. A common complaint with the second game was that it was too streamlined. Too action orientated. Well with Mass Effect 3 some missing RPG elements return. Your characters are now customisable in the gameplay sense. With ME2, powers would branch into two different forms upon reaching the highest rank of the power. Not so with this one. Powers now branch at the midway point, and from then on always have two variations. Rank 4 of a power can offer me a toss up between duration or cooldown. Rank 5 can offer be a difference between direct damage or area of effect. In that way you can tailor your powers to help your gameplay style. You also get grenades! These will be unlockable powers and seem to require no cooldown, but you will have a limited number of them.

Another complaint was that the inventory was removed. Whilst it still looks like you're not picking up a new gun or armour set every time you loot a bad guy or crate (a la Mass Effect 1), you are occasionally picking up armour parts as well as gun upgrades. Unfortunately I didn't progress far enough into the game to customise my armour, but I did go far enough to customise some of my weapons. I took to this with as much glee as I did shooting things. Everyone knows the only thing better than shooting things is shooting things with superior weaponry. Thus you can upgrade your weapons at workbenches with mods to improve range, accuracy, damage, recoil and weight.

I also want to point out something that I discovered today and that wasn't in the demo (but was hinted at). The total weight of your weapons will effect gameplay. If you paid close attention to your skill tree you might have seen power upgrades that increase your weight limit. This may seem odd, but I've discovered why. You have a weight limit for the guns you are currently carrying in the mission and if you go over that limit, you incur a penalty to your power cooldown period. As I was playing a soldier I could rock the full set of guns. Assault Rifle, Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, SMG and Heavy Pistol. To my horror I noticed that my powers took forever to recharge. Upon checking the load out, I discovered that having maxed out the weight limit, the cooldown period was now suffering a -200% penalty. Removing some of these guns and adding low weight material upgrades to my SMG soon gave me a boost to cooldown. Unfortunately I was no longer a walking arsenal. Oh well, can't always get what you want and all that.

Now onto the storyline. Spoilers ahead, so those of you who don't want to know should probably leave. I'm also throwing in a mass of speculation as only a devoted nerd of the series who pays obsessive attention to plot details can manage.

Spoilers!

The first mission starts of Earth. If you've already played the demo than you would have played this. Shepard has been under house arrest and stripped off his rank for his actions in the Arrival DLC. With colonies and fleets beyond the Sol Relay dropping out of contact, Shep is brought before the Alliance Brass to give testimony over the Reaper threat. Lo and behold, the cuttlefish looking robo-buggers arrive to mess up your day something fierce. With Earth being smashed to bits in classic alien invasion movie fashion, you make your way to Normandy, with Admiral Anderson having reinstating you and charging you with seeking help.

However as you make your way into space, you're contacted by Admiral Hackett who orders you to stop off at an Alliance facility on Mars first. This place (which holds the Prothean data cache that allowed Humanity to discover the titular mass effect in the first place) holds some valuable data that could help in the fight against the Reapers.

Landing at the facility as a massive dust storm brews on the horizon, you soon find that the personnel have been massacred by Cerberus. Linking up Liara, who claims the data was for a weapon that could apparently defeat the Reapers, you battle your way through the facility in an attempt to get the data before your former allies do. Of course as you do this, your old human squadmate from ME1, which was Kaidan for me, continues to harass you about your unfortunate time working with terrorists. Whiny SOB.

Alas you soon discover that Cerberus, clearly no stranger to unholy acts, have willingly "upgraded" their troops with Reaper tech. While still capable of independent thought and speech, the creepy blue Husk like facial features clearly cannot be a good thing. After exchanging some angry words with the Illusive Man, who true to fashion taunts you via hologram, you're given a tantalising glimpse at a new enemy standing at his back. Who is this mysterious agent of Martin Sheen? Smart money says Kai Leng, Cerberus' top assassin and a former N7 Marine himself (and who you may have seen in the novels). Most interesting is what the Illusive Man tells you about his motivations. His plan is nothing short of taking control of Reapers and using them to secure human dominance. Clearly this will not end well for him. Well it probably wouldn't end well for him anyway, given that he's now your enemy and they tend to die badly.

Anyway you then proceed to chase down an elite Cerberus agent who's carrying the data. With ninja like speed she evades, until being caught up in a shuttle crash. Despite being scorched black and crispy by the explosion, she still manages to get back up, maim Kaidan (or Ashley) and then attack you. Clearly Cerberus' creepy Reaper tech at work.

Gunning her down, seizing the data and evacuating from Mars, you then escape as the Reapers arrive. Unfortunately an EA representative made me surrender the controller, so that was the end of the gameplay and storyline spoilers, but I did get an exciting glimpse at the plot. A potential way to beat the Reapers and Cerberus meddling with things they clearly shouldn't meddle with.

SPOILERS OVER :-)

So there you have it. A look at the first hour or so of Mass Effect, at some of the gameplay features and of some of the plot details.

Mass Effect 3 arrives on the 8th of March. Pre order now to get exclusive DLC bonuses.

Keep your eyes on Console Domination for a review.