The premise: Two years after an interstellar attack, Cmdr. John Shepard must put together an elite assault team to thwart the abduction of entire human colonies.The advance:

Those who played the first Mass Effect will be able to import their previous experiences, so past decisions you made affect this new game.

(The original let the player choose to have an intimate relationship between two main characters that will carry forward as well.) Similarly, the directions that you take in the ongoing story have consequences here and in the third installment.

So returning players "are pulled right into it," BioWare's Greg Zeschuk says, and newcomers get up to speed quickly. "We spend a lot of our time in making our characters endearing and interesting. ... They are fun, and you want to go visit with them."# The premise: In the guise of four main characters -- an FBI agent, a detective, a reporter and a widowed father -- you investigate the case of the Origami Killer.
# The advance: A truly interactive mystery movie in which Paris-based development studio Quantic Dream scanned more than 300 people's likenesses to increase realism. Players don't use a traditional interface to progress. "You get all your prompts in real time in the scenes. At any point you can see what your character is thinking" by hitting a button, says Petro Piaseckyj of Sony Computer Entertainment America. "It's very cinematic. You are actually in it." Along the way, one or more characters could die. Among the mature decisions faced in the game: How far does reporter Madison go in her striptease as a method of gathering information?