Damn it Bioware!

So I was playing through a decent game of Army of Two, The Fortieth Day on Solo Mode, when one of my friends logs in and I notice what they are playing. Dragon Age: Origins. That's cool, I think, so later that night I do a little research on the game: The thing? It looked beautiful, and best of all, expansive.

After I borrow it from him, I quickly discover what a "Halo Ring" is, when I mistakenly kicked the console over. So I buy him a replacement and install onto my Hard Drive. That way I can play with the damaged disc, so I now own Dragon Age: Origins, by Bioware.

What was that? Fight and not run? OH. That could have
saved us some trouble...

Anyway, seeing as it was Bioware, I was comparing it to Mass Effect by a lot. There were a couple of things I hated, and other things that I loved about the game. First of all, being: Why is this click and go?!

Sure, you can walk around and move. But you need to physically move the camera to point at an enemy, and click your attack button of choice to attack. You have skills and shortcuts for the other buttons, too, however it is still "Point and Go" on a console. On a PC, point and go is a brilliant interface--I point, you attack. Why? Because in the blink of an eye I can move my cursor and click on my enemy. Using a control stick from a console, the cursor has a set speed so you don't outpace yourself--it is slower and more cumbersome in general.

Having played the game on the console, not the PC, I disliked the way the game played. Especially because moving the control stick even slightly off-course and you end up going in a completely different direction.

Sometimes, I thought my character was just being a pansy about the way he was attacking. Maybe a status effect? Perhaps he didn't have a high courage stat? Then I realized there WAS no courage stat!

Then we have the character interface. Seeing as this game came out after Mass Effect, I expected the character to be able to talk. I know this is out there, especially considering how many different characters you could be, but since you can change your battle voice, maybe go the extra mile and have those voice actors voice out your character? It seems logical, if a little bit more expensive, at least.

Finally, after getting over my discrepancies with the game, having it face a corner for an hour and a half and saying it loses it's TV for a month, I decided to play and try to forget the interface. Looking at the actual story, and the choices possible, I was blown away.

Examples of characters you can be

First: Your origin. The point of the game, possibly expanding on Shepard's origins concept. You can be a human, dwarf, or elf, the stereotypical races in fantasy games. As a human or an elf, you can be a warrior, mage, or rogue. Dwarves can't be mages as the story outlines that dwarves are stupid and can't use magic.

So as a human rogue or warrior, you get the "Human Noble" storyline. You are a prince, basically, and your powerful family is betrayed and destroyed when your brother is sent out for war. You survive, of course.

As an elf, you can be a "City Elf", which are the oppressed peoples of the world. Kind of like, and I do mean this as purely a historic reference, the black peoples after the Civil War and before Dr. King Jr. They aren't slaves, per say, but they are hated and oppressed and they did recently become not slaves. You are getting married, and your marriage is interrupted and depending on whether you are a guy or a girl, you are either saving your wife from being raped, or saving yourself from getting raped.

These are the only two origins I have explored so far. Although no matter what race you are, if you choose "Mage" you get the "Magi" origin, because unlike City Elves, Mages are the slaves of the Ferelden Empire.

Commander Shepard ain't worth shit to me.

So I make a human warrior, and name him Shepard. Sue me Bioware! Afterwards, I decide to make him as much like my "Jak Shepard" as possible, though I quickly found that you actually had to back up your talk, unlike in Mass Effect where Shepard took care of that for you.

After making it to the last boss and figuring out how much of a FAIL my Shepard character was, I restarted the whole game as a female City Elf. I didn't bother naming her--so the default name "Kallian" took precedence here.

This guy? He's an asshole, so look out.

As Kallian, I was a nicer person, and had extreme armies at my command by the end of the game, and it was GRATIFYING to kick the final boss' ass.

The basic story is, that you become a "Grey Warden", a warrior who drank the blood of the "Darkspawn" and became the good version of the Darkspawn. As in, you keep your mind.

The Darkspawn are the greed and hatred of men's hearts given form. (*cough*Heartless*cough*) So, naturally, they need an antithesis. They need you to be there to kick their ass everytime they decide to show up in what is called a "Blight". A Blight is when the Darkspawn get an Archdemon leader, a big darkspawn version of a Dragon, and march across the land slaying all in their way.

Like the football team after school, the darkspawn are planning
to beat you  silly for no good reason.

It is Darkspawn vs Grey Warden warfare, basically. Unfortunately for you, due to Ferelden politics, you and your partner are basically it. The only two people fighting for people to stay alive--and the only two people that Ferelden wants really, really, really, without a shadow of a doubt, completely and one hundred percent--dead.


So you must bring the political environment of Ferelden to order, or risk "Civil War II" during the Blight. Being the badasses that darkspawn are, they would trounce the country and move on to kill everyone on the planet that I assume is Earth in fantasyland.

To do that? Call on every peace treaty the Grey Wardens own, befriend powerful political leaders, forge a kickass team of your own from travelling the land, and defeat a tyrant in a fight any way you please. Seriously--there is "All Out Brawl", "One on One Duel" and "Alistair, kill this man for me." Of course, I always balled up and kicked the dude's ass.

Once you bring Ferelden to order, your war with the darkspawn starts. Depending on your decisions through the journey, you have different armies--my winning army was composed of Dwarves, Elite Dwarven Mercenaries, Mages, and Werewolves. Yes-werewolves.

It is a lovely game, very involving. The interface sucks balls, and the lack of voice on your character's part makes me somewhat upset, but after grounding your game from TV for a month it becomes a much better game. The graphics are beautiful, dungeons are limited but prevent repetitiveness, the skill tree is expansive and grants a lot of choices for your character.

All in all, I recommend it highly. Enjoy until next time!

And I'll try to update again within the month, I promise.

First Post and Whatnot

So anyway, I decided to make a blog because I was bored, and detail what all I am playing in videogames. Why not just play the videogames? Good question. Next!

Anyway, I recently acquired two games I've been looking for for some time. Mass Effect and Army of Two: The 40th Day. So I might as well start writing with Mass Effect since I started playing that one first. (Keep in mind, I have played Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 1 gave me...something I wasn't expecting...)

So anyway, I started up my game of Mass Effect 1, (by Bioware) and looked around the menus for a little bit, trying to see if it would be anything like ME2. Finally after setting everything to my preferences, with difficulty at Normal, I started the game. I picked something different from my usual, a Spacer Lone Survivor Female Shepard, instead choosing an Earthborn Warhero Male Shepard.

The game started, and I was at first saddened at how Joker seemed to hate me outright. Well, maybe not outright, but his sarcasm was less...lightheartedly funny and more...get out of my face.

Anyway, I finally arrive at the first combat scene, and find the HUD to be vastly different, among other things.

Mass Effect 1's HUD

Notice the health bars in the bottom left, as well as shield monitors. This is what I loved best about the Mass Effect heads up display--it let me see how my partners were doing in a constant detailed report. I also admit I liked that there was unlimited ammunition, you merely had to not overheat your weapon. 

Mass Effect 2's HUD

The ME2 HUD is more concerned, it seems, with packing everything up. I can only vaguely see how my partners are doing with their health and shields, represented under Shepard's own health/shield bar by a small bar and a quarter circle. The only thing I ever really relied on in concern with that pitiful display is when their faces glow red, meaning they're taking damage, and even then, I don't know how much more they can actually take. 

I was, however, frustrated that I could not command my team separately in Mass Effect 1, a feature added on in Mass Effect 2. That did not excuse, for me, the pitiful lack in variety of weapons and armor ME2 has. Sure, you can change out parts of your regular N7 Armor, but most other armors are exclusive and DLC-Only, and even then, only for Shepard. Sure, you could change out skins on your team, but how much stronger does that actually make them?

I also noted that through three playthroughs, I only had two types of pistols, 4 machine guns, three snipers, and three shotguns excluding squad-exclusive weaponry. What is this? In Mass Effect there were almost countless variety of weapons, and different weapon manufacturers everywhere! It made it worthwhile to get money, to see how much more you could buy. In ME2, there was apparently a massive deflation in the economy, as while I amassed over 6 million credits in the predecessor, the best I ever got in ME2 on Hardcore Mode was around 300,000 credits. 

It's not a bad thing, and it certainly explains the drop in weapons and armor variety--I mean, with 300,000 credits only there isn't a lot the poor Commander could buy anyway. Besides, I'd much rather only buy virtually nameless upgrades for my weapons and, of course, be able to attach them all at once stifling my creativity of mix and match.

Now that the rant is over, I honestly cannot compare the storylines. I will say I liked the team of ME2 better, even though I still stuck with Tali and Garrus (they are my A-Team) and sometimes Legion. The arguments among the team were interesting as well, even if I never resolved Miranda vs Jack. 

The ending is a lot better, or it was for me, because I spoiled it (slightly) for myself. I read that Shepard could get killed on the Suicide Mission if certain parameters were met, and all along I was on the edge of my seat trying not to meet those parameters. In the battle against Sovereign and Saren, I actually managed to convince the villain to pull suicide, and the ending was on a grand scale (Joker's flying was incredible) however the knowledge that Shepard would, in fact, survive simply killed the end suspense.

Of course, I plan to play ME2 again with my ME1 Shepard, and play through twice to get good stats and all that, in preparation for Mass Effect 3 coming out Winter sometime.

Until next time I post, peace!