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Comments
Played Mega Man 2 again. I still like the game even though I prefer a good bit of the latter games as they feel more polished. I do see why people like this game though. I do feel that the Fortress stages took a dive after the first one, and Buebeam Trap still sucks balls.
Also Ice Man has worst section of any Robot Master stage in 1.
Okay. Finished my playthrough of Dragon Age (that's Origins, Awakenings, and 2, for those of you wondering.)
I feel that of the three of them, Origins is probably the best. It's very rough around the edges, but I'd be hard-pressed to find a piece of it that I'd call 'bad'. For the most part, it ranges from 'okay' to 'great', with no bad or truly excellent parts.
It shines with its characters. Some of them are kind of dull if you're not into their character archetype- if you don't like broken men who cover it with lame jokes, you probably won't like Alistair much, for example, or if you don't like arrogant, constantly drunk dwarves with nothing to live for, you probably won't like Oghren. But for what they are, each character stands quite strong.
The setting of the game is another strong point. It's a dark fantasy take on the usual fantasy settings; you have mages and knights, elves, dwarves and humans, but each has a new spin on them, with mages constantly at threat of possession by demons, imprisoned in the Circle of each country for their own good, and ruled over by magic-suppressing Templars, and so on.
Unfortunately, it kind of falls apart at the gameplay level. For what it is, a tactical action-based system, the gameplay is okay. It's kind of broken if you go Mage, though, and it doesn't tie into the story very well. Plus, there's possibly too much combat, with only Denerim and your camp usually being a break from the constant tedium of combat.
Awakenings takes Origins' level progress and runs with it, adding another ten levels on top of the likely ~20 levels you get in Origins. This makes combat a fair bit more exciting, and the enemies represent that, with enemies like the Inferno Golem, the Queen of the Blackmarsh, and the various Darkspawn who steal your gear.
Awakenings also adds some fairly interesting side-characters. Unfortunately, again, none of them measure up to Origin's. The two love interests- Anders and Nathaniel- are somewhat interesting in their own right (a runaway Healer mage and a desperate thief who is the son of Howe, who you killed in Origins, respectively), but don't measure up to Zevran, Alistair, Morrigan, or Leliana. Even the non-romanceable characters aren't as interesting- Sigrun is bland even given her Legion of the Dead thing, Oghren's drama was mostly dealt with in Origins, and Justice wasn't explored to nearly his full potential. Of the lot, Velanna was probably the most interesting, but even she was never explored much, and never grew out of her racism.
For an expansion pack, though, I'd say Awakenings is probably about worth it for the $30 I spent on it. It had over 10 hours of content to it- essentially, it was half the game Origins itself was. And you can pick it up for less than $10 anywhere outside of PSN, I'd assume. Especially on Steam. If you see Awakenings for $10 or so, I'd definitely recommend giving it a shot.
Dragon Age 2 kind of... hits and misses. It definitely has its good bits, and it's a lot more polished than Origins, but it lacks Origins' spark.
Many of the unfortunate aspects of the game can be explained away by the story being told by an unreliable narrator. Unfortunately, however, that doesn't stop the enemies constantly spawning around you from getting tedious, and from the level design's repetitiveness from grating on you.
The characters don't shine as much as Origin's, either. Fenris, who is probably the most interesting companion, is also kind of whiney and constantly hates on mages even if he's a good friend of a magic-supporting Hawke. Anders is changed from his portrayal in Awakening, and it's only a good change in Act 1. After that, he's whiney in essentially the opposite direction as Fenris, and only snaps out of that if you spare him late in Act 3.
Isabela, who is essentially DA2's Zevran, lacks Zevran's flair and loyalty, and constantly expects you to do favours for her. Merril, DA2's Leliana, is a bumbling... blood mage.
It's probably a hint that the two most relatable characters in the story are a dwarf who seems to be in a relationship with his crossbow, and the protagonist's sister (if you went Warrior or Rogue) who is kind of bland but still nice.
The story of DA2 doesn't even nearly match up to Origins'. While Origins had characters who you could care about, after a while in DA2, you just stop giving a fuck about anyone. Everyone seems ready to turn on each other in moments; Templars will hunt and kill each other with a moment's notice, and mages seem to give into demons or turn to blood magic at the drop of a hat.
After a while, I found myself saying 'I don't give a fuck about any of these people.' After a while, I was only playing so I could try and help Cullen restore peace and rescue Bethany from the Chantry.
But yeah. They're still good games, but each have flaws. If you see Origins, I'd urge you to grab it, and I'd urge you to grab Awakenings/DA2 if you see them on cheap.
Eh. I felt the setting was a bland downgrade from its influences -- particularly Warhammer Fantasy. A lot of the same stuff is present in that setting, but handled much better. It's just that Warhammer Fantasy vidya is traditionally terrible; for instance, the MMO was made of the blandest factions (barring the Empire) and changed development course (and studios) from a unique-looking low fantasy survival romp to a WoW-clone.
As for Origins overall, I think it's one of BioWare's best "story games" but falls mechanically flat. I hesitate to use the term "dumbed down", because I think that term is usually used as a belligerent response to streamlining. But the mechanical systems of Origins weren't streamlined from Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights or Knights of the Old Republic -- they were very much dumbed down, and the experience suffers because the game tries its damnedest to keep you in combat with shallow systems rather than reflecting on the plot and characters.
Overall, I think the biggest draw of Origins is its specific characters and its specific plot. Its setting is a step down from its influences and its mechanics are no more than passable, but it tells a much better story overall than the vast majority of vidya out there.
Eh. It's fine on its own.
Well... That's probably a good thing, seeing as they use different systems anyway.
Eh. Without the setting, its characters would be worthless. You'd have to change the majority of them up in order to make them fit in a different setting, and that'd just suck.
Leliana wouldn't work in a less shitty setting or a setting without a major organized religion, for example. Mechanically, she's a Bard- a rogue who specializes in inflitration. That means she focuses mostly on Dexterity and Cunning- which, in gameplay turns, represents your ability to manipulate people and cheat/steal (Cunning increases your Persuade score, for instance). That influences her character and personal story; without her past as a Bard, she'd lose her hard core, but without her past experiences with betrayal from Orlais and subsequent adoption into the Chantry, she'd lose her soft edges.
Or Alistair, who was adopted into the Chantry as a Templar, but wasn't indoctrinated. Without his past as a Templar, he would have a harder time justifying his innate dislike of apostates- and thus, Morrigan and many blood mages you meet- and his shaken faith in the Maker. Similarly, you'd be hard-pressed to make Alistair into a decent knight without giving him the Champion path, which wouldn't fit as Alistair sees himself as more a follower than a leader (plus it'd conflict with Loghain).
Zevran wouldn't fit in a game with a lighter tone, Wynne wouldn't fit in a game without its lore on mages and demons, Oghren wouldn't fit in a game with a more distant approach to typical fantasy, Sten wouldn't fit into a game with a closer approach to typical fantasy, and the theme of sacrifice and honour/dishonour wouldn't fit in a less violent game.
Most of the elements of its settings aren't unrelated to the plot and the characters, and without them, the game would be a lot worse. It doesn't do too much to set itself apart from the crowd, but it does enough to seperate itself that it feels memorable compared to most, and most aspects of the setting are related to other aspects of it.
I'm hesitant to call the plot the better part of it, if only because it's kinda typical. It's more the details and choices within the plot that lift it up.
Overall, I'd rate it as characters > plot > setting > mechanics. None of them are 'bad', while the mechanics sit as a solid 'ok' and the characters sit at 'great but not excellent'.
Bunny Must Die is pretty fun, but God do I suck at it
Re BMD: Haha yeah, me too.
IJBM: Steam doesn't let you buy a 4-pack for 4 friends. You have to keep one for yourself, and if you already have the game...you can't even buy it.
Anyone know what ninjaclown's local time is?
So. People who thought the OUYA was a scam:
This. This is what a scam looks like.
(for those who don't want to click, it's a console that's basically the OUYA, but the size of a USB stick, with an $80 price tag, and will allegedly be on store shelves in April if they can get just $100,000 in funding because it was totally in development before the OUYA was even though nobody knew about it)
The other Walking Dead game has a trailer. The scary part is that the devteam looked at this trailer and said "yep. That's our game at its best. This is ready for the public to see it."
What really gets my goat is that there's literally nothing going on in that trailer except zombies.
And for the most part, the zombies aren't even doing much.
So, remember Human Revolution? That game was awesome, right? So what are the developers doing? Don't worry, they're hard at work...making the pointless multiplayer component for the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot thing.
What the fuck.
Will they outsource the boss fights for that too?
^^I'm imagining that it's a quick'n dirty thing to pay the bills and will be conveniently left out of any resumes.
I want to see a game depict outsourcing.
For example, you get to a boss fight. The boss isn't there. You need to beat this boss to get a key item it has.
A miniature version of the boss became an elite mook in a boss battle in a game your neighbor is playing. He/she will have to beat that boss, including its mook, and then give you the item somehow.
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops says hi.
So the first episode of the Walking Dead is pretty great in terms of writing. I feel like the gameplay is rather clunky, though. I lost a lot of time because I was basically frantically waggling my mouse around until I could find the little spot that allowed to me to interact with whatever object I intended to interact with.
Both go uphill, but especially the writing.
I am enjoying how the boss fights in Ys have completely different primary hazards on Nightmare. Velagunder's healing is high enough to be the main factor, Gelaldy is still a total pussy itself but the lava can actually kill you now and the fight lasts long enough for that to be a concern. Nygtilger felt about the same I guess, which is why I killed him within a couple tries after having beaten my head against him for hours with Hugo.
It got a lot easier to land the last couple blows when I realized Yunica's thunder attack is tall enough to hit him while he's on the walls and I didn't have to risk getting munched to land the last few hits. The rest just kind of flows because Yunica tears right through his tail.
One thing I'm not enjoying is that the game seems to starve you on SP. The whole time I've barely had enough to get the extra point on my armor, much less power up my stun or anything.
What are SP? Are they the thing that I probably thought was MP?
SP is for upgrades. I forget what they call your magic bar, probably Skill or something.
Also the Construct is really hard on Nightmare for all the wrong reasons. He spits out five helpers at a time, and they throw off so many particle effects that my screen locks up unless they all die at once with a bolt crash. But during the second half of the fight he sweeps half the platforms away then spits them into the lava where you can't kill them until they're in your face and he's back to punching you, and if they're still alive I can't see which way he's going to punch until after I'm already hit in the face.
So. Turns out I can't actually play Mass Effect, as it's so hot here that my laptop overheats trying.
Eh, the studio that's doing the outsourced work could probably do cool stuff.
Look at Piranha Games: they made the multiplayer component of DN:F, I think, and they're currently developing MechWarrior: Online.
Recettear is now one of the candidates in a community choice vote for the next batch of flash sales. Vote for it!
Edit: Whoops wrong thread. I'm talking about the Steam sales here.
Beat Smough & Ornstein in Dark Souls. That fight is a massive chaotic mess.
That is the one (non-optional) thing in the game that I acknowledge is legitimately as hard as people claim the entire game is.
It's an awesome fight, though. I was stuck there for ages and cursed its difficulty at first, but now it's one of my favourite battles in the game. Especially if you take down Smough first -- Super Ornstein is such a brilliant adversary.
That fight was not too bad so long as you had someone to distract one of them while you beat on the other.