Mass Effect Q&A

Casey Hudson answers GamerSquad.com's questions concerning the highly anticipated sci-fi RPG that's inbound from the makers of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire.

The E3 demo footage released not too long ago offered a tantalising glimpse into the next-generation world of Mass Effect, but have you since found yourself wondering about the complexities of the real-time battle mechanics, the structure of the character and party evolution, the all-new and unprecedented dialogue interaction, or simply the sheer mind-boggling scope of Mass Effect's universe?

If you have, then you'll be thrilled to learn that GamerSquad asked the questions, and BioWare duly answered.

Mass Effect, developed by BioWare and published by Microsoft Game Studios will be released exclusively on the Xbox 360 videogame console in Q2 2007.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

God, this game looks good. best game coming to 360? or would that be lost odessey or bioshock?

i hope they have some nice elite style of trading and smuggling. economics in space is rad! the speech system in this game is awesome, it will be like playing a movie. heheeh. i can't wait!

[Sphinx]

I look forward to some sort of in-ship space stuff... you know, like fights, boarding other ships, getting boarded, finding floating stuff, etc.

[Jay da 2KBalla]

This is my most anticipate game of the next gen. The graphics, the scope of the world, the speech and facial animations aer all truly unrivaled by any other game on ANY platform. Cant wait.

[PS360PCROCKS]

"There are some cool things we’ll be doing with Live, especially through a very ambitious downloadable content plan where you’ll be able to continue playing new adventures in Mass Effect long after you complete the main storyline"

Ok so this is way cool

[THELANDSOFSAND]

Sounds similar to the plans for oblivion. this is a must buy game. endless gameplay!

oblivion in space?

:D

[Pathetic N4G Website]

"There are some cool things we’ll be doing with Live, especially through a very ambitious downloadable content plan where you’ll be able to continue playing new adventures in Mass Effect long after you complete the main storyline"

Sounds like Co-op to me :) Schwing !

[Boink]

best game of E3, and I can't freaking wait to lose myself in the world..

[General]

How many planets will there be?

[Marriot VP]

one

[Marriot VP]

Please ohh please make this an MMORPG, I've always wanted to play one of those. But they were always fantasy and repititious spell casting and stupid crap like that.

If Mass Effect doesn't have MMO, I'm buying Huxley instead.

[UrbanJabroni]

You are buying Huxley. This is NOT a MMORPG.

[richie007bond]

I seem to recall either DJ or THE TRUTH saying that there was low polys in the charactor, seems they were wrong again.. A little snippet from the dev...Bearing in mind the current furore surrounding the supposed difficulties of developing for Sony's PlayStation 3, how has Mass Effect's development for the new Xbox 360 faired?

The biggest challenges of this generation really come from the massive leap in fidelity (not just graphics, but animation, sound, etc.) and the detail required of the assets and systems that are required to fully use a system like the 360. Our characters start out at several million polygons, with textures that have many layers to create effects that were never possible before like subsurface scattering on skin (the red glow inside brightly lit ears etc).

Obviously it requires that much more work to create characters and environments on that level of detail, but this then has to carry through to the quality of the camerawork, character animations – everything in the game. Our camera behavior alone is extremely sophisticated, adjusting to keep the character cinematically framed, and moving organically as though the entire game was filmed by a Hollywood camera operator. So all of this adds up to keeping our large team very busy for several years!

[Marriot VP]

yah that was DJ, he trys to compliment the game than tear it apart with false or exaggerated claims. Although it's funny how he only does this for 360 games, and only praises PS3 games.

[TheXgamerLive]

I think w/all that we already know that were going to be able to do, were also (I think) going to be able to more so openly explore new planets and maybe from time to time the aggresive downloads that were going to get just may possibly be entire new worlds to explore w/added quests missions/races even added from time to time to totally change what we've already been playing. An Oblivian type feauture/downloads style so to speak only more, much more and more things to do that aren't mission based. This is what has me excited here.

I'm really excited here.....YABA DABA DO ME !!!!!!!

[TMoney]

...BUT Mass Effect looks so good, I'm buyin this bad boy on day one! I mean, the graphics/animation look so groundbreaking that I would use it as THE example of what a next gen console can do. Now, if the gameplay is as revolutionary/evolutionary as the graphics, I might change my mind about rpg's. Fingers crossed.

I can't believe I'm actually anticipating this game as much as Rainbow Six or Splinter Cell or Gears of War or...dare I say it...Halo 3!

[HyperBear]

Bioshock, Gears and Mass Effect are the games that will revolutionize gaming as FPS' and RPG's. If you have a 360 and you dont get at least 2 of these games, then youve got a problem. Again Xbox 360 is outstanding.