Leaving behind the sour taste in my mouth from a poor excuse regarding Mass Effect 2, I still look forward to getting through more playthroughs of Dragon Age(and while it will be difficult to play without romancing Zevran this time, Alistair will console me). Good thing Awakening comes in March, and the above video displays a new creature type we will be encountering: the Children.
Drawing a cue card from Aliens, it appears we'll be dealing with things that jump out of husks and try to munch on us. I can only imagine the lore behind these squicky looking things, but imagine that I will find it similarly as disturbing (in that lovely way) as I did the tunnels in the Dwarven kingdoms.
The more info they release on this expansion pack, the more it begins to feel like a whole new game.
We're only a month away from the release of the highly anticipated Final Fantasy XIII in areas outside of Japan, and many people are clamoring for all the news that they can get on the game while it's hot. Luckily the folks over at the PlayStation.Blog in Europe got a nice interview with both the game's producer, Yoshinori Kitase, and director, Motomu Toriyama, about what we can expect with the worldwide release of the game, upcoming plans for the FF XIII universe, and why there might never be another game like Final Fantasy XIII to come from Square Enix.
The biggest question on people's minds is the statement posed by Yoichi Wada a little while back in which he states XIII would be the last game of its kind from Square Enix. Many were confused by the statement, and apparently even the people there are still somewhat perplexed by what exactly he meant; however, Kitase and Toriyama try to shed some light on the subject:
We don't know exactly what he meant by that. We don't really know what he meant by this style of game. If you consider that during Final Fantasy XIII's development, at peak time the team consisted of over 300 people. It was a huge team, plus it took a several long years to get the game finished. So, if Mr Wada meant that we would never make another Final Fantasy title with the similar number of people, taking as long as FFXIII did, we would agree.
Obviously in the future we want to be much more efficient. Having worked on XIII, we feel that we have got much better at making good games for high definition consoles. In the future our teams will be smaller and more effectively run. We suspect that is what Mr Wada meant by his statement.
With Final Fantasy XIII Versus in the works, many people are wondering just how long Square Enix will be developing titles in the FF XIII world and how interrelated these games will be, apparently we can expect at least three games altogether:
Will Final Fantasy Versus XIII have any links to Final Fantasy XIII?
Final Fantasy Versus XIII is part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, but XIII and Versus XIII only share the same basic mythology. The fal'Cie and l'Cie are just a small part of this mythology, but the story and the characters are completely different.
Are there any games within the Fabula Nova Crystallis series that have yet to be announced?
At the moment we are concentrating on releasing Versus XIII and Agito XIII. At the moment we have no other specific plans to release any other titles as a part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series.
Perhaps the one of the question I found most appealing about the game is what lies out there for the player once the main story is over, and apparently there is quite a bit:
When you finish the main quest there are some growth elements of the the characters which will unlock once you've defeated the last boss. After this is done, you'll be easily able to return to Pulse and take part in the many missions available there. There is no way to start the game again with your current character stats, however.
I have to admit, despite my recent wanning in all things Final Fantasy over the past few years, all the hype and info on this upcoming and "HD" child of the venerated series really does have me interested in picking up the game, even if it is to once again stop playing halfway through the story.
Check out the full interview over on Europe's PlayStation.Blog.
The long anticipated sequel to BioShock finally launches today and in many cases, people who went to midnight launches have already been playing for hours. Unfortunately, the place I decide to order my Limited Edition from wasn't having a midnight launch and I have my radio show today so I won't be able to dive down into the depths until well after 2pm PST. But you can bet that after that time I will be incommunicado for the rest of the day.
What is your BioShock 2 experience going to be like? Did you get it at a midnight launch? Did you pre-order? Collector's Edition or regular? PS3 or Xbox 360? Or maybe you're waiting to see how it's going to do before buying it. Or maybe you could just care less! Whatever your reaction may be, let us know in the comments.
I'll be doing a follow up article on this in a couple days and really want to see how people are reacting to the launch of a game with so much expectation behind it. So please, even if you don't usually comment, put your reaction to the game and its launch here so we can get a really good cross section of responses.
Sometimes it seems like you can't walk into a game store without having to step over the festering corpse of the latests zombie game to hit the market. So what can a developer do to make a zombie game stand out? Halfbrick thinks they have the answer, adding time travel to the mix in their upcoming PSP/PS3 minis game Age of Zombies. I'll let Halfbrick speak for itself.
We didn't want to kill zombies in the usual way. We didn't want to survive a deadly undead army in the ruins of some scary-ass town. We wanted to travel through time and shoot zombie dinosaurs and mummies and junk. So, we created Age of Zombies!
Dinosaurs and mummies and junk, indeed. Did I see zombie robots in that trailer? Is that even possible? I have to admit, I'm very excited for this game. Halfbrick has a knack for creating these smaller-scale games at an exceptionally high quality, as they have with Blast Off, Echoes, and Rocket Racing, and Age of Zombies looks to follow in that tradition. Look for Age of Zombies in the PSN store for $4.99 on February 25.
Hit the jump for what could possibly become one of the best press releases of the year.
In a move that will surprise exactly no one, LucasArts and Traveller's Tales have announced that another game in the LEGO pop culture series is in development, this time focusing on the Star Wars cartoon spin-off. LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars will ship for the Wii, DS, PS3, PSP, Xbox 360 and PC in the fall of 2010.
"LucasArts continues to set the bar for next-generation family entertainment," said Darrell Rodriguez, president of LucasArts. "The LEGO® Star Wars franchise is a massive hit with fans, bringing in sales of over 20 million units worldwide. We're thrilled to extend this experience to LEGO® Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, delivering the humor and fun players expect from this award winning franchise."
"LucasArts is an amazing partner, and working with them on the next iteration of the LEGO® Star Wars series continues to be a great experience," said Tom Stone, director at TT Games. "The team at TT is working hard at making this simply the best LEGO® game ever with all new gameplay and features never before seen in a LEGO® game."
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars will feature all the characters from both seasons of the animated series, as well as some from the films. The game will include all-new battle modes featuring head-to-head combat, and an upgraded level builder, allowing you to create customized bases and in-game battlefields. You'll have the option to play as a Jedi or a Separatist with all-new abilities such as Squad command, Lightsaber slicing, Lightsaber jumps, long-distance Jedi attacks and Grapple Tie-ups.
Hm. I don't know... I loved the original LEGO Star Wars for its simplicity. It sounds like they might be making things a bit too complicated. Also, I'm not sure the Clone Wars TV series is a strong enough property, even with Star Wars in the title. (Possibly why the subtitle is so small compared to the rest of the title...) But what do I know? I'm kind of over the LEGO thing anyway. My LEGO Batman is still sitting on the shelf unfinished, and sometimes I think I hear it crying. I might just be losing my mind, though...
Okay, once again, Microsoft hasn't put out a press release about what to expect in the way of Lips DLC in February, despite the fact that we're already a week in, and there's already been three songs released. Thankfully, someone in the Lips Forums saw fit to post the upcoming DLC for February, and even went as far as to post for March. Now, that would lead me to suspect that this might not be kosher, but it turned out that the January DLC I saw posted in the forums was right, so even though this is a different user, I'm gonna go ahead and post it here. We'll see what's right as the weeks go by.
Last week we had a Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell song pack and separate releases of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" and "You're All I Need To Get By." After the break, you'll find the next seven weeks laid out for you (It's a long list!)...
Adult Swim Games has done something amazing. They may have created the single gayest flash game of all time. It's a robot unicorn smashing giant metal stars, an occasional sparkly dolphin, and a looping Erasure soundtrack. It's Robot Unicorn Attack!
The game is basically Canabult with a unicorn and rainbow skin. The only controls are to jump and smash. The dolphins seem to appear when you are doing well. I dunno why, but it's surprisingly fun! You have to see it for yourself.
We've had a few run-ins with EA's rather particular methods of marketing their latest action scythe-em-up, Dante's Inferno. They've included relatively tame challenges to game journalists, including a cake shaped like a human arm for Gluttony, and a random check for Greed. The fan challenge was far more depressing and even dangerous to some industry females, as it rewarded fans at Comic Con for "commiting acts of lust" with the booth babes, a prize which our own PixelPoet politely (but firmly)declined.
Well, EA's back with a more sneaky stunt to promote the game and reward fans, and this time there seems to be almost no potential for sexual harrassment. Good job, guys! Welcome to the 21st Century!
The theme this time is almost a blast from the past - if you remember the scares about subliminal messages and playing records backward to reveal satanic messages, you may be even more worried by the idea that your computer may have downloaded demonic imagery if you've visited sites like IGN, DailyMotion, Kotaku, and Digg in the past couple of days. How to tell if you've been exposed? Just right click and 'view page source.'
As you can see from the Kotaku example, the art appears in ASCII, and is also surrounded by a comment tag so it doesn't actually show in any page. It's entirely hidden, and those who stumble upon it will also find the address of an Inferno-linked site and one of six passwords to enter therein. Hunting down all the hellish text allows players to download a rather large EARTHLY_REWARDS kit with wallpapers, concept art, music, etc. While this likely qualifies even less as an ARG than last week's Heavy Rainreveal, it's still an interesting promo for those dedicated enough to make use of it.
For any others interested in facing damnation, Dante's Inferno will be available tomorrow in the U.S. and saw a release last week in Europe and Australia.
The middle installment of a trilogy is notoriously tricky ground to tread - while every story ought to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, second installments of trilogies can end up simply being a glorified middle - Halo 2 springs to mind, as do a number of scifi/fantasy fiction trilogies.
Perhaps the most successful thing about Mass Effect 2, above and beyond the incredibly improved graphics and tightened, overhauled combat system, is its narrative momentum and identity. The first game spent a great deal of time setting up the Mass Effect universe and positioning Commander Shepard to be a powerful force in the galaxy's political world - so much so that the sequel comes in for a smooth landing, its world ready-made, and proceeds to tell a whopper of a story.
There are some minor stumbles along the way and a giant elephant of a bad voice actor in the male Shepard, but these stand out more because of the level of polish on the rest of the game than for their own demerits. If the first Mass Effect left you feeling rather less than epic, the sequel will still likely impress.
Sharp traced the trajectory of both art and of games. He looked at how both have been viewed through the ages and commented on how it was not until the High Renaissance that we started looking at art as leisure for those with money. It was no longer just in the service of religion or the personal.
Games, however, were tied in with more basic instincts, but fulfill many of the same roles. They can offer deeper meaning, provide room for introspection, et cetera. However, the last note argues against what Lantz calls the domestication of games: "In the end though, Sharp said that the relationship between games and art remains fraught. 'To display a game in a gallery is to take away a part of its game-ness.'"
Lantz seems to make a similar argument, saying that we need not change games to conform to ideas of what is art, but use games to change how we define art. After all, the definition of art is constantly changing, and having its boundaries pushed. This is true of any art form, and makes much more sense than trying to apply the principles of film, literature, and so forth to the medium of games wholesale.
Therefore, instead of asking, "Are games art?" our focus should be elsewhere. Instead of seeing art as a definition that needs be met, we should see it as a definition whose parameters can be expanded and encapsulate a new form.
For years, BioWare has been turning out some fantastic RPGs and has always been pushing the envelope when it comes to the choices and control you have over the characters in the games. One envelope they push in particular is what they allow for relationships in their games. With their past two major titles, Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, BioWare has received both praise and disdain for both the inclusion and exclusion of relationship choices in their games when compared to past titles. Dragon Age: Origins proved to let the player take complete control of your character and allowed for multiple love interests with an array of companions. Mass Effect 2, however, seems to have taken a step back from its predecessor, which had a very controversial 'lesbian' scene in the game if you played a female Shepard. The sequel seems to be devoid of any promiscuity between Shepard and anyone of a similar sex, but does allow for some heterosexual love scenes between various characters, depending on your gender.
There's been some backlash on the forums, with players demanding to know why these love interests are missing, and the response of locking threads has made some upset; nevertheless, BioWare has been pretty quiet on information regarding the issue. In a recent interview with Ray Muzyka, one of the BioWare founders, Andrew Smee over at IGN got a bit of a scoop as to reason for Shepard's apparent shyness with the same sex this time around:
"Dragon Age is a first person narrative, where you're taking on an origin and a role, and you are that character at a fundamental level. It's fundamentally about defining your character, including those kinds of concepts. In Mass Effect it's more a third person narrative, where you have a pre-defined character who is who he is, or she is."
"in Mass Effect it's more about Shepard as a defined character with certain approaches and worldviews, and that's just who he or she is. So we constrain the choice set somewhat, but enable more tactical choices and enable a deeper, richer personality, because it's more focused around defining one character, it's not as wide open"
"It's first person versus third person narrative, and the types of choices you get to make within that are related to that, whether you've got a pre-defined character or a wide-open character. Some of our games have been wide open, and some have been more constrained, and we'll probably continue both kinds of character development in the future."
Overall, he's basically saying that it's a difference in storytelling. In your first-person narratives you have complete control over who a character is and what the do, whereas in a third-person game, you are merely helping make decisions for an already defined character. While it is a bit of a cop out of a reason why the love interests aren't included (I'm still included to think that timeline/budget issues where a bigger reason) the conversation itself almost seemed to mirror an age old argument. If first-person is creating a character and third-person is merely control choices, then it comes down to being created that way or choosing to be that way, but that's just me oversimplifying a very bombastic issue, so take it with a large grain of salt.
A big thanks to Randy to bringing this article to our attention, and make sure you check out the rest of the interview with Ray Muzyka over at IGN.
Are you gay and working in the games industry? If you are interested in networking with other folks like you within the industry, try joining the Gay Game-Industry Professionals mailing list.
Click here for all the details!
We've had a few run-ins with EA's rather particular methods of marketing their latest action scythe-em-up, Dante's Inferno. They've included relatively tame challenges to game journalists, including a cake shaped like a human arm for Gluttony, and a 
