Whatever the reasoning, BioWare’s Mike Gamble said in a recent interview with GamerZines that players should hold onto their Mass Effect 3 save files. How intriguing.

“Obviously I can’t say anything, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Gamble said mysteriously.

Mass Effect 3 would mark the end of Commander Shepard’s story, but that doesn’t mean Mass Effect can’t live on without him. Perhaps another hero will step into the limelight? Whatever happens though, Gamble said that the ending will satisfy players. Whether you’ll end up tossing your controller at the TV out of sheer anger or exhibiting some other emotions, we won’t know.

“We want the outcomes to be satisfying to the player,” said Gamble. “That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re all going to be happy or positive, but they have to be satisfying. Players have to understand that the choices they’ve been making in this game and in previous have had an impact, and that they’re an architect in what happens.”

Mass Effect 3 launches on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on March 6th in North America and March 9th in Europe.

Via CVG.

The piece is obviously going to last a very long time and is a great tribute to the series. This is a rather fitting monument according to Namco Bandai Marketing Director, Lee Kirton, who gave the reasoning behind this venture by saying “the Soulcalibur characters are among the hardest fighters in gaming – so we’ve decided to immortalise them in granite for thousands of years”.

The work was carried out by expert Stone Engraver, Göran Andersson, the last remaining engraver on Sweden’s west coast doing work out in nature. Andersson said that “this is the by far most complex and detailed engraving I have ever performed. But it was very fun to do.”

It seems you should have plenty of time to go see this somewhat legendary piece of advertising if you’re ever in Sweden! Don’t forget also that SoulCalibur V is out right now in the US and tomorrow in Europe!

Worms Ultimate Mayhem includes a selection of the best from Worms 3D and Worms 4: Mayhem all in HD. Ultimate Mayhem brags 60 missions, even more challenges and backgrounds and 38 weapons including plenty of your old favourites. There’s a plethora of options for customising your worm for four player online so join the fun that PC and 360 owners have been having since last year and blow up your Valentine this February.

Coming soon, you will be able to mix the world of RPG and pinball with the Epic Quest table. Epic Quest takes one part pinball, one part RPG stat progression, one part loot grabbing and then throws in a dash of humor to sweeten the mix to create a new game that defies logic. I mean, who would have thought of merging pinball with the RPG genre, but Zen Studios has and it looks pretty funny.

Epic Quest allows you to play pinball as you normally would, but as you play, you are slowly earning all kinds of unlockable gear for your clueless hero to wear into battle. The quests that you undertake are of the normal fare for any of the Zen Studios titles, but defeating them grants you loot and experience. When your game ends, your progression continues into the next game, keeping you in a neverending loop of loot and level grinding.

Epic Quest is set to arrive as a downloadable plugin for both Zen Pinball on the PSN and Pinball FX 2 on the XBLA. No pricing has been set, but Epic Quest is coming sometime in the near future from Zen Studios. Check out a host of screens and the announcement trailer below.

Obviously there’s been many previews of the game’s campaign over it’s development, but this is the first time we’ll see the variety that’s offered, taking you from icy blizzards to desert-based refugee camps – and even a school at one point. You also see a glimpse of some of the reasons this game earns the name Future Soldier – mini walking mech units, active camo, sensor grenades – pretty much everything you could ask for.

The squad based actions also make an appearance with simultaneous sniping sections, the always popular breach and clear style gameplay. It seems you’ll also have a few on rails sections and lots of being stealthy, running and shooting – what more could you want from the series?

The game is currently pegged for release on May 25th in Europe and 22nd in the US for Xbox 360 and PS3

Of course, nothing is simple with a Resident Evil game, and taking up that theme, we meet the cast and crew as they are trying to kill each other as the two forces are on the other side of the spectrum, while having to face enemies from a third angle in the infected residents of Raccoon City.

The action is fast and furious, and the cast is huge as you do battle in Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City releases in March 2012 from Capcom for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 systems.

The novels are not canonized versions of the game, but instead, compliment it with side narratives that flesh out the universe. Think of what the Star Wars novels have done for that universe and you get the idea. First was Revelations, which followed a young David Anderson and Saren working together. This was followed up by Ascension, which looked in depth at Cerberus, and gave us a deeper understanding of the Quarian migrant fleet. The last book was Retribution, which gave us a long look at the Illusive Man and his views on the universe in regards to humanity and how far he would go to protect it.

I would be lying if I said I was not anticipating the newest novel which came out this past Tuesday, titled, Mass Effect Deception. I knew that a new writer was coming on board, William C. Dietz taking over for Drew Karpyshyn, but I was still hyped on this novel as it was about Mass Effect.

Unfortunately, something got lost in translation, and things have not gone quite right with this new novel. While I have not started into the new novel yet, I was greeted with an appalling one star rating on Amazon. At first, I thought this was some sort of campaign by someone not happy about Karpyshyn’s departure from the novel series, but upon reading deeper into the reviews, it seems that the book is flat out bad when it comes to Mass Effect canon. Wholesale parts of the fiction have been retconned at will by Dietz, including turning characters that were known to be homosexual into straight characters, a child that merely grew out of Autism and little things like Volus with open masks, which in reality would kill them.

Even with all of this, I felt I wanted to read this book, and I am planning to put up a review, but it astounds me that a series of books that have been so strong across so many mediums could get off track with one shot. I have to ask if anyone at Bioware actually vetted the book before print, because the list of errors and lore misconceptions is long, with some going as far to create a Google Doc that lists all the different errors, ranging from mild to completely wrong. It also seems in poor taste and somewhat offensive to dismiss things like homosexuality, when the franchise and Bioware in general have normally embraced the idea of same sex parings in their games (Mass Effect 2 withstanding).

I hope that I can at least find my way through the mess to get a decent experience out of this, and even though it only set me back $7.99 in the spirit of reviewing the book, I can’t help feeling a little dirty by supporting this book. I really do hope that the people at Bioware read all of this feedback and find a way to fix this or at the least, keep Dietz away from this franchise if this is the havok that he is going to reap on the Mass Effect books. I know some have a hate for Dietz from his work on the Halo books, but I found those novels to be entertaining, but it looks like his grasp on the Mass Effect lore is less than flattering.

Look here for a review on Mass Effect Deception as soon as I have a chance to plow through the entire book.

The game is a download only title available on the Xbox Live Market Place and Playstation Network.

For more information take a glance at www.gothamcityimpostors.com

The writer discusses possible theories about the source of this unexpected altruism, including a compulsive need to be providing input or base tribal instincts to defend territory as a group. I think the cause is much more basic.

DICE has figured out the appropriate way to encourage teamwork and selflessness. Stuart cites the simple act of reviving a fellow teammate while under fire, which not only puts the player at risk, but could ruin that all-to-important Kill-Death ratio that is the staple of FPS bean counters. But see, this ignores one key element of the Battlefield 3 experience.

Killing an enemy is worth 100 points. Capturing a command point and converting it to your own, or destroying an M-COM objective will net you 200 points. Reviving a team mate is worth 100 points… the same base amount as a kill. It should also be noted that you don’t lose points for dying.

But who cares about points? On the surface Battlefield 3 is a standard modern day multiplayer FPS. However, Battlefield 3 is actually an action role-playing game. As you take part in various battles, you gain points for certain activities. These points unlock better weapons and equipment in various categories. These are no ordinary points, sir. These are… EXPERIENCE POINTS! And if the endless stream of Battlefield and Call of Duty games has taught us anything, it’s that people love unlocking weapons and equipment for their “character,” not to mention the programmed response most gamers feel at unlocking achievements and ranks.

Through careful tuning of point values and unlockables, DICE has found the holy grail of today’s gaming community. They seem to have correctly incentivized teamwork. Not only that, but this has had the secondary effect of causing most players to be generally civil and helpful to each other. This flies in the face of the well known “online disinhibition effect,” otherwise known as John Gabriel’s Greater Internet F**kwad Theory. Just about every major multiplayer game from Unreal Tournament 2004 to World of Warcraft has been rampant with this kind of behavior.

Thank goodness a developer has finally figured out a way to mitigate the seemingly unending tide of internet stupidity. So, what’s the next step? That’s a good question, but if the gaming industry stays true to form, we can hopefully see other developers copy, borrow, and steal from DICE’s pinnacle of team-based gameplay.