At least most of the reviews for it are really good so here's hoping Bioware have learned from the mistakes they made in the previous two games. I personally think that it would be easy for them to do this because I think DA2 & ME3 weren't that bad, they just had parts that compared to the previous games were disappointing. It was these points that for many people overshadowed all the good things about the games. But I guess we won't really know until the game is out.
Bioware is a company that listens to fans and really takes it to heart. Yeah they've made some mistakes and yeah we know that ended. *Couph, Couph* But they listen and they adapt, so i think it will be good and they've been working hard on this one for a while now. Also Kasumi Goto, amazing character.
2 more days till inquisition and my Qunari Inquisitor :3 Also, just lost my Binding of Isaac: Rebirth save on my Vita Sigh... maybe I'll restart.
With DA2, I was mostly disappointed with the departure in gameplay style from Origins. While 2 was more fun than Origins on consoles, as a PC gamer I really missed the tactical view and more strategic gameplay. Inquisition looks like it's going to strike a balance between the two, so ideally players like myself will be able to enjoy the strategic aspects of the series, while those who prefer a more action-oriented game will also be accommodated. I also hated the lack of variety in environments, it made the game feel repetitive and limited in scope. Obviously, this is the biggest change in Inquisition, which looks to rival the land area of vanilla Skyrim. I did like the more personal story of 2, and it has some of my favourite writing in the series. The series of philosophical discussions with the Arishok are easily my favourite thing Bioware has done since Knights of the Old Republic. But Act 3 was just... weird. By this point I'm tired of the Templars vs. Mages conflict, and neither Meredith nor Orsino were particularly engaging antagonists- especially in a game which featured the Arishok. Aside from Varric, I also found the companions disappointing. But that's all subjective, and while I'm not too thrilled to see that Inquisition looks to be another 'chosen one who must save the world,' plot, the roster of companions is very promising, easily the best since Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 3 was an excellent game, my favourite of the trilogy. Expect for its last fifteen minutes. It's remarkable how one poorly planned sequence, in an otherwise exceptional trilogy of games, can cause so much anger. I don't hate the ending as much as some do, and it's improved somewhat if you play the Leviathan dlc (it's still terrible, but at least the content of Leviathan gives some explanation for the ending), but still... every time I play through Mass Effect 3 now, I always find myself turning the game off as soon as I finish the last sequence on Earth. @J Faceless- Kasumi was great. The most frustrating thing in that game was finding time for everyone, one of the few RPGs where I liked every party member. @A.M.P. I'm going Qunari for my first character too. Debating between a mage or warrior for my first playthrough. In Origins I went with a warrior on playthrough one, and with 2 I played a rogue. I might just go with a necromancer for Inquisition...
@Agreen The philosophical aspects of DA2 were by far my favorite and probably made me love the game more than DAo Orsino being an amalgam of what most mages are, Ander's beliefs, Isabella's Choice, and sooo much more. I think I have a post somewhere about all this....
I am so excited for Rise of the Tomb Raider. The 2013 reboot was a fantastic game and I can't wait to play the sequel.
The last couple of weeks, I've been playing Bioshock Infinite, Thief, and Max Payne 3 on the 360. Really enjoyed Bioshock despite my earlier reservations. Some of the plotting was a little tenuous but I really liked the theatrical/carnival ride style set pieces, such as the two featuring the Indian Uprising and the Boxer Rebellion at Soldiers Field. Even though the the look was very different from the Art Deco inspired 1 and 2, I really warmed to it, and the game play itself was fun. Despite being graphically intensive, there was no lag, and the gun play mechanics were decent. Thief was problematic right from the get-go. It was obviously pushing the boundaries of what the hardware was capable of. During the first training mission, I was getting loads of lag, got permanently stuck in a crouch more times than I could count, (not ideal as I was doing my best to play the stealth game as opposed to the kill everything that moves game.) but I persevered. Luckily the further into the game I got the less these things happened. The biggest problem was the glitchy save system that had me replaying bits over and over—not ideal if the player wants to jump on for a quick fix. All in all I enjoyed the game play itself but the narrative was a bit of a let down and the ending was a complete anti-cimax. No doubt there is downloadable content available, but I'll not be buying it. I purchased Max Payne 3 second hand for the grand old sum of £2.50. It felt more like an interactive movie where the player gets to take control during the action sequences. Nothing particularly difficult about it in normal mode but with a few adjustments it proved to be more of a challenge. I rather liked the aged, cynical, booze and drug addicted Max. I gather a lot of fans didn't. Since I'm all out of new/never played before games, I'm currently beating my way through Fable 2, just for some light relief. On the subject of Bioware, and despite the whole ME3 debacle, (note my avatar... I'm a forgiving sort that still maintains it is the best, most immersive series I've ever played) I'm loving the conceptual art that has been released. I may get my ass into gear and start saving for a new console to play the next installment on.
Despite what my avatar suggests, I haven't played Skyrim in a while. Instead it's been Minecraft. It's insanely addicting. I'll probably get Dragon Age: Inquisition, but Dragon Age II and Mass Effect 3 had all shaken my faith in Bioware for making good games. Maybe this game will redeem them.
I'm currently playing Killzone Shadow Fall on my Play station and Mafia two on my Xbox. I'm enjoying both games
I've been trying to get through GTA V on Xbox One (never played the last gen version), but I keep getting distracted by Rocksmith 2014 (again, didn't play the last gen version). It's so addictive and a really good excuse to play my guitar! And for those thinking about COD: AW, just to add my two pennies, I traded mine in almost as soon as I finished the campaign. The multiplayer is the same old COD, by which I mean it's great. Trouble is, it's not as good as Titanfall, so why should I bother?
I finished Dragon Age Inquisition. Despite a few things I didn't like, it's the return to form I was hoping for from Bioware. The open world environments are a nice addition, and if I'd approached this more like Skyrim or Fallout than a Bioware game, I could easily have seen myself getting lost in them for 100+ hours. My only concern is that the game doesn't make the open world exploration as essential as you'd expect. Entire zones can be left untouched without effecting the main plot, and the amount of Power* you need to unlock main quests is fairly trivial- were you to complete just the main side quests of each region, you would build up far more power than is necessary to complete the game. *Power is a currency of sorts, reflecting the political connections, espionage framework and military might of the Inquisition. You build it up many ways- as interesting as finding landmarks or exploring ancient ruins, or as mundane as collecting x amount of plentiful basic resource. If I could change one thing about the game, I'd make power a little harder to find, eliminate busy work like the 'geographical surveys' or 'acquire ancient knowledge'- (which might sound interesting, but amounted to 'kill enemies, loot corpses') and make it more reliant on completing quests. The writing was very strong, with one egregious exception. It features my single favourite quest and sequence of events in a Bioware game- Spoiler In Your Heart Shall Burn, especially everything before and after Corypheus makes his first appearance. , and a number of excellent main quests, including a memorable and potentially heartbreaking journey Spoiler through the Fade. I was actually sad to let Logain die so my Hawke could live. If you're a big fan of both your Hawke and Alistair this could potentially be a truly memorable, impossible choice The companions were, depending on your personal taste, all interesting and had their own place in the story. It's just unfortunate the game's main villain was such a let down- despite the game's hype, they seem to bungle everything they touch, and at least with my class and build, the final boss fight was laughably easy. Like, there are generic mobs in the open world that posed more of a threat. Speaking of combat, I think the game leaned closer to Dragon Age 2 than Origins. It was certainly more action oriented, and though I often found myself taking advantage of the pause button, I almost never used the tactical camera. My experience will probably be very different from other players- I played an archery Rogue, specialised with Assassin, and spent most fights in stealth, launching my two big moves (Full Draw and Hidden Knives), doing heinous amounts of damage, and then hiding in the back while waiting for my cooldowns. Despite the fact my character did an exceptional amount of damage, even normal fights could get tense as even with the very powerful armour I crafted for my character, it didn't take much to put my health in critical. From this perspective, I'm actually glad Bioware went with a more Dark Souls approach to healing, eliminating healing magic and limiting the number of potions at your disposal. Management of healing items was the closest the combat came to a tactical experience. Hint: If you don't plan on directly controlling them, you're going to want to limit the number of potions a rogue (any), two-handed warrior, or any mage that isn't a knight-enchanter will use, because otherwise you're going to find yourself fighting a dragon with just two heals left. That being said, once I unlocked the Assassin specialisation, combat ceased to be a challenge.
@Agreen I spent the last like.. 3 weeks playing it non-stop. Love IT! There are some flaws and some disappointments (lack of keep customization comes to mind) but for the most part it's a great experience. I beat nightmare at like level 14... I did 2-3 areas just farming the power needed to unlock missions. I never touched Orlais aside from the main quest parts. However, when I'm playing my "true" playthrough, I'm highly enjoying just going through each area and finding stuff. So, it might be entirely optional but it adds lots of fun imo. Best quest was probably Wicked Hearts, Wicked Minds (The Empress' Ball). It could have used more work to make it more smooth but easily the best and most impressive part. I just wish it was more in depth and less linear story wise for the ball. Corypheus took a backseat for sure. Even as a last boss, it wasn't all that epic. Tactical camera is... meh. Even in nightmare mode I never touched it. My only gripe was that the AI is too dumb to move away from AoEs by themselves or not run through walls of fire. The healing is a bother. Most of the time, I just plain flat run out and need to teleport back to camp or leave the dungeon. It didn't make the battle feel more tactical or "needed more preparing" (I could have equipped some regen pots) it just meant I had X amount of fights before I needed to restock. As a Rift Mage, the game was easy. Pull mobs together, Static Cage, Stone Fist AoE = all dead. Dragon? Yo, Vivienne! p) I enjoy the MP loads, spending many hours playing it. It could use much needed improvement and I hope they add new modes and stuff but it's very enjoyable if you like gearing up.
@A.M.P. Wicked Hearts, Wicked Minds was another standout. Most of the main quests were excellent, the only two I didn't care much for were the last two. I was around level 16 for Nightmare. I cleared the Western Approach, Hissing Wastes, Storm Coast, and Crestwood, and a good chunk of both the Exalted Plains and Emerald Graves. Hinterlands was almost too big, at least for a first playthrough when I was excited to see everything else in the world, and by the time I got around to exploring Emprise du Lion and Fallow Mire, I was ready to finish the game. I finished with around 60 extra Power, Inquisition level 11, and main character level 20. I made boring Inquisition perk choices, like all 3 ranks of focus and extra healing potions. The game took me 65 hours, which is probably less than some people, but I already want to give it another playthrough, to see the areas I skipped and make different choices. Rift Mages are fantastic support mages. I had Solas specced with the full Spirit tree so he could have the best barriers, and used the rest of his points on Rift Magic, and I found combat the easiest when I brought him over the other two mages. That said, all three mage specialisations are very powerful, depending on what you want. I switched my party up every time I explored an area, but because I'm a glass cannon, when it came time for main quests or major fights I went with a very conservative main party of Blackwall (ai set to guard me), Cassandra (ai set to be the front line tank), and Solas.
*googles the binding of isaac*, i would love to get into the whole world of warcraft thing but im just not prepared to pay the monthly fee, it was free like guild wars then i would, and as for zelda i loved ocrana of time and mm not played many of the others though.
Listening to some orchestrated versions of music from the Zelda series. I replayed both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask two summers ago, and I remember being struck by how much of an improvement the latter is in terms of storytelling. It takes a bunch of interesting but rather undeveloped elements from Ocarina of Time (Zoras, Gorons, Lon Lon Ranch, etc.) and remixes them into much more fleshed-out and vibrant forms. The whole setting is full of really creative and often depressing ideas. It's like, in OOT you have a ranch with a horse and some cows and a few people in it, and in MM you have a ranch with a horse and cows and dogs and chickens and robbers and aliens and a bunny hat that makes you run fast. Similarly, in OOT, you have a dungeon and a mini dungeon that feel sort of creepy. In MM, you have a ruined kingdom filled with skeleton soldiers who you trick into cooperation by imitating their leader, a ghost who sold his soul to the devil and imprisoned his brother in a tomb, a Stalfos king who sounds apologetic after you defeat him in battle, a gravekeeper so terrified of ghosts that the sight of one drives him under his bed and fills his last moments before the end of the world with terror entirely unrelated to that catastrophe, and a girl trapped between a ring of mummies and a father that has turned into a half-undead abomination. And Majora is even nastier than Ganondorf. It's a shame that he (it?) didn't get more direct appearances.
I've had Murdered: Soul Suspect sitting on my hard drive since June, so I decided I should finally give it a try. It was an enjoyable, but frustrating experience- the game nails one of the hardest elements of horror games, the atmosphere, but in almost every other way it disappoints. In the game you play a ghost detective investigating his own murder. I wish it'd been a little more polished, with some more depth put in to the investigations. As is, 'investigations' were often little more than plot summaries- in fact, the most challenging aspect of the investigations was how insultingly simple they were. It may actually be more difficult for experienced adventure game players, who may try to use the clues provided to make deductions and come to conclusions about the evidence, when the game will often just want you to acknowledge that the evidence is in fact evidence. Because it was published by a triple A publisher (Square Enix) the game includes rudimentary 'combat.' In certain areas of the game, demons will try to pursue your character, and if they catch him, he dies. Again. Or ghost-dies, if you prefer. There are white clouds spread throughout the area the player can use to hide in, and teleport between- though naturally they aren't completely safe, as if you wait to long a demon can draw you out the hiding place. I'm probably making this sound more challenging and exciting than it really is- in practice, the demons aren't especially clever, and unless you run in front of them (or mistime their patrols) they can be dealt with easily... except for one problem. To defeat a demon, you have to approach them from behind, hold down a button, then perform a quick-time-event. It could just be me, but I struggled with the mouse and keyboard controls, so much so I had to pull out my controller. With the controller, these events were easy enough they served little purpose beyond padding the game time. I finished the game in 7 hours- but a good chunk of that time was lost to wrestling with the keyboard controls. The plot does take a few interesting turns, though it sometimes can't get out of its own way and oversells some its twists. I did enjoy the game, but I can't say it's worth the asking price- if you can find it on sale for $10, and you're looking for an atmospheric horror adventure game, get Amnesia. If you've already played Amnesia though, this is worth a look.
Just finished Walking Dead Season 1 for the first time, and all I can say is it was really f****** good! I'm wondering whether it is going to be jarring to play as Clementine for Season 2, but I can't not play it after how good Season 1 was.
I've played both seasons. Unfortunately Season 2 is faster paced and does not develop the characters half as well. It is also quite clearly written, or extensively altered on the fly as some of the plot and character arcs are a little lazy or suddenly veer off into left field. Also, Clem is given far, far too much responsibility for her age (which is necessary since she is the player POV, but just comes across as unlikely). There is also a very jarring and vanishingly unlikely coincidence. It was good, just nothing like as good as S1.
Reading this makes me want to start playing Dark Age of Camelot again, still far and away the best pvp game I have ever played.
Damn. Well, thanks for the heads up. Maybe if I keep my expectations lower I'll be pleasantly surprised?
There is also a DLC which falls between S1 and 2; which introduces some of the S2 characters. It is not necessary, but if you are a completionist it is worth playing.
Got an XBone for Christmas that came with both AC: Black Flag and AC: Unity, so I know what I'm playing until I go game shopping.
I just finished Season 2. It was still quite good, but I prefer Season 1. SPOILERS! The pacing and lesser amount of character development was my biggest criticism. I would have preferred to see some grieving over Lee's death right away; hell, maybe even a flashback similar to the one near the end of Episode 5 that would immediately develop the character of Clementine (and Krista and Omid) after Lee's death and set the theme/tone right away in a very somber mood that fit Season 1. I understand the need to get to Season 2's new plot, but it could have also used more character development time in the beginning to make Omid's death and Krista's disappearance more emotional. Especially the 15-month gap between Omid's death and Krista's disappearance. And then when Clementine was saved by the group, the character development was thrust into overtime where she somehow went from innocent 8 year-old girl to 11 year-old who can suddenly stitch up her own arm without anesthesia! That was really jarring to me and should have been done more slowly. Honestly, though, I thought the final 2/3's of Episode 5 really helped bring the season up as a whole. The group falling apart was well done in my opinion, and then the moments leading up to and after Clementine was shot were some of the most tense moments I've experienced in any media form. The flashback didn't feel cheesy to me, and I actually rather liked it. Of course, it was ridiculous to see her recover from a gunshot wound so damn quickly. But anyway, I thought the final showdown was well-done. It was easy to predict, but in a good way where it gradually becomes more intense because you don't want the inevitable to happen. Even though it was somewhat lacking (or done too quickly) earlier in the season, I think Clementine did develop as a character in Episode 5. I wonder what they're going to go with the series next. The baby would allow Clementine to do a full circle as a character. Her development could be as a protected child in S1 to "grown-up " survivor in S2 to caretaker in S3. That might have potential.
Fantasy Life! Been playing that like mad all week. It's so easy to spend eight hours just farming and gathering mats >.>
