Dragon Age Series

[Clockwork]

Can someone please talk to me about this? So many things need to be discussed it's unreal. Plus I really want to get hyped for 3 but resentment of Bioware and EA hasn't quite diminished from the clusterportugal that was Mass Effect 3.

Also, if you want a nerdrage about ME 3 I'm cool with that.

[Cuddly Khan]

Dragon Age, never played the second one but I love the first! I like how you can just choose to be extremely evil or good. Just kill everyone. I did that once. It was funny.

[Clockwork]

It's amazing, right?

I love bioware RPGs, I know they do kinda stick to a formula but they are probably the best world builders in the industry (Contested with maybe Blizz with WC + SC. Also obsidian with Fallout: New Vegas.). The amount of detail and time spent creating a believable and engrossing setting with memorable characters is staggering. I don't think anyone tells a better video game story than some of their writers (ME 3 ending aside).

The thing I loved about DA:O was that you change the future of the DA universe. The ending of it tells you what goes down afterwards with regards to each of the factions and each companion. And the endings were wildly different. Set up a forward thinking, socially moblie dictator? Good things happen at the expense of some freedoms. Set up an ineffective but well meaning guy with an army of sentient soul infused constructs? Nobody is going to mess with him, but also he won't start any wars.

The second one got so much flak online that I ended up defending it. It wasn't that bad a game but it did do a few things really badly, the storytelling was sound and actually really innovative (imo) and voice acting for the main character in a sprawling RPG such as it was was an incredible feat. Where it was let down was by bad level design. Waves of enemies jump down at you, anime style, which didn't really fit in with the DA universe that was already established. In DA:O there were hordes, sure, but they attacked in a logical way instead of BANZAAAIIIII!!!!!! Lolwut I'm right behind you now!

Also, some parts of it were just plain stupid. Somehow a wizard type manages to detonate a magic bomb that anihilates a giant stone cathedral (with obvious 9/11 reference). It makes literally no sense. There was no pre-established lore on a wizard having that kind of power and in DA:O, the guy was an easy come easy go comedian. Suddenly he's a terrorist. This is also one of the things you can't change, can't even kill him (for lore reasons, not just random invincibility).

The story is good up to a point, but at the end it's just ridiculous. For the entire game you're faced with a choice of helping the anti-wizards (templars) to persecute mages because they could be dangerous blood mages and because mages need to be kept on a leash as they have too much power and are easily vulnerable to posession by deamons. Choosing to help these mages usually falls under the reason of 'you can't treat them all as if each one of them is evil'. Unfortunately in DA2, as soon as you've convinced the templars that not all mages are evil, they all become evil and use blood magic. PC never facepalmed so much in his/her life

Having said that, the great thing about it is the take on politics with regard to the long term 'refugees', a giant, grey skinned race, the Qunari. But that's way too long to put into this post.

[Cuddly Khan]

Lol, I really don't have that much to say about it. I just think it's a cool game. I like the bit with the cat and the girl that's possessed. I made the wrong choice and had to do the puzzle once though.

I think you can add Bethesda to the list of best world builders (For the Fallout series as well as TES(Morrowind was one of their best)).

If you don't mind me asking, what exactly did happen at the end of ME 3?

[Clockwork]

Beth is a good shout but I didn't include it imo they do the same thing as DA but not as well. FO:NV is recognizable as NV etc. Plus attention to details and all the rest. WC/SC I am biased towards as they were my first games.

It's a bigger question than you think but I'll give it a go at answering it. The thing you have to bear in mind with ME series was that it's a game you can spend hundreds of hours in and not get bored. Personally I spent over 400 hours on 1, 328 on 2 (on steam so it checks ) and only 60 on 3, half of which was spent in multiplayer. Base of operation is a ship called the normandy and the biggest "city" is the Citadel, a massive space station housing billions of...things.

Throughout this series you play as Commander Shepard, general badass or paragon of humanity depending on how you want to play. You are obviously the centre of attention, before the game even starts you're a war hero and respected member of earths military. Then you touch an ancient device used by a former race called the Protheans which they used to store memories on. Everyone else that comes into contact with it is killed but Shep manages to survive and has a garbled version of the Prothean memories that are a warning against galaxy wide extermination - dalek Reaper style (Sentient machines that warp your mind until you become their slaves).  Along these hundreds of hours of gameplay Commander Shep as I said is the main person in events spanning the galaxy but there are always supporting members that are frequently featured and squadmates that are with you throughout this who are almost as important. (See Tali/Liara/Garrus love on any site that says a word about ME).

You make choices throughout the series which can have massive or minor consequences (Save a rookie from dying? He'll be back in ME3 to give you a modified weapon he's been working on. Save a planet, they create a statue of you and *Playername* becomes the most popular baby name for the next decade. Plus somebody makes a movie about you ). So after these eighty hours or so of a single playthrough of ME, the last *5* minutes manages to portugal up an entire series.

There are so many Reapers (bad guys) that the galaxy has to unite and stop them. So being Shep, you achieve this, even flawlessly, but still it matters not. Your scientists that you've been donating to create a superweapon capable of killing reapers (really frickin hard).

This is the part that gets infuriating. Nobody knows what it does or how to use it. Ok I say, whatever, we'll fire it and see what happens I guess. The final showdown between yourself and the antagonist arrives and it's a dialogue scence. Ok well that was pretty cool, if a bit weird. Then you get sent up a random lift in the middle of the Citadel onto it's roof and there sits a child made of sparkly glow dust. The weapon is now in front of you and has apparently slotted into a part of the citadel. Ok, so now they figured that out and transported it there from the opposite end of the galaxy....how exactly? Whatever, I'm sure they'll explain it later. Then the 'Star Child' talks to you about destiny and how Reapers are necessary to kill off all sentient life before they creat AI life that wipes out sentients. That's right, he sends robots to kill you all so that you don't make robots that are going to kill you all. At this point I am wtf'ing all over the place. It's messy.

Then the starchild gives you the power to choose one of 3 different coloured lights and somehow because you're Shepard if you throw yourself into them it powers the superweapon and defeats the reapers. The three different coloured lights are supposed to be choices but they don't do anything differently. It's such an indescribably bad ending to such an amazing series. The aftermath, nothing is explained. Nobody knows what happened to anybody, there is literally no closure on anything and then it ends with your ship crashing onto a plant and stranding your crewmates. More WTF'ing.

[Clockwork]

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG! Squeeeeee.

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION! Released in two days. I can't wait! Not had a big release I've cared about since Skyrim. I wish I had the money spare to buy it... I'll commission the thieves guild.... Those are a real thing, right? :S

[Cuddly Khan]

Hahaha, it looks pretty good. I can't really say there's any small amount of games I'm looking forward to, there's so many!

[Clockwork]

Inquisition is average. It unfortunately has a good story dragged out too long by bad quests and average combat mechanics.

[Clockwork]

Similarities between Thedas and Middle Earth.

Evil is evil because evil.
Nearly-but-not-quite-Europe
Orcs
Men/Elves/Dwarves
People go on quests in groups of between 8-18
Amazing but impractical architecture.
Magic is used solely for combat/high wizardly things.