What is your favorite element of ME2? What is the one thing that we should watch for as we play the game?
Ken Finlayson – Character Artist:
ME2 has really beautiful level art that always blows me away. In our bi-weekly art meetings there are lots of great details like this little gem on Krogan Hub.
Kolby Jukes – Character Artist:
The party members are by far my favorite part of the game. It was a lot of fun watching them come to life, from the initial concepts all the way to hearing them speak for the first time. Garrus, Mordin and Grunt are some of my favorite game characters of all time.
Rion Swanson – Character Artist:
I love the idea of tracking down and recruiting all sorts of unique characters with different abilities and specialties… essentially your own band of mercs. The fact that each character really has their own flavor is great and watching the interactions between them with their sometimes clashing personalities really creates for a more immersive experience. I like the mix of new characters as well as characters from Mass Effect 1 that you run into once again.
Keep an eye out for Mordin’s little number!
(Interviewer's note: Mordin's perfectly-sung take on Gilbert and Sullivan was one of the funniest moments I've ever seen in an RPG.)
Jaemus Wurzbach – Lead Character Artist:
I find the experience of playing the game to be my favorite thing of ME2. It feels much more like a movie that you are directing than a game at times.
Now that ME2 is out, are you breathing a sigh of relief or are your noses already to the grindstone on 3?
Jaemus Wurzbach – Lead Character Artist:
While it’s definitely a sigh of relief to be done with ME2, we have our noses back to the grindstone. No rest for the wicked, I guess. We have a fairly good amount of post-release content to get started on and there are a few new things we need to get prototyped before we start up production on ME3.
What are your main goals for 3? Where do you feel you'll have to focus in order to top what you achieved with 2?
Jaemus Wurzbach – Lead Character Artist:
It’s hard to say right now. Until we get the general story bolted down it’s hard to say where to focus our attention. I’m sure the party will be a huge focus, and I’d like to see as big of a jump in quality from 2 to 3 as we made from 1 to 2.
Let's see -- that would put the GameReview score at 100.33%. That would be quite an achievement, indeed!
We at Pixologic would like to express our sincere gratitude to Derek, Jaemus, Rion, Kolby, Leroy and Ken for pulling back the curtain and revealing these insights into the Mass Effect universe. There's a lot of great information here for everyone from hobbyists to experts. Many thanks!
We also wish to thank BioWare for continuing to push the genre forward, and Electronic Arts for giving the consent to do this interview in the first place.
See you around the galaxy!
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