Mass Effect for PC announced.

[TripleDES]

About fucking time! There's already not enough good games as there are!

Directx 10 only?

Is it?

I hope not, I was about to wipe the timebombed Longhorn Server beta and put XP or 2K3 back. For gaming. Fuck Windows.

[Stormwaltz]

Directx 10 only?

Is it?

ME-PC != Vista-only

[Jade Falcon]

About fucking time! There's already not enough good games as there are!

Directx 10 only?

Is it?

I hope not, I was about to wipe the timebombed Longhorn Server beta and put XP or 2K3 back. For gaming. Fuck Windows.

Nope according to this it's not a vista only port. 

[Yegolev]

SEE?!  THIS IS ALL IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN TO MAKE MASS EFFECT THE CITIZEN KANE OF GAMES!!!!

ONE

[Azazel]

ME-PC != Vista-only

You're fucking joking. Why would you/they do that?


Vista-Only = No Sale, unfortunately.

[schild]

!= means does not equal.

[Azazel]

oh thank fuck.

[Tebonas]

I blame the avatar. White-Boy Gangsta would let my mathematical understanding plummet into the basement as well.

[Azazel]

That's J-Roc. He's black, marfucka!

[Sky]

Yeah, the race was the relevant part.

[rk47]

uhh
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/02/12/mass_effect_staying_a_xbox_360_exclusive/1

  no way!

[Lucas]

uhh
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/02/12/mass_effect_staying_a_xbox_360_exclusive/1

  no way!

I think that's just a case of bad and unlucky timing for the release of an article. Official announcement by Bioware came just a few hours after it, methinks.

[NowhereMan]

Well it looks like I'm going to have to finally get around to replacing my dusty (and by now possibly undead) graphics card. Being a cheap ass has been keeping me from playing some of the latest games. Yay for ports!

[Sky]

Yeah, but you win because the GT is an awesome card at a lower price.

[Strazos]

uhh
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/02/12/mass_effect_staying_a_xbox_360_exclusive/1

  no way!

Pretty sure if a Bioware dev says he's finishing a PC port of the game, it's coming to the PC.

[TripleDES]

Yeah. They'd need to port the engine itself to the PC, anyway, to have a middleware ready for any other upcoming PC RPG. Porting Mass Effect itself to the PC would be minor work only, I guess. EA wouldn't want to miss the potential income, either.

[KallDrexx]

Yeah. They'd need to port the engine itself to the PC, anyway, to have a middleware ready for any other upcoming PC RPG. Porting Mass Effect itself to the PC would be minor work only, I guess. EA wouldn't want to miss the potential income, either.

Doesn't Mass Effect use UE3?  If so then porting to the PC shouldn't be too hard.

[Velorath]

IGN elaborates on some of the improvments made to the PC version of Mass Effect:

The game looks largely the same as it did before, though its visuals are noticeably sharper. BioWare hasn't decided on a maximum resolution yet, though 1920 x 1200 is likely, but even so the glowing red stars hanging in the sky on alien worlds, dust blowing across plains, and reflections of interstellar light on the Mako were rather striking. More impressive were the loading times, which appeared to be between one and five seconds. As far as texture pop-in goes, an issue that frequently occurred on the Xbox 360 version, it occurred far less frequently from what we saw, and when it did all the textures loaded in rather quickly. Also addressed were the lengthy elevator rides in the Citadel, which will now apparently be a bit shorter in duration.

As with most PC games, all the controls can be reconfigured, but at default they use a WASD movement scheme for your character. Commander Shepherd, the game's protagonist, can hotkey all his special abilities with the 1 through 8 keys, and can instantly switch between weapons with F1 through F4. The game will also support quick-saving with F6, and the number of hard save slots has been expanded.

With party members you'll now have an added layer of control, as it's possible to order them around independently as opposed to the system on X360 where they had to be ordered as a squad. This is accomplished through a command ring which can be popped up at any time. With the cursor a move command for each squadmate can be selected, then their destination ordered with a click of the cursor on the landscape. Hopefully this will make team orders more useful in the PC version than on the console.

The Mako, the ground vehicle you pilot to explore alien worlds, has had its controls augmented so now the camera functions independently from its direction of movement. This will address, according to BioWare, its "squirrely" handling on the Xbox 360.

As you can see in our screenshot gallery, the buy / sell and inventory management menus have been given a UI overhaul to make them a little less cumbersome. The item list, item selected, and item equipped screens have been moved around to positions BioWare thinks is more readily accessible to users.

For dialogue sequences, you'll now be able to select responses with either the mouse cursor or by moving between options with the arrow keys and activating a response with the enter key. The decryption mini-game has also received a facelift. Instead of timed button presses, you'll now have to navigate a small arrow through rotating concentric rings. If you successfully navigate the arrow through rings to the center without hitting any of the rotating block barriers that exist in the rings, it'll be a successful decryption.

The Xbox 360 controller is also supported, though if you're buying this on PC it seems somewhat pointless. No demo is planned at this point, and BioWare declined to comment on the timing of future releases of Mass Effect content or its sequels on PC and Xbox 360. Look for Mass Effect on PC this May.

[Velorath]

News sites are reporting that the PC version's release date has been pushed back a few weeks until May 28th.  Bioware did recently put up a screenshot of the new HUD though:

[Kitsune]

If three weeks is what it takes to not get another KOTOR2, they're welcome to it.  I'd rather wait than wind up buying a game that's less than polished.

[NiX]

If three weeks is what it takes to not get another KOTOR2, they're welcome to it.  I'd rather wait than wind up buying a game that's less than polished.

Huh? KOTOR2 wasn't Bioware.

[Mosesandstick]

I think the PC version is being done by "demiurge studios" (from wikipedia). Probably a lot of hand-holding by Bioware though.

[Velorath]

I think the PC version is being done by "demiurge studios" (from wikipedia). Probably a lot of hand-holding by Bioware though.

From a recent interview at IGN:

IGN: So to what extent is BioWare working on this and to what extent is Demiurge working on this?

Diarmid Clarke: It's pretty much co-development now. Demiurge has primarily been responsible for the bulk of the work of moving the game onto the PC, dealing with all the PC technicalities, and also putting some of the improvements into the game that we highlighted that we wanted to do.

What we've focused on is being the guardians of quality, pushing little new changes of design and things that we wanted to make work for the PC. Obviously Matt sent out the information on the new tactical HUDs and we developed that with the core Mass Effect team. They're the right guys to do something that's a fundamental change to how you interface with the game.

They also go on to say that Bring Down the Sky won't be included with the PC version and that there will be an upcoming announcement at some point regarding how additional content will be handled for the PC version.

[Sky]

Bah, I was hoping for the additional content. Throw us a bone for having to wait this long, dammit.

[murdoc]

Bah, I was hoping for the additional content. Throw us a bone for having to wait this long, dammit.

Besides a new UI, better inventory management, WAAAY better squad control, improved visuals and more mappable buttons.

[Sky]

That's just a decent pc port. Kinda sad when that is considered something special imo, no matter how true it may be.

[Mosesandstick]

I thought those were some of the issues that noticeably made Mass Effect a worse game?

(I agree with you that the buttons and visuals thing are usually expected from a console-PC port, but the rest seems like actual improvements).

[Sky]

Maybe the squad control thing. But UI and inventory /should/ be upgraded from a console game meant to be run on a controller. That more companies don't, or worse, just make the pc game that way (Oblivion et al), is what I meant by sad.

[Kitsune]

Huh? KOTOR2 wasn't Bioware.

I know, was using KOTOR2 as a prime example of a game being shipped before it's done.

[NiX]

Ah, fair enough. I doubt they would considering how well the game was received on the 360.

[Stormwaltz]

Sysreqs announced.

Sadly, it appears I still won't be able to play the game. Perhaps one day, when I can afford a new video card (which requires a new motherboard, which requires a new processor...). Or I guess I could buy a 360 and an HDTV. Probably works out to about the same cost in the end.

Side note: Am I the only one who thinks the ever-bloating install size for new PC games is bullshit? Yes, HD space is cheap. But when every new AAA game I buy requires an 8-12 GB install, my 500 GB hard drive doesn't go as far as my old 250 GB one did. In my day, sonny, we had the option to spool content off the disc. Shit, why do we have these blazing fast DVD-ROM drives, anyway?

Minimum System Requirements:
Operating System:
Windows XP or Vista
Processor:
2.4+GHZ Intel or 2.0+GHZ AMD
Memory:
1 Gigabyte Ram (XP)
2 Gigabyte Ram (Vista)
Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 6 series(6800GT or better)
ATI 1300XT or better (X1550, X1600 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements)
Hard Drive Space:
12 Gigabytes
Sound Card:
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers

Recommended System Requirements:
Operating System:
Windows XP or Vista
Processor:
2.6+GHZ Intel or 2.4+GHZ AMD
Memory:
2 Gigabyte Ram
Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or higher.
ATI X1800 XL series or higher
Hard Drive Space:
12 Gigabytes
Sound Card:
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers - 5.1 sound card recommended

[NowhereMan]

Thanks to Vid card requirements pretty much all the latest games are out for me, in the same boat as Stormwaltz here

[Sky]

What the heck does 2.6GHz Intel mean, anyway? A P4? A Pentium D? Celeron? My C2D is 2.4GHz, though I could goose it up a bit, I run stock for longevity.

Otherwise, I should be golden. Stormy, you need to go ask for a raise, or at least a bonus. Shouldn't a developer have a pc that can play the games they develop!?

[Bunk]

I'm guessing Stormy's still using an AGP board here, because otherwise, meeting those sys reqs for video isn't hard these days. I just recently picked up a low end 8800 for $150.

[Stormwaltz]

I'm guessing Stormy's still using an AGP board here

Yeah, a 256MB Radeon 9800 Pro on an ASUS K8V Deluxe board. It's almost four years old now, but still runs most games with little difficulty.

I did get monies from the EA sale, but instead of being greedy I bought my wife the laptop she'd been asking for for years.