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The Last Preview: Mass Effect
- November 07, 2007 10:46 AM PST
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On November 20th, you'll be giving Halo 3 a rest. Here's why you need Mass Effect.
It has been a well recognized fact that the role-playing game genre has been severely underrepresented on the Xbox 360. Blockbuster RPG titles like Oblivion and Blue Dragon (and to a lesser extent, Eternal Sonata) have been few and far between, causing fans of the genre to look to other consoles and the PC for their statistics and strategy fix. By the end of November, the draw to bring these players back to Microsoft's prodigy console will reach critical mass--or more specifically, Mass Effect.
Pray you don't get the "red ring" on November 20.
From the great minds at BioWare, the very same that brought you Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, and the Baldur's Gate games, comes the next ambitious foray into the stars. Mass Effect is set to straddle the RPG and action genres in a way only hinted at in previous games. BioWare started with an active, franticly paced combat engine and merged it with their trademark ability to pause the game mid-action and assign strategic commands, similar to what is found in most of their earlier titles.
Mass Effect Combat Video
Get ready for Mass Effect with this combat trailer!
The final result is a blurring of the lines between action and strategy, giving the player the ability to play the game the way that is most comfortable to them. Fire a few shots then pause the game to assign commands, or run in guns blazing and show off all the skills you learned from those all-night Halo 3 sessions.
More often then not, talking out issues saves lives and bullets before resulting to violence, and this is another area where Mass Effect shines. Working off the lessons learned in its previous RPGs, BioWare's Mass Effect takes dialogue trees to the next level. In conversation, no longer do you have to wait for the NPC you are speaking with to finish talking before selecting how you want to respond. You can select the response at any time, and your character will speak his line when cinematically appropriate, creating a far more fluid conversational experience. Add to this the extensive detail in character facial movements and emotions, and you end up with a presentation of near-cinematic quality.
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