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A Modicum of Class and Talent

Spend as much time as you like molding facial features at the outset, then shape your character by spending experience-driven "talent" points on your avatar, and eventually several squad mates. Like prior BioWare games, you build a posse after "unlocking" playable characters that you'll meet along the way. Choose two at a time to watch your back like an away team in a given area or mission. Six character classes fold three skill tracks (Combat, Tech, and Biotic talents) into either pure or hybrid multiclass options. The Combat track, as you might guess, is all about improving accuracy and damage with weapons like pistols, shotguns, rifles, augmenting armor, and eventually developing special abilities that increase health and skill potency. Tech lets you fiddle with stuff like the explosion radius of your mines, suppress enemy tech abilities, and override security systems, while Biotics are the game's "magic" powers, allowing you to lift or throw objects (or enemies off cliffs) and create anomalies that generate damage or absorb weapons fire.