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Xbox 360 | RPG | Mass Effect

Boxart for Mass Effect
Mass Effect 134 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 4.25
  • SOUND: 4.00
  • CONTROL: 3.75
  • FUN FACTOR 4.75
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.8
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.8
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Preview: Mass Effect (Page 3 of 3)

Preview by Chris Morell | 09/25/2007 | 11:43:23 AM PST

How easy/hard was it to implement the game's improvements around dialogue?

That was really the central focus of the technology and content that went into the development of Mass Effect. As much of a challenge as we knew it would be, achieving this level of fidelity and interactivity was actually much harder and more complex than we originally envisioned. But, I think it will be well worth it to have given players a unique new way to experience an interactive story.

Moral decision-making and open-ended play are BioWare hallmarks. Why is that?

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that what sets the medium of videogames apart from all other media is that it's interactive. So everything in a game experience really needs to be interactive - including the story itself. In a movie the story is predetermined, but the great opportunity that a game should offer is the ability to explore the story and change its outcomes. After all, you're the main character!

And the ability to change a story means giving players choices. The more choices you have as a player, the more it becomes your own personal experience in the game world, and we believe that makes the experience much more powerful.

One of the big challenges with any game emphasizing decision-making is that the decisions between bad and good are often extremely obvious and rarely mirror the complexity of real life. How are you addressing this in Mass Effect?

That's a great question. In one example in Mass Effect, I used my charm ability to convince a drug addict to leave a bar where he was trying to get his next fix. By stopping him from doing what he wanted, was I being mean? Or was I being a nice guy because I took a charming and friendly approach? Or should I have done something to actually help him with his addiction instead of just making him find someplace else to pursue it?

In Mass Effect you'll find yourself in situations where the goal is clear but how you achieve it will challenge your perception of right and wrong. That's the main difference - you won't set off with the goal of doing something "evil" or "good". Instead, you'll be faced with situations that must be resolved, where each solution will require sacrifice.

Villains in most games aren't truly AWFUL -- they tend to laugh maniacally and try to kill the player, but rarely commit really disturbing atrocities. Why don't more games have villains and protagonists that are truly evil and awful? Will Mass Effect tilt this paradigm?

I think the story creates a strong case for why players should hate the villains in Mass Effect, starting with the prologue, where you see a few things first-hand that show their brutality in a very visceral fashion. Later, as you learn more of what's happening with the galaxy, you'll have much deeper reasons to pursue the enemy. As with other aspects of Mass Effect, the villains and their motives must be rendered at a higher fidelity than anything we've done before.


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