played the first `` Mass Effect '' game are being given the opportunity to import their characters into the new game along with all their rewards , romances and consequences . Hudson said his team tried to create a fictional universe that players could explore over long periods of time to `` have an epic experience . '' By carrying over the data from the original `` Mass Effect , '' Hudson 's team tried to show the consequences of characters ' choices . But by accounting for so many variables in the first games , Bioware was faced with a daunting task going forward . `` We used tech skills we developed going back to ` Baldur 's Gate ' -LSB- in 1998 -RSB- , '' Hudson explained . `` Writing for ` ME2 ' was the hardest thing we 've ever done . '' `` Mass Effect 2 '' has 15 to 20 percent more dialogue and 30 percent more key decisions -- choices that affect the game 's outcome -- than the first game , said Hudson , who believes the voice acting in the new game is more movie-like than the first one . `` It
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- When you finish one video game in a series and begin the next , you 're basically forced to start from scratch without carrying over any of your accomplishments from the previous game . But the popular `` Mass Effect '' sci-fi action trilogy aims to change that -- by allowing players to complete one game and transfer their character to the next one in the series . It is an ambitious project that involves nearly 35,000 lines of dialogue . `` We wanted to create the biggest story we could tell , '' said Casey Hudson , BioWare 's project director for `` Mass Effect 2 '' and executive producer of the `` Mass Effect '' franchise . The just-released `` Mass Effect 2 '' picks up the story as the lead character , named Shepard , has been brought back to life after a devastating attack by an invading race of machines bent on eliminating organic life . The action takes place shortly after the events of the first `` Mass Effect , '' which was set in the year 2183 in the Milky Way galaxy . In a rare twist , players who