Ah, Bioware. You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? It wasn’t enough to drop Dragon Age: Origins on me, was it? Less than three months after hijacking a majority of my life, Bioware’s done it again with Mass Effect 2.

Mass Effect 2 builds on the successes of the first game to deliver a superior experience in just about every facet of gameplay. The continuing adventures of Commander Shepard will pit the hero of the Citadel against the threat of the Reapers once again. Of course, you’ll be filling the well-armored boots of the captain of the Normandy.

The first thing that leapt out at me in playing Mass Effect 2 was the changes that have been made to the environments. Unlike the first Mass Effect, there are very few maze-like environments to navigate. Instead, the levels give you a solid feeling of progressing forward, instead of wandering aimlessly. Combat in these environments can be resolved in multiple ways, including weapons, biotic abilities, and environmental hazards. Controls are easy to learn and master, and using powers is a straightforward affair through a selection wheel that also allows you to bind your favorites to buttons.

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Star Wars The Old Republic will let you explore an age thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Old Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy.

The soft-spoken, brilliant machinist Tali is making a return in Mass Effect 2. This trailer focuses on this character.

As a long-time RPG player, I’ve sunk countless hours of my life into games like Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Icewind Dale. I’ve been looking forward to dropping all my other games and devoting myself to Dragon Age: Origins, the “spiritual successor” to Baldur’s Gate from Bioware.

I was lucky enough to get a chance to review both the PC and XBox 360 versions of the game, so I will try and give a few comparisons between the two. However, right from the start I should make one thing clear: This is a GREAT game.

One of the things that sets Dragon Age: Origins apart is the fact that you cannot simply talk about how the story goes. Depending on which race and class you choose for your character, you will play through one of six different introductions. Regardless of which intro you play, you’ll end up as a Grey Warden, a powerful warrior who is sworn to combat the spread of the Darkspawn blight.

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This is the set of utilities used to create modifications to the game Dragon Age Origins. Build your own challenges for players to overcome, and create your own fantasy world for your friends to explore. Many thanks to Bioware for providing these!

http://www.filefront.com/14872891/Dragon-Age-Origins-Toolset-v1.0/

Learn more about the enemies Commander Shepard will face through Mass Effect 2 in this new video. View new creatures like the Collectors, praetorians, abominations and the ever-present geth.

Dragon Age Patch v1.01a

This is a minor patch to fix a few small bugs found in Dragon Age.

http://www.filefront.com/14870387/Dragon-Age-Patch-v1.01a/

THIS IS WAR is an exclusive game trailer co-produced by Thirty Seconds to Mars front-man, Jared Leto.

Last week we saw the id/Bethesda merger under parent company ZeniMax Media and there was much rejoicing, but what if Electronic Arts merged its two online game developers into one giant super developer wouldn’t that raise some eyebrows and be general cause for mass excitement?

Well that actually happened as the publishing giant reorganized a bit putting RPG mavens Bioware and long time MMO developers Mythic in the same division. While the two studios will remain mostly autonomous for the time being, they now both have a single reporting line up the chain to the big bosses and money men. That single leader? Bioware’s Dr. Ray Muzyka.

Dr. Muzyka’s ascencion to the head of the organization basically also points to the exit of Mythic’s longtime leader Mark Jacobs. According to Jacob’s blog the MMO pioneer is taking a sabatical for awhile and he leaves with a classy ‘I’m not going to dish on anything, I’m just going to thank folks and peacefully step aside’ sort of announcement – a classy response that we don’t get to see so often these days.

Regarding the future path of the now combined studio’s efforts, Dr. Muzyka indicated in an official response over on IGN that:

Anything’s possible. We can’t say it wouldn’t happen. There’s no active plans, currently to do that, but the teams at Mythic and BioWare I know from talking to all of them, they’re really excited about working together, so I think that fuels a lot of cool things.

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is still holding strong in the WoW dominated MMO market while Bioware’s first effort – the much anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic is still a ways off. Mythic has a lot of experience that could help the minds at Bioware pull off their vision of Star Wars and maybe even put a dent in the Warcraft numbers but only time will tell if this pairing will be all it seems.

dragon age origins

Bioware, long the favorites of PC RPG fans are firing up the information train to release new trailer and new screens for its upcoming magnum opus – Dragon Age: Origins. While the movies all make folks drool and the screens look exciting one key question every PC gamer asks is: “Will I have to upgrade to play this beast?”

Well as of today we have the final system requirments for the game, and its likely that anyone who owns a moderately powerful modern PC will be able to play it in at least Neverwinter Nights 1, 1995 style graphic mode. As expected the requirements for Vista are a bit higher than their XP counterpart but both have a sizable hard drive footprint – 20GB! Wow! The game will also be released on the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 console this October.

Here are the Specs:

Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater
RAM: 1GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Windows Vista Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows Vista with SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.2GHZ or greater
RAM: 1.5 GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Recommended Specifications
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent
RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)
Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater
NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space