It’s at times like our Mass Effect presentation you realise how special in many ways the games industry is in comparison to other entertainment areas. In music or film, usually there’s a division between the star talent and the business types that manage them. That line tends to get blurred with game development. So while Dr Greg Zeschuk is president of BioWare, he’s also here demoing the game and looking like one of the boys in his fauxhawk and self deprecating manner.
Along with project director Casey Hudson, Dr Greg is here to show us Mass Effect, the space adventure title on Xbox 360. It’s billed as a RPG, and there is all the familiar elements of one, but there’s no shortage of fast flowing flowing action either. Think Knights of the Old Republic – just one name amongst many of the big ones these guys have brought us – and you quickly get a grip on the foundation style they established.
Beyond optimisation and polish, the game is practically done. The November release date is there to give the team time to really nail and fine tune the game’s elements, as well as cover off on localisation. As we found out – dialogue is critical in Mass Effect, so linguistic issues in particular will make or break the experience.
Dr Greg tells us that the team has been really shooting for emotional impact in Mass Effect. The storytelling the game does is absolutely the important thing. One of the BioWare team has even written a kind of prequel to the Mass Effect story in novel form – the fifth such book he’s written, along with KOTOR and Star Wars books.
The ME plot is pure sci-fi. You play the role of John Shepard. Despite the name, you can customise Shepard’s appearance massively in game, even being able to play Shepard as a woman. Presumably without the name John, but hey, who knows?
Anyway, whatever gender you are, you’re the commander of an elite military force whose brief goes beyond the standard rules of engagement. You and your team believe an ancient legend – that every 50,000 years, every race in the galaxy gets wiped out, along with all evidence they existed – and are in a frantic race against time to prevent it happening this time. All other values fall secondary to literally saving the galaxy.
The galaxy in question? Why our own Milky Way, of course. Hudson demonstrated stellar navigation in ME by pulling up a map of nearby stars. He zoomed out until the entire galaxy was there, clouds and clusters and all. Scattered throughout the galaxy as worlds to explore. There’s worlds that the story arc dictates you visit, and then there’s others that the BioWare guys have put in there for inquisitive souls to drop down and check out on a whim when you need a break from saving the galaxy.
We dropped down to Virmire, an inhabited, lush planet that features prominently in the storyline of one of your team, Urdnot Wrex. And here is where I have to issue “SCI FI JARGON ALERT”, but bear with me because it’s pretty decent. Wrex is a Krogan Battlemaster. Krogans are a large, reptilian race who are slowly being made extinct by the Genophage, a disease that reduces their birthrates down to one in 1000. The Turian race were the ones who created this disease, as part of a group effort to stop the rampant expansion of the aggressive Krogan. And naturally, you have a Turian in your team, Garrus, so part of your job is keeping these two from blowing each other to smithereens.
Anyway, in the sequences we saw – which skipped a few sequences to save time in between, we get an insight into what makes Wrex tick. Initially, Wrex is a bounty hunter. He joins Shepard’s crew after Shepard kills one of his contract targets, and decides that their objectives align. Wrex wants to save the galaxy as well, but as we find out on Virmire, is put in an impossible situation when the team finds out that the target they have to kill – a bad guy called Saren – has developed a cure for the Krogan birth problem. If they destroy the base on Virmire his race is doomed. If the cure is allowed to get off the planet, then the whole galaxy is potentially dead meat. From such experiences you quickly get how BioWare came up with the title Mass Effect – no matter what you do, you’re navigating a line that attempts to save countless lives.
How Wrex reacts to the situation – and how you as Shepard try to deal with it – are just one of the many powerful vignettes in the game. And underpinning your control of the storyline is the branching dialogue system of the game, arguably its most important feature. Conversations in ME aren’t just predetermined cutscenes, they’re organic affairs that directly change the story flow. Somebody says something to you, you supply a response from the ones listed, you say it back, they respond accordingly, and so on. The lip syncing is exceptional – I didn’t note one stuff up in the demonstration.
Hudson explains the game doesn’t just have “multiple endings”, rather it has a “matrix” of endings, each the final outcome of the countless decisions you’ve made along the way – the loyalty you’ve shown as well as the ruthlessness, if need be. The people you save as well as those you can’t all affect the final outcome. The BioWare guys don’t supply full-on detail, but do say they developed tech specifically to cater to the multiple storylines in game.
Your direct actions as Shepard obviously are critical to the story outcome, but your reception by others is something that’s determined by your own backstory and actions up to that point. You have multiple options as to Shepard’s history prior to the start of the game – if he/she was a famous military commander, Dr Greg points out, you may have autograph seeking fanboys stalking you around, for example. Once you take control of Shepard, all your actions go towards a overall scale – measured by two values – Paragon and Renegade. These bars can both be populated – it’s not black and white – you’re not either one or the other. Despite their simplicity, these are arguably just as important for many players as the heap of attributes you spend your experience points on building up. Skill levels broken down into specifics, that unlock special attacks and even new abilities the more you ‘invest’ in them.
The game itself looks fine. It’s not Crysis or Gears of War, but the characters in the game look highly realistic and the facial work is top notch. When you’re in combat, it’s serviceable as well, although we did see the odd bit of framerate jitter at times. And it should be noted that combat doesn’t look merely tacked on here. There’s squad level options as well as the ability to go Rambo, not to mention the use of Biotics, Dark Energy powers that allow you to do some very “Force powers” like moves. The enemy AI we saw could flatteringly be described as “brave” more than smart, however.
The troop carrier vehicle we saw demoed, the MAKO, was kind of like a squat, hardtop version of Halo’s Warthog. There was a seriously cool scope function where you can zoom in (great visual effects with this as your target periphery shifts out of focus) and lay waste. You also have a handy jump jet on the MAKO, perfect for bouncing over incoming missiles, as we were shown.
The BioWare chaps suggest play time if you’re reasonably focused will clock in at close to 30, potentially doubling if you stop to checkout the uncharted worlds and all the additional juice along the way. You really get the impression these guys invest a load of dedication and thought into every aspect of this game. We’re taken through a comprehensive Wikipedia meets Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy style interface which compiles all the game lore and information. It’s a massive resource BioWare acknowledge many players may not spend any time reading, but they put it in there so punters who love detail can get the complete picture. Now
that’s taking pride in your work.
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