Dragon Age continues to be pretty, lengthy and generally entertaining.
In other news I was in London and partook of fine food and a very nice dessert - chocolate fondant with pineapple sorbet, and the sorbet was good, oh so very good. Gladly would I have sacrificed the fondant, or in fact most of the meal, for even more sorbet. Twas very nice stuff.
Speaking of foods, you can now get bacon flavoured envelopes to go with your other bacony goodies, including, but not limited to bacon-flavorued microwave popcorn, which is probably better for you than the popcorn available in cinemas - sure, it's the US, but seriously, popcorn that's as bad for you as three quarter pounders and 12 pats of butter. Give me a half pound burger and I'll spend the film slowly congealing and working on digesting that instead, it's better for me, more filling, and either way I won't be moving for quite some time... Plus it'll be more effort to finish all that rather than the popcorn.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Dragon Age continues to be the way a game should be played - I've been playing for some 35+ hours, and obviously some of that has been spent on the extra quests from the expansions out there (with another one just announced - though I would prefer a single payout for a big expansion), and am only 24% of the way through. That's how games should be made.
Stargate Universe - I'm still not sure about this show, and might actually stop watching it after the next few episodes. I appreciate the struggle for survival, but it seems to be playing to formula a little too much, relying primarily on inhospitable environments and so on.
Stargate Universe - I'm still not sure about this show, and might actually stop watching it after the next few episodes. I appreciate the struggle for survival, but it seems to be playing to formula a little too much, relying primarily on inhospitable environments and so on.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Dragon Age Blog - the first.
So, as you might be aware there's this spangly new Bioware game called Dragon Age: Origins, and I, like many others, have succumbed to the shiny goodness that is the game.
It's a big game to install, coming in at some 15+ gigs. Character design is both incredibly easy in terms of skill selection and stat assignment, and also incredibly detailed in that you can do detailed adjustments to the look of your character - raising and lowering features, increasing nose size, adjusting cheekbones, etc. A similar feature was used in Mount and Blade, so if you've used that you'll get the idea.
The combat system is pretty fluid, though I probably need to review the AI on my mage as she has a terrible habit of catching party members in friendly fire with cone of cold.
Party composition is great - banter between NPCs is the usual fantastic offering we'd expect from the people that gave us Baldur's Gate etc, and there's an approval bar where you can see how the NPCs feel about your actions - you can improve your relations with them by giving them gifts too. Unfortunately, depending on your party you can find that doing something which pleases one of them upsets another. Which is quite a nice feature, if it gets high enough the NPC gains benefits, and presumably if it gets low enough they get angry and leave. A nice improvement on the alignment/reputation system of BG, and is a feature I've not really seen elsewhere, as NPCs tend to wordlessly join the party and not contribute much beyond their skills in certain other games.
Storyline seems good thus far, and the game appears to have plenty of life in it. It's also well-supported in terms of downloadable content and freebies. On the down side the initial content on there (which luckily I get some of as a free download for having purchased the full copy of the game) does seem a little brief by comparison. However I won't complain as it's enjoyable enough. Also, perhaps I didn't look in the manual properly/much/at all, but the Dragon Age updater service seems not to be that well-documented, I figured out I needed net framework installed on my laptop and got it running without much issue once I worked out I needed that running to get the downloadable bits working.
Another (minor) niggle is that once you've saved a game using said downloadable content it wants you to be logged in in order to verify you should have access to it etc. Not a problem as I happen to have a wireless connection, but might be an issue if I go away.
Despite those minor quirks it's a stunning game, both visually and in play styles, and is highly recommended.
So, as you might be aware there's this spangly new Bioware game called Dragon Age: Origins, and I, like many others, have succumbed to the shiny goodness that is the game.
It's a big game to install, coming in at some 15+ gigs. Character design is both incredibly easy in terms of skill selection and stat assignment, and also incredibly detailed in that you can do detailed adjustments to the look of your character - raising and lowering features, increasing nose size, adjusting cheekbones, etc. A similar feature was used in Mount and Blade, so if you've used that you'll get the idea.
The combat system is pretty fluid, though I probably need to review the AI on my mage as she has a terrible habit of catching party members in friendly fire with cone of cold.
Party composition is great - banter between NPCs is the usual fantastic offering we'd expect from the people that gave us Baldur's Gate etc, and there's an approval bar where you can see how the NPCs feel about your actions - you can improve your relations with them by giving them gifts too. Unfortunately, depending on your party you can find that doing something which pleases one of them upsets another. Which is quite a nice feature, if it gets high enough the NPC gains benefits, and presumably if it gets low enough they get angry and leave. A nice improvement on the alignment/reputation system of BG, and is a feature I've not really seen elsewhere, as NPCs tend to wordlessly join the party and not contribute much beyond their skills in certain other games.
Storyline seems good thus far, and the game appears to have plenty of life in it. It's also well-supported in terms of downloadable content and freebies. On the down side the initial content on there (which luckily I get some of as a free download for having purchased the full copy of the game) does seem a little brief by comparison. However I won't complain as it's enjoyable enough. Also, perhaps I didn't look in the manual properly/much/at all, but the Dragon Age updater service seems not to be that well-documented, I figured out I needed net framework installed on my laptop and got it running without much issue once I worked out I needed that running to get the downloadable bits working.
Another (minor) niggle is that once you've saved a game using said downloadable content it wants you to be logged in in order to verify you should have access to it etc. Not a problem as I happen to have a wireless connection, but might be an issue if I go away.
Despite those minor quirks it's a stunning game, both visually and in play styles, and is highly recommended.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
So, what have I been playing lately?
Risen - pretty looking RPG, with the voice of John Rhys-Davies amongst others, combat controls are a little clunky in terms of that I'm not sure I actually parried many of my opponent's strikes, but a nice plot and decent execution. I did at one point suspect that there might be an additional chapter from some of the implications about extra islands and the mainland etc - but clearly if those crop up it'll be in the expansion instead.
Fantasy General - this a 13 year old game, comparatively tiny by today's standards, it's a turn-based hex strategy game I played on windows 95 using the DOS prompt, and it was good. It remains good to this day.
And, in complete contrast to the tiny Fantasy General, I'm now installing Dragon Age: Origins, which suggests that it will require a whopping 20 gigs of hard drive space on the back of the box (thus far it's asked for about 15) - which, unless I've missed a sudden leap in the specs of games these days is a significant step-up compared to anything else I've played - even Drakensang was eight and a half or so, and that was comparatively excessive. On the plus side - lots of extra downloadable goodies too, code for pre-ordering from Play, some people from Amazon got other goodies too, and there's some others out there also apparently.
Risen - pretty looking RPG, with the voice of John Rhys-Davies amongst others, combat controls are a little clunky in terms of that I'm not sure I actually parried many of my opponent's strikes, but a nice plot and decent execution. I did at one point suspect that there might be an additional chapter from some of the implications about extra islands and the mainland etc - but clearly if those crop up it'll be in the expansion instead.
Fantasy General - this a 13 year old game, comparatively tiny by today's standards, it's a turn-based hex strategy game I played on windows 95 using the DOS prompt, and it was good. It remains good to this day.
And, in complete contrast to the tiny Fantasy General, I'm now installing Dragon Age: Origins, which suggests that it will require a whopping 20 gigs of hard drive space on the back of the box (thus far it's asked for about 15) - which, unless I've missed a sudden leap in the specs of games these days is a significant step-up compared to anything else I've played - even Drakensang was eight and a half or so, and that was comparatively excessive. On the plus side - lots of extra downloadable goodies too, code for pre-ordering from Play, some people from Amazon got other goodies too, and there's some others out there also apparently.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Mmm, shiny computer games. My copy of Dragon Age: Origins has turned up, but I've yet to complete Risen. Well, that would be my weekend (and then some) sorted if I didn't already have plans. Ah well.
Monday, November 02, 2009
Have picked up various gossip about the effectively incestuous nature of finance, with various jobs hopping about and suchlike, as they often do, but nothing of any significant note.
More importantly, the first webisode of Riese is up, and I'm pleased thus far, the hunter types look interesting.
More importantly, the first webisode of Riese is up, and I'm pleased thus far, the hunter types look interesting.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
It's been a long week, but definitely some good moments involved. Today was a productive stint in London, saw The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - which was entertaining, and I can certainly see Lily COle (the lady playing Valentina) as Alice in the film regarding Lewis Carroll, less so, however, can I see Carroll himself portrayed by Marilyn Manson, but there you go...
Also caught An Inspector Calls, which I studied at GCSE - it's a very interesting take on it, using some clever set work (I was rained on and almost showered with crockery along the way - and the pyrotechnic effects were new) - it's very well-acted, and you have to respect Goole being imposing versus Birling when you consider the actor playing Goole is a head shorter and looks like his suit is too big. Very powerfully performed though.
And I even stopped in the Strand Wittards (I thought all the shops had shut now, but obviously not) and got myself some lovely Assam tea bags. Result.
Also caught An Inspector Calls, which I studied at GCSE - it's a very interesting take on it, using some clever set work (I was rained on and almost showered with crockery along the way - and the pyrotechnic effects were new) - it's very well-acted, and you have to respect Goole being imposing versus Birling when you consider the actor playing Goole is a head shorter and looks like his suit is too big. Very powerfully performed though.
And I even stopped in the Strand Wittards (I thought all the shops had shut now, but obviously not) and got myself some lovely Assam tea bags. Result.
