Mass Effect Video

Part of me is psyched for Mass Effect and another part of me is afraid it will be the same kind of joyless affair that Jade Empire was. I really dug Knights of the Old Republic, but was the game so great because so few Star Wars game are really ever good? And did Bioware knock the game out of the park because their devotion to fantasy worlds benefited from having pre-imagined universe as a starting point?

In a way this scene is cribbed straight from the sci-fi cliche handbook. We see a military unit overpowered by a mysterious alien force, only to have the transmission cut off before we get a chance to really get a good look at what we're up against. Kinda like Aliens minus the wisecracks. And the human characters look slightly uncanny. Check out the way the commander's mouth moves like a slitted piece of construction paper flapping in the wind.

At the very least that commander character is voiced by Keith David. The guy's got a killer voice. His sound is just a hair shy of Ken Nordine.