We sat down with Bioware's Ray Muzyka to check out the first hour of Mass Effect. Great games, he said, are memorable because of emotional moments. Muzyka stresses that Mass Effect will provide players with a truly cinematic, emotional experience. As if to prove his point, the demo takes place on a crisp HD display with a very loud surround sound speaker system. Muzyka picks up a control, starts the demo, and we begin Bioware's latest adventure.
There are several character backgrounds from which to choose. The background you choose affects the overall story of your character, Commander Shepard. Muzyka chooses a soldier. The story begins with well acted cinematics. Everything is well rendered: characters, backgrounds, everything. It's immediately evident that the game plays on a galactic scale. The facial animations are nice. The eyes, though, seem slightly off. It doesn't pull you out of the experience, but it's worth noting considering BioWare's consistent talk of emotional gameplay. Overall the graphics are extremely polished, with lots of cinematic effects added.
In particular, we notice that character dialogue has much more interesting camera work than BioWare's previous efforts. No longer are you presented with back-and-forth cuts between characters. Now the camera moves, changes locations to present more interesting angles. Another neat effect, the camera focuses on the characters that are talking while blurring the background. This depth of field effect helps create a cinematic environment.
After a bit of dialogue with his superiors, Shepard is dispatched to a planet called Eden Prime. Now we get to see Mass Effect's combat engine in action. Cinematic storytelling is nice, but the combat engine may wind up stealing the show. Mass Effect's combat should satisfy a broad range of players. Combat plays out in real time. Players can issue commands to teammates (who are smart enough to take cover and defend themselves appropriately) and are capable of running and gunning solo as well. Should you desire, you can even pause the action to deliver specific actions to each team member.
In real time, the game essentially plays out like a loose FPS. Players have standard weapons and also biotics -- essentially Mass Effect's magic system. Biotics aid you in many ways. Muzyka showed off an offensive biotic that destroyed enemies and another that created a shield that can be used as portable cover. Overall, the combat seemed visceral and satisfying.
The game promises to have tons of customizable options. The main character, of course, is customizable, with options of background, class, and appearance left to the player. Weapons have a variety of modifications available and even have different types of ammo to pick from. Armor also affects your character's appearance.
All in all, the game is shaping up nicely. Whether or not we'll get to experience the truly emotional moments that Muzyka is hoping for remains to be seen. There is one thing, though, that we think is perfectly clear. The game looks fun. We'll take an emotional experience if we can get it, but we're happy to settle with fun.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
3-06-2007 @ 10:05PM
a ham sandwich said...
i for one, am really looking forward to this game. cant wait!
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3-06-2007 @ 10:13PM
DjDATZ said...
i giggled when i refreshed the main page and saw this. :D teehee
small but funny spellin mistake: "Mass Efffect"...LOL
"who are smart enough to take cover and defend themselves appropriately" unlike those numbskulls in GoW. lol
grrr...this makes me want to play this game NOW. not in a couple months.
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3-06-2007 @ 10:38PM
Insomnious said...
For someone who laughs at spelling mistakes, you're grammar must be the centre of attention at parties.
Hopefully this will satisfy my cravings for massive games, after ruining my body-clock playing Oblivion. Plus, they developed KotOR, so you can't really go wrong.
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3-06-2007 @ 10:56PM
Jeff said...
wow, this is the least praising analysis of Mass Effect I've read. Not complaining.. it's just weird. Of all the places to read something that isn't completely salivating at the feet of Bioware I'm sorta satisfied that it's here at xbox360fanboy. I've noticed that some of the other blogs in the joystiq circuit aren't very objective (*COUGH* *PS3 FANBOY!* *GAG* *NICK DOERR*) but 360fanboy always seems to report exactly what they see. thanks for the good job guys.
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3-06-2007 @ 11:18PM
Frosty said...
Yeah I second Jeff's comments. First off... Nick Doerr is one of the most annoying bloggers I've ever read and his stuff is complete junk. Now that I've got that said and done, I have always been impressed with x360fanboy. You typically keep your posts objectively focused on the 360 without feeding into all the annoying fanboy tendencies that you can see at other fanboy sites.
Thanks!
Oh and this game looks awesome. Really looking forward to it.
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3-06-2007 @ 11:20PM
DjDATZ said...
lol...my grammar in comments online is completely separate from how i speak in person.
i commented at the fact that it was a humourous spelling mistake and not calling richard an idiot for making a spelling mistake. why then do you feel compelled to attack me, personally, and how i choose to comment?
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3-06-2007 @ 11:27PM
Mikeawesome said...
Nice.
What I'm hoping for?
Bioware, towards the tail end of the development cycle (which is curiously approaching quickly) announces that they had implemented a seamless xbox live Co-op, much like a breeding of Gears of War and Crackdown.
Mmm. That would be so delicious.
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3-06-2007 @ 11:40PM
Richard Mitchell said...
Fixed the spelling mistake. Thanks for the kind words guys. GDC is maddening. More coverage on the way.
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3-06-2007 @ 11:42PM
DjDATZ said...
mike...as far as i know...this game is set to have co-op. but i may be wrong though.
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3-06-2007 @ 11:59PM
Insomnious said...
Co-op is becoming an increasing feature found in a lot of 360 games, and it's a very positive trend. It's good to know developers are listening and finding new ways to integrate co-op into their games - for example, the excellent co-op for SC: Chaos Theory.
Not entirely sure how co-op would work for a game like Mass Effect, as it would require a lot more dialogue if two user-controlled characters were interacting with a NPC. Having two characters making dialogue decisions would create many different conversation paths, and that could become confusing.
Would certainly be something future games should aim for. *nudge* *nudge*
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3-07-2007 @ 1:20AM
Clinton said...
The game still looks fantastic and from this account, sounds like it is doing well in the gameplay department. I still do not have a grasp on how movement around the world is handled, as the only scenarios presented so far have been focused on either conversation or combat.
I get the feeling after you get out of your starship, movement in the city/planet/wherever will be fairly limited.
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3-07-2007 @ 2:15AM
Jian said...
Great writeup. Looking forward to Mass Effect in a big way.
Typo nitpick:
"It's doesn't pull you out of the experience"
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3-07-2007 @ 3:51AM
Azerael said...
The eyes have been strange for as long as Bioware has been showing the game. They seem to stare blankly into space while the rest of the face animates. Very worrying if they haven't picked that up this late in the development cycle because right now the 'virtual actors' really feel sort of freaky.
They really need to ask Valve to show them how it's done.
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3-07-2007 @ 8:30AM
KilgoreTrout XL said...
Sounds good except "loose fps." What does that mean?
And Nick Doerr tries to put a positive spin on an overly-bashed console on a blog where 75% of the commenters are hating fanboys.
He's just doing his job. Give him a break.
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3-07-2007 @ 9:07AM
rustboy said...
Am I the only one who noticed the main character is cross-eyed? Bugs the hell outta me but from the trailers, this game looks incredible.
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3-07-2007 @ 9:14AM
Daryl said...
Can't wait!
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3-07-2007 @ 4:11PM
Thomas said...
The reason the facial expressions are a little off is because Bioware did not take a cleaned-up build to GDC. They took the same build that the programmers were working on that day, meaning that unlike other demos, it had not been cleaned to make the experience perfect.
Bioware states on their forum:
"And like I said in that other thread, it's likely becuase there was a small bug in the system that build.
Usually when a company takes a build or demo of the game to E3, GDC, or some trade show it is a "special" construction worked on for days or weeks making everything look especially polished and perfect to give the absolute best impression of the game to whoever sees it.
For our GDC presentation, Ray and Greg took the latest build. Not a special build. Not a "impress the press" build. Just the same build that the rest of the company was using that day. There were a few bugs in it and they ar ethe ones you see mentioned in those assorted articles. Mass Effect isn't finished yet. There are still bugs in the game, optimization to do, etc. It is all stuff that'll be fixed before the game is released."
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3-07-2007 @ 5:28PM
gtpunch said...
"For someone who laughs at spelling mistakes, you're grammar must be the centre of attention at parties."
@Insomnius - Your (no apostrophe) grammar isn't so hot either.
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3-14-2007 @ 3:35PM
xX0LDSCH00LXx said...
What does he mean when he wrote "In real time, the game essentially plays out like a loose FPS." I thought that this was a TPS, I hate FPS games their hard on the eyes,this has me worried!
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6-12-2007 @ 7:12PM
laslow said...
This game looks really great and I can't wait for it to come out though there are some issues I wish that were rectified. For example I searched on many websites about whether or not ME would be coop or not and the answers have varied from having a 3 player sqaud online play, a coop gameplay and just one person. It would be great when this game comes out to show whether or not there is a coop. Though I do wonder what type of game this could turn out to be if it was fit for more then one person.
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