Cinematic Teaser. Continuing Story of Mass Effect 2. Fun new ways to blow apart old friends in Mass Effect 2.Image courtesy Electronic Arts LOS ANGELES — As I watched a Bioware employee churn through foes in a presentation of the upcoming RPG Mass Effect 2, one thing became abundantly clear: I’m going to have to play through the first one all over again, aren’t I? While the sequel to Bioware’s sci-fi role-playing game for Xbox 360 and PC is designed for fans of the first, being new won’t leave you at a disadvantage — before you begin, you’ll be presented with a brief version of the game’s backstory, and start fresh.
But players who held onto their saved game files from the first game will be able to continue the adventure their original characters started, and see “the consequences of their actions.” Consequences? What? The first Mass Effect presented players with a fairly transparent morality system — be polite and kind, or rude and ruthless, and you’ll earn points as a Paragon or Renegade, respectively. Image courtesy Electronic Arts. Class: Engineer. Adept. Grunt. Characters: Subject Zero. Samara. Tali. Terminus. The Enemies. BioWare: Keep Your Mass Effect Game Saves | GameLife. Planning on buying Mass Effect 2? BioWare wants you to make sure not to delete the saved games from the original, though the firm’s representatives aren’t very forthcoming on the reason.
Amidst a forum post on BioWare’s site discussing the seeming demise of ME’s protagonist, BioWare’s community coordinator Chris Priestly chimed in with the decidedly cryptic: "We are not yet discussing the details of the game. However, as Jack said, don’t delete your Mass Effect 1 saves yet. " While this far from guarantees some sort of carry-over from the first game to the second, even the most jaded Internet speculators see this as an early hint that the company has planned some cross-title interaction for the series. Similar schemes were in place in BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate series almost a decade ago, so I wouldn’t be shocked to see such things in ME2.
Image courtesy BioWare Mass Effect 2 Teaser video NOW available [BioWare, via Videogamer.com] See Also: Teaser. E3 Trailer. Mass Effect 2.