Mass Effect makes even talking magical

71 Comments by Justin McElroy Jul 18th 2007 11:00PM
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, RPGs, Video

It isn't every game that could get us excited about a conversation system, but, luckily for us and the guy that sells Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk their gold-plated yachts, Mass Effect isn't every game, as this video of a single conversation proves with authority.

Are we alone in being slightly slack-jawed at the fluid, cinematic conversation that plays out? Should we maybe wait until we've seen more to set up lawn chairs outside our local game store in preparation for November? Nay, we say. If loving well-constructed dialog is no longer "hip", then we'll be in our room, playing The Adventures of Willy Beamish.

Tags: bioware, masseffect, xbox360

(Page 1) Reader Comments

Jonah Falcon: Jul 18th 2007; 11:04PM

Notice the details of the facial features, and the subtle semiotic reactions from the blue alien scientist. Shephard acts like a bit of a jerk here, but it’s a good way to see how your responses affect other non-player characters.

This game is so hot, it’s on fire. It can’t come out soon enough.

Azerael: Jul 19th 2007; 2:48AM

November can't come soon enough.

Only thing that bugs me is the voice acting seems a bit off. Not necessarily bad, just a bit strange in tone, but I imagine to keep it dynamic they had to take some liberties with expressions.

Triforceowner: Jul 19th 2007; 7:36AM

Will putting a disc that's on fire in my 360 red-ring it?

Meowzers: Jul 18th 2007; 11:10PM

WILLY BEAMISH!!!! Goddamn I miss that game.

Peaefuloutrage: Jul 19th 2007; 7:28AM

I actually own that. Never finished it though. Extremely long load times.

Meowzers: Jul 19th 2007; 12:10PM

I think I technically own it as well; my mom dropped off all the old Amiga stuff she had. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or space to set it all up and finish the game. I had gotten just to the end of the frog race.

PSWii60: Jul 18th 2007; 11:17PM

I'm sorry commander for this extremely boring scene.

ComradeTrotskii: Jul 18th 2007; 11:17PM

Goodbye
^Get the hot aliens phone number

ComradeTrotskii: Jul 18th 2007; 11:18PM

>investigate further

2ez: Jul 18th 2007; 11:19PM

Lets play the multiple choice game. Yay.

ComradeTrotskii: Jul 18th 2007; 11:20PM

God damn, my posts keep getting butchered. Just vote them down if you could.

Anyhow this game looks more fantastic every time I see it. Can't wait.

Arno: Jul 18th 2007; 11:20PM

Very smooth conversation. Can't wait for this game.

jason: Jul 18th 2007; 11:22PM

http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/13286

copa: Jul 18th 2007; 11:24PM

Which direction do you press on the joypad for the Jeff Bell dialog option?

"Damn, bitch, don't leave a brother hangin' here! I am so down with your fine ass! You is the shiznit!"

Jeff: Jul 18th 2007; 11:29PM

Wow. After holding out, and resisting the lure of even Halo 3... I may have to get a 360.

REUYL: Jul 18th 2007; 11:30PM

Darnit Microsoft, release the "Falcon" 360s already! I'm going to need a reliable console if I'm going to play this game for 36 straight hours.

Dash: Jul 18th 2007; 11:34PM

200+ Hours of Oblivion and still working flawlessly here. Either I lucked out or The 360 isn't as faulty as the internet claims it is, but we all know that the internet isn't known for over exaggerating things.

Curmeo: Jul 18th 2007; 11:35PM

im with you dude. im missing out on all these great 360 games cuz im too paranoid about the RRoD issue. MS needs to release a more reliable console asap!

SeNiLe911: Jul 19th 2007; 12:12AM

Just buy from Costco or Costco.com, they have a life time warranty at no extra cost on most everything including the Xbox 360. I have been buying Xboxes from Costco for about 6 years now. I am on my 3rd Xbox 360 since launch. Never got the red ring of death on any of them either but returned them no hassle.

ssuk: Jul 19th 2007; 7:06AM

I wont come out and say there is no problem with 360 units, but even if 33% of them are defective, like sources have cited, then it's still a 3.3/10 chance that you'll pick up a defective unit when you purcahse an xbox 360. And even if you do, you are covered by a 3 year extended warrenty now. I've had my 360 since November 06 and I've had 0 problems with it outside a few dashboard crashes which were probably caused by the 360 checking my LIVE connection (my wireless router blows balls).
The reason the red ring of death has become such a huge thing is because you never hear of people with perfect, working 360s... Only when people have things go wrong is when you hear about them. Plus, the PS3 fanboys are using this as a propaganda tool.

Personally, I'm not really scared of getting a RRoD and you shouldn't be either. At least you know you're covered if the 360 does break down for any reason, but as I said, I've yet to encounter any problem in the 9 months I've had the 360.

Chris Putnam: Jul 18th 2007; 11:30PM

With dialogue that stilted, I was sure this scene was going to end with somebody dropping their pants.

Ahaha. Seriously now, the graphics at least were pretty spectacular. It looked like live action in some parts.

chris: Jul 18th 2007; 11:49PM

it might have LOL... you notice at one point he had the "really i'm interesting?" that he didnt choose... wonder if that direction went into a direction more... umm... friendly :)

According to reviews of the closed door demo, theirs some thing they showed during a conversation that basically shifted the entire gameplayfor the rest of the demo... but their under NDA and cant say what it was just that if theirs alot of choices like that in the game then you'll be playing mass effect over and over to try different paths.

bm: Jul 18th 2007; 11:31PM

Has anyone ever played Silent Hill 3? I thought the facial animations looked just as lively in that game, if not more.

Also, the non-cutscene animation looks sorta stiff and plastic. Then again, those two words define 3D games...

alexy: Jul 18th 2007; 11:46PM

Bioware Rep-Would you guys want to see this game September or November?

(Evil)-freaking duh we wan't it to come out early!
This game is awesome!

(Good)-Well....if the developers want it to come out later so they can fix minor bugs and stuff like that then I'd like to see it sometime a further than september...

(Rational)- *time warps* I GOT THE GAME WOOHOO!!!

Andre: Jul 18th 2007; 11:50PM

Graphics are amazing, but too bad they couldn't fix the robotic dialogue.

Also, why are you playing as Jack from Lost?

VampireHunter Z: Jul 19th 2007; 2:10AM

How is the dialogue robotic? Have you ever watched any sci-fi? The conversations remind me a lot of Star Trek. It's classic space sci-fi dialogue. They are being professional so their tone isn't too flirty. Either way the conversation was engaging enough to grab my interest.

ncxcstud: Jul 19th 2007; 7:22AM

Andre -

You can customize your character into whatever you want...there is no 'set' look for Shepard. Besides, I still think the 'default' character Bioware always uses looks more like Lincoln Burrows from Prison Break then Jack from Lost.

But, in the retail version of the game, you can select what your character will look like.

Boss Tempo: Jul 19th 2007; 7:49AM

Probably the same reason that Ray Liota plays your grandad in The Darkness.

Jake: Jul 19th 2007; 8:25AM

Dude. It was a casual conversation. You are looking too hard for something to bitch about. If they were overly emphatic, you'd probably be bitching that there was too much extra cheesy emotion and drama.

Ska Oreo: Jul 18th 2007; 11:59PM

Me wants game. Me Wants game NOW!!!!!

WiNG: Jul 19th 2007; 12:21AM

I don't think it's that impressive. Sure it loads the audio fast but the animation isn't any better than say halflife 2

Geist: Jul 19th 2007; 12:27AM

I agree on the graphics front. In fact, I was more impressed by Half Life 2; here it seems like they're overacting, like when he says "I should go (raise eyebrow)"

It creates fluidish conversation, yes, but all that is is giving the option of conversation choice early, and auto-selecting if the player is too slow.

Negativecool: Jul 19th 2007; 12:27AM

In my opinion (which is not superior to yours) facial animation doesn't go far enough, that's where this game comes in.
I've never seen the combination of increadible facial animation and true to life body language and gestures done this well! Just makes it that much more real and engaging. They did a lot of work with actors and it shows.

Negativecool: Jul 19th 2007; 12:23AM

I think it's pretty safe to say that I'll be hitting on everything that looks remotely female. What a jerk, calling her boring. I'd be like, "Yea that's totally intersting...whats in your digital pants?"
Kinda like I did in SNATCHER...remember that game. "I MUST have you!"...ha ha ha..priceless.

Roland: Jul 19th 2007; 2:12AM

I loved Snatcher. One of my top 5 games ever. It was so beyond anything out there at the time. Willy Beamish was rad too. I loved games that gave you options and werent too blatantly linear. Those two games made SegaCD worth every penny. If I could just erase Ground Zero Texas from my memory banks forever....

Alex: Jul 19th 2007; 12:26AM

CGI looks just amazing... very fluid

felixlighter: Jul 19th 2007; 8:15AM

All the in game conversations are done real time in-engine. No prerendered cutscenes.

Lijik: Jul 19th 2007; 12:26AM

Near the end the music reminded me of Danny Elfman meets Looney Tunes in space. Unfortunately, that was by far the most interesting thing in the trailer for me.

azesino: Jul 19th 2007; 12:29AM

welcome to mass effect.... this is the 360 killer app next to gears

NeverSage: Jul 19th 2007; 12:41AM

Wow... I hope every NPC has a different voice, unlike Oblivion. I loved the Oblivion conversations, how every character had a name and history, but Mass Effect could blow it out of the water. I love how the camera angles changed to show her body language. It's like watching a movie. I was really into it actually.

polly: Jul 19th 2007; 1:07AM

"Sounds dangerous...and lonely..."

bow chicka mow mow

This game looks fantabulous.

Jon: Jul 19th 2007; 1:43AM

The character modeling of the Male lead has changed since E3 last year. I thought that previously he looked very "mixed race". Now I think the model looks more Caucasian.

eldee: Jul 19th 2007; 1:53AM

and we care why?

Jake: Jul 19th 2007; 8:28AM

You can change his appearance to your liking at the beginning of the game. I'm hoping you can use the xbox camera to slap your own ugly mug onto there the way you can in Rainbow Six Vegas.

Jon: Jul 19th 2007; 9:20PM

Well...it's cool to play as a charachter that may actually resemble you in some way shape or form every once in a while. Being able to play as someone other than a white male is pretty cool to me.

It's closer to my reality rather than just yours apparently.

Shagittarius: Jul 19th 2007; 2:38AM

I'm not sure why but I thought for some reason this video was going to end with the blue alien lady saying, 'Sometimes when I'm nervous I put my hands under my arms and then I smell them like this!'

GodisaMyth: Jul 19th 2007; 2:40AM

"CGI looks just amazing... very fluid"

That is not a computer generated image. That was a cut scene using ingame graphics.

The videogame ignorant masses still say videogames are NOT art.

The amount of time taken to get the facial annimations good enough for the characters to answer mulitible choice questions not to mention an entire world that needs to be more and more realistic with every hardware generation.

Making a movie must be easy compared to the AAA games of this generation.

Mass Effect
Killzone 2
GTA 4
MGS 4

These AAA titles have huge teams spending countless hours to deliver us a memorable gaming experience.

Videogames I believe are the ultimate art form.
It is the ONLY one that can actively interact with it's audience in ways that NO OTHER art can boast.

Someday (soon I hope) Videogame creators will get the proper respect of they deserve. In 10 years I think videogames will be the #1 form of entertainment for the most of the planet.

What awaits us as gamers of the REAL (sorry Wii, I am just being realistic, the Wii is just not capable of producing the kind of games that the 360 and PS3 can) next-generation during this console lifescyle will be nothing short of spectacular.

Alex: Jul 19th 2007; 3:14AM

sorry about the CGI comment .. my mistake

Michael McGuire: Jul 19th 2007; 10:29AM

"That is not a computer generated image. That was a cut scene using ingame graphics."

Ok, and the in-game graphics aren't created by a computer right, but instead by Bioware's newest technology: happy faerie dust from planet Ziquod.

What you were watching was CGI. The term you thought the original poster was using was "pre-rendered".