Mass Effect Previews
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At the game's start you're tapped to investigate an archaeological site that has found another alien artifact from the ancient race called the Prothean. Given that the last artifact that was found allowed mankind to bump its technologically up dramatically and start exploring the stars, expectations are running high over this new find and what it could do. The complication to the mission is that you're being joined by an observer from the alliance, Nihlus, who is evaluating you. It seems that you're being considered for a gig as a spectre, a combination shadow ops/police force in the alliance that, up until that point, humans have never been considered for due to their relative youth in the galactic scheme of things. The consideration is a big deal and, if you wind up passing and joining, the presence of a human on the force would mark a huge step for humanity in the alliance.
An excerpt from GameSpy's article:
Character development will be a large part of the Mass Effect experience, as customizable and as important as in one of BioWare's Dungeons & Dragons-based games. Shepard begins the adventure as one of six different character classes. Soldiers are skilled in all manner of gunplay and can wear the heaviest of armors, while forsaking the use of biotics and advanced tech. Engineers are tech specialists, yet only wield pistols and don't bother with biotics. Adepts are masters of biotics, and can't be bothered to deal with the omni-tool or advanced weaponry. The Sentinel, Vanguard and Infiltrator are essentially dual-class options, for those who would prefer the freedom of mixing qualities between two of the primary class types. The advantage to playing one of the core class types, for those who are planning to maximize character potential, is that certain classes will have access to key abilities that won't be shared with their dual-classing brethren. So for you to gain access to every biotic power in the game, you'll have to play an Adept.
And a bit from TeamXbox's article:
One of the key aspects of the gameplay what will likely hit you for its (cool factor) is the ability to pause the action when you're in combat, which enables you to take your time mapping out your tactics. By holding down the right bumper, you're given a (power wheel) for your party's three characters, from which you can set up what actions will be taken and against what targets. Having it as a radial menu makes quick work of framing out everything that'll take place. When the bumper is let up, all that you've designated goes into motion. Hudson calls this a (spiritual successor) to how combat was handled in BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic, which provides a neat mix between real-time combat and turn-based combat.
Um, BioWare has been doing real-time with pause for nearly 10 years. Nothing new here.
