Mass Effect Previews
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Everything that we saw today was taken from the first hour or so of gameplay, so we can talk about some of the story details without spoiling anything too significant. After impressing your superiors greatly with exploits that occurred before the game gets underway, it seems that you've attracted the attention of the shadow council, which is an elite organization whose members are known as specters. No human has ever been accepted into or even considered for their ranks, but early on in your adventure, you'll be joined by a specter that has been sent to assess you. It's believed that your being admitted into the alien shadow council would serve to symbolize just how successful the current alliance has been, but we'll wager that not everybody likes the idea.
The second is at GameSpy:
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).
The third is at IGN:
It's hard to say for certain how truly open the galaxy will be, but BioWare asserts that players have far more freedom than in KOTOR or Jade Empire. You could play quickly through Mass Effect without doing much exploration and complete it in 30-40 hours. But if you look at every nook and cranny of the galaxy, the experience should last considerably longer.
The fourth is at 1Up:
Players choose from six classes, each with its own mix of attributes tuned to suit their role. For example, adepts use Biotics (think space magic that's part of what a 'Mass Effect' is), whereas soldiers are into guns and tech-users deploy gadgets. As one would expect, there's a min/maxing component that some RPG gamers will delve deep into, but like BioWare's other RPGs, the level of customization players are afforded allows all kinds of possibilities. A talent tree of sorts comes into play as your character advances. Not unlike those found in MMOs like World of Warcraft, players will have to learn base abilities and skills that lead to unlocking significantly more powerful abilities later. For example: "Throw," a biotic ability, is a pre-requisite for "Lift" -- the latter lets you lift your enemies and discard them.
The fifth is at TeamXbox:
As soon as someone starts talking, a circular dialogue (tree) will appear at the bottom of the screen, and your character can chime in at any time. This allows for a much more organic style of conversation than we've seen in previous games, as you can have your response ready to go before the other character even finishes talking. You can also interrupt them if you know what they're going to say (or don't care), something that will certainly appeal to those gamers who don't feel like listening to all of the dialogue. We also learned that the types of responses will always be mapped to the same area on the circle, so you'll know exactly where your angry or nice responses will be if you need them.
And the sixth is at Xbox 360 Advanced:
Those that prefer to take their time and weigh their decisions carefully have the option of slowing down the combat to a turn based affair by pausing the action, assigning squad-mates to specific positions and ordering specific attacks against specific enemies. Most attacks in the game are delivered via projectile weapons or explosives that can be altered with various upgrades, but certain character classes can also use biotics, which can be considered a cross between the force and traditional magic. Regardless of which approach the player takes in regards to the combat, the interface looks smooth and intuitive. The demo featured a variety of enemies including hovering drones, humanoid cyborgs, and zombified colonists - of those three classes the latter two demonstrated some decent artificial intelligence, while the zombies were little more than cannon fodder. The bouts of combat we witnessed in the first hour didn't seem to require much in the way of finesse, but having seen instances of combat taken from later in the game that required players to position their strike team members strategically and combine different abilities to take down giant attackers, it can be assumed that the game will demand more of players as they gain experience.
