There are actually significant improvements to the gameplay, depending on what kind of games you like to play. The combat is much more of an action style game, especially for console, where you have to button mash normal attacks. Characters never just walk up to their targets to attack. They will jump, charge, roll, or do something else equally dramatic and the end result is that the combat feels very cool and dynamic. However, it still plays like MMOs such as World of Warcraft, RIFT, or DC Universe Online, except that you can pause the combat and take control of different characters in order to get more strategic control. On PC, you can move your character using the WSAD keys, or by pointing and clicking, or by holding both mouse buttons down, which is the way I’m used to navigating in WoW. Removed from this game is the bird’s eye camera that would truly give you a strategic sense of the battlefield, but I didn’t miss it too much.

Questing was made much simpler with quest markers. People with quests will have an exclamation mark above their heads while people or things relevant to a quest in your Journal will have some arrows pointing to it. This new “feature”, so prominent in other games, is actually an unwelcome change. Sure, it’s great that the game is easier to play, and I’ve always been a big believer in making things easier to play, but I found myself just mindlessly following the markers instead of taking the time to know my environments and talk to every NPC in the city. Instead of picking the quests I felt were urgent, I would just go to the areas with the most quests to complete. It’s not that exploration isn’t rewarded, but it is to a lesser extent than the first game. The first game was more immersive simply because it forced you to figure out things on your own, and I prefer immersion in my single player RPGs.

The Tactics system, borrowed from Final Fantasy XII, remains intact. This is usually a boon and for most of the game you just let your NPCs do their thing, but there are occasionally hard battles where you must turn these off and control things on your own. There’s no easy way to disable all the Tactics, but that’s a minor complaint. I enjoy the Tactics system and how it just keeps the game flowing when you don’t need to micromanage things.

Dragon Age II keeps the Enchantment system from the last game, where you place runes that you find into weapons and armour in order to increase their effectiveness. It also introduces a crafting system, where you can find different sources of materials throughout the world and then craft potions, bombs, poisons, or runes from them. You’ll have to discover the recipes for them, too. Unlike the last game, you can’t recover the runes from your equipment, and you have to destroy them by slotting a new rune. Even though that improves the enchantment system, the crafting system feels unfinished. The crafting table just becomes another store. Discovering the materials are a way to reward you for exploring, but it’s too shallow and straightforward to be enjoyable, and not quite involved enough to be annoying. So in the end, the items are useful, but the system is like that wallflower at the high school dance: It’s just kind of there.

The skill trees are a bit more interesting this time around, with each tree being a graph of different dependencies. Once again you’ll get two specialization points to spend in two of the three specializations you can get for each class. Each of the Warrior, Rogue, and Mage classes had 6 skill trees plus 3 specializations, so you can actually get fairly diverse characters even within the same class. The spells and skills look really cool, too. Every spell is a joy to use because of the magnificent effects that happen, such as encasing someone in rock with Petrify, or spraying an arc of ice with Cone of Cold.

The Stamina and Mode systems are kept from the last game, so if you choose to turn on helpful Modes, it will reserve a portion of your Stamina or Mana that you would otherwise use on skills or spells. This is an interesting trade off and definitely affects your gear decisions and decisions about which skills to pick up.

The equipment management interface underwent an upgrade as you have the option not to show your helmet, and now things are sorted into five helpful categories: Weapons and Shields, Armour, Trinkets/Belts, Consumables, and Junk. Looting everything from a container or corpse is now bound to a hotkey, making looting a smooth experience. However, you can no longer choose what armour your party members wear. Though you have full control over your own gear, you can only choose weapons, shields, necklace, belt, and two rings for your other characters. In place of choosing what armour they wear, you are forced to find up to five upgrade slots for their armours, usually by going through their individual story quests. I don’t really understand why BioWare chose to do it this way, but it means that most of the torso armour, helmets, boots, and gloves you find are garbage to be sold as they will not be for your class. Upgrading the equipment of my party is one of the joys of playing RPGs, so in this particular aspect Dragon Age II is only a quarter of what nearly every other RPG delivers.

Perhaps the most important system of all to any BioWare game is the Friendship system. This is equivalent to the Paragon system in the Mass Effect franchise, and appeared in some form in Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, and everything significant BioWare has made dating back to Baldur’s Gate. After all, what is awesome about BioWare games are the choices you have to make and how other people will like or dislike you for them. If you become friends or rivals with different party members in Dragon Age II, they will gain an extra skill. For example, if you are friends with Aveline, the protective warrior, she will start taking a portion of your damage in your stead. Being friends or rivals will also have massive implications at certain points in the game, but I can’t discuss it too much without spoiling the story.

Listed below are the games that will be affected by the shutdown (* denotes a game with online achievements):

• FIFA 07
• FIFA 08 *
• FIFA 09 *
• FIFA Street 3 *
• Fight Night Round 3
• Madden NFL 09
• NBA LIVE 08
• NBA LIVE 09 *
• NCAA March Madness 08 *
• NCAA Basketball 09 *
• NCAA Football 07
• NCAA Football 08 *
• NCAA Football 09 *
• NFL Head Coach 09 *
• NHL 08 *
• NHL 09 *
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 *
• UEFA EURO 2008 *

For those of you who are gamer score enthusiasts, this is essentially a last call for these games and their online achievements.

There are new faceoff options, such as tying up your opponent.

For one, if last year’s game had any issue it was that it played way too fast. You could sort of just glide around the ice like Bobby Orr, skate into the slot with extreme ease, and take undefended shots on the goalie all game. NHL 11 slows  things down. Not to a boring degree, but just to a pace where you really have to set up plays and work hard for your opportunities. I grew up playing EA Sports hockey games. The reason those early games work so well is that they perfectly balance realism and fun. It’s something that most sports games today struggle with mightily, but an area where NHL 11 seems to flourish. I almost feel as if the developers have a real appreciation for those old Genesis and SNES games. It’s almost as if they channel the spirit of those classic games.

I’d also say that it’s probably the most immersive sports game on the market, and likely the most immersive sports game ever made. Your skating is controlled by the left analog stick, while your hockey stick is controlled by the right. It’s been honed this year and works extremely well most of the time. One issue is that occasionally your passes and shots don’t really do what you want them to. Sometimes you just want to drop a pass back to a teammate skating behind you in the offensive zone and you wire it back to your own blueline instead.

Opening a star player can earn you a lot of pucks on the marketplace.

The game is also filled with robust features as usual. The Be A GM mode is fantastic. I think an underrated aspect of this game is just how good the management features are. The trading, signing, and coaching aspects of this game are the best I’ve ever seen in a sports game. I’m a big fan of sports management sims like Baseball Mogul and NHL Eastside Manager, and the joy I got out of building a championship calibre Leafs team in this game was completely unparalleled by any other console sports game.

The Be A Pro mode is also rather good. I’m not a huge fan of these types of modes in sports games but I found the mode to be quite enjoyable. Having to make line changes and play good two way hockey is fun and challenging. The online play is also very solid.

A new physics engine lets you really appreciate a good check.

The other big new mode this year is the Hockey Ultimate League. In this you are given a pack of hockey cards from which you build a team. You earn pucks, which you can buy new packs with, or bid for cards in the auction house. You can then take your team and play against the CPU or against another human online. You also have to worry about team chemistry while training and developing your players. This mode has been used in EA Sports games before, but this is the first time it has been included in the NHL series. It is a neat and addictive game mode.

They have also included broken sticks in the new game. It is kind of amusing and cool to see. Also added is a new faceoff system and real time physics engine. These features are kind of neat but what is most important  is just the fact that the gameplay is just so refined, and so well executed.

I can’t hate NHL 11 because it isn’t just a brilliant hockey game – it’s a brilliant videogame. It’s one of the best games of the year, and one of the best sports games ever made. If you love hockey it’s an absolute must buy.

Gathering the best prospects from around the league, including the likes of first overall pick, Taylor Hall, second overall pick, Tyler Seguin, and the Toronto Maples Leafs top prospect, Nazem Kadri, Electronic Arts held a single-elimination NHL 11 tournament to see who had what it took to lead their draft team to Lord Stanley’s Cup. The rules were simple: Each player had to use the team that drafted them, the game was to be played on the default settings, and to determine who held the home ice advantage, the players would engage in a cut throat round of rock, paper, scissors. Exhilarating!

The tournament started off with a bang: Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin were slated to face each other in the opening round. Drafted first and second overall, debates raged all summer long about who was the better player. EA wasn’t messing around; things were about to get real.

Contrasts between the two prospects came early as Seguin changed his control scheme to the Classic layout, claiming that he was an old-fashioned player. Hall stuck to the new controls, feeling more comfortable using the franchise’s signature Skill Stick. The puck hit the ice and the tension in the room rose. Within seconds of the faceoff, Hall broke through the Boston defense to challenge young goaltender and former Leafs prospect, Tuuka Rask, mano-a-mano. He weaved left, then right, causing Rask to bite early, allowing Hall to return to his backhand and roof it over the young goaltender’s shoulder. Seguin looked stunned. Moments later, shortly after the subsequent faceoff, Hall was at it again, bursting across the blueline with a two-on-one. He made a last-minute pass, just out of the reach of a diving defenseman, and tapped the puck past Rask on the short side. If only Seguin had Jonas Gustavsson in net.

Hall had scored on each of his first two shifts, and would continue to dominate throughout the rest of the game, going on to win by a score of 5-1. After the game, when asked about his disappointing performance, Seguin said, “I’m going to have to hit the exercise room right after this and get my thumbs in shape, so I can be better prepared for the next one … It’ll be a little different in real life, obviously, but in this game it’s all about past experience, and I didn’t have it, I guess.” So much for Classic controls.

The rest of the first round went by in a flash, with Colorado Avalanche prospect, Kevin Shattenkirk, eliminating Predators prospect, John Blum. Detroit Red Wings prospect, Tomas Tatar, falling to Blackhawks prospect, Kyle Beach, in a classic Western Conference battle. Jacob Markstrom sinking Calvin Pickard, Calvin de Haan ousting Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson, and Zach Hamill beating Ryan Johansen. Then it was time for the hometown hopeful to take centre stage, as Nazem Kadri of the Toronto Maple Leafs squared off against Erik Gudbranson of the Florida Panthers. Could Kadri finally bring glory to the Buds? In short, no.

Throwing the tournament rules out the window, Kadri convinced his opponent to select random teams instead of their draft teams. After some deliberation, and a few rolls of the virtual dice (Gudbranson wasn’t keen on Kadri using his first result, the Western Conference All-Stars), Kadri ended up with the Boston Bruins and Gudbranson: the Detroit Red Wings. How many Maple Leafs prospects do the Boston Bruins have now? I’m losing count.

Within minutes of the opening puck-drop, it becomes clear that Kadri would be a lethal opponent regardless of which team he chose. He danced and weaved around Gudbranson’s players like they were pylons, dominating the game with four unanswered goals, winning 4-0. It’s obvious when watching him play that he possess offensive creativity, and when asked if he could pull off such goals in real life, he claimed, “Totally. Most of the moves that I pulled off in that game were the moves I use in real life. That’s me, that’s how I play.” When the topic of playing with the Maple Leafs this coming season came up, he was asked who his ideal line mates would be. “Kessel and Versteeg,” he said with a smile.  Did you hear that, Ron Wilson? Make it happen!

The next round saw Kadri once again eschew his draft team in favour of choosing randomly, urging his opponent, Zach Hamill to do the same. Kadri took to the ice using Anaheim, and Hamill lucked out by landing the offensively-stacked Washington Capitals. However, with little effort and plenty of flair, Kadri sent Hamill packing with a 5-2 win in regulation. Across the room, Taylor Hall entertained guests with another dominating win. Could this be leading to a Kadri vs. Hall for all the marbles?

With wins by Kyle Beach and Ryan McDonagh, the stage had been set for the semi-finals. Kadri vs. McDonagh; Hall vs. Beach.

Hall and Beach played a real nail-biter of a game, with neither team scoring, despite many great chances, until late in the third period when Taylor Hall scored a beauty of a one-timer while on the power play. Beach pulled his goalie in the final minute in an attempt to tie it up, only to surrender an empty netter moments later. Edmonton’s first overall pick, Taylor Hall, had earned himself a spot in the finals. When asked about the secret to his success throughout the afternoon, Hall responded, “I’m just taking it one game at a time, staying focused on the things that matter, and getting pucks deep.” Sounds like someone has been practising his canned media responses.

Across the room, Kadri once again broached the idea of choosing random teams. Much to Kadri’s surprise, his opponent, Ryan McDonagh, opted to stay with his draft team, the New York Rangers. He had been successful with them thus far, so why not? Despite this, Kadri still opted to let the Fates decide which team he’d play. Their answer? The ‘09-’10 Stanley Cup Champions, the Chicago Blackhawks.

The game got off to a quick start, with Kadri scoring two goals in the first period, including one by former Toronto Maple Leafs winger, Viktor Stalberg. However, the Fates would soon betray him. Kadri’s defense began falling apart in the second period, and McDonagh adapted quickly to Kadri’s style of play. With renewed focus, McDonagh scored three unanswered goals in the second, dominating Kadri at both ends of the ice, and later added a fourth goal late in the third. As the seconds dwindled, so did the hopes of the Leafs fans in attendance. At least he never lost in the blue and white!

The finals were upon us. Would Taylor Hall prove himself worthy of being the first overall pick, or would McDonagh pull off the upset? Both players laced up in the skates of their respective draft teams, and the room fell quiet as the game began. McDonagh drew first blood, scoring on a breakaway with none other than Sean Avery. He added a second off a beautiful one-timer before the end of the first, taking a commanding 2-0 lead. Hall had responded early in the second, bringing the game within one, when he tripped McDonagh while he was on a breakaway. Unfortunately, this led to a penalty shot with Rangers sniper, Marion Gaborik, who McDonagh had a great deal of success with throughout the day. McDonagh worked his Skill Stick magic, earning a cheer from the gathered crowd, then roofed a backhand past the goalie. If this game was real, that would have been the TSN Turning Point.

Both Hall and McDonagh would add a few more goals each, making the score 5-3 in the final minutes of the game. Due to a hooking penalty, Hall went on the power play with just over two minutes of regulation remaining, and manage to convert it for a goal. Within one goal, Hall poured on the offensive pressure, frantically slapping at rebounds and putting pucks on net. The arena announcer declared the last minute of play, and Hall didn’t hesitate to pull his goalie. However, even with the extra attacker, his efforts were not enough. With a final score of 5-4, Ryan McDonagh wins the NHL 11 Rookie Challenge!

Whether or not this is indicative of things to come, I couldn’t say, but we had an awesome time at the tournament, and it seems that the players did too. During each game, the players would banter back and forth with hockey lingo, and talk about great plays as though they happened on a real sheet of ice. Not only has EA succeeded at earning the approval of real NHL players with NHL 11, but as a group mostly eighteen year old guys, these prospects are also hardcore gamers. What more could you want?

NHL 11 hits the ice on September 7 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

With a new real-time physics engine for unique and exciting hits, broken and dropped sticks, revamped face-off mechanics, an improved passing system, and the inclusion of the three regional leagues that make up the Canadian Hockey League, NHL 11 may very well be the most accurate hockey simulation to date.

Kane lunges for the puck like it's a taxi driver

The new physics engine is fantastic. Every hit looks unique and in context, and adds a great deal of realism to the game. Slam someone into the boards and you’ll see them crumple to the ice in a satisfying manner, or line them up for a hip check in open ice and watch as they tumble head over heels through the air. In one of the games that we played, we demolished a player with a devastating Luke Schenn hip check. As Schenn’s hip collided with the other player’s right leg, they tumbled over in an awkward and painful manner, resulting in a leg injury. It was a beautiful thing to watch.

This addition doesn’t just benefit the large, thunderous hits, either, as the more subtle physical game is also well represented. Bumping or shoving a player will result in a momentary loss of balance or stumbling, sometimes just enough to displace them from the puck. Furthermore, the physics allow the puck to interact realistically with lost or broken sticks laying on the ice. These errant sticks can accidentally intercept passes, knock the puck off the stick of a rushing forward, and even redirect the puck toward an unsuspecting goalie. I don’t know why it took so long for a physics system to be implemented in a hockey game, but there’s no going back now.

The changes to the face-off mechanics are also a huge step forward, and for the first time, they give players a variety of strategic options as the puck drops. First, players must determine whether or not to use a forehand or backhand grip by moving the right analog stick to the left or right. Depending on the handedness of your player, either option could be more appropriate. It doesn’t end there, though. As the puck hits the ice, you have the option of pulling it back toward your defensemen, or attempting to pass it through the opposing center’s legs. Additionally, if you’re not interested in securing the puck yourself, you can attempt to tie up with the opposing center, allowing one of your wingers to swoop in and snatch the puck. In one game against the Detroit Red Wings, we used this strategy, allowing Nikolai Kulemin to snatch the puck out of the circle, rush into the slot, and fire a well-placed wrist shot over Jimmy Howard’s shoulder.

Laying down on the job

The differences in the passing game between NHL 10 and NHL 11 are subtle, but will definitely be noticeable to veterans of the franchise. In previous installments, the pass was executed upon pressing the pass button, and now it’s executed when the pass button is released. This change allowed EA Canada to implement a new feature that allows players to control the speed of the pass itself. The longer you hold the pass button down, the harder the pass will be once it’s released. The slow, more accurate passes, are ideal for cycling the puck on the power play, and the faster passes are great for setting up a one-timer during an odd man rush. It’s a simple mechanic, but it works.

NHL 11 was one of the first games we decided to play upon arriving at the X’10 event, and throughout the rest of our stay, the game just kept calling to us. We played four full games in total, and watched others play a few more. Even as spectators, we found ourselves cheering and jeering the players on the virtual ice. It’s an exciting game, to both watch and play, and we can’t wait to drop the gloves and get our hands on it.

NHL 11 will be released in North America on September 7 for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

I still recall loading up the original Army of Two with Brad and playing through the campaign in local split-screen. My reaction to the game was mixed at first, because I could tell that it was something I would not choose to play through on my own, but the co-op gameplay took it to an entirely different level. Utilizing the Aggro mechanics to draw attention away from Brad while he maneuvered around our enemies was a blast, and synchronizing our shots in the tandem sniping scenes was, as Brad would say, “pro-ice!” We would also had a great deal of fun critiquing each others weapon customization decisions: “I can totally understand that the grenade launcher and riot shield attachments may be necessary on the field of battle, but do you really need a gold-plated AK-47 adorned with a variety of precious gems? Wait, stupid question.” It was clear that the game was designed to flourish during co-op play, which it certainly did, but unfortunately, it faltered when played otherwise.

Based on our demo experience at Sony’s PlayStation Holiday Preview Event, The 40th Day looks to improve the franchise in this regard. Players lacking in a real-life partner were given much more control over their A.I. counterpart, and they carried out their instructions much more effectively than they did in the original. Playing with the A.I. is still sure to fall short of a true co-op experience, but EA Montreal has done their best to deliver a more complete experience overall, even for players going solo.

Note: I had no idea what ‘pro-ice’ meant at the time, nor do I today, but we liked it enough to make it our clan name in Rainbow Six Vegas (another awesome co-operative experience).

Also note: The original Army of Two is available on the Xbox LIVE Games on Demand service, as well as both Rainbow Six Vegas games. If shelling out $60 for a new co-operative experience isn’t an option right now (and I can relate), these games are great alternatives.

I do not dare dive into the expansive story that encompasses this game. It rivals Lord of the Rings (Jrr Tolkien) in scope and scale, A Song of Ice and Fire (George R.R. Martin) in political intrigue, and the original Dragonlance Chronicles (Margaret Weiss, Tracy Hickman) in enjoyment. It was much like an excellent fantasy novel that I just couldn’t put down. The characters are memorable, entertaining, and alive. The ambient dialogue that takes place among your party members while you stroll about town is brilliant in addition to being expository. The player gets to develop relationships with characters that join the party, much like Baldur’s Gate II. You can fall in love, knock boots, or learn class specializations from them. If you piss them off enough, they will leave. They have their own aspirations and desires, and they will often be vocal in the choices you make. There are also six backgrounds to choose from, and aside from each of them having its own opening chapter, will offer different dialogue and affect the game in different ways, which was a really nice and interesting touch.

The voice acting is incredible and sets a new benchmark for videogames. The banter from the playable characters always managed to put a smile on my face, and the villains are appropriately sinister sounding. Even the background NPCs that litter the different towns and cities are well done and have interesting monologues or dialogues. If you’re the type of player that likes to talk to every person in the game, then your task is going to be more pleasant than in the past.

The combat and gameplay will be familiar to those who have played the Baldur’s Gate series or Neverwinter Nights. You assigning actions to a group of up to four characters. In the PC version of the game, you have an entire action bar you can fill up with skills for easy access whereas on the console versions, you map skills to the buttons. You can pause the game at any time in order to strategically plan out your moves. Where Dragon Age differs from its predecessors is the adoption of the Final Fantasy XII tactics system. Each character has tactic slots which you can fill with conditional commands so that your characters can heal anyone below fifty percent health, for example, or attack the target of a party member. This system has its advantages and drawbacks as characters will sometimes not do what you expect, but the use of tactics are entirely optional and in general make combat faster. You can also save presets of tactics so that you can easily change from offense to defense in just a couple of clicks. The camera is quite interesting and provides some variety to the experience. The default third-person camera puts you in a flexible view similar to many games like World of Warcraft, but once you zoom back all the way, you get a strategic isometric view. You can’t see as far in the isometric view though and miss out on a lot of the detail, so I found that I traveled in the third person view but changed to the isometric camera once I was in combat. The one complaint I have about the camera is that it should let you zoom out farther in the third-person mode and have a button to switch to isometric as opposed to automatically switching when it zooms out all the way.  A really minor annoyance as I prefer the wider field of vision.

The graphics in the game are plenty awesome and surprisingly runs at max settings even on my two-year old PC. One little thing that I enjoyed about the graphical presentation is that the blood splatter from combat will make its way into dialogue cutscenes, so your party members are talking with blood all over their faces and armour. The art and graphics has that efficient Bioware style which some people may not like, but the character creator provides sufficient customizability and I enjoyed the presentation.

The difficulty of the game is unusual and refreshing, especially for the role-playing genre. Even random groups of enemies are usually no cakewalk and require some management. Whereas I could just walk around and defeat groups of enemies without even pressing a button due to the tactics in Final Fantasy XII, I found myself micromanaging many of the battles in Dragon Age. Survival is a bit of an issue since healing spells have cooldowns that prevent you from continuously casting them. There is also basically no way to grind levels on your characters, so the traditional “get more levels” method of overcoming difficulty in role-playing games won’t work. Gold is not easy to make, either, so getting the best items from all the vendors is nigh impossible. The few dragons you encounter in the game are amazing and epic to defeat, and after defeating internet dragons so easily in World of Warcraft, it was a refreshing reminder that dragons should be hurting you in the face area. Needless to say, I am impressed with the difficulty and am playing through on the hardest difficulty this time just to challenge myself even more. One neat little addition to the combat are these little finishing animations that your character performs on an enemy, such as jumping onto an ogre in slow motion and stabbing their eye or spinning to chop off an opponent’s head – similar to God of War.

For a single player game, Dragon Age offers spectacular longevity. In fact, the first thing I wanted to do after completing the game was to go through it again with a different character and a different plan. I wanted to explore the different dialogue and plot paths, try a different character build, a new background, a harder difficulty and even a new group makeup. The game does a very good job of forcing difficult choices upon you and failed attempts at persuasion will sometimes close opportunities forever, so you have to play through the game again a few times in order to see everything it has to offer. There are achievements to collect if you’re a fan of those, but the content out-of-the-box takes 40-plus hours to complete and there’s more to be had in two downloadable content packs.

The content packs are the only gripe I have with the game. Warden’s Keep offers a party chest, an extra vendor, and an extra (albeit amazing) sword. Stone Prisoner offers a new playable character with its own back story, quest, and hilarious voice acting. They cost $7 USD and $15 USD respectively, and neither are really worth the money. They each provide about one to two hours of gameplay, but if you truly can’t get enough of the game there are worse ways to spend fifteen dollars. Hopefully the next content pack, Return to Ostagar, will offer a lot more content considering you can get excellent full games like Torchlight for $20 USD. As with previous Bioware games, the community has taken it upon itself to offer up some free content to spice up the experience. With the release of the toolset, we’re already seeing modifications that allow you to respecialize any character, add a party chest to your camp (which is better than having to travel to Warden’s Keep), and change the faces of characters in the game. There’s even an ambitious project to remake the Baldur’s Gate series with the toolset, which I will personally be keeping an eye on.

In case I haven’t gotten this point across: Dragon Age: Origins is amazing, incredible, and just about every other superlative you can throw at it. In fact, I need to stop writing this review and go play it some more.

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Whether more Official Dedicated Servers are needed, or the current ones are malfunctioning (infected, perhaps?), it blows this journalist’s mind that a game so focused on online multiplayer could launch in this state. With the Xbox 360 version of the game costing $20 CAD more than the Steam version, fans have good reason to be upset.

We’ll keep on this story and report on any response we receive from Valve.

Here’s hoping that Commander Shepard saw that episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation in which the crew of the Enterprise found the Borg drone named Hue, and that he’s able to make the decision that Captain Picard could not.

“We’re really excited to roll out this Collectors’ Edition featuring so many unique items, including special Collectors’ Edition armor and weapons and content that will surprise Mass Effect fans,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder, BioWare and Group General Manager of the RPG/MMO Group of EA. “The limited edition comic book and bonus DVD will really enhance and expand the overall Mass Effect 2 experience.”

The Mass Effect 2 Collector’s Edition will retail at an MSRP of $69.99 CAD on the Xbox 360 and $59.99 CAD on the PC.

The graphics and animation are amazing. Each court’s atmosphere is different and matches their real life counterpart’s lighting, and changes depending on whether you’re playing a regular season game, a playoff game, or a game in the finals. The players look like the people they’re supposed to look like, and when Iglauskas is on the court, his intimidating size discourages you from driving to the basket. The shot and shot block animations are really smooth and impressively contextual. Does your player need to do a spin around or a hook shot to try and score? The game will animate that. The result is that there is a very dynamic and different feel every time you go on offense, and the sheer number of different animations available is entertaining. One of the coolest things about the animation is that when one of your players has an injury, you will be able to tell. Players will limp slightly after a jump shot or Shaq will hold his back after a slam dunk, indicating his ancient back may finally be succumbing.

There are some neat and unique features in this game. An Xbox Live connection will allow you to hear current, real life sports news updates throughout the menu. For example, I was hearing about the afternoon’s baseball game or football games while navigating the menus. However, this feature is disabled in the Dynasty mode menus and instead you are forced to listen to the various hip hop songs on the EA Trax. During free throws, your controller will start shaking to try to affect your performance if you’re in an opposing stadium and the fans are into the game. However, a successful first free throw will quiet them down and stop the shaking. An internet connection allows you to update the game’s rosters and stats according to their real life counterparts. Are the Toronto Raptors on a hot streak? Your game will reflect that. The Dynamic Season mode will reflect the current 2009-2010 NBA Season, except for the games you play. So instead of simulating the games, it will download the results. Dynasty Mode will let you take a customizable franchise through multiple seasons, similar to those found in other sports games, and has surprising depth such as hiring staff that can be upgraded, Madden-like drill modes to improve your players, and drafting. Multiplayer modes include a single player versus, team play, and even creating a five man squad for the Adidas Live leagues. Players earn skill levels for winning games and the matchmaking will try to match equally skilled players when playing online. Another feature new to this year’s NBA Live is that you can choose the atmosphere of the game amoung regular season, playoffs, and finals. Each option will change the lighting, opening presentation, and crowd involvement. This game actually does have a lot to offer for those interested in playing it throughout the season.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much where all the good things stop. The sound in the game is repetitive and unexciting. The announcers are fairly realistic but they repeat the same sound clip way too often. At the beginning of every game, they will talk about how the opposing team has to stop Steve Nash if they hope to win. The sound clips that reveal some information about a particular player are fairly neat. For example, they will talk about Nash’s soccer background and how that might have helped him with some aspects of the game. I ended up turning off the announcers after a few games though, due to the annoying repetition. The actual sounds are pretty much what you expect, including squeeky sneakers and athletic groans.

The gameplay and gameplay balance is where I have the biggest beef. Like every game, there are some minor AI issues. Things such as being called for goaltending when defending a dunk are silly, but players should also not be allowed to pass into the back court, thus causing a violation, especially since you can’t see the half court line when you’re in the offensive half. A pass to the outside man at the corner almost always results in an intercepted pass instead of your player moving to receive the pass. Then there are the more major issues. EA has put in a very easy playcalling controls. Pressing the left bumper will bring up some plays you can run, which focuses around one of your players. Then the AI will move that player into a position and then you press A to pass them the ball and try to run the play. Varied playcalling is important as the AI seems to punish repeated attempts, but running an offense is actually frustrating because if you try to shoot with anyone even in your vicinity, you will miss. They don’t even have to be trying to block or challenge the shot, they just have to be around, and that drastically lowers your chance of scoring, even if you’re only a few feet away from the basket. This is fine until you run into someone online who chooses a good three point shooting team. All they have to do is continuously attempt three pointers and they will likely win because it’s so hard to score inside where defenders will always be around. In one match that I played online, the Nuggets had a 43% 3-point shooting percentage. I had about the same success driving to the hoop, so that didn’t quite work out for me. In the end I actually had more fun playing single player than online as all these gameplay balance issues were exposed. Also, much like real life, some players can’t be guarded. Try to double team Lebron James? It doesn’t matter. I’ve also had many games where Steve Nash had 80% of my team’s points.

Some other flaws that I encountered were more minor. There is the lack of a serpentine draft option in order to make the fantasy draft more fair. The game takes forever to load anything, especially the opening menu when you start the game. It seems that this is because it first loads this sandbox mode where you can choose from several All Star players and play around with the controls, but I would rather have the game load faster. There is no option to turn off the TV presentation options such as automatic replays or the Sprite sponsored highlight packages.

NBA Live 10 certainly received some loving treatment from EA Canada. And because of this attention, it was very difficult for me to be so negative about it. The atmosphere, graphical presentation, and plethora of options in the game are all well done and does a great job of making the player feel like they’re playing a real NBA game. Unfortunately, some of the gameplay and balance issues break the immersion and results in a frustrating experience.

Note: If you are thinking of picking up this game used, you will lose all the Dynamic DNA features that download the real season stats and results from the real season. You have to make an EA account and a one-time code associates the game to that account.You will still be able to listen to up-to-date sports news and play online.

“Our fans are in for a genuine thrill in the New Year with Mass Effect 2 – the second installment in the trilogy will be of amazingly high quality,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder, BioWare and Group General Manager of the RPG/MMO Group of Electronic Arts. “BioWare’s fans worldwide have been eagerly awaiting this epic sequel, and we couldn’t be more excited to reward them for pre-ordering by delivering some awesome bonus content!”

Players that pre-order their game through EBGames will receive a download code for a set of Terminus Gear, which includes the powerful Terminus Assault Armor and the M-490 Blackstorm Heavy Weapon.

The Terminus Armor is designed for use in extreme planetary conditions, increasing run speed and personal shields, and augmenting weapons with an additional magazine of reserve ammo.

The M-90 Blackstorm Heavy Weapon generates a high-powered localized gravity well, accelerating particles to near-infinite mass, and ultimately expanding the selection of heavy weapons available to players when they gear up for combat missions in Mass Effect 2.

Players that pre-order a copy of the game at other retail outlets will receive a suit of Inferno Armour, which is apparently used by officers to monitor battlefield conditions by recognizing elevated heart rates, and it regulates sub-systems with extreme efficiency to allow for a greater response time. In-game, that translates into a negotiation bonus for Commander Shepard, as well as an increase in running speed and augmented damage from combat powers.

I have never been keen on the idea of different pre-order bonuses being made available to different retailers, because gamers shouldn’t be made to choose where they will spend their hard-earned gaming dollar, but knowing Electronic Arts, each of the pre-order bonus items will be made available for purchase as downloadable content, regardless.

The trailer gives us a glimpse into the Quest of the Sacred Ashes, where danger awaits a band of Grey Wardens on the glacial, jagged edges of a treacherous mountainside. Darkspawn ambush the group, pressing the Grey Wardens into battle, but with a little might and magic, the Grey Wardens prevail. However, something else awaits the Wardens at the top of that mountain. Something much bigger.

Check out the launch trailer for Dragon Age: Origins below, and brace yourself for four minutes of awesome.

Click here to watch the video

When we sat down with Electronic Arts to demo the game at the PlayStation Holiday Preview event, the two protagonists were in the process of exploring a derelict building. Using some of the signature co-operative maneuvers from the original Army of Two, the pair made their way from floor to floor in search of an unknown objective. The graphics looks marginally improved, with both Salem and Rios benefiting from improved polygon counts and sharper textures, as well as a few new animations. The environment wasn’t exactly gorgeous, but you can only do so much with bare concrete, rebar, and rubble. In the very least, it looked somewhat realistic, if not a little drab.

After some additional exploring, Salem and Rios stumbled across a hostage situation in which three civilians were held captive by four unknown assailants. One of the captors looked noticeably different than the other three, wearing a red outfit instead of a generic brown one, foolishly singling himself out as their leader. The EA representative pointed out that enemy soldiers will often lose morale if their leader is either killed or taken captive, and set out to demonstrate it.

With the leader and his men conveniently looking the other way, Salem quietly approached the captors, using cover to his advantage. When positioned behind the leader, and not a moment too soon, Salem reached up, wrapped an arm around the leader’s neck, and placed a gun to the side of his head. Not wasting any time, Rios immediately burst into the room shouting at the leader’s subordinates to drop their weapons and raise their hands. Once they complied, Salem asked Rios to tie the captors up while he maintained control over their leader, and it was all accomplished via a simple AI order.

Freeing the hostages earned our heroes some extra cash, but that may not have been the case if the situation was handled differently. Furthermore, upon freeing the hostages, Salem and Rios were awarded with morality points, which gave them both a positive morality rating overall. We were told that the morality rating of the characters will determine how certain aspects of the campaign will unfold, and provide players, good and bad, with access to different weapon and equipment caches throughout the game. Sounds like the greenback isn’t the only currency that our heroes need to concern themselves with anymore.

However, morality won’t buy you a gold-plated, precious gem-encrusted, FAMAS assault rifle with riot-shield and grenade launcher attachments, so to hell with morality. The EA representative informed us that Army of Two: The 40th Day will include over twenty-five weapons to purchase and customize, and that the components for each weapon (scopes, stocks, magazines) can be mixed and matched to create custom weapons of your own design. And in the tradition of the original Army of Two, players may decorate their custom weapons in the most gaudy way possible. However, we were unable to get word on whether or not there’d be customizable bling as well.

After cleaning up the hostage situation, Salem and Rios continued onward through a series of encounters in which we saw the return of the franchise’s Aggro system, rendering one of the two soldiers invisible while the other took all the heat. Other familiar gameplay mechanics were demonstrated, such as the tandem sniping, back-to-back, and the dragging of prone players. In an interesting twist, we were informed that the enemy AI now has many of the game’s signature moves in their repertoire as well. Enemies will lift each other to higher ground, drag each other to safety when injured, and will even use tactics similar to Aggro, drawing all attention to one enemy unit while others attempt to flank. This is a welcome change, and should make receiving those hard-earned dollars all the more gratifying.

Our demo concluded with a mini-boss battle against a Heavy, the heavily-armoured enemy soldiers that gave players nightmares in Army of Two. However, unlike the Heavies found in the last game, this big bully had a weak spot that wasn’t located on his back: his helmet. Furthermore, he was assaulting our two heroes with an automatic shotgun, which was new for a Heavy. EA Montreal decided to make each encounter with a Heavy a unique one in Army of Two: The 40th Day, giving each a different Achilles’ Heel and choice of weaponry. Ultimately, they’ll all still be just Heavies, which is a little stale as far as boss battles go, but at least they won’t be the same Heavy over and over again this time around.

Army of Two was a sleeper hit, and was part of EA’s dedication to producing new IPs back in 2008 that saw the production of other titles such as Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge. As with the latter releases, Army of Two showed a lot of promise and offered something new, but fell just short of becoming a truly great game. With a larger budget and a bigger development team, Electronic Arts hopes to build on that foundation with Army of Two: The 40th Day. With more intelligent AI, tighter controls, morality choices, and a larger selection of weaponry, Army of Two: The 40th Day has a chance to stand beside some of the best action games of this generation.

NHL 10 features the much the same pick-up-and-play gameplay that many have come to associate with the series, with the addition of some new mechanics to increase the level of realism. One of the most notable additions is the Post-Whistle Action, which allows players to engage in scrums and extracurricular activity after a stoppage of play. Has a sniper on the opposing team made too much of an impression this period? Wash his face with your glove after the whistle to send him a message. Want to get a rise out of the opposing team? Take a shot on net after an Offsides call. The Post-Whistle Action rarely makes an impact on the game, but can sometimes result in a roughing penalty or a fight, which can give a team some unexpected momentum. And despite being a little unnecessary, it does add realism to the game, and most importantly, it’s pretty damn fun.

In another attempt to inject some realism into NHL 10’s gameplay, EA Sports implemented the all new Battle on the Boards mechanic. With the press of a button, players can now pin another player to the boards. Once a player is pinned, the two combatants will battle for control of the puck, while AI team mates will wait nearby for the puck to be kicked free. It’s a very simple addition to the game, but one that results in a significant impact on gameplay. When playing NHL 10 on the more demanding game difficulties, dump-and-chase and forechecking strategies become a necessity. Much like in the real life sport, pinning a defenseman in the corner after a dump-in and kicking the puck out to free team mate can lead to some exciting opportunities, and being able to execute such a strategy on a whim feels fantastic.

Do you know what else feels fantastic? Punching people in the face. And it has never been more engaging in a hockey game than it is in NHL 10. The new fighting mini-game puts you directly in the skates of your player, providing a first-person perspective on the skirmish. Punches are thrown by flicking the right analog stick in the direction of your opponent’s head. If your opponent is dodging to the left, flick the analog stick toward the ten o’clock position, and if he’s dodging to the right, flick to the two o’clock position. Furthermore, a power punch can be thrown by pulling back on the stick before flicking, similar to taking a slap shot when controlling the puck. Like the Post-Whistle Action, such attention to the in-game fighting is unnecessary but incredibly fun regardless. I just wish there was a way to jersey your opponent. Perhaps next year!

Other gameplay refinements include Precision Passing, which gives players complete control over the speed and direction of their passes, enabling players to create plays by banking passes off the boards or passing ahead of a team mate instead of passing tape to tape. Offensive-minded players can also take advantage of the ability to push the puck ahead while skating up the ice, or protecting the puck while leaning into an over-bearing defenseman. Impressively, with all of the aforementioned additions, the gameplay still remains as accessible and as approachable as ever. I engaged in a match with my brother-in-law over Thanksgiving weekend and despite not being an experienced gamer, he beat me with a score of 3-2 in the dying seconds of overtime. I mostly attribute this to my choice of teams (the Toronto Maple Leafs), but the efforts made by EA Sports to make the game intuitive and simple to play certainly played a part in my heart-breaking loss.

EA Sports also added some exciting new gameplay modes, most notable of which is the Be a GM mode. As the title of the mode implies, players assume the role of a General Manager of a hockey team of their choice in Be a GM mode. As an acting General Manager, players must oversee all aspects of their team, including roster management, trading, contract negotiations, scouting, drafting, staff management and more. Be a GM also provides goals for players to try to achieve, earning them experience points to spend on upgrading various aspects of their franchise. Trading and contract negotiations are handled in a balanced and satisfying manner, making it more difficult to cheat the system than it is in some other hockey games, and with a fully active and developing AHL farm team, top prospects will actually grow to earn NHL ice time. Like Be a Pro mode before it, Be a GM mode adds a significant role-playing game element to EA Sports’ NHL franchise, and which results in a very engrossing experience overall.

Battle for the Cup, the other new gameplay mode found in NHL 10, isn’t nearly as deep, but offers an exciting experience in its own right. Battle for the Cup lets players select two teams to go head-to-head in a best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals series. The mode can be played against an AI opponent or with another local player, co-operatively or competitively. What makes Battle for the Cup so fun is the additional information used to bring each series to life, like the developing stories about the performance of specific players, line match-ups, and injuries that are shown before each game, and the running commentary about the series from the real-time commentators, Gary Thorne and Bill Clement. A Battle for the Cup series may not carry the weight of a full season or franchise behind it, but it still does a great job of conveying all the drama and emotion associated with the post-season.

Unfortunately, with all the attention given to the new modes and gameplay refinements in NHL 10, it seems that the graphics and visual presentation were overlooked. The interface and menus are sleek and well-designed, but the in-game graphics are lacklustre and uninspired. The player models are blocky and somewhat generic looking, and while some players do resemble their real-life counterparts, the resemblance could hardly be called realistic. The player animations could also use a little work, as players rarely transition as smoothly as they could between actions. Furthermore, the framerate drops occasionally during goal celebrations and other cutscenes, and during the odd on-ice play when the action gets too hectic. Overall, NHL 10 is a good looking game, as good as NHL 09 before it, but is certainly over-shadowed by other recent sports titles.

With the exception of the soundtrack, the audio in NHL 10 seems similarly ignored. As mentioned above, the commentators featured in NHL 10 are none other than Gary Thorne and Bill Clement, the same pairing used since NHL 08. For those that have been faithful to the franchise since then, you’ll be hearing a lot of familiar lines, but for those that haven’t, you’re in for a treat. The play-by-play and colour commentary in the game sounds more natural than most, and benefits from an expansive database of dialogue. Colour commentary will provide insight on everything from star player, team, and arena histories to information about season, series, and game statistics, and the play-by-play is often accurate and rarely repeats. Additionally, the audience can be quite lively, with player and team-specific chants that are heard loud and clear, and benefit from small touches, such as getting louder during the playoffs or for the last minute of a sure win. However, none of it is really new. While the audio design is solid throughout the entire experience, it will likely seem just as stale and familiar as the visuals to those that spent a significant amount of time with NHL 09.

So is NHL 10 a worthy successor? Most definitely. While the recycled audio and visual offerings are a little disappointing, the enhancements made to the gameplay and the new game modes more than make up for it. NHL 10 features enough gameplay to keep hardcore enthusiasts involved for years to come, and with the intuitive controls, make even the most casual and sporadic players feel like masters of the sport. Now if only EA Sports could find a way to make the Toronto Maple Leafs reflect their performance in my Be a GM franchise. NHL 11 perhaps?

In this week’s installment, we will venture into the Dwarven realm of Orzammar. Used as a starting point for players that choose the role of a Dwarven Noble or a Dwarven Commoner, Orzammar is a city of stone that harbors many mysteries. To the eyes of an outsider, Orzammar is labyrinth, a maze of stone where discovery, reward, and treachery lurk around every corner.

The Land of Orzammar

History tells us that the Dwarven kingdoms once spread across all of Thedas, and that the underground city-fortresses called thaigs were almost beyond counting. Kal-Sharok was the capital then, home to all the noble houses, and Orzammar was simply the home of the miner and smith castes. Upon encountering this ancient city, many are struck in awe by the sight of the great city of stone. Orzammar stands within a vast cavern, poised over a sea of molten lava. There, the sounds of the forges ring loudest as the finest smiths craft works that are the envy of all races. Countless thaigs were lost in the first Blight, when the darkspawn poured out of the Deep Roads of Orzammar like smoke. With each generation, due to the threat of the darkspawn, more of the Deep Roads have had to be sealed and more thaigs are lost forever. Now only Orzammar stands – the last bastion of the dwarven race and its finest creation.

According to EA, the Fantasy Draft option will be available for Season Mode and the aforementioned Be a GM Mode, allowing players to create the teams of their dreams. However, our representative at Electronic Arts assures us that this ain’t your daddy’s Fantasy Draft, as it includes a complex AI logic for computer-controlled teams. Rather than just picking next best available player to add to their team, the computer will now take five key elements into account before drafting each player: their overall skill, their age, their potential, the size of their contract, and who the team has already drafted thus far. The old-school method of picking the next best available player can be used instead, but this new logic system is guaranteed to create a more balanced league.

The Be a GM Mode found in NHL10 was inspired by the idea of becoming a legendary player in Be a Pro and associated it with becoming a legendary General Manager, the likes of Glen Sather (Edmonton Oilers Dynasty) or Ken Holland (Detroit Red Wings). To become a legendary GM, players will need to complete GM Tasks. There are over 140 tasks to complete, and they are wide-ranging in nature. Some will be as easy as completing a trade, and some as difficult as winning five Stanley Cups in eight seasons. Completing each task will earn you points that you can spend on building a reputation and improving your staff and facilities, each of which will be necessary on the road to building a dynasty.

As an aside, I’m glad to see in the screenshots that even the virtual Toronto Maple Leafs are unwilling to part with Luke Schenn. I wonder if they would trade Anton Stralman to Calgary for Wayne Primeau and a second round pick? I doubt it. The new management AI seems smarter than that.

“Fans of Mass Effect are going to be pleasantly shocked by the events of this comic,” says Marc Walters. “We worked with Dark Horse to make sure this story was built into the Mass Effect 2 story arc, right from the ground up. Reading the series won’t just add to your experience of the universe, it will change the way you look at Mass Effect 2…and beyond.”

Dark Horse Comics has had many successes adapting other franchises such as Aliens and Star Wars into the comic universe. It looks to be a must read for fans when the first issue in the four part series hit shelves in January 2010.

In the following video, Project Director Casey Hudson and his team walk us through some elements of the sequel’s plot, as well as some new gameplay features. Amongst other features, new to Mass Effect 2 is a fully-realized space exploration system, complete with real-time fuel consumption and detailed planetary scans. As huge fan of Star Control II, I cannot tell you how excited I am to have such a similar exploration system appear in my favourite role-playing game franchise.

In addition to the exploration, BioWare previews the expanded dialogue interruption system, as well as the new cover system during combat. Furthermore, it is revealed that Mass Effect 2 will employ multiple endings, and that some endings may have shocking ramifications in future instalments of the franchise.

Stop reading and watch it already!

Click here to watch the video

Also appearing in the PlayStation Store this week is Buzz Junior: Robo Jam, a game where mischievous robots get sent to Robot Boot Camp! Now all those mischievous children that don’t get sent to Boot Camp can imagine what it would be like if their parents DID send them. And if they were a robot. Buzz Junior: Robo Jam is available for $4.99.

Other releases include:

PSone Classics PS3 / PSP

Spec Ops: Stealth Patrol ($5.99)
Immerse yourself in one of the first realistic military tactical combat simulators to be released. Choose your two-man team from a squad of five highly trained specialists: machine gunner, grenadier, rifleman, close quarters specialist, and sniper. Choose to complete your mission through stealth or all-out assault as you’re in control of an elite team of U.S. Army Rangers.

XS Junior League Soccer ($5.99)
GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLL!!! Go back to basics with XS Junior League Soccer. Everybody can really play as you select from 16 individual players to create your own 5 on 5 match up combos, each with their own bag of special tricks. Play at four real world fields including the baseball field at Sandlot Central, or the black top in Soho Parking.

Game Demos

Battlefield 1943 Demo
Ghostbusters Demo

Add-on Game Content

MotorStorm Pacific Rift – Adrenaline Expansion ($9.99)

Cross Edge – New Costume Set 2 ($3.99)
Cross Edge – Additional Dungeon 3 (free)
Cross Edge – Fresh Heart Pack (free)
Cross Edge – Power Up Pack + (free)
Cross Edge – Stone SP Synth Pack (free)

Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires - Additional Music Set 1 (free)
Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires - Artemis Armor Set (women) (free)
Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires - Kempo Armor Set (men) (free)
Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires - Queen Armor Set (women) (free)
Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires - Royal Armor Set (men) (free)

Midnight Club Los Angeles – South Central Ultimate Content Pack ($12.50)

Skate 2 – Maloof Money Cup Pack ($2.99)

Guitar Hero World Tour
I Am The Arsonist – Silverstein ($1.99)
Bomb The World – The Sleeping ($1.99)
NJ Legion Iced Tea – A Day To Remember ($1.99)
Victory Track Pack ($5.49)

Rock Band
21 Guns – Green Day ($1.99)
East Jesus Nowhere – Green Day ($1.99)
Know Your Enemy – Green Day ($1.99)
Green Day Pack 01 ($5.49)
Black Magic – Slayer ($1.99)
Conquer All – Behemoth ($1.99)
Disposable Teens – Marilyn Manson ($1.99)
Embedded – Job for a Cowboy ($1.99)
Empire of the Gun – God Forbid ($1.99)
Hammer Smashed Face – Cannibal Corpse ($1.99)
This Is Exile – Whitechapel ($1.99)
What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse – Black Dahlia Murder ($1.99)

The Maloof Money Cup Pack is available in the PlayStation Network Store for $3.00 and in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for 240 Microsoft Points. Check out what the pack has to offer in this gameplay trailer from EA:

Click here to watch the video

Canada? Still Patrick Kane. Couldn’t we at least get Chicago Blackhawks centre Jonathan Toews? Check out the other cover stars in action in this latest trailer from EA.

Click here to watch the video

Dante’s Inferno, which is scheduled to immolate our very souls sometime in 2010, will see players assume the role of Dante (not to be confused with the poet), who descends into Hell after returning home to find his beloved Beatrice murdered. With Lucifer seducing her soul into the underworld, Dante descends into the nine planes of Hell to rescue Beatrice, only to learn that he must first overcome his own demons and ultimately redeem himself.

Hell is tricky business folks, and I suggest you stay out of it! In the meantime, check out this trailer for Dante’s Inferno, fresh off the soul-burning presses.

Click here to watch the video