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Dragon Age: Awakening Raises Level Cap To 35, Boosts Lesser [UPDATE]
You can be more powerful in next week’s expansion to Dragon Age: Origins. I got a quick demo of Dragon Age: Awakening, today, just enough to get a basic feel for the first major expansion to BioWare’s celebrated 2009 role-playing game. Awakening takes players to a new land where they will be Grey Warden with…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 12, 2010 -
Look Who Says the Rhode Island Games Legislation is Unconstitutional
An effort to impose fines and even jail time for selling mature games to underage kids has reached Rhode Island’s legislature. “The bill won’t survive a court challenge, nor should it,” says a certain disbarred Florida lawyer. Yes, when Jack Thompson, the bête noire of the video game culture wars, calls this one a dumper,…
By Owen Good Published March 12, 2010 -
PSP Grabs A Big Slice Of The Console War Pie In Japan
Black is back, as Japan went all in on PSP purchasing recently, giving the PlayStation family the win in the weekly hardware contest, nearly doubling sales of the Wii. PlayStation Portable sales saw a big jump in Japan this past week, according to Media Create’s latest figures, a little surprising when a pair of Nintendo…
By Michael McWhertor Published March 12, 2010 -
BioShock 2’s DLC is on the Disc to Keep Us All Together
Technically, BioShock 2‘s downloadable content released before today. That’s because it’s on the disc. So, again, we’re downloading an unlock. 2K says this was necessary to allow the entire player base to play multiplayer together. The BioShock 2 community noted the downloads were 108K for the Xbox 360, 24K for the PC, so either 2K’s…
By Owen Good Published March 12, 2010 -
How Deus Ex 3’s Cyber Renaissance Averted A Puffy Pants Disaster
How did the combination of Deus Ex’s brand of cyberpunk, the Greek myth of Icarus and baroque fashions almost turn Deus Ex: Human Revolution into a futuristic Renaissance fair? With very good intentions by the new Deus Ex team. Eidos Montreal art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletete offered an in-depth, behind the scenes look at the art…
By Michael McWhertor Published March 12, 2010 -
Play A Video Game Fearfully Inside This Rolling Spherical Cage
I am not the man featured in this video of a first-person shooter played from inside an American Gladiators-style cage. No, I went before this guy and almost fell on my face. Then I filmed him, fearing for his knees. The cage here is from Virtual 360 Ventures. It’s called the Virtusphere and it’s on…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 12, 2010 -
A Listen To Dante’s Inferno Lite
Ever wonder what video game composers have to work with when creating those big sounds for big games? Here’s a short look at what the music and audio team at Visceral Games used when figuring out the timing and temp of their amazing in-game sound for Dante’s Inferno.
By Brian Crecente Published March 12, 2010 -
Motion-Controlled Teabagging: Why SOCOM Fans Shouldn’t Fear Move
Zipper Interactive has a lot to prove with SOCOM 4. It will most likely be the first solidly hardcore game featuring the ability to play it either with a standard controller or the Playstation’s motion-sensing Move controller. But that doesn’t mean the experience has been in anyway dumbed down to accommodate Move. Ed Byrne, creative…
By Brian Crecente Published March 12, 2010 -
Backbreaker Delayed; Now Going Head-to-Head With UFC
Major retailers and multiple sites have all listed Backbreaker with a release date of May 25, one week later than originally planned. If so, the real news here is the football newcomer is going straight up against UFC Undisputed 2010. That is, to say the least, not an ideal time for a new sports title…
By Owen Good Published March 12, 2010 -
Gene Simmons Claims ‘I’m the Voice of Guitar Hero 6‘
KISS frontman Gene Simmons confirming Guitar Hero 6 is about as newsworthy as Simmons confirming tomorrow will be called “Saturday.” But he has, technically, and also vows to a British TV program (sigh … programme) that he’s the game’s voice. And that’s really all there is to it, emphasized by the fact they replay his…
By Owen Good Published March 12, 2010 -
The Next Wii Will Innovate, Nintendo Would Be “Embarrassed” If It Was Sony, Microsoft
In the wake of this week’s unveiling of Sony’s take on motion-controlled video gaming, and Microsoft’s push for their motion-controlled gaming well under way, Kotaku sat down with Nintendo of America’s president Reggie Fils-Aime to ask if these high-def entries into a market Nintendo so dominates is concerning. Do the coming of Xbox 360’s Project…
By Brian Crecente Published March 12, 2010 -
Make Rico Pull Off the Best Just Cause 2 Stunt: UPDATED
Instructions: 1) Download the Just Cause 2 demo here; 2) play, play, play; 3) submit your video of Rico’s best stunt. We’ll pick the top 5, post them here, then you’ll vote for the most creative ass-whooping. Winner gets a PS3! UPDATED Prepare yourself for some extreme chaos creation in this non-stop adrenalin-fueled demo of…
By Gawkercreative Published March 12, 2010 -
Mass Effect 2 DLC Adds 90 Minutes, More Earth Teases
The first paid downloadable content for Mass Effect 2 is a heist mission. And it’s a tease. [Content spoilers in this post.] In San Francisco, where thousands of game creators are swarming the 2010 Game Developers’ Conference, BioWare’s Casey Hudson was showing his Mass Effect 2’s first paid expansion, Kasumi’s Stolen Memory. It features a…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 12, 2010 -
Gran Turismo 5 Looks Even Better In The Dark
And new trailer included in copies of God of War III gives us a teasing glance of night driving, a new addition to the generally sun-dappled world of Gran Turismo. From what little we can see of it, Gran Turismo 5’s night driving looks to be every bit as appealing as its day driving. While…
By Mike Fahey Published March 12, 2010 -
Civilization Creator Explains Why Everything Game Devs Know Is Wrong
Firaxis Games co-founder and Civilization creator Sid Meier expanded the minds of GDC attendees by talking about the psychology of game design and breaking some bad news to us. Everything we know, Meier argues, is wrong. Meier’s keynote at this year’s Game Developers Conference, titled “The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong),”…
By Michael McWhertor Published March 12, 2010 -
Final Fantasy Fans Are Far Too Sensitive About The Xbox 360
At the big Final Fantasy XIII launch at the HMV store in London, fans show their disapproval of the prospect of winning a free Xbox 360 bundle. Really guys? Gary from The Koalition was on hand at the big London Final Fantasy launch, where hardcore Final Fantasy fans nearly booed presenter Alex Zane off the…
By Mike Fahey Published March 12, 2010 -
Every Epic Space Saga Needs A Prison Planet
It you thought Mos Eisley was a wretched hive of scum and villainy, wait until you get a load of Belsavis, the Republic prison planet that houses some of the most fearsome criminals in the Star Wars: The Old Republic galaxy. The use of Belsavis as a prison planet actually pre-dates the Republic. The good…
By Mike Fahey Published March 12, 2010 -
A Musical Journey Through Dante’s Hell
As I mentioned in my review of Dante’s Hell, I loved the scoring and sound of Visceral’s take on hell. So I had to get up early today to check out the Game Developers Talk by the team behind the music titled Scoring Hell. The scoring of Dante’s Inferno was influenced by many different composers…
By Brian Crecente Published March 12, 2010