New Mass Effect Interview

[mckmas8808]

XE: A lot of the features and gameplay elements announced about Mass Effect sound very similar to KOTOR and JE. How will Mass Effect separate itself from past Bioware RPGs, and other RPGs besides the futuristic space elements?

Greg: Mass Effect will certainly be reminiscent of past BioWare RPGs, certainly in part because it’s being made by many of the same people that made our past games! The way to look at Mass Effect is that it is another step in the evolution of the BioWare RPG. Ray described how we personally define role playing games, and Mass Effect continues to extend this description. It is going to have an amazing story and characters, fully-voiced dialog (using a slick next-generation dialog system we have recently created), challenging tactical combat and some interesting Live features. All of these things will be different than we’ve done in the past, but you will be able to see their origins in our past games. It is also important to emphasize that Mass Effect will have strong and integrated role playing systems, even though it also has some very cool action elements.

XE: How is the experience developing for Xbox 360 from PC or Xbox?

Greg: The experience of developing for the Xbox360 isn’t fundamentally different from working on any other platform, aside from the fact that we’ve got considerably more horsepower than we’ve ever had before to dedicate to every one of our game systems. The end result is that the game will look better, have considerably richer worlds and even more interesting characters. For this generation I would really look at what we’re going to do with digital actors – the detail and realism of the characters we’re going to be able to create will be unparalleled.

XE: Visually what we have seen for Mass Effect is quite impressive, in fact on par with other next-generation titles like Gears of War. How long has it been in development using the Unreal Engine 3, and are the visuals just as detailed in one area as the other, or in some of the bigger areas, does Bioware become more “lenient�

Casey: We’ve been working with this engine since the beginning of the project, and much of our work has focused on adding proprietary extensions that allow us to do some unique things with cinematics, dialog and digital actors. We haven’t yet shown the kinds of things our characters will be able to do, but it will be amazing. Our focus on advanced digital actors is paying off in some unbelievable ways. One interesting side effect of having extremely advanced and realistic characters is the sense of empowerment you get as a player when you create your character’s unique appearance, and that character ends up looking surprisingly real and is capable of very subtle acting and facial expressions etc.

Generally though, what we’ve shown as part of our announcement is just a teaser of things to come. We’re building a whole galaxy of aliens, creatures, and exotic locations – in addition to a sophisticated system for variety in the humans you’ll see in the game, including lots of different clothing and armor types. We also have a very sleek, futuristic architectural style to our environments that’s only hinted at in the released imagery. In short, we expect the final game to exceed the scope and quality of the few teaser scenes we’ve shown so far.

Great interview and you can read more here. http://www.xe360.com/media.php?gameid=522

So what do you think?

 

[Inane_Dork]

ME is possibly *the* game I'm waiting for. If I could only have one, it would probably be this one.

I like the shots and concept art, too. It's really a shame Bioware takes so darn long.

 

[MoeStooge]

Yeah, I am excited about this game. Bioware has a pretty good track record for me.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I love the idea of uncharted worlds, just set out into space and see what shows up.

ALso the battle system sounds crazy interesting, it's action-based, yet also "extremely tactical" you have a fighter class, a tech class and and some sort of magic class and your party of three will be a combination of these styles.

I'm not sure how they're gonna pull this off, but since it;s the original KOTOR team, with Casey Hudson at the helm, I'm already nominating it for GOTY 2006! I sure hope we don't have to wait till 2007 for this one

 

[Shark Sandwich]

I'm definitely excited about this game. Bioware + Unreal 3 + Xbox 360 is an exciting combination. The one thing that bugs me most, though, is the very last picture on that page. Generic sterile metal environment with the random crate lying around. This had better not be the way most of the dungeons look in this game or I will be very disappointed.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Looks more like the inside of your spaceship.

The backgrounds and body armor are not great, but what's awesome about this shot is the face! Have you seen this in motion? The facial animation is so subtle, yet perfect, by far the best in-game facial animations I've ever seen.

 

[c0_re]

I'm definitely excited about this game. Bioware + Unreal 3 + Xbox 360 is an exciting combination.

Thats all I need to know that it will ATLEAST be a AA game with lots of play hours.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

Looks more like the inside of your spaceship.

The backgrounds and body armor are not great, but what's awesome about this shot is the face! Have you seen this in motion? The facial animation is so subtle, yet perfect, by far the best in-game facial animations I've ever seen.

I just watched the trailer. It definitely looks cool in motion!

All I'm saying is that I hope Bioware puts in more attention to detail than they have in the past. We've seen Bioware's sci-fi look with KOTOR, and it wasn't pretty. If I see another big, empty, metal, rectangular room I think I'll go crazy. I sure hope that's not what our living spaces look like in the future.

 

[mckmas8808]

The facial animation is so subtle, yet perfect, by far the best in-game facial animations I've ever seen.

MGS4 disagrees with you.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Nah, ME wins facial animations no contest. MGS4 has a very nice character model, that's where it shines, snakes suit is sick... Snakes face is not the best, the animations were much less realistic than ME.

ME definately has better background quality too(in most scenes), but the MGS4 backgrounds were so bad I'm sure they're just placeholders.

 

[mckmas8808]

Nah, ME wins facial animations no contest. MGS4 has a very nice character model, that's where it shines, snakes suit is sick... Snakes face is not the best, the animations were much less realistic than ME.

ME definately has better background quality too(in most scenes), but the MGS4 backgrounds were so bad I'm sure they're just placeholders.

No need to argue this you know we can go back-to-back for hours right?

We'll see late 2006 or early 2007. Let's try to remeber this for the future. Cool?

 

[msia2k75]

No need to argue this you know we can go back-to-back for hours right?

We'll see late 2006 or early 2007. Let's try to remeber this for the future. Cool?

More likely late 2007!

 

[groper]

Nah, ME wins facial animations no contest. MGS4 has a very nice character model, that's where it shines, snakes suit is sick... Snakes face is not the best, the animations were much less realistic than ME.

ME definately has better background quality too(in most scenes), but the MGS4 backgrounds were so bad I'm sure they're just placeholders.

I agree . ME facial design and animations look far more realistic to me also.

 

[liverkick]

Nah, ME wins facial animations no contest. MGS4 has a very nice character model, that's where it shines, snakes suit is sick... Snakes face is not the best, the animations were much less realistic than ME.

ME definately has better background quality too(in most scenes), but the MGS4 backgrounds were so bad I'm sure they're just placeholders.

Is there another Mass Effect trailer thats the source of all this raving? Dont tell me you're basing this on that one minute teaser on IGN. Dont get me wrong, it looked quite tasty but it was barely a glimpse of anything. Is there a more extensive preview floating around?

 

[mckmas8808]

Is there another Mass Effect trailer thats the source of all this raving? Dont tell me you're basing this on that one minute teaser on IGN. Dont get me wrong, it looked quite tasty but it was barely a glimpse of anything. Is there a more extensive preview floating around?

No.

 

[therealskywolf]

This game looks so pretty. Can't wait for another Bioware GEM.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Is there another Mass Effect trailer thats the source of all this raving? Dont tell me you're basing this on that one minute teaser on IGN. Dont get me wrong, it looked quite tasty but it was barely a glimpse of anything. Is there a more extensive preview floating around?

There have been half a dozen developer interviews that sound awesome.

 

[_phil_]

There have been half a dozen developer interviews that sound awesome.

i agree ,face animation on developer interviews kills anything mgs4 or any other game ,btw...

 

[liverkick]

There have been half a dozen developer interviews that sound awesome.

I agree a lot of what Bioware says they have planned sounds great. I just didnt understand where your comparisons to the MGS4 trailer (facial animation, detail etc.) were coming from. I guess I still dont.

 

[groper]

There have been half a dozen developer interviews that sound awesome.

including Kojima's interview