Today came the announcement from Bioware and EA that Mass Effect 2 will be heading to PS3s come 2011–while the original game will remain an Xbox exclusive. Microsoft was quick to assert that the only way to experience the “full” Mass Effect universe remains safely on their console, carefully ignoring the quickly forgotten Mass Effect Galaxy for the iPhone.
While this is tremendous news for Playstation 3 owners, current fans of the series can be forgiven for groaning collectively with the knowledge that bullshit exclusive content wars for ME2 and the inevitable sequel are almost certainly imminent.
So, how will Mass Effect 2 on PS3 handle the choices made in the first game if there is no first game?
Comment by EdEN — August 18, 2010 @ 12:25 pm
Possibly the same way the existing version accounted for players who hadn’t played ME1; by saddling them with a default set of choices. That would be pretty weak though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they added a method for the player to set these choices early in the game.
The obvious place to do this is when Miranda questions the player about his or her history after the first mission. Because one of the choices from ME1 (the choice of human council representative) was not included on the ME1 save file, when the player tells Miranda who he chose, he’s also setting that choice in the game. Do the same thing for the other major decisions, and there you go.
Comment by Brad Johnson — August 18, 2010 @ 4:07 pm