Lots of articles in the Straight this week, including:

• Nintendo’s Circle Pad Pro brings shooters to the 3DS
• a review of The Darkness II
• a review of Syndicate
• Why aren’t there games galore on Google+?
• What games you can play on Google+

In this week’s Straight I speak with BioWare’s Casey Hudson about Mass Effect 3.

Casey Hudson knows that endings are difficult. Especially endings for television and movie series. And video games. “Probably the hardest thing to do is to deliver something that is unexpected but welcome,” he told the Georgia Straight.

In the Straight this week are my reviews of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and, from Vancouver’s Klei Entertainment, Shank 2.

Vancouver independent game developer Big Sandwich Games is being acquired by Seattle’s Z2Live.

Tyler Sigman, design director at Big Sandwich, said in an interview that they have been working on a project for Z2Live for some five months. “It was a chance for us to work together and make sure that there was a mutual fit,” he said on the phone from his Vancouver office.

Z2Live is the developer and publisher of social and mobile titles such as Battle Nations and MetalStorm. President and CEO David Bluhm said he was capitalizing on the “hotbed” of talented designers, artists, and producers that have experience working for larger console publishers.

“This is an ideal opportunity to be in the market and tap that talent, long-term,” he said in a phone interview. He said that while the traditional console industry might be “right sizing”, companies like his are growing in a different direction.

Making Big Sandwich a Canadian subsidiary of Z2Live is, Bluhm said, a “foot in the water” and he expects growth in Vancouver to echo what’s happened in Seattle.

Z2Live went from 11 to 71 employees in one year, and is now sitting at about 85. “We’re growing as fast as we can,” said Bluhm, who is announcing the acquisition of Big Sandwich at a DigiBC event today.

Bluhm said that he looked at a number of studios in Vancouver, and he still is. But Big Sandwich’s reputation for high-quality games and their leadership team were, he said, appealing.

Big Sandwich was formed in 2006 by Glenn Barnes, Peter Holubowicz, and Cory Lake, all of who are still with the company. Barnes and Sigman will manage Z2Live Games Vancouver as executive producers.

Sigman said that the studio will shift to focus on mobile and iOS development. In addition to the original project, the studio is in the process of developing a second game. “We’d like to see two iOS games out of this studio in a calendar year,” he said. As such, he expects it to grow from 12 to about 25 employees in the near term.

Hoard, the PSN and XBLA game developed by Big Sandwich, was not part of the acquisition. Sigman said they will continue to support the game, but there are no plans for its expansion.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight

There’s more to look forward to this spring than Mass Effect 3. Get the complete list of what to watch for in my preview, which published today in Vancouver alt-weekly the Georgia Straight.

It’ll be a busy spring for the video-game industry, with about a dozen major titles aiming to capture the interest and imagination of players. Nearly half of them are coming from Vancouver studios. Here’s a look at how you’ll be spending your money between now and the end of May.