Newsgroup: it.comp.giochi.action
Titolo: Mass Effect Interview [ot]

In a sea of titles that invade retail each year, how many of them become the 
glittering white foam on that perfect wave? (Experiment with substances 
much? -Ed) Even to this day, we can find but a handful of titles that 
managed to stretch beyond some of the restrictions of our favorite pastime 
(mostly its immaturity and catering to the mainstream audience - as the 
demographics "wizards" see it). As it so happens, a lot of these games were 
developed by Bioware.
The Canadian boys (who have since invaded Texas - and you said it would 
never happen) are currently swamped with multiple projects for various 
platforms. Bioware, once again, has something up its sleeve and is, amongst 
other things, involved with a sci-fi RPG, entitled Mass Effect, which is 
slated to appear on the Xbox 360. A few days ago, we were able to get hold 
of Mass Effect Project Director, Casey Hudson, to find out how the game is 
coming along. In the process, we were able to get additional information on 
characters, races and other cool details related to the gameplay. Enjoy!
ActionTrip: It takes a lot of time for a unique concept to take shape. How 
long did it take you guys to come up with the storyline, characters and the 
backdrop for Mass Effect?
Casey Hudson: We developed the high-level story and setting for Mass Effect 
in pretty fine detail within the first 6 months. But what we're building is 
truly enormous - a galaxy of subplots, species, and locations that are 
wrapped in a huge storyline. So even today, we're still refining the story 
and characters to further reinforce the experience we want to create. One 
interesting challenge is that because of the speed at which technology 
advances, when we start a three-year project we're aiming for a level of 
gameplay and graphical quality that's actually never even been seen before. 
So as our vision becomes reality, we learn a lot more about what we need to 
do to complete that vision.
ActionTrip: Does the presence of friendly NPCs influence the progress of the 
main storyline?
Casey Hudson: Yes. Your choice in bringing along different squad members 
will affect how well you can defeat certain enemies in combat, solve 
problems in certain ways, and will even open up new subplots.
ActionTrip: As revealed, Mass Effect takes place in a huge universe, one 
that is distinctly larger than the world we've explored in Star Wars: 
Knights of the Old Republic. Just how large is the universe anyway? How many 
planets are there?
Casey Hudson: There are literally hundreds of locations you can travel to in 
your ship, and what you'll find there can be anything from a barren asteroid 
to a large explorable location involving its own subplots, new characters, 
and extremely valuable rewards.
ActionTrip: The dialogue system we've seen in Knights of the Old Republic 
creates a unique atmosphere and adds a more personal feel to the whole 
experience. Has the development team altered this particular pattern, in 
terms of storytelling, changing the character's alignment via talking with 
NPCs, etc?
Casey Hudson: It's an evolution of that experience into something that keeps 
it more interactive. It really does add a personal aspect to the story when 
you experience it through the perspective of the characters around you. But 
we've made those conversations happen more ambiently, so that you're not 
pulled into a conversation when you don't want to be. And if one of your 
squad members tells you about something you're interested in, you'll be able 
to interact with them through an interface that's a lot more fun and 
interactive than ever before. Conversations are no longer about dealing with 
piles of text that you have to read - in each conversation in Mass Effect 
you can react so instinctively that you become immersed in how you feel 
about what's going on around you.
ActionTrip: In what way does Mass Effect allow gamers to customize their 
characters? Are there any pre-determined character profiles available before 
the game starts?
Casey Hudson: The character customization in Mass Effect allows you to 
really decide who you want to be, what you want to look like, and how you 
want to fight through this tremendous story experience. For those who want 
to jump straight into the action, you'll be able to choose our pre-made 
Commander Shepard character. And even if you choose this pre-made character, 
you'll still have countless opportunities to customize and develop this 
character over the course of the game. And for those who really want to 
specify every detail of their character, you'll be able to do so through a 
very deep character creation system. Starting with an interface where you 
create your own appearance, you'll be able to create your own male or female 
Commander Shepard to look however you want. You can then decide what kind of 
gameplay experience you want by choosing the class of your character's 
expertise, such as combat, tech abilities, or superhuman abilities that use 
dark energy. And by spending your available experience points, you can 
develop specific skills throughout the game - even leading to completely new 
abilities that open up as you become an expert in certain areas.
ActionTrip: Give us a brief description of The Normandy.
Casey Hudson: The Normandy is a prototype stealth ship of the Human 
Alliance. It is capable of faster-than-light travel, and has the ability to 
make itself invisible to sensors so that it can enter a star system and land 
undetected. The Normandy is about the size of a 747, but is extremely sleek 
and on the inside it resembles something more like a large Navy submarine - 
with a substantial crew and even a large bay to store ground-based vehicles. 
You can explore the entire ship any time you're on board, and you can talk 
to any of the crewmembers - you're their Commander!
ActionTrip: Could you possibly describe any specific races or creatures 
we'll be able to encounter in the game?
Casey Hudson: You'll encounter a wide variety of alien races in the game, 
but some of the major races are the Asari, Turians and Salarians. These are 
the three races that make up the Citadel Council. You may have seen in our 
demo videos that there was a Turian officer as part of your squad. He's the 
one that looks pretty aggressive, with bird-like facial features. There's 
also the Geth, a race of violent synthetic creatures that are extremely 
deadly in large numbers. You can read about them and see more images of 
other alien races on the Mass Effect website.
ActionTrip: We'd like to know more about character development and the way 
players will get to improve the skills and attributes of their avatars. Can 
you reveal any specific abilities or special powers we'll be able to enhance 
as we proceed through the game?
Casey Hudson: As you complete portions of the story or survive new combat 
engagements, you'll gain experience that can be put towards developing your 
character. Improving your character's ability in a certain area is as easy 
as spending some points on it. When you reach a maximum in certain 
abilities, that may unlock new areas of expertise that you can start 
developing. In demos we've shown how you can use these things in combination 
during combat to pull off some amazing combinations. For example, at X06 we 
showed how one character in your squad can use an electromagnetic pulse 
attack to destroy an enemy's shields. Then we ran up and fired a "carnage" 
shotgun attack which involves overloading your shotgun for an extremely 
powerful close-range attack. The result of that combination tore a huge 
mechanical enemy to shreds! You'll also be able to develop abilities such as 
creating temporary dark energy force fields to take cover behind, attacks 
that use gravity-like effects to squeeze enemies to death, and tons of other 
combat, technical, and dark energy abilities.
. What are their main skills that can be utilized in battle?
Casey Hudson: You'll be leading a squad of three characters, including 
yourself. You'll be able to choose your three squad members from a larger 
group, and each one will have different specialties - and very different 
personalities.
I'm having "Halo" flashbacks.
Where are they taking you, C3PO?! OOPS, wrong universe.
ActionTrip: Revealed gameplay footage from Mass Effect also introduced us to 
the cool-looking all-terrain vehicle, used for moving around planet 
surfaces. However, it also presented a choice of rather destructive 
weaponry. Will players have access to more "subtle" weapons for a stealth 
approach?
Casey Hudson: The Mako is customizable, so you'll be able to adjust its 
features to suit your style of gameplay. Generally though, you'll be using 
the vehicle to cross huge tracts of rough terrain, and to fend off attacks 
from giant creatures and flying machines. So in other words, the Mako gives 
you a huge variety of control over how you'll handle situations, but when 
you're driving a six-wheeled armored monster truck, the idea of "stealth" 
only goes so far! :)
ActionTrip: The real-time tactical team-based combat system in Mass Effect 
certainly varies from games like Knights of the Old Republic. Explain more 
about how players can distribute orders to their team throughout combat.
Casey Hudson: The great thing about combat in Mass Effect is that it gives 
you the same kind of amazing combat experiences as in KOTOR but in a 
3rd-person shooter interface that's so much easier and more fun to control. 
So while anyone can pick up the game and start having fun in combat because 
of the point-and-shoot controls, you end up having the same kind of fun that 
KOTOR had - such as strategically placing squad members, directing them to 
focus on certain enemies, cooperating with you on combinations of attacks. 
Having 3 squad members also means one or two of them can go down in battle 
without you being "killed", so sometimes in really tough battles you'll be 
the last standing member of your squad, fighting it out against a really 
tough enemy.
Your squad is actually really smart and tough during combat, so you don't 
need to give them specific orders to survive combat. But if you want to, you 
can tell them to run to a location or attack a specific target with a single 
press of the D-Pad. You can also issue exact paths to run and specific 
attacks to make, through an interface called Squad Command.
ActionTrip: Since a great portion of the combat is real-time, the 
development team obviously had to invest additional effort into tweaking AI 
behavior patterns. With respect to enemy intelligence, are you pleased with 
how things are shaping up?
Casey Hudson: We're actually at a point where the enemy AI is already really 
smart, and our work now is focused on polishing the AI to give them enemies 
really interesting behaviors beyond just fighting intelligently.
ActionTrip: What sort of content can gamers expect to get via Xbox Live for 
Mass Effect?
Casey Hudson: We actually have a very ambitious downloadable content plan 
that will allow players to continue exploring the Mass Effect galaxy long 
after they finish the main story. More details on that to come...
ActionTrip: Bioware unveiled on many occasions that the core team is busy 
with various projects at the moment, most of which, understandably, remain 
under wraps. We know for a fact that one of these projects is a MMO game. 
Are you able to offer any additional info on that?
Casey Hudson: Our new Austin Studio is indeed working on an MMO but we 
haven't announced any details on it yet, so you'll have to stay tuned. We're 
also developing a dark heroic fantasy RPG called Dragon Age which takes the 
experience players enjoyed in the Baldur's Gate series to incredible new 
heights of stunningly immersive graphics and truly next-gen gameplay. We 
also just formed a new handheld game group that is working on a new Nintendo 
DS title, and we do have another unannounced next generation game in the 
works, but again, these are all surprises that we're saving for later.
ActionTrip: Is there a precise launch date planned for Mass Effect? Are 
there any plans for a PC version of the game?
Casey Hudson: We're still locking down details of our launch date, but you 
can expect it sometime in early 2007. Mass Effect is an Xbox 360 exclusive, 
and we can't wait for you to play it!
http://www.actiontrip.com/previews/360/masseffect_i.phtml

 own subplots, new characters, and extremely valuable rewards.
Aaaah! Oddio sta cosa mi fa impazzire!
-- 
Se Dio avesse voluto che credessimo in lui, sarebbe esistito.