We heard last month that the original Mass Effect would finally be making its way to PS3 via the Mass Effect Trilogy set, but now PlayStation gamers know when they can finally fill in the gaps in Bioware’s critically-acclaimed series — according to the company’s blog, they can buy the full trilogy at retail or download the standalone game from PSN on December 4th, while the set will be available on November 6th for Xbox 360 and PC. As of yet, no price for the standalone PSN download has been set.
The blog post also detailed some of the challenges of getting Mass Effect running on the PS3, which turned out to be quite the challenge. Bioware outsourced the project to Edge of Reality, who had to rework the audio, make a PS3-compatible engine, and make the game play nice with the PS3′s funky memory. It’s not quite the cut-and-paste job some would expect, to say the least, but in the end Bioware claims “the game performed at, or better-than, the performance metrics that we had from the Xbox 360.”
Finally, the blog also detailed which DLC would be included in the box set. On PS3, Mass Effect will come with Bring Down the Sky both at retail and on PSN, but will not include Pinnacle Station. Mass Effect 2 on will come with all of the DLC that was included with the game on each respective platform; on PS3 that means everything minus Arrival, while 360 and PC will only get the Cerberus Network. Mass Effect 3 won’t include any DLC regardless of platform.
I already own all three Mass Effect games on 360, but I’m thinking about picking up the trilogy on PS3. If the original game runs as well as Bioware claims, it might be the definitive version of a classic, yet very technically flawed game.
