Mass Effect fans recently tore into the many errors and inaccuracies in William C. Dietz's new spin-off novel Mass Effect: Deception, putting together a thoroughly damning document cataloging scores of lore-errors and mistakes in the book.

Today, BioWare's community coordinator Chris Priestly posted the following to the BioWare forums:

Mass Effect fans have been asking for a comment on recent concerns over Mass Effect: Deception. We have been listening and have the below response on the issue.

The teams at Del Rey and BioWare would like to extend our sincerest apologies to the Mass Effect fans for any errors and oversights made in the recent novel Mass Effect: Deception. We are currently working on a number of changes that will appear in future editions of the novel.

We would like to thank all Mass Effect fans for their passion and dedication to this ever-growing world, and assure them that we are listening and taking this matter very seriously.

Certainly a win for fans of Mass Effect lore the world over, and not quite indicative of a coming dystopian future where novels are released just like video games.

Hopefully no more books need to be burned.

Del Ray and BioWare comment on Mass Effect: Deception [BioWare Forums via Phil Doyle]

While speaking with Gamerzines, Mass Effect producer Mike Gamble suggested that "it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep your ME3 saves."

"Obviously I can't say anything," he said, "but it wouldn't be a bad idea."

Rock, Paper Shotgun's John Walker had some fun with this, floating theories about the meaning behind Gamble's statement—perhaps the save-game code contains some Great Untold Secret! Perhaps it is because the code has become self-aware and this would be tantamount to murder!

Maybe this calls for a more detailed analysis of Gamble's language. After all, "It's not a bad idea to keep your saves" is different from "It's a good idea to keep your saves." It's not a bad idea—if it were a bad idea to keep your saves, Gamble would have warned us. Therefore, we can conclude that it is safe to keep our Mass Effect 3 saves, that they won't corrupt or destroy our hard drives. Also, is it ever a bad idea to delete save games? Maybe he just means that it'll be good to keep in them in case we ever want to play Mass Effect 3 again.

Or, you know, it could just be that EA and BioWare are planning to make more games in their hugely successful, rapidly growing video game franchise rather than arbitrarily ending it forever after the third game. Time will tell!

Hang on to your Mass Effect 3 saves, suggests BioWare [GamerZines via Rock, Paper Shotgun]

Just because we've conditioned ourselves to play PC games a certain way doesn't mean everybody else has to follow suit. In today's charming Speak Up on Kotaku commenter Confirm4Crit tells the inspiring story of what happened when he handed his non-gamer girlfriend his laptop running a copy of the original Mass Effect.

I am very, very, very proud of my girlfriend. I lent her a laptop, and she played through Mass Effect. It was her first serious title, and I loved it. Hearing her freak out during certain moments, enjoying gunning foes down, and making choices that effect the plot line, etc. She had never experienced something like that before, and it was neat to see her explore it.

During a random chat about the game, I asked if she was comfortable with using the keyboard and mouse over a controller. Her response; "Yea, the arrow keys were fine."

I froze for a brief moment, mildly confused. Arrow keys? "She played a third person shooter….with arrow keys?" I mutter to myself, trying to reenact the motion with my hand on my own keyboard, my muscles confused.

She must have over heard me.

"Yea, and? It was more comfortable for me…."

During the rest of the conversation, I found out she used my laptop's mouse, not the USB I gave her. WASD was for squad commands, she would reach over to C for ducking, function keys became weapon switching, and other odd things. To me, anyway.

It's odd. What has become "our" standard control format was completely destroyed by a casual gamer, yet she completely enjoyed the experience. We're used to a developer telling us the controls. We aren't told how to read, watch, or listen. But we are constantly told how to control, and, normally, we accept it. An adjustment here or there, but we accept it.

I thought there was a universal code for playing games, WASD, Ctrl for Crouch, Shift for Sprint.

Guess I was mistaken.

The Catherine box art featuring the game's titular character gets a Mass Effect send-up. Artist Nobunaga-chan reinvented it with Commander Shephard and Garrus for this "Catherine Shephard".

The game's original cover art was too hot, so select retailers in North America got family friendly versions.

Check out more of Nobunaga-chan's work on her DeviantArt page below.

View Here [DeviantArt]

So the latest piece of official BioWare fiction is a little rough around the edges. Let's say you want to write your own Mass Effect story. Need some help? BioWare themselves are here to help.

David Gaider, who's been a writer at BioWare for over ten years now (and who's worked on games like Knights of the Old Republic and both Dragon Age titles), has written a helpful guide on how best to approach the subject of penning your own take on someone else's universe.

Most are of course useful tips for writing fiction in general. And this one is just useful for writing in general:

Slaughter your word-babies mercilessly, for that pain will put you in the habit of not over-populating your prose to begin with.

It's an interesting read, because alongside the tips there's some interesting stuff on fan fiction in general, a medium that's rightly derided by many but can, on occasion, surprise you.

Storming the Sand-Castle [BioWare Blog]

The Mass Effect 3 multiplayer demo requires you to have a Gold subscription because, well, it's a multiplayer game and that's how Xbox Live rolls. Not to worry. Microsoft is giving away " a limited time Gold access" pass to everyone who downloads the demo, meaning we can all get in on the action.

No word yet on how long that "limited time" will last, but it's likely to be a weekend pass, same as you get in a game insert or on free weekends.

No info yet on how Silver subscribers will actually get access to a Gold-only (at least for a week) demo either, so stay tuned for that.

Mass Effect 3 demo and Xbox Live update [BioWare, via NeoGAF]

Every three months, game publisher EA tells the public that one of its upcoming games, Mass Effect 3 will be coming out for consoles (of course!), PC (expected) and "handheld/mobile" (huh?).

Mass Effect 3 will be out in less than five weeks, so here we are wondering what it's about. It won't be a 3DS or Vita game, it seems. Any maybe it's not even a game. Here's what an EA rep told Kotaku today:

"There will be "handheld/mobile" products tied to Mass Effect 3, as noted in our past few earnings announcements. They are part of the Galaxy at War system. We will have more details to share soon."

That's semi-helpful. Maybe it's a game. Maybe it's some sort of tracking app for the Galaxy at War element of Mass Effect 3. But what's Galaxy at War? It's a meta-game that connects single-player and multiplayer of Mass Effect 3, somehow inviting players into various missions that will more swiftly earn them enough "galactic readiness" points to get the game's best ending(s?). When EA reps first described this system to me it sounded like there could be a Facebook component, too, but that was just my speculation about which they'd only look at me with stone-faced expressions.

Not the toys. And not the Michael Bay horror films. I mean the 1986 animated feature.

At the time, Transformers: The Movie was notable for two things. One was the fact it killed everybody, traumatising an entire generation of young, impressionable movie-goers. The second, and more lasting, was the movie's casting.

It was a mess. A glorious, haphazard mess. There were teen heartthrobs, oscar-winning actors, sci-fi staples, comedians, TV veterans, voice-over people, the works. Yet somehow the "throw as many random names as we can afford" approach actually worked, and better still, it made the flick memorable. Example? I once won a pub trivia night by successfully answering the question "What was Orson Welles' last ever movie".

With Mass Effect 3's cast assembled earlier today, it struck us how much BioWare's series had begun to take after Transformers' batshit crazy approach. That with each game came an increase in the size of not just the cast itself, but how bonkers it was.

Where Transformers went the "elder statesman" route with Orson Welles, Mass Effect has Martin Sheen. Where Transformers hired a veteran voice man in Robert Stack, Mass Effect has veteran voice man Keith David. Transformers had sci-fi staple Leonard Nimoy, Mass Effect went and hired half the cast of Battlestar Galactica. Transformers had Monty Python comedian Eric Idle unexpectedly voice a role, Mass Effect went deep into left field and hired funny man Seth Green to play not a teenage loser, but a starship pilot.

And where Transformers shot for the swoon vote with Judd Nelson, fresh off Breakfast Club, Mass Effect now has...Jessica Chobot.

Now, I'm not saying Mass Effect is copying Transformers. It's just, we noticed this morning that the Chobot hire had tipped the movie over the edge. For over 25 years, Transformers has stood at the pinnacle of crazy nerd sci-fi casting. Nothing came close to assembling such a talented, yet bizarre cast of talent.

But if Mass Effect 3's new hirings don't completely ruin the mix, it may have a little competition from a cast that includes a former President of the United States, a star of They Live and a girl who licked a PSP that one time.

Get to know your Mass Effect 3 voice cast, which is a great deal like the Mass Effect 2 voice cast, only slightly older and just a tad bit more Chobot-y.

Yes Jessica Chobot, the IGN reporter that made her big internet debut right here on Kotaku seven years ago (so far back the images break), is now a card-carrying member of the Mass Effect 3 cast, joining the likes of the legendary Keith David, Martin Sheen, and Jennifer Hale; the not-so-legendary Seth Green; and Matthew Lillard's hetero lifemate, Freddie Prinze Jr.

I would have joined the cast myself, but they'd never ask me in a million years.