A couple of very lucky editors here at Capsule Computers were in attendance at EA’s latest Mass Effect 3 event yesterday. A trendy Sydney nightclub was taken over by endless Commander Shepard cutouts, plenty of playable copies of the game and some faux metal paneling for that Normandy chic feeling.

Of course the main attraction of the night was the game itself (although Commander Shephard herself was in attendance). After a live rendition of the Mass Effect Theme and a brief introduction by Executive Producer Robin Theberge it was straight into the action, with a good dozen stations quickly snapped up by some of the more strategically positioned attendees. The game was looking and playing extremely well, accompanied as it was by some nifty Razer headsets and control pads. After much abuse of the character creation screen (there were some rather intriguing looking Shepards running around that day) it was down to business.

So what was on offer? Well if you’ve played the demo then you’ve seen a little snippet of what was available at the event, which covered about the first hour of the game. As well as the opening scenes played through in the demo there was also a mission set on Mars, which saw Commander Shepard and her team taking on some more Cerberus minions. The level offered a largely combat based experience (no spoilers!), and like the public demo showed off some extremely tantalizing gameplay – roll on March!

Also looking promising on the night was iOS game Mass Effect: Infiltrator -part of the Galaxy at War line up for of Mass Effect 3 which is certainly shaping up to be a great looking addition to the Mass Effect universe. A couple of the guys from Melbourne based developers Iron Monkey were in attendance and Capsule Computers managed to snag a brief interview with them, which you’ll be able to check out soon. Thanks as always go to EA, and here’s to the imminent release of Mass Effect 3, due in Australia March 8.