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As what one might call mainstream consumers of interactive entertainment, we're quick to snicker at anything too concerned with elves and dragons, or any kind of stat-juggling role-playing game. That said, we've always had a soft spot for epic, story-driven games such as Oblivion and Fallout 3, which use the trapping of the RPG format to build a fully realized virtual world.
This year's entry in the epic RPG/adventure game category is Dragon Age: Origins, released Tuesday. After getting an early preview during this year's Game Developer's Conference, we were surprisingly hooked and eager to see more. Having now played a preview build of the game for the past six weeks, we can safely say it's one of the year's best, alongside Batman: Arkham Asylum and The Beatles: Rock Band.
More surprisingly, it's a rare example of a game that calls out for a high-powered PC rig. While Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions are available, this is one of the few high-profile games in 2009 designed and built for PC gamers and then ported to home consoles, rather than the other way around. While it keeps the same storyline, characters, and locations--along with a redesigned menu system for gamepads and lower-resolution TV screens--we judged the PC version to be superior, with better graphics, a more flexible camera, and the ability to easily pause the action for some strategic planning.
In our initial preview back in March, we felt the heart of the game--a sprawling big-budget action/adventure in the style of the "Lord of the Rings" movies--was buried under tired ideas about how to best sell a game of the sword-and-sorcery genre. There was plenty of talk about party management, the history of various fictional kingdoms, and most frightening, a "prequel novel" explaining the game's backstory.
Fortunately, EA has gone into the home stretch emphasizing the massive battle scenes, PG-13 love triangles, and--of course--the occasional fight with a giant dragon.
While the major beats of the game remain the same, we were impressed that the choice of race (human, elf, or dwarf), profession (fighter, mage, or rogue), and even social status (noble or commoner) determines which of six opening chapters you play through--potentially making the first two-to-three hours of the game different each time, depending on the character you design.
To be sure, entering the world of Dragon Age is no small commitment for casual gamers. There's a ton of dialog, pages and pages of onscreen text to read (a throwback to early computer RPGs that feels in need of an update), and a fair amount hacky scriptwriting involving every cliche in the fantasy genre. The voice actors generally do a fine job, but too often are stuck delivering lines from a Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movie.
Still, even non-RPG types like ourselves were able to get the hand of it quickly, and thanks to expert pacing, interspacing exploration and interaction with plenty of combat, the hours seemed to fly by. We suggest putting any lingering anti-RPG bias aside and taking the very impressive Dragon Age: Origins for a spin; and for PC gamers, it's practically a must-play.
Scott Stein offers a concurring opinion:
Games like Dragon Age: Origins are instantly unappealing to me. There's a seemingly generic fantasy setting and the sense that this is some pre-existing game in a franchise that I'm unaware of and will therefore feel confused by.
Thankfully, Bioware seems well aware of my apprehensions and held my hand from the very get-go. Picking a character and backstory developed into an unfolding of the story that felt organic, and explained everything as if setting up exposition for a good movie. So few games do this, and I appreciated that you could also pick your starting point for the story, changing many elements by doing so.
Did it win me over? In a way, yes. It's still a huge tip of the hat to classic swords-and-sorcery gaming (I prefer RPGs closer to Phantasy Star in setting), but it's made with the care of a Peter Jackson "Lord of the Rings" movie. Pretend you've never played one of these games before, then give it a try.
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One of the holiday season games we're most bullish on is Dragon Age: Origins. While this nerd-tastic tale of dragons and elves and guys wearing chainmail armor isn't for everyone (or even usually our cup of tea), the large chunks of the game we've played have had a mainstream Lord of the Rings epic action movie vibe, rather than rolling a 20-sided die in your parents' basement. Plus, it's one of the only big budget games in recent years developed first for PC gaming, and then ported to living room consoles, rather than the other way around.
We saw two early tastes of the game this morning (one very literally). The first is a browser-based flash game spinoff, called Dragon Age Journeys. Billed as an "EA 2D Production" it's a surprisingly faithful recreation of the full game, from the menus and interfaces to the dialog system -- just recast as cartoonish 2D animation. Combat has a similar feel, with plenty of special attacks and powers to use, but it's more strictly turn-based in the browser version.
Unfortunately, it's not embeddable, but the dragonagejourneys.com Web site does allow you to save your game and even create multiple characters.
Coincidentally, moments after we logged into Dragon Age Journeys, a promotional package for the game hit our desk. The box contained a pile of hay-like material and a small wooden box. Inside the box was a vial of red liquid and a wax-sealed note written in the game's arch-geek style, warning us that "Some master the blood of the darkspawn, some perish."
Our promotional vial of demon blood actually had a handy (and probably legally required) list ingredients attached, which included taurine, caffeine, ginseng, elderberry juice, and, of course, sodium benzoate and FD&C Red #40. We haven't dared touch it...yet.
We're not drinking this stuff...
Update: Our buddy Russ at MTV.com actually drank the stuff, and filmed himself doing it.
(Credit:
EA)
Electronic Arts's certainly not afraid of controversy. In fact, the company seems to be embracing it with arms wide open.
At a recent "Naughty or Nice" event in New York, we had the opportunity to play Dante's Inferno hands-on. The Xbox 360 and PS3 video game, which recasts the epic Dante poem as a God of War-type journey through nesting levels of hell, is certainly wearing its M rating on its sleeve (Note: while the ESRB hasn't officially rated this game yet, it's pretty clear there's no other rating it would achieve). The producers brazenly showed the Lust level of the game, with some eye-popping (and incredibly disturbing) animations, including an enormous bare-breasted demon boss who births termite-like knife-handed demon-babies from her nipples.
Therefore, it's no surprise really that this news item emerged about one of Dante's Inferno's "achievements." The International Nanny Association is up in arms about an achievement called "Bad Nanny" that triggers when the game's protagonist kills unbaptized babies.
Having played the game, we're pretty sure the babies being referred to are in fact demon-creatures in baby form, but this still seems like a controversial and offensively described event to flaunt with GamerScore points. Shockingly, however, the nanny organization seems mostly upset because the achievement casts nannies in a bad light.
Is this as bad as Hot Coffee, or simply PR steam? Admittedly, this is a game set in hell--but is there such a thing as too much? Also, how exactly did the International Nanny Association get wind of God of Hell's--we mean, Dante's Inferno's--achievement lists, we wonder?
(Source: Game Politics via Joystiq)
(Credit:
Scott Stein/CNET)
The real NFL season is about to kick off, and EA has seized the opportunity to finally slide in the release of its much-anticipated port of Madden to the iPhone/iPod Touch format. It represents the meeting of the mobile entertainment industry's unstoppable force, Apple's black slab of wonder, with the gaming industry's immovable object. Available at $7.99 through the kickoff of the Steelers-Titans game tonight and $9.99 afterward, is it worth your hard-earned tailgate dollars? We played it last week here at the CNET offices and played it a lot more on our own iPhone last night, and here's our verdict.
It took EA a few weeks longer to get its iPhone act together than Gameloft did with NFL 2010. Did it pay off? Well, in some ways, yes. The player models and 3D stadiums seem better rendered than Madden's NFL-licensed and similarly-named App Store rival, NFL 2010 by Gameloft, but with a significant drawback: the framerate on our 3GS playthrough was significantly choppier than NFL 2010. A future update will hopefully fix this, but in the meantime it doesn't affect gameplay enough to be a game-killer. The presentation and commentary are impressive, nearing console level but hovering nearer to PSP and DS versions of Madden.
The biggest fear among those who play any type of hardcore game is whether losing a physical control pad affects gameplay in any significant way. The answer is simple: yes, it does. I've played games on my iPhone for more than a year, and it rarely avoids feeling like a compromise: lose a control pad, but gain a simplified interface and an extremely compact form in a smartphone. As to whether it's worth it, ask yourself if you'd rather tote around a PSP or a Nintendo DS in your pocket in addition to your phone, or just carry an iPhone and lose a few controls, and you'll have your answer.
The solution EA has given is the same many developers have, including Gameloft: add a virtual stick in the lower left corner, and a series of context-sensitive buttons in the lower right. The problem with the virtual stick is that, like other titles, it can be lost in the shuffle on heavy-focus moments of game play. There's no tactile feedback, so it must be looked after, unlike a real analog pad. When playing Madden, that means a lot of the accuracy is lost. But the good news is that this game wasn't really designed for finesse play. We'll explain. ... Read more
Madden hits Apple's small screen, and Favre rises from the dead.
(Credit: EA Sports)Madden may rule the roost of NFL games for the most part, but one pesky little company still has a license for mobile phone-based NFL games, too: Gameloft. We covered NFL 2010 recently, and mentioned that it could give Madden a run for its money in the mobile space.
While Madden for the iPhone and iPod Touch was rumored before, EA Sports has formally confirmed the release of the game with some screenshots and a promise that it will be available "in time for opening day," which is September 10. Promising expertise that 20 years in the business can provide, the news release for Madden on the iPhone and iPod Touch is clearly cognizant that there is a competitor out there already.
A large number of baffling icons fill the right corner of the screen.
(Credit: EA Sports)One observation, looking at these screens, is that there's more than a little similarity between the interfaces of this game and NFL 2010. A virtual joystick on the left combined with contextual action buttons on the right will try to accommodate for the missing control pad in much the same way as Gameloft's title--although to be fair to Madden, it looks as if it has more action-button options on the offensive snap plays shown. Receivers look like they're color-coded based on how open they are, and it seems like tap-to-throw may also be the mechanic here, as it is in NFL 2010.
... Read more
Episode 34 of the Digital City, where we discuss our predictions for the E3 video game trade show. Note that there are two versions of the show available now, the traditional audio stream, and our exciting, new video version -- check out both below.
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The long-buzzed-about Beatles video game, from the creators of the Rock Band franchise, made news this past week with some pricing details and an official release date. The Beatles: Rock Band, coming September 9, 2009, will be available as a $59 stand-alone game, a $99 bundle with a guitar, and a $249 bundle which also includes a drum kit.
While this is about as big a coup as a video game publisher could hope for, and we'll be the first in line to jam along with "Hey Bulldog" (which will hopefully be included), there's still reason to be concerned that as long-time holdouts to any form of digital distribution, the Beatles are showing up too late to make a real splash.
The most important factor is that consumers may have already reached a saturation point in terms of music rhythm games. We're on the fourth generation of guitar-bundled music games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and the second generation of the full drum/guitar/microphone versions. Even though both franchises continue to be popular, they're not selling as quickly as they used to--after all, once you have one set of plastic drums and guitars--do you really need another?
Viacom recently saw, "lower sales of Rock Band than we originally hoped," and Activision says sales of Guitar Hero games are down 22 percent year-over-year. When we visited a local Circuit City to check out its liquidation sale, one of the most striking images was the stacks and stacks of discounted, but unsold, music games.
Also worth considering is that the Beatles (and their heirs and business partners) have largely sat out the most recent trends in music distribution, ignoring digital download opportunities such as iTunes and the Amazon MP3 store.
While surely gaining new young fans every day, this is still a band that broke up in 1970. Other longtime MP3 holdouts include Metallica (now available on iTunes) and AC/DC, but both those bands have continued to tour and release new material--and both have already climbed on the guitar game bandwagon. By keeping the music in the walled garden of physical CD sales for so long, there may be an entire generation of digital natives (a key video game demographic) that have missed out that particular Magical Mystery Tour.
(Credit:
EA Sprots)
March 11 marks a first for EA. Available via downloadable content is the official NCAA Tournament edition of its college basketball video game. This will be exclusive DLC for the Xbox 360, fittingly called NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition.
NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition will be easy to download for the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Marketplace for 1,200 Microsoft Points beginning March 11. The game will initially feature teams from last year's tournament, and then beginning on March 18, it will feature the just-announced official Selection Sunday brackets and accurate teams with updated ratings.
"We really wanted to make our game available to a wider selection of fans that are drawn to college basketball by the passion, excitement and drama that surrounds March Madness," said Connor Dougan, Producer for NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition. "Fans will be able to experience the tournament, feel the adrenaline rush that comes with a single loss elimination tournament and write their own history."
"Few sporting events capture the excitement and intensity of March Madness, so it's great to be able to offer everyone a chance to play with NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition, an exclusive to Xbox Live and Xbox 360," said Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox Live. "Xbox Live continues to break new ground, offering new ways to play and enjoy your favorite games and entertainment. With EA we are offering everyone a chance to experience a blockbuster game tailored specifically for March Madness in a way that has never been done before."
The NCAA 2009 Tournament tips off exclusively on CBS Sports on March 19.
Check local listings for time and channel.One of the biggest titles to hit the Xbox 360, Mass Effect, may see its sequels on the PlayStation 3. With Electronic Art's purchase of BioWare, the developer of Mass Effect, and EA's history of not limiting itself to one platform, it's kind of a no-brainer. Especially once you throw in a poor economy where every sale counts.
According to the Web site OnAxis, Michael Pachter, Managing Director of Entertainment Software and Retail Research at Wedbush Morgan Securities, said he believes that Mass Effect will not remain an Xbox 360 exclusive.
Speaking with a panel of others on Gametrailer's show Bonus Round, Pachter commented, "Trust me, Electronic Arts, when they threw out the number 300 million...that is multiplatform, that is not 360 only." And when asked if Mass Effect 2 will come to the PS3, he said, "It has to, has to. And you know, I wouldn't be shocked if Mass Effect 1 came to PS3."
An EA rep responded saying, "The rumor regarding Mass Effect being developed for PS3 is inaccurate," which isn't exactly a denial.
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Former radio DJ turned
journalist Dan Ackerman grew up in the Bronx and now lives in
Manhattan. He’s covered music, technology, and video games for
more than 10 years. His latest album, Tales Out of Night School
is available now. 
Joseph Kaminski,
when not juggling the dual demands of parenthood and HD gaming, is a
life-long Manhattanite and can be found testing the latest tech in
CNET’s Lab. 
Julie Rivera grew up
and currently resides in Brooklyn. When she's not deejaying,
bartending, or fixing gadgets for friends on the outside, you'll find
her testing, troubleshooting and developing benchmarks for laptops in
the "fish bowl" known as CNET Labs. 
Scott Stein, CNET's
newest laptops editor, was born in Queens and grew up a Long Islander -
and is now raising a kid in NYC. In addition to covering games and
tech, writing screenplays, and performing improv in seedy downtown
establishments, he's also a die-hard, season-ticket-holding Jets fan.
