Mass Effect 1 & 2: News, Walkthrough, and Screenshots

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.

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.

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.

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

Hello PC Mass Effect Fans. I know a lot of you are patiently waiting for Mass Effect to come out on PC. Don’t worry, the wait isn’t long, but I wanted to introduce to you something that will keep you busy in the mean time. Have you ever been playing an online shooter like Counter Strike or Half Life and been booted out of one of the Game Servers? Well, if you have, then I have the solution for you… buy your very own dedicated game servers!

It’s really not that hard and you don’t need to be a computer genius to do it. Thanks to the good folks at XTR Game Servers, there is a now a cheap and easy solution to your gaming problems.

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The servers can run games of all size… from small clans to tournament bound multi-game clans. You will be able to play unlimited games at 100% uptime! All their dedicated servers come with our amazing gaming control panel pre-installed and configured, and games are all de-branded as standard. You won’t see any weird advertisements or logos while playing your games on these servers.

You might think that a server like this will cost you a fortune. Well, you’re wrong. For as little as 79P you can own your very own server. If that price is too steep for you, why not as your friends or clan members to each chip in $5. Before you know it, the server will be paid for.

It’s time to lock and load and commit to a game server. Take the next step!

We are only a few months past the launch of Mass Effect, and now one of Bioware’s senior developers is saying we could see Mass Effect 2 “soon.” Matt was asked when we could be seeing the sequel and he replied, “Well, the first one took three and a half years, but because we’ve got a lot of the tools and a base level now, it’s not going to take that long. I’d say soon, but not real soon.”

So the question everyone is asking is, how soon is soon? To me, soon means a couple of months. But in the timescale of video game releases, soon probably means a year or more. At the very earliest, I would predict a Mass Effect 2 launch around the Holiday 2008 season. But that’s not very likely since we haven’t seven seen any footage of Mass Effect 2.

For it to be released that soon after Mass Effect, it would have had to been in development during the original game… much like how Peter Jackson filmed all three Lord of the Rings movies at the same time.

I think a more realistic launch date would be Q3 2009, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Mass Effect has a great storyline and of course is filled with lots of memorable quotes. Some of the quotes (like those from Wrex) are quite funny, while others are serious. Below is a list of some of my favorite Mass Effect Quotes.

“You exist because we allow it and you will die because we demand it”

“Don’t piss in my ear and tell me it’s raining” - Wrex

Cole: He’s not a bad guy. I don’t want to get him in trouble. Besides, I’m not a snitch!
Shepard: Would you rather be a Snitch or a Corpse?
Cole: Powell! His name’s Powell!
Ashley: No honor among thieves…

Garrus: Orders Commander?
Shepard: We find a way out. Someone up there needs my boot up his ass. See if theres anything here we can use.

“This place has some nice…sights” - Kaiden

“You want the respect you deserve you piece of crap? Well, here you go”- Commander Shepard

In a recent interview, one of Bioware’s senior Mass Effect developers Matt Atwood said “I love the individual squad command. If you play with the individual squad control, it’s a deeper tactical game—it has more impact than I think people realize. As is the hot keys for the biotic powers. You can really play it more action style.”

Since when did Mass Effect go from being an RPG to an action game? I hadn’t quite thought about the idea of having hot keys all over the keyboard to control your skills, such as warp or throw. Having hot keys will really speed up the game. And just like Atwood said, you can play it more action style.

Part of what I love about Mass Effect is that you should take your time playing the game. You need to be careful and plan your tactics. With the hotkeys on the PC, I’m worried some people will play the game as a run and shoot game and just breeze right through it.

Who did you choose for your romance scene? Liara or Ashley?

vs.

You can choose your “sex” partner by the order you talk to them in the game. Once you start showing a lot of attention to one, it will kind of cancel out the other. On one hand you have Liara, and super hot, sexy alien that is just itching for a good time. And on the other, you have Ashley… a more laid back, yet sometimes spunky human.

Some people may get weirded out by having a romance with an alien, while others may be intrigued to see what it’s all about. When I play through the game, I always pick Liara. She just has way more sex appeal to me.

What about you?

Xbox 360 fans may now rejoice! While PS3 and Wii fans may now be pissed!

Bioware announced that Mass Effect 2 will be exclusive to the Xbox 360 at least for a short period of time? What does that mean? Well, similar to how Mass Effect will be released on PC in another two months… Mass Effect 2 will follow the same way. It should reach PC several months after it’s debut on the Xbox 360.

Here’s a quote from one of Bioware’s senior managers. “I believe we’ll be Xbox 360 exclusive for at least a short period of time,” said Matt Atwood. “We’re still working out the details on that, but we’ve had a great relationship with Microsoft and done very well.”

The only thing that saddens me about this announcement is that even after the recent release of Bring Down the Sky, we’re already starting to talk about Mass Effect 2. Come on folks! Let’s keep Mass Effect alive for a little longer before we start talking about the sequel.

One of the most popular additions fans want for Mass Effect is the ability to reallocate skill points.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, people make mistakes… and not having the ability to undo those mistakes is a pain. Plus you will put points into skills you need at the beginning, but can become somewhat useless once you reach level 60.

The only thing that is stopping the developers from adding this feature to the game is that Mass Effect was created so that your character is a result of the actions you take. The choices you make while leveling up won’t matter as much if you can just undo all your skills later on.

So what do you think? How do you feel about the idea of reallocating skill points? Maybe it becomes only available once you reach level 60?

You should all know by now that Bring Down the Sky is available for Mass Effect. In case some of you didn’t download it (maybe you’re waiting for reviews or didn’t have the 400 points), I wanted to post a quick video of some of it. This is a video of a Batarian Beast. Enjoy!