Yep, $10 bucks gets you in on the Mass Effect universe — not a bad deal for a game that’ll net you a good 50 hours of gameplay time — and you should finish it just in time for the release of Mass Effect 2, which will be out early next year.

“Fans of Mass Effect are going to be pleasantly shocked by the events in these comics,” said Walters. “We worked very closely with Dark Horse to make sure this story was built in to the Mass Effect 2 arc, right from the ground up. Reading the series won’t just add to your experience of the universe, it will change the way you look at Mass Effect 2… and beyond.”

Mass Effect: Redemption will be out in stores on January 6th, 2010.

Read (ActionTrip)

“We’ve said Mass Effect is supposed to be a trilogy,” said Zeshuck, “so you’re going to see at least a third Mass Effect, and even more if everything goes well.”

The Mass Effect universe is a pretty expandable one, so we could be seeing spin-offs and other types of installments to the franchise. At least we know now that the series is here for good.

Mass Effect 2 is slated for a first quarter 2010 release for the PC and Xbox 360.

Read (GamerZines)

Bioware’s newest RPG, Dragon Age Origins reportedly contains similarly racy content at some point as well and one can only assume that Mass Effect 2 will allow more boffing of sexy blue aliens (or aliens of some other hue). In an interview Bioware co-founder Greg Zeschuck defended his company’s decision, citing that that they’re doing this to reflect real human relationships in a “sophisticated mature experience”. He admitted that they’re not necessary for every game but “in certain types of games it makes sense to have them.”

Do digital recreations of sex scenes, no matter how tasteful, really improve the immersiveness of a video game’s romantic subplots? Public opinion still seems to be split on the matter, so what do you think?

EA is really taking out the big guns in an attempt to take down Blizzard and their World of Warcraft — Recently announced is the merger of Warhammer Online developer Mythic and Mass Effect developer, BioWare.

These two merged studios will form a new RPG/MMO studio group with most all of the executives from both studios staying onboard. However, Mark Jacobs, co-found of Mythic, has left EA yesterday June 23rd, 2009.

Both of these studios have come up with some great stuff, now let’s just see if they can pump out a game that will be enough to send Blizzard packin’.

First announced back at E3, BioWare has some Mass Effect DLC cookin’ but details are scarce. Luckily, a developer by the name of Evil Chris has tweeted about an impending announcement:

Getting the feeling some news about the next ME1 DLC may be coming this week. Keep your eyes peeled. – Evil Chris

So what does this exactly mean? Are we definitly going to hear about some Mass Effect DLC this week or is this just a mean joke being played by BioWare.

Chances are, we’ll see an announcement so continue to check back as the story unfolds.

Mass Effect 2 was showcased at this year’s E3, and will be released in almost a year, in March 2010.

The protagonist Jacob Taylor is of course a “biotic powered super soldier” who stumbles across an evil plot to terrorize galactic civilization. Of course he’s probably not going to have much of a chance to stop this plot, because to do so would doom your character in Mass Effect 2 to be stuck on guard duty for the whole game. Jacob’s Story will cost a mere $2.99 and though no release date has been announced a good guess places it at anywhere from a month to a week before the release of Mass Effect 2, since it’s quite obviously set up as a marketing device. The survey however suggests that this title could just be the first, with others set in the Mass Effect universe and possibly even Dragon Age games for the iPhone as well.

Titles like Halo 3 and Resident Evil 5 have explored the idea of online co-op, a feature which for years was only available locally. Since little information has been made available thus far regarding Mass Effect 2, fans have contented themselves with rumor mongering and speculation. One feature that people had been whispering about was online co-op which would be an excellent fit for the squad based shooter. Yes, that’s right, I’m calling it a shooter because in truth the combat sections functioned as one, despite the RPG flavor to the rest of the game.

Folks from BioWare had come forth previously saying that the buzz about five player online co-op in the sequel wasn’t based on any fact. That’s far from a flat-out confirmation that we won’t see co-op in Mass Effect 2 and when asked about the potential of the trend carrying over into the game Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk said that although they hadn’t disclosed a feature set for the game multiplayer is something they’re considering for all future titles. It’s hard to glean any Mass Effect specific details from their statements because they say that they’d only include co-op if it fitted seamlessly into the overall experience, citing games built around co-op like Left 4 Dead. Yet with the squad-based nature of the previous title putting in co-op gameplay seems quite perfect.

And if you haven’t already taken a run at this magnificent sci-fi epic, then I really, deeply feel for you.  This sucker is unbelievable.

Basically, you play as Commander Shepard, a man on a mission to save a galaxy in turmoil by whatever means available.  You’ll fight smugglers and terrorists and indigenous space monsters and all manner of robot in your pursuit of justice and peace for the galaxy.

This is one of those rare games where your decisions count, and not just on some arbitrary bar that tells you if you’re lawful good or chaotic evil, either.  Helping people out may net you new and interesting items, while selling them out could get you a load of raw cash.  What will you do?

There is a LOT to love about this–the varied sets and characters, the different modes of play (sometimes you’ll be driving a dune buggy around, sometimes you’ll be neck-deep in a firefight, and other times you’ll have to try and talk your way out of trouble or possibly into it depending on what you want to do.  You’ll proceed around in groups of three, so you actually have some potential to make complimenting squads that work together.  Even better, all the characters have backstories that you can find out more about as you progress through the game.  Or, conversely, if you couldn’t care less about how the blue-skinned alien kangaroo babe managed to land on your ship and with your team, well, you don’t even need to find out. You can just play the game and play like crazy until you come out the other side.  Your call.  You can even go so far as to have sex with your teammates—that’s where you heard all that stuff about the lesbian sex scenes in this game.  There are technically a couple of them, but you have to go through quite a bit of conversation to get that far.  It’s not like they just hop in bed with you for no clear reason—it’s actually part of the narrative.

There are down sides here.  If you notice similarities between this and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, it’s because both were made by BioWare, the same company.  They clearly used a lot of the same techniques in the development of Mass Effect.  The engines are the biggest similarity—but then, why would that be a problem?  It’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic we’re talking about here. That game was all sorts of good.

So if you’re craving an RPG with lots of sci-fi elements, a huge plot and some humor, and you don’t mind more than a few similarities to an older, but high quality, game, then you’re in for all the treat you can handle with Mass Effect.

With the first trailer Bioware answered a few questions, but raised even more. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet it mentions Shepard, giving some of the details from the first game including a list of deeds you’d have accomplished playing through the game as well as his ‘known alien accomplices’, the non-human party members from the first game. It goes on to say that Shepard is listed as ‘KIA’ (killed in action) and as the trailer pans out you see that an armored suit bearing Shepard’s N7 special ops designation is being worn by a Geth, both details throwing the survival of Shepard into question.

Although it’s only an early trailer it’s impossible really to doubt that Bioware plans to feature Shepard in some way. After all they wouldn’t make a trailer that mentions nothing other than the original protagonist without reason. This trailer sparked a whole lot of talk as you might imagine, and BioWare has responded in some small part: Bioware community managers mentioned several times on their forum to keep your save files from the original. It’s impossible to say what direction their taking this, but there are many possible guesses. Perhaps your character will be sent in to rescue him (I apologize to anyone who played the game with a female Shepard), or discover him accidentally in the course of their own adventure. Even more worrisome is the possibility that Shepard will be the villain.

At least until now. In a discussion this weekend at New York Comic Con Jay Watamaniuk let it slip that a second DLC episode is in the works. Unfortunately as you might expect he steered any further questions about the DLC towards a different topic. Details will likely be forthcoming as soon as they’re available since many gamers have probably already sold/traded in their copies.

Arad, for those in the dark, is responsible for bringing Marvel franchises such as the X-Men, Spider-Man and Iron Man to the silver screen. The BioWare project is yet to get a writer, director, or anyone else attached to it.

Studio president Greg Zeschuk revealed that they’re looking at post-release content for the PC version of the game, adding that they “want to have this long-term relationship with the customer and always have something for them.”

The studio is currently working on Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and Dragon Age, with the former due out on DS this Fall.