Normal service resumes.

That’s right, this week’s podcast contains all the usual shenanigans, no special guests..no nothing. We have a 60 second review of Platinum’s Games’s Vanquish, a debate on gaming genres including: what was your first love of a particular genre and of course Adam is up to his old tricks again, returning with an Adam thinks.. and now weekly feature, Adam’s girl update. What an idiot.

MP3 Download / iTunes / RSS Feed

For an MP3 copy of the show, right click the link and choose Save As.
You can also get the RSS feed right here:  RSS Feed

If you’d like the show notes, click the more button.

[H:MM:SS] – Show Time Line
——————–
Opening Song (Innocent Primeval Breaker – Ys Seven OST)

[0:00:43] – Introductions

[0:02:37] – Jason’s Now Playing

[1:18:52] – Steven’s Now Playing

[1:28:51] – News

[2:13:06] – Top 5 Games of 2010 Not Made In 2010

[2:36:14] – Wrap Up

[2:39:21] – End

For an MP3 copy of the show, right click the link and choose Save As.
You can also get the RSS feed right here:  RSS Feed

If you’d like the show notes, click the more button.

[H:MM:SS] – Show Time Line
——————–
Opening Song (Track 3 – Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia OST)

[0:00:38] – Introductions

[0:03:44] – PAX West 2010 Impressions

[1:37:32] – Jason’s Now Playing

[2:05:59] – Wrap Up

[2:10:55] – End

So looking suitably foolish (after all, I didn’t have the rest of the gear to go with the blood on my face – foolishly half-arsed Cosplay) we took to the show floor in an attempt to see anything and everything… With little success. The masses of queues and the fact that I was on a tight schedule, including an interview with Greg Goodrich, Executive Producer for Medal of Honor, meant I had no chance to wait with the rabble.

After traipsing back to the EA Business lounge and, you guessed it, doing a bit more writing, Dan brought over Greg to have a little chat with us. The full transcript of this will go up later today, but basically Greg is a ludicrously nice guy, the interview was spectacular and his game is shaping up nicely.

Cosplay doesn't get any better than this...

After another brief dash to the show floor, to watch a video for Final Fantasy XIV (in German, I have no clue what was going on but it looked nice) I ran back to the lounge for a drink. Soon after sitting down, the day took a turn to the bizarre. A gentleman, dressed from head to toe in hot pink, wearing a peroxide-blonde wig, took to the standing area by the bar and began to sing tune after tune, all in German. What made it slightly stranger was the fact that around his bathing suit area he displayed what can only be described as a stonk on.

Bizarre squared

So the main part of Gamescom has ended fittingly, with a camp  How do I think EA have done? Well with Dead Space 2, Dragon Age 2, Hot Pursuit and Medal of Honor they seem to have pretty much all your bases covered. If you’re reading this then I assume you aren’t a casual gamer, but just in case you are; Harry Potter was also quite fun using Kinect.

I guess it’s time to head out for some well deserved R&R, and maybe even a beer or two.

- Tom Wallis

Developed by Bioware, the makers of Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the game takes place in a dark fantasy world of witchcraft and sorcery. Due for release in March 2011, this is a hotly anticipated multiformat title.

Tom managed to catch up with Mike at Gamescom to get the low down on this hotly anticipated sequel. Below, we present a transcription of their conversation.

Can you tell us a little bit about where we pick up with Dragon Age II and how it leads on from Dragon Age Origins?

Sure. Dragon Age II is a new entry point into the series if people haven’t played Dragon Age Origins. But it also works well for people who have, simply because of where it starts. We begin our story in the outskirts of Lothering, the city that was destroyed in the course of Dragon Age Origins, during the game. Then from there we progress forward and cover an entire decade of history, following the exploits of one character, named Hawke.

Could you tell us a bit about the art style? It seems quite different to Dragon Age Origins.

I think so. It hasn’t drastically changed but it has more compositional elements to it. One of the big problems we saw in [Dragon Age] Origins is that it felt like the environments were fighting with the story. You would see people that were under siege by the un-dead, and they should be running for their lives but apparently had taken the time out to bake a stack of blueberry pies. That seemed a little odd. It was a much more cluttered environment and certainly very lived in and I think it worked well for Ferelden but for the Freemarches, which is where the game [Dragon Age II] takes place, we wanted to go with a darker more astir visual style. The end result is that we have environments that act as a real framing device for the characters. Dragon Age II, if nothing else, is a much more personal story than the story we were telling where you gathering an army and the story of the warden. So, with a more personal story it would seem like environments that give us really good framing, really astir places to shoot the characters against just adds to mood and style.

How has the combat changed in Dragon Age II?

Combat’s taken a pretty significant overhaul. We’ve kind of had this mantra, we jokingly use, which is; I still want to be able to think like a general but want to be able to fight like a Spartan. So that has two sides to it. Being able to issue orders, control a team of 4 and execute strategies was a huge part of Origins and we didn’t want to lose that. However the thing that I saw in Origins is if you tried to execute some strategies, they would fail simply because of the responsiveness. You would shield bash a guy and by the time he got back up you could get off another half a swing. That was not the intent of the shield bash. Similarly, if you tried to intercept someone that was moving in, you couldn’t actually cut them off, you would follow and awkwardly try and swing your sword. So we said; what if we could make it very simple. You press a button and something immediate and awesome happens? So the combat team ran with that and said we’ll start adding some closing moves and add that when you fire a critical shot the bullet is released immediately. We don’t have
that lingering sense of delay. And the end result is that we have combat that is much more up to the moment. Even if you are playing very tactically, you pause the game and issue orders, when you un-pause everybody goes “WHAM” and gets right in there, so you know with confidence they are going to act the way you need them to.

WHAM!

In the demo you showed that you’re now telling a framed narrative; the story is being told by someone else. How does that affect the narrative?

It lets us do two things. You have two characters; Casandra and Varric, who are kind of digging into the history of your character. It means that we can jump to the most important moments in this characters life. Not that we’re yanking you every time into “and now he fights the mumbears!” It’s much more like; here’s the context around it and here’s the major event that caused this kind of political shift. And again, over the decade there’s been a number of these shifts, and Hawke always seems to get involved. So these characters will dig in, try to uncover the rationale, what’s happening and the story that they’re telling as a result then changes based on the actions you take.

What enemies are in the game? Are there going to be more varied and different enemies?

We’re in a new part of the world, so you’ll definitely see some new faces and also see some old faces; Dan will be back, Dark Spawn for sure. They are a major part of the world. The big thing for me is not so much the enemy types but the enemy behaviours, and this has been a big focus for us; to try to make the enemies fight smarter, so they aren’t just swarming you. Instead we’ve got these architects that will be Assassin, a Commander etc and they have different behaviours that require you to deal with them in different ways.

You brushed briefly on the locations. Are there going to be quite a few different locations and is it going to be different to Dragon Age Origins?

Yes. Origins was set in the country of Ferelden, which is south of where we are now. We’re moving up north into Free Marches. It’s more of a rough and tumble city/state coalition rather than one kingdom united. As a result, it’s a bit more of a frontier feel, a little bit less settled, less explored so there’s a lot of wild out there. As well, the city of Kopola was formerly a slaver compound so it’s full of this grim imagery. It’s freed itself since, but it’s not the nicest of places. They used to call it the city of chains.

Combat is suitably bloody

Dragon Age Origins had a lot of DLC. What kind of DLC support are you going to give Dragon Age II?

I think you’ll be looking at something similar. We really enjoyed making the DLC, it really feels like it adds to the texture of the game. We saw very good downloads, good attach rates so people were obviously digging what we were adding. But now there are some lessons to be learned. I think there’s better ways to deliver it, there’s probably some better ways to integrate it and we’re still exploring that. But I think you’ll see a significant chunk being added into DA:2.

One thing we haven’t talked about is the new choices and emotion wheel that you put into the game. Can you explain what that is and what it allows you to do?

Sure. We’ve given the player a voice, which is the key to adding in the wheel. So it’s similar to the Mass Effect system where you have paraphrases that you pick and your character speaks in turn. One thing we wanted to be very clear is that the player needs to know what the intent belying is, as well as generally what they are saying. So adding icons in the middle means that you know that you are going to be; paying a guy or flirting or being diplomatic or sarcastic etc. And at a glance, you can tell by the colour of the line as well as the overall result that might occur. If you are going to attack someone, most people want to know that up front so that’s what the icon gives us. At a glance you can see that you are about to stab somebody and so on.

So the 3 options that we saw at the moment were; peaceful, aggressive and jokey. What kind of other options are there going to be?

Some of them are attached on flirting, pain, attacking, investigating, learning more and one other one you would have noticed would be the option to let the follower take control. Each of the followers has a certain something they bring to the table, be it political or skills. If they happen to be there when you run into a situation, you can let them come in and take the baton and run for a little while. The end result is almost always positive.

This beast did not respond well to the 'flirting' response.

How long is it going to be, compared to Dragon Age Origins?

We’re still adding content, working through the final cut. We’re estimating it’s somewhere about the time people spent with Mass Effect 2. It’s hard to say for sure because there are a lot of side quests to explore so it will vary a lot by player. You could charge through the game, you’d be missing out but if you wish, that’s a way you can do it.

Lastly, and this is more for me; are you going to do a Warden’s Quest 2?

I’m not sure. It’s certainly on the realm of possibility. I’m still not sure I was making sense by hour 23 but that’s fine. It’s a maybe at this point so we’ll have to see how things shape up. It’s possible and I think it would be really cool.

Thank you very much for your time and enjoy the rest of your week in Cologne!

Stay tuned to The Newb Review for more coverage on the games we saw at Gamescom over the coming weeks.

-Tom Wallis

Just to recap, EA have brought me out to Gamescom in Cologne to cover some of their highest profile titles. Some of you will probably think that this is a free holiday and that writing for a few games, a few EA games no less, is a walk in the park. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t easier because I’m doing something that I love, but this is no cakewalk…

The day began with the typical hotel activities I won’t bore you with, but Dan was waiting in the lobby for me and the other writers. The idea was that we would meet at 8.15am in order to get to the convention centre early and have a few extremely sought after moments to interview Matt Webster, Executive Producer and all around nice guy for Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.

It seems plans rarely go as they ought; half the writing contingent were… let’s just say a touch late, meaning we weren’t able to get to the convention centre until around 10am. This might not seem like that big a deal; one missed appointment, no biggie right? Well when you’re getting preferential treatment over international press, messing these guys around is ill advised.

Late as we were, we needed some kind of superhero taxi driver to get us to Gamescom sharpish. The driver we got didn’t speak a word of English, but apparently there was no need to tell him we were in a rush. Speed limit? No problem; this driver seemed to have a special set of rules. Obstacles in the road? Not an issue; with a bit of scaffolding taking up half the road our man simply mounted the curb to speed past with ease.

Our trip to the event felt as if we were in the middle of a game of Crazy Taxi

I ran into the EA community area, suitably exhausted from the previous late night and emotionally drained from the Hot Pursuit style taxi ride. Swiftly I was ushered straight into a Q+A session with Daniel Matros, the Community Manager from DICE for Battlefield Bad Company 2. This may have been my first mistake as I soon felt out of place, being both the only English person in a predominantly German room and having not played Bad Company 2 since the PS3 Beta. Sitting at the back and generally keeping quiet was clearly a good move…

The Q&A with Daniel Matros with a little bit lost on me, but cool nonetheless

After taking a few moments to crack out a bit of writing in the EA Business lounge (this is harder than you think; all the seating is reserved for the marketing teams, so you can only sit in one place for about five minutes before being moved on like a hobo in a shop doorway), it was time to check out Dragon Age 2. With David Silverman (Dragon Age Brand Manager) presenting a little behind closed doors look at some of the new features, needless to say I’m now very excited. You can check out my full preview when it’s up.

Later, an interview with Mike Laidlaw, Lead Artist for Dragon Age 2, meant I had a full on geekhasm. Head over to newbreview.com and you’ll be able to find the interview when it goes up. I’d like to say I asked some insightful questions, but with the conversation ending with me asking about his new baby and broken hand, it might not have been completely on topic…

Other highlights include playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and Crysis 2 AND talking to James (Lead Designer for The Old Republic) and Daniel (Lead Designer for Crysis 2).

Crysis 2 is shaping up nicely, just like this guy's pecs

That’s enough from me for now; I’ll get back to you tomorrow with more of the stuff I see.

Love and hugs,

Tom

Today was a long day. Having to wake up at quarter to four in the morning and travel across London using a variation of night buses and tubes isn’t a barrel of laughs. But I guess it’s worth it considering EA are paying to take me out to Gamescom and cover some of the highest profile future releases.

I won’t bore you with the flight or my trepidations about strapping into a five tonne dart, using jet turbines to hurtle at ludicrous speeds towards your destination… but needless to say I made it. Arriving at Cologne Airport I met with my fellow reporters for EA and after a swift glass of Cola (I don’t drink Coffee and definitely needed the caffeine) we were on our way to the hotel.

The rest of the team....from left to right - Emily, Diane & Mike

I’ve stayed in nice hotels before, but this is something else. The concierge greeted us first in German, then in English after seeing the puzzled looks on our faces, and took our bags from the car to the check-in desk. Our handler, Dan (I call him this only because he was my handler at the Warden’s Quest event for the launch of Dragon Age: Origins), was there to meet us and check us in. After a speedy change of t-shirt, we were off to the Conference centre for a double dose of pandemonium as a few thousand journalists fight to secure the best interviews.

My first interview, with a developer from the upcoming Dark Spore, perhaps wasn’t my greatest; blame it on the lack of sleep and the fact that I’ve never done what you would call “professional journalism”, but luckily Dan was on hand to help us through with some decent open-ended questions to get the conversation flowing.

Also managed to get some more time with Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, expect an updated hands-on soon

After that the day was a whirlwind of developer interviews and hands-on previews, all fitted into a few hours in the afternoon. Particular highlights include Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer of Dead Space 2, and Patrick Liu, Producer for Medal of Honor. You’ll be able to listen/read them in the coming days, BE EXCITED!

Speaking of Medal of Honour, some of the guys from Linkin Park were there

By the time we left the conference centre, I’d been awake for 15 hours… and ready to drop. Not to be beaten by tiredness; I can sleep when I’m dead (which will probably be Sunday at this pace), it was back to the Hotel room to record a little segment for The Newb Review podcast. Note to self: make up more lies to trick the guys at The Newb Review when I talk to them tomorrow.

The booth babes of GamesCom 2010 were looking hott

The day ended with a lovely meal and some much deserved celebratory beers, all kindly paid for by EA. I’m not sure if this happens everywhere in Cologne, but the waiters bring a fresh beer every time you get close to the bottom of your glass, without even asking. I’ll get back to you tomorrow after we check out a few more bars…

Tom out.

For an MP3 copy of the show, right click the link and choose Save As.
You can also get the rss feed right here:  RSS Feed

If you’d like the show notes, click the more button.

[H:MM:SS] – Show Time Line
——————–
Opening Song (Track 3 – Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia OST)

[0:00:39] – Introductions
-Jason’s Public Appology

[0:05:54] – Jason’s Now Playing
-The VGCats Comic link

[0:38:59] – Steven’s Now Playing

[0:56:03] – News
-The pic Jason mentioned

[1:42:05] – Coming Soon for August 2010

[1:49:46] – NPD’s for June 2010

[2:01:35] – Wrap Up

[2:04:05] – End

For an MP3 copy of the show, right click the link and choose Save As.
You can also get the rss feed right here:  RSS Feed

If you’d like the show notes, click the more button.

[H:MM:SS] – Show Notes
——————–
Opening Song (Track 3 – Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia OST)

[0:00:39] – Introductions
-Gears of War discussion

[0:05:56] – Chase’s Now Playing

[0:13:51] – Jason’s Now Playing

[0:53:35] – Steven’s Now Playing

[1:16:53] – News

[2:48:19] – Wrap Up
-The Gears of War 3 Vote

[2:58:22] – End

The guys tackle all the usual stuff with news of Bungie joining the Darkside (Activision) and Call of Duty: Black ops. Question: How does a gaming podcast get to talk about The Incredible Hulk’s penis? I don’t know either but the guys manage it somehow. Download the show and listen to find out more.

Also, leave us an iTunes review and you’ll be in with a chance of getting a game of your choice as one lucky reviewer will be picked at random once we reach 50 reviews.

MP3 Download / iTunes / RSS Feed

1. What’s the best gaming related Christmas gift you’ve ever had? Was it because the game was awesome-tastic or did it cement the love you had for a certain lady? Tell us why it meant so much to you.

Tom01255

Christmas of 1998 was a great one for me; as I eagerly unwrapped my brand spanking new Nintendo 64. This marked my first foray into console gaming and has left a lasting impression. I was immediately hooked to gaming, whilst I had played on the Snes and Megadrive of various friends; I had never had one of my own. But with my new N64 I became king of the playground. The one game I had, the massively underrated Mischief Makers (an eccentric 2D platformer) was more than enough to keep me entertained until Smash Brothers and Zelda really monopolised my playtime.

Joefeesh

Mario Galaxy. From the start, walking down the dark streets of the mushroom kingdom towards the castle, starbits falling from the sky like an upside down fireworks display. I was taken in by the lush world that Nintendo had recreated for Mario Galaxy. The amazing gravity based platforming is like nothing else and the sheer quantity of new ideas transformed into levels still astounds me. With the starry skies and smooth, shiny textures, it was the perfect gift to get me through the holidays during one of the roughest times in my life.

Crofterz

Kung Fu. OK, so my favourite games related Christmas gift takes us way back to when I got my first ever games console (the NES). However, the console itself is not my favourite gift, it was the slew of games that came bundled with it. Duck Hunt (with the light gun), Super Mario Bros., and in particular, Kung Fu. Kung Fu is, to this day, my favourite game. Although it could now be considered extremely primitive, I still love it because I spent so many hours playing it as a child and have many fond memories.

vVv Diesel

As a kid growing up with a father who loved cars, I naturally followed suit, finding myself outside with grease under my fingernails (well, it was more fun than mud!) and watching all manner of car racing. The British Touring Car Championship was by far my favorite, and after playing the original ToCA, I was hooked. Never mind the silly cheats that allowed you to unlock, of all things, a tank; it was all about pure racing. I would play with my best friend or my dad for hours at a time. Then they announced ToCA 2. Well, obviously I drove my mum insane with my constant whines of, ”I really want that game”, and endless questions as to why I couldn’t just buy it with my pocket money.

Come Christmas, I had enough pocket money saved to buy the game five times over, but there it was in my Santa’s sack. The rest of Christmas day was consumed by my new game (and a new TV too). To this day, I still adore the original ToCA games.

Braindead Hero

This one is a fairly simple answer: my SNES. This is the first console that was truly mine, and really got me into gaming. Before, I had played my dad’s Commodore VIC-20, and had plenty of fun with that. But this SNES was mine. It came with a couple of games that have stayed with me ever since, namely the classics: Doom, Donkey Kong Country, and of course, Super Mario World. Three top notch games which made an indelible impression on me and possibly influenced my future gaming tastes. The SNES early on placed me firmly in the Nintendo camp in the then ongoing Nintendo vs Sega war.

Mightyles

I would say that my favourite gaming related present would have to have been getting a Nintendo Wii in 2007… Actually, no. I am lying. In all honesty the greatest gaming related Christmas present I can think of was not even given to me, but given to my elder brother: the Sony Playstation. The reason it was the greatest present is the simple fact that, while I had always been an active gamer, it was not until the advent of the Playstation that I really dived into gaming with any conviction. That year, he got Tekken 2 and I loved it. However, it was not until he brought Resident Evil 2 that I became hooked. Couple that with games like Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Soul Blade, Tenchu, and Bushido Blade, and you can see why I say that was the greatest gaming gift in my household.

Kamiza

Without a doubt, my favourite gaming related present was many years ago when I received a Commodore 64.  Although I’d had a fair bit of video game exposure through the likes of an old Binatone machine, the C64 was the first time I owned a piece of gaming machinery that would score me cool points in school.  I had so many years of enjoyment with some of my favourite games of all time, including IK+, Commando, Ghostbusters (its better than the current gen version) and Uridium +.  Most importantly though, it meant I could stop pretending to be friends with a kid in my class just so I could play on his C64.

2. What is your biggest gaming Christmas wish?

Crofterz

Dante’s Inferno. Yes it looks like a complete God of War clone but why have games got to be “ground breaking” all of a sudden? Surely they just need to be fun? And Dante’s Inferno looks like it delivers fun by the bucket load. What could be more enjoyable than fighting an endless amount of demons as you make your way through hell, literally! The graphics looks stunning and this game is the one I’m most excited about (and have been all year). I’m just a bit gutted that I have to wait until next year

Braindead Hero

Okay, so I’ve kind of cheated as this isn’t one game, but one product. This Christmas I would love to receive an ‘ultimate collection’, spanning 9 DVDs (or 1 blu-ray) and containing the best games from the Saturn and Dreamcast. It would have full achievements/trophies and be up-scaled to 1080p HD, with full translations for those never released in English. It would also cost the same as any other game… and I’d never have to go outside again. Alternatively, if anyone wants to donate a Sega Saturn and Dreamcast to me, you will make me a very happy man.

Mightyles

This year I am going to be wicked and ask for two Christmas wishes – one based in reality, and one that seems almost impossible. First the easy one: I want Mass Effect 2. Now. The more videos Bioware release about that game, the more I want it. Despite being incredibly flawed, the original Mass Effect is one of my favourite games of all time thanks to it’s thoroughly engaging storyline and characters. For my second nigh on impossible wish? I’d like a decent Sonic The Hedgehog game.

Tom01255

I’m going to be greedy and wish for two things. Firstly, I want Final Fantasy XIII… Now… And I want it to be a proper return to the old-school Final Fantasy. I want a turn-based fighting system, massive summons to help you fight, a narrative full of twists and turns and a world map to run around á la Final Fantasy 7/8/9. Is that too much to ask!?

Secondly, my biggest wish is for a fully 3D remake of the original Gameboy Pokémon titles (preferably yellow) for the Wii. If done right, this would almost certainly be the killer app for the Wii, at least in my eyes, and I would even consider buying one!

Joefeesh

I’m just going to put this one out there and whichever developer picks it up, please get in contact so I can let you know where to send the royalty cheques. Ninja, superhero, robot, dinosaur zombies. Yeah, I thought of that. Go make it!

I would love to see a Zelda game that had a truly epic story and heart. I had this idea for the story: Link kills Ganon, but his spirit form then slowly starts to take over Link‘s mind, without him realising. He becomes the royal bodyguard, but then one day fights against hordes of enemies only to later find that it was innocents that he’d gone and slaughtered. Link then goes on the run from the Hyrulian army and Nintendo can take it from there. But any real big Zelda reboot would be nice. How about ninja, superhero, robot, Zelda zombie!?

vVv Diesel

My biggest gaming wish is to get hold of a full band kit (mic, guitar, bass and drums). Those bloody plastic peripherals annoy the hell out of me. I’m stuck with 2 guitars and 2 ‘Lips’ microphones, and all I want is a drum kit to let out all of my inner metal-head rage. Plus there’s the fact that the only instrument I can play for real is the drums. Yes, I know that these stupid rhythm games are totally overrated, very annoying and complete trash, but give me a plastic drum kit and I’ll be amused for at least 2hrs; you can keep it after that. Until then, I’ll keep on playing Forza 3.

Kamiza

My biggest gaming wish is for my family to finally relent and get me somthing / anything gaming related for Christmas.  My wife and dad both refuse to buy me anything that will encourage me to sit in front of the Playstation 3 any more than I already do. I always try to ask for vouchers for shops that I know stock games, as there’s no chance they’ll get me vouchers for anywhere as obvious as GAME. If I could pick something specific for them to get me though, it would be a PSP or PSP Go.  I’d love to be able to fill my lunchbreaks with a bit of mid-day gaming.

Make sure you leave a mushroom out for Yoshi!

3. What was your biggest dissappointment of the year? Explanation optional.

Mightyles

The PS3 exclusive Joker maps on Batman Arkham Asylum. I didn’t really know why they neglected their larger fanbase, 360 owners, by exclusively providing this content to PS3 owners, and I had doubts about the perpetuity of that exclusive. However, some 6 months later, and with the announcement of the sequel, it seems less and less likely that the Joker maps will ever come to the 360. As such, I have broken down and ordered a cheap copy of the PS3 version of Arkham Asylum (thanks to zavvi.co.uk!) as it appears to be the only way to play these bonus maps… Perhaps that was their intention all along.

Joefeesh

Honorable mention to Prototype which was a pile of balls, even with the framework of the outstanding Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction. My biggest disappointment was Fight Night Round 4. Round 3 is one of my favourite multiplayer games. So intuitive, it took me only 2 turns to really get the hang of it and start kicking some ass. The total punch control was amazing to me. In Round 4 they took what worked and broke it completely. I have no idea why they decided to turn the total punch control with the right stick into half punch control by having to press an extra button to do haymakers… It just doesn’t make sense; it’s a backwards step. Also, the counter attack was made almost unusable. Along with these built in faults, the game was released with massive bugs. At one point my mate battered somebody silly, but when the bell rang the game switched their places, putting him on the floor! Utter rubbish.

Crofterz

Now Tom (tom01255) is going to absolutely hate me for this, but I was so excited for Dragon Age: Origins this year (almost as excited as I currently am for Dante’s Inferno), but for me it just didn’t deliver. I didn’t know much about the game before it was released (I assumed there would be 4 player online Co-Op for example, as it seemed perfect for it) but I found the combat system was far more suited to an MMORPG than a stand alone RPG. Also, I felt no real connection to any of my characters (due to the sheer size and complicated-ness of it all; yes it’s an achievement but personally I just don’t like hugely massive games that will  take hundreds of hours to complete). Not only did this game massively let me down, but it also found itself in the traded-in section of my local games store within a few weeks.

Braindead Hero

My personal biggest disappointment of the year comes from bad hardware. You may be surprised to find out that my Xbox 360 has never even had a sniff of a technical problem, yet earlier this year my beloved PlayStation 3 broke. Anyone who has had hardware failure knows how bad this can be, but it was made worse by the fact that Sony no longer make the 60GB Backwards Compatible model. I might as well throw away my sizeable collection of PS2 games. Oh and by the way, £100 is way too much to repair anything that stopped working after around 1 year 5 months.

vVv Diesel

Aliens vs. Predator: Colonial Marines is THE biggest disappointment of the year for the sheer fact that at the start of the year we heard so much about it & then……

Nothing! Not a squeak or even a screenshot. Now we hear the game has been delayed. Oh dear, where have we heard this before? (Duke Nukem: Forever, I’m looking at you on this one!) Sure, it takes time to develop a good game, but with so many delays already, they have set the bar much, much higher and soon it’ll become over-hyped  just like GTA 4, Halo 3 & Modern Warfare 2. So much talk but so little to interest.

Kamiza

Without doubt, my biggest dissapointment of the year is the online element of UFC Undisputed 2009. I truly love the offline elements of the game, but when you go online it becomes a real nightmare.  At times the game is hampered by so much lag that you have a 3 second delay between pressing the button and getting a reaction on screen.  Also, it’s incredibly hard if you want to compete with your own created fighter, as most people online have maxed out the stats on their pugilists, giving them a massive advantage.  This could have been fixed with a simple patch to make sure you only get paired with people of a similar level.  Having completed the excellent career mode several times, I find that there is now very little for the game to offer me other than the occassional punch up when I have a friend round for a beer.  The online has really knocked the game down a few notches for me, and that’s a shame. Otherwise it would have been very close to my game of the year.

Tom01255

One of the older boys told me that Santa wasn’t real today… I’m getting increasingly concerned that I won’t get any presents…

MERRY CHRISTMAS

FROM NEWB REVIEW!

Traditional RPGs seem to have fallen out of favour of late. Whilst turn based games have almost certainly seen their demise on main stream consoles and PCs; replaced with their action-RPG counterparts, there seem to have been even fewer Baldur’s Gate style hardcore RPGs produced over the past few years. It’s somewhat refreshing, then, to have Dragon Age: Origins to bite into for a big slab of role-playing goodness.

Don’t get me wrong, Dragon Age can be as soft or hardcore as you’d like. The varying difficulty levels mean that you can simply stroll through the game, really soaking up the epic story on the easiest difficulty, whilst nightmare mode will really have you fighting for survival at every step.

Also, the nature of character development means you can spend hours poring over which skills to select and how to distribute skill points, or simply follow handy sub-categories. Spells, for example, are divided into Primal, Creation, Spirit and Entropy: Primal representing damage based spells whilst Creation, Spirit and Entropy contain revival, healing and status magic respectively.

The party’s mage cracks out a primal spell for some serious damage

There’s a lot of replay value to the game. And by a lot I mean LOADS. Looking at the character selection for example, you have three races to choose from; Human, Elf or Dwarf. You then have the choice of gender and whether you wish to be a commoner or nobility; as the story is different for each.

Finally you must choose which class you wish to be, the only limitation being that Dwarves cannot be mages. When you add all of that together you have an impressive 32 variations before you even begin play. Furthermore, these variations are more than superficial; characters within the game will treat you differently depending on your race and class as well as gender.

Male Dwarf commoner. One of 32 different options!

There’s an even greater depth once you get into the game: your choice of actions made throughout the game have an impact on how you are perceived by those around you. This is more than your simple good-neutral-evil scheme as seen in games such as Fallout 3. Here, one action, such as choosing to sleep with the morally dubious mage Morrigan, will actually upset another of your party, namely Leliana, affecting how well she will fight alongside you.

The controls present some confusion to begin with. The default mouse setup is perhaps the most problematic; right click to select seems counterintuitive to someone who is right handed. Whilst this can be inverted in the menus: by changing this setting, the uses of the mouse in-game and within menus do not correlate. Leaving the mouse at default therefore seems to be the best option as you will soon get used to the system.

The menus and skill selection are reminiscent of World of Warcraft, with the ability to pause the game and move into the menus to select which spell you wish to cast, or simply placing them on a ‘speed rail’ at the bottom of the screen to quicken the pace. The pause feature becomes vital within the game. On the harder difficulties, players will need to set the game to pause whenever facing up to an enemy, giving some breathing space in order to choose which action to take and hopefully reducing the number of times the party is completely decimated by enemies.

The camera controls are extremely robust. Players can choose whether they prefer the ‘top down’ aerial view to gain the full picture of any particular area, such as within the Baldur’s Gate series. For the added excitement however, you can pull the camera right behind your selected character, keeping the action up close.

Keeping the action up close...

In terms of difficulty, even playing on ‘normal’ presented quite a challenge; often taking several attempts to best a particularly difficult boss or, at times, get past a room full of tough mobs. Having found such a challenge at normal difficulty, I shudder to think what kind of a sadist you’d have to be to attempt ‘nightmare’ mode. The frequent bosses are satisfyingly epic in scale, with a real sense of size and power when one comes up against the High Dragon, for example.

Graphically, the PC version (played on a top-spec Alienware rig) is pretty good. There is little difference between the cut scenes and in-game graphics, but that’s not a bad thing. Frequently I found myself gawping at how beautiful the surroundings were when traipsing through Ferelden.

Attention to detail is astounding. Check out the grass!

Voice acting follows suit in fine form; with the vocal stylings of Tim Curry (of The Rocky Horror Picture Show fame) and Kate Mulgrew (from Star Trek: Voyager) as well as a wealth of perhaps less famous, but equally as talented, actors. Having played through a fair chunk of the game, I struggled to find any voice acting that I thought was stilted or out of place; no mean feat within a game of this scale.

If you don’t recognise these voices in the game you should be shot!

There were some glitches, notably a lighting issue in an early cut scene for the human noble origin, and the misplacing of an event trigger at Redcliff. However it must be said that such glitches were few and far between and I’m confident these minor issues will be fixed by launch day.

Dragon Age: Origins will be released on November 6th for PC and XBox 360, with the PS3 version following on November 20th at all good retailers.

REVIEW ROUND UP:

GRAPHICS: 4/5 With a top spec PC the graphics are truly astounding at times. Locales are suitably atmospheric, whether you’re trudging through the Dead Trenches or the forests of Ferelden.

SOUND: 5/5 The voice acting is superb with a wealth of established actors that really bring the characters to life. The soundtrack is suitably orchestral and creates real tension when you’re heading up to a particularly difficult boss battle. It would have been nice to find the Marilyn Manson track from the trailer along the way though…

GAMEPLAY: 5/5 Dragon Age seems to employ the best parts of Bioware games along with some lessons learnt from MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, to create a fantastic overall package. The story is immersive, with fantastic writing that twists and turns along the way. The difficulty settings provide a challenge to suit all levels, whether you’re something of a casual gamer or consider yourself amongst the elite hardcore.

LONGEVITY: 5/5 If I could have scored it six I would have done. It’s estimated a single run through, with little attention to side quests will take you over 40 hours. Add to that around 60 hours of side quest goodness and you’ve got yourself a sizeable RPG. That’s even before we consider the replay value of the 32 character variations and the choices you make as you go through the game. This is truly epic.

OVERALL: 5 angry dwarves out of 5. This is the best RPG I’ve played in a long time and will take some beating. Don’t be surprised to see this around awards time.

[starreview tpl=16]

Last week our very own Tom Wallis was lucky enough to have been selected to represent the UK for an epic 24-hour team marathon playing Dragon Age: Origins. Ten teams from around the world flocked to London’s County Hall to battle it out for a prize of $50,000… and a big shiny engraved shield thing. Having just got back from the big event; he’s sat down at the first keyboard he can find to give you the inside scoop from Team UK.

Tuesday: 27th October, 10am; a 7-seater people carrier pulled up outside my humble abode, my carriage to whisk me away to join a team of guys I’ve never met, to compete for a share of a huge prize. A mere two hours later and I was standing in the lobby of the hotel having joined my team and ‘mentor’ (he didn’t like the term ‘handler’), the man from EA that would be looking after us over the event.

“Who was on the team?” I hear you ask. Well, our rag-tag bunch of miscreants consisted of myself (soon to be nicknamed Tom ‘Hell-for-leather’ Wallis), Richard ‘Potions? What Potions?’ Burley, Chris ‘The Strategist’ Collins and Jack ‘Fade Master’ Payne.

Zoom forward another hour or so and we were all huddled together in the main chamber of London’s County Hall listening intently to instructions from the Dragon Age: Origins Senior Product Manager, David Silverman: the guy from all the promo videos I’m sure you will have seen.

The Great Chamber

So, instruction over; we’d been given the rules and had a rough idea of how we were going to play as a team. Our decision to choose a human noble warrior stemmed from the fact that every demo video we’d seen had used this character as their main party member. Later, we found that 7 of the 10 teams had made exactly the same decision; Hungary, Bioware Community and Slovakia/Czech Rep. differed; choosing a dwarf warrior, human rogue and elf mage respectively. We then had a mere three hours for each player to get to grips with the game and tackle the “Origins” part of the game. A feat, we’re told, should take roughly 2-3 hours to complete… No time to stop and smell the roses then!

The game can be broadly split into two parts; the “Origins” section outlines the beginnings of the character you have chosen and leads up to your selection as a Grey Warden. The beginning is somewhat linear. However, once completed, the world opens up and your hero is free to explore the game world as you see fit.

Our Origin took us through a tale of treachery and betrayal as the castle where the hero lived is invaded. It ends with our escape, aided by a Grey Warden; an ancient band of warriors charged with fighting against ‘the Blight’; an uprising of Dark Spawn who leave death and destruction in their wake.

Having only just tasted the succulent fruit that is ‘Dragon Age: Origins’, the teams were ushered out of the Great Chamber to prepare for the 24-hour marathon the following morning.

The Grey Warden’s rehearse for the opening ceremony

I’ll skip the complexities of breakfast choices (when doing a games marathon: stick to plain foods, you don’t want to mess up your digestion), and move right into the event. The cameras rolled, the Grey Warden stood and announced to the audience at home; watching intently over the internet, the format for this challenge. And so it begins: having selected our play order, Rich carried us through the opening hour with blistering pace.

By hour two (played by yours truly), I was negotiating a particularly difficult Ogre: during an epic battle against the Dark Spawn, the hero is sent off to the signal tower to light a distress beacon (see promo videos). Upon reaching the top, a huge Ogre and several minions waits in defence of the signal fire. Our strategy consisted of taking down the minions as quickly as possible, then throwing everything in our arsenal at the Ogre in the hope that he wouldn’t be standing afterwards.

Just as I began fighting the Ogre, what can only be described as a cacophony of competing perfumes filled my nostrils. The ‘models’ had arrived to add to the challenge by distracting the gamers. Politely, I suggested that the girls disrupt some other team if they really wanted to show their patriotism. I’d like to say they obliged; but after it was clear I wasn’t going to be sucked in, they moved on… our neighbours, Team Spain weren’t so lucky!

Team Spain’s José tries desperately to keep his eyes on the screen

As the hours passed and the changeovers occurred, it was clear Team UK had got into the swing of things. Before we knew it, it was time for the first elimination. I can’t quite speak for the other teams, but having seen several other teams getting wiped time after time on the same Ogre I obliterated first time (in my pants I might add! We forgot to equip our party with the best armour we had), we were quietly confident that we wouldn’t feature in the elimination.

The Grey Warden stood once again for the live stream, the lights dimmed and the room was bathed in a green light. To our surprise we really had hit the ground running; second place after four hours! Safe in the knowledge that we had some breathing space between us and the other competitors we set about our challenge with renewed vigour. Having decided to head for Wynne first, the only available natural healer in the game, we headed over to the Magi Tower where we believed she could be found. This choice, it seems, would be our undoing…

Upon reaching the Magi Tower, the hero is locked in. The party is then tasked with traversing the tower until reaching the top, where an Arch Demon throws the protagonist into a particularly difficult section known as ‘The Fade’. Not wanting to spoil anything for any readers, suffice to say that in terms of this competition, ‘The Fade’ is scant in terms of points. It’s a dream-like puzzle-based section with relatively little to kill and thus, little opportunity to level your character.

Thus over the next four hours we saw our standing fall from second to fifth place. With nine teams left in the competition however, fifth was enough to keep us safe from elimination as the bottom four battled it out against the Sloth Demon; the boss of ‘the Fade’. This is particularly challenging as he has several different elemental forms, so each time you bash him down to minimal health he switches form to present an entirely new challenge. The developers decided to make this elimination even more gruelling by giving the teams an underpowered party consisting of a mage, a rogue and two warriors. Perhaps because they are, by now, used to playing with very low-level characters, whilst most other teams have zoomed ahead, the only all girl team; USA, dominate, sending Slovakia/Czech Republic for an early departure.

The second elimination was an entirely different kettle of fish. This time, rather than fighting a boss, the teams had to battle waves of Dark Spawn. Spain were first up, employing an extremely effective tactic, using Area of Effect spells to damage a large number of enemies at once. Poland and Canada seemingly benefited from seeing this tactic, as both adopt something very similar when it was their turn to take on the challenge. With USA eliminated, they rushed out to play on the Green Room XBoxes as they sought to experience what the romance aspect of the game has to offer; several hours later, managing to sleep with a bisexual assassin they picked up along the way… Those crazy sex-starved Americans.

As it was clear our team could well be in the next elimination, Chris and I once again head off to the Green Room to develop a strategy to deal some serious damage to the High Dragon. The High Dragon is an impressive beast, taking up most of the screen and with powerful swipes and bites that can wipe out a team member in just a couple of hits. After a fair bit of practice; timing Chris’ attempts on my phone, we were confident we could survive the challenge and trudged back into the chamber for the announcements. To our surprise, we had climbed from fifth to fourth and once again avoided the challenge! With renewed vitality we got our heads down and set about the task of fighting back against Team Hungary and Bioware Community; who had dominated the first part of this competition.

The Green Room. Far right: Chris and Tom practice for elimination

2am rolled around. That’s a full 16 hours of solid gaming and it was elimination time once more. This time, third or above would mean safety. The lights dimmed; the room bathed in green light. The Grey Warden came out with the by now familiar spiel. Seemingly just to add to my torture, he switched directions and so Team UK found out if we had to play after everyone else. As soon as Team Netherlands/Belgium were told they were safe however, I was all but certain I would be fighting for our survival.

And so, for the first time in the competition, your beloved Team UK was handed the cursed skull and stood with baited breath, awaiting the judgement trial. This time we were transported into the Dead Mines, where a mechanical spinning head spawns yellow dwarf warriors in an attempt to decimate your party. I had something of an ace up my sleeve; during practice we had uncovered a strategy to inflict massive damage on the spinning head using the environment. I won’t spoil it for you, but needless to say the other teams hadn’t made the same discovery, each inflicting less than 6,000 damage. I glanced over to my team, who uniformly began nodding like the Churchill dog. We knew we were safe.

Stepping up to the plate, I took controller in hand and set about getting the job done. Implementing our strategy, it was clear that the practice in the Green Room has paid dividends as Team UK scored over 1,000 points more than the next competitor. I then, ever coolly, gave a gentle nod to the camera as David Silverman and Mike Laidlaw announced that I’d trounced the competition. France were ejected from the chamber.

The penultimate Xbox challenge was taken from an optional sidequest within the main game. Gax Kang can be found in his little wooden hut at the end of a long quest. For this elimination, players were given a mage, two warriors and the dog. Sounds tough? My advice when you play is not to underestimate the power of the dog; he has some real power and can deal a helluva lot of damage, taking enemies down quickly. Also his howl causes enemies to freeze for some time and has a massive area of effect.

As a team we had decided that we had this penultimate challenge handled and, as I had a six hour gap before I was back on, I nipped off for a nap; secure in the knowledge that I would be playing the final hours of the competition. A mere 40 minutes later I was awoken by a text from our mentor. I feared the worst… My fears were then confirmed when I rushed into the chamber to see the Team UK desk empty and our light changed from green to red.

Catching up with the team in the Green Room, they let me know how it went down: a somewhat unlucky encounter against Gax Kang whereby we were the only team to be frozen for a good ten seconds of the battle. The dog and mage were also swiftly felled, leaving just the main and secondary warriors to deal the damage. Ultimately it wasn’t enough. We placed third out of the four up for this double elimination, and thus we fell out of the competition.

It’s clear in our minds that the rest of the competition was a foregone conclusion. The crew members we spoke to let it slip that Hungary were well ahead of 2nd place. Thus it came as no surprise to see that the dying hours were a head to head; Hungary against the Bioware Community. Hungary then went on to win out.

Team Hungary rock out with their Axe

With event some 48 hours behind me now, sure, I have some regrets – ‘what if we hadn’t have done this’ and ‘if only I’d have finished this part quicker’. But what’s done is done, and I hope that history will state that four guys came into a competition as underdogs and rose to the challenge. We were the first team to beat the Ogre, and the only ones to accomplish this without dying once. We scored third highest, beating two teams who ultimately had two hours more game time than we did. And most importantly, we came closest to sleeping with Leliana…

Team UK! From left to right: Jack Payne, Tom Wallis, Dan Sheridan (from EA), Richard Burley and Chris Collins

I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone at EA and Bioware for organising a fantastic event, the crew for running it (almost) like clockwork, the actors for putting on a sterling performance for the online audience, my fellow compatriots who joined me on this crazy journey, and of course, Gamespot UK for selecting a fantastic team that so nearly took it all the way!

Keep it locked to The Newb Review this week for a complete review of Dragon Age: Origins.