Mass Effect - Interview @ CVG

The Doctors Zeschuk and Muzyka are once again doing their tag-team PR thing for BioWare, spruiking the new good news on Mass Effect at CVG. The questions cover some awesome topics such as voice-acting, animation and how they managed to fit it all on one DVD:

You've managed to shoe-horn the game on to one DVD. What are the consequences of that? Has anything had to be held back for downloadble content?

Ray Muzyka: We haven't revealed any plans yet for post-release content; download, episodic. But Mass Effect is a natural fit for that kind of thing.

For the longest time we were pretty sure we were going to have to fit the game content onto two DVDs, because there's just so much content in the game. Right now it looks like we're going to get it on one and it's been difficult because there's a lot of content. It's a very ambitious title.

The voice throughout the game as well; for the main character, all the party members; everybody talks.

More information.

"Everybody talks"

Yeah, complete voice acting kind of sucks, that's a fact… 'ts xtreemeh!

Only 18 months into the life cycle of the XBox 360 and we're already talking about how hard it is to fit all of the game's content onto one DVD. I wonder if that will make a difference down the road.

Originally Posted by doctor_kaz
Only 18 months into the life cycle of the XBox 360 and we're already talking about how hard it is to fit all of the game's content onto one DVD. I wonder if that will make a difference down the road.

Well, it will just be like the PC, eh? Instead of choosing 4CD's or a DVD for KotOR, you'll get 2 DVD's or a HD-DVD for some new game.

Of course, the PS3 has the Blu-Ray discs with 27.6GB capacity.

"Please insert Disk 5" never bothered me in Baldur's Gate.

I imagine that in order to make a 2-disk game more accessible, though, they'll try to split it up in a spot where the PC will never be going back to the earlier areas. For example, in KotOR, the split would be either at the end of Taris or at the beginning of the ancient world you go to before heading off to finale-land.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Well, it will just be like the PC, eh? Instead of choosing 4CD's or a DVD for KotOR, you'll get 2 DVD's or a HD-DVD for some new game.

Of course, the PS3 has the Blu-Ray discs with 27.6GB capacity.

I guess that should be no problem for most games, but on a console it might cause a problem for big open-ended ones like GTA or Elder Scrolls. The PS3 might have an advantage there. Speaking of GTA, I have listened to a few podcasts where they brought up the rumor of there being a lot of trouble fitting the game onto one DVD, and that the XBox 360 core pack might not be supported.