EL33TONLINE: News tag archive: masseffect
It wasn’t long ago that BioWare writer Daniel Erickson went out on a limb to insult Final Fantasy XIII, saying it had no right to call itself a RPG. Ironically, another BioWare employee - Mass Effect 3’s art director Derek Watts - has recently admitted that the sci-fi series owes a lot to the 2001 CG film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
In the latest issue of Xbox World 360 magazine Watts is quoted as saying:
Mass Effect and Heavy Rain were two titles that came out tops at the British Academy Video Games Awards (BAFTA) recently held in London.
Heavy Rain walked away with three BAFTAs, for Original Music, Technical Innovation and Story. Mass Effect was crowned Best Game, applauded for being a “combined achievement of technology, art, design [and] audio… a beautiful complete gaming experience.”
Everybody’s favourite (Western) space opera action RPG, Mass Effect, is officially slated to find its way onto ‘the big screen’ thanks to a deal with Legendary Pictures, which recently acquired the rights to a film adaptation of the videogame franchise.
At the beginning of the week, Bioware (Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins) announced an initiative called the Bioware Bazaar, a mock online auction in which members of the Bioware community are able to earn tokens for completing certain tasks, and then spend those tokens on special prizes and rare, sponsored collectible items.
The problem is that this event is currently only available to citizens of the United States due to a last-minute legal snag, effectively locking out Bioware’s truly global community of fans from participating.
Fear not, though, as in a very special forum post, Bioware’s co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk addressed the situation, first by apologising to the developer’s fans, and then by announcing that, pretty soon, international members of the community will get their own version of the Bioware Bizaar. From the post:
Update Bioware has finally managed to get the message out, and has announced something called ‘Bioware Bazaar,’ a week-long series of online auctions.
You can find the details over here. End of Update
Bioware’s announcement countdown clock has ticked down, but as the last second struck, the developer’s entire online infrastructure crashed with it, as a horde of eager enthusiasts no doubt rushed to see what the fuss is all about.
I’ll be keeping an eye on the various websites to try and get to the bottom of what Bioware’s was trying to let the world know, but for now, it’s a mystery.
While it was a foregone conclusion that Mass Effect 3 is planned, as Bioware has said from the start that the series was mapped out as a trilogy, confirmation that the third entry to the franchise is currently in development has arrived in the standard fashion that these types of ‘announcements’ usually do nowadays – via Twitter.
Posting an update on her Twitter account, Bioware’s Christina Norman tweeted:
Update I’ve just noticed that the countdown clocks on the Dragon Age and Mass Effect sites have slightly more time remaining on them than the main Bioware site. Is this significant, or are they simply not synced correctly? End of Update
Following in the footsteps of its cooler Japanese cousins, Bioware has put up a countdown clock on its main website, as well as its Mass Effect and Dragon Age sites.
The clock is ticking down until the afternoon of March 29th (this coming Monday), and the fact that the timer appears on the developer’s site, as well as those of both of its current hot properties, means that the announcement (if it is indeed counting down towards an announcement of some kind), could be about almost anything.
For this week only, Xbox LIVE Gold members can take advantage of Xbox LIVE’s Deal of the Week, which involves a price cut on both sets of downloadable content for the original Mass Effect, as well as Battleship for Hasbro’s Family Game Night.
Major Nelson has been kind enough to let us keen Xbox gamers know what we can expect to find on the ole’ Xbox LIVE for the next few weeks of January, including Xbox LIVE Arcade games, Games on Demand, and Deals of the Week.
Also included are tip-offs on some price reductions, (as of yesterday) on some current generation games that you may just find quite intriguing, and some information for Xbox LIVE Silver members.
Get the full list below:
After a bit of a ‘whoops’ moment, when this second Mass Effect downloadable content (DLC) pack accidentally became available on the Swiss and Swedish Xbox LIVE Marketplaces, it’s now officially become available for all to buy.
Entitled Pinnacle Station, the new DLC challenges players to test the limits of their “combat prowess aboard a remote, top-secret Alliance space station. Do you have what it takes to hold the top spot amongst the best of the best?
“This module includes a new land-able space station, 13 exciting combat scenarios, and approximately 2-3 hours of game play.”
There is a warning there that you must achieve a “Spectre status” before embarking on the mission. Mass Effect fans should know what that means…
Pinnacle Station, the new DLC for Mass Effect, is yours for 400 MS Points.
Microsoft have announced that three of their previous spearhead titles will be added to the Xbox 360 Classics range of games, which means you’ll be able to get three of the Xbox 360’s best games at a greatly reduced price.
Halo 3, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Mass Effect will all be added to the value range on March 20th in the European, Mid-Eastern and African (EMEA) sales regions, with a recommended retail price of R299 or £19.99 apiece.
Vice President of Marketing, Xbox Europe, David Gosen said of the announcement:
“We are delighted to add three of our finest titles to the Classics range, adding to the exceptional entertainment offering available on the Xbox360 at outstanding prices.
“As we see more and more families looking to save money by staying in, Xbox360 continues to offer high-quality home entertainment at fantastic value and consumers are clearly recognising this as we sail past 8 million console sales in Europe.”
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