Halo Coming To Playstation, Dragon Age 4's New Name

As someone who grew up on the Playstation consoles, I never really got heavily into the Halo franchise. I played through most of the Halo original trilogy in multiplayer mode with my friends from school and eventually, enjoyed Halo 4 on my very own Xbox 360.

Even though I did get to enjoy the original games and the best of the series after it was transitioned over to 343 Industries, I do feel like I really missed out on one of the biggest moments in console gaming history. The Halo craze was an unmatched time in gaming, and it pushed Xbox into a mainstream. Hell, Halo is the reason that Rooster Teeth (RIP) was formed!

Now, the Halo franchise has fallen on hard times after Halo 5 and Halo Infinite were met with middling reviews from both critics and fans, but Microsoft may be kicking around an idea that I would have really loved back in 2000, releasing a brand new remaster of Halo: Combat Evolved on Playstation consoles. While this story has not been confirmed by Microsoft, it does fall in line with their new philosophy around console exclusivity. It was also announced that the remaster potentially coming to PS consoles wouldn’t be the previously released Master Chief Collection version of Halo: Combat Evolved, it would be a completely new remaster that would aim to bring the 20+ year old game more into modern times.

A move like this could be huge for Xbox as a publisher. If the original Halo can find a massive audience on Playstation, it would obviously lead to every game in the franchise releasing on PS as well as any future installments. Could Playstation be the savior for their arch-nemesis? Maybe…

It’s been over 10 years since EA and Bioware released Dragon Age: Inquisition, arguably the last good game released by Bioware. The game was showered with praise and awards and people were genuinely excited to see where the franchise would take them next. The general expectation was that Dragon Age 4 would likely release in 2-3 years after Inquisition. The first 3 games, Origins, DAII, and Inquisition, all released between 2009 and 2014, so the development cycle for the franchise was pretty solid. But, as time crept on and other games saw the light of day, Dragon Age seemed to be an afterthought.

From 2014 til now, things haven’t been going well at Bioware. Their last 2 releases, Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, were complete bombs. In 2015, Dragon Age 4 entered development and then was canceled by 2017. The game re-entered development in 2018, and was officially announced to the world in 2022 as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.

Now, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf has been renamed to Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Bioware announced the updated title and said it was done to put focus on the heroes of the game instead of the villain. Totally understandable, even if Dreadwolf is a much cooler title.

Dragon Age has been a standard bearer for western RPGs for 15 years, but there is plenty of uncertainty surrounding DA4, regardless of its name. The original Bioware crew that created the franchise is long gone, and the new Bioware crew hasn’t exactly inspired confidence with Anthem and Andromeda. As with everything, I am cautiously optimistic about DA4, but I’m not going to shell out $70+ on a game that could be an Anthem level miss on day 1.

Game Recommendation

You know, coming up with a game recommendation every week is harder than I thought it would be when I first started doing this. But, it does force me to dig deep into my history for games that may not have been all-time classics.

This week’s game recommendation is Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero from the PS2 and Dreamcast era!

I was never a huge fan of racing games as a kid, but this one really grabbed my attention and was well worth the money I saved up from my summer jobs. The game didn’t feature real cars, because Genki, the game’s developer, didn’t want to pay crazy licensing fees to every car manufacturer. Instead, you get some awesome clones with random logos slapped on them to avoid any copyright issues.

The game featured a pretty awesome ‘rival’ system that wasn’t just a race to see who won, but used Sprint Points and a health bar system to determine the winner of pivotal rival races in story mode. It also featured pretty deep customization for the time.

While the franchise didn’t survive to see the PS3 generation, it does hold a special place in my heart as the first driving game that really caught my attention and provided many fun races around the Tokyo landscape.

Cheat Code

The cheat code for this week is a cheat code for our game recommendation, Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero. If you want to upgrade you cars in the game, you will need money. This code will get you a cool $1,000,000 to kick off you customization spree.

At the menu, go to car select and press: left ,left, circle, up, down, up, square, x.