How ME2 will work without ME1 save

BioWare's Ray Muzyka has explained that Mass Effect 2 allows players to choose their backstory through dialogue options should they not have a Mass Effect 1 saved game to hand. The sequel will also take educated guesses at what you would have done.

"In some cases you get asked a question - 'What do you remember about that? What happened at this point in time?' - and you get to decide on the fly," Muzyka told G4TV. "You actually do get a bit of a choice still.

"In other cases, we make assumptions based on what the majority of fans are going to find really compelling and what we think is the best artistic choice, the most emotionally engaging way to have the story unfold.

"Either way, it's a great experience," he added, "Whether it's a personalised, customised experience reflecting your choices from the first game or whether it's one one where you start fresh in a new game in Mass Effect 2 right off the bat."

Mass Effect 2 allows players to import their saved games from Mass Effect 1, altering the world according to the key decisions they made in the first game and skewing their character towards Paragon or Renegade depending on their virtues.

This is one of the reasons BioWare's space opera trilogy, of which ME2 will be the dark Empire Strikes Back instalment, is attracting so much attention. Another is that it's got potentially more naked aliens in. We attempted to sum up our thoughts on Mass Effect in a recent retrospective. We also took another look at the budding sequel.

Mass Effect 2 is just around the corner, due for release simultaneously on PC and Xbox 360 on 29th January 2010.

Check out gamepage below for loads of new videos.