Mark chooses his words carefully...
Back in the early days of the good ol’ Xbox, a small game by the name of Knights of The Old Republic arrived and gave the system a killer RPG that single-handedly made the Star Wars license credible again.
Created by Neverwinter Nights developers Bioware, KoTOR gave us an enthralling interstellar tale with twists aplenty, unique moral conversation choices which dictated whether your character turned out Jedi (good) or Sith (evil), and bags of gameplay, with combat that melded fast-paced real-time action with the slow-paced, turned-based menu-driven attacks of traditional RPGs.
Bioware’s second Xbox RPG, Jade Empire, offered full fluid real-time combat, and together with KoTOR has paved the way for Mass Effect. The company’s most ambitious role-player yet, Mass Effect mixes Knights of the Old Republic, Ghost Recon, Gears of War and Fahrenheit for a uniquely immersive sci-fi experience.
Mass Effect’s conversation system has been the subject of much talk in the games industry since Mass Effect was first announced, with Bioware promising to revolutionise the entire concept of in-game dialogue choices.
Wide open
KoTOR did this to a certain degree, of course; offering four or five responses at a time, each of which would effect how characters reacted – and turning you to either the dark or light side in the process. Mass Effect, however, blows this wide open, with improved character development, more sophisticated interaction with other characters, and a closer relationship between the two features.
In Mass effect, bad and good points – named Renegade and Paragon points respectively – can be accrued side by side; so no more black-and-white moral contrast. In Mass effect, your choices can often be a murky grey. Moreover, Mass Effect gives far more weight to your decisions, with different types of points affecting your character’s conversation skills, and giving you different conversation options – be they blunt, angry, passive or persuasive – as you progress through the game; meaning Mass Effect should have significant replayability.
Mass Effect Mixes Knights of the Old Republic, Ghost Recon, Gears of War and Fahrenheit for a uniquely immersive sci-fi experience.
Conversations themselves are promising to flow with a fluency not unlike Fahrenheit. Instead of waiting for a character to talk and being presented responses a la KoTOR, Mass Effect’s choices will appear as talks actually unfold – giving you the chance to interrupt, and giving you options of not only what your character will say, but the manner in which they say it – leaving you with an improbably large list of ways the game can develop over the course of 30+ hours.
How this will truly work, however, remains to be seen. With conversation set to have such a big impact on the way characters respond, Mass Effect’s plot will need plenty of depth and more than just a couple of endings. Having said that, the outline looks promising; pitting you as an intergalactic law enforcement officer sent to battle the forces of a former agent gone rogue. With a planet-hopping plot, plenty of sidequests and numerous ways to outfit your squad, Mass Effect might just be Bioware’s most captivating fiction yet.
Causing ripples
The key word there is squad. Mass Effect takes Jade Empire’s real-time, RPG-infused combat a step on and gives you guns, letting you run, shoot and take cover with an almost GRAW-esque outlook. Having said that, like Bioware’s past works, you’ll be able to pause Mass Effect’s combat at any time and bring up two wheel menus with L1 and R1 to direct your team’s attacks, cast techniques, and even change weapons on-the-fly; an option previously confined to the equipment menu in other Bioware titles.
Immersive, innovative and incredibly ambitious, Mass Effect is also going to be one great looking videogame. Using the same Unreal Engine 3 which powered Gears of War, Mass Effect has that same gritty, eye-bulging detail and HD shinyness that the Xbox 360 does so very well, and will surely be amongst the best lookers on the system.
Indeed, Mass Effect should itself be the console’s premier adventure. Bioware have rarely let fans down, and with this are upping the ante once again. Probably the most aptly named title of the entire year, Mass effect, like KoTOR before it, could cause ripples in RPG-land for a very long time.
Preview by: Mark Scott
Preview Published: 02.11.07
Published: 02/11/2007
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