View Slideshow 
__Pssst. Jedi wannabes. __You might wanna jump ship. A sci-fi force more powerful than Lucas' is coming soon — not to a theater, but to an Xbox 360 near you. The Canadian developer behind 2003's Knights of the Old Republic, a game set in the Star Wars universe, already did what none of the films could do: It let players choose the light or dark side of the Force and influence the plot accordingly.
Now BioWare, based in Edmonton, is ditching George's franchise for its own epic space opera, which will have episodic interludes available for download in between the three major releases. Mass Effect, the first title in this ambitious new trilogy, is due to arrive as early as June. The game casts players in the role of Commander Shepard (shown at center), charges them with defending the galaxy from a race of machines in the 22nd century, and gives them free will. That means each player influences how the story unfolds; their choices lead them down different paths and affect the way other characters in the game react. "We'd worked on Star Wars games," says Ray Muzyka, CEO of BioWare. "We decided to go farther."
A team of 130 people spent a year designing the complex universe's alien races — including the Geth (top photo), the Turians (bottom left) and the Asari (bottom right) — and scores of explorable planets, from Mars to the Horsehead Nebula. But for all BioWare's work on the fantastical creatures and locales, the biggest challenge was designing humans like Shepard that didn't look like creepy mannequins. "We spent a lot of time on the reflection of light on the eyes and subtle eye movements," says project director Casey Hudson. "If you get humans right, you've got the aliens in the bag."
Play Previous: Philip K. Dick Goes Legit With Library of America Canon Next: Reviews
