PS3 Mass Effect 2 uses ME3 engine

The new, PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 will look better than the original on Xbox 360 - that's because BioWare's using the Mass Effect 3 engine to power it.

"One of the first things you're going to see is improved graphics," said game producer Jesse Houston on the BioWare podcast.

"We actually created the engine for Mass Effect 3 and used that to make Mass Effect 2 PS3. So we took the content, the story and all of the other assets that made up Mass Effect 2 and we put it into the Mass Effect 3 engine.

"We've also gone ahead and made the experience much more solid on PS3," he added. " So for example the controls are geared towards the PS3 controller [although] you can switch it back to the old Xbox [layout] if you like. Other things like planet scanning have been improved; we've rolled up all of the patches; done a whole bunch of bug fixing."

Mass Effect 2 on PS3 will also bundle premium DLC such as recent add-on Lair of the Shadow Broker. What's more, being on Blu-ray means having more storage space, so there's no need to swap game discs half-way through the emotional space rollick.

Note that Mass Effect 1 will not make its way to PS3. To cope with that, BioWare has made an interactive comic that tells the first game's story and let's you make the big decisions within it. They then import into Mass Effect 2 and shape your world - the same way an imported saved game worked on Xbox 360.

Houston also mentioned that Mass Effect 2 was finished on PS3 and on course for its January 21st European release.

A demo, remember, will be available on 22nd December.