According to Kotaku, an insider has announced to them that Dragon Age is set to move away from its singleplayer roots, with both PvE and PvP elements thrown into an arena-style experience.
While they are unsure if it is set to be a standalone title or whether it will be packaged as part of the main series, the use of DICE's Frostbite 2 engine is sure to be encouraging news to fans of the series. The Frostbite 2 engine, which debuted earlier in the year with Battlefield 3, has since been used on Need for Speed: The Run and early views of the game report that it looks beautiful.
And, if you like Dragon Age, why not check out our forums, where you are sure to find others who share your interests!
In a recent video posted on YouTube, D.C. Douglas, voice actor of Resident Evil 5's Albert Wesker answers a bunch of fans questions. Everything from how he got started in acting to future Resident Evil games is covered in this extensive Q&A. At the end of the video Mr. Douglas has a special song for all his fans that starts at 14:25.
A couple of weeks ago, Square Enix announced that they officially shipped 100 million copies of Final Fantasy games around the world. As a congratulations, Sony decided to send them a little gift. That gift was a Chocobo cake.
The 100 million sales of Final Fantasy titles include sequels, ports, spin-offs, as well as the main series. Even though the developer has released a lot of Final Fantasy over the years, it's still a remarkable milestone to sell so many copies and have one of the most popular game series ever. The cake below is the same Sony sent to Sqaure Enix, and it reads: "Congratulations for the series surpassing 100 million units"
The Supreme Court has today upheld the ruling that video games, even violent video games, are protected under the US Constitution's First Amendment.
In the US today, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the decision that the First Amendment to the US Constitution was also applicable to video games, and that bills in Vermont and California aimed at banning the sale of violent video games would be overturned permanently. In 2005, California introduced a bill aimed at severely limiting or outright denying the sale of violent video games to minors. The bill was placed on hold, as representatives from the video game industry fought the bill, citing protection under the first amendment.
Today's Supreme Court decision confirms that video games, even those with acts of violence in them, are fully protected under the First Amendment. Games have long been vilified as being too violent, or causing kids to act violently or commit acts of violence. This is a stance that most gamers, industry professionals and supporters have vehemently denied. Avid gamers have been known to role play as their favourite characters, or take an extreme interest in the collectibles that come with popular franchises; however, outside of extreme examples of younger children, games are not often a target for reenactment.
Movies, music, even novels have contained gore and violence long before video games existed. Childrens' stories, best-sellers, even multi-award winning films have been known to contain violence, all of which are protected under the US Constitution's First Amendment. Now, thanks to the Supreme Court, video games finally fall into this same category. A small victory, or the end of one road which starts another for the detractors?
A statement by THQ employee Cory Ledesma says that buying used games is cheating publishers out of money.
The popular used gaming market was called out by a THQ employee who claims that buying used games is cheating. Understandably, developers and publishers don't gain any revenue from used games, but it is an inevitable part of any market. Developers have begun taking away incentives to buy games used (such as giving 1-time codes for online play, which go to whoever purchases the game new) in response to this problem. Cory Ledesma says;
"[I]f used game buyers are upset they don't get the online feature set I don't really have much sympathy for them"
While Ledesma (among others) is understandably upset, it is a bit arrogant to assume that the video game market is safe from used games. It is interesting to see how far publishers and developers will go before fans begin to boycott games.
