Mass Effect 2 - News Roundup

A bunch of Mass Effect 2 stuff today, so I'll collect it here.

IGN has their latest interview with Lead Combat Designer Christina Norman, covering the Soldier class:

IGN: What was the most significant improvement made to the Soldier class?

Christina Norman: In ME1 mastering weapons and armor required leveling up and spending points. It was impossible for a soldier to fully master all of his weapons and armor, because you never had enough points.

In Mass Effect 2 you start the game with full mastery of all your weapons. With our dramatically improved weapon and cover, you'll find playing a soldier feels like playing a shooter right from the start.

While everyone benefits from these improvements, they are really key to how the soldier plays, so I'd say this is the biggest improvement to the soldier class.

Blue's has a matching Soldier trailer with voiceover from Christina on their Youtube channel.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun also has an interview with Christina Norman:

RPS: Which of the new biotic skills do you think is going to wow us the most? Do you have a particular favourite?

CN: The biggest wow factor for biotic players is going to be real-time power usage and our fast cooldown system. In ME1, every power had a long individual cooldown. This encouraged pausing, and spamming all your powers in every fight. Now all powers can be activated in real time and every power shares a fast cooldown. This has two benefits. First, you can use powers continually throughout combat. Second, you are rewarded for choosing the right power for the right situation.

As far as favourite biotic powers go, I’m torn between Charge and Singularity. The Vanguard’s Charge power is flashy, impressive and radically alters their gameplay compared to other classes. The Adept’s singularity is a powerful tactical tool to shape combat. I’m still working on mastering singularity.

Neoseeker is next up with an interview, with Casey Hudson stepping up this time.  On romances:

So, in-game relationships. Forums have been filled with fans begging for Tali and Garrus to be made available. Any plans on expanding the relationship possibilities to include more candidates, if not your former Quarian and Turian allies?

Yes, with more team members on board your ship, you’ll have more opportunity to choose among different possibilities for a love interest.

The official site has Soldier and Cryo gun updates and, lastly, Kotaku has a comment from Casey Hudson that Bio is setting sights on the Modern Warfare crowd:

While Mass Effect 2 will remain very solidly in the realm of role-playing game, the combat has been reworked specifically to try and attract the same sort of gamer who plays Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect 2 project director Casey Hudson told Kotaku.