ME2 has 700 plot hooks to ME1

[Firis]

ME2 has 700 plot hooks to ME1

March 13, 2010 - Warning: This article contains specific plot information about the first Mass Effect game. If you have not played Mass Effect, you might want to bookmark this article and read it later.

The Game Developers Conference is full of interesting little bits of information, scattered throughout the lectures, discussion panels and meetings scheduled throughout the week. Some are boring, some are explosive, and some are just plain interesting.

During a talk titled "Get Your Game Out of My Movie! Interactive Storytelling in Mass Effect 2," Armando Troisi, BioWare's Lead Cinematic Director for the Mass Effect franchise dropped a data bomb that falls into the latter category.

BioWare has repeatedly said that Mass Effect is the player's story, and that the series is a different kind of role-playing experience than some of its previous RPGs. That's partly because the games track your actions and assign varying levels of importance to the decisions you make on behalf of your Commander Shepard.

Troisi described Mass Effect's built-in ability to read your game save files as the series' "uber-feature," and said there are roughly 700 "plot hooks" in Mass Effect 1 that carry over one way or another into Mass Effect 2. To illustrate just how granular BioWare gets with these player choices, he showed a brief segment of Mass Effect 2.

Hown many plot hooks will Kasumi have?


In the scene, a male Commander Shepard walks up to one of the advertising pillars on the Citadel, and a trailer for a fictional film begins to play. Because this particular Shepard had chosen to let the Citadel Council die in the final moments of the game's ending, the trailer reflected that and announced that the film would have a fall release date. Then Troisi showed the same interaction with a female Shepard who had chosen to spare the Council. The trailer played out differently, and a summer release date was given.

It's a small detail, and one that most players would likely never notice. But it's illustrative of just how much decision detail BioWare has woven into Mass Effect 1 and 2. Troisi specifically mentioned that Mass Effect 3 will place the same importance on save files and player actions.

We've still got a long, painful wait before the next full installment hits. But that doesn't mean there won't be more Mass Effect in the meantime. Check out our impressions of the upcoming Mass Effect 2 add-on pack, Kasumi's Stolen Memory. The download hits Xbox Live on April 6.

IGN Source
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[Dark Drakan]

Re: ME2 has 700 plot hooks to ME1

The level of depth and detail Bioware manage to include in their titles is mind boggling.