The Mass Effect website, based on Bioware’s upcoming sci-fi RPG, has been updated this morning. New information and screenshots are available on the Krogan, the reptilian bipedal race introduced last week.

The Krogan were taken from their native environment by the Salarians to become soldiers in the conflict between the Citadel forces and the Rachni. After the war these heroes became conquerors themselves driven by their rapid population growth to conquer other worlds. Finally defeated by a biologic attack that rendered them all but sterile, the Krogan are now facing extinction. They serve as mercenaries and despise the Citadel races who have condemned them to their fate.

Complete details after the jump Read the full article »

Bioware is developing a Sonic the Hedgehog RPG for the Nintendo DS. According to Next Generation, this will be the first time the company responsible for games such as Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic has developed for a handheld system.

After the disappointing debut of Sonic the Hedgehog for the major next-gen consoles, Sega is hoping to improve the image of it’s mascot.

Sega president Simon Jeffery told Next-Gen earlier this year that “Sega has been looking at Sonic and the Sonic franchise quite heavily and seriously, figuring out what we can do to improve the quality of games overall.”

The yet-to-be-named Sonic the Hedgehog RPG is slated to be released in 2008.

The new website for The Witcher, an upcoming RPG based on a series of popular polish fantasy novels, has gone live. The site contains all sorts of detailed descriptions of the gaming world and back story. Geralt, the hero, is given life. The site also details the equipment in the game from potions and Geralt’s amulet, to the weapons he wields. There is a bestiary of monsters complete with pictures and descriptions. Players can also view great screenshots and concept art.

There are videos on the making of the game as well as trailers to view. Downloads include wallpapers and music. The site takes a little time to load, but it’s well worth the wait.

Here are a few new screenshots from the upcoming sci-fi RPG, Mass Effect. They pretty much just show off this weird-looking guy above. He’s either an alien or that’s some strange suit with speaker-like devices for a face. Either way, I’m sure whatever he does will be awesome, since this is a game from the makers of Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire.

   

Breathe some life back into your Neverwinter Nights 2 games. Not only are there some great new mods out for it, but Atari has issued a new patch as well. According to the BioWare Community forum, the patch is currently only accessable through the game’s autoupdate feature. The final version of the patch is 1.06.973. If the autoupdate brings up patch 1.06.972, please run it again.

Here’s a list from Obsidian of what the patch covers after the jump.

Read the full article »

BioWare, acclaimed developers of Knights of the Old Republic, has let slip their plans to create an MMORPG. In an interview with Information Week, the company mentioned their plans to enter the online gaming world while discussing a new “complex event processing system,” called the Stream Processing Engine. The system will allow BioWare to track players’ actions more carefully, which can help them monitor when someone breaks outside the game’s rules. The company has not announced any details about the nature of the game, but it is shooting for a 2009 release.

Does this mean KOTOR Online could be just a couple years away? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

BioWare Community forum has announced the winner of the Neverwinter Nights 2 mod-making contest. The award goes to Jason S. Roy, better known to modders as “jclef”, for his Grimm Brigade module.

The module had some great writing, area designs and a very original concept. If you haven’t played it already, I highly suggest it and all of the other mod contest modules.

Congratulations jclef. I wonder if he’ll take a shot at the GameFlood contest.

Xbox News is tipping off gamers that the latest title in the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series may be out for Christmas… or at least 2008. The US Official Xbox Magazine suggests the BioWare title KOTOR 3, not the MMO, may be available as soon as Christmas. However, there is no confirmation from BioWare on the game itself or what platforms it’s being released on.  I guess we’ll all just have to wait for Microsoft’s conference at E3 and hope for more details then.

It’s easy to be critical about a game. Typing “THE GRAFIX SUKS” in all caps on a forum takes hardly any effort at all. What we sometimes do not realize is somewhere out there is a team of people that spent countless hours working to create those graphics. Even if the graphics are below average, an amazing amount of effort was put forth to produce them. I have had my hand in making games in the past, and I can be totally sympathetic to the challenges of the industry. But who are these mysterious developers? Where did they come from? What are they working on now? Those are the questions that I hope to answer.

When were they founded? 1995

Where are they now? Alberta, Canada

How do I know them? Neverwinter Nights series, Baldur’s Gate series, Star Wars: KOTOR series

What are they working on? Dragon Age (MMORPG for the PC), Mass Effect (Action-RPG for Xbox360)

Oh, well what do those games look like?

Anything else we should know? Bioware and Pandemic Studios are actually the same development group, owned by a private equity fund.

Mass Effect is the first game in a planned trilogy on the Xbox360. Being developed by critically-acclaimed developer Bioware, Mass Effect stands poised to be one of the best games this year. The promise of an incredible role-playing experience, along with an innovative battle mechanic make me anxious for Mass Effect’s upcoming release. To get you ready for the game’s launch, here is an assortment of screen shots and updated game information. While not all of this information is new, this article serves as a collective on all current information about the game. Like Cookie Monster in rehab, get ready for hype overdose.

Game: Mass Effect
System: Xbox 360
Players: 1
Release Date: Officially it is TBA 2007, Although Gamestop listed at 09/03/07.
Recent News: Mass Effect’s head writer Drew Karpyshyn, has stated the game is the equivalent of 4-5 novels and/or twenty movies(about 400,000 words).

Video Footage:

Screen Shots: