Mass Effect 2 is one of the premier games of this year, and indeed, this generation. While the game could stand a bit of a slimming down in some areas (pre-patch mining being a good example), what could BioWare add to future iterations of the series? If you suggested multiplayer, it looks like you’re on the same page as the revered WRPG developers, as they’ve recently posted a few job openings for their Montreal, Quebec studio advertising Multiplayer Programmer positions.
Part of the job will be taking “existing single player experiences and making them multiplayer safe”, and ensuring that “the game engine and game systems work reliably and efficiently in a multiplayer environment.” While the job listing doesn’t state what kind of multiplayer the Mass Effect developers have in mind, it seems pretty clear that the studio is going to be making the jump very soon.
The posting doesn’t out and out say that Mass Effect 3 will be going online, but I wouldn’t rule anything out in that regard. Mass Effect 2’s engine was really, really solid so it could probably handle co-op play. Further speculation could point to a Mass Effect MMO, and, to use a term Eddy once coined, that very thought gives me a mind boner.
So, what do you guys think? Are you on board, and what do you predict will come of this? Is Mass Effect 3 going to have Team Deathmatch, or is this more of a long term goal for the series?
Edit: The posting has since been updated to exclude the mention of Mass Effect, so here’s the original blurb, to clear up any confusion:
We are working on Mass Effect, one of the industry’s most beloved and acclaimed franchises, as we build our way toward becoming a fully self-sufficient BioWare studio. If you want to help us achieve our mission of delivering the best story-driven games in the world, and you dream of being part of a dynamic, talented and focused team, now is the time to get onboard.
Source: Kotaku
Square Enix just released Final Fantasy XIII and the company is on the cusp of releasing XIV, the upcoming MMO, but people still want to see a Final Fantasy VII remake. Square knows this very well, so every couple of weeks they get one of their higher-ups to mention a remake during an interview, but continually maintain that re-doing FFVII would take a long time.
Well, we are entering into those hot summer months of video gaming, where there is usually a drought and we are forced to play or catch up on old titles. However, this year, we just got a new slew of games to get through, and that’s assuming we even got through the first couple of batches. I can’t wait to get caught up on Alan Wake, and I’m enjoying Red Dead Redemption for what little I’ve played of it. I figured with all of this going on, it was time for another Gaming Pop Quiz.
OK, I figured I would contrast that sad gaming news from earlier with something super badass, so I now bring a pretty awesome piece of news that’s been floating around. We all know that Team Ico makes great games, including both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus from the PS2 days. They are also working on the highly anticipated Last Guardian for the PS3, which I simply can not wait for well.
I’ll admit that I didn’t play the original Killzone or Killzone 2 (mostly on account of not owning a PlayStation at the time), but the series has always intrigued me. While it may be describe derisively as “World War 2 in space”, that sort of thematic setting is right up my alley. Sony and Guerrilla Studios dropped a bit of a shocker on us last week, revealing the third entry in the series before E3 even started. What’s more, the game is going to be in 3D! A lot of people say that the third time is the charm, but will that ring true for Killzone? Quite a few websites got to go hands-on with the game this week (our invitation got lost in the mail), and 
Well, in the last 24 hours, there are two kind of sad pieces of gaming information that have come across the Intertubes. Not like, cry-your-eyes-out sad, but not happy nonetheless.
Another crazy partnership has just been announced, this time with EA Games snagging a new studio. While the last deal of this kind saw Bungie (an X-Box centric developer) joining Activison, this event sees a PS3 exclusive studio hooking up with EA, which gives the whole thing a nice symmetry.
And… we’re back! It’s episode 2 of The GamerSushi Show, our still new podcast that we are extremely excited about. From the response you guys gave, and seems like you were too, so we did another one. We cover a pretty wide range of topics here, making for a whopping hour and twenty minutes, a fair bit longer than the original, but I think we’re less nervous so the discussion is even better.
Many of us know Epic Games for their successful stop-and-pop 360-exclusive shooter Gears of War, but before they made it big on Microsoft’s home console Epic was widely known as a PC-centric developer. Unreal Tournament has been a staple of arena-style multiplayer games on the PC, but Epic’s heyday as a big time PC developer is long gone.
Like many of the PC gaming faithful on this very website, I was a bit dissapointed in Infinity Ward’s decision to use a peer-to-peer matchmaking service for their multiplayer. While it was fun for a bit, the amount of glitchers and hackers I would run into during every single match became a bit much. I quit playing that game in January, and I haven’t looked back (mostly because of how awesome Bad Company 2 is).
Oh, EA, you were doing so well. You started trying to publish new games in 2008 with Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge, and you took back your estranged children Vince Zampella and Jason West when they got canned by Activision. You even pledged on-going downloadable content support for your titles with “Project Ten-Dollar”, but now the true nature of this initiative rears its ugly head.