Mass Effect's project manager at BioWare, Casey Hudson, has been making some pretty bold statements. Namely, he claims that the characters are, in fact, real.

"These characters are living people”, he said in an interview. Living people! Has the company finally cracked the issue of creating artificial life? If so, BioWare probably ought to be applying its talent pool to loftier pursuits than taking chunks out of 360 owners' lives... OK, SPOnG's in danger of drifting into a philosophical discussion about the nature of identity and what equates to consciousness, we should let Hudson finish his sentence.

“I mean they have personalities and you literally interact with them in the way that you'd have real-life conversations. You get to know them, you start to care about them", he added.

OK, so he's not quite claiming godhood, but it's still quite a bold claim – the holy grail of narrative based gaming, in fact. It must be said, when SPOnG took a look at Mass Effect at Leipzig, we were mightily impressed by its conversation system, and we're looking forward to getting our calloused mitts on the game.

Actors in Mass Effect, by the way, include Seth Green and Marina 'Deanna Troi' Sirtis. With that kind of cast we're expecting big things.

BioWare did have to go and spoil it a tad, however, by comparing what's looking like a masterwork of interactive entertainment to cinema. "The net effect of it is you really feel like it's a seamless, emotionally compelling experience, where you're both the actor on the stage and you're also the director of the entire movie, of this interactive fiction", said BioWare's CEO, Ray Muzyka.

Muzyka also took a moment to dismiss fans' concerns that the recent EA takeover of BioWare will impact the quality of its output. "We're not going to sacrifice quality because our fans deserve the best and we're going to make sure that we continue to deliver that, each and every game we make", he said.

For more on Mass Effect, visit SPOnG's dedicated game page.

^{Source: Reuters}