BioWare

So, the Mass Effect 3 demo. I hesitate to bring it up, but I can't let it pass without making at least a few brief comments. First off, I really hope that the game addresses Ashley's radical make over... if the game hadn't told me that's who it was, I never would have recognized her, and I don't mean that in a good way.

Although there are some must-reviews coming down the pipe pretty soon, the industry is more or less in a big lull right now, and that's perfectly okay with me. I've really been enjoying knocking games out of my backlog, and the latest one up at bat is Sega's Yakuza 3. Straight up, I love Yakuza.

There is a certain muddiness here between "narrative" components and "systems". Would I have loved Agro as much if he were a lizard? A featherless chicken? A square with four squares sticking out of it? Perhaps I would not have. At the same time the graphical (i.e. narrative) depiction of Agro as a horse serves to contextualize the system he presents and make the game's rules intelligible.

Fable III isn't exactly challenging, as far as game play, story, or game design go.  And yet, it has challenged me in a most unexpected way.  I knew, offhandedly, before I started playing that this was considered a "mature RPG."  And yet I was surprised (pleasantly so, but still taken aback for a moment) to find that among the character attributes for nearly every adult NPC in the game, there is a sexual preference qualifier.

Harrison Krix builds things he finds in his favorite video games in his workshop. He is very good as evidenced by his latest creation, the N7 rifle. If you are envious and want to build your own, Krix, aka Volpin, posted a step-by-step guide of how he pulled this thing off. If you just want to look at pictures of this piece of gaming art from different angles, you can do that too.

It's not often that you get to play a part—however small—in the development or marketing of a game. BioWare is giving fans such an opportunity. Illustrating one of the ways social networks are actually useful, BioWare has launched a promotion where fans can vote via Facebook, on the "default female Shepard" that will be used in Mass Effect 3. Fans get to chose from six different looks—actually it's just different faces while the bodies remain the same—and you vote by liking the image that you want to see win.

You read his review: Brad hates Dragon Age II. But what do the rest of us think? Plus, Brad responds directly to his harshest critics, we speculate on Bioware's future, and another gripping round of Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down. Featuring Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Mike Bracken, Richard Naik, and Tim "Ewwwwwww" Spaeth.

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Links:

• Dragon Age II Review
• Dragon Age: Origins Review
• Dragon Age: Origins Second Opinion

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

What arrived? My Seven Dollars into EA's account?

HIGH I can finally pack my copy of Mass Effect 2 away.

LOW The mission feels superfluous.

WTF No teammates during the entire DLC? Really?

An unsolicited copy of Crysis 2 showed up at my door today (always a pleasant surprise when that happens) and I put about an hour into it. I've heard that the multiplayer demo available wasn't too well-received, but I never got around to checking it out and I never played the first Crysis either, so I was coming into the game basically as fresh as possible. First impressions of the campaign? Very positive.

A Rushed Waste of Time and Money

HIGH A brief (and fictitious) mid-game scene description from Varric.

LOW Everything else.

WTF The immense drop in quality was inconceivable until I saw it for myself.