YankeeH8er
08-17-2006, 12:20 PM
"When it comes to huge, beautiful and fun action RPGs, BioWare is easily the leader. With games like Baulder's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire, it is easy to understand why Microsoft wanted them to create an RPG trilogy for their Xbox 360. And that's exactly what they did, in the form of the sci-fi RPG Mass Effect.
In Mass Effect, you play as Commander Shepard, an elite human soldier known as a Spectre, fighting to restore peace in the galaxy circa 2183. The threat comes from not only external fighters, but also internal as well, and you will find yourself facing a variety of enemies in your quest to save yourself and your galaxy. In the game, you will command a squad of fighters to help you dispatch your foes. These foes are all based on a prophecy that claims that every 50,000 years, machines come down to harvest all the organic life in the galaxy. And, as you guessed, it is just about time for them to come back down. Other than this tidbit, not much else is known about the game's story.
The game's name, Mass Effect, comes from a form of dark energy that enables the player to travel vast distances across space as well as giving the player superhuman powers known as biotics. These biotics allow the player to do things like freeze items, light things on fire, control objects without contact and other amazing abilities. On top of the biotics, your character is also customizable in other ways, such as weapons and armor.
However, if biotics isn't what you feel like your main specialization should be, there are also two other classes to choose from: soldier and tech. The soldier class is good at exactly as implied: killing things through weapons like guns and grenades. The tech class on the other hand can learn to control and use the enemies weapons and equipment to their own combat advantage. Your character can be any combination of these classes, as can your squad mates. Throughout the game, you can have up to two people in your squad to help you out in combat situations. These squad mates can be picked by the player and will all feature different stats and abilities. Like yours, their weapons can be customized. And during combat (which is in real time) you will be able to control your group through actions on the D-pad and shoulder buttons. This makes for a strategic, yet simple to grasp combat system that should add a new dimension of gameplay for the player.
In addition to combat, the interactions with NPCs are truly next-gen. Mass Effect features advanced facial features on all characters. Using this, you can control exactly how your character presents himself and what he says. This allows you to convey whatever attitude you wish towards other characters in the game and vice versa. Be a nice person to them, and they will do the same to you. Be a mean person, and they most likely won't give you what you want (though that's not to say a nice death threat can't cure). Through these conversations, as well as various moral decisions you will have to make, the story's outcome will be affected, even across the next two games in the trilogy. The developer's aim is to have an amazing storyline through these interactions and decisions, and judging by how it is shaping up this far, it looks like they are right on track for their goal.
After all the fighting and talking, sometimes you just want to get away and explore the galaxy. Mass Effect makes that easy with your own all-terrain vehicle that can travel across any terrain you throw at it (hence the all-terrain part). You can also add upgrades to your vehicle to help you get to hard to reach places. This allows for some truly free-roaming gameplay, even if you know exactly where to go. However, when you do arrive at the objective however, your vehicle's equipped guns and turrets which will sometimes help you in combat situations just like another squad member.
Mass Effect is looking to bring the RPG genre to the next-generation through advanced combat, stunning graphics, a highly consequential dialog system and many more features. The game looks to be shaping up for a launch into a far away galaxy of amazing games, but only time will tell when it is released April 2007."
http://www.clubskill.com/downloads/phpthumbs/phpThumb.php?src=../Mass%20Effect/20060509_184645.jpg
http://www.clubskill.com/downloads/phpthumbs/phpThumb.php?src=../Mass%20Effect/20060509_184635.jpg
http://www.clubskill.com/downloads/phpthumbs/phpThumb.php?src=../Mass%20Effect/20060509_184555.jpg
In Mass Effect, you play as Commander Shepard, an elite human soldier known as a Spectre, fighting to restore peace in the galaxy circa 2183. The threat comes from not only external fighters, but also internal as well, and you will find yourself facing a variety of enemies in your quest to save yourself and your galaxy. In the game, you will command a squad of fighters to help you dispatch your foes. These foes are all based on a prophecy that claims that every 50,000 years, machines come down to harvest all the organic life in the galaxy. And, as you guessed, it is just about time for them to come back down. Other than this tidbit, not much else is known about the game's story.
The game's name, Mass Effect, comes from a form of dark energy that enables the player to travel vast distances across space as well as giving the player superhuman powers known as biotics. These biotics allow the player to do things like freeze items, light things on fire, control objects without contact and other amazing abilities. On top of the biotics, your character is also customizable in other ways, such as weapons and armor.
However, if biotics isn't what you feel like your main specialization should be, there are also two other classes to choose from: soldier and tech. The soldier class is good at exactly as implied: killing things through weapons like guns and grenades. The tech class on the other hand can learn to control and use the enemies weapons and equipment to their own combat advantage. Your character can be any combination of these classes, as can your squad mates. Throughout the game, you can have up to two people in your squad to help you out in combat situations. These squad mates can be picked by the player and will all feature different stats and abilities. Like yours, their weapons can be customized. And during combat (which is in real time) you will be able to control your group through actions on the D-pad and shoulder buttons. This makes for a strategic, yet simple to grasp combat system that should add a new dimension of gameplay for the player.
In addition to combat, the interactions with NPCs are truly next-gen. Mass Effect features advanced facial features on all characters. Using this, you can control exactly how your character presents himself and what he says. This allows you to convey whatever attitude you wish towards other characters in the game and vice versa. Be a nice person to them, and they will do the same to you. Be a mean person, and they most likely won't give you what you want (though that's not to say a nice death threat can't cure). Through these conversations, as well as various moral decisions you will have to make, the story's outcome will be affected, even across the next two games in the trilogy. The developer's aim is to have an amazing storyline through these interactions and decisions, and judging by how it is shaping up this far, it looks like they are right on track for their goal.
After all the fighting and talking, sometimes you just want to get away and explore the galaxy. Mass Effect makes that easy with your own all-terrain vehicle that can travel across any terrain you throw at it (hence the all-terrain part). You can also add upgrades to your vehicle to help you get to hard to reach places. This allows for some truly free-roaming gameplay, even if you know exactly where to go. However, when you do arrive at the objective however, your vehicle's equipped guns and turrets which will sometimes help you in combat situations just like another squad member.
Mass Effect is looking to bring the RPG genre to the next-generation through advanced combat, stunning graphics, a highly consequential dialog system and many more features. The game looks to be shaping up for a launch into a far away galaxy of amazing games, but only time will tell when it is released April 2007."
http://www.clubskill.com/downloads/phpthumbs/phpThumb.php?src=../Mass%20Effect/20060509_184645.jpg
http://www.clubskill.com/downloads/phpthumbs/phpThumb.php?src=../Mass%20Effect/20060509_184635.jpg
http://www.clubskill.com/downloads/phpthumbs/phpThumb.php?src=../Mass%20Effect/20060509_184555.jpg