BioWare today announced the next installment of Dragon Age: Origins DLC, Return to Ostagar. Set for release on all platforms this Holiday, fans of the game will have even more content for one of the best RPG’s of the year. From the press release:
Return to Ostagar, BioWare’s next thread in the Dragon Age: Origins tapestry, summons players to a new quest in which they will return to the fateful battleground in Ostagar where the Grey Wardens were nearly wiped out. Players will discover King Cailan’s top-secret political agenda and go behind enemy lines to revisit a place that many feared had been lost to history.
I haven’t had a chance to play Dragon Age: Origins yet, but Karl thinks it’s the bees knees. Yeah, I just wrote that. Don’t judge me. So save up $4.99 to buy this new content pack pretty soon.
Dragon Age has been a long time in the making – since 2004, in fact. Touted as Bioware’s “spiritual successor”to Baldur’s Gate, Dragon Age may appear at first glance to be Mass Effect meets Lord of the Rings, but in fact, Dragon Age is an entirely different beast altogether – and a good one at that. It’s not a perfect game, but it does provide a solid and satisfying story based experience, something that Bioware prides themselves on. If you’re interested in an old school RPG, Dragon Age is most certainly worth your time, and here’s why.
What better way to start the morning off than with a bunch of shots from Mass Effect 2? Kotaku has a gallery of nine brand spankin’ new shots from the game. If that’s not enough, Bioware recently announced the Collector’s Edition, chock full of awesome stuff, such as:
The Collectors’ Edition of Mass Effect 2 comes in a premium, tin case andincludes the full version of the game, a 48-page hardcover “Art of Mass Effect 2” book, Issue 1 of the Mass Effect Redemption comic book, and a bonus DVD with behind-the-scenes and making-of videos. In addition, the Mass Effect 2 Collectors’ Edition will include unique in-game weapons and armor that can only be obtained by purchasing this version.
Still not enough Mass Effect awesome for you? Bioware also released a developer documentary that showcases some of the enemies Sheppard will be up against in the new game.
I guess if you need even more Mass Effect, you can grab the original game on Steam for the low price of ten bones, it’s Steam’s weekend deal. It looks like that with Dragon Age released, Bioware will be ramping up the hype behind Mass Effect 2. Let’s hope there isn’t a Marilyn Manson trailer in the future.
Along with a slew of pre-order incentives (exclusive content), Bioware announced today that Mass Effect 2 will release on January 26th, 2010 in the US and on January 29th in Europe. Good news for RPG fans.
In North America, pre-order bonuses* include special-ops armor and weaponry that are designed to boost Commander Shepard’s skills and abilities. At GameStop, Terminus Gear is available with pre-orders, which includes the powerful Terminus Assault Armor and the M-490 Blackstorm Heavy Weapon:
The Terminus Armor is designed for use in extreme planetary conditions, increasing run speed and personal shields, and augmenting weapons with an additional magazine of reserve ammo.
The M-90 Blackstorm Heavy Weapon generates a high-powered localized gravity well, accelerating particles to near-infinite mass, and ultimately expanding the selection of heavy weapons available to players when they gear up for combat missions in Mass Effect 2.
Players that pre-order Mass Effect 2 at other retail outlets in North America will receive the potent Inferno Armor, which is used by officers to monitor battlefield conditions by recognizing elevated heart rates, and regulates sub-systems with extreme efficiency to allow for greater response times – together these abilities translate in-game into a negotiation bonus for Commander Shepard and an increase in run speed and augmented damage from combat powers.
Personally, I didn’t think Mass Effect 2 would be released so soon, and I’m really excited for the new year now. I guess the wait for January 26th starts now…
I’m excited for Dragon Age: Origins. How excited? Really excited. With a bunch of this year’s AAA titles pushed back into 2010, Bioware’s Dragon Age won’t have much competition for RPG of the year, and since it is a Bioware game, you’ll be guaranteed at least a decent RPG experience.
Anyway, as the release date for Dragon Age gets closer, more hands on previews have started popping up around the web. The video above, from GiantBomb, is a deliciously awesome twenty minute hands on – showing skill progression, customization, and combat, among other things. If you’ve got twenty minutes to kill it is certainly worth the watch.
The Dragon Age: Origins Character Creator will allow you to create numerous different characters before launch and experiment with the different classes, races, and create multiple faces for the 6 Origin stories and save them to your hard drive for safe keeping until the game is released.
The bad news for console gamers is that this is PC only right now. The creator will have all kinds of social features for Bioware’s new Dragon Age social website, which is good if you want to show off your large chested female wizard to all of your friends.
Hopefully this will provide as much entertainment as when the Spore Creature creator was released – although I’m not sure I’ll be spending as much time with the Dragon Age creator making walking genitalia as I did with the Spore one, but oh well.
I like my women like I like my Mass Effect 2 supporting party members – biotic, bald, and covered in tattoos. Bioware seems to have taken a notice to my fetish – the recently revealed Subject Zero looks like the kind of chick that I wouldn’t mind running into battle with, but also the kind of chick I could take home to my parents.
Subject Zero is the third announced party member, following Thane and Grunt (who is obviously not nearly as cool as Wrex.)
Mass Effect 2 has no release date yet, but you can probably expect to see it sometime in mid 2010. Hopefully.
Excited for Star Wars: The Old Republic? Yeah, me too. Bioware’s first MMO foray looks to be an ambitious one – The Old Republic will either be the biggest co-op story game ever made, or one of the most unique MMORPG games ever made – but one thing is for sure, it won’t suck. I’ve been wanting this since the first two Knights of the Old Republic games came out (by the way, check out this recently released restoration patch for KOTOR2), and while SW:TOR was officially announced a year or so ago, not much information has been released about it, aside from a couple videos and some information on a couple classes.
Today, though, Bioware made the game feel a bit more real to fans by announcing that they are accepting signups for the beta test. While the beta might not start for a couple of months (or maybe even years) it does make me happy to see the game moving along nicely. Beta will be a big milestone for Bioware.
I guess I should also take this time to just reiterate that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is the greatest game ever made. Just putting that out there.
Simply put, the Knights of the Old Republic games for the original Xbox and PC are not only the two greatest Star Wars games ever made (suck it, X-Wing Vs. TIE Fighter), but also the two greatest RPG games ever made, and also the two greatest games ever made. Seriously. If you think otherwise, you are wrong. I’d go so far as to say it should be a punishable crime to speak ill of these games, but I digress.
Perhaps that is why I’m so excited for Bioware’s first MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Since the game was first revealed last October, I’ve been grasping on to every piece of information and news about the game, and up until this point, Bioware has been rather vague about the game. Friday, Bioware released a twenty minute developer walkthrough, showcasing the very demo of the game that was shown behind closed doors at E3 2009. This is the first actual look at a couple solid minutes of uninterrupted gameplay – featuring the Smuggler, Bounty Hunter, and Sith Warrior classes.
The videos speak for themselves, but if you’re like me and the idea of a massive multiplayer Bioware RPG gets your love-juices pumping, the wait for SW:TOR is going to be a very long one, no matter when the game comes out.
Often times, game publishers will give loose release dates – “sometime in the next couple months”, “next year”, “when it’s done”, which reminds me a lot of what I tell my boss when he asks if I’m actually working on something (hint: I’m not.) Today, Bioware managed to tighten up that release date a bit, stating that Mass Effect 2 would indeed be dropping months after Bioware’s new shit, Dragon Age: Origins.
Oddly enough, Bioware doesn’t have many other games in development, other than Star Wars: The Old Republic, so I’m not sure why they feel the need to state this. The important thing is that the tentative date for Mass Effect 2 has been moved from “early 2010″ to “months after Dragon Age”, although in reality that could mean five, seven, or even twenty six billion months. Or Dragon Age might just get pushed back again and we’ll be stuck with waiting for both games. Damn you, Bioware.
In the mean time, why not check out the latest trailer for the game, featuring one of the new party members? Warning, spoilers for those who don’t want to be spoiled, or for those who happen to live under a rock.
I, for one, cannot wait to start having intergalactic sex with blue aliens again.
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