Mass Effect PC Previews

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Written by BuckGB on May 9th, 2008

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Right off the bat, if you have a high-end PC you should be able to rub your Xbox-owning friends' noses in the PC game's visuals, which are sharper and richer than those found in last year's console game. By tapping into the PC's more powerful processors and video cards, Mass Effect looks visually beautiful and fluid, and we saw none of the texture popping or frame rate stuttering that plagued the Xbox 360 version. (The game will also scale considerably if you don't have a high-end PC. BioWare says a two-year old machine should be able to play the game.) Even better, the game will load and save a lot faster, since the entire game is written to the hard drive. You also won't need to have the game DVD in the drive. This means that quick saving takes a fraction of a second, and that the elevator trips that masked the loading times in the Xbox 360 game are a lot faster on the PC. Want even more? We're told that PC game's save system is only limited by the size of your hard drive, which means you pretty much have as many saves slots as you need. Xbox gamers had to start overwriting existing saves on their platform because they had a limited number of save slots. This also means that you can play and maintain a bunch of characters and not worry about having to erase one to make room for another. Those are the key technical improvements in the PC game, but BioWare's changes went a lot deeper than that.

The thought has definitely occurred to anyone who's played both MMOs and Mass Effect: "This game could use a hot bar!" BioWare and Demiurge agree, and have implemented one into the PC port. You get eight slots, all bound to your number keys, to which you can map abilities. Only Shepherd's abilities can be bound, though -- you can't control allies directly beyond issuing them commands via the tactical hud. One great side-effect of the keybinds is the quick-paced approach to combat that it enables. If you remember Mass Effect on 360 as being relatively subdued and methodical, you might enjoy the PC version's brisker take on running, gunning and biotic-slinging.

First off, the HUD has been completely redone. Gone are the radial menus required to manage you and your teammates' equipment and powers. Although it didn't take long to get comfortable with the 360's HUD, everything is now much more intuitive and easier to read, making combat more fast-paced and frenetic. Since you can map your skills to the number keys or quickly select them manually with your mouse, players who prefer to do most of the killing themselves can quickly switch between their weapons and skills without pausing the game for lengthy stretches to navigate through the menus. But if you choose to create a more supportive class or just like ordering people around, pausing the game to assign commands with points and clicks also feels much smoother and convenient than the 360 version.

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