Game development often lasts for years. And in that stretch of time, studios have their fair share of ups and downs. From humorous game bugs to stress-relieving antics, Game Informer peers behind the curtain of game development. In this Tidbits column, BioWare shares the stories behind the development of Mass Effect 2.

• Boo, the space hamster, is actually voiced by the lead programmer.
 

• Mass Effect 2 was the first game to use exotic dancers at EA Canada’s motion capture studio in Burnaby, Canada.


• We did eight full HUD revisions during the development phase of Mass Effect 2.


• There have been over 900,000 code and content submissions (so far) during the Mass Effect franchise development.

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The Main Menu in Mass Effect 2 was revised three times.

• The final boss was originally called ‘Baby.'

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The first breakable object in Mass Effect 2 was an explosive fire extinguisher which is now only used in the Krogan’s acquisition mission.


• There are 52 custom load screens used through out the game.


• Our Scrum Teams were all named after fake action movie names, such as Fighting Fishdogs, Meteor Apocalypse, and, of course, Meteor Apocalyptical Redemption.


• There are over 25,000 lines of conversational dialogue in Mass Effect 2.

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If you went through each main path of conversations end to end, you would be sitting in your chair for over 25 hours straight.


• The model ships in commander Shepard’s cabin are scaled down versions of the full-sized cinematics ships from Mass Effect 1. They are the most expensive per pixel objects in Mass Effect 2.


• The development team’s final team wide meeting was held at The Palace, a venue usually used for boxing matches.


• Corey Gaspur (combat designer) is the team’s reigning Street Fighter champion.


• Team BioWare came in first place in the Game Industry’s 2008 TFT2 Studio Rumble tournament.

• 
Raylene Deck, a level designer, spent the most amount of time working on a single area of the game (2,161.43 hours)
.

• 
We had more then 10,000 hours of automated testing performed during the debugging phase of Mass Effect 2.

For other Tidbits entries, click the desired game name: Shadow Complex, Borderlands, DJ Hero, Scribblenauts, LEGO Indiana Jones 2, Prototype, Fallout 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Ghostbusters, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes, Overlord II, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Red Faction: Guerrilla