PS3 Version of "Mass Effect 2" Reported to Corrupt Game Saves

One important rule of gaming-especially role playing games-is "Save early and save often." That way, you can quickly restart from an earlier location if your game character happens to be too underpowered to face the challenges or you find yourself suddenly distracted with mini games or you just want to mess around the game before getting to the main story.

But those playing "Mass Effect 2" on the PS3 may find this rule difficult to follow. Game producer of this hit role playing game BioWare is investigating issues of game players complaining that their save files get corrupted in the middle of playing. The game will unexpectedly crash, which prompts a restart of the game. But the save files are then rendered unusable and players are right back where they stared. To lose a 40-hour save file is particularly frustrating.

And don't think about save separate files of the same game. This bug kills every file associated with the character in play.

Jesse Houston of BioWare has requested players to provide details of their playing that led to the corruption issue at hand, specifically:

1> where the crash occurred that caused the save to become corrupt (ie loading from Horrizon to the Normandy or Right after the fight with the Yahg)

2> How many levels in a row you played beforehand (Ie you played through the prologue through to Horizon in a single sitting)

3> How long you were playing concurrently beforehand (ie you had the game running for 40 hours straight without rebooting the console)

While common sense would dictate to stop playing until BioWare fixes the game, there is still a temporary fix that does help to a certain point. Oddly enough, it still follows the adage of "Save early and save often." Transfer the game saves onto a USB device and make it a habit to do so. That way you will keep at least on copy of the save as a back up. This so far will not prevent the game from corrupting, but at least players will still have in case the corruption takes out the original game save. And if it turns out that the bug stems from a specific area of the game, this may make actual game progression impossible until BioWare gets the patch online.

Or this bug is a perfect opportunity to try out other games. I heard that Playstation Move thing is still around.