Mass Effect Blog Update

BioWare’s Casey Hudson has added another entry to their Mass Effect blog on IGN, once again answering some of the more prominent questions from the community. He chose not to address the rumors that the game has been delayed, though.

How many weapons can the player carry into combat?

Four (a pistol, a rifle, a sniper rifle, and a shotgun), plus grenades. And that’s in addition to the multi-purpose holographic tech weapon, and the dark energy based Biotic powers that you can develop, if you are apt in those areas. One thing I like in particular about how weapons skills work in (Mass Effect) is that unlike traditional RPGs you don’t need skill in a particular weapon or armor type to equip it. I never liked how RPGs forced you to have a special skill in say, (pants,) before they would even let you wear pants. In (Mass Effect,) you can in fact (wear pants,) whether you have special skills or not. How effective you are while (wearing pants) is then based on your skills. Speaking metaphorically of course. Still with me?

Let’s be more specific. Say your character doesn’t have any skills with rifles. You can still equip one, and of course you can fire it in combat. But as you’d expect, with no actual skill in using it, you’re just not going to be very effective with it. Bottom line, this approach makes it more fun to play each of the different character classes, because they each give at least some access to all the different things that make the game fun.