Mass Effect - Release date set for January 26, 2010. 29 January in Europa. :
09-26-2009, 01:49 AM
Mass Effect to be released on January 26. No specific confirmation, but there is reason to believe the 360 and PC version will hit the shelves at the same time.
Two years have passed since the events of the first Mass Effect game. Galactic Apocalypse has been thwarted, but now, a new threat has emerged…
Human colonies have begun to disappear and it is up to Shepard to find out what is causing the disappearances and assemble a team to put a stop to it.
Mass Effect 2 will feature new worlds and locations, new weapons, new skills, and new characters to continue the story of Alliance Systems Navy Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre. The shadowy organisation Cerberus will play a more significant role in the sequel as Shepard is compelled to join forces with them to make the mission a success.
Old friends and faces from the first Mass Effect will be able to return, depending upon choices made in the original, and there are many new ones that will either join with Shepard or attempt to hinder the mission.
Along with a larger selection of weapons compared to the first game, a new class will be introduced. Shepard and company will now be able to wield rocket launchers and other high-damage, high-satisfaction weapons. Ejectable heat sinks have been added to allow players to continue firing during hectic combat without being required to wait for the weapon to cool down normally.
So far, two new alien races have been introduced. The drell and the vorcha. Not much is known about the drell outside of recruitable character Thane, but there has been information released about the vorcha. Other races are planned as more details come to light.
And now a few frequently asked questions explained:
How will I be able to import my Shepard?
Exact details about how this will work have not been released. However, due to experience with how it works in Mass Effect, it is expected that the game will search for data files from the first game to load a list of Shepards that have completed the game. This data is not the same as the possibly many save files you may already have, so unless your certain about which ones are gamestate saves and which ones are not, the best advice is to keep everything around until more specific information is available.
Will Character So-and-So return?/Will my love interest return?
Any characters that survived to the end of the first game will make an appearance in Mass Effect 2. This includes whomever you may have chosen as your love interest. However, it has not been confirmed that any or all will be actual team members. Shepard must recruit the ‘best of the best’ to fill out the team and original members may not meet necessary criteria. Or, it may just be they might not wish to join depending upon who is already on the team. Exactly how many you may recruit from and the maximum potential teammates has not yet been confirmed. Though twelve is a number that has been mentioned. (BioWare as apparently removed any reference to the number twelve in relation to recruitable characters.) Definitely more options than before.
Are elevators still a problem?
The developers have confirmed that they have been working to improve loading times. This includes the ‘hidden’ loading that would happen on elevators. It’s been said that while elevators still exist within the in-game ME universe, they are not expected to be as bad as they were originally.
I don’t like some choices I made in the first game. Can I make alterations to Shepard in the sequel?
In a word: maybe. No details have been released about making changes to imported Shepard characters, but BioWare is aware of such requests and have made comments to the effect that they are working on it. Whether this means just a physical image change or may include switching combat classes is unknown at this time.
Will there be new combat classes in the game?
No. There will be new skills introduced (such as a new biotic talent: Pull), but the combat classes will remain the same. Adept, Engineer, Soldier and the combination classes Sentinel, Infiltrator, and Vanguard will return.
They’ve said that if Shepard dies, he dies ‘for real’. What does that mean for Mass Effect 3?
It means that the Shepard that dies, is dead. BioWare has stated all along that Mass Effect is the story of Shepard's exploits. Therefore, Shepard must return for Mass Effect 3, even as a ‘canon’ character. The choices you’ll make in ME2 could lead to the death of that Shepard. If you don’t want Shepard to die, make multiple saves or simply start ME2 over again and make different choices.
What if I never played the first Mass Effect. Is there a KOTOR II-style introduction to the events of the first game?
Nobody outside BioWare/EA knows for sure how a ‘tabula rasa’ Mass Effect 2 will begin. Through interviews and message board posts, it is theorised that a combination of canon defaults and user choices will set the stage. But this has yet to be confirmed.
What if I played the first Mass Effect way too many times and I have a level 60 Shepard? Will any of that effort pay off in Mass Effect 2? I don’t want my Shepard to be ‘reset’.
Yes, but that depends. Exactly how an imported Shepard will be plugged into the game is not yet known, but we do know that because of the new skills and how they’ve made some modifications to the combat engine, old skills and skill levels may not work as they did before.
For example, if you had Throw as a skill and maxed it out at 12 points, you will receive some kind of in-game bonus to represent your previous knowledge. But you will not start at level 12 for the skill. The skill reset is to accommodate the new engine, but they will not ignore the effort you’ve put into your character up until now.
One time, I chose to perform action Y instead of action X. Will ME2 recognise this? I’ve played multiple times, how will I know which save to choose?
Yes it will. But the extent of what decisions Shepard made and how they will affect events in ME2 is not yet fully known. BioWare has stated that all choices made are tracked and kept in the numerous end-of-game save lists.
Currently, the ability to start a new game with an ‘old’ Shepard simply lists the first name, the date completed, and the level reached by the character. There is no information on what, if any, differences will appear when selecting a Shepard to import.
Problems with Therum in the first Mass Effect? Solution in the spoiler. Spoiler:
Hey! Therum is missing textures!
A PC game with bugs? That's unpossible!
Sadly, many have had issues with the PC version of the game. Obviously, make sure you have the latest drivers available. And while we're happy to help in this thread, contacting 'official' support personnel may have better results.
Here is a link to a list of issues the Steam version may have in general.
But this seems to work best for the Therum issue: Spoiler:
Milil on the Mass Effect Forums wrote:
The solution is usually quite simple - without doing anything else after landing on Therum - save your game, exit, go to the Steam\steamapps\common\mass effect\Binaries folder, and run the MassEffectConfig.exe
(if you are running Vista you will first have to right click on this file, and have it run in XP compatibility mode)
Once you run the config file, click on the Repair option, and then click on "Delete Local Shader Cache Files".
Restart the last saved game on Therum, and it should work.
Don't try to manually delete the shader cache files - you shouldn't have to if you use the config tool.
If you find you'd rather delete the files manually, you might have to do it more than once before success.
Though a patch is mentioned as coming soon, we don't know when yet. This may address the issue once and for all.
__________________
You're muckin' with a G!
Last edited by Santa Claustrophobia; 10-16-2009 at 11:05 AM.
The action in the videos looks so much more dynamic and intense. I don't know if it's the angle or the lack of pausing to select skills or better animation, but I hope it retains that feeling during actual gameplay.
Subject Zero looks... interesting to say the least, looks like Shepard will definitely have his/her hands full. I 'd at the hint of a sex scene there, looks like Zero will be the one wearing the trousers/pants in that relationship
I like 'er. The only female NPC with any sort of spunk was Tali. Ash and Liara just felt like they picked the two ends of the feminine spectrum and went with it.
I like 'er. The only female NPC with any sort of spunk was Tali. Ash and Liara just felt like they picked the two ends of the feminine spectrum and went with it.
agreed
and hey it's super interesting to have a fucking psychopath for a teammate
you don't get that opportunity every day
__________________ Spoiler:
Cardboard Tube wrote:
I used to play Full Contact Ping-Pong for the Spetznaz. I killed four men.
If we count in the Clint Eastwood Salarian and your two starting partners, that leaves us, according to that list, with 3 as of yet unmentioned party NPCs. Any takers on what it's gonna be?
Oh, and I'm not super into all the dark drearyness and mentalness of your new party... can't at least one of them seem somewhat sane? Well... I DID love Planescape, back in the day, but yeah, this is a bit too... Dragon Age trailery.
09-26-2009, 01:49 AM
'd at the hint of a sex scene there, looks like Zero will be the one wearing the trousers/pants in that relationship 
Digitalism09 on PSN
