Mass Effect 2

Supposedly bioware are working on a faster loading system, one that should cut down the amount of awkward time spent within the elevator rides with Wrex. The first mass effect game featured a few things heavily, firstly the most newsworthy feature seemed to be the gaming sex scenes, which grabbed the media quite extensively. Seperate to this lesbian alien sex there was also the formidable elevator rides. These rides in the mass effect elevator met mixed critisism, ultimately it was designed to mask the loading of new levels – which some thought it was a good idea and was a lot better than simply displaying a loading screen. Other recent games such as Portal (on the half life engine) have also used this technique and overall to the non veteran gamer it does mask the loading of new levels nicely, making the whole experience less segmented.

But some critics thought the elevator rides were over the top and a more efficient game loading screen would have done if it had cut down the time spent loading. Some elevator rides did last up to 1 minute, which is quite a long time to be stuck in any elevator, let alone in mass effect. Gamers like shooting things, exploring, running jumping – climbing you know – action stuff – elevator rides are not really action.

Anyway according to an interview with BioWare founders it was one of the major feedback’s recieved from the first mass effect game and they are actively looking to remove/improve these loading scenarios. YAY less time in lifts!

Those wonderful game developers at BioWare have shared 3 additional pieces of concept art from the xbox360 version of mass effect 2 – these three new concept art pieces make it a total of 5 we have seen as two were given out with the original mass effect2 debut trailer (teaser- yes it teased!)

These three new mass effect 2 concept art peices appear to shed light on some new in-game locations. A Docked ship, massive space station in orbit of a planet and a very ritzy almost star wars/star trek circular bar scene. Very stylised and very pretty, these three pieces make us even more anticipatory for the wondeful game that will be mass effect. Sticking to their first quarter of 2010 release it looks like bioware should deliver with these concept art examples.

Here are the three new pieces, as well as the 2 originally released concept art examples from the mass effect II teaser trailer.

If you havent already seen the mass effect 2 video that was leaked of the games alpha production presentation then you should check it out here – it shows some basic gameplay in a very early stage – its obviously not the full cigar but its nice to see soemthing coming along.

This mass effect 2 alpha footage was leaked at the end of march but is likely a lot older than this as the game release is not that far away – you would imagine the game would be somewhat more complete than this Alpha version. Worth a watch but really only as good as you expect a leaked video to be.

We heard from a source that the mass effect 2 guide (with full mass effect 2 walkthrough) is going into production – this is something we really wanted for mass effect 1 but couldnt manage to get hold of anywhere – I think at the time of launch bioware was not sure if mass effect was gonna be as big as it got. With heinsight though there really should have been a market for a game guide producer to make a guide solely about mass effect, and by the looks of it this isnt going to be a missed opportunity with mass effect 2.

As soon as more information about the mass effect 2 walkthrough is released we will let you know here – of course we don’t want to provide any game spoilers because mass effect 2 will be that good, however a walkthrough is a tempting thing to look at!

According to the co founders of Bioware (Ray Muzyka and Greg Zuschuk), when asked a question regarding the controversial sex scene from mass effect 1, they don’t intend to let mass effect 2 “shy away from emotionally engagin moments providing that they are contextually appropriate“. This sounds like it might mean theres some more blue alien sex in the games sequel (well as close to alien lesbianism as you could call a sex scene…its not really the full shabang but was considered contreversial as the first time anything happens in games always is.)

This is a pretty small story but we like to keep you updated. Mass effect 2 will never be full on porn, and that is a good thing. Another few days less to wait for the next big game of 2009 – we here at mass effect 2 cant wait for the Liara scene, even if its contextualised