Despite stunning advances in graphics made possible by current generation consoles, videogames still, by and large, fail to deliver compelling, cinematic exposition.

It's tempting to make scapegoats of writing, voice acting, and storylines -- elements that seem like afterthoughts in many games -- but, as it turns, out, the missing ingredient might be something much more trivial: Realistic animations during conversations.

Even the most visually stunning games typically make players suffer through narrative sequences in which characters are almost completely motionless. Those that do make an attempt to breathe some life into their characters usually offer up a few stiff and awkward animations that involve board-like arms making vague and repetitive gestures more reminiscent of animatronic displays than real human movement.

BioWare has spent the last couple of years working to address this problem in their epic, sci-fi themed action role-playing game Mass Effect, which will be released exclusively for the Xbox 360 this fall.

The Edmonton-based developer recently invited Evergeek to their studio for an opportunity to play through a few levels of the game, and the first thing that jumped out at us were the conversation scenes, which, thanks to the characters' stunningly realistic body language, were nearly as engrossing and watchable as those of a film.

They turned their heads and moved their eyes to study each other as the conversation moved from speaker to speaker. They made uncannily realistic and appropriate hand gestures while talking. Eyes narrowed, lips were pursed, and eyebrows were raised, providing subtle and telling indications of how they were feeling as they listened to other characters talk. Heck, even the non-humans in the game have their own wholly alien (though still remarkably relatable) set of expressions and gesticulations.

And it's all the more impressive that this bar-raising level of animation detail should first appear in a game from BioWare, a company known for creating games with dozens of hours worth of dialog. Indeed, the designers told us that matching up accurate and authentic body language to the game's 20,000 spoken lines was one of the most challenging parts of the development process. To give their effort some perspective, Mass Effect has 20 times more dialog than an average movie, which means the game's animators essentially blocked, directed, and animated 20 movies worth of narrative.

But it was worth all the work. The difference these details make in terms of making a player want to watch exposition sequences from start to finish rather than hammer the X-button to skip through them cannot be understated. These characters feel real -- or at least more real than any game characters to come before them.

And, having seen such marvelously authentic animations, it seems obvious now that this is a key element that story driven games have always been missing. Mass Effect may well mark a momentous turning point for the industry, acting as the game that made developers rethink the way characters should look and how they should act in dialog sequences while at the same time raising player expectations.

Of course, there's more to Mass Effect than a few dozen gorgeously animated characters. The game's story has all of the hallmarks of a BioWare title, including: non-linear design, intricate twists, a wonderfully fleshed out world, and dynamic, multifaceted characters.

Set about 150 years in the future, the humans of Mass Effect's universe have just joined the rest of the galactic supra-civilization thanks to the discovery of alien technology that, among other things, has given Earthlings the ability to travel vast distances throughout the galaxy.

The game's primary protagonist, an elite and high ranking officer in Earth's space-faring military, can be molded to the player's desire, not just physically, but psychologically. Before starting to play we were asked to select our hero's background and personality type -- both of which had an impact on how other characters in the game reacted to his presence.

It appears as though the story plays out on a dozen or more planets, many of which have little or no bearing on the main story, but rather provide the opportunity to engage in side quests, flesh out the stories of other party members, and find new playable characters.

Within just a few minutes of starting the game our hero was whisked down to one of these planets to help a group of fellow soldiers who were under attack. We were immediately thrust into battle, which gave us a chance to check out Mass Effect's innovative fighting system.

Ostensibly a third-person shooter, Mass Effect almost has more in common with action/strategy actions games like those in the Full Spectrum Warrior franchise. While much of our time was spent aiming and shooting at bad guys, battles were fought most effectively by frequently pausing the game and pulling up a radial menu that allowed us to issue commands to our squad mates, ordering them to conduct physical attacks or use innovative abilities to perform actions, like bringing down energy barriers or sabotaging enemy machines.

And that brings us back to the game's moniker -- Mass Effect turns out to be the name given biological enhancements that humans of the 22nd century are prone to dabble in. These agents bestow upon our characters special talents to manipulate matter and energy in strange new ways. Among the many inhuman abilities we saw in the demo were the spontaneous creation of energy shields around characters' bodies, a form of telekinesis that let us move objects Force-style, and the surprisingly potent ability to superheat enemy weapons from a distance, causing them to malfunction and damage their owners.

These abilities and the radial menu used to issue commands to our squad mates are peculiar enough that we didn't quite manage to become completely comfortable with them in the hour or so we spent with the game. However, we were starting to get the hang of things by the end of the demo, so it looks like it's just a matter of time. Suffice to say that Mass Effect isn't designed with a mind to appeal to gaming rookies; much like BioWare's previous games, it leans toward hardcore gamers interested in spending much of their game time learning the intricacies of complex battle and character customization systems.

It will be interesting to see just how long it takes to grow accustomed to Mass Effect's original game mechanics. We'll find out in less than two months time; BioWare is set to ship the game on November 5th. But it may be even more fascinating to see how the gaming public reacts to Mass Effect's stunningly cinematic narrative. If what we saw in this demo is any indication, watching stories play out in games is about to get a lot more interesting.