Mass Effect

Character-building

There are six character classes to choose from. The Soldier is a weapons and armour expert, while the Engineer specialises in using what's called an OmniTool. It's handy for sabotaging weapons, restoring your team-mate's shields and taking control of enemy robots, amongst other things. The Adept is an expert in "biotics", or telekinesis as it's usually known, and can control gravity to move objects and enemies around.

The other three classes are hybrids. There's the Infiltrator (a soldier with tech specialties), the Vanguard (a soldier who can use biotics) and the Sentinel (tech and biotics, not so much with the weapons). Whichever you choose, you can upgrade your character's abilities in the usual RPG fashion by earning points as you play the game and assigning them as you see fit.

You also get to assign points to party members who join you along the way, such as Kaidan, a Sentinel with a powerful sabotage power, and Soldier Ashley. They stick with you throughout the game and you can choose which other characters you allow to join up.

This is important, Zeschuk says, "because you have to change your play style depending on who's in your group." And because Mass Effect will let you pause the game in the middle of battles and assign tasks to different characters. "When you first look at the game it seems like an over-the-shoulder shooter. Really it's a tactical squad game where you have to use your colleagues effectively."

To demonstrate this, Zeschuk gets Kaidan to use his Sentinel powers to throw an enemy across a room. He's chosen the Vanguard class for his Shepard, so he also has biotic abilities and can similarly take out a second enemy. This leaves Soldier Ashley to shoot down the last remaining foe.

Hands-on, it's easy to grasp how the system works. The interface is simple and intuitive enough that it doesn't feel like there's too much interruption to the flow of the action, even though you're pausing the game.

Characters do what you tell them but are intelligent enough to know when they should take cover or push forwards, and do an excellent job of covering your back. At first, anyway. "The early part of Mass Effect is specifically designed so your colleagues will kill all your enemies," explains Zeschuk. "It's really hard for you to get killed for the first hour, but later on it evens out."

Electric dreams

The first hour is about all we got to see of Mass Effect, but it was certainly long enough to get an idea of the style BioWare is going for. There's an '80s overtone to the whole thing, created in large part by the brilliant music.

Zeschuk describes it as "classic '80s electronica" but it's specifically evocative of the kind of electronica featured in '80s sci-fi films, the properly frightening ones with the biodomes and the mad robots. There's a ponderous, ominous feel to it that works superbly.

There's also an '80s feel to the visuals. It's all in the details, such as the calculator font on menu screens and the characters' Ulysses 31-style helmets. The spaceship itself is pretty generic: lots of grey metal, long corridors and rows of people wearing tight outfits sat at banks of endless glowing buttons. Planet visuals look more impressive and, judging by the beach environment of the Earth-style planet we got to see, surprisingly lush and pretty for a sci-fi game.

So Mass Effect has got the looks, but does it represent a real departure for BioWare? Like KOTOR and Jade Empire, it's an action-RPG. Once again, you are tasked with making a series of decisions, and the choices you make determine how the game plays out. The tactical squad system is back, and as you'd expect the whole thing is very well presented.

But it's clear that the studio has looked carefully at how all these elements can be developed, not just improved. Mass Effect looks and feels like a BioWare game but it also looks and feels like a real next-gen game. We need to spend more time with it to make a proper judgement of gameplay elements such as the combat system and cut-scene integration. That's time we're looking forward to spending, however. As long as they don't give us any more spoilers.