Mass Effect at PAX!

By George Walker | August 26, 2007

I’ve been super excited to come to PAX, but there was some disappointment when looking at the list of exhibitors, because Bioware was missing from the list. “Alas,” I lamented, “no playable Mass Effect. I weep.” Okay, I didn’t weep. But almost.

Then, I was shocked and awed when I came into the exhibition hall on Friday and saw two massive screens in the Microsoft booth displaying the opening screen for… Mass Effect. I walked right up to them and ogled the heck out of those screens. The glory of its options… “Start New Career,” indeed.

Although the game wasn’t “playable,” per se, the walkthrough showed the first 20-25 minutes of actual gameplay. The graphics I saw looked fantastic. The characters’ faces looked much better than when we first saw them. Everything we saw looked very polished. They spent a scant few seconds showing the character sheet and some of the abilities you’ll be able to upgrade as you gain levels in the various classes, but I went back and watched the demo a few more times just so I could reap as much information as possible from those screens.

I don’t want to give a blow by blow of exactly what was shown, you can find that on youtube or GameVideos.com. But I was really impressed with what I saw. The combat looked really solid and looked like a combination of KoTOR and Rainbow Six Vegas. You can lay down fire on enemies from cover and also pause the action to select a “biotic” power and aim a bit to make sure the power gets sent to the correct target.

There is a lot to be excited about with Mass Effect. Also, Space Zombies.