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EA Plans To Use Mass Effect Chat In Other Games
Via 1up, BusinessWeek has up an article examining Electronic Arts' recent purchase of BioWare. In amongst the discussion of money and diversifying the company, there's a note that we may see BioWare technologies show up in other EA games. "In what would arguably be a more interesting development, BioWare could become an incubator of innovative ideas and technologies that could eventually filter into EA's other properties. Gibeau envisions individual EA teams developing technical and gameplay expertise that could be shared across all of the company's titles. He cites, for instance, a dialogue system developed by BioWare for the upcoming Mass Effect game, which allows players to engage in hyperrealistic conversation with computer-generated characters. 'The dialogue engine is something we will almost immediately look at as an asset for other teams,' says Gibeau." For folks who just can't get enough Mass Effect, Sci-Fi is showing a special on the game right around its launch date later this month.
"Hyperrealistic"? In my view, "realistic" is the goal in many games and has yet to be seriously approached. I've been seeing the "hyper-" prefix showing up more and more frequently in game news and it's getting annoying. I can only hope that it gets relegated to the scrapheap of game journalism words, joining the scourge of 90's game hyperbole: "photorealistic".
That said, Mass Effect looks intriguing. Not hyperintriguing, but intriguing nonetheless!
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
I'm excited about this game and all, especially the dialog system. Let's not describe it as "hyper realistic", however. When I talk to people in real life, I don't get 3 choices and they usually don't range from good to evil.
Good. Now go make the damn game for PC, too. *disgruntled*