BIOWARE’S MASS EFFECT 2 HAILED AS 1st BLOCKBUSTER OF 2010
Game Earns Rave Reviews, Sells 2Million Units in Week One
Guildford, UK (January 29, 2010) – Forty perfect scores. Two million units. One pop culture phenomenon. BioWare™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), announced today that Mass Effect™ 2 has sold-in over two million units worldwide in its first week of release*. Lauded for its intense shooter gameplay and deep, hand-crafted story, Mass Effect 2 has earned an average review score of 96** — making it the second highest rated game of all time on the Xbox 360 platform***. Mass Effect 2 has earned 40 perfect scores, amassed over 30 editor’s choice awards and is donning the front cover of 20 magazines worldwide. On launch day, the term “Mass Effect” was in the top 10 trending topics on Twitter and most searched on Google News. MSNBC.com said, “Mass Effect will go down as one of the most influential video game series of all-time.”
Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder, BioWare and Group General Manager of the RPG/MMO Group of EA said, “Mass Effect 2 is poised to be one of the biggest games of 2010. We could not be more proud of the game’s universal acclaim and early commercial success.”
Mass Effect 2 launched this week hot on the heels of BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins, the studio’s dark fantasy RPG which shipped in fall 2009. Dragon Age: Origins has earned an average review score of 91****, making it the highest rated original intellectual property from EA in the last year. Mass Effect 2 follows in BioWare’s tradition of delivering excellence on every front: gameplay, story, character development and visuals. Mass Effect 2 is an epic shooter/RPG set in a vast universe filled with dangerous alien life and mysterious, uncharted planets. In Mass Effect 2, players step into the role of the heroic Commander Shepard, leading a crew of some of the most dangerous operatives from across the galaxy on a mission so challenging that it’s potentially suicidal. Featuring intense action, a rich storyline, space exploration and engaging character interaction, Mass Effect 2 delivers an unparalleled gaming experience.
Mass Effect 2 is available for the Xbox 360 and the PC and is 15 by the BBFC. For more information, follow the development team on Twitter at http://twitter.com/masseffect2 or visit the game’s official UK website at http://getmasseffect.ea.com.
*According to internal EA data.
**On Xbox 360 platform according to Metacritic.com.
***Mass Effect 2 is tied for second place according to Metacritic.com.
****On PC according to Metacritic.com.
Some players were unable to unlock the four achievements from Warden's Keep and the Stone Prisoner during the first four days of launch. These achievements will unlock properly once you sign in to your Xbox Live and EA accounts.
The previous Xbox 360 update update introduced an issue that relocked class specializations. This title update will resolve that issue.
* After loading a previously saved game, specializations that have been unlocked through gameplay will be available again.
* All book-based specializations will now automatically unlock once the Warden reaches level 14. Books will still be available from vendors so you can unlock these specializations before level 14.
The Hopeless Romantic, Perfectionist and Recruiter achievements were not unlocking for some players. This issue has been resolved. To update and unlock these achievements automatically, load a saved game where the Warden has completed the requirements for these achievements.
* The Recruiter achievement will still require a recruitment to occur after the save is loaded. If you have completed all the requirements for Recruiter, and the achievement is still locked, load an earlier saved game where you are still able to recruit any party member. Once you have recruited a party member, the achievement should unlock. This should work even if your current saved game still has unrecruited characters, but you have recruited all of them in previous play.
Presenting part two in the Red Dead Redemption Gameplay Video Series: Weapons & Death - a special in-depth look at Red Dead’s shooting – including information about the advancements in weapons technology during the time period in which the game is set, as well as a look at how the “Dead-Eye” targeting system and natural motion physics work.
Surprise Reveal: Xbox 360 Battlefield Bad Company 2 MP Demo is live on Xbox Marketplace! Go get it!!!!!!!http://twitter.com/OfficialBFBC2/status/8317834065
ESRB may be untrusted, liked or loathed depending on your opinion of them, but if there is one thing you have to give them its they know how to make a game sound interesting. While this rating summary isn't as good as Mass Effect 2's, which included them talking about the "unzipping of future blouse" and "Krogan sexual deviants enjoy salarian flexibility". However, Dead To Rights: Retribution is up there not for pure hilarity even though it is pretty funny that they counted how many times there's swearing in it, but because they make this game sound completely fricking awesome and actually make me want to get it now. Also you really have to wonder how determined they had to be to sit there and count every swear word you can just imagine them going "Ok 263 f**ks.... crap I lost count time to start over again".
"This is a third-person shooter in which players assume the role of Jack Slate, a renegade cop seeking revenge in the criminal underworld of Grant City. Players can complete various missions (e.g., rescuing, infiltrating, escaping), engage in fistfights and gun battles against terrorists and thugs, and use a canine side-kick (Shadow) to takedown enemies, to "dash-attack" and maul them. Combat involves a mix of hand-to-hand combat and gun shooting: Pistols, shotguns, turrets, explosives, and assault rifles are frequently used to kill human enemies; "clinch" and "disarm" moves highlight close-up punching, shooting, and kicking—sometimes in slow-motion, often ending in a pistol-whipping or pummeling, a shot to the knee-cap. And when characters take damage from gunfire or melee attacks, blood will splatter in the air, sometimes the screen. Blood also appears in large pools on the ground."
"During the course of the game, players will hear some strong profanity (around 275 f**ks, 90 or so sh*ts); players may also see a man who snorts a line of cocaine. The sexual content is minor (the reason for Suggestive Themes, not the Mature rating), but parents and consumers may still want to know—a concept image depicts a strip club named "Licensed Sex Shows," with an accompanying female silhouette; a still-frame cutscene briefly shows a pole dancer at a strip club."
"Two of the more intense depictions of violence include finishing moves called "takedowns" and Shadow's specialized attacks. Players control the dog as it pounces, bites, and digs into the chests of enemies crying out in pain—blood surfaces out of bodies like funneled dirt. And similar to the close-up clinch and disarm moves, the takedown attacks involve more dramatic, protracted instances of killing (sequences often culminating in quick-time events—watching a triggered one-to-two-second cutscene of the kill); these finishing moves depict neck-snapping, back-breaking, electrocution (from a gun, not an interrogator), shooting enemies in the back of the head while down, planting explosives on their shoulders and backs. That is why, Intense Violence at M."
Really if you didn't think that was a great description of a game then I don't know what is. Be sure to check back as Dead To Rights: Retribution comes closer to a release date.
Bungie recently stated to Edge Online that its upcoming title Halo: Reach the prequel to the halo trilogy is "bending the Xbox as far as it'll bend".
"We are... taking every advantage of everything on the CPU and GPU and every bit of memory in order to produce the look of Reach beyond anything of Halo 3," said creative director Marcus Lehto.
"We're pushing it as far as we can go. With every iteration we understand what more we can exploit with the hardware."
Bungie didn't stop there however they even went so far as to say that they have made huge improvements to the AI, increasing replayibility without it needing to be scripted.
"The difference between the fully scripted experience, like Uncharted, or the organic experience you can receive in a Halo game speaks to its longevity," divulged Lehto. "You can keep playing singleplayer missions over and over again and get a different experience. And it's certainly the case for multiplayer, which plays for years and years."
We will have to wait and see if it can live up to these bold claims, but if anybody could do it, it would be Bungie.
While I wouldn't normally report on any games box art this isn't any game this is Naughty Bear.
Naughty Bear is an upcoming game from 505 studios and focuses on Naughty Bear after he wasn't invited to Daddles birthday party, he soon goes on the warpath seeking revenge and if the first two trailers are anything to go by, expect stuffing to be flying everywhere. Expect Teddy Bears picnic mixed with Friday the 13th. The trailers also informed us that we can expect some form of gun play as Naughty Bear is clearly seen wielding a shotgun in the second trailer to hunt down one of the teddy bears.
Although no release date has been confirmed yet expect a 2010 release. This is one game I am definitely looking forward to, expect more details and hopefully tons more stuffing filled trailers as we draw closer to a potential release date.
If this blog post hold any truth, then Harmonix isn't working on the Green Day : Rock band.
Instead it looks like dev duties has fallen to Demiurge Studios who are the developoers of the retail released track packs for Rock band.
An employee at Demiurge Studios, Adam Rosenfield posted the some what unsurprising news on his blog,
“Not included in the announcement was the fact that Demiurge Studios was working on Green Day: Rock Band. And I gotta say, it’s pretty freakin’ awesome working on it. I’d love to tell you more, but NDAs, yada yada yada, so I can’t say much else.”
The reason this is unsurprising is that it agrees with what MTV Game SVP, Paul De Goyer said last week, when he said that Harmonix were working on another game besides the Green Day themed title, but never specifically stated that Harmonix wouldn't be developing it.
This has fueled speculation that Harmonix are working on Rock Band 3, keep checking back at Game Attic as we get more info on both of these potential titles.
DICE has revealed to OXM magazine that the studio is thinking about doing a potential sequel to the hit Xbox Live Arcade and PSN title Battlefield 1943.
We will see more of those in the future? We’ll see,” said Executive Producer on the Battlefield series, Karl-Magnus Troedsson.
“As a franchise, we’re going to focus on the near future but that doesn’t exclude that we can do more of these smaller products in the near future.”
He also confirmed that we can expect premium DLC for the game, no indication of a timeframe was given but with it potentially being linked to he launch of the PC version of the game later this year.
Check back here as DICE releases more news on a potential sequel and on the DLC, also be sure to check out Game Attics review of Battlefield 1943 here.
Gameplay is kept simple and is all the better for it. Think of this as the original 'domination' from Call of Duty where you play as the US Marine Corps and the Japanese Imperial Army on one of three maps (Wake Island, Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal) and you objective is to secure the most bases and run down your opponents meter at the top of the screen before yours depletes. 
Straight from Lionhead's Facebook page this one.
It's been announced today that Dara O'Briain will host the 2010 Bafta Game Awards on Friday 19th March 2010.
Comedian and avid gamer Dara O’Briain, is set to host the 2010 GAME
British Academy Video Games Awards for the second time.
Arguably the most successful Irish comedian to have hit the UK for a
decade, Dara has hosted and appeared on a number of TV shows, and toured
extensively across England and Ireland. He has currently just commenced his 2010
UK tour.
O’Briain who is a lifelong gamer said, “I am delighted to have been
asked back to host the GAME BAFTA’s for the second year running. It’s an honour
to acclaim the very real people whose creativity, innovation and wit produce
such amazing virtual worlds”.
Ray Maguire, Chairman of the Video Games Committee said “It is
fantastic to have Dara hosting again this year. It makes a huge difference when
a host understands games & Dara does, he is also brilliantly
funny!”
The GAME British Academy Video Games Awards will take place on
Friday, March 19 at the London Hilton on Park Lane, with the nominations being
announced on Tuesday 16 February. The awards will be streamed live for the first
time at www.bafta.org and www.baftagameaward.com
Once the list of nominees has been announced, you can find them here.
No one knew when it would be out and it looked like it could have been Christmas 10' but not anymore.
May 18th, pick up Lost Planet 2! Note, this is out on a Tuesday not Friday so no late night that night.
