Mass Effect

[MKRayden]

With a slew of highly anticipated games across most of the major genres arriving this year, BioWare's Mass Effect is one of a handful that stands at the head of the pack. This gorgeous role-playing game epic--set across the vastness of space--has held our attention since it was announced two years ago at X05. With the release coming up, BioWare invited journalists up to its offices in Edmonton to have a look at a near final version of the game to see how the various pieces we've seen in demos all fit together. Boasting stunning visuals; a rich, complicated story that's big on user choices; gameplay that draws on and evolves the best elements from BioWare's previous games; as well as a nod to Dreamcast gem Skies of Arcadia, Mass Effect is shaping up to be the most ambitious game from the veteran developer. After playing through a chunk of the game's opening, we'd also say it's shaping up to be one of the best games out of the studio.
Mass Effect's story is an ambitious and interesting blend of the rich, scripted storytelling we've come to expect from BioWare with a very cool streak of personalization. The story's basic premise casts you as a human being in a distant future where man's discovery of an alien artifact has allowed technology to take some serious leaps forward. As a result, the human race has taken to the stars and started mingling with the neighbors. The interesting thing about this future is that, for all the romanticism there is about aliens, it seems like our galactic homies are just as petty as humans. This has led mankind to be treated like kids, and, viewed as a not entirely mature people, not cut out for full involvement in helping to govern. Your personal story finds you as a soldier pulled into a mysterious investigation regarding technology-boosting artifacts. Like all good RPG's, your seemingly innocuous video game self winds up playing a pivotal role in humanity's future. The playable demo at BioWare offered us a chance to get our hands on a work-in-progress version of the game that let us try out a few chunks, which included the game's opening.

The first chunk we tried was the game's opening, which lets you create your version of the main character, Commander Shepard. At first blush, the character creator follows the same basic pattern as previous BioWare games. You'll have an auto option that lets you nab a preset male or female character or you can choose to dive in and create a custom character. The game's tools are robust and let you create a hyperdetailed character that stands comfortably around the rest of the game's cast. The cool thing about the whole system is that the moment you start to create your character, you're in the game. The whole process is framed by accessing a computer database for the galactic alliance. By customizing your character, you're essentially "rebuilding" an entry that's been corrupted.

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[sub-zero626]

I heard that this game was one of th best in E3