Novels:

The Stolen Throne

The Calling

Asunder

Comic Books:

The Silent Grove (Dragon Age)

Interview with Felicia Day

Elder Scrolls Online Announced

More

Thoughts on the new starting experience.

Batman: Arkham City Harley Quinn’s Revenge Concept Art Mourns Mr. J

More coming May 29th

David Gaider Interview

Also, Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker

Avernum: Escape from the Pit Review – Roger

Beta Weekend Discussion

Dragon’s Dogma demo discussion

Initial thoughts on the game

Assassin’s Creed 3 To Deliver Fresh Experience With New Setting

An interesting article about the challenges Ubisoft faced translating the Assassin’s Creed franchise over to Native American culture, from names to voice acting to gameplay.

The developers of BioShock, Dragon Age and Fallout: New Vegas discuss story in games. Great listen.

Referenced: Ken Levine Discusses Game Design With Amy Hennig

Some interesting new information about Dishonored.

Also, another dev video.

New Patch Points to “Skyrim” DLC Content

Crossbows and Snow Elves Coming in Skyrim DLC?

Reckoning DLC: Dead Kel and Teeth of Naros (Vince)

New Monk video

Dev diaries from 3 top members of the D3 team discussing the game’s progress. As early as a year ago, when the videos were recorded, the majority of the game’s content was complete, with balancing and adjustments remaining. However, the content itself is merely a small amount of the total work on the game. “Our goal is to get it out by the end of 2011.” There must be some serious beards on the development team by this point. It’s interesting to see how far the game still had to go before it was ready to ship compared to how close they felt they were.

Game Update 12 Not a huge conversation piece, but nice that they are continuing to tweak this free-to-play MMO.

Beta weekend announced

More…

BlueHold still found guilty

Or are they…

Kinda think they are…

Also, ramping starting level challenge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1HlYTukh9A

The latest game from Bethesda looks to be an interesting blend of BioShock and Assassin’s Creed. Magic Steampunk Assassin? Sounds good.

A Torchlight MMO is still on the table. However, further consideration has resulted in Runic pushing back their timetable, realizing the amount of time and effort required to bring such a project to fruition.

The latest game from Amanita Designs, the makers of Machinarium. The game seems to focus more on exploration and interaction instead of puzzle-solving, but still manages to provide an engaging narrative.

Thanks to Game Informer, lots of details are emerging for Halo 4. Personally, I feel it shows how things can go wrong when a franchise is forced past its intended conclusion, especially without many of those responsible for the original vision on board.

More…

Video

At PAX East, Mike Laidlaw and the Dragon Age design team spent a lot of time talking about Dragon Age 3 without actually talking about Dragon Age 3. They’re very aware of Dragon Age 2′s shortcomings and hope to redeem themselves with this hypothetical, Not-Dragon-Age-3 game. I do hope that the next game doesn’t take place solely in Orlais, as mentioned, because I don’t think I can listen to those accents for 30 hours.

I would play the HELL out of a Mechromancer. Instead of using missions and storylines exclusively for DLC, Gearbox is looking to stray outside what they accomplished in the first Borderlands by also offering a new playable class as post-launch DLC (which will be free to those who preorder). The Mechromancer is a female cyborg that controls the massive D374-TP “Deathtrap” robot. Additionally, the game will offer a wealth of character customization beyond color swaps. Extra costume pieces can be unlocked by completing missions and challenges.

Gearbox Reveals Details on Aliens: Colonial Marines, Prometheus, and Lance Henriksen

Dragon’s Dogma

Another gameplay trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmox6rdpiog

Over a week ago, Capcom held their annual Captivate event, this year in Rome. Last week, the press embargo lifted, presenting a wealth of information, most notably the final classes.

Dragon’s Dogma has nine classes, divided into three tiers.

Basic

Fighter: Sword & Shield class. Fighters are build for tanking, but are also capable offensively. One interesting aspect of Fighters is their ability to throw OTHER CHARACTERS at flying enemies, Fastball Special-style. Strider: Traditional rogue class; can use either dual daggers or a bow. They also employ traps in battle. Mage: Spellcasters proficient in offensive magic, healing and buffs/debuffs.

Advanced

Warrior: Upgraded version of the Fighter; can now use two-handed weapons. Wielding massive weapons, Warriors can strike multiple foes at once, while still retaining a powerful defense. Ranger: The Strider, upgraded from shortbows to longbows. While still dangerous in close quarters, Rangers possess a number of trick arrows to debilitate their enemies. Sorcerer: Sorcerers appear to give up the Mage’s healing abilities for unmatched magical violence, including but not limited to summoning meteor showers.

Hybrid

Limited to the Arisen, the playable character.

Mystic Knight: A hybrid Warrior/Sorcerer. Wields a sword of mace and enchanted shield. A great support class capable of buffing the entire party at once, as well as standing toe-to-toe with enemies thanks to heavy armor, powerful spells and a shield imbued with magical power. Magick Archer: A hybrid Ranger/Sorcerer. Can use either daggers or a staff, plus a powerful magic bow. Magick Archers are the only class capable of “locking on” to enemies, making their attacks fire-and-forget. They can also imbue their daggers for close-range elemental combat. Assassin: A hybrid Ranger/Warrior. Swords, daggers, bows, shields, explosives and poisons; the Assassin is truly the master of the battlefield. If that’s not enough, they also use stealth as a tactic.

Dev Diary: http://www.capcom-unity.com/gregaman/blog/2012/04/12/dragons_dogma_and_the_pure_joy_of_experiencing_a_world

In addition to making Dragon’s Dogma look like a real world, the developers want to make it FEEL real, as well. Grounding the game world with a sense of realism makes the fantasy elements that much more fantastic. Much of this comes down to how the player interacts with the world, both the natural elements like fire, water and darkness, as well as the various creatures. If everything in the game reacts in the way you’d expect it to, it makes the action that much more realistic.

More awesomeness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIeQSBXuKJU

“The Legend of Dragoon” is Coming to PSN Next Month

LEGEND OF DRAGOON Coming to PSN May 1st

Rumor: Nintendo’s Cooking Up A “Super Mario 4″

Nintendo’s Miyamoto Wants To Revive ZELDA: A LINK TO THE PAST

Vince – The Samodean Legacy

Extended Cut DLC coming this summer

More…)

And more…

Resurgence Multiplayer DLC Announced

A Logical Breakdown of Why the Mass Effect 3 Ending Makes No Sense

In Game footage and Interviews

Hands On With Borderlands 2 Co-Op

BORDERLANDS 2 – Gameplay Footage Looks BORDERLANDS-ish

Pre-order your copy of The Walking Dead by Telltale Games for a chance to appear in the game as an NPC or zombie.

Reckoning will be getting its second DLC next week, Teeth of Naros. The DLC looks to explore the destiny of Amalur itself, even showing a glimpse of the world’s future (Copernicus?)

As Tera nears its launch, a hands-on demo shows how far has come

Torchlight 2 May Be Out Sooner Than You Think

EPIC MICKEY 2 – Ten Minutes of Wii Gameplay Footage

In addition to the upcoming multiplatform sequel, Disney has shown off an upcoming 3DS game, Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion. What makes this game interesting is not only does it tie in to the Epic Mickey games, but it’s also a followup to the classic Sega Genesis game, Castle of Illusion.

More…

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow producer David Cox has been relentlessly teasing fans on his Twitter account for months now. It looks like we may finally be getting a sequel announcement to the 2010 game in the near future. With the spectacular way Lords of Shadow ended, fans have been eagerly anticipating a chance to see what developer MercurySteam comes up with next.

Obsidian And Chris Avellone Officially Joining The “Wasteland 2” Team

Gearbox Software (Borderlands) has been hard at work showing off their next big game based on the popular Aliens franchise. The game is designed to be in-continuity with the movies. Taking place after the third film, the game actually takes you back to the setting of the second film, Aliens, offering the player a chance to interact with settings and (parts of) characters from the sci-fi classic.

Pokemon Conquest gets a Summer release in US

“Mega Man X” – The Movie

Phantasy Star Online 2 Going Free-To-Play On PC and Vita

The much awaited MMO from Sega will not only be free to play, but will offer gameplay integration with smartphone devices.

In “Bioshock Infinite”, A Siren’s Song Will Your Enemies Back From the Dead

More on BioShock Infinite

Shepard’s Indoctrination

Alternate Ending Canned?

(Possible segue – asking what games we would change the endings for: Please Change The Endings Of These Video Games)

Journey is the fastest selling PSN game of all-time

THQ’s “Warhammer 40K” MMO Is No Longer An MMO, Dev Staff Laid Off

The game formerly known as “Dark Millennium Online“. Financial difficulties at THQ have forced the publisher to lay off over 100 employees from both Vigil and Relic development teams. Dark Millennium will now focus on a single player campaign with multiplayer features.

Dragon’s Dogma is an interesting new game coming from Capcom. It manages to blend elements of Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls and Final Fantasy into a unique experience.

Mass Effect 3′s Musical Secret

Dear BioWare: Do NOT change Mass Effect 3′s ending

Commander Shepard Actor Mark Meer Weighs In On Mass Effect 3 Ending And DLC

Vince checked out the “Final Hours of Mass Effect” app (which is also available for PC. It gives some interesting insights into the development process and decisions like Javik’s implementation, boss battles, and more.

Dr. Ray Muzyka responds to fans’ concerns over ME3′s ending. Some have interpreted this as BioWare “caving” to pressure and considering altering the game’s ending through “a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey.” However…

DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED THE GAME!

http://uninhibitedandunrepentant.tumblr.com/post/19344938387/mind-holy-fuck

Maybe this is what BioWare planned all along, and many of those who didn’t “get it” reacted prematurely.

Playing Dead:Q&A 2

Playing Dead: Episode 3

Our first full look at Telltale Games’ upcoming episodic game based on the hit comic series.

Starts in April for $5 per episode.

Darksiders II is a competent blend of Prince of Persia, Devil May Cry, and Castlevania

Darksiders II Official Trailer

Epic Mickey will star two Disney characters and will be a musical. No really it will be.

Disney’s EPIC MICKEY 2: THE POWER OF TWO Out This September – Reveal Trailer

Disney’s Epic Mickey 2 will be a musical (seriously)

Epic Mickey 2 Won’t Let You Down

The sequel to 2010′s Wii game will be coming to all current consoles.

More…

And more…

Assassin’s Creed 3 screens leaked

Three Collector’s Editions

More information and screen shots. Beta has officially begun.

Blizzard on What’s Next for World of Warcraft

Looks like MoP isn’t the only thing on Blizzard’s mind. They’re already planning for expansions 5 and 6.

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition on iPad.

Konami recently released a remastered collection of Silent Hill 2 & 3 (aka the good ones) for Xbox 360 and PS3. Unfortunately, there several major issues. The completely remastered graphics are brighter and more detailed, even removing the framerate-saving fog that was prevalent in the games. Unfortunately, all these changes completely kill the spooky atmosphere. To make matters worse, the “upgraded” versions have major performance issues.

Source

More…

An amazing presentation that shows off the real-time interactions between EVE Online and its FPS spinoff.

Mass Effect 3: From Ashes (Joe)

Guild Wars 2 pre order details announced. Starting April 10th , pre-purchasers of any of the editions will get access into beta weekend events and a three-day head start for launch. You will also get the mysterious Hero’s Band, which will apparently give characters a variety of power boosts to speed them on their way.

The Collector’s Edition will be $149.99, and will contain the following: a 10-inch statue of the iconic Rytlock Brimstone and his sword Sohothin, a custom frame with five Guild Wars 2 art prints, a book on the making of Guild Wars 2, a soundtrack CD, and five in-game items (including a mini Rytlock). The Digital Deluxe pre-purchase is only going to run you $79.99, and the Standard Edition will be $59.99 Pre-ordering Guild Wars 2 from select retailers will reserve you a copy of the game at launch and entitle you to a one-day head start.

Mike O’Brien on Microtransactions in Guild Wars 2

Mists of Pandaria NDA lifts and there’s tons of news.

New TERA outfits. That’s after they changed it to be less sexy.

Massively has hands-on impressions of some of the new content coming in patch 1.2.

New (hideous) armor styles for 1.2.

Todd McFarlane lets it slip that Copernicus is expected this year.

Bioware Director Responds to Mass Effect 3 Criticism

Also…

Funimation Entertainment and Production IG are hard at work on a Mass Effect anime movie. Aiming for a Fall release, Mass Effect: Paragon Lost will focus on James Vega’s backstory and could be quite interesting based upon what we know of his previous missions. Also look for Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker later this Spring.

Design evolution of the Handyman detailed

Also… BioShock at the Smithsonian

And… faceless creeps.

http://i.joystiq.com/2012/03/15/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition-arrives-this-summer/

Another video for Darksiders II, this time focusing on bringing Death’s world to life. The game’s environments are simply larger and more open than in the original, leading to more opportunities for exploration. The environmental designs are just insane.

Another Amazing Spider-Man trailer, and another generic animal-hybrid villain! I find it especially interesting that the enemy seen here, Iguana looks more like the Lizard than the movie’s version of Curt Conners. On the bright side, the web-slining and acrobatics look pretty good.

Confirmation on the stats of JSR’s soundtrack. All the original music will remain intact, and Sega is doing their best to license as many of the other tracks as possible, promising at least half of the original game’s music in the downloadable release. They’re also aware of what the fans’ most-wanted games are and tease that re-releases of Skies of Arcadia and Shenmue may be on the way.

Reckoning: House of Ballands – Vince

Current list of all romanceable characters in ME3. Pretty self explanatory but good for anyone who wants a quick guide to some love in a galaxy ripe with reapers.

Spoiler free guide to ME3 endings.

Day 1 DLC fiasco.

Blizzard revamps the scroll of resurrection in an attempt to gain back some subscribers. Among a list of other random things: Diablo 3′s supposed April release date showing up active on people’s battle.net account; and the official start of the Mists alpha phases.

Also, in order to get the game out… ever, Blizzard has decided to remove PVP from Diablo III at launch. It will be added in through a content update at a later time.

A look at how far TERA Online has come in the past year, including a dynamic event system similar to Rift.

Infinity Blade: Dungeons is coming to the New iPad. The game itself will be set thousands of years before Infinity Blade and players will control the character that is on a quest to forge the weapon of the same title. The game will make full use of the new iPad’s technology, from the increased processor and memory to the retina display, to create a great mobile gaming experience.

The GDC has come and with it the annual Game Developers Choice Awards. Basically all the developers get together and vote on what they feel the best game is in each category. Some are surprising, others not so much, and still others are just downright depressing. Here’s a complete list of the nominations and winners.

Game of the Year

Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios) Portal 2 (Valve) Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Eidos Montreal) Dark Souls (FromSoftware)

Best Narrative

Portal 2 (Valve) The Witcher 2 (CD Projekt RED) Bastion (Supergiant Games) Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Naughty Dog) Saints Row: The Third (Volition)

Best Game Design

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios) The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Nintendo) Portal 2 (Valve) Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios) Dark Souls (From Software)

Best Technology

Battlefield 3 (DICE) L.A. Noire (Team Bondi) Crysis 2 (Crytek Frankfurt/UK) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios) Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Naughty Dog)

Best Visual Arts

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Naughty Dog) Rayman Origins (Ubisoft Montpellier) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios) El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (Ignition Japan) Battlefield 3 (DICE)

Best Debut

Supergiant Games (Bastion) Team Bondi (L.A. Noire) Re-Logic (Terraria) Bioware Austin (Star Wars: The Old Republic) Eidos Montreal (Deus Ex: Human Revolution)

Innovation Award

Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure (Toys For Bob) Portal 2 (Valve) Bastion (Supergiant Games) Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik) L.A. Noire (Team Bondi)

Best Handheld/Mobile Game

Tiny Tower (NimbleBit) Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo) Jetpack Joyride (Halfbrick) Infinity Blade II (Chair Entertainment) Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (Capy Games/Superbrothers)

Best Audio

Bastion (Supergiant Games) LittleBigPlanet 2 (Media Molecule) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios) Dead Space 2 (Visceral Games) Portal 2 (Valve)

Best Downloadable Game

Stacking (Double Fine) From Dust (Ubisoft Montpellier) Bastion (Supergiant Games) Outland (Housemarque) Frozen Synapse (Mode 7)

Source and more…

GDC talks about DUST 514 PC possibilities and World of Darkness. We’ve talked about DUST 514 before; it’s the planetside counterpart to EVE Online, and until recently was PS3 exclusive; a fact that many players have been complaining about since it was announced. While there wasn’t an official statement, there were hints that there may actually be a PC version of the game in the works. The devs noted that the PS3 version already supports mouse and keyboard controls and Hilmar joked “I wonder why we did that”. The studio is also planning to release companion apps for the game, which will allow players to perform tasks such as browse the market, purchase items, and customize characters. It also looks like those people eager for DUST 514 won’t have to wait much longer, as the studio plans to reveal more details about the game’s upcoming closed beta at the EVE Online Fanfest this month.

We also found out that World of Darkness is not on hold as was previously rumored, and in fact has a team of about 60 devs working on the project. This is good news for anyone who is a fan of the World of Darkness.

New bad guys in BioShock Infinite, the Motorized Patriot is a machine that wields a mini-gun and has a heavy wax mask that is modeled after George Washington. It has no fear or sense of self preservation. It is a clockwork terminator for all intents and purposes. It also drops the pepper-mill, the mini gun, when he dies and is the only place where the players can get this weapon. The idea was to create a new breed of bad guy for the players to have to contend with; something different than everything else, and something different than a Bid Daddy. The idea isn’t for the Heavy Hitters to be Infinite’s version of the Big Daddy; it’s simply a way of trying to expand the range and variety of enemies for the player to square off against.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Lapikas apologizes for the boss battles in the game. In an interview with Lapika we get to find out about some of the design choices about the game, such as the development taking inspiration from Children of Men and X-men. Also in the interview Lapikas notes the problems with hacking, and how developing it was a challenge and how they got to the version we see in the release version. He also talks about the infamous boss battles of the game, which many players really did not like. Lapikas explains that the boss fights came later in development and were not prepared with the same foresight as the other game systems. He even admits to not having any planning documentation for them at the onset of production. He also notes that playtesting also pegged the battles as problematic, and ended it with a sincere apology.

It’s a surprisingly candid bit of information from Lapikas and well worth a read through.

Deadlight, a new horror game coming to Xbox Live, is a huge success in creating that sense of despair apparently. It takes place in the 1980′s urban setting of Seatle. There are no smart phones, no mass internet for the player to have known about what’s going on, so the game relies on player discovery to tell the tale of what happened. That’s pretty cool if you ask me.

Weapons are in short supply, so the game encourages you to run, jump, climb or find other ways to get away from the hordes of zombies. The game looks pretty intriguing and it’s been a while since a survival horror game has had the idea to go back in time a little bit to make things that much more bleak.

I know, I know… Angry Birds. I just really liked this trailer and how it promotes the educational aspects of the game. Despite all the outcry from many “hardcore” gamers over how games like this are ruining the industry, to me Angry Birds represents some of the best aspects gaming can offer to players, such as problem solving and critical thinking.

The Dresden Files Review – Joe