Today, Irrational Games — the studio responsible for the first BioShock game, but not the second — unveiled a new game in the BioShock franchise, titled Bioshock Infinite, and it looks fantastic!

Here’s the official synopsis:

Set in 1912, BioShock Infinite introduces an entirely new narrative and gameplay experience that lifts players out of the familiar confines of Rapture and rockets them to Columbia, an immense city in the sky.

Former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt has been sent to rescue Elizabeth, a young woman imprisoned in Columbia since childhood. Booker develops a relationship with Elizabeth, augmenting his abilities with hers so the pair may escape from a city that is literally falling from the sky. DeWitt must learn to fight foes in high-speed Sky-Line battles, engage in combat both indoors and amongst the clouds, and harness the power of dozens of new weapons and abilities.

You can glimpse this and more in the first action-packed preview of the game:

A few screenshots were also released:

Irrational Games head Ken Levine expanded on the game further in a blog post accompanying the announcement:

There are two core principles for us that define a BioShock game. First, it has to be set in a world that is both fantastical and yet also grounded in the human experience. Second, it has to provide gamers with a large set of tools, and then set them loose in an environment that empowers them to solve problems in their own way.

….[but] This world of Columbia presents radical differences in scale from what you are used to. You’re not crawling through corridors on the ocean floor, claustrophobic with the weight of the ocean bearing down on you. Instead you find yourself navigating through huge environments, zipping around on Sky-Lines at eighty miles per hour and getting into firefights at ranges of two thousand yards.

I wasn’t a big fan of BioShock 2, but the first one was definitely ground-breaking. Based on the trailer and what we know about the game so far, BioShock Infinite looks like another must-play game.

The bad news? BioShock Infinite won’t hit the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC until 2012. So you’ll just have to content yourself with revisiting Rapture if you want a BioShock fix before then.

Sarah Warn runs EntertainHer.com. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Two Torches (Out of Five)

Do you like golems, annoying puzzles, and running around in circles in the dark? Then I have the video game for you!

Bioware’s “The Golems of Amgarrak,” a new DLC released today on XBox, PS3, and PC for its popular RPG Dragon Age: Origins, is set in the deep roads below the dwarven kingdom of Orzammar. Your Grey Warden character (imported or new) sets off with a dwarf rogue and his large pet Bronto named Pug to find out what happened to a missing dwarven expedition. Along the way, there are puzzles to solve and lots of golems, skeletons, and various other bad guys to fight.

It’s a short adventure — only about an hour of playing time — but I’m not sure I would have played it for longer, anyway. It was fun to re-enter the Dragon Age world, and to fight golems, but the game quickly became boring and frustrating as I spent most of my time wandering from one dimly lit room to another while trying to avoid getting boxed in by my (much larger) companions. It’s all fun and games having a bronto and a golem on your team until you’re stuck between them in a narrow corridor.

Combine that with puzzles that are more frustrating than entertaining, and by the time I got to the boss fight (which was fine, but nothing special), I didn’t even care about the outcome.

If you want to play more Dragon Age, skip “Golems of Amgarrak” and stick with Awakenings and the much better DLC “Leliana’s Song.”

Four Torches (Out of Five)

Last year, the massively multi-player roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons Online reduced its price to … free.

Sure, additional features like potions, armor, and weapons are available through the DDO store, but they’re also attainable through game-play — unlike a lot of other downloadable games.

It’s worth, well, much more than the price you pay. It’s an extremely enjoyable online role-playing experience.

Once you’ve downloaded the game and created your account and character, you have a total of seven worlds to play in: Argonnessen, Ghallanda, Khyber, Sarlona, Thelanis, Orien, and Cannith.

Character creation is reminiscent of the actual role-playing game, but different too. First, you choose a “style” of character: Melee, Spell, or Specialist style. Once you pick your style, you pick a specific class, which “is both your profession and your way of life. Class determines what abilities and skills you will excel in and how you will advance and grow.”

Finally, you must choose your “path”: “Your path allows you to define your focus within your class. Choosing one of these proven paths will also give you access to optional help from trainers as you advance.”

When I was creating my character, this creation mode reminded me quite a bit of The Sims game.

Once in the game, it’s easy to maneuver your character, attack enemies, and cast spells. The graphics are great, at least for an online game that thousands can play (and play with their friends) at the same time. (Much like WarCraft, right?)

You are able to talk to other characters in the game and retrieve helpful information from them. You can find gold or coins in barrels, which you will be able to use to purchase potions, spells, and weapons.

When you first start off, it’s pretty easy going, which I like a lot because it helps you get use to the controls for maneuvering your character, talking to people, and using/changing spells, weapons, and other utilities (like your Inventory, Map, and “search” buttons).

Once you get the hang of walking, talking, swinging (your weapon), and casting (spells), you can officially start off your adventure in a cave, crypt, or dungeon in one of the worlds and start using your gaming skills effectively.

Even then, the game gives many helpful hints along the way and a “voice” to tell you what lies ahead (such as an “evil monster lurks ahead”) or who to talk to next. The hints are helpful in case you get stuck or lost anywhere in one of the worlds.

Not only do you have little tasks to complete in each world, such as finding a person in a crypt or defeating monsters that haunt a village, but you also have a bigger task of defeating a dragon in each world. The little tasks are fun because it helps you increase your health and magic powers and helps you get better at casting spells and moving your character before going into battle with the dragon.

Lots of games promise “endless hours” of play. DDO: EUE definitely means it.

And did we mention it’s free?

PLAY THE GAME HERE

• Roger Ebert and Harry Knowles are both well-respected critics, and what’s more, they’re good buddies, so I was interested to see just how much they disagreed in their opinions of Kick-Ass. Read Ebert’s take here and Knowles’ response here.

• Shiloh Fernandez, a young actor some may know from United States of Tara, has been cast opposite Amanda Seyfried in the upcoming Girl with the Red Riding Hood. After Seyfried’s kick-ass turn in Jennifer’s Body, I’m stoked to see her in another genre role.

• Normally I would run screaming from any movie that has anything even remotely to do with either one of the Olsen twins … I’m sure they’re very nice, but they give me the uber-wiggins. Anyway, the upcoming Beastly actually looks pretty intriguing, plus it’s got Neil Patrick Harris, which is always a plus.

• Attention aspiring novelists: here’s an interesting list about what danger signs to check your novel for before sending it off. Could save you a whole page of notes from your editor!

• I’m getting really sick of seeing one re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz after another, while the glory that is Wicked remains unfilmed. However, I’m a fan of Robert Downey, Jr., so the idea of him playing the Wizard in a film focusing on that character could be kind of cool. (Elphaba would be cooler, though. Just sayin’.)

• In the tradition of kid-power Kick-Ass, here’s a list of 5 Shockingly Powerful Kids Who Make You Look Like a Coward. Seriously.

• Remember how awesome Marvel vs. Capcom was? How crazy it was to see these two disparate character catalogs clash with cunning chaotic carnality? Well, they’re makin’ a new one! Aw, yeah!

• And since I would be remiss in not mentioning the upcoming Iron Man 2, aka the most important thing to happen to humanity ever, Slashfilm has 23 high-res photos for your viewing pleasure.

Four Torches (Out of Five)

There are a few things everyone should do at least once in life: take a road trip in a convertible, get naked in a hot spring in the woods, and play a Japanese role-playing video game.

Japanese games are different from American-made ones, trust me.

The most famous JRPG may be Final Fantasy, the 13th installment of which was released in the U.S. just last month (it’s been available in Japan since December 2009).

The characters of Final Fantasy XIII

Here’s my advice for those, like me, who aren’t familiar with the series: buy The Complete Official Guide to this particular game.

It’s not that it’s completely impossible to play the game without the guide. They do a pretty good job of making it “idiot-proof,” at least for the first chapters — and there is always a chance to make up for past mistakes, especially once you get past the ninth chapter.

It’s just that this game is so rich and complicated that if you don’t have the guide, you’ll probably get confused very often, and you’ll finish thinking, “Okay, not bad, but I don’t quite get what all the fuss is about.”

Let’s say this upfront: for those not familiar with JRGP, almost everything about the game-play is different. For example, the leveling system is not linear, but involves spending “Crystogen Points” to acquire abilities and upgrade your character.

The plot? Oh, Lord, I don’t know where to begin. Suffice to say that you’re defending the heavenly paradise of Cocoon, which is involved in a battle between two factions of beings called the fal’Cie. You play various human “l’Cie,” each of which has a Focus, or goal to fulfill, and figuring out what those are is part of the game.

Unlike a lot of American games, FF XIII’s story is relatively linear — you go where they want you to go — but that doesn’t mean it’s simplistic. What engages you is the many sub-plots involving all the characters, and — more than anything — the strategizing of the fights.

I thought this would get boring after while, but it never did. The game does an amazing job of varying the fights and their degrees of difficulty.

This is very much a thinking-person’s video game. If you enjoy the “thinking” aspect of gaming, you’ll be attracted to this one. On the other hand, if you’re a roam-around/shooter kind of player, this might not be the game for you.

And if the need to strategize ever gets to be too much, you can always choose to rely heavily on the game’s AI.

But as I said at the beginning of this review: everyone should at least try a game such as this. The graphics are astonishingly beautiful (slightly better on the Playstation, I’m told, although it looked fine to me on the Xbox).

Incidentally, for those who are hearing-impaired (or who multi-task, like me), it’s a little difficult to find the subtitles, but they are there. Explore the “options.”

Looking to buy the game, the guide, or any other media? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

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Last weekend, your humble associate editor had the honor of attending the premiere video game conference in America (E3, who?!), PAX East.

PAX East, as well as its parent conference, PAX Prime, is the brain child of Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the creators of the notorious and awesome webcomic, Penny Arcade. They hold a special place in my heart, as I’ve been following the comic since the year 2000, and they inspired me to create the Torch’s very own webcomic, Ensorceled.

One of the best parts of events like these is the cosplay, that bizarre ritual where fanboys and girls dress up as their favorite characters and parade around. Some of these folks spend incredible amounts of time, money, and energy, all as an homage to their favorite characters. You have to respect that kind of loyalty.

Also on display at night was a vast array of unbelievably kick-ass bands, such as Video Game Orchestra, a full chamber orchestra (with accompanying rock musicians) that plays fantastic arrangements of musical themes from some of your favorite games, and The Protomen, a kind of goth-metal-rock-opera-performance art group that has to be seen to be believed.

Those looking to join in the madness will soon be able to buy their tickets for Pax Prime, taking place in Seattle in  September.

Here’s some of the madness:

Four and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

The good news is that Awakening, the Dragon Age: Origins expansion pack out last week, is very much “more of the same” of the terrific original game. The better news is that they’ve actually improved upon the game is several significant ways

The bad news? Except for a few quibbles, there really isn’t any.

Unlike last month’s downloadable Return to Ostagar, which was really just an additional adventure to the original game, Awakenings is almost like a mini-sequel.

The action picks up forty years after the conclusion of Dragon Age: Origins, when the Darkspawn were vanquished, driven underground.

Or were they? The evil creatures are back, but they’re different now: smarter, with the ability to strategize and talk to each other. Worse, they seem to have an agenda more than just “evil” — and it’s up to the player, who is busy trying to rebuild the Grey Wardens — to figure out what’s really going on.

Except for the dwarf Oghren, the main characters are all new — although Alistair, Wynne, and others make very welcome cameo appearances.

Players have the option of playing their character from the original game, or starting a new character, at level 18 (unlike in the original game, characters are not capped at 25, but can now go all the way up to 35).

But playing your original character is the better option, not just because you bring with you all your equipment and your money, but because characters will interact with you as the “hero” of Ferelden that you really are.

BioWare, the makers of the game, have made a number of “improvements” to the game, almost all of which are superior to the original. The animation, for example, looks fresher and crisper.

The most interesting development, however, may be the interactions with the other characters, and how the choices to be made are much more complicated this time around. In the original game, it was usually pretty clear which response was the “right” one — or at least which choice would lead to what outcome.

This time around, part of your responsibilities include being an Arl, making complicated political decisions that have no “right” answer — and that will end up annoying someone no matter what you choose.

The complicated drama of the court is among the more interesting aspects of this game.

Other improvement include no “camp” to return to; players instead take refuge in a place called Virgil’s Keep which also includes a storage chest (this sounds like a trifle, but it’s actually enormously helpful, doing away with the backpack system).

What doesn’t work?

Players now have the ability to create their own runes, and runes work on more equipment, not just weapons  (your old armor will now be rune-enabled). All of this is a good thing, but the process of creating the runes is needlessly complicated: you first need to find one, match it, trace it, trade it, and so on.

And while it’s great to have a camp with a storage chest, it would’ve made more sense to put the enchanter outside Virgil’s Keep, where you can switch among your own characters. As it is, you have to exit to switch to your own rune-crafter, just to return inside again.

Finally, unlike the original game, there is no romancing the other characters, which will be a disappointment for those who enjoyed that aspect of the game.

Now doubt these changes to game-play will be tweaked some more and incorporated into the game’s full-fledged sequel, rumored to be out in February 2011.

Here’s a spoiler-free tip: concentrate on the main storyline for a while before getting sidetracked on the side-quests; you’ll get lots of money relatively quickly, which will make your life much easier.

All in all, BioWare continues their Dragon Age-related winning streak.

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Tuesday marks the release of “Return to Ostagar,” a downloadable expansion pack for Dragon Age Origins, BioWare’s hit video game, although it will only be available for Xbox 360; a PS3 version will follow “later on in January.”

As the name suggests, the player returns to Ostagar, which is the ruined city where he or she was inducted into the Grey Wardens by Duncan in the original game. The player battles to retrieve the enchanted armor of the dead king Cailan, but also discovers the king’s secret political agenda, which can lead to a side quest that involves Duncan’s past and includes a new area of Ferelden.

This is different from previous expansions, “The Stone Prisoner” and “Warden’s Keep,” two adventures released concurrently with the game in November.

The pack costs $4.99 or 400 Microsoft Points and is available within the online version of the game itself.

For more information.

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Ever since the days of Mortal Kombat, conservative types have been horrified by what their kids can witness while playing video games, an action that’s often undertaken while not under a parent’s supervision.

Recently, games have been getting into trouble for their sexual content, a notorious example being the Grand Theft Auto series. But as we all know, nothing in the universe gets conservatives more riled up than the possibility that their kids might see something … shudder … gay.

But it’s almost 2010, and the world of video games is finally catching up with what most game-playing youth already know: gay people exist, and guess what? They’re just like everybody else. So it shouldn’t really be so surprising that slowly but surely, gay characters are popping up in video games.
What is surprising to some, however, is the following scene from BioWare’s hit Dragon Age: Origins …

This clip is groundbreaking for two reasons: 1) it probably goes further than any other video game in actually showing images of physical intimacy between men, and 2) it is fully in the genre of high fantasy, and one of those men is actually an elf. (And the fact that he is so clearly modeled after Orlando Bloom’s Legolas should amuse most Lord of the Rings fans. Of course, the less said about the bad Antonio Banderas accent, the better.)

Predictably, conservative groups are crying foul and claiming that this is damaging to children. But let’s put that to bed right now — for one thing, this game is labeled M (for Mature), meaning no minors are allowed to purchase the game themselves, and furthermore, it takes a lot of trying to get your character to this part of the game. You won’t ever stumble across a set of circumstances that accidentally make your character gay. You have to want to do it.

What’s more, isn’t it amazing that you can have a game in which fighting and killing are considered acceptable for youngsters, but two people expressing physical affection will be their undoing? But I digress.

So what does this mean? Little more than just another example of how video games are joining the rest of the world by growing evermore inclusive of people of all walks of life. Good for you, BioWare.

Looking to buy any of the projects mentioned in this article (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

It’s probably impossible to overstate the sensation that was Dragon’s Lair, the 1983 video game that combined classic animation with laser disk technology to create a “choose-your-own-ending”-type arcade game. Using animation by The Secret of Nimh’s Don Bluth, Dragon’s Lair told the story of Dirk the Daring’s rescue of the Princess Daphne from a dragon and the castle of an evil wizard.

It was one of the first video games to cost fifty cents rather than a quarter — but people willingly lined up to play regardless, because it was so completely different from anything that had come before.

Now Digital Leisure is releasing an iPhone app version of the game before the end of the year.

No word on whether or not Bluth is involved with this project, although he was part of the team that released Banjo the Woodpile Cat, “the first animated feature movie game,” earlier this year.

Who doesn’t love a good man-lizard every now and then? Or a woman-lizard, for that matter.

If the new (and old) series V tells us anything, it’s that mankind has, well, a thing for mutant humanoid reptiles.

Reptile men have a long and celebrated history of interaction with his mammalian brothers, and it’s usually not one of cooperation and mutual benefit. Possibly the very first reptile man to chillax with his primate brethren was Sobek, the Egyptian god of water, specifically, the waters of the Nile which allowed their crops to be bountiful. He was joined by his reptilian cousin Apep, the snake god (occasionally seen as a crocodile, as well), who was a lot nastier than the benevolent Sobek.

And who can forget the story told in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, in which Eve is tempted by none other than the serpent?

Shoot forward to the ’80s, and there was a veritable lizard man explosion!

First, you had the original V, in which Nazi-esque alien lizards descended upon humanity. Simultaneously, on Third Earth, the heroic Thundercats were dealing with some nasty mutant enemies, among them S-s-slithe, the reptilian leader (and yes, his name had hyphens. Hey, mine has an apostrophe, who am I to judge?). There was also the scaly presence of Cobra Commander in the world of G.I. Joe.

Meanwhile, on the big screen, a bizarre and touching friendship occurred between a human and a reptile being in an obscure but fascinating sci-fi film called Enemy Mine, and down here on Earth, James Earl Jones gamely turned into a giant snake in Conan the Barbarian.

In the ’90s, the world of video games brought us both Mortal Kombat’s Reptile and Soul Calibur’s Lizard Man.

And there’s my favorite bat-crap crazy philosopher, David Icke, who really believes that many of our world leaders are actually hybrids of humans and reptile-aliens (in other words, the exact plot of V), spanning the political spectrum from the first George Bush to Hillary Clinton, and belong to the shady institution known as the Illuminati. The man is insane with a capital WTF, so naturally I love him.

But the question has to be asked, what’s up with our fondness for these reptilians? What’s the dilly-yo?

It could be that we have that very human characteristic of being inexorably drawn to the other, the bizarre, that which is unlike us, and as mammals, a reptilian creature fits that mold. When in the shape of a man, it sort of looks like us, but is actually a funhouse mirror image, a bastardization of humanity, a representation of what we might have been had evolution taken a slightly different course. Reptile men are us, when seen through a glass darkly.

Or it could be that scales are just, you know, awesome.

Suffice it to say, with the new series V doing quite well for itself in the ratings, it would seem that lizard men are here to stay, at least until we find a new animal-man hybrid upon which to languish our affection. Personally, I’m leaning in favor of Bird Men. What do you think?