Mass Effect - Interview @ IGN

Dhruin

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BioWare's Casey Hudson has been interviewed at 360.IGN about Mass Effect. Here's a snip:
IGN: So you just spoke about how you want players to feel that they're somebody special. We know that you take the role of Commander Shepard as the main character and I've read that you can create your own character and build him from the ground up. How do you manage to make this game where the two ideas co-exist, where you can create your own character and build your own persona and still fit him into this world and story where he is special?

Casey Hudson:
Well it's an interesting balance and I think it's a different balance than anyone has ever done before in a role-playing game. I think typically role-playing games in the past have been more about creating a completely empty vessel that you then fill up with whatever choices that you make. And that can be really cool but it also kind of leaves out a little bit of the texture of what it's like to be someone specific or to have a specific spirit to an adventure.

So if you think about some of the really great, memorable science fiction stories or even characters, like Captain Kirk or Jack Bauer. Any story about that kind of a character has a very specific flavor to it and that's one thing we didn't want to miss out on with Mass Effect. Mass Effect is so much more cinematic and real than anything we've ever done before that we really needed that extra bit, those extra sensory aspects to a story that you can't get if you just start out with a completely blank character.
More information.
 
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Hey thanks for the link an intresting read, looking forward to this in about 2 years. ;)

Anyone know if they are using Cell Shading type character more comic book style?
It's weird some pics look very nice, but others have odd borders around characters and/or some possible lack of mapping.
Take a look at this pic scroll down an look at her feet for the odd look I am trying to describe.
http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/718/718963/img_4269991.html

Then try this pic as a more normal pic which seems to have mapping effects.
http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/718/718963/img_4269997.html
 
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They're not using cell shading. They're going as photorealistic as possible. I think you can blame the first pic's oddness on it just being concept art.
 
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Yep, the first picture is absolutely a drawing, not a screenshot.
 
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Personally, I'm not much for my games being 'photorealistic' in their visuals & graphics.
I don't know to explain this, but I sort of like that feeling you get when you play a game,
which lets you know it is a game, just by seeing it. And by that I mean that the visuals &
graphics are a bit off, so that they are not that real i.e. something you wont see in a movie or even in IRL.

Maybe it is just because I really don't understand why every (major) developer, including bioware thinks it is necessary to go 'photorealistic' in games.

If I look at the released screenshots, they look nice & all, but they look to me like something from a movie or something like that, except for the humans. They look sort of out of place, as if someone has captured a person with a camera, then digitized him or her, and then used his or her portrait (head) on a suit of armor in the game. While this may look photo-realistic, I don't think it looks very natural, and by natural I mean like
it does in real life...

Personally, I would rather say a good game with focus on the narrative, the dialoque,
the choices, the character interaction and the quests in the game rather than a focus on
on how it looks... Or maybe just a better balance between form & content than ME's focus is, at least to me...
 
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Aries, I'm not an art guy, but ditto.

I'd rather see something more stylized, personally, because it hides the fact that the movements and facial expressions aren't always perfect, and also because it TENDS to be less memory-intensive -- which means that you can get more people on the screen at the same time.

That's just personal preference, though.
 
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Good, I thought I was going blind or something.

I am very glad to see Bioware using women's (how to I put this) shapes diversly and in that second pic I posted the female looks very well done.

I was on Dilapadation, the orginal board for Bloodlines (till he sold to gamespy), the devs always came to the board and we fought hard to get Trokia to make the women's shapes more diverse, instead of the typical First and Thrid Person Views we had seen in the past with games like Tomb Raider and Ritual games.
There were still Jeanette/Threse(s) and VVs but it helped make the world more realiistic in a positive way, as a matter of fact my favorite standard PC was the female Tremere but since it was learned how to use any NPCs skin, it's Heather ftw! ;)
 
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