Master Craftsmanship Comes to the Mass Effect Universe

Were this a 3D render of Mass Effect 2's Thane, it would be impressive. Thing is, it's not. This is a tangible, old-fashioned sculpt. Get a load of the detail!

Seriously, had you not been informed this was crafted by hand you'd simply assume it was a game asset, such is the colour and intricacy on show. From his neck scales to his gills, he's looking sharp.

The piece stands just over 6 inches tall, and you can see more shots by scrolling through the gallery above.

It's the work of Brazilian character artist Rafael Grassetti, who makes a living doing everything from 3D art to texturing to traditional sculpture like you see here for movie studios, game developers and toy companies.

Artist's site. Source.

Mass Effect 3: Bioware used DLC to experiment with Mass Effect 3 ideas

News probes are still coming back from our trip to BioWare to see Mass Effect 3 being built. Executive producer Casey Hudson tells us that they’ve been using the Mass Effect 2 DLC we’ve been playing as prototypes for ideas they want to put into Mass Effect 3.

Fair warning: the first part of Casey’s answer is about how surprising Mass Effect 3 is, and in the second part he tells us something that happens right near the start. He also refers to some stuff that happens in the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC for Mass Effect 2. Spoilers follow.

PC Gamer: What was the biggest area of improvement that you wanted to focus on in Mass Effect 3?

Casey Hudson: One thing that we’re doing is just making the entire experience feel a lot more… it’s the moment to moment unpredictability, the variability. Anything can happen. We’ve got these action moments, little micro-cutscenes and stuff that lead in and out of actual gameplay. We’ve got lots and lots of epic situations that you’re in for gameplay and combat stuff that we’ve never done before.

Some of the stuff we did in our DLC was very successful, and were in a way prototypes for what we’re doing here. So when you fought the Shadow Broker, there’s a different scenario for how you’re fighting this huge guy who’s smashing parts of the environment, and charging you, and you’re working together. Or you’re on the back of that big ship, and there’s wind. And we had the whole car chase thing in the Shadow Broker. So with some of these things we’re just kind of experimenting with stuff to broaden that envelope of gameplay that we’re doing in Mass Effect 3.

PC Gamer: So what kind of stuff in Mass Effect 3 does that relate to?

Casey Hudson: Well, without me giving away specific situations… a moment on Earth where you’re trying to get away from the Reapers. You’re on a building where the structure’s collapsed, and you’re sliding down the glass face of a skyscraper, and you roll at the bottom. It’s a moment, but you feel like you’re part of it. And these kinds of things are throughout the game: grabbing a turret and mowing down a few of the guys before you go on to the next thing.

But a lot of it is also narrative based, so in shows like Band of Brothers, the group will be fighting their way through and then they’ll meet up with a tank, and they’ll crouch along with the tank as it moves up to the next thing. So we’re doing moments like that, where we’re letting the narrative be more and more part of the combat.

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Mass Effect: Genesis Interactive Comic now on XBL

No substitute for actually playing Mass Effect (1) - because it is still an awesome game, if not as awesome as the sequel - but useful if you just want to import a Shepard into Mass Effect 2 with different choices (and markedly better than default creation choices), especially if you've upgraded your 360 and the importer no longer works, despite having all the save files present and correct.

This digital comic back-story was created by BioWare and Dark Horse comics. The 15 minute interactive experience allows you to make the key choices of Mass Effect 1. This retelling will also let you have those choices reflected during Mass Effect 2.

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Gameinformer: The Mass Effect Covers That Could Have Been

During our recent trip to BioWare's Edmonton studio to check out Mass Effect 3, we got to see a lot of cool stuff related to the franchise...including these mock-ups of box art possibilities for the original Mass Effect.

During the filming for our Mass Effect 3 video features, we were allowed to capture some footage of these preliminary tests for the game's cover (which are hanging up in a hallway of the office). It's interesting to see how some of these covers highlight different characters and aspects of the game. My personal favorite is the one above, accompanied by the tagline "In 2007, The Reaping Begins." Of course, that gives away something about the story, so I can see why BioWare steered away from it.

Check out all six:

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Mass Effect 3: XboxWorld 360 Scans (My Own)

Mass Effect 3: OXM Scans (my own)

Mass Effect 3: PC Gamer Scans

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Some dubious information about Cerberus (inferred not confirmed they are working for the Reapers), and (Ugh) Tali confirmed as a squad-mate.

The Smithsonian Has Picked the Games of Its Art of Video Games Exhibit

The Smithsonian American Art Museum revealed the winners of its public vote to decide what games will be featured in their exhibit, The Art of Video Games, today. The exhibit creates a visual history of the evolution of gaming from its humble beginnings through the present. The vote, which took place between February and April, helped to pick the majority of the exhibit, with only a few iconic selections guaranteed entry.

The games are split into five eras, each focusing on a generation of gaming. The Smithsonian was egalitarian in its selection, leaving very few consoles unrepresented. (Sorry, Jaguar!) Each game was selected to represent the gameplay and artistic style of its generation.

Their classification of games doesn't exactly match the classifications made by gamers. Fable and Shenmue are "adventure" games, Sim City represents strategy games, and so on. Both shumps and dungeon crawlers share the "Target" category, because they all revolve around players selecting a target and (generally) pressing a single button. Certain genres bounce around: Doom II is an action game, while Goldeneye is a "target" game. While these generalizations might seem abnormal to some, putting an emphasis on how much games have evolved in forty years shows many of these games in a different light.

Want to see if your all-time favorite game made the cut? Here's an alphabetical list of all the games featured in the exhibit.

• 1943: The Battle of Midway
• Advanced Dungeons and Dragons
• After Burner
• Attack of the Mutant Camels
• Bioshock
• Boom Blox
• Brütal Legend
• ChuChu Rocket!
• Combat®
• Desert Commander
• Diablo II
• Donkey Kong™
• DOOM II
• Dune II: Battle for Arrakis
• Earthworm Jim
• Einhander
• Fable
• Fallout
• Fallout 3
• Final Fantasy Tactics
• Final Fantasy VII
• flOw
• Flower
• Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
• Goldeneye 007
• Gradius V
• Gunstar Heroes
• Halo 2
• Heavy Rain
• Jumpman
• Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II
• Marble Madness
• Mass Effect 2
• Metal Gear Solid
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
• Metroid Prime 2: Echos
• Minecraft
• Myst
• Okami
• Pac-Man
• Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei
• Panzer Dragoon Orta
• Panzer Dragoon Saga
• Phantasy Star
• Phantasy Star IV
• Pikmin 2
• Pitfall II: Lost Caverns
• Pitfall!
• Portal
• Rez
• Shadow of Colossus
• Shenmue
• Sid Meier's Pirates!
• SimCity
• SimCity 2000
• Sonic Adventure
• Space Invaders
• Spy vs Spy
• Star Fox™
• Star Fox™: Assault
• Star Strike
• Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator
• StarCraft
• Super Mario 64
• Super Marios Brothers
• Super Mario Brothers 3
• Super Mario Galaxy 2
• Super Mario World
• The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate
• The Legend of Zelda
• The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Walker
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• The Secret of Monkey Island
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
• Tomb Raider
• TRON: Maze-Atron
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Utopia
• World of Warcraft
• Worms Armageddon
• Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure
• Zaxxon

Looking at the list, some of the games chosen are obvious shoo-ins: Mario 3, Metal Gear Solid, and Bioshock, to name a few. Others—Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 and Metroid Prime 2—for instance, are more interesting. Certain series are very well represented: Zelda, Mario, Panzer Dragoon.

Though the games of the exhibit have been unveiled, the instillation is far from complete. The Smithsonian plans to open "The Art of Video Games" on March 16th, 2012, with the exhibit running from March through September.

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Mass Effect 2 has some of the best art, artists and concept art in the business - great to see it represented.

Road to E3 2011: Mass Effect 3 (IGN)

What We Know

Thanks to the May issue of Game Informer, we know the basics about Mass Effect 3 and Commander Shepard's final push to eliminate the Reaper threat. The homicidal sentient machines quickly invade Earth at the beginning of the game and it's up to Shepard to "flee, gather support, and mount a counter-attack to reclaim the planet" according to Casey Hudson, executive director of the franchise. Cerberus is back, but not in a friendly way -- they've now turned on Shepard, but mum's the word on their new motives.

The third game will also incorporate more traditional RPG elements than the second game did, including more in-depth skill trees and weapons customization. Each class now has a dedicated melee attack and the cover system has been refined. Hearing about all of these things makes us very excited, but we've yet to see them in action.

We also know some of the returning characters, notably the Illusive Man, Liara and the Virmire survivor (Kaidan or Ashley).

What We Expect at E3

The news that Mass Effect 3 has been delayed until early 2012 may influence what we see at E3. Now that the PR cycle needs to be stretched out for a little longer it's likely that we won't see as much as previously anticipated.

Still, we know the gist of what's going on, now we just need to see how it will function. Clearly we'll see some of the combat changes in action during the E3 demo, and we're looking forward to seeing how the new melee attacks will change the feel of the game.

We're also curious as to how you will recruit civilizations. Will it be possible to recruit everybody or will it be more like Dragon Age: Origins where you must choose to side with certain people and alienate (or kill) others in the process? BioWare may be saving this aspect for later in the development cycle, but there's still a chance we'll hear more about it at E3.

What we really want to see is the new customization interface and skill trees and I think that's a realistic expectation for the E3 demo. BioWare will want to show off that Mass Effect is still very much an "RPG" to help appease those were unhappy with the drastic changes in Mass Effect 2.

Finally, every Mass Effect fan is dying to know the entire list of returning characters as right now only a handful of favorites have been confirmed. I'm sure BioWare will release a few more returning characters at E3, but not the whole list.

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Personally i think the new delay will lead to an increased info flow - if anything to alleviate concerns over the delay and show off whatever new features that may be the cause of it. at least, i hope it will...

Mass Effect 3 delayed to Q1 2012

From the Mass Effect 2 Facebook page:

Mass Effect 3 will be released in the first three months of 2012. The development team is laser focused on making sure Mass Effect 3 is the biggest, boldest and best game in the series, ensuring that it exceeds everyone’s expectations.” - Casey Hudson, Executive Producer Mass Effect series

2 more screenshots (that we've seen in mag scans):

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