Knights of the Old Republic was exquisite. Bioware created a brilliant new universe within the existing Star Wars license by using the D&D ruleset and a hell of a lot of imagination. You’d be hard pressed to argue against it being the greatest Star Wars story ever told. Sure the Obsidian delivered sequel left a lot to be desired (more specifically, an ending), but all in all it’s a franchise we’ve been praying someone would get back to. For years now it’s been rumored that LucasArts and Bioware had teamed up again to bring us the third installment in the series, a KOTOR MMO. It’s officially gone from rumor to reality. KOTOR MMO is coming. I need to change my dipey.

From the reveal on Portfolio.com;

In an interview at E3 this week, Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello said that EA is working on the next version of Star Wars game Knights of the Old Republic, and it will most certainly have a massively multiplayer online component to it.

“We’ve got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development,” said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. “And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about — in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it.”

Does Riccitiello mean the oft rumored Knights of the Old Republic Online? “Yes,” he said.

Read the full article here, then come back and join me in my giddy excitement.

INT. SPACE SHIP - HALF PAST SEXY TIME

COMMANDER SHEPARD and SOME CRAZY STAR WARS ALIEN-LOOKING THINGAMABOB have just finished an intense, inter-rank and evidently sexually-charged debate about something REALLY important in the plot of this game. This debate was so intense and inter-rank that they felt the need to capitalize on the sexual-chargedness of it all and embrace, race and species be damned.

Holy jebus that’s a ton of Mass Effect videos! Of course I’m dying to play the game so I sat there and watched every single one of them. And to make things nice and easy I’ve collected all the new ones here in one handy-dandy place. Tell your friends!

Combat Gameplay:

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Every little bit I see of this game just makes me want it even more. As I said to my friend as we watched it, “If this were a movie I’d see it in a heartbeat!”

I love me some BioWare.

November is gonna be a busy month…

A few days back I posted my “Eyes On” report on Mass Effect. Well over on GameVideos.com I found a few videos that do a good job showing off the stuff I was talking about.

I never felt like I adequately explained how huge the world is, navigating the star map and pulling out to an ever larger game world. Well this video does a pretty good job of giving you an idea of how many different planets there are in the game. Bear in mind not all of them can be landed on (some are good for resting or gathering resources) but still…

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So I just got out of my 1st ever “behind-closed-doors” meeting for an upcoming game…. and it’s one at the very top of my list of most-wanted’s….. Mass Effect.

It felt like a show-n-tell we used to have at school, albeit about a video game I can’t wait to play. They demo’d a few different segments of the game, and if you’re a fan of KOTOR or Jade Empire you’ll find a lot to like here.

The demo started on your ship, which is huge compared to in-game vessels of other games. But the main area here of interest is the galaxy map. It’s what you’ll use to fly around the universe. It may not sound like much but you’re able to fly around and sometimes land on a planet, zoom out to the solar system level, or to the nebula level or the galaxy level. It’s astoundingly huge in scope, and while not all the planets are able to be explored on a surface level, it gives an indication to the size of the game itself. Continue Reading »

In their relatively brief life as a developer, BioWare has done no wrong.  From Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR breathing new life into old franchises to Jade Empire and Mass Effect cementing new IP’s, BioWare has become a sort of golden child in the industry.  A North American firm that reinvented the RPG genre — if you’d have said that ten years ago, nobody would have ever believed you.  Maybe that’s why they felt like they needed a challenge.

Sega announced today that BioWare would be working on a Sonic RPG for the Nintendo DS.  Considering the beating that Sonic titles have been taking in the press for the last decade or so (and for the most part, rightly so), it’s definitely a smart move on Sega’s part to move outside of their in-house developers and call in the big guns.  BioWare has already proven it can take a gaming franchise that most people had completely abandoned (seriously — when was the last time a quality Star Wars game had hit before KOTOR?  Tie Fighter maybe?) and get the shop back on course.  But Sonic is a bit of a beast of a different nature — over the last decade they’ve taken a perfectly enjoyable 2D side-scroller, tried a dozen or so different ways of making it work in 3D, and created a convoluted yet completely uninteresting universe of characters and stories around the increasingly craptastic gameplay.  TV shows and comic books have built on this universe only making matters worse for people who miss the tried and true days of Sonic 2.  Nobody gives a shit about Amy Rose, end of story.

Wouldn’t a Sonic RPG just take all of this crap that nobody gives a rats ass about and make it the core focus of the game?  Would BioWare be forced to make a title all about Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat, or would Sega do the smart thing and let BW reboot the series? And how is the blinding speed the Sonic series going to jive with the slower methodical pacing of any RPG?

Too many questions to be answered by such a simple announcement.  I suppose we’re going to have to wait this one out.  In the meantime this remains as weird as peanut butter, egg, and dice.

Expect this to hit sometime in 2008.