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Designed to bridge the storylines of the original Mass Effect for Xbox 360 and its forthcoming sequel, Mass Effect Galaxy is a 2D top-down shooter (unlike its 3D ARPG console counterparts) starring Jacob, a Biotic-powered soldier from the follow-up.
The studio’s weblog recently posted a brief interview with executive producer Kevin Barrett, who discussed the difficulties of bringing this experience to the iPhone:
“Our challenge was very much like trying to distill a full season mini-series down to a half-hour tv episode. Our response was to focus, focus, focus. Dialog had to be tight, the pace of conversations had to be quickened and our traditional “investigation dialog hubs†(where the player can ask questions about his current situation) were trimmed significantly.
The resulting game has a very defined beginning, a middle with three branches, and an end sequence that takes the player to the final showdown with the game’s antagonist. The iPod touch and iPhone are pretty powerful game devices, but even so, we had to pick and choose how strongly we were going to pursue cinematics, voice over, special effects and so on. We figured that an animated 2D graphic novel-style presentation was the best way to tell our story on this device.”
E3 attendees can preview the game at BioWare’s booth. As you can see from this hands-on video shot by Slide to Play, the tilt controls look, um, interesting:
[...] BioWare Explains Challenges of Mass Effect Galaxy’s Development “The iPod touch and iPhone are pretty powerful game devices, but even so, we had to pick and [...]