Let’s face it: The Saboteur wasn’t on anyone’s immediate radar until creators Pandemic Studios got canned in late 2009. With virtually no hype and no marketing campaign, the circumstances surrounding the game’s final stages of development were more intriguing to most than the notion of actually playing the studio’s last project.
While the Pandemic brand lives on, the majority of its staff rushed to finish The Saboteur on time, only to be laid off days before its release. Some employees even went so far as to place a countdown clock in the building which predicted their job eliminations while others shook one last fist at the company who shook them off. Of course, the ultimate question was whether or not The Saboteur would be the doomed studio’s swan song or yet another of their current-gen disappointments.
It’s seems almost immediately after Commander Shepard and company defeat Saren and put a stop to the Geth attack on the Citadel, a new threat to the galaxy pops up. Thousands of human colonists have been disappearing from settlements throughout the Terminus Systems. The Alliance isn’t doing jack about it either, which forces Shepard to look for help elsewhere. That elsewhere turns out to be Cerberus, the shadowy organization with very questionable ethics which was the source of many of the Commander’s woes throughout first game. But like any galactic savior worth their legendary reputation, Shepard sucks it up, joins forces with an ex-enemy, and sets out to find out the culprit behind this new threat.
Having trouble deciding whether to pick up Command & Conquer 4 or waiting for StarCraft II? Well, Electronic Arts would like to assist you in making your decision by helping you catch up on some of the C&Cyou may have missed over the years. Right now on their site they are offering not one, not two, but three games from the venerable RTS series for free. No strings attached!
Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treachery – for Dante, these sins represent steps on a literal trip through Hell and back to try and save the soul of his beloved. For me? It sounds like an average weekend. And I’m sure that the average Indianapolis Colts fan is dealing with at least five or so of these today, if not all seven.
Oh ho ho! But I do kid about, don’t I? Look at me, being topical with a Super Bowl reference.*
*Ahem*
Anyway, with Dante’s Inferno about to release this Tuesday, it’s about time to enjoy what is probably the final new trailer before the game launches. No ’70s soul in this one, sadly. Oh well. We can’t win them all, can we?
If you’re like me – and I know I am – you could care less about the Super Bowl. All it means to me is that for a couple of hours, the streets will have marginally less traffic and the salty snack isle at the grocery store will be a little more sparsely stocked in the days prior.
However, I know I’m the anomaly and not the norm in this situation and that millions of people will be watching it. EA knows this too – that’s why they’ve purchased a block of super-expensive ad time to hype Dante’s Inferno, mere days before it releases in stores. Also noteworthy is the fact that CBS forced them to remove their customary “Go To Hell” tagline from the end of the commercial, replacing it with the presumably less offensive “Hell Awaits.”
So, if you, like me, indulge in the blasphemy that is not giving a crap about football, why not indulge in a bit more and enjoy this (surprisingly soulful, thanks to the Bill Withers soundtrack) Dante’s Inferno commercial? Just don’t ask me where the tortilla chips are – the store was sold out… *grumble*
All you youngsters out there may find this hard to believe, but there was once a time when people didn’t play games on their TVs or computers. There were no “Xboxes” or “PlayStations” or even “Wiis”. Nope. Instead, people used to gather around the family dinner table and play games on cardboard “gameboards” using dice, cards and little plastic statuette characters. And the most unbelievable part about these “boardgames”, as they were called, was that they didn’t even feature online multiplayer modes! Everyone who wanted to play had to physically be in the same room. Can you believe it?
Okay, of course you know what a boardgame is. You might even have gotten one for Christmas just a few weeks ago. But if you did, hopefully it wasn’t Risk, the classic “Game of World Domination” from the good folks at Hasbro, because Electronic Arts has just announced that they plan on making that old “analog” version obsolete when they release Risk: Factions on XBLA in early 2010.
Oh man, we’ve played so much catch-up in posting Mass Effect 2 stuff in the last few days that quite frankly it’s all been a blur to us. At least we get to wrap it all up with this newest minute and a half of cinematic footage (with a full-length version being teased for December 22nd on Xbox Live) to keep you entertained until we have more.
In it, we see Martin Sheen’s awfully-named Illusive Man keeping pretty close tabs on Commander Shepard and his rag-tag band of mercs and misfits. We get another taste of Thane and Grunt in action as well as one other bit that may have gone unnoticed. We won’t say what it is here, though – hit the jump for wild speculations.
The tech/biotic hybrid class that is the Mass Effect 2 Sentinel has a few things going for it, according to BioWare’s Christina Norman. In addition to being the game’s “most versatile class”, they have a way to shut down just about any foe they might face.
If you happen to be a Force Biotic user, their Warp ability can get past your spiffy Biotic Barriers; where’s your defense now, space wizard? If you’re a mechanical enemy or a regular, non-space wizard shield user like the rest of us, a quick Overload will have you wondering why laser blasts are suddenly cauterizing your spleen (or whatever mecha-spleen equivalent robots have).
And this is all without us even mentioning the pimp-ass Tech Armor. Even if your enemies manage to wear your defenses down, the Tech Armor delivers one last digital pimp-hand, knocking them all to the floor. Need we say more?
With Mass Effect 2 BioWare seems to be intent on making sure that the members of the Sci-Fi Actor’s Guild (if there is indeed such a thing) are able to stay steadily employed and keep their resumes nicely padded.
Tricia Helfer, Carrie-Anne Moss, Michael Hogan, Adam Baldwin, and Michael Freakin’ Dorn? If you don’t recognize these names, you need to turn in your geek card along with your rubber Vulcan ears and replica lightsaber. And that’s not even counting Liz Sroka, Seth Green, and the deep, commanding pipes of Keith David returning from the first Mass Effect.
And then we come to Martin Sheen – a big Hollywood name saddled with what is possibly one of the worst character names in history, “Illusive Man”. Not even The Illusive Man, you’ll note. Just Illusive Man. *Groan* They could have just called him “Mr. X” and been less cheesy.
Regardless, this is shaping up to be one hell of an epic assemblage of talent. Take a look below for yourself.
Mass Effect 2 will be warping into a spaceport near you on January 26th (29th in Sector Europa) of 2010.
Every time I think about this Developer Diary for the Violence circle of Dante’s Inferno, I keep getting hit with a wave of… something.
I suppose it’s pretty much the exact opposite of cognitive dissonance; it’s glaringly, face-slappingly obvious that a game like Dante’s Inferno would chock-a-block full of violence. So what does a game really do to 1-up the violence factor on a level dedicated to that particular sin?
Does the controller sprout thorn-like spikes of plastic and metal, impaling your hands? Does it deliver a huge dose of PCP into your bloodstream via wi-fi, sending you on a naked, cannibalistic rampage through your neighborhood until you’re brought down by the SWAT team after dismembering a police officer with your own two hands?
…I really am overthinking this, aren’t I? Then again, Dante does sew the cross emblem from his tabbard onto his bare, naked flesh in this game, so perhaps not.
Dante’s Inferno is coming to PS3, PSP and Xbox 360 in February of 2010.
Zuri Grimm
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