Mass Effect is about many things - exploration, war, adventure, romance, politics and, of course, lots of weird and creepy space aliens. But above everything else, Mass Effect is about choice. Watching the game for just half an hour at this year's E3, we were positively staggered by the number of large and small decisions the player was forced to make, and how reaching an impact each one had.
It begins before you even start the game. Do you want your hero, Commander Shepard, to be male or
With its beautifully refined sci-fi universe and the mind-boggling enormity of its galaxy-spanning adventure, the best way we can describe what we've seen so far of developer BioWare's interstellar action-RPG, Mass Effect, is to say that it's out of this world.
Our first contact with Mass Effect showed off the neat character interaction system as well as offering a glimpse of some of the squad-based, real-time combat, and the latest Mass Effect demo we were shown launched us deeper into space
Tuesday 16 May 2006
RPGs are frequently measured in how many hours it would take someone to complete the whole game, but with Mass Effect, perhaps months would be a more effective yard-stick. Our private viewing of this game revealed an adventure so huge, it strains the capacity of your brain to attempt to encompass what it's all about... but we're going to try anyway.
You play as Commander Shepard, a sort of space federal agent in the employ of a peace-keeping organisation called Specters.
Next-gen games routinely come equipped with astounding graphics, so it should come as no surprise that Mass Effect oozes hi-def hotness out of every pore. What separates this game from the mob of other beautiful titles is exactly what players of the role-playing genre demand from their games: scope.
As a member of the futuristic human space soldiers known as the Specters (insert techno theme music here), you embark on a mission to capture or otherwise contain a rogue military general. But, as
