Mass Effect - PC Version by Demiurge Studios

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Didn't know about Demiurge … a) Sounds Latin … b) What did they before that ? (Apart from Jade Empire) ?

I mean - apart from porting.

It seems they do, what's it called, contract work?, and assist other studios with their projects. It seems Demiurge has had a hand in Titan Quest, BioShock, and a few FPS titles. Here's a link link for a more details.

Somehow it feels a bit weird to see that now PC have "porting-companies". It used to be Amiga and Mac that had separate companies working on porting games for the platform. It shows what a second-hand machine PC really is.

Originally Posted by JemyM
It shows what a second-hand machine PC really is.

Nah. It shows the limitations of consoles, particularly in the matter of interface. They're not taking out features or options - they're adding what PC gamers expect as a matter of course.

I can't post without pointing out that my four year-old PC can run in higher resolutions than the 360 and PS3 "next-gen" "high definition" consoles.

Originally Posted by Stormwaltz
I can't post without pointing out that my four year-old PC can run in higher resolutions than the 360 and PS3 "next-gen" "high definition" consoles.

Higher resolutions, yes. But I'd be really surprised if your four-year-old PC could run the same resolutions with the same framerate. At least, my three-year-old was top-of-the-line then and cannot.

I am also glad for the relatively fast PC port. I actually expected to see a PC port from the very beginning (the word "exclusive" has lost its meaning to me a long time ago, just like the word "soon"). But I am pleasently surprised to see the port to come so soon, and from the look of it, the game won't suffer from "console-UI" problem that plagued so many ports.
I do hope that the game would be moddable though, I think it would give it great longivity, and add to the game a great deal.

I would moddability would be awesome, but I think it would be really hard for modders to make quality content. Which raises interesting questions. Games take much more resources to make than they used to. Building a level for Doom was pretty easy, but I can't begin to think how even a dedicated modding team would come up with complete new content for Mass Effect. Maybe they could reuse some of the stuff (level blocks) and leave others out (cinematics, voice-acting). It just seems like a terrible amount of work to create something new.

@JemyM: There are special - as you call them - "porting companies" for Mac & Linux as well.

Originally Posted by JemyM
Somehow it feels a bit weird to see that now PC have "porting-companies". It used to be Amiga and Mac that had separate companies working on porting games for the platform. It shows what a second-hand machine PC really is.

I don't think it should be viewed that way. Porting has been outsourced for a long time now. I'm kinda glad that Bioware doesn't have to worry about it. Let Bioware do the creative stuff and let the code monkeys do the dirty work to get it onto the PC.