New Mass Effect 3 Details

New details for Mass Effect 3 have been released in the latest issue of German game mag GameStar. Some about the Reapers and others changes in the story.

• Entering Reaper territory will alert the Reapers and they will attempt to find you and exterminate you.
• Reaper territory will change as the story progresses.
• If a team member has died in the suicide mission, the story arc for that character will either switch to another character, be lost fully, or go in a different direction.
• The Normandy will be affected in the war with the Reapers.
• The Citadel has been expanded greatly and will feature characters you've met in Mass Effect 1 & 2. Also, many loose ends from Mass Effect 1 will be  tied up. Among them is the mystery of the Keepers.

I don't know about you guys but some of these details are impressive, mainly what is happening with the Citadel. Hopefully this good news overshadows the Freddie Prinze Jr announcement.

Mass Effect 3 will be on store shelves March 6th.

EA Title Coming to OnLive, More to Come?

Today marks a big day for OnLive, as they launch in the UK, extending OnLive out of just the US!  But they also brought another surprise, that Bulletstorm would soon be joining the OnLive catalog.  This hopefully means that we will be seeing more EA Games on the service, and personally, the second I see Dragon Age Origins on the service, I'll be buying it instantly

Madden '12 Releasing Early....Say Whaaaaaat!

Looks like you can get Madden before most jocks. Who'da thunk it.

Madden 12 will be available Friday, August 26th through the Season Ticket subscription plan. It'll be available for the Xbox 360 at 10 AM EST/ 7 AM PST and on the Playstation 3 at 6 PM EST/ 3 PM EST.

The digital copy will expire Tuesday morning but all the saved info and achievements will be transfered to the retail copies of the games. All game modes minus Madden Ultimate Team will be available. Yes, online play will be available as well.

Large Number of Electronic Arts Games Lose Online Capabilities on August 11

Electronic Arts has decided to shut down the online services for a handful of their older games, the company does this quite often, most of the time doing so with the annual sports games. Server closings will begin on August 11 of this year, the 2010 editions of Madden and NHL will follow suit on October 1.

The decisions to retire older EA games are never easy," says the company on their support site. "The development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into these games almost as much as the customers playing them and it is hard to see one retired.  But as games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles below a point -- fewer than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles -- where it’s feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these games up and running. We would rather our hard-working engineering and IT staff focus on keeping a positive experience for the other 99% of customers playing our more popular games.

EA is usually clear about when their games lose online support, and you can see all the other games that no longer work in the online world at the same support site. Here are the games that are gone in a few weeks:

August 11, 2011 Online Service Shutdown

• Army of Two for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• Army of Two Demo for Xbox 360
• Battlefield 2142 Demo for PC
• Battlefield 2: Modern Combat for Xbox 360
• Battlefield 2: Modern Combat Demo for Xbox 360
• Medal of Honor Airborne for PlayStation Portable
• Medal of Honor Heroes 2 for PlayStation Portable and Wii
• NASCAR 09 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (North America)
• NCAA Basketball 10 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• NCAA Football 10 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• Need for Speed Most Wanted for PC and Xbox 360
• Need for Speed Undercover for PlayStation Portable;
• SKATE for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 10 for PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 11 Demo for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360

October 1, 2011 Online Service Shutdown

• Madden NFL 10 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• NHL 10 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360

EA Buys PopCap Games for $750 Million

After weeks of rumors its finally been confirmed: Electronic Arts has purchased PopCap, makers of games like Plants vs Zombies, Peggle, and Bejeweled for $750 million. EA will pay $650 million in cash and $100 million shares of EA common stock to "certain stockholders" at PopCap.

“We picked EA because they have recast their culture around making great digital games,” said David Roberts, CEO of PopCap in a press release. “By working with EA, we'll scale our games and services to deliver more social, mobile, casual fun to an even bigger, global audience.”

EA has been aggressively moving into the social/mobile game space as of late, acquiring PlayFish for $300 million in 2009, allowing them to translate some of their biggest properties into Facebook titles. The deal is expected to close next month pending "closing conditions" and "regulatory approvals." EA is going to have a press conference soon, we'll update with more details at that time.