Mass Effect

Mar 7, 2007

Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare, casually drops the phrase "This is a BioWare game on steroids" when describing Mass Effect. Instead of showing isolated segments without any context, or pulling up a wireframe of some robot and filling our ears with bizarre animator's argot, the good doctors decided to simply show us what gamers will experience for the first hour of the game (albeit in an accelerated form, as he cut down on the travel and exploration time by just jumping into different savepoints within the opening act).

Muzyka provided the play-by-play commentary while BioWare co-founder Dr. Greg Zeschuk manned the controls. Now, if you're the sort of person who wants to experience Mass Effect with any foreknowledge whatsoever, you need to click away now. But considering how long BioWare likes to make its games, the first hour isn't really too much revealing in the grand scheme of things.

The doctors started by showing off a bit of character creation; players can either use a "stock" Shepard character (either male or female) or modify things such as Shepard's basic appearance, character class (soldier, infiltrator, sentinel, etc.), and even fictional background. (Choices here are "spacer," colonist, and genuine Earthborn. Backgrounds influence the reputation you have with other characters and the way they interact with you.) They showed just enough to give us a taste before settling on the stock male Shepard that's been in practically every Mass Effect screen to date.

A Space War Needs Space Marshals

What was a bit of a surprise was that for all of the mentions of Shepard being a part of the Spectres (the elite military unit of the Citadel Council, aka the Space UN), he's actually not a Spectre when you start the game. He's merely a commander of a detachment of, well, space marines on-board the Normandy, the spaceship which serves as the player's main base.

The Normandy is sent to a planet called Eden Prime in order to retrieve an alien beacon; the beacon is supposedly of Prothean origin. The Council has decided to snag this new beacon, since the last time humans dug up Prothean gear, human technology leapt forward by about 300 years. A Turian (one of those weird aliens that looks like a cross between an armored raptor and a human) named Nihlus happens to be a Spectre operative, and wants to use this pick-up mission as Shepard's entrance exam for the Spectres. Nihlus will scout ahead while Shepard and his team (of a whopping two other guys) secure the area and do the dirty work. Just to make things a bit harder, Eden Prime was also recently attacked by angry robots called the Geth, and have turned the planet into an apocalyptic wasteland. Great.

Upon touchdown on the surface, the doctors showed off elements of the game's combat engine. On the surface, combat almost resembles GRAW, as Shepard hustles towards a rock, pushes his back up to it for cover (up on the D-pad), and starts taking potshots. That's one basic tactic; direct your party members to specific points (preferably behind cover) and have them figure out what to do (in most cases, that's shoot at the baddies). But Mass Effect adheres to BioWare tradition by letting you pause combat to micromanage every party member's next moves. Zeschuk demonstrated some straightforward shooting before switching to a savegame that had a more "biotic" (space version of "magic") version of Shepard. Zeschuk showed off biotics like throw (toss an energy ball), warp (throws the enemies themselves around) and barrier (instantly creates an energy shield for cover).

He also showed off how equipment changes are not only reflected in real-time (hooray!), but that equipment loadout has lots of variations that directly affect gameplay. Some armor is better against energy weapons, some is weaker to pure physical attacks, and you can also modify various items, such as switching out ammunition types for dealing different kinds of damage. While fighting the numerous Geth (who were seen impaling any humans they bumped into), Shepard runs into Ashley Williams, who's the female soldier seen on most Mass Effect screens and the box art.

One of the things Muzyka pointed out while Ashley was talking was Mass Effect's insane production values (he dubs them "HBO-style"). Sure, KOTOR looked pretty snazzy for its time, but once you start watching Mass Effect, you realize that BioWare's programmers and artists are using every trick at their disposal. The color palette ranges from sterile spaceship interiors to color-blooming planetary vistas to murky ash-filled ruins. One interesting trick to make the players focus on an NPC is to mess with the depth of field so that when you talk to someone, only the subject and Shepard are in focus, leaving everything else to get lost in a hazy blur effect. We also notice that the captain of the Normandy has a familiar voice, one that sounds a lot like Keith "don't ever mess with another man's fries" David. Zeschuk simply commented "we're not naming any of the voice actors, but they kick ass."

Wheel-Time Dialogue

When you're not busy exploring or fighting, you're talking. Mass Effect uses an abbreviated form of the traditional dialogue tree, where you now simply point the left-analog stick in the direction of the desired phrase. Each phrase is indicative of a general attitude, not the exact wording of dialogue (Muzyka comments that upper-right tends to be kinder, straight-left tends to be inquisitive/investigatory, and lower-right tends to make you unfriendly). Further, you can make your selection anytime; no need to wait for someone to finish a sentence. We personally can't wait to be annoying fellows who constantly interrupt everyone we talk to. Zeschuk fast-forwarded the demo to a point where Shepard and his squad are fighting a group of "husk" (space version of zombie humans who were impaled by the Geth earlier) before rescuing a doctor and her patient, Manuel.

While the doctor is giving a situation update about where the beacon has moved to, Manuel starts blathering on and on about the end of the galaxy as we know it. Zeschuk has Shepard ask about why Manuel is acting so weird, and Manuel's doctor explains that he's a bit cuckoo and has recently taken his blessed meds. In a move that blends surprise, humor, and brutal directness, Zeschuk has Shepard say something along the lines of, "I can shut him up" and without warning, Shepard simply quips, "Good night Manuel," before decking him in the face for an instant KO. Manuel's stunned handler could only stammer, "...I guess that's a faster way to put him to sleep." This humorous method of getting results via harsh means is the heart of Muzyka's famous "Jack Bauer in space" quote.

BioWare is aiming to have the players make hard choices which not only affect their game immediately after making them, but also have repercussions throughout the universe. Muzyka is fond of describing Shepard as the "tip of the spear of humanity" in that Shepard is the first human Spectre operative, and hence is under constant scrutiny by the rest of universe as a model of human behavior. The doctors showed a brief glimpse of the "Paragon/Renegade" system, which are two separate meters that reflect the player's actions, and teased with, "We'll talk more about how that actually works later."

Dude, Spoilers!

Now, if you've been following our Mass Effect coverage, you can guess who we saw in the next cutscene. Nihlus checks out the spaceport where the beacon was moved to, and is surprised by none other than Saren. Our first sighting of Saren ends when he decides to clip Nihlus right in the back of the head; you don't see the actual murder on-screen, but you hear the gunshot as control (and camera) return to Shepard. Soon after, a mysterious ship takes the Prothean item away, which is where the good doctors decided to end the demo. In short, Mass Effect looks like the culmination of every BioWare title to date, and we can't wait to see more in the weeks to come.