Mass Effect IPO date set

Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Mass Effect for the Xbox 360 will debut on the simExchange on Wednesday, January 31, 2007. It will be categorized under the Role-playing genre. Shares will open for purchase at 150 DKP (forecasts 1.5 million copies sold worldwide over lifetime). The release of this game is scheduled for 2007. The game listing was first submitted by Orkeater. The game’s page is found here. The summary of the game is:

Mass Effect will be the first of a trilogy of action role-playing games developed by Bioware exclusively for the Xbox 360. The game's story is set in the year 2183 when machines are said to be coming to invade the galaxy. The player takes the role of Commander Shepard whose mission is to stop the armies of a rogue agent. He soon discovers that there is a much greater threat.

The player controls a character and can give orders to squad members in combat simply by pressing a direction on the D-pad. Combat is real-time and the player controls the player's actions directly rather than selecting from a menu. You can also switch between characters at will or pause the game to issue more complex orders. To execute more sophisticated tactics, you can assign your characters moves and actions through a 2D grid similar to a chessboard.

Characters develop through skills you choose and how you advance them with experience points. They can be armed with various weapons such as guns and grenades. Changing a character’s armor will also change their appearance. Like previous Bioware games, morality plays a role in a character's development. Party members may leave if the player's moral alignment becomes unacceptable to them. The story is also affected by the player's choices, but to a lesser degree than previous Bioware games.

Mass Effect features a more fluid NPC conversation system where the player can choose dialogue options while an NPC is speaking. The conversation system features a pie-chart like menu where the player can choose categorical responses such as "friendly," "aggressive," or "threaten" rather than choosing a particular worded response. This allows the player to quickly play the desired role rather than reviewing the wording of each response.