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When PC owners finally got their hands on Mass Effect a couple of months back , they were more than a little vocal about expressing their disappointment when the “Bring Down The Sky” DLC wasn’t made available for free download as promised. Finally, as of today, PC owners will be able to blast away fugly bug-eyed Batarians and make sure they handle Armageddon rogue asteroids, Cmdr. Shepard style as the long-awaited 309 MB DLC goes up for free download along with the 1.01 patch for the game. According to the changelog, the 34 MB patch includes support for DLC and some bug fixes for audio, gameplay and multicore CPUs.
However, be warned that you don’t just get access to the DLC. You will first have to create a BioWare Community account (if you don’t already have one) and register your Mass Effect CD Key with them to get a Bring Down The Sky key. A needless hassle, but I suppose a necessary one, or God help the DLC pirates. Get all the information you need at the official Mass Effect DLC page here.
As for the Mass Effect Xbox 360 owners who’re kinda hoping for some sort of a “DLC Now Free” announcement, sorry folks, according to BioWare and Microsoft, there will not be any sort of a price cut on the DLC, so you’ll still need to fork over those 400 MS Points if you want to play.
Download Mass Effect v1.01 Patch
Download “Bring Down The Sky” DLC
Know how people talk about history repeating itself, but you still see zidiots running around committing the exact same mistakes as everybody else? Apparently, in EA and BioWare’s case, that’s more than hitting the bull’s eye. In what seems to be a serious case of having gone Rip Van Winkle during the Bioshock / SecuROM SNAFU, Derek French, the Technical Producer at BioWare for Mass Effect (PC) has the beginnings of a fine mess on his hands, especially after announcing a copy protection system that makes the Bioshock activation mess (or StarForce even) seem tame by comparison.
According to Derek French, Mass Effect, scheduled to arrive on the PC this 28th, will employ the same SecuROM online activation system that was initially put into Bioshock, allowing the buyer to activate his copy of Mass Effect for 3 times before politely asking to him / her to go to hell, that is, contact the customer service “helpline” to get it reactivated. And while the game itself wouldn’t require the DVD to be physically present in the drive, it goes one step further and phones home every 10 days and re-authenticates just to make sure legit customers are not the worst form of criminal scum publishers swear we are.
This really is good news or bad news, depending on which way you choose to look at it. It’s a pragmatic statement, so I’m not going into why I think so, because frankly, no one gives a flying hoot about what I think.
But BioWare have announced today that Mass Effect will grace all modern PC’s in May 2008. The EA slaves announced that the award-winning space epic Mass Effect™ published by EA and will sport some redesigning for the PC.
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Long before Mass Effect hit the shelves, developers Bioware had announced their intentions of it being the first in a trilogy. Now, with the runaway success that Mass Effect has proved to be, the sequels are pretty much a certainty. Microsoft’s glee at the prospect another franchise to milk is palpable, considering the game is an exclusive for the Xbox 360. Add to that, the fact that the game in itself is one of the best titles out there, what with gamers in their third and fourth playthrough of the game and still enjoying it. It only means that there is more money waiting to be tapped in form of downloadable content (DLC).
As expected, Bioware has announced “Bring Down The Sky”, the first DLC for Mass Effect, scheduled to be released on March 10. The DLC will be available for download at Xbox LIVE Marketplace at 3:30 PM IST (2:00 AM PST) for 400 Microsoft Points. With around 90 minutes of completely new gameplay, fans have much to cheer about. Achievement Whores will also have a reason to smile with new Achievements worth 50 Gamerscore points for them to loose their sleep over.
Looks like everyone’s going MMO these days. That’s where the money comes pouring in, I suppose, even though we never get to see any here apart from the Korean ones. (That’s right, there’s not many WoW freaks here!) Close on the heels of the recently announced Elder Scrolls MMO, Montreal-based audio solution provider Audiokinetic have announced that are providing the Wwise audio tools that will be used in BioWare’s as-of-yet unannounced MMO - the first project from the new BioWare Austin studio.
In an official press release, Gordon Walton, Co-Studio Direction, BioWare Austin have praised the award-winning Wwise tools, which debuted with the ill-fated Shadowrun and has gone on to win many accolades and nominations across several game development awards. Powered by Perpetual server technology (Star Trek: Online) and the Simultronics HeroEngine, there is no word on what IP the MMO will actually be based on, even though rumors circulated all over the Internet around the time that EA bought BioWare that it would be set in the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic universe.
However, while everyone is hungry for another Star Wars MMO after Galaxies went belly up, let’s not forget the fact that BioWare has a rich IP harem from which to draw inspiration for an MMO from - including great franchises such as Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, the upcoming Dragon Age as well as the Xbox 360 blockbuster of the year, Mass Effect.
Bah, but what do I care? MMOs never end up here anyway. I’ll take my single player RPG, please, with a side order of fries. Thank you.
Mumbai got lucky this time around as well, considering we are seeing so many events going on here, with Sony and Microsoft both vying for our attention. As we had mentioned earlier, the Mumbai Microsoft / EA Game On event was on at The Squeeze and me and my GamingIndians friends were there to take in all they could throw at us.
Sadly though, the whole event was a relatively low-key affair, with maybe just 20 to 25 people in attendence - more television channels and online / print publications than a gathering of gaming fans. Good thing the place was small, making it look crowded enough! Guess Microsoft India E&D Country Manager saw this coming and chose not to attend, even though other Microsoft execs including Sanjoy John and Xbox India’s Product Manager Vivek Kulkarni hobnobbed with the attendees.
Looks like the guys in Mumbai are luckier than the bastards at Delhi! Not only are they getting another Game On! event for their very own, but they can also be the first to get their hands on Mass Effect!
Announcing the details for the event at the official Xbox forums, Microsoft India has said that Mass Effect and PGR 4 will be available for purchase at the event, scheduled to be held on the 22nd at Squeeze, Khar, Mumbai. What’s worse (for those that live outside Mumbai, that is) is that all those that pick up Mass Effect will also get a Halo 3 Limited Edition poster autographed by Joseph Tung, producer at Bungie. Apparently, there’s only 500 of these in print so it’s a really sweet deal for those that would be buying Mass Effect anyway, like yours truly. Pity I live in Bangalore, the forgotten realm of Indian gaming!
Let’s see if we can have our Mumbai friends pick this one up for us and hopefully, part with said Limited Edition poster so that I can have it up right next to my gigantic Homer Simpson one!
via [360indians]