Tag: fantasy (page 11 of 23)

Review: Dragon Age II

April 11, 2011 / / 1 Comment

I may very well be the last person in the world to review this game. There’s already been a Zero Punctuation on the subject, as well as an Extra Punctuation that everybody should read. Just about everybody from top-tier professionals to amateurs with forum logins have gotten in on the act. My wife recently posted a rather balanced review, so it’s far past time I did the same. Anyway, grab yourself a drink, let’s get started.

Courtesy BioWare
Fenris is way ahead of you.

Instead of picking up where Dragon Age: Origins left off, Dragon Age II actually takes us back in time, to the aftermath of the rout at Ostagar. As the tide of the Blight washes over the little town of Lothering, the Hawke family flees from the oncoming darkspawn. Helping their mother escape is Carver, the headstrong warrior; Bethany, the fearful apostate mage; and you. You are not the savior of Ferelden, a Grey Warden or anything else particular special. You are Hawke, and the game would have you believe your path is not determined, as this story is more personal and less sweeping.

While the story does open up more of the world of Thedas, in the form of Kirkwall and some of the surrounding countryside, it also eliminates many of the features that made Dragon Age: Origins such a daunting, time-consuming and ultimately epic experience. The result is a game that is much shorter, but also lacking in many areas that, given more time, could have been fleshed out and made it an overall better experience.

Courtesy BioWare
Get used to the Wounded Coast. Hey, at least it looks nice.

For one thing, just a little more time in development could have yielded some variations on the caverns, warehouses and basements you have to traipse through for various side quests. Changing the entry points and door locations doesn’t make up for using the same map over and over, nor does BioWare get away with it because they hang lampshades on it. It’s pure laziness, and one of the indications that this game was rushed out the door before it was really ready for play.

I’m not just talking about things like bugs, either. The story needs work, as it’s barely there. You have three strung-together acts with increasingly engaging subject matter. While the framing device works, it still feels like one act has almost nothing to do with the others. On a level, they almost feel interchangeable, with the exception of the very end of the game. While I feel the second and third acts had some decent story points, and characters changing over the years is always good to see, the first act felt particularly shallow and disposable, given the plethora of side-quests one has to engage in to get the appropriate amount of money to undertake the main quest to make even more money. I’d like to think, at least on my first playthrough, that there’s more to Hawke than that.

Courtesy BioWare
He does look good in furs, though.

While I’m still not entirely sure why the proportions of the elves had to be changed so dramatically to differentiate them from humans, most of the art direction in Dragon Age II is very well done. In addition to its looks, there’s also a feel of actual life to Kirkwall. Hearing snippets of conversations from others and being greeted on the street lent the setting of the game a bit of weight and immersion that I appreciated. It gave me one more reason to power through side quests, other than being sick of the copy-pasted maps. I wanted to get back to Kirkwall, wander between its high stone buildings and listen to my party members banter.

One of the true saving graces of the game is its characters. They’re well-rounded and rather deep, as is appropriate for a BioWare game, but they all have very different reasons for supporting and travelling with Hawke. Another good thing is the somewhat simplified combat mechanics, coupled with a vastly improved skill tree system. I was very happy to not have to spend any skill points on Coercion, Herbalism or anything else that took away from my ability to melt faces. I played a mage, as I tend to do, and my skill points should go to magical skills, not potion-making. Speaking of mages, let’s get back to the characters and one of the reasons I feel this game is worthwhile.

Courtesy BioWare
Hawke will stab you in the face, then melt it.

As Dragon Age II carries on, you get to know the characters, develop friendships and even engage in romances. One of the things that the writers never forget is that everybody has disparate motivations for doing what they do. And sometimes, those motivations will test their relationship with the player. I encountered such a moment, right at the very end of the game. I won’t say what happened, but the impact of the event was so great that I had to sit back, take my hands from the controls, stare at the character I considered a friend and weigh my options carefully as I would were I in that actual situation. That moment, that sort of immersion in the moment, making a decision that I felt had weight; that is what I want to take away from a game like Dragon Age II. A lot of what got me to that moment sucked, yes, but in the end, I have to say I felt it was worth the journey.

Stuff I Liked: Replacing the Arcane Warrior spec with new staff designs and mechanics was a neat change, and I liked it. Kirkwall’s a very cool fantasy city. There were some great nods to the previous game along with the usual BioWare shout-outs. Smooth combat and a simplified skill tree system. Neat ‘crafting’ mechanics.
Stuff I Didn’t Like: The copy-pasted environments. The look of elves kept throwing me off. The feeling that just a little more polish could have made the story more coherent. And why is there no isometric view anymore?
Stuff I Loved: The characters, from the main party to the arishok and Flemeth. Getting pulled into the story when it bothered to be there. Hearing my party members banter.

Bottom Line: Dragon Age II was something of a disappointment, as in there were a lot of things that could have been done better. That said, it’s still a decent game with strong characters, smooth combat and enough good story points to balance out the negative, lacking aspects in the rushed design… but only just. I do plan on replaying it, and I’m more than likely going to enjoy those replays, which I guess makes this a game I would recommend. Be prepared, however, not to be entirely blown out of your seat. It isn’t a great game, but neither is it a terrible one.

Dragon Tales: Winter in Summer, Part 1

April 5, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Logo courtesy Wizards of the Coast

What follows is the account of a conversation had in the Blue Moon Alehouse in Fallcrest. Three men, a stonecutter, a tailor and a city guardsman, gathered over mugs of ale to discuss the odd events befalling the Nentir Vale. Despite differing professions and opinions, each man knows the names and deeds of their heroes: Andrasian the elvish warrior, Krillorien Brightsong the eladrin priest of Pelor, Melanie Good-Melons of the Arcane Tower, and Lyria Thorngage of the Junction Thorngages.

“If I mention the weather,” the tailor began once they were served, “are you going to hit me?”

“Gods, you’re paranoid.” The stonecutter’s beefy hand wrapped around the mug and he took a long drink of frothy ale. “No. I’m not going to hit you.”

“It’s on everybody’s mind.” The guardsman had unbelted his sword and it leaned against the table beside him as he nursed his drink. “You can’t help but notice the snow coming out of the sky.”

“In this season!” The stonecutter shook his head. “It’s bad for business. I can’t be up the side of a building carving gutters or fixing shingles when it’s like this.”

“You’d think I’d have an easier time, but everybody’s asking for furs I don’t have, when they manage to leave their hearth fires.” The tailor sighed and took a drink. “What do we know about this?”

“It’s snow. What is there to know?”

“Perhaps one or more of the gods have been offended, my granite-minded friend.”

The guardsman shook his head at the tailor. “The only god I know of with such power over the skies is Kord, and he’s more likely to smite us with lightning than sprinkle snow on our heads. No, this is likely something else.”

The stonecutter belched. “What, then?”

“Many and varied are the magical artifacts at the disposal of our benevolent dictator. The defeat of his Iron Circle in the Harkenwold cannot have endeared him towards us. Perhaps this is Emperor Lysander’s subtle revenge, or a tactic designed to bring us to heel.”

“Codswallop.” The stonecutter took another drink, then wiped the foam from his beard. “Lysander’s a boy in a man’s clothes playing at war. He would not use such subtle means. He’d smack us with every Iron Circle fist at his disposal were he truly interested in direct conquest.”

The tailor nodded. “Besides, the Lord Marshall pays the Empire their dues on time. Lysander would have no cause to subject the entire Vale to his wrath if it’s the Harkenwold that’s offended him while Fallcrest remains loyal, at least in word.”

“All I know is the Lord Marshall and some of the other nobles have left for Winterhaven to seek aid from Ten Towers.”

The stonecutter snorted. “They haven’t dreamed up a better name for it yet?”

“Well, it beats ‘The Keep We Reclaimed From The Heretics Trying To Open A Portal To The Shadowfell And Still Creeps The Folk Of Winterhaven Out’, doesn’t it?”

“Who asked you, tailor?”

The guardsman rolled his eyes, and waved the barmaid over for another round.

All locations, NPCs, spells and equipment copyright Wizards of the Coast unless otherwise noted.

Sequelitis

March 31, 2011 / / 6 Comments

Courtesy BioWare
“No. I’m not taking another step until Justice lets Anders out to play.”

There are some marketing decisions I’ll never understand.

Fast food chains showing a split-second of something from a moderately-trending YouTube clip. Ads and reviewers pretending that adding a third visual dimension to one-dimensional stories or characters is worth the investment. Concealing lack of content with blatant sex appeal or gratuitous trendiness. New Coke.

And the notion that a sequel must – must – be indicated with a number.

I think this is more an issue with video games than other media. The second Dream Park novel wasn’t called Dream Park 2, it’s The Barsoom Project. Batman Begins was followed by The Dark Knight. Yet on PCs and consoles, long is the list of new games followed by lackluster sequels indicated only by larger numbers on the end. Some of them fail for simply not being good games. But others, I think, take more flak than they should simply because somebody in marketing decided that “2” was a better descriptor of the game’s content than any sort of subtitle.

You know where I’m going with this, right? Of course you do.

In the grand tradition of my Dragon Age: Origins experience, I’m ruminating upon a fantasy RPG with depth and complexity before stumbling into an actual review. Unlike Origins, however, which was lauded nearly universally, Dragon Age 2 is approaching levels of hate I didn’t think possible for a BioWare game. If this were Pixar, this latest game would be the studio’s Cars.

I’m not blinded by fanboy wank, though. I can see the flaws. Copy-pasted caverns. An overwhelming number of sidequests with even more generic, interchangeable foes between them. Cumbersome menus likely meant to be easily navigated with thumb sticks. A first act plot motivated more by destitute desperation and blatant greed than anything altruistic, let alone heroic. Anders… Andraste’s knicker-weasels, poor Anders. There’s more, I’m sure, and I’ll cover them all in my review.

But how bad are they, really? So far, in my opinion, none of them break the game. It holds up due to interesting characters with vibrant relationships in the setting of a very personal, gradually-building story. I’m not sure what it’s building to, at this point, but I’m interested in finding out, and I personally like the fact that it’s not necessarily building up to the go-to video game goal of “Kill The Final Boss To Win At Life”. The things Hawke does, even if some of them are just to get him and his mom out of a shithole apartment, feel like they matter outside of XP or monetary gain. Different, in this case, is not necessarily bad. Again, this might change when I cross that finish line.

I think that a lot of the bile being spewed by gamers, like so many Boomers dousing survivors in Left 4 Dead because they’re making loud noises, is due to the title. Dragon Age 2, to most, indicates a continuation of Dragon Age: Origins in terms of story scope (epic, large-scale, overarching quest goal), player projection – an unvoiced character is easier for the player to use as a self-insertion fantasy persona – and nostalgia factor. I mean, come on, if Origins were trying any harder to be a Baldur’s Gate game it’d be called “Baldur’s Gate: Ferelden Edition” or maybe “Baldur’s Gate III” if EA had anything to say about it.

Instead, there’s this guy or girl named Hawke instead of a character the player builds from the ground up. There’s only one city, and it doesn’t matter how well-realized or lively that city itself is if players are expecting multiple unique locations to serve as quest hubs. The relationships and characters remain, but between the voiced player character and things like Anders, there’s plenty to tell the player this is not what they were expecting.

And when unexpected change happens in the world of gamers? Gamers get mad.

Fantasy gamers especially, it seems. Walk into a gaming store and talk about how the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons isn’t that bad. Just be prepared for massive backlash.

Again, I’m not saying some of the negativity isn’t justified. Expect more expansion upon the drawbacks of Dragon Age: The City of Chains (see? Doesn’t that sound cooler than some dumb old number?) in a future post. But, for the record, I don’t care much about the change in scope, perspective or anything like that. I’m all for games trying to do something different than their predecessors. My concern is regarding the story, the gameplay in and of itself, the overall experience and the little things that make the game stand out. It remains to be seen if Dragon Age: The Champion’s Legacy can overcome this odd strain of sequelitis that has people treating it like a leper. It’s possible I can scrape that number off and find a half-decent game waiting for me in the end equation, or perhaps the marketing boys pushed it out the door to cover up how crappy some of the dev team’s decisions turned out to be. Either way, if it weren’t called Dragon Age 2, it might not be taking such a severe beating. At least the Essentials line of Dungeons & Dragons can sit next to Hawke and hand him an icepack.

First Impressions: Dragon Age II

March 28, 2011 / / 6 Comments

Courtesy BioWare

Finally.

After pushing myself to complete a replay of my original character in Dragon Age: Origins and the Awakening expansion, I fired up the sequel at long last. I know I have a long way to go before I can do a legitimate review and I’m continuing to do my utmost to avoid exposing myself to reviews both positive and negative. So, after a couple hours in the Free Marches and some hardware tweaking assisted by my lovely wife who convinced me to be unafraid of beta GPU patches, here are my first impressions of Dragon Age II.

Courtesy BioWare
Yes, I made my Hawke look like me. I did the same in Origins, and they’re related. They’re both mages from the same family.
…Don’t you judge me.

Characters continue to be BioWare’s strong suit. While I haven’t recruited every available party member yet, those I have encountered show a great range of personalities, motivations and quirkiness. I can’t say I dislike any of them, but I like them all for different reasons. Hawke him/herself also shows a good range of character depending on how we register his/her responses using a dialog wheel instead of the numbered choices of Origins. I’m sure it’s one of those divisive decisions that split the fan-base, but having Hawke speaking in his/her own voice gives the conversations more of a natural flow, and actually helps with the immersion into the story, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Staying with characters, however, the leveling system feels a lot less cumbersome than the previous game. It’s easier to make decisions as to how to tweak individual characters, and it seems that the reduced amount of choices will keep players from being overwhelmed and characters from outstripping their opponents. The lack of things like Mana Clash indicates to me that the developers wanted to present a balanced experience to make the faster-paced combat more interesting and thought-provoking. Again, more on that later.

Now, granted, I’m only a couple hours into the story of the game, but it already feels like a far more intimate affair than Origins. Without an over-arching “save the world” storyline, the importance and priority of tasks falls to the individual player. How important is it, to you, to reclaim your birthright? Would you rather blast X amount of Y opponents in order to earn Z coins to progress the plot? Immersion in the plot and importance of its points has nothing to do with a threat hanging over the characters like a Sword of Damocles. Personally? I’m liking that.

Courtesy BioWare

Kirkwall is a great setting for this sort of story. It feels like a living city. There’s places to explore, some of which you shouldn’t do during nighttime if you’ve any sense whatsoever, lots of people to talk to and history to build upon. The scale of it, with buildings looming over you and figures shuffling to and fro, draws you into the world without overwhelming you. As you begin to make your way through Kirkwall, the concerns of the outside world cease to matter as much as getting yourself out of the roach-infested scummy streets of Lowtown. The tidbits of news coming in, however, are something I appreciate, especially knowing the decisions I made in Origins influence the headlines.

Outside of Kirkwall, I’m not sure what to make of things. I’ve been through one rocky cavern already (the pass in the Sundermount related to Flemeth’s quest) and I get the feeling that’s the copy-pasted bit everybody’s complaining about. We’ll see, I suppose.

Speaking of questing, so far it seems to be a decent continuation of previously-used structures. I haven’t run into a straight-forward collection quest but I won’t be surprised when one shows up. I like the day/night system, requiring Hawke to go to different places at different times, as it contributes to the feeling that this is a living, breathing city part of a legitimate world. However, I’m not sure how I feel about the breaking of questlines into bite-size chunks: go to this area, find this person, blast them & their cronies, move directly on to the next area. It removes some of the impetus for exploration that was abounding in Origins. Yes, I know, this runs counter to my previous complaints of Origin’s length but in this case I think they’ve gone a bit too far in the other direction. Again, this is a first impression, so take it with the appropriate amount of salt.

Courtesy BioWare

The changes to aesthetics are another divisive issue, and for my part the change of elves from normal humans with pointy ears to waspish humanoids with oversized heads and Irish accents hasn’t grown on me yet. I mean, I dig the accents but the aesthetic is throwing me off. That could be part of the point – elves are supposed to be different from humans, after all – but the proportions just feel wrong. I haven’t run into an qunari yet so I can’t comment on that. But I still wonder why hurlocks, menacing creatures with human origins and malicious intent, look like rejects from Power Rangers and scuttle around with horrible posture instead of striding across the field to gleefully shove a wickedly-barbed dark longsword down my throat.

A word on combat: I appreciate the ability to pause the combat to issue orders as I did in Origins, but the removal of the isometric top-down view bugs me. I like the fact that it’s more active and fast-paced, with enhanced cries and interaction during a fight, but I can see why the removal of certain aspects pisses people off. Overall, though, I like it so far.

One of the things that really annoys me, though, is equipment. Half of the things I pick up are Hawke-only, meaning a good two-thirds of the things available for sale are useless to me. I don’t mind being able to save my coin, but it makes me feel like the development of my fellows’ equipment is dependent more on doing quests instead of making intelligent pre-combat investment decisions. Again, this is a first impression rather than a review, so that might change in the hours and days to come, but for now I’m scratching my head every time I get another item drop.

More to come, rest assured. Overall I’m really enjoying Dragon Age II, for the moment. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Game Review: Dungeon Overlord beta

March 21, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Sometimes, you just want to be the bad guy. Quite a few games cater to these tastes and moods, from being able to select the ‘evil’ characters in a fighting game to full Villain Protagonist games such as Legacy of Kain and Overlord. Even games in the style of The Sims are not immune to this. A while back there was a game called Dungeon Keeper, in which the player builds, populates and militarizes a malicious, mountainous lair in order to terrorize the countryside and bring doom upon the heads of would-be heroes looking to steal hard-earned treasure mined from deep within the earth. That style of game is alive and well, now, in a little SoE Facebook game called Dungeon Overlord.

Courtesy SOE
Not available on iPod, iPad or iAnything until they make nice with Flash.

Yeah, it’s a Facebook game. Eventually, gamers are going to have to face the fact that this sort of venue for gaming is growing, just as consoles did back in the mid-80s. Before the PS3 and X-Box, there was the SNES and the Genesis, like the NES and Atari 2600 before them. With things like FarmVille and Mafia Wars being the first tentative steps forward in using social networking sites as a platform for games, I think it’s a more productive attitude to consider those early titles relics of the past best left in the annals of history, Dungeon Overlord may end up a footnote as well, but as it stands, it’s head and shoulders above any old farm or any number of trips to the East Side for Uncle Vito. It’s the Legend of Zelda to Farmville’s Breakout.

Anyway, Dungeon Overlord’s premise is that of its similarly titled ancestor. You, as the Overlord of the title, begin with a small dungeon at the base of a mountain, a couple resources to mine and a handful of loyal goblin minions to do your bidding. They’ll need places to sleep and eat between shifts in the mine, so you need to build these things, as well as a means to generate food and a place to keep your stuff. Eventually, you’ll be recruiting orcs to carry out raids as well as protect your investment, warlocks to conduct research and so on. Once you’ve built up enough of a force and upgraded several rooms, you can expand to a new dungeon, raise hell on the do-gooders in the land and otherwise amuse yourself in ways Skeletor could only dream of, and without the constant threat of some blond-haired beefcake smashing your face in.

Courtesy SOE
I feel a bit like The Monarch from Venture Brothers. “MINIONS!!”

One of the things that differentiates Dungeon Overlord from other games of its ilk is the simple ways it enhances the established experiences of such things. The creatures, rooms and features are rendered and shaded in a way that gives them weight that the simplistic styles of FarmVille and the like use; and the fact that all theses things have unique animations definitely give Dungeon Overlord the graphical edge on games like Mafia Wars. A series of ‘quests’ at the beginning guide the new player through basic construction tasks and establish goals in a very smooth way without imposing too much structure upon the build process.

While it’s nice to have this freedom, Dungeon Overlord doesn’t seem to operate under the premise that your victims can, in fact, retaliate if they get raided too often. Sure, there are no ultra-male hero protagonists that will demolish everything in sight to pillage your dungeons, but the occasional sortie of footmen and high elves might pay you a visit with swords and bows. You might not know about it until you check in after a few hours. Thankfully, it’s not too difficult to build and set up defenses, and I have yet to see a truly overwhelming force breach my gates. It also bears mentioning that, being a Facebook game, SOE provides a variety of services through the medium of microtransactions.

Courtesy SOE
Hmm. Who would I like to pillage today?

However, at the time of this writing, I’ve yet to drop a single dime on Sony’s in-game cash, and I doubt I’ll be doing so. Provided you upgrade rooms like your mine, vault and workshop adequately, you’ll generate income and materials steadily enough that it should not be necessary for you to spend real money on fake resources and crafting queues. Unless you absolutely, positively cannot live without an ogre hammock in your den. Even then, somebody might have already built one and put it up in the Auction H- sorry, Regional Market for purchase. And if your goblins are mining gold like crazy but you just don’t have enough leather or what have you, buying stuff from other players within the game is a better alternative than breaking out the credit card.

Dungeon Overlord is still in beta. It will occasionally throw up a maintenance screen, refuse to load properly or misinterpret your clicks. I can’t shake the feeling, through, that SOE has the right idea. If you have a Facebook account and are even remotely interested in something like this, I’d say give it a look. It’ll be interesting to see what changes are made once the beta period ends. Whenever that will be.

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