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.

This trailer for Mass Effect 2 gives a first look at Subject Zero a tattooed and scarred wild woman who is extremely dangerous.

This trailer for Mass Effect 2 shows off a minute and a half of gameplay and cinematic footage first shown at Gamescon 2009.

Following the revelations of earlier today with the Microsoft E3 2009 kickoff events Electronic Arts hits the stage in California at 2PM California time (yes that’s an official time zone… California is more important than the rest of the Pacific time zone… just ask them). We’ve included the embed link to G4TVs JustinTV feed for the event.

I’ll attempt to do a liveblog of the event in the same post as well if you’re interested in my insight into the whole thing.

You can see the embed and the liveblog after the jump. Read the full article »

There’s been a ton of buzz around the internet since the first Mass Effect 2 teaser trailer hit. After all, the text listed Commander Shepherd as ‘Killed in Action.’ Not surprisingly, this ignited a firestorm of comments from fans of the first Mass Effect game, many of whom couldn’t believe that Commander Shepherd was dead. To be fair, I can’t really blame them.

After all, Mass Effect was originally conceived as a trilogy, and to have the main character die between the first and second games would be…disconcerting, to say the least. It definitely wouldn’t be what gamers are accustomed to, as we usually get to play as one character throughout subsequent games. Some gamers were mollified by Bioware’s advice to keep all your ME1 save games, although they didn’t tell us why, or what those saves might net us in ME2.

Anyway, Hudson says today in his blog post that they’ve been working on ME2 for over 18 months now. Interestingly, he also details how they went about using plauer feedback in creating ME2. Hudson says, “The first thing we did in designing Mass Effect 2 was to listen very carefully to what people were saying about how they played the first one – what they loved, what they wanted to see improved, and the countless anecdotes that describe players’ personal experiences with their unique paths through the story. We read forum posts, reviews, watched people playing the game on YouTube, and literally noted and categorized every piece of feedback we could find, to help us target an overall evolution of the gameplay to the way people actually experienced it. In other words, when you were talking, we were listening.”

He also mentions how they will be unveiling the game at E3 this year, and thanks Mass Effect players for their support. But the most important piece of information is dropped right at the end of the post.

He adds, almost as an afterthought, “Oh, and I’ve heard some rumors that Commander Shepard is dead. Better not be. We had a lot of big plans made, so if someone’s gone and killed Shepard then things are going to take an unexpected turn… ” Judging from this, I’d say you can count on seeing Shepherd once again in the sequel. The question I have for you is this: How much publicity was generated by that teaser including the KIA statement for Shepherd? My answer would be a lot.

If you haven’t seen the ME2 teaser yet, or just want another look, you can find it after the break.

Read the full article »

Electronic Arts is being targeted by another class-action law suit over the DRM included with Spore, SecuROM. This time, California resident Alex McQuown is hoping to use Spore to take down SecuROM once and for all.

The grievances listed in Alex McQuown’s class-action suit against EA are much the same as the other suits with three big differences. His lawyers at Finkelstein Thompson claim that SecuROM damages computers costing consumer time and money to repair the havoc caused by its installation. The suit also asserts that EA has needlessly caused its customers grief. The figures prove that piracy of games that carry SecuROM has risen dramatically. The biggest difference in McQuown’s suit is that he invites every U.S. citizen that has purchased an EA product with SecuROM to join the class.
Read the full article »

All modders and aspiring developers out there should pay close attention to a new article up on Blend Games. The author takes aim at RPGs calling them on their weaknesses and shortcomings while acknowledging the true greats in “Reasons Your Role-Playing Game Is Disappointing.” This of course translates to “Why your RPG sucks”.

Most of the games that come under fire are Western RPGs with only one JRPG in the mix. As you might expect, there are Bioware titles mentioned in abundance such as Neverwinter Nights 2, NwN2: Mask of the Betrayer, Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic and Baldur’s Gate. Arcanum, Final Fantasy VII and Fable get mentioned as well. the only Western RPG that wasn’t touched on was Planescape: Torment.

ERPG Cardinal sins including getting the story started to slowly. FF7 and Mass Effect are held out as sterling examples of what sucks players into a game right off the bat while the intro to Fable is used as an example of what not to do. NwN2 is slammed as well, but NwN2: Mask of the Betrayer is given Kudos for getting the player’s attention immediately. I’ve got to admit that waking up in a crypt hundreds of miles from home is much more interesting than going out for the prize at your local fair.

Also on the hit list is the over use of Fed Ex quests, slow travel between points of interest and unwieldy inventory systems like the one that plagues players in Mass Effect. Fable is once again sent to the corner for repetitive combat. Hopefully we won’t see these shortcomings in Fable 2. Catch the best and the worst of RPGs on Blend Games.

Speaking with MTV Multiplayer, BioWare’s Greg Zeschuk stated that the developer might possibly create more downloadable content for their sci-fi action-RPG Mass Effect.

“Well we said it was a trilogy so there’s some stuff happening. We’re also looking at some other post-release content. We’re working away. BioWare’s pretty busy these days.”

As far as more DLC for the Xbox 360 is concerned, Zeschuk stated:

“We’re talking about that, you know how we are. We’re always very circumspect until we can go ‘Aha! There it is!’ With everything we build now, we want to have this long-term relationship with the customer and always have something for them to try. So we’re definitely looking at that for Mass Effect.”

When Zeschuk says “busy”, I wonder if he is talking about their plans to bring Mass Effect to the DS?

Speaking exclusively to Eurogamer Germany, BioWare’s Miles Holmes stated that the developer is considering doing DS versions of Mass Effect, Jade Empire, Dragon Age: Origins, and possibly a few others.

Holmes, who is the lead designer of the upcoming Sonic Chronicles (DS), is looking at games that will reinforce the franchise  and bring the handheld team’s goal of running at full capacity to fruition.

“I tell you which one I would want. I want the Mass Effect one. We have a lot of big plans for Mass Effect. Having a DS version would be an awesome way to keep interest alive and keep it going in addition to Mass Effect 2.”

Purchased by Electronic Arts last October, BioWare is hoping that Sonic Chronicles, slated for a September 26 release, is a way to get the handheld division off and running. Holmes’ thinking is similar to Mark Darrah, fellow Sonic Chronicles team member who stated back in June that BioWare was looking into the possibility of developing titles for the PSP and WIi in order to broaden their horizons a bit.

While the idea of bringing RPGs Jade Empire and Dragon Age:Origins to handhelds seems plausible, one would think that bringing such a large and detailed game like Mass Effect to the DS would be a massive undertaking. Maybe if they were to make the game a “lost chapter” of sorts it could work, but as a whole, the original port would just be too time consuming for handhelds. Titles that can be completed in one to three days tops are more marketable on a casual gaming systems such as the Nintendo DS and PSP, not huge open-ended RPGs like Mass Effect.

A new patch has been released updating Mass Effect to v1.01a.

Here are the release notes for update 1.01a:

• Added some infrastructure support for additional downloadable content
• Updated the image of the Batarian race in the codex
• Fixed an issue where the center channel for hardware audio wouldn’t play correctly sometimes
• Fixed an issue where the hardware mouse pointer would disappear when first selected
• Fixed an issue where Shepard did not auto-crouch when entering cover in some places
• Fixed a tool-tip indicating a game restart is needed before enabling hardware or software audio if the option was changed
• Fixed an issue where ambient conversation would not be heard from rear speakers sometimes
• Fixed a text string to make it clearer on how to exit a vehicle
• Fixed a text string so the tool top for dragging the map is clearer in French languages builds
• Fixed a crash running on certain multi-core AMD systems
• Fixed an issue where video RAM was not being reported properly on certain cards

To get the patch hit the badge below. If you missed out on the previous patch as well as the DLC for “Bring Down the Sky”, you can get it by hitting this.