If you picked up a copy of Mass Effect: Deception but were disheartened to find it had many canonical errors in it, you’ll be happy to know that Bioware has promised to fix said discrepancies.

“The teams at Del Rey and BioWare would like to extend our sincerest apologies to the Mass Effect fans for any errors and oversights made in the recent novel Mass Effect: Deception,” the apology post on Bioware’s forums reads. “We are currently working on a number of changes that will appear in future editions of the novel.

If you happen to have a copy of the book with mistakes in it, hold on to it, as it may very well turn out to be a collectors item.  No release date for the second printing of books has been announced.

Source: Bioware

This week EA teamed up with Red Bull to host a media-exclusive SSX preview event at the Red Bull Sydney Headquarters. To promote the game and to help convey the awesomeness of extreme sports such as snowboarding, two Australian extreme sport superstars attended the event: BMX racing legend Luke Madill and FMX Superstar Josh Sheehan.

We took a break from all the cool snowboarding action to have a quick chat with Josh about what it’s like being a professional extreme sports competitor and EA’s latest SSX title. Josh talks about not only his personal experiences with competing as an FMX rider, but how the game emulates the adrenaline rush and danger seen in extreme sports. Check out the interview yourself in the video below!

Check out pictures from the event as well as our hands-on preview here!

The Sims Freeplay
Developer: Iron Monkey
Publisher: EA Mobile
Platforms: iTouch, iPhone and iPad (reviewed)
Release Date:
Price: FREE – Available Here

Overview

The Sims has always achieved a high amount of success over the years, ever since that first PC game. Each title is a sure fire hit (except maybe the furniture packs, but even then), so EA’s choice to let the latest release go for the low, low price of nothing at all is a surprising one. So is there a reason that they’ve let this one slip through free, or are they just being generous?

Gameplay

To start with, Sims Freeplay looks and feels like a normal Sims game, but it really isn’t. The biggest difference is the fact that it all happens in real time. No more lining up a bunch of actions and fast forwarding through them like normal. In fact, once you start on an action you better like what they’re doing because you may have to wait another ten minutes for them to finish. I don’t think I’d ever realised how long a minute was until I had to wait for one of my Sims to finish a social action.

The other big change is that instead of taking care of a family, you take care of a whole town. While this may sound intimidating, it’s actually not that bad, mostly because of the fact that everything is done in real time. At first getting used to the controls and switching between people and houses was bewildering, especially because it is just so different from other Sims games. Once you play it for a little while it becomes natural, and you forget there was ever another way of doing things.

However, there are ways around waiting for things to finish being done. You can spend life points (which are earned by completing wishes, as per usual) instead of your time, with the amount needed changing with the amount of time you’re saving. The life point cost doesn’t change if you’ve already completed half the task though, so if you’re going to bludge off something it’s best to decide so quickly.

You do have the choice of buying life points or Simoleons through as an in-app purchase, of course, which is Farmville-esque. So it’s up to you if you are willing to pay money to speed the game up, although that sort of defeats the point of this installment. For those who are having trouble adjusting to this way of playing it is an option.

Your game is measured by how much your town is worth, not really by how much money you have in the bank. While having money is useful because it means you can buy more buildings to raise your town worth, you can be basically broke and still have a decent net worth. Which I learned on a few occasions.

Something else I discovered was that your Sims don’t really die if they don’t eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, shower, and so on. Shortly after discovering this I took on a different form of saving money by one of my Sims only owning a toilet and a garden to earn some money. Not cruel at all.

I also had a full community feel by having most of the neighbourhood hanging at one of the houses, socializing and eating and whatnot. The way that the new app is designed means that it’s a lot easier for that to happen, with having full control of each of the neighbours and stopping them from staying over too long, or deciding they couldn’t be bothered to come over.

The careers part of the game is similar to what has happened in the past, with the exception that you have to actually build the work environments. As you go on in the game, get more Sims, and have them climb the work ladder, you will have more money and it will become fairly easy for you to pick them up as you go.

Instead of being a game that you can spend hours playing, it takes over your life far more subtly. In a way it’s like Farmville, you end up timing it and keeping an eye on the clock so you do certain things with your Sims after they finish their actions, or make sure to send them to work, or whatever else.

Visuals

As with the standard of Sims games that have already been released onto the market, the visuals are top notch and respond well to interactivity. Even though this app is far cheaper than it’s cousins, you won’t notice a difference in the performance of the app, and certainly not in the graphics.

Audio

Once again, you won’t find a huge deviation from the norm. Everything about the soundtrack screams the Sims, but that isn’t a bad thing in the least. I mean, I have a whole range of memories and nostalgia tied to that soundtrack, so I love the fact that it’s stayed pretty similar.

Overall

Considering the fact that the app is free, offers updates, and hasn’t at all skimped on the features and in fact offers something vastly different from what we’ve seen in Sims installments in the past. This is a definite must get, and not just for Sims fans.

Just like in past years, Electronic Arts is using their football simulation game to predict the Super Bowl Winner.  So far, the Madden Series has predicted a few winners and a few losers, so it may be just as accurate as your own prediction.  Nevertheless, if you trust electronic machinations, then this video might help you figure out who to root for on Sunday.

Spoiler Alert to follow:

The video predicted that the Giants would win.  However, as many Youtube comments point out, EA’s Madden predicted that the Patriots would win in ’08, and we see how well that worked out.  However, if you take a look at some of the 2012 Championship Games that Madden 12 predicted, it seems as though this years game may be more accurate than in past years.

Fly With Me, created by EA’s LA studio for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, is now available on the AppStore. With a simple tap-to-flap mechanic, you’ll be helping birds navigate through 45 levels in 3 unique settings. You’ll need to dodge hazards and trees, while gobbling up bugs to keep up your strength.

You can in-app purchase, or unlock the Robot Bird, which is immune to bad stuff you may run into in your flights. Or buy the Kid Mode to make everything easier for the little ones, giving you infinite stamina and 30 exclusive levels to play through.

Check out our review, or buy the game now!

Thanks to EA and Red Bull, a small group of gaming journalisms elite had an opportunity to play through the latest instalment to the SSX series, SSX. For those that don’t know, SSX is EA’s snowboarding series of games that involve going down slopes at incredible speeds and performing stunts to achieve victory.The game is set to be launched on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on the first of March.

Fundamentally, SSX is similar to the previous entries in the series, but also enhances the game graphically and makes some improvements to the overall control of the game. One of the features that I really loved about the game was the ability to rewind sections of gameplay, similar to the Prince of Persia games. Basically, should you miss a jump, or screw up a trick, you can rewind the game to the point before the screw-up and take over from that point – forever altering the way you undertook an event. What was even better about this feature was that you could rewind the same section multiple times so if you keep on screwing it up, you can go back as much as you need.

However, rewinds do have a cost in both the amounts you are able to do the rewind and in points. Essentially you get a small amount of rewinds per map, however you can use that same rewind multiple times at the cost of points. However, if you move too far out from that rewind, it is considered spent and you can no longer use that rewind. Think of it as extra lives, but are player activated.

There was this one level that I found this rewind feature to be essential to completing it, and that was this level where you have to navigate a series of crevices that would lead to certain death if you fell down them. This level was so tricky that it took me multiple attempts on different consoles to finish, and even then that was right at the end of the event.

While playing the game, I found that the game was pretty easy to pick up and play, but was pretty difficult to master. Thankfully, you do not have to achieve first place in every event to advance through the game, but you can go back later if you like. However, I felt that it was necessary to achieve first place in every event, so I ended up restarting a lot of the levels.

Whilst doing tricks, I found that it was best to link tricks together and build up a multiplier that gives out increased points based on the amount of tricks strung together. If you build up enough tricks, you can unlock the Tricky meter, which fills as you do more tricks until it fills out completely. I’m not entirely sure what the meter does, but you get an orange effect around the hands of your character when you get it, I also noticed that your speed increases greatly when this occurs.

I have to admit that I had a great amount of fun playing through this game, it tickles all of my interests in games. Raw speed, awesome tricks and excellent fun. I would definitely suggest playing this game when it is released, especially if you are into the extreme side of sports. Make sure you keep an eye on us in the future for more news on SSX.

Check out our gallery of the event below and be sure to check out the official site for more info.

As Sims fans prepare for the latest expansion pack for The Sims 3 – ‘The Sims 3: Showtime’ to drop. The producers of the game over at EA have today released a new walkthrough video for the upcoming game to give us a preview of just what to expect from the 6^th expansion pack in the series.

Senior Producer Aaron Conners and Associate Producer Brittany Henry take us through the new jobs sims can undertake in the entertainment industry as Singers, Performers, Magicians, and DJs. As well as, shedding light on the new Simport social features included in this pack, where players can transfer their sim into other player’s game.

The Sims 3: Showtime is set to be released for PC and Mac on March 6 in North America, March 8 in Australia and March 9 in Europe.

A new novel that complements the Mass Effect universe is having trouble hitting home with fans.  Buyers of the book have started a public Google document that lists canonical errors in the book.  So far, over 80 mistakes have been found, divided into ”Lore,” “Timeline,” “Characters” and “Oddity” categories.

William C. Dietz is the writer of the book and he has written several books based on video games, including Halo, Hitman and Resistance novels.

Check out the Google doc here if you are interested. Hopefully, Bioware, the publisher, the author and the community will be able to rectify this so everybody comes out a winner.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will be releasing next week and in anticipation on the title’s launch, EA have released a promotional launch trailer for the game.

The trailer can be seen below and features a deep and thrilling look into what gamers can expect come next week when Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning becomes available to players across the country.

Reckoning launches next week for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. The demo for Reckoning is also currently available for download. What do you think of the Reckoning Launch Trailer? Let us know in the shoutbox and comments section.

Before I go any further, let’s have a quick round of applause for EA as they have just revealed in a statement to Eurogamer that Syndicate will not have an online pass. This is quite surprising news as EA has even managed to stick online pass into single player games such as Kingdoms of Amalur.

In their statement EA says that the reason for not including an online pass is to encourage gamers to play it and enjoy the title. Jeff Gamon, Executive Producer said “We want as little resistance or barriers to entry as possible. The co-op is equal billing in this. We wanted everyone who owns a copy of the game to have access to the entire product.” Notice how even the company themselves acknowledge that the online pass is a ridiculous barrier of entry for gamers and not including one is in fact a selling point.