Dragon Age: Origins

Hey hey hey! Look who's back! The prisons of Tartarus are not deep enough to withhold me! Of course

I'm most likely talking to no one right now, due to the fact that I haven't written on this blog in about five months, and my audience (if there ever was one in the first place...) has most likely disappeared. If you have indeed remained loyal, I will now continue updating weekly again for at least the next month. I have been playing some new games that I am really excited about giving my opinion on. (yet again, on the off chance that anyone cares)

So here is the first of my new reviews. I figured I would start off with one of the latest works by the good folks at Bioware studios. I have always had a soft spot for the ye olde sword and sorcery fantasy game. This one, is truly exceptional as many of you probably know. Dragon Age: Origins was designed to be a tribute to the more primitive games that Bioware designed a good handful of years ago, namely the Baldur's Gate series. Eventually however, Dragon Age grew into a niche all it's own, and is even receiving a visual makeover to better suit it's atmosphere, along with a more in depth sequel. This is not without good reason. The story is freaking fantastic. It may be lacking in originality in the big picture, as who hasn't done the demonic horde invasion story before? Origins saves itself very nicely with the trials that the player character has to go through, an oppressively dark style, and the fact that the story is never the same twice. In fact, I'm going to start off with that. A lot of games have recently come out that allow for the player's choices to heavily effect the outcome of the story, and even elements of it that don't have to do with the ending, but Origins trumps all of these (at least by my experience) in terms of just how many choices and outcomes there are. In fact, in one quest (I shall try to remain spoiler free) there are at least five different ways that the ending can play out. That is an amount of player affect on a game that I just have never seen before. What does make me cringe about this amount of customization when it concerns the plot, is that I went through a town near the beginning of the game in my first play through, and I was impatient to see what happened next in the plot, and didn't want to get bogged down by a bunch of side quests. It was only later that I found out that you pick up not one, but two party members in that town. I tried to return to rectify my rather gratuitous mistake, but realized that the game would not allow me to reenter. It was as if the word “bollocks” had taken physical manifestation in the air between me and the television. The problem I had encountered was that the story had so much potential for customization, that it was possible to play through the entire game and skip huge portions of plot and character elaboration that people had put lots of good, hard work into. I'm all for broadening the horizon of player choice, but that's taking things a little far in my opinion. Of course, this could be a blessing in disguise. A game that makes players live with their mistakes, or allows them to make such a conscious choice is fairly revolutionary. Of course, Bioware has and is doing a good job of maintaining a reputation for these sorts of mechanics in a game. With Dragon Age 2 coming out sometime within the near future, it will be cool to see the story telling in this series taken to the next level.

Mass Effect 2

No, I am not dead. You can't get rid of me that easily. It was brought to my attention two days ago that I did not own Mass Effect 2, which I promptly decided to go forth and purchase. Right from the beginning I was floored. Bioware took the familiarity with characters and other plot devices from the first game, and threw it right back in the player's face. The main story line is easily one of the best that I have ever seen in any video game period. This was one of the few games that actually had me standing up out of my seat at certain key plot points, proclaiming "That is awesome!". Not only does it have it's thrilling moments (of which there are plenty of), but the character of Shepard is even fleshed out to a further extent. Now, before you say "How in hell do you flesh out a character whose nature entirely depends on the player's choices?", I shall say that it entirely depends on how much the character speaks. In the first Mass Effect game, Shepard's dialogue was always triggered by the alignment interface that came up in the middle of the screen whenever the conversational ball was thrown back in his or her side of the court, which in turn didn't come up quite as often as it could have, and gave the illusion that Shepard was the stoic type. In Mass Effect 2, Shepard is much more talkative. Not only does the ability to choose the sort of response that Shepard makes appear more often, but he or she speaks automatically every now and then, usually comprising of something based on a choice made at an earlier time, or something that is rather morally unremarkable. There is another element to the story that I find to be extremely remarkable about this game, the tangibility of the romance between Shepard and whichever other of the main characters that draws attention. This is one of the few games that I can name where the romance between the characters has actually made clear why these two are drawn to each other. It felt real. Well, at least the one with Tali Zorah did, I have yet to play through the other combinations.

Now, as for matters of gameplay, I am aware that there was a lot of controversy at first about the changes being made to the combat system, but I believe that they were made for the best. The addition of limited "ammunition" and thermal clips for the weapons made for an experience in combat that felt more visceral and gritty. The fact that you can affect your enemy's performance by shooting him in the limbs now was also a welcome tweak. What I did not like though, was how there was only three of each weapon type in the game. The fact that I wasn't constantly buying and selling equipment worried me. That however did not last. The lack of equipment variety is made up for by the fact that you through various means can be constantly improving your gear through acquirable upgrades and passive skills. One thing that I particularly enjoyed, and thought that was a much needed improvement was the hacking minigame, which now is much more fun to use, more challenging, and does not require the wasting of skill points in a separate skill. That however pales in comparison to the fact that there is no more damned rover! I could not be happier. Honestly though, I'm not certain if I just have not encountered the rover sequence, or if they actually got rid of it, but the practical lack of it is a good thing regardless of how you look at it. Well, I thank you for your time, your patience, and the six thousand dollars I have stolen from your bank account while you read this review. Next I shall be making a dissertation on Bioware's other recent hit RPG.