Here are my top 5 reasons that Mass Effect 2 is going to leave you bare footed. (Because it will rock your socks off…..see what I did there)

5) The Cinematography

Click here to view the embedded video.

How many times are you playing a game and you are really enjoying it but find the camera angles a bit lacking? I mean even in BioWare’s last game, the amazing Dragon Age , I would find myself with a camera aimed awkwardly at my chest during half of the cut scenes and almost all of the dialogue shots. But the shots in Mass Effect 2 look like Spielberg is behind the helm. I mean there are shots that are actually creating tension on their own!

4) The World is Still Ginormous

Most RPG’S have a huge world to explore. The emphasis here would be on the word world, Mass Effect has WORLDS to explore. You don’t just go from city to city, you go from planet to planet. Not just a hike, but a flight through space!. Sweet

3) Rocket Launchers

Rocket launchers make everything better. Scientific quandary for all you kiddo’s; what’s cooler than a Tiger with an eye patch, a Tiger with an eye patch holding a rocket launcher. It’s just plain Scientific fact. And in order to make Mass Effect 2 even better than the original they did the most logical thing, added rocket launchers. Nuff said.

2) New voice talent

If you recognize the burly man on the left, Adam Baldwin, than you have seen Firefly. If you don’t recognize him then you need to watch Firefly right now. He now is in a little show called Chuck with the lovely lady on the right, Yvonne Strahovski. If you have never seen Chuck it is an action comedy show on NBC that is just good fun. But seriously, anything with Adam Baldwin in it is going to be great.

1) It’s Mass Effect 2

If you have not played the first Mass Effect, you should probably do that as soon as possible so you are ready for the launch of the sequel. It is an absolutely Epic space opera and one of the best experiences on any console. The sequel looks like it is going to do everything bigger and better. So brace yourselves, because the forecast is calling for melted faces.

Mass Effect 2 is hitting stores January 26 2010, if you played the first you know that it is going to melt your face off with pure space joy/guns/ missions/ and alien interactions (wink wink).

From a preview stand point here are some reasons why it will be the first major game of the decade and most of it is due to Bioware developing a solid game and improving on that.

I can’t tell you how important storytelling is for a game that could well overtake your life. Mass Effect 2 could have been a great game where you fly around a shoot stuff, but because of the story it was a game that you CARED about where you went and what you shot. I’m not going to spoil parts of the game with people who haven’t played it, but in the first there are some truly heartbreaking and tough calls you have to make as Shepard. This time around it seems a lot darker and more grit than Clint Eastwood making coffee. Will this direction effect the grand arc of the story poorly or be and added bonus? I’ll bet most people are fine with this change, and I am as well as long as it is supported in the story and not badass for badass’ sake.

3 more new trailers past the break.

Going along with the telling of the importance of the story, it is the animation that is going to be the next big hitter for this title. It is a sweeping epic of a game, but the parts that I really found lacking in the first were the character models and the cinematic elements while playing the game itself. They were just too darn clunky and cycled. With all the preview content we have been given it looks as if that isn’t a problem anymore. New camera angles and a more “Blockbuster” feel thankfully allowing us that do get emotionally involved with our avatars to have even greater empathy for our little Shepard running around shooting and sex’n.

Along with the cosmetic overhauls, combat and game play also received some love and attention. More guns, more orders, different people under your charge, new health, and gun heat control is all part of the game now. This is needed and wanted, you had a very small weapon pool last time and every character felt like the other one only with a different body shape.

Bioware is doing exactly what they needed to do to bring forth an even better gaming experiences, they looked at where the game excelled and promoted that and looked at the “not so greats” and brought them up to speed. Will this be a perfect game? Naw, no game is. But, the Bioware folks have done there work and it is showing in their work.

The other day I was looking at my gaming collection, and really outlining what were my favorite titles? After picking out a few I asked myself what did these games have that others don’t. What it all came down to was Story and Environment. Essentially did the world really pull me in? Sense the early days of the Dragon Age announcements I’ve been waiting to take it for a spin, even going as far as reading the first book. Lucky for me my review copy came in and it was time to play. Does Dragon Age bring Story and Environment together to form a great game?

Gameplay

If you played a Bioware game you know a little bit on what to expect for gameplay. What I’m referring to is what Bioware is known for and that’s dialogue. The Dialogue system is this game is a little more varied then most games. Most your choices largely depends upon what Origin story you choose at the beginning of the game. The are 6 different stories to choose from. I myself went very generic with a Warrior Noble. The only downside to the Dialogue system was the lack of voice over for your character. At the beginning of the game you get to choose how your character sounds, I figured do to this option we would get full voice over. (i.e. Mass Effect) During the Dialogue points you read your text vs hearing a voice over. I got used to it pretty quickly and it sort of reminded me of the Legend of Zelda, how Link essentially is your hero and no one else’s. Each Character Class/Race has it’s benefits to a particular style of fighting. While the spell casters are ranged the warriors get right into the thick of things. I found it rather refreshing being able to switch between characters in my party. This gave me a chance to play all the Classes. As for the combat it’s broken up into a very World of Warcraft style. You essentially choose which person to attack and wait for the combat to be finished. During the combat you can do special moves/magic depending on your class. It took me a little while to get used to the system and even then if felt a bit overwhelming at times. The rest of the game is broken up into a variety of choices in how you would like to handle particular events. I found that Dragon Age really pushed this well. At times I was actually really thinking about the choices I made. There really wasn’t a clear cut Super Nice Guy in this game. There were a variety of choices that really kept me thinking.

Sound

This was an area I was a little concerned about. After watching trailers to the game featuring Mason, I was concerned that the music might go that way. Once the opening Logos were finished you are greeted by a nice soothing score. I really enjoyed the music to the game, felt like it had a nice soundtrack. It also really brought forth the feeling of being in a Medevil like time. The game also features full voice overs which generally were really spot on perfect. There were occasions where a character seemed a tad out of place but overall a solid Voice acting. My personal favorite was hearing Claudia Black (Officer Aeryn Sun from Farscape) in Dragon Age.

Graphics

As for graphics this was the only area the game seemed to be lacking. Now that’s not to say it’s the worse looking game I’ve played. The graphics were either spot on or just okay. The Character models looked excellent, and they really moved well. Though at times it seemed they really didn’t express emotion as well as Mass Effect did.

Overall

While not the best Bioware game I’ve played it certainly doesn’t disappoint. The story is really well laid out and there is tons of replay value in this game. Plus the length of the game certainly adds to it’s value, I’ve heard that there is over 100 hours of gameplay.

A new in depth look into the world of Dragon Age Origin. I’m sure you heard us talking about the game on the last Pixelated Podcast. In short the game is solid. A kinda cross between KOTR and Oblivion. A full review will be live next week. Until then enjoy the video.

With today being the official release date of Dragon Age Origins what better way to celebrate then with a trailer.

Leading video game developer BioWare™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), announced today that award-winning rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars will headline the in-game soundtrack for the new epic RPG, Dragon Age™: Origins. The title song from the band’s new album “THIS IS WAR” will make its world debut in Dragon Age: Origins before the highly-anticipated album (EMI’s Virgin Records) drops on December 8th. Available in the game today, fans and press can also get a first-listen of “THIS IS WAR” in an exclusive game trailer co-produced by Thirty Seconds to Mars front-man, Jared Leto.

The follow up to the wildly popular Xbox 360 and PC game Mass Effect is set to hit the streets in January 26th in America and 29th 2010 in Europe. Mass Effect 2  is set two years after the conclusion of the original having stopped the Reaper invasion, Commander Shepard must join forces with Cerberus, recruiting some of the galaxy’s most dangerous operatives in a bid to find out what’s causing the miraculous vanishing of entire human colonies.

So what does the game handle like? Well it’s unsurprisingly more of the same so fans of the original should be happy. The textures and character models look a little more detailed and the cut scenes look great with highly detailed pre-rendered quicktime events in which you can chose what your character is going to say. What struck me about my time with the game was that the graphics looked really smooth, almost cartoonish in a way, but it might have been the setup they were using, only experience on a familiar system will be tell truthfully. The control scheme is similar to Gears of War with the cover system and firing very similar indeed. Most of the demo was spent sprinting from one piece of cover to another. Accuracy with the weapons in the game was also difficult to achieve, except the targeted rocket launcher that let you paint a target and then fire at them from any angle whilst the rocket was guided to it’s target.

Will Mass Effect 2 top the highly successful and critically acclaimed original, only time will tell, but from our limited hands on, fans of the series won’t be disappointed.

We apologise for not giving you any decent shots of the action but the EA reps were blocking photos and certainly weren’t happy when we tried to capture a few frames.

[Photo credits to Ben Smith]

Just when you thought the Dragon Age Origins Trailers just couldn’t get any better then Bioware drops this one. Mmmmmm this is a fantastic trailer that only makes me want to play that game more. Come on November :)

Another Trailer for Dragon Age Origins. This Trailer goes more in depth on the world and lore of Dragon Age Origins. Be sure to take a peek it’s worth the watch!

Another Trailer for Dragon Age Origins. Seems I can’t get enough of Bioware games from Star Wars TOR, Dragon Age Origins to Mass Effect 2. These games just can’t come out fast enough. Well it’s almost November right?

Just this morning, the official Star Wars: The old Republic twitter account, tweeted:

We are excited to announce that we are now accepting tester applications for STAR WARS: The Old Republic! http://tinyurl.com/y9fywkz

This was very exciting news to everyone. So exciting that the whole internets broke the poor little webserver.  5 hours after the initial announcement, they tweeted with this:

We are making adjustments to the site due to the overwhelming response to the testing announcement. Please be patient and check back later.

But still, the web server is still down.  Was anyone of our readers able to get through today and sign up for beta access?  If and when the server comes back up again for sign up’s, we’ll let you know. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: ITS UP! http://www.swtor.com/tester GO GO GO! It’s still kinda slow, so good luck.