EA/ Bioware has released the trailer for their next game, Dragon Age 2 and more details here. Based on the details they have released, it will seem like that we will be playing Mass Effect 2 with swords and magic.
The story is set in Free Marches which lies just north of Ferelden. You will play the character Hawke, you will determine if Hawke will be male or female. You can import your previous save from Dragon Age: Origins which will carry over the decisions you made. It will also determine which characters from your first game you’ll meet. Like in the previous game, You’ll get to romance people on your way to becoming a legend in Kirkwall and will choose missions and quests as you move along.
Though it is not necessary to play the first game (much like Mass Effect 2) but I personally like a resemblance of continuity with my character from Dragon Age: Origins since I did customize her as such. Not being able to play it with her is just sad. Maybe they’ll pull an Atlus Persona 3 PSP that will allow you to play it as a different character.
But you will get a fully voiced character which is great! No more unusual silences when it’s your turn to respond. You’ll actually get to hear what Hawke actually feels. Much like Commander Shepard.
I’m sure this game will be quite an experience but I do fear that Bioware may be getting into a weird situation of fame. Final Fantasy was great and all and we ate it up. We bought their games all up to 14th incarnation of the game. But then sometime around the 10th it seemed to wane on us. How long before the same thing happens to Bioware games? Sure the graphics will improve with every generation but it seems like since they’ve stumbled on a formula that works, they seem to be bent on using it for the next couple of games.
Dear Bioware, I do hope this does not happen. I would like you to continue to innovate and bring great RPGs to our gaming systems for years to come.
Dragon Age 2 will be released in North America for the Xbox, PS3 and PC on March 8, 2011 and Europe on March 11.
Dragon Age : Origins – Golems of Amgarrak DLC Trailer
So far we’ve returned to Ostagar, listened to Leliana’s Song, became the darkspawn and now we’ll return to the Deep Roads in search of Golems. Unlike the the last 2 DLC, you once again get to use your character as you search for the secrets of the Golems.
I can’t get into more details without spoiling it for those who haven’t completed the original game but it’s quite refreshing that we shall once again get to play our characters either after Awakenings or Origins. If not, you can always create a new character but where’s the fun in that?
DLC to be released for the PC, Xbox360, and PS3 on August 10.
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – Cinematic Trailer
It’s finally out! The much awaited sequel to Starcraft which came out more than 10 years ago is finally here. It should be declared a holiday in South Korea for the games’ release. I too picked up the game on launch day and after finishing the campaign in two days, it was worth the wait.
We’ve seen the trailers and apparently, all the pre-rendered cutscenes are almost all the cutscenes in the game but that’s for later. Let’s start with the install.
You buy the physical disc from your favorite videogame retailer or download the client online and buy the access code. This is a great feature which allows you to buy a copy of the game without having to line up for the game.
The game takes up 12GB to install. It installs the entire game on the computer so there’s no need for discs after the install. The South East Asian version comes with the game code as well as two guest passes for Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft. Once installed and running, it asks you to log in to battle.net which takes you to the Blizzard website to register your game. This was pretty straightforward and once that’s over, you’re good to go.
Starting the game will launch the updater and will immediately update your game. Once the game starts you can then choose your poison, single player or multi-player. For the purposes of this entry I will refer to the single player experience as my friends pick up the game in weeks to come. I have an aversion to playing online with strangers but that’s a another story.
The single player experience now includes the difficulty of “casual”. This is great for beginners who are new to the RTS (real time strategy) genre and have no idea on how to play. This makes the game more accessible and thus enjoyable. You are bombarded by tutorial after tutorial and a few missions to set you at ease. You can skip the tutorials if you’ve played the previous games. This game will only set you on the path of the Terran campaign. We’ll have to wait hopefully not long for the Zerg and the Protoss expansions which are coming. Once that’s done and over on to the rest.
Blizzard has included “challenges” which tests your RTS skills with short missions designed to make you into a better gamer and hopefully survive the online ranked matches. A new addition to the game is the inclusion of achievements. You can now earn points and brag to your friends how far or how bad ass you are in Starcraft 2 by your achievement points. I learned early on that you cannot earn achievements by playing “casual” on the campaign. You’ll have to start off with “normal” difficulty.
Even though this is the Terran campaign, you can still play all three races in multiplayer mode or against the A.I. The downside of this is that you spent most of the entire game playing terran and when you come face to face with the zerg or protoss controls it’s a brand new learning curve. Not all of the shortcuts are the same for the races or even from the last game so they’ll take some getting used to before I try to test my skills out there.
Speaking of out there, you can now find your friends via Facebook who are also playing this game. This is good but that’s about it. Blizzard promises further integration in the future much like what World of Warcraft has started. Maybe something like posting every time I get an achievement would be nice.
The races are more or less balanced out now. It’s not so much as the all powerful zerg anymore. The nukes are now separate from the command center and pretty much else has stayed the same.
Now for the not so good surprises.
There is no map creator so don’t bother peeking around. I looked. Worst of all, there’s no offline gaming or LAN capability. THIS MEANS YOU CANNOT PLAY THIS GAME WITHOUT IT CALLING HOME TO BLIZZARD. I had to type that last sentence in frustration because it is. I can understand the no LAN capability with trying to keep the game free of cheaters and all but the single player?? Come on!?! I do quite a bit of traveling and I bring my computer along and what do I do on a boring long haul flight? Play stuff on it. Yes, PvZ has become my companion on these flights and I was hoping to replace zombies with some zergs. But the game will not let me. Everytime I start up the game, it wants to call home and make sure that I’m the owner. WHAT!!?
Sure it only needs to call home when the game starts and then afterward you can get disconnected but that won’t help me playing in the middle of nowhere or better yet, 39,000 feet in the air.
I already gave my details, first born child and money to play this game and it still won’t trust me with it? I felt like I bought an MMO. Which I can understand why it needs to always be connected online but this is getting out of hand. I’ve read comments over the internet that it is possible to play offline via “guest” mode. Guess what? It only lets me play with first mission. Maybe it has something to do with the South East Asian version, but I highly doubt that.
Couldn’t they have made the DRM serialized to the computer, dial home, then you can play on or offline and when the system detects a similar serial, the current game is shut down. Isn’t that the way other software makers do it? This online thing is really bothering me.
This is the most expensive Blizzard game I’ve ever paid. Yes this game costs just as much as a current generation console game or even more. I was shocked at the sticker price when I pre-ordered the game and to think this is just 1/3 of the whole game. When Warcraft 3 was released here, it cost half the price to what Starcraft 2 is charging. Even Diablo II didn’t cost this much.
This game is almost everything that it promised to be. But the technical shortcomings prevent it from being a runaway hit. See all the 1 star reviews on Amazon and irate customers to see I’m not the only one disappointed about this one. I really like the game. Although I will not be playing professionally anytime soon. I look forward to the expansion and I just hope that Blizzard fix these shortcomings especially when they still have 2 more Starcraft games coming out and Diablo isn’t that far away.
I know these updates are coming pretty slow but they’re coming.
The Xbox360 had quite a showing at E3.
Project Natal is now Kinect I knew there was something weird with the name Natal and apparently audiences did not warm up to the name which was announced to the public a year ago. It’s still pretty much the same and will still use the camera peripheral in order to track your movements. There’s no wand or wii mote to help the camera guide you so setting this up will be quite interesting. With that in mind, I’ll assume you can’t play this in a dimly lit room since the cameras need some light in order to track something it sees. The freedom in movement looks interesting with nothing in your hand to accidentally throw at your very expensive LCD TV. The list of games is pretty much the same as you would expect with motion control. You have your usual sports games but the dancing is a new thing for motion control since there is no floor pad. But is this new?
No, Sony had a similar device to this called the Eye Toy which was originally released on the PS2 and had it’s share of motion detection. Nothing new for Kinect other than the response time and the graphics. We’ll just have to wait and see when Kinect comes out in the fall.
Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360
Kinect Dance Central | E3 trailer XBox 360
There’s a new Xbox design
New XBOX 360 250GB E3 2010 [HD]
The new Xbox finally gets it right. Built in WiFi, 250 GB HD and Kinect ready. All wrapped up in a shiny black box. Doesn’t that remind you of another console?
But for most of us who might be buying this console, we already have one. How on Earth do we transfer all our stuff to the new console. You now can with this hard drive transfer kit for only $15 USD. You’d think they’d at least include it in the box.
Despite all of this the big question remains, has Microsoft fixed their dreaded red ring of death? I for one have gone through at least four consoles. Thankfully fixed by warranty but it’s the first time that a console actually died on me after all my years of gaming. Not to mention that it is the one console that all my friends and I share the same dilemma. It has died on us at least once. It may have the most popular games but it is technically the worst console I have owned. Gone are the days where gaming consoles could take a beating. I try to limit moving the console from one place to another for fear of it getting broken. So have they fixed it? Reports say they have. Only time will tell. It’s available now for $299 USD.
But after all of their announcements, there’s still something missing in my opinion, the handheld. Yes the handheld. I’ve been waiting or clamoring for the Xbox team to come up with a portable gaming device to go up against Nintendo, Sony and of course Apple. It is the once space they haven’t made any inclinations of entering. Is it necessary for them to enter this space? Yes. Handhelds sell. Nintendo has sold more DS units than all the consoles sold by Sony and Microsoft together. I think it’s only a matter of time before they do. Maybe in five years, the same amount of time it took them to fix most of the Xbox 360.
As stated in my previous post, Dragon Age 2 is coming! Details are sketchy but details coming from GameInformer.com’s exclusive access to Bioware is on the link above.
Backstory of the main character, you are named HAWKE. Yes that is your name. I assume this is designated to make the voice dialogue the same throughout the game. Hawke is a survivor of the blight, more importantly Lothering. Yes I did write Lothering. Lothering is the town where you meet Leliana and eventually gets decimated by the darkspawn. Hawke flees Ferelden and heads to the Free Marshes where be becomes the the Champion of Kirkwall. How you do that is up to you.
Now on to the dark side of the new game:
You will play an entirely new character in Dragon Age 2 unless this changes in the next few months. But the character that you can create is limited to the human race. Yes, no elves, no dwarves. Only human. Not being able to import your character is already sad, but this is even sadder for those who went through the first game with the other races.
On to the good side:
The main character is voiced. No more blank stares to your party members or to any other denizen on Thedas. No more empty remarks. Think Mass Effect conversations.
You can’t change the race but you can change the gender. Yes! Much like Commander Shepard you can either be female or male Hawke.
The game supposedly runs for 10 in-game years. Instead of the story revolving around a global incident like the Blight, the story is purely character driven. I’m expecting this to become like Mass Effect 2 but much much longer.
So will this be better than the first, it’s very hard to say. But if Mass Effect 2 was any sign, this should be a great game.
From the initial site, you will create a new character to survive in Thedas. You start off as a refugee and slowly rise to power to become a hero! The character classes are still the same (warrior, mage, rogue) and the storyline supposedly spans for decades compared to a year in Dragon Age 1. There’s no mention on which characters from the original game will make it to Dragon Age 2. I’m still hoping that I can import my character and equipment from the first game as well as the decisions I made . Please Bioware!!
Pre-orders start today. Main game trailer to be released on August 17. 1up.com says the game will be released on February 1, 2011.
The latest DLC from Dragon Age deals with the bard Leliana’s back story. SPOILER WARNING to those who haven’t completed the main game.
SPOILERSSSS!!!!
I believe it’s safe to assume that this was set way before the blight and the fall of the Grey Wardens but after the war with Orlais. You take the role of Leliana, bard by day and assassin by night. You arrive in Denerim with your mentor, Marjolaine and a small group of a mage and a dwarf to do a job that your were supposedly hired for.
If you have completed the game you would have known by now the events that led Leliana to join the chanrty. That is of course you completed her personal quest in the main game. Much of it is predictable but it’s still interesting to see how she changes through the events that follow.
END SPOILERS
It’s the first DLC which has recorded brand new dialogue. The add-on actually feels like a scene in Awakenings rather than a crappy expansion. But is this for everyone? If you like 100% completion, this adds 3 new trophies to you Playstation account or additional gamer points for the Xbox360. If you like Leliana, this is a good few hours of gameplay. There’s a new body armor for rogues and best of all, more game time with Dragon Age!! But as this places the game definitely in the past, I will still have to create a new game and see if there are any changes to the main game. I assume it does not much like the other DLCs do not carry over to Awakenings.
I think this is a good step for Bioware to release back story DLCs on the main characters as it gives a clearer explanation for their motivations in the main game. Unfortunately in doing so, the story becomes predictable and you just end up following A to B without any serious consequence to the main game. But from all the characters in Dragon Age, I’d like to see Morrigan done next.
So where does this stand among the others? This is much much better than the Darkspawn Chronicles which was just the Battle of Denerim but got the other side. A little longer than Warden’s Keep (but of course we only got that expansion for the storage chest), it’s not as character driven as The Stone Prisoner. I’d say this is on the same level as Return to Ostagar.
Available now on the Playstation Store ($6.99), Xbox Marketplace (560 MS Points) or on the PC (560 Bioware Points).
I’ll believe it when I see it. Back in January, Polyphony announced the delay of Gran Turismo to a later date. This was shortly after a 3D version hit the demo booths at CES. I blogged about the delay stating that 3D gaming must be the cause of the change of releas date. Apparently that is partially true.
I can’t believe they actually pushed the release date of a major franchise by nine months just to put 3D into it even though 98% of the people buying the game will not have necessary hardware to play it in 3D. Aside from 3D, they also added the famous BBC Top Gear test track among other things.
Sony will also be releasing a Collector’s Edition of the game which comes with a 300 page car guide, die-cast model of the 2009 Nissan GT-R, Gran Turismo key chain, voucher of in-game upgrades, certificate of authenticity and special collector’s packaging.
Will the delay be worth it? I think so. Will they earn the $60 Million they spent on developing the game? Over time probably. Have I preordered? Yes. Do I believe it will come out in November? I’ll believe it when I see it.
Everyone wants to live green and clean and the latest incarnation of Endless Ocean just does that. The Endless Ocean series is based on diving into the ocean and literally swimming with the fishes. You set out to discover the ocean and what it has to offer. But this blue ocean is bigger and has lots more to do. In my review of the first game, all you can explore was the immediate water and apparently every living thing in the sea is in that one spot. It’s kinda hard to swallow which made Aquanauts in the PS3 more acceptable to reality.
Jump to 2010 and here comes Blue World. There are now more realistic places to go. You now get to dive in the Artic or Antartic, the Amazon river and various tropical seas all over the world. All the underwater wildlife as well as amphibians, reptiles and mammals.
Endless Ocean: Blue World – Trailer
The biggest difference with this game is that it also brings along the danger of diving. SHARKS!!
Endless Ocean 2: Blue World: Sharks part 2
I really hate sharks. Although the game tells you when danger is near, every hit you take saps more of your air. Once all your air is depleted, you automatically return back to the boat. This makes exploring very difficult and frustrating. In the first game, you get to explore all you want without any danger. Now, you have a pulsar gun to fend off every type of aggressive shark out there.
Endless Ocean 2 Danger Trailer
The pulsar has no effect on piranhas so you’ll need to feed them first in order for them to avoid feeding on you. The main game is as long as the first game and more. You now get to dive with new human diving partners as well as the dolphins you meet and train. Sometimes they may help you with some of the sharks.
There side quests are back such as guiding other divers and taking pictures of the fishes. They’ve added salvage requests along with the task of curating an aquarium. You can now decorate your island base or your coastal reef project. The side quests are actually longer than the main storyline and will certainly keep you busy. This game is about to be the longest game I’ve played on the Wii in a long time. If you missed out on the first game, this is a perfect opportunity to experience diving without getting your feet wet. The graphics are much improved from the last but sadly the music selection is not as free as before.
The first game gave you a chance to pick what music to dive with as the game loaded when you started diving. You also had the opportunity to load your own music into the game via the SD card slot on the Wii and swim to the tune of your choice. Now however, you dive to the preset music and will not get a chance to change the music until you’ve completed a number of side-quests to unlock that feature. Not to mention that the music changes from area to area and also when you are attacked. I wish they kept the music options of the first game. Instead this game has been more stressful.
Sure you get the heart pumping action of zapping sharks, crocs and whales. But the whole point of me buying this game was to relax and music is not helping. The improvements to the game such as the length of the game, storyline and areas to explore is great. The realism is good with “aggressive” aquatic life chasing you. But the only flaw I see here is that the music option should at least still have been optional and that there should be a way to experience it without being attacked. Much akin to the “no-fail” mode in Rock Band.
I doubt that this game will be ported to other consoles. As with all these aquatic games, I wish the characters talked. Bioware has poisoned my gaming experience that all onscreen main characters should have voices attached to them. I hope the creators of Aquanauts come up with a new game. And please, have someone talking, even if it is in Japanese.
I did not go to medical school and for those who dream of being a surgeon, this is probably the closest thing most of us will ever get next to the classic game “Operation”
Operation Commercial from 1989
Trauma Team is the latest incarnation from Atlus. Currently the 5th in the series, two Nintendo DS games and two Wii games. I’ve played them all and this is the most polished one of them all. The first game came out for the DS on 2005 and it was hell to finish. At the easiest level, the game difficulty was set pretty high that once you reached a certain level, your patient will die. Frustration just came over me and I wanted to throw the DS right out the window. I gave up on the game until the Wii version was released.
The Wii version is a direct port of the DS game with some minor changes such an additional playable character and surgeries. The best part about is game is the lowered difficulty. Though it’s still challenging, it now allows you to reach until the last stage. The games focus on a terrorist organization using biochemical warfare to further their means. The first half of these trauma games is pretty straightforward with the usual tumors, gunshot wounds or pacemaker replacement. The second half is where the game starts to pull on reality. The terrorist pathogen does weird things to the patient with scenarios that doesn’t seem plausible. Add to the fact that you are gifted with the “healing touch”, this uncanny gift which slows down time and gives you extra time to work on the patient. But even with these unbelievable scenarios it’s still an enjoyable game.
Trauma Center: Healing Touch
Now comes Trauma Team. You don’t just play 2 characters. You now get to play five different characters with different specialties and brings a new angle to the world of videogame surgery. You get to work on different environments such as diagnostics, emergency, orthopedic surgery, endoscopy, investigation and of course general surgery. All the storylines will eventually unlock the final phase of the game and reveal the dark secret of the story. The wii remote is great especially for the endoscopic surgery due to the mapping of the controls. Orthopedics seems a bit too easy and the ER scenes are absolutely heart pounding where every second counts and patients keep coming. My favorite has to be the Dr. House situation in diagnosing the patients or the CSI situation where I find out what really happened as a forensic doctor. Come to think of it, it’s more Bones than CSI.
My diagnosis? This is the best Trauma Center game Atlus has every made. The story is believable. The surgical procedures is doable. I actually wish that the game was longer. Or at least could be extended with downloadable content. But since the Wii doesn’t have that. Maybe we can expect a port coming to the PlayStation Move? We can always wish for these things.
Procrastinating in the Heat 