Mass Effect News, Walkthrough, and Screenshots

PC fans who’ve been patiently waiting for Mass Effect to launch now have a little something to worry about. To combat piracy and other security issues, EA/Bioware has announced that the PC version of the game will use a copy protection system that re-authenticates the game every ten days. You also will only be able to activate the game on 3 machines before you have to call tech support.

A lot of fans are up in arms about this, saying why do games try to combat piracy? Why does EA treat pirates better then their customers? And so on…

The issue comes from people who want to play the game without internet. What if you’re on vacation and there is no internet? That means you won’t be able to activate the game if you so happen to be gone on the 10th day or the cycle. It’s stupid to not be able to buy a game and forget it. This just seems like too much protection.

I’m glad I picked Mass Effect up on the Xbox 360.

Enjoy Mass Effect? Discuss this topic, along with anything Mass Effect related, with hundreds of other fans at the unofficial Mass Effect Forums.

Enjoy Mass Effect? Discuss this topic, along with anything Mass Effect related, with hundreds of other fans at the unofficial Mass Effect Forums.

Those of you who have been holding out for Mass Effect PC, have finally struck gold (well maybe it’s more like silver). BioWare has announced a pre-order special for Mass Effect on PC, which ships May 27 in North America and June 6 in Europe. The special is for $10 off of your pre-order Mass Effect if you buy it from specialty stores and online retailers including GameStop and Amazon. This will bring your game cost down to like $40, not bad considering you’re also getting Bring Down the Sky for free.

If you want to eschew the pre-order discount, gamers who pre-order Mass Effect through Electronic Arts’ online store will receive bonus items from Dead Space, the company’s sci-fi survival horror game. Included in these bonus items will be the first issue of the Dead Space comic book and a Dead Space poster.

Fully optimized for the PC, Mass Effect PC includes a new Tactical Heads-Up Display, higher-resolution visuals, an enhanced inventory system, controls designed specifically for a mouse/keyboard setup, individual squad control and a new decryption mini-game.

Enjoy Mass Effect? Discuss this topic, along with anything Mass Effect related, with hundreds of other fans at the unofficial Mass Effect Forums.

EA/Bioware announced that Mass Effect on the PC will get free downloadable content. Bring Down the Sky will be available as a free download as soon as someone purchases the game. Xbox 360 gamers had to pay for this special downloadable content. I wonder if the Xbox gamers are getting mad at EA for this? Or is $5 a small price to pay to have the content several months before anyone else? Will Bring Down the Sky be made a free download on the Xbox 360 after May 28th to smooth things over with Xbox 360 owners?

There is no word yet on whether or not all DLC will be made available for free for PC game owners. If EA does decide to do this, they will have to make it free on the Xbox Live Marketplace too. They would piss off a lot of loyal fans if they don’t.

Mass Effect PC launches on May 28th.

As promised, here are the remaining 23 Mass Effect Achievements. Unlock them all to be a master of the game. It may take you a couple of play throughs to get them all, but I promise it’s well worth it. When someone looks at your gamer profile and sees you have all the achievements they’ll think you’re a total badass.

* First Aid Specialist - Use medi-gel 150 times - 15G
* Neural Shock Specialist - Use Neural Shock 75 times - 15G
* Scholar - Find all primary Alien: Council Races, Extinct Races and Non-Council Races codex entries - 25G
* Completionist - Complete the majority of the game - 25G
* Tactician - Complete playthrough with shield damage greater than health damage - 25G
* Medal of Exploration - Land on an uncharted world - 50G
* Rich - Exceed 1,000,000 Credits - 25G
* Dog of War - Register 150 organic enemy kills - 25G
* Geth Hunter - Register 250 Synthetic enemy kills - 25G
* Soldier Ally - Complete the majority of the game with the Alliance soldier squad member - 20G
* Sentinal Ally - Complete the majority of the game with the Alliance sentinel squad member - 20G
* Krogan Ally - Complete the majority of the game with the Krogan squad member - 20G
* Turian Ally - Complete the majority of the game with the turian squad member - 20G
* Quarian Ally - Complete the majority of the game with the querian squad member - 20G
* Asari Ally - Complete the majority of the game with the asari squad member - 20G
* Power Gamer - Reach 50th level with one character - 20G
* Extreme Power Gamer - Reach 60th level with one character - 50G
* Renegade - Accumulate 75% of total Renegade points - 15G
* Paragon - Accumulate 75% of total Paragon points - 15G
* Paramour - Complete any romance subplot - 10G
* Spectre Inductee - Become a Spectre - 15G
* Charismatic - Use Charm or Intimidate to resolve an impossible situation - 10G
* Search and Rescue - Locate Dr. T’Soni in the Artemis Tau cluster - 10G

So you think you’ve beaten Mass Effect? Think again. There are over 45 achievements to be unlocked in this game and odds are you only have a handful of them done. Be a true Spectre and finish them all.

Over the next two posts I will be listing all the achievements and the gamerscore points you will earn by getting them. These are challenging and meant to be fun.

* Medal of Honor - Complete 1 Mass Effect Playthrough on any setting - 100G
* Medal of Heroism - Complete Feros - 25G
* Distinguished Service Medal - Complete Eden Prime - 25G
* Council Legion of Merit - Complete Virmire - 25G
* Honorarium of Corporate Service - Complete Noveria - 25G
* Long Service Medal - Complete 2 Mass Effect Playthroughs on any setting - 25G
* Distinguished Combat Medal - Complete 1 Mass Effect playthrough on the Hardcore difficulty setting. Do not change the setting. - 25G
* Medal of Valor - Complete 1 Mass Effect playthrough on the Insanity difficulty setting. Do not change the setting. - 50G
* Pistol Expert - Register 150 Pistol Kills - 10G
* Shotgun Expert - Register 150 Shotgun Kills - 15G
* Assault Rifle Expert - Register 150 Assault Rifle Kills - 15G
* Sniper Expert - Register 150 Sniper Rifle Kills - 15G
* Lift Mastery - Use biotic Lift 75 times - 15G
* Throw Mastery - Use biotic Throw 75 times - 15G
* Warp Mastery - Use biotic Warp 75 times - 15G
* Singularity Mastery - Use biotic Singularity 75 times - 15G
* Barrier Mastery - Use biotic Barrier 75 times - 15G
* Stasis Mastery - Use biotic Stasis 75 times - 15G
* Damping Specialist - Use Damping Field 75 times - 15G
* AI Hacking Specialist - Use AI Hacking 75 times - 15G
* Overlord Specialist - Use Shield Overload 75 times - 15G
* Sabotage Specialist - Use Sabotage 75 times - 15G

By now you should know that Mass Effect for PC has been delayed. This is because they had a few things to tweak.

One new form of tweakage recently announced is a new Tactical Heads Up Display (HUD). They’ve got to perfect this part of the game before it will be released. This will allow your created Commander Shepard to issue individual squad commands to your two teammates — from their Biotics powers to their weapons — all on one screen. This should save a few keystrokes from the sometimes ungainly shoulder button commands of the Xbox 360 version, making it one more layer in the PC version’s extra polish.

I will they would have implemented something like this on the 360 version, or at least made it available for download. Check out the screenshot below to see what we mean.

Mass Effect on the PC will be missing the recent Xbox 360 download, Bring Down the Sky. It was widely thought that the DLC from the Xbox 360 version would be included in the boxed PC version, however yesterday Bioware announced that it is not true. No word yet on whether or not it will be available for download on the PC.

The reasoning behind this might be so EA/Bioware can extend the life of Mass Effect PC for a couple more months. They’ll dangle Bring Down the Sky in front of them and make it available in the late summer. And by then, the Xbox players may have their second DLC available. The point is to keep Mass Effect on the minds of PC and Xbox gamers for a long time… at least until ME2 info is released.

Chris Priestly, a Bioware Community Coordinator is asking people to spread the word that Mass Effect on PC has been delayed to May 28. Here’s his message:

I have just confirmed with the development team that we are making a small change to the release date of Mass Effect for the PC. We had previously announced May 6, 2008 for North America. The new release date for North America is May 28, 2008 and June 6, 2008 in Europe.

The team here at BioWare, working closely with the good folks at Demiurge Studios, has decided that a few more weeks in the studio will ensure we deliver the quality that our fans deserve. The additional time will allow us to incorporate more play-testing feedback, add extra polish and tune the additional features so that Mass Effect is a natural and outstanding PC gaming experience.

BioWare and EA are dedicated to excellence. We’re confident that the extra time will be reflected in the final PC experience that we deliver to our fans.

We appreciate your understanding and look forward to delivering a great game!

PC fans shouldn’t mind the slight delay, just pray it doesn’t happen again. Mass Effect is a complicated development and the visually stunning environment needs to be perfect before Bioware/EA will release it.

Mass Effect fans knows that Bioware created this game to be a trilogy from the beginning. MTV… yes that MTV, caught up with Ray Muzyka, BioWare co-founder, this week to talk about why the decided to make this game a trilogy. How could they know it would be such a huge success? Here are excerpts from Ray’s response:

We decided that we want something that really feels epic. It’s like you’re the tip of the spear of humanity on a galactic stage. Something that’s big and ambitious. What about a trilogy?

Great science fiction arcs often occur in trilogies. It seems like it’s sort of the way of it. Maybe it’s a convenient number. But it allows you to have different pacing in parts of the story. So we’re excited about the next installments. We haven’t announced them formally, but we’ve talked about how we have grand ambitions and we want to be on time to build.

Great answer Ray. I’m sure there is a small side reason that you forgot to mention. And that’s Money! Of course that’s not the real reason. These developers love games and they love creating stories. It is much easier to tell a story in multiple installments then to butcher a story or cram it in to one.

CVG posted four new Mass Effect PC videos today. They were recently released by Bioware because the PC version of Mass Effect is still set for a May launch.

Once again, Mass Effect on PC is not a straight port from the Xbox 360 version. There are several minor changes like upscaled textures, environments and character models… and obviously the hot keys on the keyboard will come in handy.

As more info comes out about the game, we’ll keep you updated. Here’s a PC gameplay video to keep you happy.