Dragon Age 3 and the case of the missing platform

More than a month after their initial announcement, BioWare revealed some more details about Dragon Age 3: Inquisition over the weekend at Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo. David Gaider will return as lead writer for the game as players take control of a human character once again. Whether that human character will be Hawke, the grey warden, or someone new is unknown.

BioWare wants this to be the biggest Dragon Age yet, with a deeper focus on customization than Origins had for both your character and your followers. Players will be able to take control of a castle as seen in the concept art above. When BioWare talked about scope, they pointed out one dungeon in Dragon Age 3 is bigger than all of the dugneons in Dragon Age 2. They are also exploring technology to allow players to import their saves from previous games without actually transferring the save data.

Despite all this, BioWare was quiet on which platforms the game will appear. Dragon Age 3: Inquisition will be the first BioWare game to run on Frostbite 2, the same engine that’s powered Battlefield 3, Need for Speed The Run, and the recently released Medal of Honor: Warfighter. With a tentative release date of fall 2013, it’s almost a forgone conclusion we’ll see Inquisition on the PC and next-generation consoles, especially to take advantage of the Frostbite 2 engine that stumbles on current gen systems. However, with more than 130 million consoles in total, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t an Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version as well.

Diary of an Assassin - First Entry

I never played an Assassin’s Creed game. Well, that’s partly true. I played about the first hour of the first game when it released in 2007 on my, at the time, single-core CPU and AGP graphics card. I only played the first hour because the game chugged along in what seemed like slow motion, effectively killing any exciting moments the game had to offer. The system I was playing it on was built before the transition to dual-core and quad-core chips, and before PCI-e cards were a thing.

Fast forward five years later, we’re barreling towards the release of Assassin’s Creed 3. In both an effort to catch up before the release of the newest game, as well as see if the games in the series still hold up, I’m going to be playing through the entire series leading up to the release of Assassin’s Creed 3 for the PC on November 20. That means Assassin’s Creed, Assassin’s Creed 2, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Four weeks, four games.

Going through previous entries in a series before the new one comes out isn’t a new thing for me. When The Dark Knight Rises released, I watched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight the weekend before. However, I’ve never done this with games. There’s a very real possibility I could totally burn out on the series before Assassin’s Creed 3 releases. I’m willing to take that risk.

I’ll be updating my progress through these entries pointing out what still works in each game, how the series changes from release to release, and how the meta-narrative connects. But first, it’s time to step into the shoes of Altair Ibn-La'Ahad.

Journey into Tyria: Two steps forward, one step back

It’s been more than enough time since Guild Wars 2 released to poke and prod at the way it handles genre conventions. Having played every weekend beta event up until release, and my time with it after, it’s evident to me this was not the second coming of MMOs fans were expecting. That’s not to say Guild Wars 2 isn’t a fun game. It is, but the design foundation seems to ask why certain genre-defining standards are the way they are with changes where ArenaNet saw fit. This works in some instances, but when all the game systems come together it feels like taking two steps forward and one step back.

The Playlist – 10/20/2012

The Playlist – 10/13/2012

The Playlist – 9/29/2012

If you weren’t excited about any of the previous fall releases, be prepared because the holiday release schedule has officially started. With few exceptions, the next few weeks are back to back releases with NBA 2K13, Dishonored, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Assassin’s Creed 3, and Hitman: Absolution.

The Playlist – 9/1/2012

The last time I sat down and talked about what I was playing was about a month ago. Instead of listing the reasons why I haven’t been able to write a Playlist since, I’d rather just dive into what I played over the last month. There is a lot to talk about.

New Darksiders 2 weapons for players of the original

Vigil Games announced a reward for loyal players who played and completed the first Darksiders game. Players will receive two pieces of gear in Darksiders II; the Pauldrons of the Horsemen a level 5 armor piece that increases Death’s stats and critical damage, for playing Darksiders, as well as the Chaos Fang, a level 1 scythe that boosts Death’s regular and critical damage, for completing the first game on any difficulty.

These items are will be awarded for all players regardless of platform, and are based on achievements through Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, or Steam. Darksiders II releases on August 14 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Bethesda missed the window on Dawnguard for PC and PS3 players

The summer drought of games is ending soon. Both Darksiders II and Sleeping Dogs release in nearly two weeks, followed up by Transformers: Fall of Cybertron the week after. After that, it’s a cascade of games flowing all the way into December. So when will PC and PlayStation 3 players have the time to play Dawnguard? They won’t.

Dawnguard, the expansion for last year’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, adds additional content and quests along with an entirely new set of vampire-centric powers. Xbox 360 players have enjoyed the new content since June 26 thanks to Bethesda’s deal with Microsoft for a 30-day exclusive on the platform. But 30 days came and west last week, and there still hasn’t been an announcement or reveal of when this expansion will come for the other platforms. To put this in perspective, the last official number of Skyrim copies sold was 10 million, 59% of those the Xbox 360 version, while 27% of copies sold for the PlayStation 3, and 14% for the PC. That leaves 4.1 million potential players waiting for the expansion, during a time when games are slow and the addition to a one of last year’s hits would be welcome.

Will Dawnguard come to the PC and PlayStation 3 at all? It’s up in the air right now. Vice president of PR and marketing at Bethesda Softworks Pete Hines said in a recent twitter post, “We have not announced Dawnguard for any other platform, nor given a timeline for any such news. If we have news, I promise I'd tell you.” So it’s possible it might not something we see anytime soon, but then Bethesda updated the PC version of Skyrim on Steam with patch 1.7, adding a few bug fixes and stability issues. Could this patch be in preparation of Dawnguard? Road signs point to yes as Hines responded to an inquiry on twitter, saying, “Nothing has been said/announced about it. We should have info later this week.”

Even if Bethesda does confirm Dawnguard for PC and PlayStation 3 and gives a release date, it will have missed its mark. Take for example the last Bethesda published title that had an Xbox 360 timed exclusive addon, Fallout: New Vegas. Dead Money released for the Xbox 360 on December 21, 2010 and didn’t show up on the PC or PlayStation 3 until February 22, two months later. If the same rings true for Dawnguard, we’ll already be knee-deep in games vying for our attention.

The Playlist - 7/28/2012