Square Enix first put up a Japanese site, and then a similar North American one, that sent a very clear message.  Now, the news has also been made official (via press release) — Chrono Trigger is coming back.  The game will be released in North America for the Nintendo DS this holiday season.

Like recent reincarnations of old Final Fantasy titles, Chrono Trigger will make use of the Nintendo DS’ improved graphics and touch-screen functionality.  The story, battle system and styles of the game will remain unchanged.

Chrono Trigger sold some 2.5 million copies worldwide, and became a favourite for many fans.  It only makes sense that it should be part of Square Enix’s recent strategy of remaking/re-releasing classic titles.

Fans of the Chrono series were disappointed when Chrono Break, which would have been the fourth installment in the series, was cancelled.  Perhaps renewed interest in the series will prompt a new Chrono game to appear in the next couple of years?

Of course, no video game company wants pirated copies of their games, but BioWare is taking anti-piracy to the next level.

The company says that in order to avoid losing revenue on the PC copy of the game, a number of security measures will be taken. These include:

• A standard CD key will be issued with each disc
• Each copy of the game can only be activated three times. After three activations, you’ll need to call customer service in order to activate your game on a new or reformatted PC.
• The game will also verify itself online every ten days, ensuring that the activation was valid and the game is not being played on too many systems.

It seems that the only measure EA and BioWare aren’t taking is forcing you to keep the game’s DVD in your drive. The game will, kindly, play without it.

The measures are an effort to ensure that piracy doesn’t eat into the potential profits from the game. This comes after notorious piracy of the game Crysis is causing publishers to seriously question the PC as a gaming platform.

PC games offer potentially higher capabilities in terms of technology, but the ease of piracy on an open platform can have an impact on sales. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before someone manages to crack it all open and Mass Effect shows up on the torrent sites.

All I can say is this: It’s a good game, and it’s worth paying for.

BioWare has announced that downloadable content for Mass Effect will be free on the PC platform. This is in contrast to the Xbox 360, where players must pay for any downloaded extensions to the game using Microsoft Points on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

It seems like those who are waiting to purchase the game on the PC are getting rewarded for the wait. The PC version also plans to have several imrpovements and bug fixes over the original Xbox 360 version.

The one download released so far, Bringing Down the Sky gives you roughly 90 minutes of additional gameplay. That’s a nice extra as a freebie, but on the Xbox 360 it was a bit disappointing. I was expecting a more unique mission with a little more story to it — something planned out like the missions on Feros or Noveria. Instead, the extra mission is more like the planetary assignments in the rest of the game, with a few bells and whistles.

The PC version of Mass Effect ships on May 28 in North America, June 6 in Europe. It really is an excellent game, so if you’re not in the Xbox crowd consider grabbing the PC version when it comes out.

I was a little disappointed a while back when Bethesda mentioned that Fallout 3 would have a smaller explorable area than its previous blockbuster, Oblivion. The huge explorable areas are one of my favorite features about Bethesda games, and I was hoping they’d be brining some of this to the Fallout series. (Of course, they’ll be brining some, just not quite on Oblivion’s scale.) Well, this past week, Bethesda let out a redeeming quality that shows off the flexibility of the game.

In an interview with IGN, the game’s executive producer Todd Howard said that Fallout 3 will have over 200 endings. “Being that we are Bethesda, everything gets a bit big,” he said. The game’s many endings depend on the actions you take throughout the game.

Of course, this doesn’t mean 200 completely unique endings. Howard goes on to explain that there are about ten main endings, with many subtle changes, extra scenes or other additions that are affected by your game choices.

Also, although the gameplay area is smaller than Oblivion’s, it’s larger than was originally planned, with hours of gameplay that Bethesda has been throwing in whenever they’ve come up with a good idea. “Fallout is probably twice the size that we originally had on paper,” he says, pointing out that the 20-40 hours of main gameplay grew quickly into 100 hours of potential fun.

So, 200 endings? I definitely like the sound of that. I enjoy the choices you can make in some RPG games, but in most cases they still boil down to one or two possibilities (like in Bioware’s Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic). The choices make for interesting gameplay, but it will be even more exciting to expect lasting consequences of your actions.

Fallout 3 sounds better every time I hear about it. Howard does warn both Bethesda and Fallout fans — this game will take new turns, so don’t expect Oblivion and don’t expect the same old Fallout.

Fallout 3 is set to be released this fall for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Windows. “I’d be shocked if it were not out then honestly.”

Psychology/self-help writer Cooper Lawrence, who recently appeared on Fox News, has apologized for taken back her criticism of the Xbox 360 game Mass Effect. Lawrence’s appearance on the program was to comment on the game’s alleged nudity and its effect on children. If you’ve read this blog recently, you’re probably familiar with my thoughts on the matter.

In the segment, Lawrence accused the game of objectifying women and depicting full nudity. When asked during the interview whether or not she had even played the game, she answered no. But in an interview with the New York Times, Lawrence explained her situation and took back her remarks:

“I recognise that I misspoke. Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography. But it’s not like pornography.”

My comment earlier was that worse content regularly appears in film and on network TV… and it looks like Cooper Lawrence agreed with that, too:

“I’ve seen episodes of Lost that are more sexually explicit.”

Some fans of Mass Effect were angered by the original broadcast and hundreds went to Amazon.com to give negative reviews of Cooper Lawrence’s book. Some of these attacked Lawrence’s character, while others sarcastically pointed out that they don’t need to read the book to know it’s ignorant (referencing how Lawrence commented on Mass Effect without having played or even seen the content she discussed). Amazon deleted most of the reviews that didn’t directly discuss the book, but several remain. It’s unknown whether or not this pressure led her to retract her comments.

Personally, I say good for her for admitting her mistake and putting her neck out there to fix the problem. Hopefully she, and others, will think twice about reviewing content you’ve never seen — or having a knee-jerk reaction to anything Fox News says. Meanwhile, Fox continues to refuse to apologize or clarify its remarks about Mass Effect, as EA continues to request a retraction.

So what’s the deal, Fox? There were actual lies in that segment (not a difference of opinion — lies), and anyone who’s actually played Mass Effect knows it.

Anyways, thanks for helping to set the record straight, Cooper.

Fox recently aired a segment about BioWare’s Mass Effect game. In the segment, which is labelled “SE”XBOX, they talk about how the game contains graphic nudity and sex scenes. They talk about how Mass Effect carries a Mature (17+) rating, but how at the same time it’s marketed to kids. They talk about how, in reality, kids will play it. And finally they talk about how children and teens are apparently stupid, and can’t tell fact from fiction.

I honestly can’t help but to get angry when I watch it. It’s difficult for me to express, in words, just how much I disagree with nearly everything they said about this game.

Look, I’m all for good parenting. Kids shouldn’t be watching sex or shooting people in video games at young ages. But that doesn’t mean that total censorship is the answer, or that anyone wanting a realistc video game is a horrible person. You just need to put some of the responsibility where it lies. Parents need to decide what their kid can and can’t handle, and do their job.

In truth, Mass Effect contains a few seconds of partial nudity. The game itself takes some 30 hours to play. The nudity in the game isn’t any more graphic than what you might expect from a movie that’s rated PG-13, or 14-A in Canada.

I have no idea what these people actually propose. I’m not sure if they want to ban video games from having any nudity (ie censorship), restrict games like this to adults-only stores or… well, what?

EA, which took ownership of BioWare this year, responded with a letter claiming, truthfully, that FOX’s portrayal of Mass Effect was absurd and inaccurate.

FOX has apparently just come back with a statement asking why EA won’t come on the air to give its argument. (I think EA should come on FOX to point out all the questionable material FOX has ever shown on its channel.)

Let’s go over some quotes from what was said in the discussion at the end of the segment. I’d give these people’s names, but I don’t respect them enough to record that information at this time.

“You have to pick up the box, look at the back for the rating.”

Incorrect. It’s on the front and back, more prominently than it is on most films.

It says on the back: “Blood, Language, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Violence”. That’s accurate. The game does contain some sexual themes. The game does contain a little bit of partial nudity.

The game absolutely does not contain “graphic sex” or “full nudity” as claimed in this segment.

“Who can argue that Luke Skywalker meets Debbie Does Dallas is a good thing…. it’s not. It’s just not good, and I’m definitely not going to let Mass Effect in my house.”

Uhm…. Debbie Does Dallas is a pornographic movie. You’re insane if you’re serious about that comment. If you don’t want Mass Effect in your house because of your kids, fine. It’s a violent game and it’s supposed to be 17+. That’s fair. But it’s not porn.

One woman goes on to explain that the “reality” is that a kid can’t be controlled.

“‘I wanna play my dad’s video game while he’s not here.’”

First, your saved game shows up on the Xbox and is attached to your profile. Dad can go and see anytime if it’s been played. Second, parental controls are available. Third, the sexual encounters in the game take a while to get to. So if Dad really wants to control what the kids are up to, he can. It’s called parenting.

At the same time, if the kids want, they can get hardcore pornography in about 2 minutes on any PC. Mass Effect is hardly hurting things here.

“…Adults Only — that’s the highest rating it can have. First of all this board that rates them has to have its head examined.”

Mass Effect is rated M for Mature, which means 17+. AO games are 18+ and not carried by most stores.

You see about a second of a partial bum and a little bit of side-boob. Depending on who you go after, that body might be blue and alien. Seriously. That’s it.

“What happened to Atari and Pinball and Pacman?”

Industries evolve. This didn’t happen overnight. Gamers aren’t interested in playing games from the 70s exclusively. Should developers stop making games that use current technology? That tell real stories about emotional people, in the way that films do? You’re not big on video games, I get that. Why are you on a panel talking about them?

The last guy came across with some sensibility, at least.

“It’s up to parents to control what their kids are seeing.”

Finally, someone with half a brain.

Here’s a clip of the whole thing:

(Sorry for the rant, folks… but this insanity needs to be kept in check.)