Mass Effect 3 To Kill Of Shepherd?

Bioware has revealed that Mass Effect 3 will see the end of Shepherd's story. However, whether this means he will be killed off remains unclear.

"We have ambitious plans to continue this franchise going forward," the studio's boss told PC Gamer recently. "Mass Effect 3 is simultaneously a couple of different things; a thrilling and epic conclusion to the trilogy as we promised our fans we'd provide for Commander Shepard. But it's also a brand new beginning - it's an entry point for new fans and it's also a brand new beginning."

Mass Effect 3 is due out next year.

Red Orchestra 2, WWII shooter, beta is now live

Words: Paul Ryan

The beta for Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad has been opened for players who pre-purchased the deluxe edition of the game. It's available on Steam now, and if you get in you'll have almost two full weeks of practice before the game launches on September 13. The beta features only part of the game's content, with three playable maps in the game modes Countdown, Territory, and Firefight.

Red Orchestra 2 is a brutally realistic, tactical, multiplayer WWII shooter for PC. The game focuses on team-based online matches and gives deluxe pre-orderers a day one unfair advantage by unlocking several elite assault weapons and semi-automatic sniper rifles. We're confident players without the resources necessary to go around downloading deluxe versions willy-nilly will be able to band together and overthrow the economically elite beta community, despite its advantage in equipment and play time.

Vita Almost As Fast As PS3

The PlayStation Vita will be fast. Very fast. So much so in fact, that developers are already saying that making games for the two devices is an almost identical process.

The PlayStation Vita will be fast. Very fast. So much so in fact, that developers are already saying that making games for the two devices is an almost identical process.

"We're a PlayStation 3 company," Nihilistic, who are developing Resistance for the Vita, said recently. "That's our engine, that's out technology. And really, [Sony] were looking for PS3 developers to milk the power out of the Vita, and I think that's definitely the right way to go because it's got a lot of power. It's got all the shaders, it's got a lot of CPU, so it's really not that big of a change for us to work on the Vita compared to the PS3."

Many developers have loudly wondered whether the Vita will be able to lure gamers, who are increasingly moving to smart phones for their gaming needs, to the Vita.

343 Industries' O'Connor Speaks Out On Halo: Anniversary's New Visuals

by Tom Curtis



While the upcoming Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary bills itself as a faithful recreation of the Xbox classic, franchise overseer 343 Industries took some liberties with the game's enhanced visuals to differentiate the title from its 2001 predecessor.


Speaking to Gamasutra at last weekend's PAX Prime, 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor explained how updated tech inspired several tweaks in the game's overall art direction.


"For example, [the level] '343 Guilty Spark' had a lot of fog, and people associate that fog with broodiness, mood, terror as the Flood came out," he said, "But one of the realities is that yes, the fog was there for all those reasons, but it was also in there as a performance saver, as fog used to be."


The new version of the game abandons the fog altogether, and O'Connor notes that the team had to find "other things we could do to give it mood and give it a somberness." 


"We also said at some point, 'If we're doing something with the graphics, we should really do something with it, not just ape exactly what was there," he said.


In addition, Microsoft Game Studios internal division 343 Industries, which worked with Saber Interactive (Timeshift) on the remake, also chose to revamp some of the game's visuals to improve the usability of some of the game's more confusing segments. 


"'The Library' is another good example," O'Connor said. "It had this big pillar in the center which was put in, again, to occlude objects so you don't have to draw every enemy in the game. We took this opportunity to re-light the level, so stuff with the textures, and some of the effects to make it much more navigable."


Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was first announced at E3 last June and is due to launch on November 15 on Xbox 360.

A Look at Canadian Game Developers

Written by: theinkandpen • Edited by: Bill Fulks

In the early days of video games, the industry only really thrived in Japan and the U.S. because that was where the majority of games where developed. As times change, the whole world has a part to play in game development. Here we look at famous games from Canada.

Canada and Games

Canada not only has a legitimate place in the video games industry but is also gradually growing to be one of the leading countries which produce games. In total there are 150 game studios situated all over the country, which are made up of big names like EA, Ubisoft and Eidos. This growth creates new jobs and opportunities (Ubisoft-Montreal boasts 1,800 employees) and Canadian gamers spent about 1 billion dollars, as the turn of the century approached, on game-purchases.

Canadian game studios are strictly focused toward the development of games, not publishing, with numerous independent developers throughout Montreal, Vancouver and Ontario. Some of the games developed you will already have played, though perhaps unaware that they come from Canadian subsidiaries owned by some of the major game studios.

Following on we look at some video games developed in Canada, which you might have played thinking they were developed in the U.S. Read on if you are curious, as it might all lead to your surprise.

Bioware Games

Though Bioware is currently owned by EA, it was founded in Edmonton in 1995 by two physicians, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, and now has an office in Montreal as well as various locations throughout the U.S. The company is most notable for RPG titles, continuing their tradition of role playing games since the successful reception of Baldur’s Gate.

Bioware developed the Infinity engine, which allowed the creation of isometric-view games like Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2. Though originally it was an engine destined for an RTS project named Battleground Infinity, the project was turned into the first BG game and proved hugely successful. Bioware went on to create many other successful games like Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age: Origins.

Prior to the buy-out by EA, Bioware merged with Pandemic studios, originally based in Brisbane and Los Angeles. This lead to EA eventually buying the company out, since Pandemic became part of EA, though Bioware retained its own brand name. All the games were developed in Canada, with some games developed in collaboration with U.S. studios; this was the case for Mass Effect, which used level-scripting, a spawning system and mechanics that were fine-tuned by Demiurge Studios.

Ubisoft Montreal

This huge game company, third largest in Europe and fourth largest in the U.S., was originally founded in France by the Guillemot brothers and eventually expanded to include offices all over the world. The earliest branching-out took place with offices in Düsseldorf, Tokyo and Montreal, which is where many successful game franchises have been developed. A large part of video games developed in Canada come from Ubisoft Montreal.

Ubi’s catalogue is huge, featuring anything from point-and-click adventures to first-person shooters. Last year the company founded their own film-studio, Ubisoft Motion Pictures in Paris, which has plans on bringing adaptations of games to Film and TV. Jean Julien Baronet admits it is an ambitious project, though one that could prove successful for the company.

The early days of releases by Ubi, for platforms like the C64 and the Commodore Amiga, are not really remembered for memorable titles. With the creation of Ubisoft Montreal games like Far Cry 2/3, Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia with extra eye-candy paved the way for future success.

EA Canada
Electronic Arts’ history is rich and goes back all the way to the late 80’s, a company originally founded by Trip Hawkins who went on to form 3DO and Digital Chocolate. EA has offices all over the world with EA Canada being part of the EA sports brand and EA Montreal mainly famous for Boogie and Army of 2.
EA Canada was originally Distinctive Software, a company which worked closely with the renowned Accolade to publish mainly racing titles and 4d Sports titles. DSI ported many games for home consoles, the most famous perhaps being successful ports of Altered Beast under Unlimited Software, a division of the company. Eventually EA bought the company out, which became the current head-quarters for EA Canada.

The list of games developed by EA Canada includes all the later FIFA titles – since the FIFA 06 franchise is exclusively developed in Canada for publishing by EA Sports – the NBA Live and NHL titles, some of the SSX series for various consoles and the Need for Speed series of games.

Other Notable Companies
Though the ones above pretty much represent the big boys in terms of catalog, there are many other developers which offer no less in terms of quality. Relic, based in Vancouver, brought us Company of Heroes which is a popular RTS, while Digital Extremes, based in London, gave us the Ultima series while taking on some work for Bioshock and Bioshock 2.

Rockstar Vancouver, previously Barking Dog Studios, is perhaps most notable for Bully and its sequel, though the original company also contributed to Valve’s release of the Half-life mod Counterstrike. Of course they play some part in the current and future GTA design aspects. Currently RS Vancouver is planning Max Payne 3.

It is worth mentioning Beenox, who are owned by Activision and have various subsidiaries in Canada (Radical Entertainment, DemonWare) though they are mostly known for their ports essentially having begun as a porting-house. Beenox is on the rise, with releases like Guitar Hero Smash Hits becoming quite popular and their latest Spider Man release enjoying good success. Please comment below If you feel some important video games developed in Canada have been omitted.

Black Rock Shooter aims for Western release

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
NIS America licenses Image Epoch's Japanese PSP role-playing game for North America and Europe; release window to be determined.

NIS America is primarily known for its localized Japanese role-playing games, but the publisher's latest announced title is Black Rock Shooter: The Game, which happens to be a Japanese role-playing game.

Be sure to keep an eye out for Black Rock role-playing game, which would presumably be a shooter.

NIS America has acquired the license to publish Image Epoch's PSP RPG Black Rock Shooter: The Game in North America and Europe. Black Rock Shooter is based on the anime of the same name, but it is actually set in a different universe. The game boasts character designs by Huke and cutscenes by animation studio Ufotable, which has also worked on God Eater Burst and the upcoming Tales of Xillia RPG.

Set roughly 20 years in the future, Black Rock Shooter imagines an Earth that has been at war with aliens for decades, with humanity literally on its last legs. With just a dozen humans left on the planet, a battle android named BRS is activated in a final attempt to save the species.

Image Epoch is perhaps best known for its Luminous Arc series of DS role-playing games. However, Western gamers may also know the portable specialist from the DS RPG Sands of Destruction, or its lone console effort, last year's Arc Rise Fantasia for the Wii.

There is no release window for Black Rock Shooter in Western markets as of yet, but NIS America has said that will be announced in the near future.

Twisted Metal launching February 14

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Eat Sleep Play vehicular combat revival gets a new release date; demented driver Dollface featured in new trailer.

It's shaping up to be a pretty grim Valentine's Day for gamers. Sega has already set February 14 as the launch date for Binary Domain, a third-person shooter about humanity's subjugation by its own robotic creations. Now Sony has pinned the same date down for Twisted Metal, the latest entry in its sinister vehicular combat series featuring a cast of crazed characters with a serious bloodlust.

Twisted Metal may make for a memorable Valentine's Day.

Eat Sleep Play cofounder David Jaffe revealed the new date in a video message on the PlayStation Blog. Originally set for an October 4 debut,Twisted Metal was delayed earlier this month, with Jaffe saying at the time that the game wasn't ready, but the postponement would allow the team to "polish our demented baby until it shines."

The first installment in the series since 2008's Twisted Metal: Head-On - Extra Twisted Edition for the PlayStation 2, Twisted Metal is being developed by many of the series' original designers at Eat Sleep Play. Besides a campaign mode, the game will sport two-player split-screen action, as well as online battles.

Super Monday Night Combat

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Uber Entertainment's freemium follow-up to class-based third-person shooter revealed; new classes, maps, modes among the planned changes.


It has been barely a year since Monday Night Combat burst onto the scene as an Xbox 360 Summer of Arcade game, but the developers at Uber Entertainment are already ready for round two. As reported by Kotaku, Uber Entertainment is readying Super Monday Night Combat for an initial PC release on Steam late this year or early next.

The debut platform isn't the only thing new for Super Monday Night Combat; Uber Entertainment is changing the game to a freemium business model, so players will be able to play for free, with some content locked away for purchase. Anticipating skepticism over the business model, the developer has said that players will also be able to earn "the vast majority" of the purchasable items by playing the game instead of spending money.


 As for what's new for Super Monday Night Combat, Uber is adding new character classes, uniforms, gear, maps, game modes, and more. The developers are hoping to place a greater emphasis on strategic team play, with generally less lethal weapons and skills. The game will also tweak some of the basic rules, as teams will now have five players each instead of six.


Uber has not ruled out an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 launch for Super Monday Night Combat, but the type of freemium business model it is built on has yet to be embraced on either system. An open beta is set to kick off soon after this weekend's Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, Washington.

Gears of War 3 gold

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot

Series design director Cliff Bleszinski confirms that development has wrapped on Epic Games' latest Xbox 360-exclusive third-person shooter.

The original Gears of War trilogy is finally finished. Series design director Cliff Bleszinski today posted an update to his Twitter account confirming that Gears of War 3 has gone gold in advance of its September 20 launch date.

Epic is Gear-ing up for the game's launch.

The news was accompanied by a picture of a cake to mark the occasion. The cake, designed to look like the Gears of War 3-branded Xbox 360 hardware, contained a congratulatory message in icing celebrating the game's completion.

Originally pegged to debut in April, Gears of War 3 begins with the last human city having been obliterated and series hero Marcus Fenix trying to protect the remaining humans from the Locust horde as well as from the newer, deadlier foe, the mutating Lambent.

Gears of War 3 will be available in three versions this September: standard ($60), Limited ($80), and Epic ($150). The centerpiece of this year's $150 Gears of War 3 Epic Edition will be a limited-run Marcus Fenix statue.

'People don't want' PS Vita - Heavy Iron

By Eddie Makuch, Tom Magrino, GameSpot

Developers offer grim assessment of upcoming portable, saying Sony will have a tough time finding audience with prevalence of iOS and Android devices.

Nintendo is having a tough time with its 3DS. Not six months after the device launched, Nintendo slashed the price tag on its 3D-enabled handheld by 32 percent in the US, and analysts heralded the move as evidence that the market is shifting away from gaming-specific hardware. Now, according to Heavy Iron Studios heads Lyle Hall and Matthew Seymour, Sony and its PlayStation Vita are also in trouble.

It seems safe to say that Heavy Iron Studios will be staying away from the PS Vita.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Heavy Iron Studios' president and CEO Lyle Hall said that the PS Vita is going to have a hard time succeeding at its price point when it is released in Europe and the US in 2012. A primary reason for this, he believes, is competition from multipurpose iOS and Android mobile devices.

"If people aren't willing to pay $249 for a Nintendo 3DS, why would they pay $299 for Vita?" he said. "People don't want to carry more than one thing in their pocket; that's why Android and iPhone have done so well. They are the devices of choice; they offer multiple functions outside of gaming."

"People don't want it. That's Nintendo's huge challenge--how do they add value to that?"

Heavy Iron Studios' Matthew Seymour was harsher with his assessment of the PS Vita's launch prospects. "With all due respect to Sony and Vita, it's a car wreck," he said.

According to GI.biz, Seymour has some 20 year's game-industry experience and formerly headed up Silent Hill: Downpour studio Vatra Games.

As for Heavy Iron Studios, the Los Angeles-based developer was formed in 1999 as a wholly owned THQ shop. The outfit created several licensed titles, including games based on Spongebob, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and others. In 2009, following the release of a title based on Disney Pixar's Up, the studio became independent. Most recently, Heavy Iron Studios shipped UFC Personal Trainer and is currently at work on unannounced projects.

Although Hall was harsh in his critique of the PS Vita, he did state his admiration for the technology. According to Hall, "The technology is sweet; I'm a huge fan of mobile technology, but I just don't know there's a market out there anymore for the hardware. I can't see why you would want to put a device out that only does games."

Sony's latest efforts in the portable device sector haven't proven too fruitful for the Japanese giant. Most recently, Sony discontinued production of the PSP Go in Japan, following its rocky launch in 2009, and the PlayStation Phone--the Xperia Play--was initially sold for $200 in May and then was quickly cut to $100 in July.

Binary Domain hits Xbox 360 and PS3 February 14

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot

Sega has set a date for the robotic uprising of its upcoming Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game Binary Domain. The squad-based third-person shooter will get the chance to win gamers' hearts in North America this coming Valentine's Day, February 14, with European players able to pick it up February 17.

Is anyone supposed to be surprised when a robot that looks like that turns on humanity?
Binary Domain is set in Tokyo in the year 2080, a time when humans are locked in battle with robots. In the game, players take control of a human peacekeeping team set on regaining control of the city. However, as the peacekeepers continue their fight against the robots, they begin to ponder whether or not they are becoming robotic or robots are becoming human. The game is the latest project from Toshihiro Nagoshi, best known for his work on the Yakuza and Super Monkey Ball franchises.

"When you hear sci-fi you may think of cold, clinical environments, but with Binary Domain I wanted to combine this with a deep human drama," Nagoshi said upon the game's announcement. "The keyword we have in mind for this project is 'Life.' I wanted to make something that will be accepted by both the Japanese and Western markets, and this fundamental theme is something everyone knows but which the full extent of can be difficult to grasp."

iPad 3 coming early 2012

 By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Aug 19, 2011 11:54 pm SST


Earlier this year, Apple launched the iPad 2 to sales that far surpassed even those of the original iPad. Next year, the Cupertino, California-based company may be hoping for history to repeat itself, if a Wall Street Journal report is any indication.

So after iPad 3, will Apple start on the iPad prequels?
The financial daily is citing "people familiar with the situation" with the news that Apple is readying an iPad 3 for release early next year. According to the paper's sources, Apple has begun ordering vital components for its next-generation iPad, with the unit's screen expected to have a higher resolution than that of the current iPad. Where the original iPad and iPad 2 boast 1024x768 displays, the iPad 3 will supposedly feature a 2048x1536 screen.

One of Apple's manufacturing suppliers told the Wall Street Journal that the company had ordered components for 1.5 million iPad 3s, with production to ramp up in advance of an early 2012 consumer launch.

Even with an iPad 3 launch, Apple may be hard pressed to top the growth it has enjoyed during its current fiscal year, which ends September 24. Over the first three quarters of its year, Apple has posted consecutive year-over-year sales spikes of 71 percent, 83 percent, and 82 percent. For the fourth quarter, Apple has projected its revenues to be up roughly 60 percent to $25 billion.

The Truth in (Mostly) Black and White

You Shall Know The Truth is a timed hidden object game developed by Jonas Kyratzes for the Wikileaks Stories project. You play a spy sent by the U.S. intelligence community to retrieve leaked documents and biometric data on an unnamed Wikileaks employee from his or her apartment. It's a difficult game, not in that it's particularly trying to find all of the mission-targeted data before the timer runs out but because it adds a dark, humorous edge to a genre of casual games that traditionally has no ideological bent. It is also contradictory and perhaps difficult to take seriously at times, but, taken as a whole, it's a complex work with a novel take on the intersection between politics and play. Check it out before reading on, because there are spoilers ahead.
You Shall Know The Truth is a twisted fantasy. The apartment where the game takes place is sparse and messy. There's a creepy tinge of voyeurism to the exploration of the space, your cursor slowly scanning back and forth over living room, office, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. At times the line between real-world intelligence worker and cartoonish TV spy becomes blurred; the text on non-mission-critical items constantly undercuts the competency and rationality of the CIA, and it's hard not to imagine the player-character foaming at the mouth and cackling while combing the apartment's every carpet for biological material. Because the player is sent to retrieve information that we already know to have been leaked, we understand that, in some way, our mission is doomed to fail.
The game's timer is set to 999 seconds, and, though I might be wrong here, this means that it's long enough to allow the player to process every object in the apartment without running out of time. This also means that the game is dropping hints for us that it isn't actually about finding hidden objects. Nevertheless, you don't know that the first time you play it. Every object in the room has a different progress ticker, and you feel a decent amount of pressure while waiting for the ticker to slowly count off. This waiting screen briefly describes the object you've clicked on and justifies why you'd want to look at said object. You Shall Know The Truth is currently the only Wikileaks Stories game that actually includes information about specific leaks, paraphrasing their content during the verification process of mission-targeted items.
It's a clever way to weave this information into the game, giving you something to read while the progress counter ticks off. One could criticize the game for not making this text permit any other interaction besides cold reading, and it's certainly possible to stare at the progress counter instead of engaging with the content, but we can assume that anyone who might take the time to play a Wikileaks Stories game would care enough to take a look. I'm an impatient gamer, especially when a mission clock is involved, but it worked for me--I learned about a good number of leaks that I hadn't read about in other media sources (and the cable codes are included, making it easy to Google for more information elsewhere).

The Frightening, Real-World Strength of Channel 4's 'Sweatshop' Game

Originally published on PBS's MediaShift Idea Lab on July 27, 2011.

Sweatshop is a new browser game, developed by Littleloud for Channel 4 Education, in which players fill the role of a factory floor manager in a developing nation. Taking design cues from the tower defense genre, the game tasks you with placing skilled workers and child laborers along a conveyor belt. It's also one of the most compelling and effective political games I've seen in recent years.

Orders for different kinds of garments -- including hats, shirts, bags and shoes -- come down the line, and laborers assemble these products at varying speeds according to their specialty (or lack thereof, in the case of the children). For each completed garment, the player receives a small amount of cash that is then reinvested into hiring more workers or purchasing support items such as water coolers, fans and portable toilets. Some support items increase the speed or profitability of workers within their zone of effect, while others are required to prevent their inevitable exhaustion and (later in the game) bodily harm.

Over the course of 30 stages, players are scored on the efficiency and, ultimately, character of their management decisions. This is reinforced by a trophy system, a karma meter, and a version of the classic shoulder angel/devil duo: a pitiable Child working in the factory and the comically inhumane Boss.

The Child, who is always placed on the line for free at the beginning of each stage, explains how new support items can be used to help keep workers safe. In between stages, the Child presents brief factoids on sweatshop labor around the world. The Boss harangues players at the beginning and end of each work day, only taking a break from shouting and spewing his bad-taste humor to take phone calls from the pompous fashion industry moguls who send in orders.