Mass Effect 2 Interview Round-up

Now that we've made it through all of the recent hands-on previews for Mass Effect 2, it's time to move on to a handful of newly posted interviews.

VideoGamer chats with Adrien Cho:
VideoGamer.com: Have you decided how the game will acknowledge players who reached the level cap in Mass Effect 1?

AC: I asked my lead designer before I left, I was like, I want to make sure I know exactly what. because I was like, ah I'm going to get ambushed! I'm an artist, right, so I was like, I'm going to get a whole bunch of designer/writer questions [laughs]. She said, if you max out at 60, which is the highest level, you will have, paraphrasing my lead game system designer, Christina Norman, you will have a distinct advantage over those who don't import their characters, or if you start afresh. She described this mapping process. Me as an artist didn't understand. I said, well, is it going to have an impact? She said, yes. It'll have a big impact on hardcore players. They'll notice the advantage we give them. Which is, of course, great. It's a good service. It's not a disservice. We want to reward those who played the first game, who went through 60 hours, 80 hours to level up their character. They're going to notice there's a little bonus for them.

G4 chats with Ray Muzyka:
At one point, characters started asking me about events that occurred in Mass Effect. When it happened, I wondered if the game was giving me an opportunity to pick and choose how the original played out. Turns out, I was right.

"In some cases," said Muzyka, "you get asked a question -- 'What do you remember about that? What happened at this point in time?' -- and you get to decide on the fly. You actually do get a bit of a choice still. In other cases, we make assumptions based on what the majority of fans are going to find really compelling and what we think is the best artistic choice, the most emotionally engaging way to have the story unfold."

And then IGN and Ten Ton Hammer bring us video interviews with Ray Muzyka and Casey Hudson, respectively.