Mass Effect 3 is celebrating its one-year anniversary in style. Operation Lodestar has been in effect for a few days, and offers three tiers of rewards; extract to receive a commendation pack; extract on silver difficulty or higher against all four factions to earn two commendation packs and a special banner; and extract on platinum difficulty against all four factions for three commendation packs and the banner. The operation has been in effect since Citadel launched last week and finished on March 10, US time, so you have until tomorrow to participate in what may be the final weekend challenge.

To mark the occasion, BioWare has released an infographic detailing some interesting statistics from the GON-editorial team’s face shooter of choice. You can see the full thing at this link, but here are a few highlights: The N7 Destroyer and Turian Ghost are the most popular kits. Soldier, Engineer and Vanguard classes are used most frequently. 41% of missions fail, and 46% of Collector missions fail. The highest N7 rating is over 30,000. I … still have some way to go.

Source: BioWare Blog

I have to admit that I am looking very much forward to Mass Effect 3‘s Citadel DLC, which launches later today — once the US rolls over to the 5th, in any case — and this trailer has done nothing to stop that. In fact, the brief makeout session with Jack and the shot of Wrex headbutting a shuttle may have made it even worse. Starring nearly everybody from the entire series (who you haven’t killed, anyway), Citadel puts Shepard under attack from nameless, faceless forces determined to destroy him/her and everything he/she stands for. Intrigue! Stay up late and download it, why don’t you.

Source: Press Release

BioWare’s announcement that the ‘Citadel’ DLC would be the final DLC for the game and, thus, the final chapter in the story of one of gaming’s most fleshed-out heroes, lead many to ask questions about what, who and why would be happening to their favourite character/location/weapon.

Now, BioWare have answered (or avoided) many of these questions with a new FAQ posted on their blog. Spoilers may follow, so read at your own risk if you haven’t finished ME3 yet.

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Mass Effect 3‘s ‘Reckoning’ DLC launches today, and to celebrate BioWare have released this launch trailer showing off the excellent new classes joining the fight. There’s an EDI-style ‘Alliance Infiltration Unit’, as well as a bunch of new ones like the Geth Juggernaut (yes, please) and a Krogan Warlord with a Biotic Hammer which basically sounds like everything I love in one neat little package.

Head into the Downloadable Content section of your Mass Effect 3 game and grab this for yourself anytime you like. It is, of course, totally free.

The Mass Effect trilogy as we know it is over, and BioWare intends to send our hero off with a fitting celebration. The just-announced ‘Citadel’ DLC will see Shepard fighting alongside not only his or her squad, but also all the cast you know and love from the first two games (err, except the ones that you killed). The DLC is due on March 5.

“When a sinister conspiracy targets Commander Shepard, you and your team must uncover the truth, through battles and intrigue that range from the glamour of the Citadel’s Wards to the top-secret Council Archives. Uncover the truth and fight alongside your squad – as well as the cast from the original Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2,” writes the official blog.

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The latest Mass Effect 3 multiplayer event is called Operation Heartbreaker to mark Valentine’s Day this week. What an excellent chance to get romantic with your favourite co-op partner, hey? Pity it’s in the context of an increase in banshee troops; score 20,000 points against our screeching friends in order to score a commendation pack for your troubles.

Hopefully, completing the challenge brings you one step closer to earning a new banner, and to awkwardly segue, BioWare is holding a design competition for new ones. Would-be designers are asked to create a new banner for a multiplayer challenge (any you like, bar weekend challenges), and send it into BioWare. Five designs will be chosen and featured in-game, which will look pretty nice on your CV.

Visit the BioWare Blog to check out the rules, download a template, and submit your finished design.

I don’t like replaying games. I think you’re either/or. Some guys and gals endlessly wring every bit of fun to be had out of a game by constantly going back for more (I know a crazy man who played Turok three times. That is dedication. Maybe even the gaming equivalent of waterboarding). Some guys and gals, like me, play it once and make it an event; a grand ol’ experience to be treasured but not, under any circumstances, repeated. That would say to its initial impact, “You were not an impact.” Which isn’t true, but the first impact would listen and fall into a depressive haze, eventually dissipating.

Mass Effect 3 has made me break this rule for the first time in years…

A couple of different sites have word of an upcoming multiplayer expansions for Mass Effect 3. Reddit users were first, posting what is alleged to be a leaked Xbox Marketplace description of a DL:C pack called Reckoning:

“The day of reckoning is nigh! The Reckoning Multiplayer Expansion brings six new never before seen co-op story missions to the game and new co-op gameplay modes. It provides four new maps to conquer and hazard variations of the Earth maps. It also enables reinforcement packs that offer new kits for the salarians, krogans, humans and volus. In-game reinforcement packs now include three new weapons (Chakram Launcher, Blood Pack Punisher and Adas Anti-Synthetic Rifle).”

Meanwhile, a Clever Noob members claims to have data-mined a recent, somewhat mysterious update for all platforms, uncovering more details. According to the harvested details, Reckoning will add ultra-light materials mods for assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles, and add recent single-player DLC weapons to multiplayer.

More interestingly, the dataminer hesitantly hazarded a guess that there may be a new co-operative gameplay mode of some kind, which makes use of single-player data such as paragon and renegade values.

BioWare staffers have responded to speculation on various social media sites by saying sleuths are unlikely to correctly interpret data pulled from the patch. It may all be nonsense, but if you’re interested, the dataminer has posted the raw information allegedly pulled from the patch.

Reddit and Clever Noob via VG247

This weekend’s Mass Effect 3 multiplayer operation is a bit of a tricky one. To qualify, you have to earn the gold killstreak medal, and that means you and your crew have to co-operatively kill five enemies at once on at least three occasions in a single match.

It’s not an easy task, but if you and a few of your friends want to join the Mass Effect 3-smitten games.on.net staff online, our best bet is probably missile launchers into tightly knit packs.

Those who successfully complete Operation Firestorm will score a commendation pack, delivered immediately to the in-game store, and an operation checklist item for their challenge points tally.

Everyone’s favourite multiplayer game Mass Effect 3 is no doubt due for a come back after Mr. McCasker recently rediscovered its glory. You’ll be pleased to hear then, that it is receiving a patch today across all platforms.

You will perhaps not be as pleased to learn that it will only fix two issues and only one for multiplayer, specifically fixing a glitch that allowed players to have all their weapons using rocket ammunition. For those that don’t play the game, the cobra missile launcher is for when things really get heavy — it kills everything in the blast radius with one hit.

Further into the forum thread it is mentioned that there will also be some minor balance changes as well. The other issue being fixed is one resulting in high memory usage when initialising DLCs.

With the host of bugs and glitches plaguing Mass Effect 3‘s multiplayer, and the ridiculously high cost of patching console games (tens of thousands of dollars) many are left reasonably wondering why BioWare are footing the bill for such a small change. Which of course, leads many to suspect that BioWare are preparing the game for the imminent launch of their next major piece of DLC — the biggest one yet, if reports are to be believed.

Stay tuned for more info!

Source: Bioware Forums

I, like you, was surprised by how good Mass Effect 3’s multi turned out to be. I played it a lot, became hopelessly addicted. But while hopelessly addicted, one thing bothered me I could never find my niche on the battlefield. Then I discovered the Vorcha Sentinel…

“Solo the Collectors on Gold.” “Take down a banshee with a potato and a box of matches.” “Extract on any map without once taking cover.” These are the kind of Mass Effect 3 operations I wake up night sweating over. Unlike this week’s Operation Ballistic, which can be summed up as “shoot ALL the things”.

To score yourself a commendation pack and a new entry on your Challenges list, simple earn any gold weapon medal. That means you’ll need to score 75 kills with one weapon type – assault rifle, heavy pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle or submachine gun – in a single match. You don’t even have to extract successfully. Nice!

If you’re struggling to rack up that many kills, why not call on your friendly fellow GONners to assist you? Start a Bronze map, wait for a hacking mission, then camp outside the activation zone and patiently mow down the endlessly generating enemies. Boom. You’re welcome.

Source: BioWare Blog