GAMES

GDC 2010: Lead gameplay designer Christina Norman talks about amping up the intensity with heavier emphasis on real-time combat in BioWare’s sci-fi RPG.

Who was there: As the 2010 Game Developers Conference entered the home stretch, BioWare lead gameplay designer Christina Norman reflected on the changes made to the company’s latest sci-fi franchise in “Where Did My Inventory Go? Refining Gameplay in Mass Effect 2.”

Gunplay was certainly a bigger deal in Mass Effect 2.

What she talked about: Norman began by noting that the original Mass Effect had a far more traditional role-playing game feel. In particular, the game’s power wheel (where players select their abilities) allowed for access to up to 20 abilities, each of which was on a separate cool-down timer. She also pointed out that the game would pause as players stopped to select their ability or survey the battlefield.

With Mass Effect 2, she said that BioWare wanted a lot more real-time gameplay, with an emphasis on weapons and cover. The power wheel would remain, she said, but the team wanted to change it so that it was far less intrusive and a lot easier to navigate. The team also sought to capture more satisfying combat, which would involve making the game feel more like a shooter and not rely on the underlying RPG roll-dice-to-hit mechanic.

Mass Effect’s often unwieldy inventory system was also targeted as a place for improvement. Norman noted that in the original, it could be cumbersome to swap your squad members’ weapons with one another and that the sheer number of largely undifferentiated weapons often felt like junk to be sold. In Mass Effect 2, she said, the team wanted players to feel an affinity for their weapon of choice.

Game balance was also an area that needed improvement, she said. The original Mass Effect gave players too much opportunity to trivialize the game with overpowered combos. As such, she said that improper game balance really diminished its overall quality.

So how did BioWare go about addressing these problems in Mass Effect 2? Norman said that the team originally took a design document approach and planned out all the features that would help them reach their design goals. However, she said that none of these features actually made it into the game, and that they found the process of prototyping far more valuable.

As the engineers were preoccupied with other work, Norman and her team did their initial prototyping using the original Mass Effect’s engine, making changes only to specific values like weapon damage or accuracy. And though the work ended up being mostly throwaway, she said that the experiments helped them get a better handle on the limitations of their current setup.

Getting into the brass tacks of design, Norman said that it became paramount to build great shooter gameplay. To do so, she said that they completely turned off the game’s RPG system so that they could focus on crafting the shooter elements, a move Norman called the most important of the project.

BioWare wanted squad mates to be more useful, as well.

Norman also said that the team spent time analyzing what their competitors were doing well, mostly because BioWare’s focus has never been on this genre. This involved standardizing the game’s control scheme so that players wouldn’t have to relearn the gamepad layout. One other way was to hammer out the flaws in the original’s cover mechanic.

Weapons also received attention, as the team focused on addressing issues from the original, including the lack of headshots and aim assist, as well as the fact that enemies didn’t react when shot. She said they also wanted to build better weapons that felt different from each other, noting that the final game had 19 weapons with 108 tuning variables.

Once this process was complete–after a span of about three months–the team then began to incorporate RPG elements back into the game. Norman was quick to point out that though the RPG gameplay had been “off,” development on it had remained ongoing.

Norman then shifted her talk to the concept of building for intensity. She said that class design was particularly important in Mass Effect 2, as the team really wanted to create highly differentiated play types, even if it meant cutting some of the possible choices. Returning to the concept of the power wheel, she said that the constant pausing and selecting of powers took away from intensity, which is why in Mass Effect 2, players were given the ability to map three of their own abilities and two of their squad mates’ to the controller for use in real-time.

Adding in a global cool-down timer for all abilities also helped ramp up intensity, she said, as it allowed players to use more powers, more frequently. She also said that it was important to add regenerating health, as it got players away from playing erratically and relying on health kits. Enemy consistency was also important, she said, because players should be able to look at a combatant and know exactly what kind of issues they are facing. This would eliminate the immersion-breaking act of having players look at, say, the enemy’s name bar to figure out its strengths and weaknesses.

Due to time constraints, Norman quickly breezed through the remainder of her talk, spending a few minutes on the game’s RPG system. She said that it was important not to dumb down the RPG elements, but to still make them easier to use. As an example of this, she compared the original game’s leveling system to Mass Effect 2’s. The former, she said, offered too many choices that weren’t particularly representative of how they would impact the game. In Mass Effect 2, the leveling options were pared down and made more descriptive.

Norman also said that armor personalization was surprisingly popular in Mass Effect 2, a feature that wasn’t available in the original.

Quote: “Shooter combat must be fun without being propped up by RPG mechanics.”–Christina Norman, on crafting the gunplay in Mass Effect 2.

Takeaway: The gameplay difference between the original Mass Effect and its sequel is marked, and that wasn’t accidental. Norman’s team specifically set out to craft a sharper shooter experience that could stand up against the gunplay found in competitors’ offerings, while maintaining BioWare’s strong tradition of narrative-driven, RPG-heavy gameplay.

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SyFy teams with Bigpoint to deliver Web browser-based online game based on Emmy Award-winning TV series.

In 2007, NBC Universal and its now-defunct corporate sibling Vivendi Games teamed up to bring the Sci-Fi Channel’s popular space opera Battlestar Galactica to downloadable platforms as a multiplayer-focused shooter.The two are giving it another go, as the rebranded science fiction network SyFy and NBC Universal are bringing Battlestar Galactica back to the online space, but this time in a more massively multiplayer form.

Battlestar Galactica Online is coming to a Web browser near you this fall.

This week, the media company announced that it had teamed with Bigpoint on a Web browser-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the Battlestar Galactica series. Titled Battlestar Galactica Online, the game will be available through Syfy.com beginning this fall.

Battlestar Galactica Online is being co-developed by Norwegian studio Artplant and browser-based gaming engine maker Unity. Though situated in a cross-platform Web browser, the game features full 3D graphics and sees players assuming the role of either humanity’s remnants or the Cylons.

As for gameplay, Battlestar Galactica Online will include tactical space combat, exploration, and mission-based quests, which flesh out the game’s overarching storyline. The game will also feature assets taken directly from SyFy’s Emmy Award-winning TV show.

Battlestar Galactica Online is hardly SyFy’s only venture into the gaming market of late. In 2008, the television network announced a deal with Trion Worlds to develop massively multiplayer online games that integrate with its broadcasts. Last month, SyFy entered into a joint development deal with game-publishing heavyweight THQ that sees the two collaborating on adapting existing franchises and creating new properties for cross-media use.

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Amazon lists Xbox 360 Elite spring 2010 hardware package with 120GB hard drive, two of last year’s biggest exclusive releases.

Gamers in the market for a new Xbox 360 system have a wealth of options on the way. Beyond the already available Xbox 360 Arcade and Xbox 360 Elite options, Microsoft has announced a pair of bundles that will see a 250GB version of the Xbox 360 Elite packed with a long-awaited game launch and two controllers. Next week, the Square Enix role-playing game Final Fantasy XIII will receive the Elite bundle treatment, while Ubisoft’s stealth action game Splinter Cell: Conviction will get its own Elite bundle in early April.

Need a new 360 and the system’s two biggest exclusives from last year’s holiday season?

Microsoft is apparently not over its bout of bundle fever just yet, as online retailer Amazon.com is listing a new spring 2010 Xbox 360 Elite configuration that will see the system packed in with two of its biggest exclusives from last year: Halo 3: ODST and Forza Motorsport 3. Judging from packaging art, the bundle will include a 120GB hard drive and a single controller. The product page suggests the package will arrive March 9, but Amazon has not started accepting preorders for it, nor is the retailer listing a price.

A Microsoft representative did not return GameSpot’s request for confirmation and further details regarding the spring 2010 bundle. For more on the packed-in games, check out GameSpot’s reviews of Halo 3: ODST and Forza Motorsport 3.

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Role-playing action title Alpha Protocol goes on sale for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 June 1, Sega announced this morning.

Obsidian Entertainment’s modern-day role-playing game has players taking on the role of spy Michael Thorton as he tried to uncover who was behind the missile attack on a passenger plane.

Gamers that pre-order Alpha Protocol through GameStop will receive the Exclusive Assault Pack, containing exclusive weapons and ammo like the UC Regulator high damage shotgun and Rittergroupen Grizzly high accuracy rifle.

I’ll be interested to see how this game compares to Mass Effect 2’s blending of action, shooter and RPG.

DICE 2010: Interactive label president reveals Elite Penguin Force: Herbert’s Revenge for DS, describes learning from subsidiary’s pro-customer approach; Armada of the Damned detailed.

LAS VEGAS–Last night at the DICE Summit’s opening ceremonies, Disney Interactive Media Group president Stephen Wadsworth gave a keynote address titled “Redefining the Interactive Audience.” Besides outlining his company’s vision for expanding its market share, he laid out the top Disney games for the coming year. Four were known of–Tron Evolution, Split/Second, Epic Mickey, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned–and a fifth was revealed for the first time.

“Fancy some more loot?”

First off, Wadsworth held up the previously announced Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned as an example of the kind of cross-media properties Disney’s game arm wants to pursue. As its name implies, it will be the latest interactive spin-off of Disney’s megasuccessful Pirates of the Caribbean films. In development at Propaganda Games (Turok) for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, the action role-playing game is expected this fall.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned will not tie into the fourth film in the series, subtitled On Stranger Tides. (Due in 2011, it is based on the book of the same name, and will star Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz.) Instead, according to Wadsworth, it will “use the original mythology and background of the first Pirates of the Caribbean [film],” which concerned an undead pirate crew seeking to break a curse.

Of course, the Pirates of the Caribbean films were inspired by the eponymous Disneyland ride. Ironically, Wadsworth sees massively multiplayer online games like Pirates of the Caribbean Online as the game equivalent of theme parks. He also called out Disney’s suite of kid-focused casual MMOGs including Toon Town Online, Pixie Hollow, the upcoming Pixar-inspired World of Cars, and the popular Club Penguin.

Club Penguin is returning to the DS.

Indeed, the popularity of Club Penguin–which Disney bought in 2007 for $350 million–has led to the development of a new DS spin-off of the series, which Wadsworth also announced. Titled Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force: Herbert’s Revenge, it is a sequel to the 2008 DS game Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force, which has sold over 1.5 million units.

In development at DS specialty studio 1st Playable Productions, Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force: Herbert’s Revenge will introduce new minigames but retain its predecessor’s overall mission-driven single-player campaign. Like the older game, it will let players upload coins earned in the game directly to their online Club Penguin account, where they can be used to buy virtual goods. So far, over 1 billion coins have been uploaded from the DS Club Penguin game to the Club Penguin site itself.

Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force: Herbert’s Revenge will also have interactivity with an upcoming Club Penguin iPhone game, promised Wadsworth. He explained, “You may start a story on your DS and then complete it on the iPhone…[These] multiple extended experiences will let players…engage in an integrated ecosystem.”

However, Club Penguin has affected the Disney organization beyond fillings its real-world coffers with coin. The site’s emphasis on customer service and taking input from players has rubbed off on the larger organization.

“Customer service is a key aspect of Club Penguin,” explained the executive. “All the customer service is done in-house, and people have spent 20-30 minutes on one customer service call.”

As a big media company, Disney could not accept unsolicited ideas due to licensing rights. For Toon Town, the company outsourced all customer service support and would auto-reject any unsolicited ideas. Now, as a result of Club Penguin’s success, Disney’s Interactive division does accept ideas from customers. The approach is also being applied to console games, which Wadsworth hopes will pay a dividend down the road by instilling brand loyalty into young consumers who will buy Disney products for years to come.

“Interactive entertainment has never been more robust, either for creators or consumers,” said Wadsworth in conclusion. “A new model is emerging, but something won’t change: a shared experience, a great story, and great entertainment.”

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Sega bringing Tri-Ace’s Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 RPG to North America on March 16.

Sega won’t have to wait much longer to see if its upcoming role-playing game Resonance of Fate will resonate with Western gamers’ tastes. The publisher today announced that it will be releasing the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game in North America on March 16.

Does trading in absurdly large swords for hand cannons mean the heroes are overcompensating more or less?

In Resonance of Fate, players will control members of a private military contracting firm in a world where most of Earth has been rendered uninhabitable. The only remaining pockets of civilization surround the tower of Basel, an experimental air purifier with a mind of its own. The game carries a steampunk aesthetic, with the ordinary RPG trappings of swords and sorcery traded in for guns and acrobatic attacks.

The game was developed by Tri-Ace, which has built up a reputation for role-playing games. The studio’s previous efforts include the Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile series, as well as one-off titles like Radiata Stories and Infinite Undiscovery.

Resonance of Fate is already out in Japan, where it’s being called End of Eternity. In its first week of sales, the PS3 edition of the game came in second on the top 10 sales charts, with the Xbox 360 version finishing in eighth.

For more on Resonance of Fate, check out GameSpot’s previous coverage.

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On December 17, role-playing game Final Fantasy XIII went on sale for the PS3 in Japan. It was priced at ¥9,240 (US$102). Want to sell back your copy?

In a little over a month and a half, the used game is fetching ¥1,500 (US$17) from major Japanese game retailer GEO. By comparison, used games Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 on the PS3 commands ¥4,800, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 merits ¥4,500 and Musou OROCHI Z is priced at ¥3,100.

The lower end of the scale looks like this: Uncharted is worth ¥1,500, NBA Live 10 is ¥2,000, Grand Theft Auto IV is ¥2,500 and Dragon Ball Z Raging Burst is ¥1,500.

Remember, these are buy-back prices. The games will then be sold at higher prices. What’s more, the prices do not reflect the quality of the games, but rather, the supply and demand. Most likely, low buy-back prices means that many players, who have probably already finished the title, are selling back the game.

In Japan, renting games is not wide spread and permitted in the same way it is in the West. Instead, players buy games and keep the disc, booklet and case in pristine condition so they can sell back to the titles to shops like GEO.

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Blizzard Entertainment splinter group trims headcount, restructures under “new direction”; MMORPG development still underway.

Blizzard Entertainment experienced a number of high-profile departures in the mid-2000s, and many of the studios that formed in the wake of that exodus have proven to be short-lived. Namely, Hellgate: London developer Flagship Studios called it quits in 2009, while Castaway Studios failed to release its first effort before hitting financial hardship and reforming as Big Tree Games later that year.

Red 5 is working on an unannounced MMORPG.

Now, one more Blizzard splinter group is on the rocks, as Red 5 Studios announced today that it has undergone company-wide reorganization. Cofounded in 2005 by World of Warcraft team lead Mark Kern, art director William Petras, and Korean operations lead Taewon Yun, the studio has now “formed around a new direction” after picking up additional financial investment from an unnamed backer. According to a Red 5 representative, the studio plans to announce further details on this deal in the near future.

Red 5 also confirmed that an undisclosed number of employees either were laid off or voluntarily departed following the restructuring. Currently, the development team stands at 35, according to a studio representative, with plans to grow as needed. In 2006, the studio received $18.5 million in funding from venture capital firms Benchmark Capital and Sierra Ventures to build an as-yet-unannounced massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

Red 5 did not indicate how its current reorganization would impact development on the title. A studio representative said that additional details on the game, which is to be published by Korean MMOG house Webzen, will be unveiled in the near future.

Notably, Red 5’s financial straits are a black eye for Benchmark Capital partner Mitch Lasky, who admonished his former employer Electronic Arts last week over its own economic downturn. “EA is in the wrong business, with the wrong cost structure and the wrong team,” Lasky said of the studio. Speaking to Gamasutra today, EA corporate communications VP Jeff Brown said that Benchmark had made multiple attempts to sell Red 5 to the publisher.

“Now that Red 5 Studios is bankrupt, Mitch Lasky can devote more time to giving business advice on his blog,” Brown shot back.

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Capcom’s online action-role-playing franchise will attempt to boost the Xbox’s flagging Japanese fortunes this summer with a PC MMORPG port.

When Capcom changed Monster Hunter Tri from a PlayStation 3 exclusive to a Wii exclusive, the stated reason for the change was the “high development cost of titles for PS3.” Development for the Xbox 360 is apparently not quite as expensive, as Capcom today announced that it would be bringing the Monster Hunter series to Microsoft’s console.

Monster Hunter Frontier was released for the PC in Japan in 2007.

That said, Monster Hunter’s debut on the 360 won’t be an all-new game. Instead, Capcom is porting over a pre-existing PC massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Monster Hunter Frontier. Released in 2007 in Japan for Windows, the title will launch on Xbox Live this summer in the island nation. According to gaming blog Kotaku, the game will have a ¥1,400 ($15) monthly fee on top of an Xbox Live Gold subscription, and will enter closed beta testing in May.

Unfortunately, Capcom did not reveal any further information on the game other than its Japanese launch plans. Whether Monster Hunter Frontier will ever arrive on Western 360s is still unclear. Despite repeated entreaties, Capcom never exported the PC MMORPG outside of Asia.

After debuting on the PlayStation 2 in 2004, the Monster Hunter franchise has become a particularly profitable franchise for Capcom in Japan. After the series spawned a sequel on the PS2 and debuted on the PSP, the company said it was “growing into the flagship products of Capcom.”

Newer installments have been similarly successful in Japan, where Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for the PSP racked up 3.5 million sales. Most recently, Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii topped the Japanese sales charts and managed to sell a million copies in its first month and change on shelves.

The series’ debut on the Xbox 360 represents the latest in a long line of attempts from Microsoft to build the console’s business in Japan. The system launched there in December of 2005, but started slowly. Microsoft targeted sales of 1 million Xbox 360s well within the system’s first year on shelves, but only managed to make that milestone last April. The 360’s start was so sluggish that Microsoft saw fit to “re-launch” the system, heavily promoting Japanese-developed role-playing games like Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon.

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$40 expansion to BioWare’s critically acclaimed RPG will increase level cap and add new party members, spells, abilities, areas, and storyline.

Awakening will feature smarter darkspawn’.

Canadian developer BioWare was roundly criticized for not providing much additional content for its 2007 sci-fi role-playing game Mass Effect. That criticism certainly can’t be leveled at the Electronic Arts subsidiary’s dark fantasy RPG Dragon Age: Origins, GameSpot’s 2009 PC Game of the Year. Also available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the title saw its first downloadable expansion pack launch alongside the game itself in November. A second DLC add-on, Return to Ostagar, will be available later today.

Just over four months after Dragon Age’s debut, the game will also be getting its first full-fledged expansion, Dragon Age: Origins ’ Awakening. Available on March 16 worldwide for the PC, 360, and PS3, the major add-on will feature an all-new storyline that focuses on the rebuilding of the Grey Wardens after the bloody events of the original game’s campaign. It will allow players to import their Dragon Age characters or start over as an all-new new Grey Warden from the empire of Orlais. It will also delve deeper into the backstory of the Darkspawn and their ongoing objectives.

’and deadlier dragons.

In addition to a new storyline, Awakening will also raise the level cap for Dragon Age: Origins. It will also add new foes, with BioWare mentioning such creatures as the Inferno Golem, Spectral Dragon, and a hyperintelligent sub-race of Darkspawn. It will be set in the all-new realm of Amaranthine, and will also add new spells, abilities, and five all-new party members which players can enlist.

Dragon Age: Origins ’ Awakening will cost $40 in the US and require the original Dragon Age to play. (No UK or EU price was given.) It is rated M for Mature by the Entertainment Software Rating Board in North America and 18+ by PEGI in Europe. The expansion’s official Web site has more details on the game.

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