Dead... WHAT?

Bioware recently released the new Mass Effect 2 trailer. 

WOW!!! 

In exactly 60 seconds, BioWare takes all the work we gamers did in the original Mass Effect and completely turns it on it's head. Commander Shepard... dead? KIA? Is that even possible? The character I created and shaped for hours upon hours... dead? I'll hope that does not come to pass. They showed a Geth wearing the iconic Spectre armor. Horrifying... truly horrifying.

For those of you not familiar with my various rantings, I think Mass Effect is the best RPG on XBox 360, bar none. The gameplay is ferocious fun, the dialog system is fantastic, the story is epic goodness, and the character development is extraordinary, espeically for a not-Japanese RPG (well, even those have faltered recently, but eh). Those bits keep me playing that game to this day, exploring the various character types and skill sets. The way things change as you begin to reveal the true tone of the main character, or you essentially is just jaw-dropping at times, particularly at the end. And then there's this... a Geth wearing your armor... it's almost beyond comprehension. 

After the release of the trailer, BioWare's forums literally exploded with fans reacting to the 60 second trailer. How awesome is it that a game experience can be so engaging that the killing off of a character can inspire such a reaction? This is akin to the death of Aerith (for those of you familiar with Final Fantasy VII).

Check out the reactions over in the forums. I'll post the video here once Bioware makes the code available tomorrow (EDIT: Bioware still ahs not made the code available. It says: "Available February 24, 2009". Humbug on lateness).

*EDIT* I forgot to mention that Chris Priestly (the Community Coordinator over on the ME forums) posted the following in response to some of the reaction: "The trailer TELLS you nothing. It hints at a few things, but that is it. As we've said elsewhere, don't delete your saves."

This hints that ME2 will pick up where ME left off, with all your previous choices intact, so you can continue to grow your character and expand his personality. Commander Brian Shepard must be alive! :-)