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.

In an unusual cross-promotion, Old Navy is giving away free copies of Lego Rock Band during Black Friday. The only catch is that you must spend at least $20 on clothes. Also, Old Navy will be selling Rock Band 2 with a free extra Rock Band guitar.  Hmm… a clothing store selling video games. Interesting…. More info and deals on BlackFriday.info

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 Beatles, "Live" on the Ed Sullivan Show

There’s not much that can go wrong with the Rock Band formula. Thus far, Harmonix has done a great job with the whole “take songs from various rock genres, invite a couple of friends and rock the night away” approach to rhythm games. Still, single band games tend to be somewhat of a mixed bag unless you’re really into those specific bands. Games like Guitar Hero: Metallica were never all that appealing to me. I like Metallica, but not to the point I would buy a whole game based around them. Plus, since Rock Band peripherals don’t work for the Guitar Hero series, I wasn’t about to shell out $200 just to play a set list of Metallica classics. Still, The Beatles: Rock Band was something I was excited about for quite some time. I’m a big fan of the Beatles, and after getting a chance to try the game hands-on at E3, I have to say I was hooked. Unfortunately, even after receiving an advanced copy from Harmonix, a series of unfortunate events made it so that I wouldn’t be able to play upon release. With my Xbox 360 dying on me and schoolwork piling up, I had very little opportunity to play the game. But now that I have played it, I have to say, I was thoroughly satisfied with the experience. The Beatles: Rock Band managed to incorporate that core Rock Band gameplay, while adding a few additions to make it an enjoyable and somewhat different experience. (more…)

I know it may seem a bit strange to see Warhammer instead of Warcraft in the title of my post, but Dave and I got a chance to have a chat with and ask questions of Mythic Community Manager James Nichols at this past weekend’s GameX.  So, I figured given those circumstance coupled with the lack of exciting things happening in WoW this week are a good enough reason for me to allow it to enter my life again.  Temporarily.

A bit of history with myself and Warhammer.   I’m not the Warhammer guy, Dave is, in our little group of friends.  So when I heard about WH Online, to me it was an mad grab for the greedy Games Workshop to get into the MMORPG market while the path Blizzard cut was still clear.  It took nearly all of their promises, gameplay trailers, cinematics and more than a few well written Warhammer fantasy books to even agree to get me to try the game.  So I buckle, agree and sign up for the beta by pre-ordering the game.

About 1 week prior to the open beta, I *finally* got my damned beta key to work.  I jumped into the game to find an average run of the mill riddled with bugs and badness MMORPG.  However, I also saw in WH Online massive potential.  The lore and classes grabbed me and held on tight.  But at the same time, the broken mechanics and bastardization of the game itself pushed me hard back into the loving arms of Azeroth.  I lasted from the time I started in beta until the release of Wrath of the Lich King, fairly hardcore.  After that, I kept WH Online as a side game for about 7 more months before calling it quitsies.  Lack of fixes for release bugs, insane class balance decisions, lack of real competition and the WORST battlegrounds I’ve played in any game yet (Too objective.  Warhammer is about KILLING, not capturing flags.  See below) ultimately led to my downfall.

Read. Follow. Repeat for hundreds of hours.

Now, what follows is the interview with James Nichols of Mythic.

Bill: For all the diehard Warhammer fans out there, this question must be asked.  Are there any plans to include any of the other Chaos Gods in a greater capactiy?

James:  No plans for that right now, other than the small things already in game.  Simply wouldn’t fit with the game mechanics.

Bill: With such an established set of lore, so built upon by the company and fans, why was it decided to take Warhammer Online in a direction that felt more like DAoC 2?

James: Lots of things just naturally carried over from DAoC, ideas the developers just loved.  Then again, a lot of prevalent things like relics did not carry over, making the game different from DAoC.

Bill: Any chance of 3 factions or a free for all PvP server, since WH:O is already so similar?  Those being 2 of most people’s favorite mechanics from DAoC.

James: 3 factions would destroy the mechanics of the game, as they’re built now.  No plans for free for all PvP either, as it would not draw a suficient amount of people to it.

Bill: At release, many broken mechanics and missing features caused an early mass exodus of players from the game.  As of the time I quit, most of those things still existed.  Are they fixed?

James: Patch 1.3.2 addressed almost all of the problems plagueing game play, technical and lag issues.  AOE and CC power issues have also been addressed, to make the mechanics feel less dominating and much more situational.

Bill: Also, the 6 capital cities promised at launch are still 4 shy of that total.  Any chance of seeing the other 4 cities soon?

James: No plans as of right now.  Time constraints at release killed the hopes for all 6, as each city took 9 months for a team to build.

Bill: Warhammer had a huge surge of players at release, but lost most of them.  So to all the people out there that have an account rotting, give them one reason to come back and try the game again.

James: With almost all bugs having been fixed and many other class issues ironed out, Warhammer Online offers the best PvP experience in MMORPGs right now.  Play Warhammer if PvP is your main goal.

That’s that, folks.  James and the other Warhammer devs present at GameX were great guys, very fun to talk to.  I spent a few hours at their booth and even some time at the after parties gabbing it up with them.  Very good people who I think truly want to put out a good game.  Still, I felt a bit of a corporate line being towed during the answering of the questions.  All said, I will be signing up for another month of Warhammer, if nothing more than to see if they delivered on any promises yet.  Keep your eyes open in the next week or two for  a follow-up!

Day 2 of GameX, while starting an hour late for us due to an alarm clock failure, has proven to be just as fun and successful as Day 1.  More, actually, on both fronts.  I’ve never managed to have this much fun at a gaming convention before.  The staff is smart, hard working, friendly and willing to help with whatever anyone needs.  The exhibitors were, with one small exception I will mention later, top notch and full of win.  The floor? Packed today, people old and young, hardcore gamer and people new to the scene.

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Wandering the floor post press badges, we happened upon the amazing display set up for EA’s upcoming new title, Dante’s Inferno. Dante’s Inferno is loosely based on Dante Alighieri’s epic poem Divine Comedy. I say loosely, because having read the literature before, I do not remember double jumps, spine-scythes, giant boobed demon tossing women, Dante being a Templar, O-Button mashing or the other multitudes of over the top cheesy things I saw in this game. Granted, I only played one level, but I see one glaring problem already with Dante’s Inferno. It seems to take itself *very* seriously. Almost “We’re re-writing a classic” seriously. I don’t care for that. The game play itself is a direct rip-off of God of War, down the the exact basic combos and souls/orbs mechanic. Though, God of War was amazing, so while a rip-off, it makes for solid game play.

The level we got to play was “Lust”, as each level is based on a different layer of Hell. Lust was filled with disturbingly rendered – but beautifully as well – naked people, dismembered sex organs on the walls, constant vagina-shaped portals and phallic objects jutting out of every possible area. Visually disturbing at times, but very fitting for the setting, I will admit. After solving quite a few frustrating puzzles and slicing more naked demon chicks with tentacle vaginas than I care to remember, I found myself in a boss battle with a genre-typical GIANT sized sex-demon queen. I’ll leave specifics of the fight out, but suffice to say, one of her more annoying moves is her nipple opens up and spits out demon babies, which she promptly removes from her naked breast, causing a giant jiggle as she throws them down onto the platform you are on. Yes. You read that all right.

Keep checking back for our GameX coverage.

EA made an appearance at the London Expo with Valve’s upcoming Left 4 Dead 2 , complete with zombies and the EA Vault. On show was an exclusive look at one of the new co-op levels, which we got a very brief hands on with. (more…)

Big Dragon Age News! BioWare is currently running a contest that will reward a lucky forum user to be flown out to London, England, put up in a posh hotel, and given access to play DAO before it’s available in stores and have the chance to win a share of $50,000.

You can also watch all the action as it happens on the DAO live video stream on the Dragon Age forums, Twitter account, Facebook page and more. The contest is running through 11:00am Central Time October 21st, and the event will occur on Wednesday, October 28th from 10am GMT.

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 :)