Deus Ex: Human Revolution Stealth Mode Video

Lead Writer MAC WALTERS Delivers MASS EFFECT 3 Game, Comic (Newsarama)

As in comics, fans of video games are beginning to find not just specific game companies or series, but specific writers and creators that they want to follow.

Lead Writer for Mass Effect 3 at BioWare, Mac Walters is one of those creators. Having been part of the team since the start of the epic space-based trilogy, he has built the characters of Commander Shepard and the people Shepard interacts with from the ground up.

Walters and BioWare weren't satisfied in only using the games themselves to do this, however, so they teamed up with scripture John Jackson Miller, artist Omar Francia, and Dark Horse Comics to expand the universe and get deeper into the heads of some of its rich canvas of characters.

With Mass Effect: Invasion coming to stores in October, finishing up its four issue run just ahead of Mass Effect 3's launch on March 6, 2012, we sat with Walters at Comic-Con International: San Diego 2011 to talk about the comics, the games, what has happened and what's to come. We have exclusive new details about the upcoming mini-series' story, and a new tease of a couple elements of Mass Effect 3 that many fans will be excited about.

Newsarama: So Mac, let's start with the recent announcement of Mass Effect: Invasion, the third Mass Effect comic mini-series. This is going to tie into pretty much everything, the comics, the novels, and Mass Effect 3, bridge everything together, right?

Mac Walters: Yeah, it definitely takes elements; we're dealing with Aria, we're dealing with Omega, we're also dealing with the Illusive Man and the relationships between all those different people and place. If you've been following the novels at all, you know that Aria and the illusive Man are not exactly friendly. They have what you might call an uneasy business relationship right now.

The Illusive Man [Slight Spoilers for MASS EFFECT 2 Here!] has the base beyond the Omega 4 relay, and that's very important to him, all the research that Shepard was able to obtain for him there in Mass Effect 2. But it's kind of – guarded – shall we say, by Omega. Aria's ensconced there and she has no plans to leave. So this is kinda about their relationship, but also about where Cerberus is heading in Mass Effect 3. I can't really get into that, but it does elude to that.

Nrama: There's that magic word floating around, "indoctrinated," is that something the comic will provide any hints for, or is that something you're saving for the game?

Walters: Well, at least as far as it ties to the experiments that Cerberus is undertaking, much like they did with Paul Grayson in the novels. Mass Effect: Invasion will expand on that for sure. We'll see a little more of what their plans are, what they're going to do. I haven't told anyone that yet, so there you go!

Nrama: So Cerberus is continuing to play with fire...

Walters: They are. In the same pursuit as always. The Illusive Man is very much about control, very much a "let's not destroy it needlessly if there's a way we can use it for our own advantage." And as you say, they're playing with fire. How many times until they get burned?

Nrama: Of course it looks like the Illusive Man "got burned" during the First Contact War (as seen in Mass Effect: Evolution) and maybe doesn't even realize it yet.

Walters: Yeah but even that is kind of open as to exactly what happened there. Obviously, Mass Effect 3 will reveal all; that's the point of Mass Effect 3, we tie up a lot of those loose ends. But I think it's safe to say The Illusive Man is still very much "himself" throughout the course of what people have been playing. We wouldn't ever want you to feel like "oh this guy I worked for was really an enemy all along." But that doesn't mean there weren't influences in his life.

Nrama: With Mass Effect 3 being kind of the end of at least Shepard's story, the end of this tale, does that mean the comics will have to sort of end with it too, or do you feel like the comics give you a way to keep telling stories in this universe?

Walters: You know, I think much like the Star Wars comics are popular to this day, the Mass Effect universe is huge, not just in space but in time as well. Things happened before the events of the game series, maybe things that happen after; there's no limit to the stories we can tell. I think as long as we keep focusing on interesting characters, especially ones that are introduced in the novels or the games, they will continue to be successful. And there's so much room for that. There's all the people you know and love from the games, but there's also the friends of those people and the parents of those people and on and on it goes. So I think there's always a way to tie it back to something from the "original trilogy" of Mass Effect.

Nrama: You've mostly done plotting with John Jackson Miller scripting, but what was the learning curve like jumping into the comic book world?

Walters: I think it was like any medium, when you take your craft to it there's a huge learning curve at first. But fortunately, [Editor] Dave Marshall and the other guys at Dark Horse gave me as much information as I wanted. They were fine if I just stood on the side and said "here's the story, go ahead," but I wanted to learn. I'm a guy that if I'm not challenged, I get bored and die. And that's why I've taken on the two 8-pagers that I've done as well, that I scripted myself and made mistakes. You know, that's the way you learn! I made my mistakes and we fixed them, and I have a third 8-pager coming out that will digital release only. I don't know what we've talked about on that one, I don't think we've said who that's about yet. It's an interesting character...

So yeah, there was a huge learning curve, but it's something I think I'm picking up and really enjoy doing. I'd be up for doing a whole series myself if the opportunity arose. Or maybe even branch off and do my own series. Dark Horse is really open to that, creator-owned work. I certainly have lots of ideas. The problem is I have no time and no energy; right now Mass Effect 3 has all my time and energy.

Nrama: So maybe we'll be having another conversation in March or April...

Walters: Yeah! Who knows?

Nrama: With Mass Effect 3 coming in March 2012, things already seem to be reaching a fever pitch for fans, even with seven months yet. Did you have any idea that fans would get this ravenous this early?

Walters: Interestingly, we've never done a true trilogy before, so there are new things we're seeing here. But our fans are our fans. They know what they're going to get from BioWare so they're always excited for what we're going to put out. Obviously it's growing, because it is a trilogy and it's leading somewhere, it's all part of the same story; there's that sense that it's coming to a head. They have all these expectations and I honestly believe that we will fulfill all of them and more. The story as it is now, I think we're going to blow their minds, and be able to satisfy on every level.

So yeah, it's a slightly higher fever pitch than we've seen before, but we are used to our fans and the interest, the passion is awesome; it drives us to do more and do better. One thing you can honestly say about BioWare, and I haven't ever worked at another game company, but we never rest on our laurels. We get to the end of one game, we say "damn, we didn't get to do X, Y, and Z, so we're doing it next game!" We know the fans want it and we're going to do it. Even things like story, character, we're always trying to grow.

Nrama: You and Drew Karpyshyn worked really closely together on the first couple of games, but then you took a sole role for this last one?

Walters: Yeah, so the way it worked was Mass Effect 1 I was the Senior Writer, he was the Lead Writer. We had about 4 or 5 writers maybe. Mass Effect 2 we knew early on he was wanting to try something different, go somewhere else, so I was kind of being "groomed" as it were to take over as lead. Then about halfway through the project he went down to Austin to start work there, and I took over as Lead there. Then on on Mass Effect 3 I am the Lead on it. So we did the halfway through handshake and that was it.

Fortunately I've been on it since the beginning as well, so it's not like I was coming in blind and didn't know anything about the IP. I was there when we were creating the war and the characters, so it was a pretty easy transition.

Nrama: As Lead Writer, how much do you let your writers kind of go down their paths, and how much of it is stuff that you feel like you have to crack down on because of your particular vision?

Walters: You know, I think a lot of that is handled up front. We say "this is the vision for the game, this is the style of the game, what we're trying to go for. We work a lot of that out with Casey Hudson, the Executive Producer, we hash that out. It's not just a top down "here this is what we're doing." We sit with the writing team and see what they want to do where they want to go and we adjust based on that.

Then the way we do it on the Mass Effect team is a lot of times a writer is given a level to do. Easiest example is you had your acquisition missions, your loyalty missions in Mass Effect 2, each of those is a level and a writer would be given responsibility for that. They were pretty free within the realms of "this is the greater sense of the story, this is what we need to get across here" and go. So we gave them a fairly big box which they can then work in and go.

The thing that I always stress with writing, and I think this is true anywhere, is iteration. You improve over time, you improve as you look at it. So every level, my own included, all the major scenes, they all go through a peer review process. We all go into the room and sit down, and it improves from there. I think that's part of the thing that makes us as good as we are, makes the story as good as it is. Then all of that, I oversee it and get into the nitty gritty, line-by-line and can say "this feels out of character" or "this feels like the wrong moment to be bringing up a joke."

I'm kind of sometimes the style taskmaster, keeping people in line with that, but it's more of coming in for a decent polish at the end, and working on my own levels.

Nrama: One of the things that seemed to be missing from Mass Effect 2 is the party banter; it's something we saw in the elevator sequences of Mass Effect 1 and is a big part of the Dragon Age series, I think you've said that is something you're exploring more in the third. What can you tell us about it?

Walters: Yup! That's one of the key things, actually. I tweeted that out, much to the relief of fans. Part of it in Mass Effect 2, honestly, was a logistics thing: 12 henchmen. How do you write banter for 12 potential henchmen, right? We tried it, we tried a bunch of different things but it would get really unwieldy.

Nrama: I love all the different words you guys at BioWare use for them: Companions, Henchmen, Squadmates, Followers...

Walters: Well I'll give you the quick breakdown! A Henchman is someone who can join your party, a squadmate is someone who is in your party right now. That's the difference between those two. Companions, I think is more of a Dragon Age term.

Nrama: Fair enough!

Walters: But yes, in Mass Effect 3 it's a huge part of the game. it's something that I've hammered home, and we're actually doing specific banter passes through the levels. We're saying hey, when should we be chiming in, not just for informational purposes but also just for the stuff people love where they're chatting back and forth and developing the characters.

Nrama: One nerdy question, and one to let you run free a little bit. Nerdy question: Please, just tell us, when we see Wrex, will we get a "Wrex." "Shepard." moment?

Walters: *laughs* I don't know if we do, I'm trying to remember now. I'll let you know when I get back to the office, I'll look into that.

Nrama: What's the one thing, if you have to pick, that you're really excited about, whether it's a feature or a theme, for Mass Effect 3?

Walters: For Mass Effect 3, the thing is; you learn so much every time you do a videogame. There were so many things that we wanted to accomplish with Mass Effect 1, and then we felt like we got a lot of that in Mass Effect 2, and ME3 is really like "wow, we're doing it." Your imagination is a lot of the time bigger than your budget, what you're actually able to accomplish. I think our imaginations on 1 were so big, it took us until 3 to get there.

It feels like, not just in one thing, but in everything; the way the gameplay feels, the way the art's coming together, the way the music themes tie-in, how all of that is fitting around this sci-fi epic crazy story that we've done. As I mentioned at the panel, we still have characters; we still have personal moments.

One of the big things I've also said I want to do is explore Shepard. People are playing as Shepard and as a role-playing experience you can't go too far off the rails with who Shepard is, because it's their Shepard. But I have found a way to allow people to explore Shepard's humanity, to explore some of his or her vulnerabilities.

One of the things I drew a lot of inspiration from for some of the themes of Mass Effect 3 was the movie The Gladiator. You have this heroic character in ME3 who kind of knows that their days might be numbered, this heavy burden on 'em with people dying all around. The way Maximus explored that and the way he stood apart from everyone around him, the burden that he had and the skills that he had. What did that feel like?

So the player has all these friends, all these companions, these people that are close to you, and yet you're slightly removed from that. So what does it mean to that character? So we're kind of being able to look into Shepard's soul.

And that's optional! You don't have to, you can just be like "I'm off to kill things!" *laughs* And that's a valid response! That's a valid Shepard response to this. "Where are them Aliens? We're gonna kill 'em!"

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Bioware producer Casey Hudson has said that the decisions players make in Mass Effect 3 will have a bigger impact on the story than in any previous Mass Effect game.

"With the first one, we're kind of launching everything, and we're kind of throwing up these huge threads to the later stories," said Casey Hudson in an interview with Destructoid.

"And then with the second one, we're kind of inbetween. It's actually the toughest one to make, because it has to work with previous stuff and still tie-in with other stuff a little bit later.

"But with Mass Effect 3, this is really the opportunity to do whatever we want with the remainder of the story, which means players can do whatever they want with the remainder of the story. Your decision can have much bigger consequences, things that you've done earlier can have much bigger consequences.

"So we can really throw around a lot of big impacts from your decisions, from prior games and from decisions you'll make in Mass Effect 3.

"It's really astronomical. The number of different ways that you can play it, the combinations of different decisions that you can make, and then all the different ways that the story can end up depending on what you're doing.

"The whole story, the whole galaxy ends in a way that you're going to decide."

What do you think of Hudson's remarks? As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Mass Effect 3 is out on March 6, 2012 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

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Mass Effect 3 first hands-on preview (Gamesradar)

As wowed as we were by the Mass Effect 3 demo at E3 last month, no hands-off demonstration can substitute for actual hands-on time with the game. That's why we were excited to hear that BioWare and EA decided to give Comic-Con attendees the very first hands-on time with Mass Effect 3. The demo was brief, but gave us a good feel for some of the major changes to the final installment in the series.

Our play session began with choosing Shepard's class (soldier, adept and sentinel were the three options available) and distributing skill points to our squad. At first glance the level-up system looks the same as Mass Effect 2's system, but we soon saw that it's much deeper than before, with branching skill trees within each stat.

When you add a point to a particular stat, a sub-menu pops up where you can further choose what direction you want that stat to take, starting at the fourth level of each stat. For example, adding a point to combat mastery might let you choose between an offensive or defensive boost on one level, and on the next level you might choose between a boost to special ammo damage or weapon power damage. And for biotic powers, would you rather have increased damage or quicker recharge times? Because each new level is an either/or choice, you can't just max everything out – you must decide how each character will take shape and what his or her specialties will be.

With class and stats out of the way, we began the mission in earnest, which was the same mission we saw in the E3 demo where Shepard must protect a female krogan that Mordin is escorting in some kind of medical pod. Liara and Garrus joined Shepard as squadmates, but disappointingly, Liara only had a little flavor dialogue during the mission, and Garrus had none at all. I asked about Garrus after the demo and I was assured that he would have plenty to say later, so not to worry – but it was still a letdown not to hear him say anything.

As waves of Cerberus agents attacked, the most obvious difference in the combat is the new cover system, which was difficult to get used to because we're so familiar with the old controls. In short, it feels very Gears of War. Hitting the A button near cover makes you take cover as usual, but when you're away from cover pressing A makes Shepard do a dodge roll in the direction you point the analog stick. The rolling animation looks bizarre at first, because we've never seen Shepard move like that before, and it looks especially weird when you roll him toward the camera to dodge backwards. It doesn't look bad, just really different compared to how Shepard moves in the previous two games.

Also like Gears, when you're behind cover, you can use the analog stick to bring up arrows on screen that allow you to jump from cover to cover by hitting A. This proved particularly useful when we had to quickly flank a couple of Cerberus agents with riot shields so we could attack them from their vulnerable sides. By the end of the demo we were still adapting to the differences in the cover system, so it's still hard to say whether the Gears-style will be an upgrade or a downgrade overall, but so far it seems to work well for navigating combat zones quickly and stealthily.

Speaking of gunplay, we also got a good look at the improved return of weapons customization. Instead of accessing weapon upgrades through Shepard's inventory, you can select up to two add-ons to any weapon at the weapons load-out locker, which was located within the level during the demo, but we assume there will also be a weapons locker on the Normandy too. Upgrades seem to work like they did in the first Mass Effect, but the interface for choosing upgrades is much easier to use. The menu here gives you a remarkably physical sense of the gun itself, as if you were really looking at a gun on a table with the upgrades laid out before you. You can see what each upgrade actually looks like on the gun and see how it affects the stats of the gun all on the same screen.

Other than the changes to the cover system and the addition of the omniblade melee weapon (which honestly, we didn't get a chance to use much here), the rest of the mission played out like a typical mission from Mass Effect 1 or 2, where we progressed through the base to find Mordin. It almost felt a little like the Archangel mission from ME2, because the hull integrity of the krogan's medical pod decreased over time, shown by a health bar at the bottom of the screen, so we had to move quickly to reach it in time.

Right as we reached Mordin and the krogan, a giant Atlas walker mech appeared out of nowhere and the demo suddenly ended, much to our dismay. We can only assume that a boss battle with said humongous mech followed, but we'll have to wait until another time to find out. Like the E3 demo, our hands-on time at Comic-Con just left us wanting to see and play more, so we hope to have more opportunities to play Mass Effect 3 before it releases in March of next year. Expect more details as soon as we see more.

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Comic-Con: Mass Effect Movie (IGN)

Legendary Pictures presented their panel for their planned game-to-film adaptation Mass Effect at Friday's San Diego Comic-Con with screenwriter Mark Protosevich and game creator Casey Hudson there to talk up the highly anticipated movie.

The Legendary exec on the panel said he was aware of the poor reputation of past video game movies, but that they believe the fact they're working with the powers-that-be behind the games gives them the confidence that they will make a film that will go against that trend.

Protosevich said that past game movie makers were smitten with the visuals and action of the games and mistakenly believed they could simply recreate the game on film. The writer added that he believes Mass Effect has a mythology as rich and deep as those of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, but that they are focusing solely on the first game for the movie version.

Beyond that there was no real news to be had on the movie. There's no cast or director yet, nor did the panel show any concept art from the film. Maybe next year's SDCC will see a more substantial Mass Effect movie panel.

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Mass Effect 3: San Diego Comic-Con 2011 Stage Demo (Gamespot)

Toy Maker Kotobukiya Getting Into the Business of Sexy Mass Effect Girls

Japanese toy maker Kotobukiya has already welcomed a few Comic-Con friendly femme fatales to its "bishoujo" line of beautifully sculpted figures. They started with superheroines from Marvel and DC Comics, but now they're moving on to video games.

Kotobukiya has already welcomed some Tekken characters into the fold, but the company is also bringing some Western alien talent. Mass Effect 3's Liara T'Soni will join the bishoujo line with a new statue based on the Shunya Yamashita drawing seen here.

Bishoujo Liara is planned for a Q4 2011 release.

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Considering the demise of the DC Direct line, this could be a good replacement if they do more than just Liara.

Mass Effect movie @ SDCC 2011 Legendary Pictures Panel

1:22 Now we're on to video games!!!

1:23 Or at least a very special one....with a Mass Effect trailer!

1:25 They're in the early stages of developing the ME film but the game creators are here!

1:26 Casey Hudson and Mark Protosevich

1:26 Casey says te strength of the game comes from the characters n

1:27 Mark says gamers can be easily seduced by the visuals and cinematic qualities of a game, including gameplay.

1:28 Filmmakers try to translate this into a movie but ignore the test of whether or not the game has a strong storyline or character development.

1:28 Mark likens this to talking to a hot girl and finding out they can't carry a conversation.

1:30 Mass Effect has a universe as strong as Star Wars and LOTR. Now it's about making this into a good film.

1:31 Casey is making sure that they make sure to include scenes and ideas that they know the fans will love.

1:31 Working with Legendary has allowed them to make sure their movie will be different from other video game movies.

1:33 Strong stories and strong characters, just like other Legendary films. Making sure the ME film is good starts with good partnerships.

As SDCC doesn't allow livestreams for panels, this is the transcirpt of the liveblog that was done for the Legendary Pictures panel with Casey Hudson (Producer) and Mark Protosevich (writer).

Mass Effect’s Depth Will Save It From the Fate of Most Video Game Movies

Mass Effect won't suffer the same fate as other video game movies, said the screenwriter assigned to the project, because it draws on far more than the "seductive" visuals and active sequences that all video games are known for, whether or not they are accompanied by a story with any depth.

"In the early days [of video game adaptations], the idea was, let's try to recreate this, instead of pausing and asking is this a good story," said Mark Protosevich. "Does it have interesting concepts, does it have interesting philosophies and themes? I think most games fail that test. This doesn not."

Little was divulged about the film, which is known to release in 2012, but does not have a specific date. (The panel showed a trailer for Mass Effect 3 at its beginning). Protosevich and Casey Hudson, the game's creator, discussed the concepts and challenges of pulling off such a large narrative, spanning three games whose final release will be March 6, 2012.

"This is a really rich world and what Casey and his team have done is create a universe as rich as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings," Protosevich said. "It is a challenge to condene that to a sinle feature film."

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James Vega Revealed and a more opinionated post than i would normally make...

Crossing the 10,000 follower-threshold on Twitter, Casey Hudson revealed of of the new Mass effect 3 squad-members: James Vega. Personally i'm not a big fan of the stereotypical "big butch" guy, especially when he looks pretty (again: stereotypically) gay in this case, mark my words: a s/s romance option. i'm not against s/s romances, but jesus: cliche much?! i think that does more disservice to the s/s crowd than anything. At least they haven't butchered any existing character to force s/s romances with those. yet.

Worryingly recently, as BW have expanded, the general trend towards quality control with the franchise is in something of a decline: the tie-in media has generally been abysmal (books and comics especially), the action figures were fine but a year late (and series 2 was cancelled outright). Thankfully the clothing and Lithographs in particular have all been stunning.

I am particularly worried about people Like BW's new marketing man, David Silverman, who (after the "awesome button" debacle with Dragon Age 2) seems to be primarily concerned with ingratiating himself into a  small subsect of gamers who play femshep (that, by BW's own stats makes up a decreased 18% of total players): promising marketing, trailers etc focused on that, instead of appealing to the much wider audience. i mean: really? i have nothing against femsheps - apart from the VA work - i have one myself, but to focus on that tiny aspect of the game/audience when BWs marketing of the series hasn't exactly been always brilliant till now, just means the other areas will be ignored even more. Hell even Dragon Age 2 had more promotional videos/avatar stuff/themes on XBL than Mass Effect 2 before it was even released. what does that say?

I apologise if this post seems somewhat more opinionated than normal, but in  a franchise i deeply care about, some of these questionable decisions are worth pointing out.

Mass Effect 3 PS3 vs. 360: 'You won't see a difference' say BioWare

BioWare has told CVG that should you compare the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Mass Effect 3, you'll notice "no drop in quality".

In fact, the studio believes that you won't be able to tell the two apart, thanks to its strict adherence to creating all three versions of ME3 - 360, Ps3 and PC - side-by-side.

Mass Effect has a slightly patchy release history on Sony's console. The first ME game, released back in 2007, never appeared on PS3.

The multi-award winning second title in the series was released for the format in January this year - 12 months after it appeared on 360. The Blu-ray version contained an introductory cinematic to bring PS3 owners up to speed on events from the first game.

Discussing Mass Effect 3's arrival in March next year, BioWare marketing boss David Silverman told CVG: "This is the first time that all three platforms have shipped at the same time and it will be an amazing adventure whatever platform you play it on. I don't think you'll see a difference between the Xbox version and the PS3 version. There's no drop in quality on either."

Mass Effect 3 takes place after the events of the second game. Its action-packed story sees ancient alien race the Reapers return, launching an all-out attack against the rest of the galaxy - starting with Earth.

Silverman added: "People tell us we're amazing storytellers and we hope we are. We know we can't give you all-out galactic war by cheaping out on the action. It needs to feel an epic war against insurmountable odds. That's what makes the story even more emotionally engaging."

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EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW: "MASS EFFECT INVASION"

In anticipation of Comic-Con International in San Diego and its BioWare panel on Saturday, July 23, Dark Horse has provided CBR News with an exclusive preview of "Mass Effect Invasion." Written by "Mass Effect 2" and "ME 3" lead writer Mac Walters, the miniseries, co-written by John Jackson Miller and featuring art by Omar Francia, ties directly into the storyline of the third game. Check back with CBR News next week when we'll have and interview with Walters and Miller about the latest chapter in the "Mass Effect" saga.

In addition to the pages below, Dark Horse is making another seven pages from "Mass Effect Invasion" #1 available in the publisher's digital comics store -- where all "Mass Effect" comics are available free through tomorrow, July 14.

Mass Effect 2 & 3 Lead Writer Mac Walters returns to comics with an essential extension of BioWare’s massively anticipated video game Mass Effect 3!

The Omega space station is the center of lawlessness in the galaxy, a den of vice ruled by the deadly asari Aria. It is also a strategic foothold in a galaxy-wide power struggle, and when the station comes under attack from a new threat unleashed by the humanity-first organization Cerberus, Aria is forced to become more ruthless than ever to protect her home—and her dominion!

This canonical chapter in the Mass Effect saga reunites Walters with writer John Jackson Miller (Star Wars: Knight Errant), artist Omar Francia (Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II), and cover artist Massimo Carnevale (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) for a galactic showdown sure to thrill any serious science-fiction reader!

By Mass Effect 2 & 3 Lead Writer Mac Walters!

Mass Effect 2 sold two million copies in two weeks!

IGN.com named Mass Effect 2 the greatest Xbox 360 game of all time!

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Sadly omar fancia's artwork is as bad as ever, you can't even tell what the (unknown) enemy is supposed to be/resemble... and a story on Aria, again?! she wasn't that interesting/exceptional in ME2, let alone being able to carry-off spin-off comic series'. once again BW's quality control fails when it comes to the always excellent series tie-ins in other media.

E3: MASS EFFECT 3 Brings Back the RPG (But More Action, Too)

"[Cerberus] is indoctrinated. They are capable of anything."

Any Mass Effect fan that heard those words is bound to freak out, and that was just one little line in a sea of new information at E3 2011. The three demos revealed a few more familiar faces you will see in ME3 as well as how the combat has changed and improved from the last game.

All classes can now carry any weapon type, but only the Soldier can carry one of each category of weapon at once. And of course there is the omniblade – the beautiful omniblade. No more awkward punches when a husk shuffles too close. Now Shepard’s omnitool becomes a lethal weapon. This weapon, which looks similar to the plasma sword from Halo, allows for more satisfying melee combat and can be used during stealth takedowns. Stab someone around a corner or over cover, or see the class-unique strong attacks that will really show off this new melee weapon.

The RPG elements that many felt were discarded in ME2 have made their return. There will be work stations placed throughout the game, where Shepard can place a weapon and add any new attachments they have found or bought throughout the game. This gives the player more of a chance to customize each weapon to their personal fighting style. The sheer amount of customization we saw, from weapon elements that will change rate of fire to damage to more stealthy styles was astounding; and this was just from one workbench in one small portion of the game.

In addition to weapons, the abilities your character possesses are much more customizable in ME3 than in ME2. You will start with a "powered-up" Shepard, especially when importing your character from Mass Effect 2, though the exact details of that have not yet been revealed. Long-time fans will recognize most of the abilities, but they will be able to use them and upgrade them in ways they never have before. Passive abilities, like Combat Mastery has several different subcategories under it, like Damage, Recharge Speed, Influence & Duration, Headshots, Weapon Mastery, Influence & Damage, Influence & Dilation. In other words, you won't just add a point to "Operative." Instead, you'll get to choose exactly where that point gets spent, and what boost it gives your Shepard.

Another important upgrade made in ME3 gameplay wise, is how Shepard moves. The cover system is back, but now you can do so much more than just crouch and vault. Shepard can jump, climb, move seamlessly from cover to cover, and even take over enemy heavy mechs, like the Cerberus Atlas shown in the demo. In the demo, the Soldier, one of the more clunky classes of ME2, moved with practically the grace of a ballerina. Light blue arrows direct the player in the cover system, letting you decide whether you want to roll around a pillar or jump over a cargo box. If you consider yourself a stealth player, these smoother controls should really help with your style of gameplay.

Although you have all these upgrades to your abilities, weapons, and movements, the game will certainly not be a cakewalk. Enemies in Mass Effect 3 have been upgraded as well. For example, enemy tactics that you typically find in a FPS, like ranged enemies pinning you down while a shielded enemy slowly crawls in to attack you, will be seen in this game. Because of this, squad tactics are more important than ever. You can use your squad members to pull the shield from one enemy while you take on the ranged opponent. For Xbox users, this is where the Kinect voice controls in ME3 will come in handy. For the unintiated, on the Xbox 360, you’ll be able to simply tell your squadmates what you’d like them to do. “Liara, move up.” “Garrus, concussive shot.” By giving those verbal commands through the Kinect microphone, you’ll see your squadmates carry out the orders while you concentrate on fighting your own battle.

Speaking of squad members, from the demos it would seem that players should not expect every NPC they team up with to be on the Normandy for the game’s entirety. During the closed-door demo, Shepard and Anderson are trying to escape Earth in what seems is the start of the Reaper invasion. Once they reach the Normandy, however, Anderson proclaims that he is staying behind to help others escape (but not before throwing Shepard her dog tags and saying she should consider herself reinstated in the Alliance Military). Both Legion and Mordin made cameos as well. Mordin was helping Shepard retrieve a fertile Krogan female and Legion was seen driving a vehicle while Shepard attacked a chasing Reaper. Casey Hudson, the executive producer of the franchise, has said in the past that almost all major characters will make an appearance. It would seem that these cameos and temporary squad mates is how BioWare is going to make that happen.

But let’s get back to Cerberus being indoctrinated, shall we? When it was announced that no matter what Shepard decided at the end of ME2 Cerberus would be coming after them, many fans, particularly if they had a Renegade playthrough, wondered what happened between the two games to cause this. Although we only have this one line, “They are indoctrinated” to speculate about right now, fans of the Mass Effect comics and novels might have been guessing that Cerberus, or rather the Illusive Man, has been indoctrinated since the First Contact War. Mass Effect: Evolution from Dark Horse comics in particular explored the origin of the Illusive Man and revealed that those aren’t crazy contacts from the future that he is wearing - his glowing blue eyes are a result of touching a Reaper Artifact.

ME fans know just from the games that coming in contact with Reaper technology usually results in indoctrination. When Jack Harper endured a physical change and created the identity of the Illusive Man after touching the artifact, was he already indoctrinated? That’s just one of the questions that one-off line certainly pushes fans to ask (and will almost certainly be answered in Mass Effect 3).

Casey Hudson began the demo by saying, “This really is the main event. This is full scale galactic war.” He also claimed, with full certainty, that “this is the best game in the series.” From just the small upgrades to graphics, combat, abilities, and the care they have taken with the details of this massive story, ME should feel assured that this statement is true. Mass Effect 3 isn’t just a sequel, or the end of a story. It’s the culmination of all that has come before it, and with that kind of pedigree, it should be very good indeed.

I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my most anticipated game of 2012.

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The Mass Effect Movie Will be at Comic-Con

Hollywood studio Legendary Pictures will be holding its first ever "standalone panel" at this year's Comic-Con in San Diego. Why do we care? Because they'll be talking about the Mass Effect movie, that's why.

Yes, tucked away at the bottom of the press release announcing the studio's showings is the news that the film's writer Mark Protosevich and BioWare's Casey Hudson will be holding a panel, where they'll discuss their work on the long-in-production film project.

Interestingly, the release says Protosevich is "adapting the game to film", which sounds a lot like they're simply turning just the first game into a movie. Leaving the other two games to be covered by, well, another two movies!

Since there's no actors in costume yet, don't expect any footage of the movie. If you're lucky, you might get some concept art or CG sequences, though, and hopefully word on a director as well.

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Mass Effect 3: BioWare on intense combat and overhauling AI

In the first part of Xbox World 360's BioWare interview series, Mass Effect 3 exec producer Casey Hudson and art director Derek Watts discussed their surprises, inspirations and the tough decisions behind creating the eagerly anticipated sequel.

Part two saw lead sound designer Rob Blake, and senior environment artists Don Arceta and Noel Lukasewich reveal their audio and game world secrets.

Now, in the third and final part of XBW's Mass Effect 3 chats, BioWare gameplay designers Christina Norman and Corey Gaspur answer a few questions aimed at combat and AI. Enjoy. It's been emotional.

Mining aside, what elements from the last game needed fixing for Mass Effect 3?

Christina Norman: Well, we want to make it so that when the player's fighting in the moment they feel like they have more options than just aiming, shooting and using powers. We really want to make mobility a factor - like, "am I in the right position on the battlefield? Where are my enemies? How am I going to get from point A to point B? How are they going to get from point A to point B?" So the player is never thinking, "I'm walking into this safe place with great cover, I'll stay there and fight" but more "how am I going to move through the battlefield as the enemies move through the battlefield against me?"

And the AI has been overhauled to support the new things Shepard can do?

CN: We do an AI overhaul pretty much every day! If there's one thing the programmers always want to do better it's definitely the AI, so we've done a lot of work on that. We still have some more work to go, but we want you to feel that the enemies you're fighting are more complex, that they have multiple behaviours, and that they're reacting to what's going on.

Corey Gaspur: And enemies like the Cerberus Troopers are elites. They can do everything that Shepard can do now as well, so you're fighting a force that's a lot more intelligent this time around, and a lot more punishing. The game is just intense even when you play it on Normal.

How has enemy design changed over the years?

CN: With Mass Effect 2 we had this 'let's come up with cool enemies' approach, and we made each enemy as an individual. Now we look at enemies as a force, with units within the force, and each of them has a role. You end up with this really cool chessboard thing, where you have a knight and a bishop, they'll work together in one way but if you have a knight and a rook, they'll work together in a different way. It's giving our level designers and combat designers a lot more opportunities, not with heavy scripting, but just by combining these pieces that work together in new and interesting ways.

And the system in the new game will make them harder to fight, even on Normal?

CN: Yeah. And in Mass Effect 3 it's not just that the game is harder on Insanity, it's that this creature actually behaves differently on higher difficulty levels. On those harder difficulty levels we can make the enemies exhibit specific behaviours more often, or even give them new behaviours that we think will work for a harder difficulty level, but which won't work for an easier one.

And enemies are bigger too, right? A six hundred foot mini-Reaper and the new Atlas Mechs - how do you make such behemoths interesting to fight?

CN: Without going into the specifics of any of the enemies you'll face, I can say it needs to be more about smart ways of taking them down. If a large enemy is nothing but a bullet sponge where you shoot him until his hit points go to zero then that really doesn't work. If you can interact with the enemy in specific ways by shooting at weak points? Use the environment against them? Those are the factors that make larger enemies more interesting to fight.

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Robot Dance: The Aesthetics of Deus Ex 3 (IGN)

The 12-minute Deus Ex video walkthrough published today on IGN shows the visual range of Eidos' Studios' interpretation of the Deus Ex universe, with cleanly clinical indoor labs whose windows look out upon the industrial sprawl of a giant two-tiered Chinese city. Human Revolution has a very distinctive style, full of colour and wearing its cyberpunk influences proudly on its sleeve.

Recently, we sat down with Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, the Art Director of Deux Ex, to talk about Deus Ex: Human Revolution's visual design – a man for whom other videogames are a "last point of reference". Read on to discover its baroque influence, how Warren Spector helped them justify the style differences with Deus Ex 1, and why the future will be yellow.

IGN:Did any particular artists inspire you for the style of the game?

Jonathan Jacques-Belletete: As an Art Director, videogames are always my last point of reference. I'm really big into architecture and fashion, like Tadao Endo and the Scandinavian architects; the idea is that cyberpunk is never really far in the future, it's just an anticipation, a grafting of the old onto the new.

We travel internationally in the game, but a big part of it is in Detroit, and I was asking myself: how am I going to make it look futuristic, like European contemporary architecture in Scandinavia? We don't have much of that in North America, and just by putting it in Detroit in front of those old buildings from the 30s, it makes it look futuristic and credible. If someone says to me that it's too futuristic, I can say "those buildings exist right now in Japan and Scandinavia and London." I'm a big industrial design freak.

IGN: Do you think the Bladerunner Cyberpunk style is old hat?

Because Cyberpunk's been done quite a bit, I wanted to bring something new to it, and I started analysing all the transhumanist themes. Quite rapidly, you start seeing this connection with the renaissance period, because it was about the humanistic and we're dealing with transhumanistic stuff; the renaissance was, if you want, the beginning of the transhumanist era. If you want to upgrade a system, you first need to be able to understand how the system functions at its basics, and the renaissance is the first time in the west when we start going back into antiquities research and understanding the human machine. That's where transhumanism starts, understanding how the machine functions, and then in 2027 we upgrade that machine.

IGN: So how do you tie this high aesthetic concept into the game proper?

I thought to myself, 'Eh, what happens if I actually mix the aesthetics from the renaissance with the baroque and the cyberpunk stuff -would that be a cool flavour? Would people say that it's cyberpunk, but it just belongs to that product?'

It incorporates Vermeer, the renaissance, the baroque, the black and gold palette, the Rembrandt stuff, night and candles… The black represents the dystopian aspect of the game, the gold represents the human flesh-and-blood aspect, which is so much of what we deal with, and also a little bit of the hope that's still in the world at that time before the big collapse.

IGN: You had to move between our time and the original Deus Ex, knowing what the future was going to be. Do you feel that led to any design limitations?

We didn't really think about it that way; we thought, let's do our homework about where things are going to be in 30 years and base our stuff on that. At that point, whether it matches or doesn't match 100% with the first game, we didn't care that much. Not in a disrespectful way, but because a lot of the tech in the first Deus Ex is outdated now; a lot of the televisions are still 4:3 ratio and already today our world looks more futuristic than the first Deus Ex.

Also, I remember talking with Warren Spector about this (he hasn't worked on the game at all, not even as a consultant, I've just bumped into him), and even he said "hey, maybe we just visited the really gritty places of the world in the first one and all the stuff you've done was already extant, it's just not where the player went."

IGN: Is there anything in the game you've not justified in the fiction?

Everything's justified. We really went nuts with all that stuff. We had over four writers, including some great SF guys, like James Swallow who writes for Games Workshop. Our lead narrative writer Mary rally supervised it, but pretty much all our writing team are detail freaks.

IGN: If the world turns out how you've projected it, how will you feel about it?

That's a great question. I would be totally spooked. It goes back to your questions about whether we've pushed the tech too far; me and the game director [Jean-Francois Dugas] say we should have a dinner in 2027 and play the game. Sometimes we think that we might have a good laugh – maybe we didn't push it far enough, actually. With Shanghai we did this two-tiered city thing, that's not to going happen, but some of the things Kia's working on the morphing materials...they say that in ten years it'll be on the market, that your phone will get bigger for the keyboard and then morph around your wrist for the watch. Nanoparticles that can remember two or three different positions... We think the next thirty years are going to be really crazy, but if it turns out like our design... it's going to be really yellow.

IGN: One thing that a lot of futuristic things don't do is have lots of throwback to the past, unless it's something like Bioshock that was specifically designed like that.

Something's that very important to us is "show, don't tell." Make a visual set-up that tells a story. You don't say "this is what this means"; you see for yourself. I find in games, too often, we're obsessed with reproducing reality, and photorealism seeps in... Let's say you have to do the lobby of a bank... we'll take a picture of a bank lobby and we'll make it just that boring. The wood and marble could look just like real life, but it would still look like a bank, the most boring thing in the world.

One of the things we try to do in Deux Ex is to always surprise you, so you may walk into that bank lobby and find a really weird installation art thing hanging from the ceiling, made from random recycled stuff in some kind of unexpected shape.. Why's it there? Because it's interesting.

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director Commentary Video *Spoilers*

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - 'Behind 2027 The World Of' Trailer

Mass Effect 3: BioWare on art, sound and sharing with DICE

In the first part of Xbox World 360's BioWare interview series, Mass Effect 3 exec producer Casey Hudson and art director Derek Watts discussed their surprises, inspirations and the tough decisions behind creating the eagerly anticipated sequel.

In part two of the unabridged interviews with the men and women in charge of production, sound, art, design, and combat, XBW talks to lead sound designer Rob Blake, and senior environment artists Don Arceta and Noel Lukasewich.

What's all new for the sound of Mass Effect 3?

Rob Blake: We're focusing on enhancing a lot of the combat sounds. We've been chatting to the guys over at DICE who did the Battlefield and the Medal of Honor stuff and we've been doing a lot of knowledge sharing and asset sharing with those guys.

We're taking on board some of their environmental changes that they've done really well. The new Assault Rifle has different layers that change depending on what type of environment you're in, for example. There are lots of interactions between sounds - you can hear the different decay as shots echo off walls.

What came up between your team and the guys at DICE?

We're doing a lot of knowledge sharing which has been really useful, and we love the Battlefield games. We're big fans of the audio so we're definitely trying to build on the work that they've done, but at the same time they're very different games.

Their focus is just the guns but we have spaceships, biotics and tech powers and all this extra stuff that we have to deal with. But one of the things I wanted from them was their environmental interactions, so that when you go into different areas things change quite drastically. They also have a sophisticated ducking system - when you fire your gun it will lower the volume of other people's guns.

When a gun's sound differs between indoor and outdoor locations, do you build all-new sounds or simply tweak one existing gunshot effect in-engine?

Both, actually. We do a lot of real-time reverberation effects with convolution reverb - that's samples of interior and exterior spaces and lay that on top of our sounds. But we're actually changing out some of the sounds too, so for example, with the new Assault Rifle effect, you can hear the bullet still disappearing off into the distance. When you're inside a room, you don't hear that because the bullet doesn't go as far. Again, this is something Battlefield did well so we're doing a lot of work like that.

How do you think the music will change with the arrival of your new composer? (Clint Mansell, who worked on Black Swan and movies like Requiem for a Dream)

We work with a lot of composers. Over the whole Mass Effect franchise we've worked with about eight different composers. It's always outsourced but we work very closely with them and they're always following our original vision - that retro futurism style we've built for Mass Effect.

Mass Effect is this mix of old and new in a lot of ways so we spend a lot of time with new, cutting edge synthesis mixed with old, modular analogue synthesis, trying to create really unusual and interesting sounds. Our big thing has always been an orchestral sort of feel but with some elements replaced with 70s and 80s synths.

So there are those two very specific technical things but composers often think more emotively so we work very closely with the writers to find out what the feel for each level and each narrative moment is; and how the player is supposed to be feeling when experiencing things.

What's the best location you've built for the game?

Noel Lukasewich: I'd have to say Don's Earth is pretty awesome. It showed us a lot of what we wanted to do, sort of paved the way for a lot of our new stuff.

Don Arceta: Yeah, but eventually they're all going to have that same level of detail as that Earth level. We're still building the game, so there are some awesome environments right now but the scope of the levels is really big. We have this awesome Earth vista and there's just going to be tons of things going on out there. I think the thing that's going to make the levels awesome is just what happens in them.

Mass Effect is basically a world without denim - there are few things recognisable from the present. How do you make Earth feel like Earth?

NL: Well, we've had conversations about what to push and what to keep. We don't want to have the streets paved with plastic and that kind of crazy stuff but do we keep the concrete? Do we keep the road signs?

DA: It's hard finding that balance because Mass Effect is all big curves and arching structures, and you don't want famous landmarks to just stick out like a sore thumb in that sci-fi universe. That's the kind of the balance artists are looking for - making it fit but still feel like Earth. Just putting Venetian blinds on the windows makes it more familiar to the player that this is Earth. You wouldn't ever see that on an Asari planet.

What sort of interaction is there between the gameplay guys and your team?

DA: It's a lot of back and forth. We let the designers know exactly what's important to us on the art side - maybe the way the sun hits inside a room or something that we just don't want to lose - and design will work with us exactly how to keep that.

We have a lot more integrated cover, so you don't walk into a room and immediately know there's going to be a combat there. It's about making these spaces feel natural and not forced. It shouldn't ever feel forced, by gameplay or art - it really should be this perfect marriage.

NL: Yeah, you don't want to walk through a room and go, "okay nothing's going to happen here. There's no cover for me here," and then you walk around the next corner and you just see a sea of these chest-high things - you basically see the fight ahead.

That's something few cover-based shooters get right.

DA: Yeah, you play a game like Gears of War and they just have sandbags everywhere, and we really don't want to do that. We really want to get away from arbitrary things placed just for the sake of gameplay.

BioWare tend to build spaces that often feel like they exist only to have a fight in, not to live and work in. How important is it to fix that?

NL: Absolutely important. All the departments are involved now - we'll have writers and combat designers in and we'll really talk about the history of the places.

DL: We're really pushing the variety within the levels, so you're not walking into the same room just decorated differently. We're really trying to push each room as a functional space. A hallway has a function for people working there, and we're just trying to really make sense of it in the game.

NL: I'm doing something right now where I've built the environment as an undamaged structure, and then I start smashing bits up. We try to design the architecture first before we blow it up, rather than just having a box and cramming destroyed bits in it. We're really thinking about how someone from the future designed this building, and whether it functions well. Then we blow it up!

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