Gamevideos snagged some of the Mass Effect 2 video Bioware showed off during GDC. There's a quick clip of a cutscene and some alpha combat footage. The cutscene clip walks through the basic process they use when creating story sequences, but the last 30 seconds shows a near-finished cutscene (including a shot of Ashley's legs, so that confirms companion carryover, unless it's a new character wearing the same jumpsuit). The combat clip is the same thing- showing from prototype to finished product. What's notable in the combat is what appears to be a new HUD in the lower-left corner.

Combat clip:

Looks like what I would expect. Let's just hope they make good with what they said and let me continue with my lvl 60 shepard character.

The first game was great fun to play, I'm sure this one will be too...

The thing is, I read your headline, and realize, I'm not really even interested in seeing footage of Mass Effect 2...   What's the thought process there?  In quick review i would say its not to discriminate against this game, but sequels in general.  I mean, we all played the first one, and I've played this sequel game before.  Is there really going to be something here that will make this game radically different than the first one?  Not a chance.  So, heres a good april fools joke a game company should do, take a game they are not making a sequel to and release some aplha footage of the first one as beta footage from the upcoming next one.  I mean, even if the product did exist, its still going to be pretty much the same thing as before. 

Sorry to hijack your thread, I guess the only civil thing to do now is to watch the videos. 

Well, only the first one works for me.  I wish I could have heard the presenter better, the geek in me always likes to learn about how these guys get so much rendering out of a system dwarfed by any decent gaming desktop.  Impression:  It looked more hectic than the first game, hope they don't take more of an action slant with the new game.

2010 never seemed so far away.

Looks sexy already

This seems too much like the first Mass Effect game, but then again, this is only early footage. Seems to be paced the same way, as well. Kind of unfortunate, since I wasn't a big fan of the way it was paced originally. Can't wait, though.

I know this is early on, but it looks really similar to the first one.  I mean, take out the redesigned shield bar and what we just saw would look like some downloadable content for the first game.

May I just ask: In the combat clip, into the video, is that a freakin Minigun the player is using?

"May I just ask: In the combat clip, into the video, is that a freakin Minigun the player is using?"

What differences do people expect to see anyway? The graphics quality is pretty much maxed aside from glitches they have hopefully resolved, the combat engine was solid and I suppose could use a few tweaks to be more intuitive, but apart from such slight tweaks, what do people expect from a sequel other than a continuation of the story? Isn't a whole new adventure what people want from a sequel? New story, new planets, new areas, hopefully more variety in the new areas, quests, solutions, side quests, gameplay, and all sorts of things that won't just be visible from a trailer but by actually playing the game, no? Now we're gonna call things like that "shoulda been DLC" or "it looks like an expansion" or what? What a silly concept tbh, especially for story driven games.

"What differences do people expect to see anyway? The graphics quality is pretty much maxed aside from glitches they have hopefully resolved, the combat engine was solid and I suppose could use a few tweaks to be more intuitive, but apart from such slight tweaks, what do people expect from a sequel other than a continuation of the story? Isn't a whole new adventure what people want from a sequel? New story, new planets, new areas, hopefully more variety in the new areas, quests, solutions, side quests, gameplay, and all sorts of things that won't just be visible from a trailer but by actually playing the game, no? Now we're gonna call things like that "shoulda been DLC" or "it looks like an expansion" or what? What a silly concept tbh, especially for story driven games."

Took me a while to realize that the first female voice was computer generated. We've come a long way since Microsoft Sam, it seems.

Nice find, Lies!

Now everyone is going to start saying stuff like "Wow this game is gonna suck" or "WTF everything looks the same!!!!!" because they're too ignorant to realize it's pre-alpha footage.

It has to be because it is in pre-alpha, but that looks exactly like the first mass Effect

hey thanks very much for sharing this!

Is it just me, or is pre-alpha and alpha footage just plain cool? I love seeing stuff as it's being built; large texture-less rooms....I dunno, maybe that's just me.

Oh man, I still need to play Mass Effect 1... so little time for gaming!

If the story is interesting thats all I care about..and that you can load up your previous character into the new game. Yeah...it looks like Mass Effect alright, not that I expected it to be much different. if the story is interesting though, and maybe gives you more freedom of exploration(instead of having 80% of the planets you can select unable to travel to) it'll be worth the play.