It has been almost 5 years since we first met Shepard and their ongoing struggle to combat the Reapers, a machine race that harvests all organics in the galaxy. We have gone from stopping a rogue agent to dying and being rebuilt. Force to work with a powerful terrorist organization to uncover the truth when everyone else has turned their back on you. Soon, all of things we worked for, the decisions we made is all coming to an end with Mass Effect 3.

Investing 5 years on one franchise it would not come as a surprise that people were skeptical when BioWare announced that they would have a multiplayer component to Mass Effect 3. Up until now, they never found leeway to fit it in the franchise. With Shepard’s final story being all about gathering allies and power, they found place to create a standalone multiplayer and still maintain a sensible story element. While Shepard is out doing their thing, there are objectives, resources, important artifacts that need to be secured to boost the overall success of the allied forces. Players will play as an elite solider for the allied forces and with three other people go to various hot spots to secure these resources.

All of the classes that Shepard can play as are available to players in multiplayer. In addition, each class has different races attached them that you can unlock from purchasing packs from the in-game store. Finally, you will have the opportunity to be that unstoppable Krogan Soldier or the crafty Quarian engineer. Each race has their only abilities when compared to other races of the same class, for example, a Quarian infiltrator with have the ability Sabotage whereas a human will have the ability Cyro Blast.

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The recent Friday update for Star Wars: The Old Republic came with a NDA lift. The masses that have been confined to talking about the game behind closed doors were finally free to spout whatever was on their mind, myself included. So what exactly do I have to say about the MMO that combines one of the most popular franchises in history, Bioware’s aptitude for story, and a whole lot of money? It’s more of the same at face value with a few deep wrinkles if you dig a little deeper.

The Low Before the High

If you seen any videos at all about the game, let alone play it you would know it has a very familiar feel. It is all there, quest hubs, skill trainers, those fetch and kill X quests, slapfight, hotkey combat, and so on. The unique thing however is that it’s all masked behind Bioware’s story. I’m going to mention this a few times because this game lives and dies by it.

Every class has a unique story. The Jedi Knight is all about combating evil face to face, the Jedi Consular is all about the ways of the force and finding ancient knowledge, and the Imperial Agent is about working for the Empire and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. I had an awesome time with the Imperial Agent, working as an undercover agent influencing the Huts all in an effort to acquire more resources for the Empire for the upcoming inevitable war. On the other hand, I tried out the Jedi Consular and as iconic as it was, it bored me to death, similar to Larry Everett write-up.

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Firefall made a major showing at Pax Prime this year, from banners on the escalators, the giant statue just outside the entrance to the Exhibitor Hall to the sheer amount of square feet they hogged on the show floor. Created by the up and coming Red 5 Studios, who house veteran developers who have worked on World of Warcraft and Tribes, FireFall is free-to-play massive online cooperative shooter and I had the opportunity to experience the PvE portion of the game.

Firefall takes place in a beautiful post apocalyptic world where mankind has discovered a new all-purpose resource called Crystite. As they mined this new resource, it consequently leads to the arrival of the Melding, a hostile energy storm that starts to engulf the planet. From that storm a new bred of species emerges, The Chosen, a bloodthirsty race hell-bent of destroying the human race.

As you combat the Chosen and find an answer to the Melding, you’ll have the option of choosing various battleframes – classes – on one character. So far, we have the Assault battleframe, an offensive juggernaut that has the ability to cause massive AoE damage, the Recon battleframe, specializes in long-range attacks as well as utilizes mines and special ammo. The Medic battleframe, the healer of the bunch, no slouch on their own, they have the ability to drain other players health as well as, excess to a grenade launcher, and lastly we have the Engineer battleframe, the mechanical genius, they can deploy turrets and energy shield that they can upgrade and repair on the fly. For my demo, I started out using a Recon Battleframe.

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Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet’s sequel to Guild Wars has really stood out among the rest because of their innovative ideas: Creating a Dynamic event system that does away with the standard quest and progress playstyle; ditching the holy trinity and allowing all classes to tank, DPS, support, and heal in their own way. These new ideas as well as continuing their no-subscription model has made this game soar to the top of everyone’s lists.

For Gamescom and Pax, they showed off PvP for the first time. Conquest is the game and Khylo is the location. Players battle one another to take over key locations, with the assistance of a trebuchet; the task isn’t easy as players can always bomb the other team out of a control point. Movement and teamwork are key as points are gained by defeating the other team in combat and controlling the points; the first to 500 wins.

Aside from PvP, they have also introduced new areas in PvE for players to explore. Players had the opportunity to experience the Charr starter area and witness the ghosts of Ascalon first hand. Players could also play as the Sylvari, a race of honorable plant humanoids as well as the tiny Asura, a race of very intelligent people in the Sparkfly Den where the Undead are laying siege to the area.
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In a nice closed off area, I had the chance to sit down and get some one on one time with Mass Effect 3.

Mass Effect 3 brings some new features to the table. They improved A.I tactics, introduced new enemy types, new melee combat mechanics, and re-tooled classes.

I started off having to choose my class, the Soldier, the Engineer, or the Sentinel. I choose the Engineer and it came with quite a few tricks to play with – some old, some new. The Engineer has always been known as a distraction class with the use of the combat drone that stunned enemies and made them susceptible to gun fire and the various tech and biotic powers. Now I have a turret that does the same thing in conjunction with the combat drone leaving enemies open and interrupting their tactics.

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The FPS genre is no doubt dominated by military shooters with a huge rivalry playing out between the current king of the genre, Call of Duty, and the surprising upcoming contender, Battlefield. The genre offers more than beautiful action set pieces that make up a the single player campaign and a robust multiplayer. Sometimes, FPS titles offer a compelling story, a beautiful rich environment, and unique mechanics condensed in a nice well-rounded package.

Irrational Games, creators of Bioshock franchise are back at it after temporary handing over the reins for the sequel to their game. Once again they intend on delivering another iconic set piece with a very interesting back-story while getting creative and putting twists and knots into the combat system with Bioshock Infinite. The title takes place on a beautiful floating steampunk-like city built on multiple airships called Columbia, a signature piece of American technological advancement.  In the game, Booker DeWitt (you) is sent on a search and rescue for a young women named Elizabeth.  When you arrive, you notice the place has seen better days and soon meet two dominate factions, The Founders and The Vox Populi, who at war with each other and tearing the place apart. As you progress, you’ll figure out the reason Elizabeth been locked up and the role she’ll play in the conflict.

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