Bioware claims no scenes were pulled from Mass Effect 2

(Kotaku.com) – Mass Effect 2′s tamer sex scenes led some to believe that BioWare held something back, after the 2008 uproar over Mass Effect started by the Network That Must Not Be Named. But a dev sternly denies that charge.

User Menelaos1971 opened a forum thread on the subject, calling the sex scene in Mass Effect 1 “a step in the right direction for Rated M games,” but implied that the uninformed uproar over it chilled BioWare’s intent to extend the theme in the sequel. He also alleged that BioWare was given orders from EA that an M for violence was OK, but not nudity, because it might affect sales. “Or was it just EA lawyers,” Menelaos1972 wrote.

Stanley Woo, a member of the QA story team for the game, replied forcefully:

“It’s kinda funny that this topic keeps coming up over and over again. People who claim to be old enough and mature enough to handle sex and nudity in a game seem to believe that any lack of sex and nudity in the game is a sign of self-censorship. They generally don’t believe that a game can be called “mature” without explicit sex and/or nudity.

Let me tell you, folks, that as a developer full of mature individuals, we are also free to not have explicit sex and/or nudity in our games, no matter what you, Fox News, the government, or Bunky the Wonder Clown has to say about it. We have never considered it a “problem,” it is simply a choice we have made and we have every right to make that choice.”

Redemption bridges the gap between ME1 & ME2!

(Press Release) – Following up on last week’s news of the explosive first issue of Mass Effect: Redemption disappearing out of stores across the country, Dark Horse and EA announce that the series’ second issue will be reprinted as well.

Mass Effect: Redemption tells the exciting back-story that led up to the events of Mass Effect 2, the recently released video game developed by the award-winning creative team at BioWare. The game’s lead writer Mac Walters takes up the pen to give fans exclusive insight into the events that unfolded between the conclusion of the original Mass Effect, and the beginning of Mass Effect 2. Scripted by John Jackson Miller (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, The Invincible Iron Man) and drawn by Omar Francia (Star Wars Legacy), this four-part series explores the exotic and dangerous future Milky Way of Mass Effect, revealing previously unseen locations, aliens, and enemies of this rich science fiction landscape.

The Mass Effect trilogy is an epic science fiction adventure set in a vast universe filled with dangerous alien life and mysterious, uncharted planets. In Mass Effect 2, players will step into the role of the heroic Commander Shepard, commanding a crew of the most dangerous operatives from across the galaxy on a mission so challenging that it’s potentially suicidal. Featuring intense shooter action, a rich futuristic storyline, stunning space exploration and emotionally engaging characters, the game delivers an unparalleled cinematic experience. Mass Effect 2 was released on the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system and PC on January 26, 2010 in North America and January 29, 2010 in Europe and has been rated ‘M’ for Mature by the ESRB and ‘18+’ by PEGI (please visit www.esrb.org and www.pegi.eu for more information on ratings). For more news from the development team, please follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/masseffect2 or visit the game’s official website at www.masseffect.bioware.com.

“We knew we had something special on our hands with Mass Effect??? said Dark Horse Director of Public Relations, Jeremy Atkins. “Even still, watching this series sell out issue by issue is exciting, indeed!???

For those who have yet to read the explosive first issue, it is also currently available for download on iTunes for just 99 cents.

Mass Effect: Redemption is the fifth title to arrive in Dark Horse’s ever-growing stable of comics available on the iPhone platform. Other titles available now include Gerard Way’s smash hit Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, Terminator: Death Valley, and multiple titles the critically acclaimed line of Star Wars comics.

Mass Effect : Redemption

THE YEAR’S MOST ANTICIPATED NEW COMIC SERIES EXPLODES OFF OF THE PAGE AND ONTO YOUR iPHONE!

(Press Release) – Tomorrow, the year’s most anticipated video game Mass Effect 2 is released nationwide. In celebration, Dark Horse and Electronic Arts Inc. announced that the comic will be released to the iPhone mobile comics platform.

Mass Effect: Redemption tells the exciting back-story that led up to the events of Mass Effect 2, the eagerly anticipated video game developed by the award-winning creative team at BioWare. The game’s lead writer Mac Walters takes up the pen to give fans exclusive insight into the events that unfolded between the conclusion of the original Mass Effect, and the beginning of Mass Effect 2. Scripted by John Jackson Miller (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, The Invincible Iron Man) and drawn by Omar Francia (Star Wars Legacy), this four-part series explores the exotic and dangerous future Milky Way of Mass Effect, revealing previously unseen locations, aliens, and enemies of this rich science fiction landscape.

The Mass Effect trilogy is an epic science fiction adventure set in a vast universe filled with dangerous alien life and mysterious, uncharted planets. In Mass Effect 2, players will step into the role of the heroic Commander Shepard, commanding a crew of the most dangerous operatives from across the galaxy on a mission so challenging that it’s potentially suicidal. Featuring intense shooter action, a rich futuristic storyline, stunning space exploration and emotionally engaging characters, the game delivers an unparalleled cinematic experience. Mass Effect 2 is scheduled for release on the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system and PC on January 26, 2010 in North America and January 29, 2010 in Europe and has been rated ‘M’ for Mature by the ESRB and ‘18+’ by PEGI (please visit www.esrb.org and www.pegi.eu for more information on ratings). For more news from the development team, please follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/masseffect2 or visit the game’s official website at www.masseffect.bioware.com.

“We’ve been trying to figure out a way to not only profit from these new technologies, but to use them in a way that it would drive customers into the stores of our loyal retailers??? said Dark Horse Director of Communications, Dirk Wood. “We came up with the idea of this staggered release in hopes of accomplishing just that.???

Mass Effect: Redemption is the fifth title to arrive in Dark Horse’s ever-growing stable of comics available on the iPhone platform. Other titles available now include Gerard Way’s smash hit Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, Terminator: Death Valley, and multiple titles the critically acclaimed line of Star Wars comics. The first issue will hit iTunes February 3rd, just in time for the release of second issue of the series.

For more information, please visit www.darkhorse.com/Features/Mobile.

Electronic Art’s upcoming game, The Saboteur, is probably the first game we’ve heard of to offer downloadble in-game ‘nudity’ content. When you load the game you will be prompted that this option is available, gnarly! The game packaging is to come loaded with a card which has a printed redemption code that will give you access to it’s naughty features.

Such options with the DLC feature a “topless dancer, a new game of chance, and more rewards for every risk”.

The DLC titled ‘Midnight Show’ in addition to showing you some boobies, apparently makes the game easier for you (ha, well offers some more elusive tactics), providing more places to hide from Nazis on the map (brothel houses). The game presently allows you to kiss a woman to throw off a pursuer (some kiss huh?).

And of course we are sure to hear some fallout post release of the DLC which we think will be at launch. It seems to just be a way for you to decide whether you want to see more or less skin on your table dancers. The DLC will also be in the download areas for 5 bucks which would allow purchasers of the game ‘previously played’ to still get their look at some breasts, and or whatever else it’s going to dazzle us with, besides more angry parents.

The Saboteur, which is rated M, ships for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next week.

[Source]

-Crutchboy out

Oh well, at least the second game is still fun.

Update – (G4TV.com)

While Patrick Klepek was in the middle of writing the article for Mercenaries Inc., EA announced that the game will finish development and will be the first Pandemic Game finished after the closing of the studio at EALA.

Original Article:

(Bitmob) As pretty much the whole gaming community knows by now, both studios for Pandemic have officially closed down now. First in February, the Australian office closed and Star Wars: Battlefront 3 was canceled officially with a lot of leaked media. Now, all studio branches of Pandemic are closing. Thirty-five employees from the over 250 staff were absorbed into their overlord company, Electronic Arts. The company was working on three titles: an unnamed project, The Saboteur and Mercenaries Inc.

Yeah Merc 3 was long into pre-production and probably was going to become an E3 2010 announcement. One of the leaks came from an anonymous source with an internal trailer showing off some epic multiplayer action. No, I’m not talking that crappy co-op stuff that they had in the second game, real multiplayer with deathmatches and teabagging. For those interested in seeing the trailer, click here.

In the description of the video, Dorian Compo said that the game has been canceled but according to Dan Hsu the game is going to be continued at EALA. I, seriously, hope that the game continues to be made and exceeds the success that the second title in the franchise had. To Pandemic Studios, we’ll miss you and we all hope that you’ll find jobs soon so you can make us some epic games.

Check them out at www.playfish.com!

(Reuters) – Electronic Arts Inc has acquired privately held Playfish for $275 million in cash plus other consideration as the maker of the “Madden NFL” series expands in the growing social gaming sector.

EA paid about $275 million in cash for 2-year-old Playfish, which makes games for people to play on computers with friends, unlike traditional videogames that need dedicated consoles.

Playfish’s hits include the game show-styled “Who Has the Biggest Brain?” and virtual pet game “Pet Society,” which boasts some 21 million users a month. The games are free, but players can purchase or give away virtual goods, such as flowers, clothes, furnishings and weapons.

The deal includes another $25 million in equity retention arrangements, and the sellers could reap another $100 million, contingent upon the achievement of certain performance milestones through 2011, London-based Playfish said.

EA said the acquisition accelerated its position in social entertainment and strengthened its focus on the transition to digital and social gaming.

“The great thing about games is people play and pay for games, what we are seeing change is the model in which they are doing so,” said EA Interactive executive Barry Cottle.

“You typically paid a significant up-front price to play a game, and now we are seeing, with platforms like Facebook and (Apple’s) Apps store, it’s a free or near-free environment in order to get into a game,” he added. “It’s more now play-to-pay, instead of pay-to-play.”

To be sure, the traditional U.S. videogame software market is expected to grow, with sales seen reaching $19.5 billion in 2013 from $14.7 billion in 2008, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. But more nontraditional players, also called “casual” gamers, are entering the market through social gaming and other new avenues.

The deal comes at a crucial time in the videogame market, where sales have slumped this year amid a dearth of blockbuster titles and as consumers carefully watch their spending habits due to the tough economy.

[Read full article at Reuters.com]

Slappin' the bass mon, on iPhone Rock Band.

EA Mobile’s Twitter feed leaked the news last night, and the company made it official today announcing that Rock Band would be available on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Sporting such features as multiplayer, vocals, and 20 songs.

EA mobile also promises “live Bluetooth multiplayer” – allowing you to rock with friends not in the same room. The application says “it will synch you up with bandmates via Facebook invitation”. Yeah, we had to read that twice too.

All the of the instruments will be simulated, guitar, drums, bass and vocals. Multiplayer will function like it does on the console game, complete with band mates mess ups, and the power of overdrive.

EA says it ships this month and it will arrive with 20 songs, with of course more to download via the app store.

The track list:
Attack-30 Seconds To Mars
Girls Not Grey – AFI
Move Along – All American Rejects
Sabotage – Beastie Boys
All The Small Things – Blink-182
Hanging on the Telephone – Blondie
Learn To Fly – Foo Fighters
Everlong – Foo Fighters
Bad to The Bone – George Thorogood & the Destroyers
Hymn 43 – Jethro Tull
Bad Reputation – Joan Jett
Simple Man – Lynard Skynard
Ace of Spades ’08 – Motorhead
Debaser – Pixies
Ladybug – Presidents of The United States of America
Give It All – Rise Against
Lazy Eye – Silversun Pick Ups
Cherub Rock – Smashing Pumpkins
Take The Money and Run – Steve Miller Band
We Got The Beat – The Go Go’s

[Source]

-BG Crew

NFS Shift : Busy Gamer Rating 4 of 5

First Glance:
Electronic Art’s brings you a racing simulator that doesn’t involve cops, or bad traffic. Can it stand up to all of the competition out there in car simulation games? We vote yes, NFS Shift is a rock solid title, and has all the dazzle and flash that EA is known to put into it’s sports related games.

Short Story:
With the other few companies out there making car simulation/racing games you may wonder if Need For Speed SHIFT can break any rules, or offer car enthusiasts something that they can’t get from their old tried and true racing titles. EA has done a superb job at leaving their old “cop in pursuit” format to bring you a very “on edge of your seat” car game. For this being their first attempt at this type of game (in a good while anyways), I was a bit skeptical to see if this racer could provide me with my “hauling ass in a black Lambo” fix. Well it does, and indeed it does this well. I emphasize that NFS Shift deserves it’s spot close to the Forza/GT ranks, and definitely offers some things that those games do not.

NFS Shift: Dashboard view, my personal fav.

The Score:
As a Busy Gamer, I give Need For Speed SHIFT at 4 of 5 on the BG rating scale. They adopted Forza’s color coded line of acceleration/brake guide to keep you on your toes and off the walls and rails as much as possible. And my favorite addition is the ‘Casual’ setting on the difficulty options. Turning this on will give you some aid on the sharp turns and quick braking, to sort of provide some ‘handling assistance’ until you re familiarize yourself with the tracks and cars again. Other racing games have a bit of ‘break in time’ when you have long absences from them. This setting remedies that making it really tight for a busy gamer. A new and innovative idea that was quite impressive to me, and would be a plus for any casual gamer, maximizing your enjoyment. And of course you can toggle it off and be back in total control in no time. Hello walls.

Body of Review:
NFS Shift grades your driving style and rates you as either ‘Precision’ or ‘Aggressive’. Precision being taking turns smoothly, great take offs and braking, passing in other cars drift etc. Aggressive being just what you think, hitting other cars off the track, causing spinouts, trading paint, I’ve even flipped another car by ramming them. This being one of the only racing simulators that actually gives you points for this. Yes, you read that right, you will level your driver by running other cars off the track and winning races. Awesome. You probably wont see that in the competitor titles this year. Good job EA, I love it.

Visuals are top grade, full customization.

The career mode puts you through four tiers of sets of races, each one featuring a higher powered group of vehicles. Tier one being Honda Civics and Ford Escorts while Tier 3 is Lambo’s, Corvettes and so on, you get the idea. No Ferrari on this game, I was a bit disappointed in that, BUT there are plenty of other street demons to make up for it. NFS Shift does not boast the catalogue of cars that you may normally see on simulators, their are about twenty per tier so maybe 80 in all. Still alot to choose from. The upgrade system is short and simple, you dont have to be a mechanic to fix up your car, and still you can tweak most of the settings to your liking, brakes, fin tilts and gear ratios all configurable.

NFS Shift brings you also the Drift Races. These are pieces of track laid out and you are scored by your drifing skills on the turns/pylons, and also on your style of how well you execute them. This takes a bit getting adjusted too when your other races are flat out speed and handling technique. It was a nice change though, making you kinda tweak your driving skills to learn how to master drifing, which in turn could help you out later in the normal races.

Wonder what that highlighted red name is on the driving position list in your hud? Well that’s your driving rival. He’s there to try and out do your speed skills and likely will want to trade paint with you. This gives a little role playing fling to the game, and I thought it was done with great flare. Those little things make the races more fun and competitive, and It’s always cool to knock your rival off the track. Take that, help me Oprah Winfrey, help me Tom Cruise!

The McLaren F1. Feel the rumble.

The visuals are grand. On par with the rest. My favorite is the ‘in car’ view. I like to see the dash boards of all the cars I’ll never get to ride in, even down to the stick shift. I dug the details of the AC vents and speedometers and seats. The jostling around when you go offroad by accident and slams look great. When you top out over 100 mph the car interior gets blurred a bit, like you would maybe expect at high speeds, NFS Shift scores big on it.

Of course without the ability to trick out your ride things would be no fun at all, and EA splurges on this too. The cars look great, and you can fully customize all of your colors, even unlocking some styles like ‘pearl’ and ‘candy’ colors. I spent alot of time finding my perfect expression of my street beast, and so should you. Or if not, their are some great pre set vinyls you can choose from so you wont have to spend 5 hrs placing every sponsor decal on your fresh off the floor Saleen.

Online competitive play is there also, with a stack of achievements to boot making this racing title up there with all the rest, plus some nice extras that should continue to keep your interest for a good while. NFS Shift gets the checkered flag from me, bringing you state of the art car physics along with some style and pizazz that will make future titles in this genre only get better.

-Crutchboy Out

(Gamespot.com) – Today, EA Sports president Peter Moore today confirmed what many fight fans had suspected for a while now: that MMA legend and five-time UFC champion Randy Couture would be in the game as a playable fighter. Accompanied by Couture, Moore made the announcement at a press conference in San Jose, hours before a Strike Force promotion being held Saturday night at the HP Pavilion at San Jose.

During the press event, Moore was asked several questions regarding EA’s previous meetings with UFC president Dana White, specifically the timeline of said meetings and why the publisher turned down the opportunity to develop and publish a UFC game. White was quoted as saying the meeting between EA and UFC was as recent as a year and a half ago; while others pin the meeting at closer to three years ago. Moore agreed with the latter timeline and was quick to disavow responsibility for EA’s rejection of UFC in the first place.

“Certainly [the meeting] was before my time. I’ve been with Electronic Arts not quite two years. Next month I’ll have been here two years; it had not occurred during my tenure here. The label structure that we organized to make EA Sports a full label, as a standalone [profit-and-loss segment of the business]–was not put in place until two years ago.

“I’ve no doubt that Dana, in particular, came to see EA. It was probably sometime in 2006. The fact stands as this: They signed a deal with THQ in January of 2007; the game, then, has been in development and, of course, shipped in May. That was a game that was developed by Yuke’s in Japan. So any meeting [between UFC and EA Sports] that would have happened would have, of course, had to have happened before they signed a deal with a competing publisher. So my assumption is they probably met with somebody [at EA] about three years ago. And at that time, unfortunately, there wasn’t a deal that was struck. That’s way before my tenure here, way before EA Sports was actually formed as a label. It sounds like [between] Dana’s 18 months versus the three-year timeline, the three-year timeline sounds a little bit more familiar. And actually probably that’s when it was.”

As to White’s claim that EA spurned UFC representatives and scoffed at the sport, Moore said he was sure that was “not the case” but reiterated that he was not working for EA Sports at the time and was not present at the meeting itself. “I’d rather focus on the future rather than the past. Whatever my friends at UFC want to purport to be the situation, that really doesn’t matter now. Our goal is to create a great game, to actually go alongside what they’re doing at UFC and grow the sport itself.”

[Full article at Gamespot.com]

Electronic Arts had quite an interesting gimmick at this years San Diego Comic Con. They asked Comic-Con goers to participate in their “sin to win” contest which included a dinner, a sinful night with two hot girls, a limo service, paparazzi and a chest full of booty.

Game fans that wanted to enter would need to “commit acts of lust” by taking photos with the models working the Dante’s Inferno booth or any other booth babes at the show. Those photos would then need to be uploaded to Twitter, Facebook or emailed to Electronic Arts.

Making it even more sizzling, the contest details we emblazoned on the chest of a busty woman with faux tattoo.

Even though all presentation of this contest seems a bit on the ‘dodgey’ side (hey you are at BusyGamer.com, we like dodgey), the rules also stated that the judge’s reserved the right to disqualify any submissions that were “inappropriate for any reason, including without limitation, for depicting or mentioning sex, violence, drugs, alcohol and/or inappropriate language.”

Think of it more like a “Sin-Lite”.

Penty of attendees complained, and even EA has submitted a formal apology for this ‘risky business’.

[Source]