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Spec Ops: The Line Will Mess With Your Head, Tear at Your Heart (Hands On)

Chris Carlson — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:30:52 +0000

When it comes to military shooters, I find it’s very hard for consumers, like myself, to actually express interest in a genre that is so wildly overused. My first thoughts usually are, “What does this game do differently than other games? Why should I even care about this title?” However, this is where I come in and tell you that you should keep a very close eye on Spec Ops: The Line. If you’ve been dying for an extremely solid military shooter that has a story that is genuinely interesting and downright emotional, this may be what you’ve been waiting for.

One of my most common problems with military shooters is finding a way to give two shits about the story. Usually it’s just another story about America invading/being invaded and you’re the hero. You blow shit up and move on with your day. That isn’t the case here. In fact, during my two hours spent playing the demo version shown, I expressed more interest and emotion in the game’s story than I had with every military shooter in 2011. I’m looking at you Modern Battlefield 3.

What Yager Development does particularly well with The Line is offer up very memorable story moments. When you look back on franchises like Call of Duty or Battlefield, you think about the biggest explosion or some incredible sniping mission. (You know damn well where you learned about the Coriolis effect.) Now, while the gameplay in Spec Ops: The Line is indeed superb, the most memorable moments are the emotional events that happen, not just the big budget action sequences.

If you were one of the lucky few who was able to participate in Yager’s Spec Ops: The Line EPD (Exclusive Private Demo) way back when, let it be known that much has changed since then, in a damn good way. First and foremost, the game has actually been in development for nearly five years, now. The reason for the huge gap between the EPD and now is due to a complete rewrite of the game’s script. They’ve also increased graphical detail, fine tuned the controls and evolved their core gameplay elements since then. Think about playing a less gruesome, yet more realistic version, of Gears of War in a Modern Warfare setting and you’ve got the general idea of Spec Ops: The Line.

The cover system and animations have been tuned to perfection, and the gunplay is fast, fun and intuitive. During my time with the demo version, I played through various sections of the game, with subtitled cutscenes to fill in the parts that weren’t shown. With the game being set in Dubai, you’d expect nothing but sandy levels. However, while those do exist, Yager has done a great job with variety in their color palette, as well as level design. In one part of the demo, there was a beautiful underground aquarium with multicolored glass statues making for a gorgeous environment to walk in; so beautiful, in fact, that I was afraid of even shooting my gun. That beauty ended when a body came crashing down through the ceiling onto the glass walkway, nearly shattering it to a thousand pieces.

Aside from the beautiful environments, Yager also is going for a somewhat cinematic experience. It’s nothing too over the top, like you’d see in Uncharted, but, rather, realistic events portrayed in cinematic form. Trust me when I say, they work beautifully. They feel natural, look fantastic and really draw you into the moment. Other little cinematic touches, like slowing down time when you pull off a quick head shot, really add to the direction Yager is heading. One of the coolest gameplay elements actually lies in the sand itself. Throwing a grenade may not kill someone in its blast radius, but it will kick sand up into their eyes, temporarily blinding them. Don’t tell me that ain’t cool.

You can also use the sand and environments to your advantage in battle. For example, shooting out a glass window could send a mountain of sand down onto your enemies. Some of these actions are scripted, but others are purely optional, and sometimes you wont even be aware that they exist unless you look closely at your surroundings. Of course, if you feel like blasting away every enemy you see, that’s entirely up to you. The Line also features Gears of War like executions, in a more realistic way. You’ll often find yourself stepping on the chest of an enemy then putting a bullet between their eyes. This brings me to another interesting gameplay element: Choice, consequence and multiple endings.

The developer I spoke to confirmed that the game will indeed have multiple endings, and that you’ll also have to make game changing decisions throughout. A few of these choices will actually have impact on the outcome of the game, but others will be more “in the moment” types of choices. Halfway through the demo, I had one of these “in the moment” type of choices.

The person I was supposed to capture and interrogate was already being brutally tortured. However, nearby civilians where being slammed into the ground and having bullets shot next to their face while they squirmed in fear. I had to make a choice. Save the civilians and lose my target, or get to my target by any means necessary. Being the asshole that I am, I said fuck the civilians, popped the guys in the head and captured my target, which then lead to a giant battle scene. However, the developer then told me, that had I chosen to save the civilians, I would have avoided that battle entirely. These choices will surely add replay value to the single player.

As I mentioned before, an engaging and memorable story is hard to find in modern military games. However, thinking back on my time with Spec Ops: The Line, I vividly remember many moments I experienced, compared to other games in which I had a hard time even remembering my character’s name or even where the hell I was at.

There were two scenes, in particular, that really stood out to me and made for true “oh shit” moments. The first one came as I was walking through the dunes of Dubai, only to see dozens of bodies hung from telephone poles, swaying in the breeze. I found myself slowly walking through the area, just taking time to absorb what had happened and to understand what the player character and his team are going through.

Now, if you know what White Phosphorus is, you know just how much damage it can do. At the end of the demo, I was faced with 200+ “enemy” soldiers. My only option of survival was using the mortar turret armed with White Phosphorus. As my squad mates are yelling “Are you fucking crazy, don’t you know what that shit does?!”. I’m thinking “Fuck yeah, and I’m going to use the hell out of it”. So, after nearly five minutes of raining hell down upon hundreds of soldiers and vehicles, I was left with nothing but a giant cloud of fumes and dust.

After hopping down out of the turret, the game forced me to walk slowly through the wreckage I’d caused . This is where the emotional part kicked in. As I’m walking though hell, I see soldiers that are still alive, burning, crawling and begging for help. Through the dust particles, I see flames, fumes, charred bodies and hear sounds of desperation. It was a powerful scene to say the least. As I reached the end of the carnage, a soldier fell to his knees in front of me. He was still on fire. With his dying breath he said, “We we’re trying to help you.”

Then my demo ended.

Looking back at my time, I wish I could experience it all over again. Yager has made great progress with the game, and I believe re-writing the entire script was a very wise decision. Not only did the story keep my attention, but it was dark, mature, emotional and left me wanting more. Pile that on top of some great action, gun play, varied enemy types and weapons, and you have one hell of a game. Unfortunately, those looking for multiplayer details will be disappointed. While Yager did say they’ve made great progress and can’t wait to show it off, it’s just not the right time yet.

I did, however, notice an option for downloadable content at the main menu, which is pretty standard these days (especially for 2K). Whether it will expand upon the single player, or just be simple multiplayer map packs is yet to be revealed.

What you should know, is that it would be a mistake to write off Spec Ops: The Line as just another military shooter with a forgettable story and tacked on multiplayer. It’s much more than that, and Yager made damn well sure I saw it.

Gotham City Impostors Is Not Your Average FPS (Hands On)

Chris Carlson — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:00:06 +0000

The last thing that comes to your mind when thinking of Batman and The Joker is a FPS. So, Gotham City Impostors is a very interesting game to say the least. At first sight, Gotham City Impostors may looks like just another FPS, but rest assured, it’s far more than that. In fact, I was quite surprised at just how damn fun this game really was. Best part of it all, it’s an XBLA/PSN title and it packs some serious punch.

What sets Gotham City Impostors apart from every other FPS in the over crowded market, is how much variety and customization is offered. No matter how you choose to play a FPS, there’s something here for you. So let me break down just how much customization is packed into this massive downloadable title, which is known as your “Secret Identity”.

First off is editing your loadouts. You have your standard primary weapon, back up weapon, support item and what every super hero can’t do without; a gadget. You’re primary and back up weapons include; assault rifles, submachine guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, etc. You also get a mod for each one.

The Dawn Patrol assault rifle for example has a wide selection of mods such as a silencer, red dot sight, extended mags, or even a body odor sniffer that reveals the positions of nearby enemies as wavy yellow “stink clouds”. Last but not least is your camo. FPS these days can’t have an awesome arsenal and no camo, that’s just crazy talk!

The support items and gadgets are what really make Gotham City Impostors stand out. Your support items would be your grenades or flashbangs in other games. In Gotham City, shit gets real. Who needs grenades when you can use bear traps, shurikens, or even a boomerang that can target multiple enemies and stun them all within a matter of a seconds.

The gadgets on the other hand, are where the real fun comes into play. Not only are these reusable, there’s also objects within the maps that benefit some gadgets. Equip a pair of roller skates to move quicker and you can jump off ramps sending you soaring through the air. If you’re more of a flying type of guy, just equip a glider rig and you’ll be flying like Batman in no time.

This isn’t useful on the ground, but it can be if you’re in the right place at the right time. Vents will blow air up sending you into the sky if you have the glider equiped. From here, you can perform “Dive Bombs” on unsuspecting enemies. Yeah, it’s bad ass.

If you’re like me though, you’ll enjoy the grapple gun which can hook on to virtually anything pulling you straight in. Feeling lazy and don’t want to walk to the other side of the map? No problem. Pull out your grapple gun, aim, fire, and before you know it, you’re behind the enemy.

All of these mentioned above can be selected in your loadout giving you whatever experience you choose to have. There are pre-sets for starting out, but once you level up you’re free to use what ever you like, when you like. It doesn’t stop there either. Even though this is an FPS, you can even customize your character. Based on your performance in game, you’ll earn “Costume Coins”. These can be used to purchase new: hats, logos, capes, shirts, pants, shoes, etc.

There’s also clan support which is called “Gangs” in-game, and two other customization options set as “Classified”. So prepare on spending quite some time perfecting your hero. While all this is great, it’s the gameplay that really matters right? Rest assured because Gotham City Impostors is a fucking blast. The beta currently supports two maps and two game modes. Psych Warfare is where you grab a battery and plug it in to demoralize your enemies with propaganda. Unfortunately, due to the lack of participants currently in the beta, I was unable to ever find a match in this game mode.

Fumigation is the other game mode which is essentially Domination from Call of Duty, except better. There’s three control points placed on the map in which you capture and defend. However, you’re not working to a set score. You’re working towards 100%. What this means is, you could be at 99% and the other team could start dominating you bringing you down to 10%. What’s great is if you start picking up your slack, you always have a chance to come back and win without worrying about the team having a higher “score” than you.

At the same time, this can be really bad for newcomers. I’ve been in games that lasted just a few minutes because my team was unable to overpower the enemy resulting in a very quick and unpleasant match. When you have two good teams and all these different weapons and gadgets being used at once, it creates a really chaotic, yet satisfying experience.

The controls are easy to pick up and jump straight into you, if you played just about any other arcade style FPS, you’ll feel right at home. The only real problem I’ve encountered with Gotham City Impostors is lag spikes. They don’t necessarily happen every few seconds, but they do happen often enough to make it somewhat annoying. I’ve also had a few instances where the countdown would reach 1 second, but the game would never start. Thankfully, this is a beta! So hopefully these minor issues will be ironed out before release.

From the mass amount of customization and variety, to the easy pick up and play controls, Gotham City Impostors brings one hell of a great time. I’m not going to lie, when I saw the trailers for the game, I thought it was going to be really lame. However, after playing multiple hours with my friends, this is definitely a game I’m going to be picking up once it’s released in January. Oh, and did I mention this was an arcade title? Yes, yes I did. But I feel as if I should remind you seeing how this could easily pass as a full downloadable title with a similar pricing model to games such as Resident Evil 4 HD.

Definitely keep your eyes on Gotham, my friends.

How and Why I Spent 36 Hours Playing Star Wars: The Old Republic

Jensen Walker — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:00:50 +0000

Like many, I recently spent a weekend exploring the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta. All of Fri/Sat and most of Sunday were devoted to the MMO I intend to play come December 20^th.

The official SWTOR forums have since exploded with multiple threads praising or criticizing the game, with many being particularly negative. Impressions are, of course subjective, and what one person finds to be an absolute mess is another’s paradise.

What many of these forum threads lack is the ability to present an opinion which isn’t argumentative, accusatory or downright hostile, and unfortunately they drown out the more measured criticisms of those who enjoyed the game, but found certain areas lacking. Today, I’m going to present my own critique of BioWare’s much hyped MMO in what is hopefully a considered and thoughtful manner. This also means this is going to be a long article, so you might want to get yourself a refreshing beverage before you continue.

To begin with, I should say I only leveled two characters, a Smuggler to 18 and a Consular to 11. I have no personal experience with mid, late, or end-game content, although I do know people who have been a part of the Game Testing Program for quite some time. Therefore, these impressions are largely based around pre-20 Republic content. With typical style and flair, I was so engrossed in the game that I forgot to take screenshots, so nearly all screens in this article come courtesy of Reddit user bic_lighter, who had more presence of mind than me.

Without further ado, let’s launch into the first point of discussion, that being:

Graphics and Visuals

If you read the official forums, the loudest contributors of the opinion that SWTOR’s graphics are awful for a game which is to all extents and purposes a 2012 MMO. The truth is, the visuals are fine for an MMO.

No, they’re not Skyrim standard, but they couldn’t possibly be to that standard without sacrificing hundreds of thousands of potential players. Skyrim is a beautiful game and my GTX 570 is capable of realising that beauty, but for every one of us with the latest generation graphics cards, there are ten more PC users who are still running on a card and processor that are much, much older.

Time for an upgrade, you might say! Unfortunately, your ‘average’ MMO player has little inclination to upgrade and in many cases also lacks the funds. MMO’s succeed because they can tap into a base that games like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim cannot. As much as they may be maligned by certain quarters, casual players provide the bulk of subscriptions for paid MMO’s, and the bulk of microtransactions for F2P’s.

That being said, SWTOR’s stylised graphics provide a significant upgrade on World of Warcraft’s. There are plenty of players who found their old rigs struggling to run the beta efficiently even given that SWTOR’s visuals aren’t cutting edge. For the most part, environments seemed to be rich enough, cutscenes were nicely rendered and the game certainly has a sense of scale which prior MMO’s have lacked.

Stormwind’s Cathedral seems positively mundane once you’ve wandered around inside the gigantic Jedi temple on Tython, or the halls of the senate on Coruscant. Comparably, Rift’s city hubs are more like tiny settlements compared to the Republic Fleet.

Anti-aliasing was also disabled for the beta, so users can expect some graphical improvements and smoothing of jagged edges come launch.

UPDATE - A bug in the graphical settings resulted in high resolution textures not being available during the beta. The game looks much better with those higher settings enabled. Observe the below screenshot.

If there is an area where the graphics are obviously lacking, it’s the textures. Some textures are fairly low resolution (pazaak tables, for example), and your PC’s armor and weapons aren’t always particularly crisp if you zoom in closely. Speaking of PC’s, that leads us nicely in to…

The Darkness II Has Co-Op and It’s Awesome (Hands On)

Dave Oshry — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:00:54 +0000

Guess what? They’re co-op modes in The Darkness II. Guess what else? I’ve played them and they’re fun as hell.

Let’s get right to it. It’s called Vendettas and if you’ve played any sort of Call of Duty Spec Ops you’ll feel right at home here.

Except this isn’t quite like CoD Spec Ops. Not only do you get to play as one of four very distinct and crazy characters with very distinct and crazy weapons, but each of these characters has their own backstory and they all tie into the main plot of The Darkness II. Thus making vendettas infinitely cooler than Spec Ops. It also supports up to four players. Word.

Before we go any further, check out this trailer to get a better idea of what I’m talking about:

Yes, I quite enjoyed that too.

Now let’s run down the cast courtesy of 2K, shall we?

First up:

Inugami (The Samurai)

Inugami is a very dark character, mentally unstable and driven only by his need for revenge. He names himself after a dog god of Japan that legends say was created from extreme suffering, trained to exact revenge upon the enemies of its master.

Inugami has the power of Swarm. His Swarm power resembles an attack of miniature Yokai demons of all kinds.

He wields Kusanagi – a mystical weapon that was said to have destructive properties. Historical documents dating from the 7^th Century tell of how the Emperor Temmu fell ill as a result of wielding the sword, and how Kusanagi was then removed and placed in a shrine. But even at that time, Kusanagi was already hundreds of years old. Its origins remain unknown.

Here’s my take: Inugami is the stereotypical Samurai Warrior. Silent but deadly and very skilled. Kusunagi controls like one of Jackie’s demon arms, meaning that you can swing the sword around with the thumbstick in any direction you choose while you spray bullets with whatever’s in your other hand.

Each character has brutal execution move that can be used on a stunned or nearly dead opponent. Inugami’s excution is a rather satisfying disemboweling. He pairs well with just about any other character, preferably a ranged character since he will have to get up close and personal to use Kusunagi.

Next we have:

Shoshanna (The Hebrew Hammer)

Shoshanna is an ultra-efficient agent for Mossad, a woman with the highest degree of training. She is highly unimaginative and utterly receptive to the orders of her superiors with the agency. She does not question her mission, nor does she question the existence of the magic she sees all around her. This makes her the perfect operative in New York.

Shoshanna wields the Arm of the Night, a powerful weapon fused with Dark essence. It’s been in her family for over 75 years, though everyone who has carried it before hasn’t lived to see their 30^th birthday. However, for her, the legacy of hunting and destroying evil wherever it hides in the world is worth the price.

She possesses the power of Gun Channeling. Interestingly, the Darkness has become entranced with technology – it knows that the newest weapons are capable of more efficient death and destruction.

Here’s my take: Shoshanna is a ranged character who works best if you fight with reckless abandon. I’ve spent some time with the IDF and I’ve known many a Shoshanna in my day but I’ve never met one as badass as this. Her Arm of the Night is a sawed off shotgun that actually feels quite similar to an 1887 in Modern Warfare 2. And yes, by that I mean it is uber powerful and has far too much range.

Your gameplay with Shoshanna will consist mostly of using an Uzi in one hand then using your Arm of the Night to finish enemies off with the other. You’ll literally hear all sorts of click click boom. As a ranged character who can make her firearms extra powerful via gun channeling, she pairs well with almost any other character. Her execution move involves shooting an enemy in the groin then shoving her shotgun down their throat and blowing their brains out. I want to marry her.

Next up is:

Serious Sam 3 Is So F**king Old School It Hurts (Hands On)

Dave Oshry — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:33:36 +0000

Whoever said, “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” was right about nine times out of ten. That tenth time was reserved for Serious Sam 3.

In case for some reason you’ve been counting, yes, this our third hands on preview of Serious Sam 3. Why? Because the game still isn’t out despite PC gamer cries for an old school FPS in the wake of whatever it is you’d call the on-rails phenomenon that is Call of Duty 5-8.

But let’s not talk about that. Let’s not talk about Battlefield 3, let’s not talk about Bulletstorm and let’s certainly not talk about Duke Nukem Forever. Let’s talk old school.

This Is Not Battlefield 3

There once was a time in the FPS genre when the only thing you did more than shoot was strafe. When you pinned your pinky to the shift key, sprayed and prayed. A time when you could inexplicably carry 16 weapons at a time and tiny bits of health and armor were scattered all over the world for no apparent reason. A time when level design meant something other than going in a straight line and shooting whatever generic enemy was right in front of you. These were good times. ”Serious” Sam Stone wasn’t around back then, but somebody in Croatia obviously was. Croteam’s Serious Sam first burst onto the scene back in 2001, and old school FPS gamers the world over rejoiced while they spilled blood and bullet casings.

Fast forward 10 years and Sam is finally back in a major way. A new engine, new features, but that same old school attitude. How old school is Serious Sam? He makes Prince jokes. Yet to be fair, Prince just got big in Croatia… so it’s understandable. Serious Sam 3 is what it sounds like when doves (and Duke Nukem) cry.

This Preview Is Now Officially NSFW

So fucking old school it hurts? Yes. Both my character and my physical self. My eyes are bleeding, my fingers are numb, I have no health, no armor and I’m being chased by a pack of angry Headless Kamikaze’s through the streets of a soon to be post apocalyptic Egypt. I love this game.

Serious Sam 3 has a multitude of multiplayer modes, 16 player campaign co-op, a survival mode and more PC settings than you can shake a boomstick at… but all I got was the single player build to mess around with for a month. Luckily, it’s long, it’s strong, and it’s down to get the friction on. I was given 11 out of the game’s 12 chapters and I played them back and forth, front to back, over and over again, on every difficuly from Tourist to Serious. On tourist, even a console CoD gamer has a chance to clear the level. On Serious… you will die. Dark Souls has nothing on 500 Kleer Skeletons, Kamikazes and Gnaar all coming at you at once. Seriously.

It’s hard to explain just how insane Serious Sam 3 can get if you’re not familiar with the franchise, and even harder to explain if I told you that there was an in-game option to turn all the blood into candy. Luckily, I’ve made this short video presentation for your amusement:

Yep. that’s pretty much Serious Sam 3 in a nutshell. Now, imagine scenarios like that with up to 16 player co-op. My frame rate hurts just thinking about it.

As you may have noticed, the game also looks pretty damn good. That’s thanks to Croteam’s new and aptly named “Serious Engine 3.” What this engine does (besides pump out fantasticly detailed visuals) is allow for hundreds of enemies to be on screen at once with minimal frame rate loss. I don’t know how it does it, it just does. However, even my mammoth gaming rig slowed at bits during certain boss battles where I was literally in an acre wide open space being chased by roughly over 9000 screaming meanies. Sure, they could have scaled it down, but that ain’t what Serious Sam is about.

For those who are interested, the game takes place in some sort of destroyed semi-futuristic Egypt and is apparently a prequel to whenever the evil armies of Lord Mental took over the Earth in 20XX. However, if you play Serious Sam for the story you should probably start calling yourself Lord Mental.

Meanwhile, Egypt itself looks marvelous, and here’s some screens I took to prove it:

Lovely

Scary

Egypty

Three Hours With Skyrim, Two Brave Bosmers and One Lying Khajiit

Dave Oshry — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 01:45:18 +0000

No, I didn’t find any Werewolves.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I’d like to tell you a story. A story of might and magic, choice and consequence, romance, adventure, camaraderie and intrigue. If I could think of any other awesome nouns I’d throw them in there as well, but alas – on with the show.

If you haven’t already, please read my last hands-on preview of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim which details the very first encounter with Vampires and much more.

But where to begin? How about in the real world.

As I walked into a posh hotel suite in midtown Manhattan I was greeted by what has become a common sight for me. Roughly eight Xbox 360 developer consoles hooked up to 27ish inch flatscreen TV’s all running the latest press build of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. As usual, there wasn’t a PC in sight. I had expected as much, yet I was still slightly disappointed. But I digress…

On the far side of the room, a PR representative was apologizing profusely to Kotaku’s Biran Crecente who had apparently found some glitches durng his playthrough. But I had no time for such drama, I was on a mission. So, I grabbed what I recall was a turkey and brie sandwich and a bottle of sparkling water (they feed us well) and sat down in the corner of the suite in front of one of consoles. As I gazed upon a familiar screen that said little more than ‘Skyrim’, I noticed most of the other writers who were scheduled in my time slot had yet to arrive, so I figured I had at least a small head start. Huzzah.

Where to Even Begin...

Once again, I wasted no time in the character creator (unless you count the 10 minutes I spent tryng to make an albino Argonian at a reader’s request) and quickly selected my usual traits. Bosmer… tattoos… mohawk… good enough… let’s go!

Now having had hands on time with Skyrim before, and having already seen Riverwood and the surrounding areas before, I knew that this time around I had to go where no member of the press had gone before. I had a laundry list of questions from readers, but how could I possibly answer them all in just three hours?! Should I head to the Bards College in the far Northwest? To the College of Winterhold in the far Northeast? All the way down to Riften, which was clearly named after RipTen? I knew one thing was sure, I was not going to dick around in Riverwood or go on that bloody Golden Claw quest! Oh no, this playthrough was going to be different!

However, there was a problem. I was level one and I had nearly no gear. How on earth would I survive anywhere in the vast lands of Skyrim if I ventured off alone into the wilderness? I wouldn’t, I’d surely be killed! So, with the most epic fucking sigh you’ve ever heard, I begrudgingly trudged toward Riverwood. I assure you, I cursed the divines the entire way.

I Don't Even Own The Game and I've Already Seen This Over 9000 Times...

As I arrived in Riverwood, I knew I needed to get myself leveled and geared up fast if I was to have enough time to explore beyond what had already been seen and done by my brothers and sisters in the gaming press. I quickly came upon a Nord named Sven and his mother, arguing about dragons as they always seem to do. Except instead of passing them by, this time I decided to talk to Sven, to see what he was all about. Maybe he had a quest for me?

After going through some dialogue options about how crazy his mother surely was, it turned out he did indeed have a quest for me. You see, Sven had been dating Camilla, whose brother Lucan owns the general store in town. However, Sven knows Camilla is in love with a Bosmer named Faendal. Sven wanted me to bring Camilla a forged letter that would convince her that Faendal was no good. For this, he would pay me some paltry sum. I agreed to his task, knowing full well I’d never take the side of a Nord against a fellow Bosmer, but he was none the wiser.

Did Sven not realize I was Bosmer? And why would he task a complete stranger with the future of his relationship? No matter. Videogames, amirite? I walked further into town to find Camilla in her brother’s store. As I suspected, one of the dialogue options presented was to tell her that Sven had forged the letter and that Faendal was in fact a stand up guy… or elf in this case. I chose said option and Camilla was noticeably upset that Sven would attempt to do such a thing. She instructed me to find Faendal and tell him at once… so I did.

I easily found Faendal by the lumber mill. He looked a lot like me. Tall, thin, handsome and Elven. I liked him immediately.

Hands on Mass Effect 3 Co-Op, Why it’s a Good Thing

Dave Oshry — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 22:00:57 +0000

When the world finally learned that the Mass Effect series was in fact getting multiplayer, just as many people were concerned as were elated.

“Get yer Call of Duty outta my Mass Effect!!” The roleplayers cried.

However, when Commander Shepard himself (in the form of series producer Casey Hudson) explained that the game would only be getting co-op and not some CoDified competitive multiplayer, people clammed down a bit.

“Co-op? Oh, well that’s cool, everyone likes co-op”

Indeed. Pretty much everyone does like co-op, and thanks to the wonders of wi-fi, even people without friends can enjoy the co-op in Mass Effect 3.

I recently sat down and got to enjoy some ME3 co-op and I’m going to tell you why I think it’s a good thing and why you’ll probably like it as well… or hate it… or be indifferent.

Come With Me If You Want To Live.

In this new “Galaxy at War” mode you and three friends will push onward to victory as you fight off the Geth and other intergalactic bad things that want to kill you. First up you’ll pick your race and class. All the notable races and classes are present here so yes, you can be an Asari Biotic and finally feel what it’s like to play as Liara… woo…

Anyhow, I decided to go in as a human soldier becuase when youve only got a 40 minute press demo, it helps to go with what you know. Hooyah!

Once everyone is locked and loaded we’re tasked with objectives to push, the only problem is there’s baddies who want to push back. Capture objectives, kill things, that’s the jist of it. Waves of enemies will come at you while you try to push for said objectives and yes, it feels a bit like Gears of War’s Horde mode – which isn’t a bad thing. In fact, if you’re familiar with Horde mode, you’ll feel right at home here. It didn’t feel quite as polished as Gears, but the game obviously isn’t finished and something something alpha, beta, omega builds are not the final product something something grain of salt.

Come At Me Bro

That’s not to say it’s easy. Even with my Soldier’s concussive shot leveled rather high I was having my ass handed to me by hard to avoid snipers and footsoldiers alike. I was constantly being revived by and having to revive my teammates until we eventually all died and failed on what was one of the final waves. We did eventually make it past said wave on a second playthrough, only to be killed by a giant mecha-boss which totally wasn’t my fault for running in and trying to stab it with my omni-blade. Such is the life of an interstellar spec ops group NOT led by commander Shepard. But I digress…

Even when you die, your experience will be carried over. This means that every time you play, your life will be a bit easier. The gameplay feels just as it does in single player, except that in single player your NPC teammates won’t go and try to stab the boss with their omni blade or accidentally throw a grenade at you. But that’s what co-op is all about really, yelling at your friends because they suck and are single-handedly causing the galaxy to implode.

As Usual, the Salarians Are No Help...

Now, what people seem to be the most worried about is that the co-op will detract from the single player experience or that since you can increase your “Galactic Readiness” level by participating in the co-op, that you have to play it. Well, you don’t. You can, and it will help get your galatic troops ready for the final battle with the reapers sooner, but you can also completely ignore the co-op and get the exact same end game results just by playing the single player. Think of it like a paid transaction in a F2P MMO… that you don’t have to pay for. Sure, you can buy your way (or in this case fight your way) to better unlocks, but you could also just grind them out. You can take the donkey to the top of the rim, or you can take the tram. It is the same price.

Think about it, would you rather play some Horde mode to help increase Shepard’s “Galactic Readiness” levels or would you rather scan and probe planets for hours on end? If you said scan and probe planets I hate you by the way…

People also seem to be irriatated by the thought that this mode is what delayed Mass Effect 3 and that it’s taking valuable resources and manpower away from the single player game. I hope these people know that two different studios are working on the game at this point. The main team (led by Commander Hudson) is at BioWare Edmonton and a completely separate team is developing the multiplayer at BioWare Montreal. There’s actually another team developing Mass Effect 4 at BioWare Mordor, but they’re not talking about that yet.

We're All Gonna Die...

What it all boils down to is this:

If you like this sort of thing, it’s there for you and your friends and it will add to your single player experience.

If this just isn’t your bag, you can completely ignore it and you will be no worse for wear.

However, this one believes the Hanar should be a playable race… just sayin.

Mass Effect 3 brings the war home on March 6th, 2012.

For more, check out our interview with series producer Casey Hudson.

What We Love (And Hate) So Far About Battlefield 3

Aaron Alexander — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 18:00:45 +0000

(Please note, these impressions are specifically for the PC version of the Battlefield 3 Beta)

Now that the beta is finally open to everyone, Battlefield 3 is among the most discussed video games. We’ve seen new features such as the Battlelog, and experienced the refined gameplay. However, some newer features are better than others in the grand scheme of things, so let’s take a look.

Loved

The game is satisfyingly fun

It's fun popping people who attempt to disarm MCOM's.

Perhaps the most important aspect of Battlefield 3 is the amount of fun it has to offer. If you’re lucky enough to join one of the smarter teams, you’ll enjoy some of the most dynamic combat a videogame can provide. Each class fulfills a specific role and when properly played, they all compliment each other vastly. Support gunners can lay down ammo for team-mates while suppressing the enemy (causing their vision to completely blur), Assault’s can quickly take out targets with their rifles as well as reviving their own men, whilst Engineers and Recon’s can take care of vehicles and pop heads respectively. Minor changes like the ability to go prone, or suppress enemies really change up the game, especially when compared to the Bad Company series. It adds a new depth to the combat, and makes formation and positioning especially important. So long as you and your team are doing their respective jobs and attacking (or defending) the MCOM stations, Battlefield 3 is an absolute blast.

Battlefield 3 is simply beautiful (at least on the PC)

Don't Stop To Smell The Roses Soldier!!

If you have a capable rig, Battlefield 3 is one of the most beautiful and visceral games on the market to date. The destruction (while not as outrageous as Bad Company 2′s) is realistic, scary and mind-blowing to see in motion. The environments look convincing and react to the battle in lifelike ways – Tree’s will shake from the impact of nearby explosions, concrete will chip from random flak and dark hallways will be blown out by the shine of a flash-light. It’s poetry in motion provided you’re up to spec, and even running on a mid-class GPU like the GTX460, playing on “High” settings at 50-60 FPS isn’t as far-fetched as you’d think.

The Battlelog is the be-all, end-all for Battlefield statistic tracking

Stat-tracking for everybody!

Bad Company 2′s stat menu was boring, bland and not very helpful or informative. The Battlelog however, serves as your Battlefield Facebook (quite literally). Your news feed will encompass all of your recent endeavors, as well as your friends, and you can “Hooah” each status, which serves the same purpose as a Facebook “like”.

Not only does it display recent events, but you can also click on the “stats” tab to bring up a fully featured recollection of everything you’ve done. From score-per-minute, to your most used weapon, this really has it all. Gone are the days of 3rd party tracking sites, Battlelog is absolutely the pinnacle of this stuff – it’s comparable to that of bungie.net’s services for Halo games. The community is also a central part of the battlelog, forums are at your fingertips as well as the ability to create and join platoons. The platoon section will also display your best members for each class, and various little statistics that really make Battlefield feel like an always connected experience. However, the battlelog also leads us to our next point..

Hated

The Battlelog is absolutely atrocious if you like playing with friends

Forever Alone...

Yes, it’s a beta. However, if you’re going to launch a game out of an internet browser, you should probably make sure it works. For the most part, applying server filters and finding a game whether it be Caspian Border or Operation Metro, then joining a game by yourself works just fine. This is Battlefield however, and with the rampant amount of little shits running around with Sniper rifles not helping at all, you want some knowledgeable friends by your side to even the score. Having played about 12 hours now with various friends around the world, it’s nothing short of an absolute pain in the ass to join a game with them. The party system always leaves someone out of the server, or other times, people won’t get the invite at all. If you do manage to get into a game, joining the same squad as your buddies is as likely as winning the lotto. You literally have to sit at a menu clicking “leave squad/join squad” until the fateful day when you actually join the desired squad. Compared to that of Bad Company 2′s squad system, it’s a huge step back.

Not enough incentives presented for people to play properly

The Four Classes of Battlefield 3... That Nobody Uses Properly

I can count the times I’ve been revived in game on one hand. I’m not kidding.

Whether it be brain-dead players, or the game is not presenting enough information, most of the classes in Battlefield 3 aren’t played to their full extent.

Assault’s won’t heal themselves (or anyone else for that matter), Recon’s won’t place mobile respawn points and even some support players will shoot until their empty, and opt for their handgun instead of you know – dropping an ammo box and continuing to suppress enemy troops.

I’m not going to sit here and call everyone shit (even though I’d like to), but instead I put the Onus on Dice. Present players with tool tips depending on the situation. If an Assault player is standing near a dead body, tell the player “REVIVE YOUR HOMIE”, or if a Support is near players with low ammo, they could be told “RESTOCK YOUR G”. Simple tool-tips like this would be a great reminder, and teacher of how to play the damn game correctly. (In the mean time, educate yourself here)

These are the five most outstanding features about Battlefield 3 so far, for better or worse. No doubt DICE will address some of the listed issues here, as it’s only a Beta, but as it stands Battlefield 3 is an intense combat game (perhaps one of the best), only held back by uneducated players, several technical bugs and a less than ideal social experience on PC.

Bad Company fans will feel right at home in Rush mode, whilst the people who preferred the original Battlefield series will revel in the conquest game type. It’s a new beast, taking the best features from both series and combining them into something truly worthy of you time.

For more on the BF3 beta, be sure to check out this video from DICE and stay tuned to RipTen for our continued coverage of Battlefield 3.

Diablo III Closed Beta Full Video Playthrough With Commentary

Dave Oshry — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 02:00:26 +0000

It’s been nearly one week since Dave and Aaron dove head first into the Diablo III beta. Somehow, they’ve managed to come out somewhat clean on the other side.

Along the way they even managed to hit the ‘record’ buttons on their respective PC’s and are now proud to present to you:

THE ADVENTURES OF TIM LAMBESIS AND TRIPLE H IN THE REALM OF DIABLO III

In this first video Dave and Aaron take on some early quests and stomp on some mobs with newfound abilities after they have already saved the legendary Deckard Cain from a deep and dark fate:

After grinding about, the boys head off in search of the crown of the Skeleton King and answers to the mysteries surround the eternally doomed town of Tristram:

Now, after a short break, our heroes have gained some new abilities and gear and are finally ready for the final challenge of the Diablo III beta:

So, there you have it. Despite their personal of professional shortcomings, Dave and Aaron managed to make it through the Beta with hardly a scratch.

Could they ever have been anything but heroes? Of course not… they were born this way.

Stay tuned for the final bit of our hands on coverage of the Diablo III beta as the guys max out every class in the game and give you a rundown of how each one works and plays.

What We Love (And Hate) So Far About Diablo III

Aaron Alexander — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 04:00:44 +0000

After spending close to a full day with the Diablo III beta, both Dave and I came away feeling impressed and excited for the full release of Blizzard’s hotly anticipated action/RPG. While the gameplay largely remains the tried and true “click on dudes to destroy them”, there’s a few key changes to the Diablo formula that may sway your opinion depending on your stance. Check out our opinions below;

What we Love:

Social Interactivity

The friends functionality in Diablo 3 is easy and intuitive.

At anytime in Diablo 3, you can tap the “O” key to bring up a full featured list of your currently online friends. It’s similar to the friends menu presented in Starcraft 2 and at a glance you automatically know what your friends are doing in the demon infested world. Not only can you see a visual representation of your friends characters, but you can see their progression in the world, and though it’s not presented in the beta, undoubtedly you’ll be able to compare achievements and other various records. You can even see their time played… in real time.

Yet, it’s not only a comparison tool. At any time you can ask to join your friends crusades, or invite them to yours. It works flawlessly, even being in beta state and we’ve had no issues at all with the current system. Gone are the days of creating a lobby with a lame password such as “undertaker69goldberg”, it’s now easier than ever to enjoy your friends company.

That brings us to our next love:

Matchmaking

Matchmaking is quick and effective

If you don’t have friends to play with (I’m not judging), matchmaking is more than a viable option. As a matter of fact, matchmaking is fucking perfect. Not only can you cater the search to a specific chapter in the story, but the level of difficulty is also presented (only normal is available in the beta). To stop the guesswork, the matchmaking service also presents you with how many people are playing your currently selected options. Once you’ve selected your mode of play, the matchmaking service takes a few seconds at best to pair you with other players, and don’t worry about the latency, even playing halfway around the globe it runs silky smooth. Props once more, Blizzard!

Both the matchmaking and social interactivity make Diablo III the most addictive and easy to use multiplayer experience to come along in years.

What We (or just Dave) Hate:

The Streamlining (dumbing down) of Skills and Gameplay

Yes, they've dumbed down Diablo 3. Begin Lynchmobs

This one is purely subjective to your tastes. If you’re a pansy like me, you won’t mind the fact that you don’t have to dump a certain amount of points into strength or agility, therefore saving you from sitting up all night worrying if you’ve gimped your character.

If you’re a nerd like Dave, you’ll probably turn red at this change, and throw your D20′s square in the forehead of the person closest to you. Yes that’s right, stat points are no longer governed by you, the in game logic takes care of that every time you level up. It’s not only stat points that have been streamlined, but your abilities as well. You’ll only be able to select 2 usable abilities until level 6, then only 3 until level 12 and so forth. You’ll unlock a new ability every level early on, it just becomes a game of mix and match, catering your abilities to work well with your partners. It’s also worth noting that a number of each classes abilities are simply awesome and fun as hell to use.

Though this can leave the early game feeling quite tedious and repetitive, soon enough you’ll be tossing RPG lingo at your friend, coming up with exciting new strategies. Taking a cue from Torchlight, you’ll also have access to a Cauldron and Nephilim cube, which allows you to sell or breakdown items into crafting materials anywhere, at anytime. You will never have to walk back to town to sell anything… ever. Dave maintains that Torchlight’s pet system handled this much better and bitches at me every time we play that they’ve streamlined the looting far too much and that Diablo 1 was addictive because of blah blah blah, that’s usually where I stop listening.

Once again, this will either make you happy or furious depending on your tastes. Oh, and there’s a WoW style hearthstone as well. Fuck walking anywhere.

The Visuals Are Underwhelming

Diablo, Y U so bland

Perhaps it’s the lack of anti-aliasing (Beta!), or perhaps the wait has done no favors toward Diablo’s expectation levels, but Diablo 3 visually is truly underwhelming. Even with all the options cranked to the max, nothing pops out or helps you feel a sense of true immersion towards the game. Character models are quite bland, weapon particle effects look less interesting than that of Team Fortress 2, and the world looks like a watercolor painting – take that as you will. Despite it’s shortcomings at first glance, once you get in the heat of combat, the dismembered bodies of your enemies and constant gushes of blood look good enough to satisfy. Blizzard are known to create a distinct art style that doesn’t require high end PC’s to run at maximum and for the most part they succeed. However with Diablo 3, it feels really uninspired and bland – I hate to say it, but even Torchlight has more character in this department. This is usually when Dave will start chewing my ear off about how Diablo III doesn’t have shit on Dungeon Siege III visually and that Obsidian is the best PC RPG developer around and blah blah blah, then I mention Alpha Protocol and he gets mad and we don’t talk for two days… but I digress…

Guess what? It’s still the sequel we’ve wanted and the one you’ve been waiting for

Despite it's shortcomings, we can't stay away from Diablo III

Despite it’s obvious simplification and shortcomings visually, we’ve played this beta for damn near two days straight now. It’s still Diablo. It’s still click on shit and watch it explode into pink mist. It’s still yelling frantically at your friends when a giant boss named “Magglemaw” is chasing you erratically around the room. There’s a few subtle additions such as a new physics engine, which makes being a war-stomping barbarian even more fun – If I jump into battle, you’re flying straight into God’s domain you evil little bastard. Half the fun for Dave, was running around throwing Kunai at the various furniture we’d come across just to watch them fall into a pile of rubble, he’s literal home-wrecker. Enemies will drop health globes to keep combat going, and if you do fall in battle, a partner can run up and resurrect you on the spot. Better yet, gear that drops for one player, won’t appear on the others screen – he’ll get an entirely different drop, there is none of the loot stealing that plagued past games.

The changes Blizzard have implemented might worry some fans, but if you’re willing to let the past go, Diablo 3 is still an amazingly well crafted hack and slash. The wait has been definitely worth it and we’re already uber excited for the full retail release. Now if you’ll excuse me, the beta is calling…

This is How the Auction House and Banner Creation Work in Diablo III (Beta Gameplay)

Ripten Staff — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 01:00:38 +0000

The Diablo 3 beta is finally upon us. Unfortunately, it may not yet be upon you. Luckily, Dave and Aaron have been kind enough to play the beta for you, and they’re gonna tell you all about it!

One of the most discussed topics in regards to D3 has been the inclusion of an in-game auction house.

The auction house is available in a limited capacity in the beta, but it’s definitely a welcome addition thus far that makes the the game even more addictive.

Watch as Aaron walks you through it’s features:

Next up is the banner creation. Each player can create a banner for each of their characters that will be shown both at the loading screen and in-game.

There are a litany of options and if you’re familiar with guild tabard creation in World of Warcraft, you’ll feel right at home here.

Watch as Dave walks you through it:

So there you have it. If you thought Diablo 2 was addictive, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Stay tuned for our continued coverage of the Diablo 3 beta, including plenty of HD gameplay!

Revelations Returns the Resident Evil Franchise to its Roots (Hands On)

Kimberly Correa — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:30:38 +0000

I’m a big fan of the Resident Evil games. I used to be too afraid to play the first game by myself, and instead had my brother play for me while I watched from under a blanket (I’m a wuss). As the games progressed and turned more shooter-y than survival horror, they started feeling like they had lost that creepy, “don’t blink” vibe. This made it an entirely different sort of game, at least for me. Not to knock the newer games because Resident Evil 4 is undoubtedly one of my favorites of the series – it just felt different.

I had a chance to play Resident Evil: Revelations on the 3DS this weekend at PAX, and combining the playing experience with the footage we’ve already seen makes me feel like a kid again, hiding under that blanket.

The demo started me off as Jill in a room by myself with a handgun. The game offers you a choice of third person or first person perspective, and I stuck with third person as it feels more Resident Evil-esque to me. Upon exploring the room, you find some ammo, wander into the bathroom, you find a tub filled with water. Uh oh. Do you pull the plug and let the water out? Of course you do. After fully expecting something to come charging out at me, I was a little disappointed to just find a screwdriver to open the locked door to the rest of the house. On the way to the door from the bathroom though, the locked closet on the side of the room swings open and out bursts your very first zombie, which goes down with a few shots to the head from a pistol.

To get out the door, you have to solve a puzzle – an easy puzzle, but still a puzzle, which makes me excited and adds to the evidence that Revelations is hearkening back to the older games. You explore the rest of the house, occasionally running into zombies and locked doors that you can’t open yet, finding ammo and herbs, and my favorite weapon ever, the shotgun. Sweet. I met my untimely demise after creeping through an unexplained hazy ballroom and wandering up winding stairs to the second floor, where I opened a door and two zombies launched themselves at me. I wasn’t savvy enough to escape them, and only took down one before the other ripped me apart (whoops).

Aiming was accurate thanks to the bumpers, the menu was easily accessible via the touchscreen, and switching weapons was extremely easy by using the D-pad. The music was appropriately Resident Evil and creepy to the max, and the graphics looked great. I didn’t use the 3D function for long since I’m not a fan of it, but I tried it out as I was creeping through the hazy ballroom; the effect was immersing and realistic.

If the rest of the game plays this way, and keeps the puzzles and horror elements at the forefront, the franchise will have added a very sweet addition to its lineup. Resident Evil: Revelations is expected to launch on 3DS sometime in early 2012.

Playing Battlefield 3 on PS3 at PAX Was Just as Glorious as on PC

Stephanie Gutowski — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 01:16:55 +0000

WARNING: The following content may induce fits of violent jealousy and an insatiable need to play Battlefield 3.

I was extracted from Seattle-Tacoma airport on August 25 at approximately 1800 hours. I then rendezvoused with the rest of my unit at the barracks, dubbed the “Seattle Westin.” We got some rack time and regrouped in the Grand Hyatt at o800 hours for a mission briefing. Operation: Battlefield 3 Community Event would take place later that night…

After a full day of appointments, PR, game-playing, and fan-girling, I returned to the designated meeting point and entered a room full of top-of-the-line gaming PCs, PS3′s, and tables laden with food. After stuffing my face and commiserating with the other chosen few, Seeson Mahathavorn, Battlefield 3‘s community manager, announced that we would not only be playing a two player co-op campaign mission on PlayStatyion 3, but that we’d finally get to experience the multiplayer Deathmatch and Rush mode on freakin’ PC. I wasn’t sure whether or not to explode into stars, or shut up and frag some derps.

Special thanks to Off Duty Gamers, Razer, ASTRO Gaming, and Gunnar for being swag-tastic and making this Battlefest possible. You guys. Seriously.

I went with the latter and took my place at the last console. I teamed up with my roommate for that weekend, Shanay Ross, a founding member of the Legion of Honor and a veteran of the Battlefield series. We donned our Astro headsets and began. Our objective was to rescue a hostage held within an apartment building and escort him from point A to point B further down the street, with several humvees in tow. This was the same portion of the game PAX attendees were playing at the Battlefield 3 booth. It was a night mission, but the cover of darkness would be no use to us. This part of our BF3 experience took place on PS3 and the controls were comfortably familiar to me. Shanay took point while I brought up the rear. I eventually grew accustomed to the feeling of not running and gunning like an idiot, and wielding my M4 with something akin to respect. It was a stealthier experience then I’d anticipated as we took turns opening doors and clearing out rooms on our way to the objective. We escaped the apartment complex fairly quickly, but ran into trouble once we took to the streets. With the hostage secure in the humvee, we pushed down the street in an attempt to suppress the terrorists trying to bomb our brains out. This is where we ran into problems. It wasn’t until Shanay started calling out targets and coordinating hits that we were finally able to push through the flaming barricades. There were explosions, loud pockets of gunfire, and more explosions. I found myself jumping in my seat a few times from the shock, forgetting momentarily that I need not fear the flying shrapnel, this war zone existed only on my screen. It felt real enough. Man, did it feel real.

We were eager to keep going when the EA/DICE crew announced that it was time to set aside our Dualshock 3 controllers and prepare for the PC Push portion, the highlight of our evening. We mingled and helped ourselves to a few ~~beers and mixed drinks~~ sprites and lemonades, then took our places once the PC demos were initiated. That’s when we hit the ground running and never looked back. What unfolded before me was one of the most intense, irreverent, and riotous matches I’d ever been apart of.

Oh god, I'm gonna die.

We began in an unassuming park, presented with point A, B, and C in the Rush objective. The three locations needed to be taken and we moved in as a unit to do just that. Easier said than done. The map just felt massive with large, terrifyingly open spaces. This was more so my struggling period. While other PC veterans took to the streets, I was desperately trying to learn how to move, crouch, aim, throw a grenade, defibrillate a man, tie my shoe, chew some gum, and win the damn game. Meanwhile, bullets. All up in my face. Needless to say, I ran into a few snags during this portion of the demo, but every issue I encountered was attributed to my own lack of skill. Otherwise, the equipment and game itself ran beautifully. The controls were responsive, uncluttered, and uncomplicated.

I eventually switched to more familiar territory: a team Deathmatch. This was the collective moment of glory. This was what I’d been waiting for. The Frostbite 2 visuals looked fantastic on PlayStation 3, but so damn good on that computer that I wished I could transcend my own glaring inadequacies and master the keyboard controls instantaneously, rather than do battle with my pinkie as I stared down the wrong end of a rifle barrel.

One Hour With Skyrim Finally Made Me a True Believer (Hands On)

Dave Oshry — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:15:02 +0000

Sheogorath, my lord and protector… why did I ever doubt your madness? Had I lost my own mind? Did I truly think that the unimpressive demo I’d witnessed at this year’s E3 expo would be indicative of your final product? Oh, how I was wrong!!… Can you ever forgive me?

As many of you know, I was rather “unimpressed” with Skyrim at E3 this year. In fact, Stephiroth Gutowski and I were so mind numbingly disappointed by the demo we were shown that we gave it an award for the, “Most Heart Shattering Disappointment”

We were so wrong.

Yes, I still think that the E3 demo of Skyrim which we were shown was disappointing, and I would still not have given it best RPG over Reckoning, but after being given the chance to play Skyrim for an hour behind closed doors, I am exuberantly happy to report that I am now a true believer in the 5th iteration of Bethesda‘s flagship series, and you should be too.

You see, I’m a harsher critic than most when it comes to this sort of thing. As many of you know, I’m a PC RPGamer and an old school Elder Scrolls fan.

I’m the guy who kept the Mantella all to myself in Daggerfall. I’m the guy who retrieved every item for the Museum of Artifacts in Morrowind… only to steal them back later. I’m the guy who closed every Oblivion gate and collected every treasure in Cyrodiil, only to have to mod extra display cases into my house in Skingrad just to hold it all! And for what?! Nobody else in the world will ever venture inside the confines of my Elder Scrolls homes, see all of my priceless in-game artifacts and collections, and yet I do it anyway! Yet, you know I’m not alone.

I ... Need More Display Cases...

Perhaps you too have the “Pelvis of Elvis” adorning the fireplace of one of your many Oblivion homes… but I digress. That’s simply the sort of Elder Scrolls player I am. I live for the immersion, the escape, the beauty of a world completely original and unlike anything we could ever hope to see in our own. The freedom, the choice, and often the consequence.

So, jaded as I am, I mocked many of my detractors who said I was crazy after E3. I said that they were simply johnny-come-lately Elder Scrolls fans who wouldn’t know their lore if a Dremora lopped their head off with a Daedric Crescent! I figured they were blinded fanboys whose Elder Scrolls adventures began with Oblivion. These kids clearly know nothing of Daggerfall or Morrowind! They’ve never modded a damn thing, they’ve never even heard of Nehrim! They’re wrong, I’m right, BAH humbug!

But they weren’t wrong, I just failed to believe.

Dave... I am Disappoint.

So, after playing Skyrim for an hour straight, being allowed to do whatever the hell I want and loving every single minute of it… I am here to apologize.

I want to apologize to our readers, I want to apologize to my friends, I want to apologize to Bethesda and I even want to apologize to all those johnny-come-latelys who believed in the scrolls when I had lost faith. I’m sorry.

Yet, that’s not why you’ve come here today, is it? You want to hear all about my adventures in Skyrim, don’t you?! Very well, so be it.

As I walked into a lush hotel suite populated by several other members of the gaming press and a sea of Xbox 360 consoles and flatscreen TV’s, I was told by Pete Hines and Todd Howard of Bethesda that we would be starting off our adventure as a prisoner in a cave, and could go anywhere we wanted from there on out. That was all the instructioin we got and that was all the instruction I needed.

The character creation in Skyrim is just as deep as you remember from Oblivion, if not more so. I mean just look at all these possible combinations you can make! But there was no time for me to mess around with such a deep system, I only had an hour.

So I quickly selected a few traits… Bosmer… tattoos… mohawk… good enough… let’s go!

Five Minutes of Space Marine Multiplayer Mayhem (Video)

Dave Oshry — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 01:00:35 +0000

Well, it was five minutes… but I cut out a minute and a half of me getting stomped into the ground. Trust me, you didn’t need to see that. But I digress…

Last week I went up to THQ headquarters to check out Warhammer 40k: Space Marine and got to mess around with the multiplayer for hours on end.

Better yet, we were jacked up to level 41 and given every perk and customization option available in the game. I went with the assault (flying melee) class and setup my loadout like this:

All Killer, No Filler

The Power Axe is a melee weapon which is a bit slower than the famous Chainsword but also a bit more powerful. The Bolter is your basic sub machinegun. I chose the combat stims to give me a quick boost of health and defense when I got into the thick of it, they came in quite handy. Axeman’s Zeal is a perk that gives you health back with every successful melee strike (lifesteal) and each melee weapon has a similar “Zeal” perk. True Grit is a perk allows me to carry a bolter with one hand. (Normally I’d only be able to carry a pistol in my offhand) …It also allows me to summon Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon to do battle on horseback.

Space Marine multiplayer features a ton of customization. It’s pretty similar to what you’d find in Halo or Call of Duty… ‘cept with giant armored dudes that are infinitely more bad ass and ya know… chainswords n stuff.

Speaking of customization, before we get into my gameplay, check out some more of the deep customization options:

Pretty deep, eh? Yah, that’s what she said… right before she moved you down with a heavy bolter.

Anyhow, you came to see me rock out on some fools not make bad jokes, right? So, without further ado, watch as I go on a 7 kill streak while Curt Cobain yells in the background:

As you can see, the assault class is all about that jetpack groundslam. It’s hard to execute, but when you land it properly, it’s satisfying as hell.

Oh and I totally got that last guy too, it’s not my fault my buddy’s camera died. Speaking of which, thanks to John from StickSkills.com for filming offscreen for me \m/_((><))

If you want to know more about my hands on time with Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, find me anytime (chainsword in hand) @DaveOshry on Twitter or shoot an email to Dave@RipTen.com

May The Emperor Protect The Faithful.

Space Marine will reign death from above on September 6th. Stay tuned for the RipTen Review.

RAGE Multiplayer Doesn’t Have Any TDM or CTF, Sorry Bruh. (Hands On)

Dave Oshry — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 21:50:55 +0000

With all the talk going on about RAGE‘s lengthy single player and cool car combat multiplayer modes, a lot of people, including myself, have completely failed to realize that the game doesn’t have any competitive multiplayer outside of the car combat. None. No team deathmatch, no capture the flag, no domination, no whack-a-mole, nuthin.

Yet, is that really a problem? Does RAGE need the same type of multiplayer that everyone else has?

The Game Looks Its Best During The Car Combat

I played the co-op and car combat modes at Quake Con this weekend, and they’re all sorts of awesome. I also played the single player for another 3 hours or so (on PC, woot) but that’s not the point of this story. If you want to hear a former RAGE doubter rave about his time with RAGE, check out Chris Carlson’s lengthy single player hands on instead.

The run and gun co-op features nine objective based maps so far (id told me more would be added via DLC), and they are each rather tough and feel… Valvey? Is that even a word? What I mean is they have a very Left4Dead feel to them, and you know damn well that’s not a bad thing. Things like reviving your dying teammate and being able to see an outline of them through walls as you take out different types of baddies and push toward objectives just screamed at me with similarities to Valve’s seminal zombie slayer in all the right ways. Except, ya know, it looked awesome. id n stuff…

Respect The Authoritah!!

There’s not much to say about the car combat, it’s car combat. Drive around, race and blow shit up. It’s like Twisted Metal, except it’s actually coming out sometime soon.

What’s even better is that somehow the controls manage to cater to even an elitist PC douche like me. I was kicking ass and taking names, and you all know damn well I suck ass when I have to use a controller. It’s pathetic. Ask Kreyg, he’ll tell you.

Anyhow, in my humble opinion as a dude that flies around the country and writes about video games for a living, I don’t think RAGE needs any goddamn TDM or CTF. Leave that to Call of Duty and Battlefield and let id do what they do best, everything else.

Stay tuned to RipTen for continued coverage of RAGE and more previews from Quake Con 2011.

Hands on With Gunshine: Facebook’s Grindy Quest for More Money… and Guns

Catherine Cai — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 23:00:46 +0000

I’ve never understood the popularity of social (Facebook) games. Maybe it’s because all of the ones I’ve ever played are the popular ones, and it seems that Zynga currently has a death grip monopoly on all of them. I don’t see the point of Mafia Wars, Mob Wars, and Farmville besides clicking on some pictures of some Mafiosos, a cow, or something or another and then being rewarded with pictures of money.

There’s no story or immersion of any sort. The monotony of the grinding in these games is worse than any Nexon free-to-play game, but at least I would give money to Nexon for at least showing some artistic talent behind their games. Zynga’s development team looks like it’s comprised of individuals pulled off of Wall Street who’ve learned a few lines of HTML and are out to exploit social gamers for all that they’re worth. Their games sound like simple games to win, considering you can just spam click and play missions until your index finger and forearm are swollen to the point where the ladies are giving you a lot of attention for having so much experience in that department, if you catch my drift.

It’s not quite that easy. Zynga puts a cap on the amount of “energy” you have and not because they wanted to add a degree of realism into the game. Good God. If Mafia Wars in any way reflected the real world, then every made man would constantly be pounding Monsters and have an IV-drip funneling caffeine directly into their bloodstream in order to pull off ten bank heists in one night. No, Zynga wants to exploit your pocketbooks. As with all social game business models, they’ve made it so that you have to spend cash in order to quickly refuel your energy meter (or the equivalent) to keep playing the game.

“Money for energy? Why would I ever spend money on such a shoddy game as this?” You scoff, before laughing jauntily, donning your monocle, and merrily go on about your day.

After days of logging in and clicking for a few minutes, you find yourself at level 200. Suddenly, you’re attached to the game because you’ve invested over a thousand clicks accumulated over a week into the game. You have to get yourself into the top 100 families now, damn it! Too bad that in order to do so, you need to have a bigger family and more energy. Then, you decide that paying that $4.99 for that 50 energy is no biggie and you become “that douche” on Facebook.

How do I explain “that douche” syndrome? Well, remember that time you popped open Facebook and your news feed was flooded with “Jonah wants you to join his crew! Play Mafiaville today!” or “Jonah gifted you five cattle and an AK-47! Play Farm Wars today!” Really, you can do without seeing all of Jonah’s requests and being the Facebook savant you are, you block him from your news feed.

I suppose I didn’t come into playing Gunshine with an open mind. Have I no integrity? Well, I honestly tried playing Gunshine without any bias, but the Facebook/social game stigma was just too much.

As soon as you drop by Gunshine.net, you find yourself facing a webpage yelling at you to create an account. You have the choice of connecting your account to your Facebook or Twitter to make registration easier by funneling information directly off of these sights. Even though I knew that it’s how games turn you into “that douche”, I linked the game to my Facebook anyway because I’m a lazy bugger. The game then takes you into the wonderful world of character creation.

The character creation process in Gunshine is relatively a no-brainer thing to do. You can choose between a bodyguard, which is the heavy armor, tanking type, a hunter, which is the light armor, ranged, roguey type, and a medic, a pansy-ass healing type that gets the derpest armor and weapons. So naturally, I chose to be a medic. Honestly, all that distinguishes between the three character classes in design is the oh-so subtle slouch of the bodyguard’s shoulders.

You can also choose your character’s gender and their appearance as with most MMOs. Quite frankly, I’m disappointed at the lack of options here. Gunshine apparently believes that only three races exist with the skin tones of light, darker, and black. You can also choose between various ridiculous hairstyles where the ‘fro is one of the sanest hair styles available. Faces are just as limited: regular, angry-looking, angry-looking with Hugo Weaving eyebrows after being involved in a meat grinder accident. Male characters also have facial hair choices that are just as ridiculous as all of the other options. Naturally, I chose the awesome mustachio, the Hugo brows face, and a Mohawk. THOR was born.

Once your character is ready to ship off to Dawnbreak City, you get a glimpse of the only bits of storyline you’ll ever encounter in the game, which is fairly impressive considering most social games give you a one-lined pitch about the game’s so-called “story” and then spend the rest of the time throwing pop-ups into your face telling you to advertise to your friends about all the fun you’re having with the game, so much so that you’re going to stop and Facebook about it. Apparently, your character is an individual who wants to start a new life in a utopia-like place called Dawnbreak City, only to discover, as with all utopias, that everything’s actually pretty FUBAR’d. How mind-blowingly unexpected.

I couldn't resist. The mustache and the sombrero went together perfectly on THOR.

Essentially, the entire Dawnbreak utopia façade was a clever scam created by Labycore, a pharmaceutical company. Instead of trying to pump you full of speed, they spend the entire time trying to convince you that they’re giving you anti-depressants, or just cackling evilly as they make off with your money. Labycore exploits the newcomers’ talents, although the game doesn’t exactly make this point clear. In fact, I don’t see very much “exploitation” in any case as THOR is attacked by virtually everything as soon as he steps foot on the island: Labycore armored security, a construction gang called the Mad Dogs, prostitutes, chain gang guys, beach lizards, and kamikaze pigs. In any case, Gunshine doesn’t do a great job at getting most of its story across effectively, perhaps to keep it simple for “casual gamers”. On that front, the developers did a great job of pounding it into you “Labycore BAD. Resistance GOOD!”, which is a little disappointing because I think Gunshine would’ve been much more interesting had it offered the player a choice on what faction he or she wanted to join when he or she first arrives on the island. For one, it forces the player to get more involved in the game immediately as they have to decide whether or not they want to join the group with less influences and fewer resources for some karmic good or the tyrannical government with almost unlimited resources and power. They could go home laughing manically every day, patting his or her sociopathic selves on the back for another day of Dawnbreak “terrorist-busting.”

Yes, the entire “good” and “bad” faction thing is already overdone in a lot of MMOs such as APB Reloaded, but nothing like healthy competition to make things fun. And if we can’t literally point M-16s and shoot each other in the face point blank, then doing so virtually is just fine. The idea of having a choice in faction alliances allows players to feel like they have some sort of stake in the game after their decision. New factions would dramatically improve the gameplay mechanics that Gunshine already has in place.

Gunshine is a top-down, point-and-click shooter. Click where you want your character to go and he or she will go where you will. Double-click on an enemy to make your puppet attack it. Simple. The missions are pretty run-of-the mill for most shooter/action type MMOs: shoot X amount of Y type of things, go fetch X number of these items, escort this individual, and you’ll be rewarded with XP, money, and guns… lots and lots of guns. The XP and money can ultimately be spent on better equipment and skills, which allow players to do certain things such as heal their characters or allies, or execute some fancy move that allow them to deal extra damage to an enemy, all at the expense of MP points.

You Haven’t Seen Sh!t Until You’ve Played RAGE (Hands On)

Chris Carlson — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:45:16 +0000

I’m going to be completely honest here. When Bethesda and id Software announced RAGE, it didn’t spark my interest very much. Hell, even after I saw multiple gameplay videos, I still wasn’t convinced. Yet, after spending over two hours playing the game, I now feel I should smack myself for not paying more attention to this beautiful piece of work. It’s simply incredible.

My experience with RAGE picked up from the very beginning of the game. Skipping past all the story details, as I don’t want to ruin anything for you. I ended up in a very small settlement, which is essentially the training area for the game. I started off doing small missions like killing a group of hostile bandits up the road, gathering supplies for the town and searching for parts to build my own ride. The first thing you’ll notice about RAGE is the graphics. They’re un-fucking-believable, and considering I was playing the 360 version of the game, I was amazed at how good this game looks. The lighting, texture work, character detail and animations. All just absolutely beautiful. The game did suffer from some minor pop-ins, and a few jaggies but these small flaws wont lessen your experience with RAGE.

No this isn't a bullshot. The game looks this damn good in realtime...on the 360.

The controls in RAGE are damn near perfect. I had very little trouble adjusting to the sensitivity, and within a few seconds of moving around, I felt as if I could shoot like a pro, which is great because the AI in RAGE is quite impressive. Your typical melee enemies will rush at you, but bandits wielding a firearm will take precautions. Instead of simply crouching behind cover like most games would have the enemies do, the enemies will actually lay down on the floor and peek their heads around, poking their gun around the corner and opening fire. I’ve also seen an enemy dive on the floor and crawl behind cover as I was fired upon his buddy. It really adds a sense of realism to the gameplay, which is always a plus. Another awesome feature RAGE offers is when you shoot an enemy in, let’s say, his leg, he will fall to the ground holding his leg but, at the same time, crawl backwards while firing at you. Basically, these sons of bitches won’t go down without a fight.

The weapons in RAGE are a friggin’ blast. Every single weapon that I laid my hands on felt satisfying after each kill. My personal favorite combination was the Shotgun and Wingsticks. For those of you unfamiliar with RAGE, Wingsticks are bladed boomerangs that automatically track your enemy if thrown in their vicinity. The totally kick-ass part about these babies is they slice the head clean off. So if I’m getting attacked by multiple enemies, I can blast the first guy in the face and then, before his buddy even reaches me, I can toss a Wingstick and it’s “off with his head!” It’s a beautiful scenario that one must experience for themselves to appreciate the sheer awesomeness of it.

This silent, but deadly crossbow will quickly dispose of your enemies at a far.

There are also multiple ammo types for each weapon that become very useful in certain situations. One of the alternative types of pistol ammunition I used could blow the head off an enemy and then make it burst into bits of goo, whereas the normal ammo would just knock their helmet off or drop them to the ground. One really cool feature I stumbled upon was when I was about to die. Instead of getting a “Game Over” screen and reloading a checkpoint, I was presented with a “defibrillator” mini-game, which is made up of points across the screen where you push the left and right sticks. You simply push the sticks into the correct position and with the tap of a button, you fill up the meter in the center of the screen. When the meter fills up, icons of the left and right trigger appear on the screen, going back and forth horizontally. The goal is to hit both triggers as they line up with the two boxes, which brings you back to life with full health. Yes it’s a life saver……Literally.

Since RAGE is an open world game, you’ll need to load new areas and towns you visit. Thankfully, the load times are incredibly short and painless. As you explore, you’ll have the opportunity to gather various items scattered throughout the wasteland, or by simply looting bodies. These can be used for a number of different things. Some items are component parts to build specific items like bandages, but there are also more complex gadgets. For example, certain doors have a bank-like vault on them which cannot be destroyed. After building the right contraption, you can place it on the lock, forcing it open. Of course, you’ll need to find the correct parts in order to forge these items. They’re not magical things that you can pull out of thin air whenever you please.

Sell me your goods lady!!

Over the course of your adventure, you’ll also find junk items which are only sold for money. Once you find a shop, the game will label the items in your inventory, which is great when you’re starting out and you’re unsure of what you need and don’t need. So if you find a bunch of gears, for example, the shop will tell you this particular piece can be used to make X item. You can also buy your standard health items and ammunition. If you want to modify your sweet ride, you’re going to have to race for those. By winning races, you’ll earn racing certificates that you use to purchase new upgrades or weapons. Turrets, land mines, speed boost etc. Some of the races will be simple time trials and others will include multiple racers.

The handling on the vehicles can be pretty rough at times, so don’t expect to be drifting through the wasteland pretending you’re playing The Fast and Furious because you’ll fail….miserably. The e-brake is more of a “stop dead in your tracks” brake, because that’s all it’s good for. However, once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty forgivable… but I would personally like to see some adjustments before the game launches. You’ll also need to watch your ammo supply. Your vehicle doesn’t have unlimited ammo, but it does have unlimited boosts. As you’re driving from town to town, you’ll encounter multiple enemies in various types of vehicles. Thankfully, the game has a lock-on ability for driving so you don’t completely waste your ammo, but you still need to be careful.

Driving is a ton of fun....if you can bear the controls.

Further into the demo is when RAGE really shinned for me. I needed to gain a sponsor in order to compete in one of the races. To earn that sponsor, I needed to compete in the Mutant Blast arena, which is set up like a television show. Each episode consists of a set number of waves. The first wave I played was filled with monkey-like creatures brandishing machetes. There were some fire-throwing goons in towers towards the end. Nothing too intense, but it gave you the general idea of what to expect. The second wave offered a nice twist. Instead of standard enemies, a giant robotic purple monkey with multiple blades spun around in circles inside the arena. After a few minutes, my moment of glory arrived. As a mutated freak was jumping at me through the air, I blasted his head off with a single shell from my shotgun and then quickly tossed a Wingstick, decapitating his buddy. Awesome, right? It got better. As his head flew in one direction, the force from the Wingstick knocked his body back into the devastating purple monkey, slicing his body into tiny pieces. Then it happened. Achievement unlocked! I felt like a complete fucking badass.

As I moved into the third area, the entire floor was covered in holes, which instantly screamed “DANGER” to me. The spotlights came on and as they shifted from white to red, huge spikes emerged from the floor, piercing through my enemies. Between my super awesome Wingsticks and deadly floor spikes, I breezed through the round. Being the badass that I am, I was offered a bonus round. A slot machine covered the wall of the arena and, shooting the target underneath, locked it into place. Matching all the dollar signs grants bonus money and you can keep going as much as you like until you fail, but the machine progressively gets faster after each win. The fourth wave was the most dangerous. No tricks here, but instead an enormous fucking mutant appeared before me. You remember those Venom Henchmen from Batman: Arkham Asylum? You know, those giant goons that charged at you like crazy men. Yeah, imagine that, but about a thousand times uglier and more vicious. That was my boss fight, and an intense boss fight it was. Shortly after my encounter with this beast, Bethesda kicked me to the curb and my time with RAGE ended.

Ahh, Mutant Bash. You'll enjoy your stay. I promise.

Even though I spent close to three straight hours playing RAGE, I felt like I barely scratched the surface of the game. Hell, I was just starting to acquire a good arsenal. Getting to participate in activities such as the Mutant Blast was fantastic. I probably could have spent more time with the game if I hadn’t gone back for episode two. Yes, it was that fun.

I started out with no intention of ever picking up RAGE. After playing it – Bethesda was lucky they didn’t have to pry the controller from the palms of my sweaty nerdy hands.

If you had any doubts about RAGE before today, I suggest you reconsider your October purchases. If you miss out on this game, you’re only hurting yourself because it’s that damn good. This may seem like “just another FPS” to you, but trust me when I say id Software isn’t fucking around with RAGE. Get hype, you’ll love it!

RAGE will be released on October 4th for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

Hands On GoldenEye Reloaded – It Looks Better. It Plays Better. You Want It.

Dave Oshry — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:00:44 +0000

It’s about damn time.

When Goldeneye was announced for the Wii, the gaming world let out a collective, “Oh… ok” and rightly so. Who the hell plays multiplayer shooters on the friggin’ Wii? But alas, the original was such a classic on the N64, the game almost had to come out on a Nintendo console, and we were happy to review it. Luckily, Activison, the kings of multi-platform milkery, have up-rezzed the fuck out of Goldeneye and are bringing it to the Xbox 360 and PS3 this fall.

Last night I got to play the new version of the game and I can safely say, it’s the real deal.

The game looks noticeably better (obviously) with improved textures, lighting and shadows all around. Daniel Craig’s baby blue eyes are finally done some justice.

Luckily, the game also plays better – with tighter, more responsive controls and just enough aim assist to ensure you don’t suck and let the entire world down, James. The build I played was smooth and allowed me to use both my silenced ppk and noisy rifles like AK’s effectively and with ease. The game did feel very CoD-esque, but obviously that’s not a bad thing here. Goldeneye is supposed to feel “arcadey” and “fast” as far as shooters go, as it always has and always should. This isn’t ArmA, it’s Goldeneye, bitches.

Activison also told me that there will be new multiplayer modes, so get ready for even more online action, this time without having to use friggin’ friend codes.

Why they didn’t bring this to HD consoles originally is beyond me. But alas, the time has finally come. The true “next gen” (or whatever you call this gen) Goldeneye experience is finally coming, and it’s coming this fall.

It’s awesome. You want it. The end.

Mass Effect 3 and The Old Republic Playable for the Public at Comic Con

Dave Oshry — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 21:45:06 +0000

That’s right, it’s not just the smelly nerdy press that gets their hands on Shepard and the Sith this time around, the smelly nerdy fans get to play too!

BioWare and EA are showing off new hands-on demos of their latest and greatest titles at the Hilton Gaslamp right in the heart of downtown San Diego. It’s like totally five blocks from my house. I can smell the nerdyness from here…

Anyhow, here’s the details:

EA and BioWare invite fans attending San Diego Comic-Con to get up close and personal with some of their favorite games including the epic MMORPG Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, the stunning Action RPG Mass Effect™ 3 and the brand new Dragon Age II Legacy™ downloadable content pack.

From July 21^st through July 24^ththese award-winning BioWare games will be available to the public — with or without a Comic Con pass – for hands-on demos at the Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter, located directly across from the San Diego Convention Center.

WHAT, WHEN & WHERE:

§    Star Wars: The Old Republic

§ Get hands-on demos as one of eight playable classes in the Origin Worlds of Hutta, Ord Mantell, Tython or Korriban

§ Participate in the Star Wars: The Old Republic paneltitled “Join Us, It Is Your Destiny” and hear from the developers of Star Wars: The Old Republic as they discuss development of a story-driven MMO and debut new gameplay footage.

§ Thursday, July 21st 3:30-4:30PM PST @ Room 6BCF

§ Join Star Wars: The Old Republic senior writer Alexander Freed at the Dark Horse and BioWare panel, discussing his latest comic series set in the time of The Old Republic, The Lost Suns.

§ Saturday, July 23rd 4:00-5:00 PST @ Room 23ABC

§   Mass Effect 3

§ Touchdown on the Mass Effect universe in this first-time public hands-on with Mass Effect 3 as the galactic war against a devastating alien race begins and it’s up to you as Commander Shepard to unleash all-out war to take back Earth and prevent Universal extinction. New weapons and upgrades alongside powerful new player abilities will be available for the first time ever.

§ JoinCasey Hudson, Executive Producer, of the Mass Effect series as he speaks on the Legendary Pictures panel to uncover more details about the blockbuster sci-fi series debut on the big screen.

§ Friday, July 22nd 12:45 PM PST @ Room 6BCF

-

§    Hands-on Demos: Star Wars: The Old Republic, Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age II Legacy at the Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter

§ Thursday, July 21^st (Time: 12pm – 9pm)

§ Friday, July 22^nd (Time: 12pm – 10pm)

§ Saturday, July 23^rd (Time: 12pm – 9pm)

§ Sunday, July 24^th (Time: 11am – 5pm)

So, what are you waiting for? GET IN LINE.

Wanna meet up with me and Steph during the Con to hang out and talk about games?! Too bad, you smell, go away nerd. X-p