Indeed, the sheer volume of media attention that the Extended Cut has garnered is kind of mind-boggling. Some at BioWare may not feel that the company has had a breakout hit yet, but it’s clear as anything that the company commands the attention of the industry and the gaming press.

If you haven’t checked out the Extended Cut yet and don’t mind a few spoilers — oh, I should warn you all: here be spoilers! — anyhow, if you don’t mind a few spoilers, hit up this article and this article (both at Kotaku) for some side-by-side comparisons and other notes on what changes BioWare elected to make.

For what it’s worth, I love the changes BioWare made to the endings (and once I finish sorting through screenshots, I’ll post my thoughts in full), and I largely agree with Thepal’s comments:

Ok… Just got around to playing the Extended Cut. I am so frickin’ happy right now. The little ghost child started talking and… the weird part… I didn’t want to shoot him in the head. What he said actually seemed perfectly fine with just a little tweaking by some extremely talented writers. To the point I didn’t even tell him to go screw himself (which I found out was an option when I tried for a different ending). I chose the same ending as the first time I played, Control, and damn… so much better. Best of all was the correction of all the inconsistencies. The Mass Relays didn’t explode (they just fell apart a little). The Normandy had a reason to leave (and your companions were actually meant to be on board). There was no part where I was thinking “This doesn’t make sense” or “Now everyone is screwed”.

I do wish I had been able to experience these endings after originally playing it. It’s been a few months, so I’ve lost some of my attachment to the characters and the story that I had, but it was still amazing. And I think this is officially now, in my opinion, the greatest game ever made (or perhaps I should say series as well).

The endings are indeed happier.

One interesting thing I saw in a couple of different places was opinion pieces about who, in light of the changed endings to the game, the most important character in the Mass Effect series actually is: the Stargazer and Liara T’Soni.

Much of their commentary concerns the new ending that BioWare added with the Extended Cut. No longer are players confronted with a trinary choice between destroying the Reapers, controlling them, or creating a galaxy full of organic-synthetic hybrids. A fourth option is presented: rejecting the Catalyst’s offered choices entirely and letting the races of the galaxy stand on their own.

As I wrote in my Examiner column, the rejection ending can be accessed “in one of two ways: Shepard can — via a dialogue option — refuse to make the choice that the Catalyst offers, or Shepard can open fire on the Catalyst once that dialogue completes. The result is the same: the Catalyst growls “So be it,”…in Harbinger’s voice, and the Crucible shuts down (apparently). The screen fades to black, and we are left to assume that the Reapers succeed in their mission to harvest the races of this cycle. Humanity, the asari, the turians…all are wiped out, and pass into the annals of legend.”

This led some to accuse BioWare of trolling their fans, but the Rejection ending is far too brilliant to be just that. As I wrote, following on from the above, “that’s just where the “Rejection” ending gets started. The screen fades in on a lush, verdant world…with a piece of technology (it kind of looks like a transmitter of some sort) sticking out of a field. The camera pans down into the ground, revealing one of Liara T’Soni’s information caches and its message: a complete dissertation on Reapers, their trap, the Crucible…and a chronicle of the losing war fought by the races of her cycle, of Shepard’s cycle.

Which, okay, is cool. The game cuts to the credits at that point, and I have to admit that (having watched it only to that point) for a few minutes I thought that the ending was a bit on the lame side. Was BioWare actively trolling those who had clamoured for new options and sweeping changes in the game’s ending?

But then the Stargazer scene popped up again. Which, I thought, was kind of weird…since the Reapers had wiped out humanity’s cycle, there really shouldn’t have been a Stargazer left to tell stories to a curious child. But no, there he was, and there was the kid.

And then the Stargazer spoke…in a woman’s voice.

This is the brilliant subversion of the “Rejection” ending: it’s not the same Stargazer. It’s the same world, sure, and it features two people (one young, one old) doing the same thing (which speaks to, well, the cyclical nature of how history plays out in the Mass Effect universe) their human equivalents would have done had the Reapers been defeated by Shepard et. al. But these two aren’t human. They’re from the next cycle, or a later cycle at any rate.

And they have defeated the Reapers. The dialogue between them makes it clear; humanity’s cycle may have fallen, but thanks to the massive quantities of information it left behind (expertly secreted away by — remember — archaeological expert Liara T’Soni, note), the cycle that followed was able to defeat the Reapers.”

So there, that’s it. Mass Effect 3 has been ended. Oh, sure, there will be more DLC, the first of which may be called Leviathan which may involve a rogue Reaper, but for all intents and purposes, the saga of Commander Shepard is at an end. What comes next? And will whatever does come next involve Commander Shepard at all, since BioWare have now confirmed that s/he does in fact survive in the Destroy ending (assuming your Effective Military Strength score is high enough)?

Okay, okay, okay…moving on! Patch 1.3 for Star Wars: The Old Republic is live, adding new Legacy stuff and a bunch of other things. Oh, and there’s a new (and fairly short) community Q&A thread up as well.

Somewhat more excitingly, a Knights of the Old Republic collection has been sighted in a list of upcoming releases at GameStop, slated for a July 17th release date. Evidently, this is a compilation of both KOTOR games, and should be available for $20 USD.

It’s a pretty even balance between exploration/problem solving, and shooting/dungeons. There are no standard fetch quests or the like but the NPCs in the game all play a part in the unfolding of the story. You can open drawers or other furniture in peoples’ houses, search things, store your items wherever you like or drop them on the ground– a full inventory system.

You can interact with most objects, whether they do something or not, and NPCs have conversation trees as well as a day-and-night cycle. The game itself takes place in a fairly “local” area, so exploration is more focused on gradually unlocking new places or connecting them together rather than travelling to whole other towns. There’s only one town in the game but it’s really detailed.

There is also a keyword system, which is used for trying out secret actions you might have thought of, or mentioning certain key phrases to NPCs. It’s definitely not a text adventure game where you have to type very often, but it’s super fun to figure out a secret topic to mention to somebody, and hear what they have to say. Typing in keywords is a comparatively minor part of the game, though.

The game is billed as “a Kafka-esque parody stuck halfway between modern-day America and olden-days, RPG England”, features an interactive world and a plot setup that will be familiar to fans of the Ultima series, a tough (but engaging) combat system, and has even won some praise for its quirky, humourous plot.

The game is not without bugs, some of which are (or can be) game-breaking, and it’s understood that the developer is working on getting these patched. It isn’t freeware; the game is currently on sale for $7.95 USD and will at some point revert to a list price of $14.95. Still, if it sounds interesting to you, consider picking it up and giving it a try. I have set up a project entry for it, but that’s mostly just for completeness and posterity; no downloads are hosted thereat.

Hopefully, he’ll be able to move to an alternative service in the near future. I’d also be willing to offer him a subdomain here at the Ultima Codex…so if any of you have his contact information, please feel free to forward that offer to him.

A full combat rebalance mod for The Witcher received a bit of an update, which may be of interest to some of you. And the upcoming Cyberpunk-based RPG from CD Projekt Red garnered more than just a mention in OXM UK’s editorial on the rebirth of cyberpunk in gaming.

inXile Entertainment’s Craig Stern was interviewed by IndieRPGs.com about Wasteland 2, which of course Obsidian is lending some development firepower to. And Chris Avellone was interviewed by Emergency Broadcast System; that interview is available as a lengthy podcast.

For those who are able to play it, what playing as a vampire character is like. There’s also an interview with lead artist Matt Carafano at I.Eat.Games that’s worth checking out, and this somewhat tepid review of the DLC at EuroGamer, and this equally lukewarm review at Forbes.

If nothing else, Dawnguard looks gorgeous.

Skyrim fans continue to impress with their creativity, meanwhile: this Seussian take on being a Dragonborn is well worth taking a look at, and this mod seems at once silly…and handy.

Meanwhile, over at the Bethesda Blog, another Dishonored Q&A has been published, and the game’s website has also been updated. A pair of videos of Dishonored gameplay, which I think were shown first at E3, have also been released publicly, and they demonstrate how the level of violence you mete out in the game shapes its story.

And whatever you do, do not miss this awesome interview/biopic piece at The Verge, which looks at the journeys and life stories of the creative directors of Dishonored. Just trust me: if you are an Origin Systems fan, read the piece. It’s fascinating.

Buccaneer’s Den is finished with all NPC’s functioning correctly with conversations, and just needs updated portraits. The late night brawling will be added soon as with Jhelom. Minoc is finished with NPCs (they just need portraits) with the exception of the lady who makes the balloon.. Serpents Hold npcs are almost finished.

Crowley has been working on various new shapes, concentrating on completing the giant ant, a new look for Blaine, and other things. The balloon will probably be the next big thing to tackle, but it is still in planning stages.

Also, there has been some random touching up of areas on the map. Most of the map is complete and just needs touching up.

Here’s wishing them luck in getting the balloon working! One can only imagine it will be something of a challenge!

Otherwise, though, the project continues to sound as though it is in good health, and appears to be progressing quite smoothly.

And that, I assume, is the last we’ll hear about him for a while. Also, I totally agree.

It was pointed out to me last week that I could probably cover more than just Runic Games and Torchlight 2 in my replacement Wednesday feature, and…well…the point was a valid one. There are, after all, a few other games out there which have the faintest hints of Ultima influence to them, and games which are being worked on by people who once developed Ultima titles.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to start tracking e.g. the latest and greatest from Harmonix, even though at least one former Looking Glass Studios programmer works there now. But it does mean that I will be paying closer attention to the likes of Irrational Games (whose BioShock series can be thought of as a spiritual successor to Looking Glass Studios’ System Shock games).

Speaking of BioShock, PC Gamer has an article up featuring some commentary from JP LeBreton, the main designer of Arcadia in BioShock. In it, he explains some of the various interesting elements present in the original game and its Arkane Studios-developed sequel.

Of course, I’m not ignoring Runic Games either, because hey…Torchlight 2 still looks awesome, and the first Torchlight was still insane fun. To that end, Runic have responded to feedback from the Torchlight 2 beta, and some of the resultant changes have been detailed.

Oh, and it’s worth noting too that GameBanshee sat down for an interview with Trent Oster of Beamdog/Overhaul Games to discuss Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition. Not a lot of new information comes to light, though Oster does confirm that Overhaul will be adding some new characters and storylines to the game.

But we knew that already. I think.

Oh, and there’s a preview video out for the upcoming Legend of Grimrock level editor. It looks pretty neat:

At its ongoing Zynga Unleashed event in San Francisco, the social media game giant revealed three new partners: Majesco, 50 Cubes, and Portalarium.

Majesco’s current crop of top properties include the Zumba Fitness franchise and Cooking Mama. 50 Cubes currently features three titles on its website, including the “Facebook top fashion game for 2011″ Mall World. Portalarium, which was founded by Ultima series creator and RPG legend Richard Garriott in 2009, recently launched a casual game based on garage sales, and is working on a project the company says will return Garriott to his RPG roots.

At its conference, Zynga also highlighted three partners it announced during GDC 2012: Konami, Playdemic, and Rebellion.

Now, to be fair, given the example of Konami, it would seem that Zynga partnership is not the same as turning over the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. Indeed, it would seem that the main point of these partnership agreements is to a) allow third-party companies to leverage Zynga’s publication and distribution platform, and b) allow Zynga to share in the profits from successful, partner-produced games. At least in theory, it sounds like a “win-win” scenario, and in some cases it may in fact be.

Still, this is Zynga we are talking about. They are arguably worse, in this day and age, than Electronic Arts was during the reign of Trip Hawkins. Indeed, I’d almost go so far to say that were Richard Garriott working on Ultima 5 or Ultima 6 today, “zynga” would be a curse-word in the games, and you’d be hunting for the treasure map of the dread pirate Pincus. I can’t help but thinking that Garriott and Portalarium are exposing themselves to the very real risk that Zynga will crib their ideas and hammer out…I don’t know…Collection World: Rummage Sale in a year’s time.

Ultimately, though, we can only speculate as to what this all means, and about what Garriott’s intentions and aims are here. Still, I know for a fact that I’m not the only one here who is thinking that Lord British has just made a deal with the devil, so to speak.