GFW mag peeps Bioware's latest RPG, Dragon Age
by Christopher Grant 
{ Nov 3rd 2006 at 2:25PM }
1UP reports that their soon to be relaunched sister publication, the elegantly titled Games for Windows the Official Magazine (née Computer Gaming World), will have the scoop on Dragon Age, the latest RPG from Canadian developer Bioware. 1UP says it uses an evolved form of Baldur's Gate's"tactical real-time combat" and a "modified" version of Mass Effect's branching conversation system to bring us a new, "much darker" outing than earlier titles like Jade Empire.So, why is this a fetching cover model for the newly relaunched mag (and the newly reinvigorated Games for Window marketing campaign leading up to the Vista launch)? Because Bioware has been all over the console scene lately, with initial releases of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire hitting the Xbox first, and Mass Effect slated to be a 360 exclusive. Dragon Age will mark the developer's first PC debut title since 2002's Neverwinter Nights ... but how long until they exploit Microsoft's XNA cross-platform tools and release a 360 port?
[Thanks, EvanB]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Shagi @ Nov 3rd 2006 10:44PM
Ummmmm...Neverwinter Nights 2?
MagWheels @ Nov 3rd 2006 3:41PM
I've been working with XNA for the past couple of months as a hobbyist. It's definitely not intended to be used by professional game developers as an easy way to port PC games to the XBox 360. For one thing, professional games are mostly written in C++ and XNA only supports the C# programming language.
Just thought that needed mentioning...
Ves @ Nov 3rd 2006 3:47PM
Wait so 1up's sister publication gets an exclusive scoop on a new rpg from Bioware in the same time frame as a scathing review of the new non-bioware NWN2. So they underate NWN2 so they can push publications and hype of a new RPG that they have the exclusive on. Sounds entirely too underhanded even for them though.
Ves
rrenna @ Nov 3rd 2006 4:07PM
@1 The Free XNA we get is not identicle to what professional devs use. The public beta is a stripped-down version of the actual XNA platform.
Mossa TheGreat @ Nov 3rd 2006 4:20PM
As a matter of fact, XNA is not done yet. They ARE planning on putting C++ in. But for now they wanted to have C# up and running with XNA since... Well, it suits them like this. I am not much of an expert on C# or XNA, but it is indeed looking nice and it would be used professionally when talking about 360 and Windows developing.
Shawn @ Nov 4th 2006 10:34AM
You probably won't see the big studios getting into this very much until there's a good C# engine running and in public release mode.
EvanB @ Nov 3rd 2006 4:49PM
Should be noted that one of the game's writers has said the conversation system doesn't share much with Mass Effect, beyond the fact that they're both "cinematic."
Also, the magazine should be on stands around November 14th.