Mass Effect 2: The Future Of Gaming

Traditional modeling uses motion-capture to recreate the movement of a real-world actor. The Mass Effect 2 technology moves beyond traditional performance-capture and relies on AI to generate a character's on-screen performance for the game's cinematic cut scenes.
"Once artists design the face of a human or alien character, we move directly to the script and voice recording," says Bioware senior producer Adrien Cho. "After the actor comes in and performs his or her lines in a variety of different emotional tones (angry, urgent, scared), vocal stress and inflection readers in the AI detect the emotional flags of the given line and alter the character's facial expression in real time."

[Genesis5]

Look I am playing this game and really enjoying it. I am Canadian just like the company that made it so I mean know offence to Bioware. But this game is really not a technical masterpiece.

You want the furure of facial recognition a try Heavy Rain.

http://blogs.ign.com/SCE_He...

[thesummerofgeorge]

But is that true that Heavy Rain uses AI facial recognition too? And is there a difference in the tech?

[Saaking]

ME2 is great. The only comlaint is the multiple disks. And before anyone says anything, yes the PC version is on multiple disks, but you install those and that's it. you can play the game. On the 360 you actually have to switch disks when visiting certain planets. That's the only thing, imo, stopping the game from being near perfect (a 10).

[mikepmcc]

you can install them on the 360 too, and only have to switch once-

OH WAIT non-fanboy logic sorry

[Bigpappy]

You can install ME2 on the 360 also.

[Rush]

Am not quite sure the what your trying to express but if your calling Heavy Rain a Technical Masterpiece I wouldn't agree. The games movement is Resident Evil 2 style PS1 era.

Visually the game in stunning I can't disagree with you there. But if your asking me who's better at putting expressions on characters honestly am going to have to say Bioware.

Of course this is just an opinion and as any of us have yet to play Heavy Rain its hard to tell how they will deliver on facial work. But with both company's track records I would say Bioware has it down.

@Saaking

Lol I know your basically just trying to troll about the 360 but multiple discs really...

Yeah because multiple discs stopped Final Fantasy 7 being one of the best games off all time.

(not saying Mass Effect 2 is but that's a pathetic reason to review it down)

[NoBias]

The only thing keeping ME2 from being a 10 is your laziness?

Wow...

[divideby0]

Gen.....I Totally agree...The game is real real good.
I am playing the game on an XBR9 and the graphics are real good, but nothing like we have seen in heavenly rain (now lets see the game in my hand) and even in another game..
I have yet to been in a scene where the DOF is good and there is frigging fog all over the place, hair is the old time painted to the scalp. Fog, inside outside, textures are meh.
NOT knocking the game greatly enjoying it but some just are drinking way to much koolaid.
And to put the game on mulitple disks and disk swaping, sure is nit to bring out, but that is so last genish..

[Rush]

Not even going to try with you I will simply /facepalm

[Bodyboarder_VGamer]

Come on @Rush, don't be cheap. FFVII is a game that was released more than 10 years ago, don't try to use a 10 years old game to support your spin because that would be like me saying: "Yeah because a 4 MB cartridge stopped Super Mario Bros 3 from being one of the best games off all time. ". Devs make the games with the limitation of the hardware in mind.

But it doesn't matter if you want to accept it or not, changing discs it's a limitation that MS could have avoided if they have built their console better. And to that add the RRoD. It is obvious that 9GB is not sufficient space for HD content and that's why we have gimped games like Tales of Vepeira, FFXIII, and Star Ocean IV even though they are through multiple discs. Thanks god most FPS are just a 6 hour single player campaign and a couple of maps for the multiplayer... And only GOD knows how much content have been cut off from Mass Effect to make it a 2 discs game and not a 3 or 4.

[Rush]

If your asking why a BluRay or HD DVD drive wasn't fitted to the 360 the answer is simple. The 360 was released before the PS3 and the tech wasn't ready at the time.

If Microsoft had a time Machine then yes I would blame them for not fitting the BluRay drive since they don't its acceptable.

Don't get me wrong though MS didn't do a good job building there consoles I agree there RROD is proof of that. But blaming them for not having technology that wasn't complete apon release is a tad bit stupid.

And I still don't get your point Star Ocean 4 was released on 3 discs. Each disc contains 7GB of data with 1.5gig of pirate protection. So that's 21GB of data free for the game.

That's more data then used in 95 percent of PS3 games out there. So by your logic if 21GB game data (3 discs) is "gimping" games I guess 95 percent of PS3 games are gimped.

DVD9 has its limits am the first to admit that. But at the time if I was Microsoft and I had the choice of bumping up the price of every 360 2 fold. Simply to put an experimental high capacity drive in it there would be no way in hell I would take the chance.

And if you think about it Microsoft not using a BluRay drive has been what's stopped them being last place this gen. Constantly undercutting Sony on price. If they had of used BluRay Microsoft would of had to released a year later and would of already lost to Sony.

That's your problem, your simply thinking why didn't Microsoft include a BluRay drive. Instead you should be thinking logically why they didn't.

[ArmrdChaos]

Just when I thought most of the sensible and logical people have left this site....bubbles.

[Redgehammer]

25 hours into ME2, and I personally find the game to be be riveting, the decisions weighty and important, and the combat to be visceral yet requiring thought and patience. I just recently experienced such a powerful moment in the game that it forced me to pause and reflect upon what I had just witnessed, to me that's damn good storytelling. To be dreading the denouement of this game almost as much as much as I excitedly rush toward it; places Shepherd and his galaxy in the pantheon of great character and worlds in which I love tremendously IE: Allanon, Middle Earth, Thomas Covenant, and Rand al'Thor. Thx Bioware!!

[kewlkat007]

Hey Nintendo as well had lots of limitations with the Wii and look who is more successful. I admit to some degree more space is always better but it's 2010, the Xbox is doing alright going on 5 years, so maybe, we'll get a BD drive or some other format in the next Box. I really don't see much 360 fan complain about changing disk.

Mass Effect 2 is looking like a true "AAA". Would it be AAAAAAA if it was on a BD instead?

You see, I don't care that Sony had a BD drive since I do no have inferiority complexes about my console of choice. Sony has some great games with mad studios and the Xbox 360 has quite a few as well..

[Eamon]

I wouldn't say facial motion capture is a huge technological masterpiece these days. Look at a lot of japanese games recently and you'll see almost every cutscene is beautifully motion captured. Graphics to do with the number of polygons a model has is also not what makes a game stand out technologically.

It's more about real time effects for example lighting. Games like Uncharted 2 have a very advanced lighting which makes the game look very realistic. Blurring the line between Real time interactions and pre rendered lighting is extremely noteworthy.

Another example is physics. Games like Halo or Half-Life 2 had a huge breakthrough when the player could interact with objects in the game and see them move similar to how it would move in real life. Explosions, building collapsing etc. Making these imitate real life is a huge accomplishment.

[Reibooi]

I'm playing Mass Effect 2 now and while I love the game to death I will say this. Nothing about it graphically impresses me. Not the facial animations or the combat animations or the graphics themselves. The game is certainly better then average in terms of it's looks but there are MUCH better things out there.

[starchild]

I honestly don't care what you fanboys of the other console have to say. You are biased to the core.

I have a PS3 and a 360 and I own most of the best looking games for both consoles. There is not much difference between any of them. Personally, I find Mass Effect 2 to be more graphically pleasing than Uncharted 2 is.

[JonnyBadfinger]

if i could i would give you a big kiss on the forehead.
Everything is says is right... about ME2, 360, etc...

Everyone knows the 360 could have been better made, you PS3 fans just sound like a broken record player, if all you can hold over us is RROD and DVD9, we 360 customers win.

lol at Saaking, trying to make out as if disc swapping is such an issue... when the game asks for you to insert the next disc, it just pauses the game, which you then get the f*** up off your arse grab disc 2 and place it in the tray. it then just picks up exactly where it paused in the loading screen... time it took me to change discs about 10secs.

Honestly ME2 has just got me gob smacked... i f***en love it. First play through took me 28hrs, so esay to get distracted by side missions. Overall i love the look, graphics HUGE improvement... vut sadly limited due to the Unreal Engine. Story...LOVE IT! Characters are top notch. Gameplay... FANTASTIC, plays alot more like Gears now which is good for me.

Actually the only thing i hate about it is, when your near death and the Red veins start covering up the entire screen... and when you've stumbled in front of a heavy mech and cant see where your going because of it, people like me get angry.

people dont even try to bash ME2 you make your selves look like fools. ME2 is a 10 in my books and definitely front runner for GOTY.

And technically ME 2 is NOT multi-plat... its a console exclusive to the 360, but also a available on PC... and technically a PC isnt a platform.

[Reibooi]

@starchild

Your eyes must be broken. As I said I LOVE The game however the graphics are really lacking at many points in the game. The game has horrifying visual glitches like eyes of many characters just going all googly or even the whites of the eyes starting to pass through the eye lids at various points.

Like I said it's above average but it's not a really stunning game like Uncharted or even like Alan Wake.

[Sackdude]

Sorry but Uncharted 2 and Heavy Rain have the best Facial Modeling and Voice Performance in gaming history.

MassEffect 2 is awesome game, but the Facial Modeling is realy not that good, when the character talks he's face moves like a robot.

the guy who made this article should really go and play other games.

[FishCake9T4]

What? Thats because Uncharted 2 has a fixed storyline and in Heavy Rain its like your playing a movie. They cant compare with Mass Effect as they are different games. I would compare Fallout 3 to Mass Effect with the fact that your story alters all the time.

[Bigpappy]

UC2 and more so HR are completely scripted and have many conversation options which require different emotional responses. What Bioware is saying is that the software handles the animation rather that having a to create a cut screen for each emotion. If you could show me where the developers say this tech is used in UC2 and Heavy Rain, then I would join you in discrediting the article. You guys don't read and think UC2 is the only

[FamilyGuy]

Has great looking facial animations too.

"UC2 and more so HR are completely scripted and have many conversation options which require different emotional responses."

What a ridiculous statement, ALL GAMES ARE SCRIPTED!
The article is saying the ai controlled facial animation is the way to go, I disagree.
Motion capture is REAL facial animation. What's the point of attempting it with ai rather than going for the real thing? (aside from being cheap or lazy of course, cheap because they don't ever have to pay motion capture actors. lazy because they can keep using the same software that allows this ai for as many games as they want.)

[Rush]

Yeah am going to have to stop reading posts from users with LBP avatars if this keeps up.

I don't mind people favouring Sony exclusive games hell I do myself. But at least have to decency to give the dev's credit where its due.

Am getting annoyed with reading the same old generic post.

"Well actually that game on the 360 game sucks because (insert any sony exclusive under the sun here) does it better"

[denimsky]

ME has much more diverse scenario and dialog permutations than UC2 or HR. You can create specific facial animations for each speech in UC2 or HR but It is not viable to do that for games like ME. You will need more generic solution. Don't forget that you can create faces for your character as well.

[Xi]

there used to be a point in time when all character animations were scripted, then we started to introduce new techniques based off of physics, like ragdoll.

Are developers who use things such as natural motion, and softbody physics cheap and lazy too?

There used to be a time we animated water, smoke effects, particle effects, bullets, etc, now physics does it, and it does a much more realistic job. Is that being lazy and cheap?

What about procedural textures, are they lazy because they don't go out and photo-manipulate their textures?

what about ai on character paths? lazy for no longer scripting character encounters?

it's the future of technology because:
1. it can be applied to more fields then just video games, fields like robotics, where you can't facially animate random sequences. Or something like telecommunications for deaf people.
2. it reduces costs through time and in hiring actors.
3. the results are as good as 90% of most mo-cap.

not to mention I bet they've put in more research and work into it, and probably spent more then it'd cost to hire actors, and while it might be true it'll save them money in the long run, that's just innovation.

your comment was really ignorant.

[huga_muga]

What dose Fixed story has to do with Facial Modeling?

the characters in ME2 have really dull Facial animation, their face move is robotic.

and also Heavy Rain is a game, you can control your character just like silent hill game, and also Heavy Rain has a lot of different endings.

if you compare WRPG shooters to MassEffect2, i would say yes MassEffect 2 has better Facial Modeling.

so this article has misleading title.

[mikepmcc]

It has a lot to do with it actually, all of the dialogue in mass effect is dynamic and chosen by the player, and chosen when to say by the player, therefore it must be modeled on the fly.

Also, faces are completely customizable in mass effect, meaning any particular face the player comes up with has to be put through modeling on the spot, without being checked by developers beforehand.

In Uncharted and Heavy Rain, everything is already prerendered in a cutscene, since the developers know it will look the exact same on everyone's tv.

So stop being a fanboy and listing ps3 exclusives, and give credit where it's due.

[MetalGearRising]

Mass Effect 2 puts to shame Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2 in Facial animation also truth be told in gameplay and story wise and to top it up 40 to 60hrs of game play on DVD.

Now if Mass Effect 2 had come out 2009 and was facing Uncharted 2 i know which game would have taken G.O.T.Y 2009 (Mass Effect 2).

Mass Effect 2 is a graphical master-piece it's like a painting come to life it's that great.

[Sackdude]

yea if only Mass Effect 2 hadn't dull robotic Facial animation.

LOL

40hrs of gameplay on 2 DVD's.

Final fantasy 12 was 100 hours on 1 DVD 4gb, your point?

[-MD-]

With a quick google - http://www.gamespot.com/pag...

Looks like 40 hours to me.

Edit: Does Final Fantasy 12 have full voice acting like Mass Effect?

[CryWolf]

You know what MetalGearRising you need a get a life cause everbody here have facts that Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain and KillZone 2 put Mass Effect 2 to shame on the graphical side, yea it has a great story but this years 2010 G.O.T.Y awards is going to Heavy Rain cause it innovate on graphics and gameplay unlike Mass Effect 2 that is still a shooter with powers and a lot of fixes that Bioware made.

[-MD-]

"2010 G.O.T.Y awards is going to Heavy Rain cause it innovate on graphics and gameplay"

Heavy Rain will not win game of the year that should be pretty obvious to everybody.

[CryWolf]

2010 G.O.T.Y awards isn't going to Mass Effect 2 anytime soon its obvious that Heavy Rain gets the title cause it brings innovate to the table by doing every thing different and new while Mass Effect 2 is the same old shooter gameplay using RPG mechanics that was in ME 1 the only good thing about Mass Effect 2 is the Story.

[-MD-]

Take a look at the past years and what kinds of games won the award, Heavy Rain doesn't fit in that category.

[CryWolf]

Yea why don't you take a good look at the past years cause their was no innovation in any of 360 games not unless you count Halo 1 or Gear Of War series as Next Gen games, what G.O.T.Y awards are look for is games that innovate the gaming industrial as a hole not like Xbot's that keeps taking one steps forward and two steps backward all the time for developers and consumers that gets ridiculous over and over again.

[-MD-]

Please, I'm begging to know how Uncharted 2 innovated to win GOTY 2009, it was the exact same as the first Uncharted.

Can't wait for this one.

[CryWolf]

OK I'll tell you how Uncharted 2 innovated won the GOTY 2009 it had a good story , their was new gameplay experience and then some, the motion capture was better then first game, Naughty Dog fixes the glitches that were in the first game like the climbing glitch, O and they added online multiplyer where you can climb bulidings that haven't been done in anyother game before thats innovation.

[starchild]

@ crywolf

Mass Effect 2 is just as big of an improvement over ME1 as Uncharted 2 was over Uncharted 1.

There is nothing innovative about Heavy Rain. Go play Indigo Prophecy and tell me that Heavy Rain is something new.

Oh btw, Mass Effect 2 looks better than any game on the PS3.

[nogolis]

I'm playing the superior PC version right now and it's just not doing it for me... It's just ho hum. It's got things down but it just seems like it's all been done before. MAss Effect 2 isn't that good. Ok, It's good, it's just not great.

[jashwin]

I'm sick and tired of articles of how good mass effect 2 is. The game is obviously being over hyped, just like gta 4. I seriously think that heavy rain is the future of gaming as they capture emotions too with their technology which creates the perfect expressions.

[mikepmcc]

lol, you're saying ME2 is overrated, yet also praising Heavy Rain?

wow, just...wow. Maybe you should actually play ME2 before you go trashing it, get over yourself.

[starchild]

What a sad, pathetic fanboy.

360 gamers have so much more class. I saw almost nobody putting Uncharted 2 down. Everyone respected that it was a good game. Can we expect the same thing from PS3 gamers? Oh hell no, apparently not.

[gdguide]

Loving this game. It's probably going to be my Goty.

But yeah, it's rough in some patches. The tech they are talking about actually translates into some pretty jerky dialog scenes. Eyes cross a bit, mouths smile too much in spots where they shouldn't be, and heads jerk a bit more than the last game. Lighting in this game cuts in and out, camera jumps, very bland textures in the environments (especially indoors).

Again, because of the characters, art direction, great facial details, and amazing story, this is a serious GotY contender, but the glitches in this game are pretty bad in some parts. I'm actually shocked this game got as high scores in the visuals department. Sure the facial details look great and there's great art direction, but some environments are a 7, and the glitches as I said are very evident.

[CryWolf]

I highly doubt it, its good for Best Graphics In A VideoGame Award.

[gdguide]

Well, here's just ONE of the lighting glitches in video form. I've played the game and know what I'm talking about here.

http://www.freehdvideostock...

There are a LOT of effects that flip flop in and out. They've created some AWESOME facial details to make the game look awesome during dialog, but at the expense of some very smeary texture work and fluttery effects and animations.

[starchild]

You are crazy. The textures aren't smeary. By and large the textures are extremely good.

[hoops]

Saaking as others mentioned...you can install the game on the Xbox360....

[BYE]

That's no solution.

You still have to swap discs, it only fastens loading times...

[Sackdude]

Your an idiot, nobody said ME2 sucks, look at my past post, i said:"ME2 is AWESOME"

all games are scripted, i said ME2 has robotic facial animation, and jerky dialog scenes.

they have a lot of work to make it look good, FF13 has better facial animation imo.

i mentioned ps3 exclusive like UN2 and HR, because they are the only 2 games that uses the FULL Motion capture (REAL facial animation).

[divideby0]

sam....dont even bother rush whether it be a him/her or whatever...
you say the game is good and honestly critique and you get a kiddie reply...
the person is in complete denial.....and he just bumped my ignore list by 1

[denimsky]

If you play ME or ME2, you would know that it is not possible to do full motion capture the entire game. Simply, the permutations of possibilities are way too many with so many dialogue options and so many characters including Shepard faces that the user can create.

I love UC2 and it is a great game and I loved Indigo Prophecy and that's why I pre-ordered Heavy Rain but those games are totally different game from ME. UC2 and HR provides more controlled experience and the possible permutations are much smaller thus it is possible to make with full motion captures including the facial expressions. I don't think that it is possible to do that for ME2 (It maybe possible but it will demand enormous time and money).

[fullmetal297]

@samsamurai
The FF13 scenes are pre-rendered while Mass Effect 2 uses the actual game engine.

[Xi]

best mo cap comes from image metrics.
http://www.image-metrics.co...

although I do believe that the facial animation for Mass effect is procedural? correct me if I'm wrong.

[batosaims]

still butthurt lol

mass effect 2 is the best game this console game, way better then anything on the piece of crap ps3 =D

[artsaber]

I am playing this game right now on my DellXPS laptop, hooked up to a 46" Sharp HDTV, with my PS3 SixAxis controller. That is right, I am controlling Shepard with my SixAxis. I rigged this up after my 360 controller would not work with the game. It is also rumored that ME2 may come to the PS3 after all, especially since the "Only on XBOX 360" logo didn't make the box this go around.

[Lord Vader]

THE BEST GAME I'VE PLAYED THIS GEN !!!!!

GREAT JOB BIOWARE !!!!!!!!!!!!