I knew I was close to the end before my last post but it turns out I was at the final battle, . . . → Read More: Dragon Age 2]]> Now that I’ve finished Dragon Age 2 I’m prepared to share some of my thoughts. Keep in mind the following:

• Played the role of the eternally good champion
• Had a relationship with Anders

I knew I was close to the end before my last post but it turns out I was at the final battle, after which the game just sort of ended.

The game’s story is held together by an over-arching narrative between a templar seeker and Varric, a dwarf companion you will gain early in the game. The templar is looking for our character, the champion, with events of the game actually occuring as Varric retells everything up to that point.

Suffice to say I was destroyed when Anders’ betrayal became clear and killed him for it, but the end where I would have expected some sort of revelation just petered out leaving a hint that the Hero of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall had both disappeared.

I played the entire game on casual because I was interested in the story, not the challenge of battle. Having said that, some of the battles towards the end were challenging even on casual.

I’ve been trying to think if the game was better for forcing you into the role of a specific character compared to the originals flexibility and have come to the conclusion that for players it makes no difference. For Bioware it was probably a hell of a lot easier to develop without the myriad of possibilities though.

I’d love to hear other peoples thoughts, please share.

-If a player has viewed the credits, the game may display the error message ” An update error has occurred. Error 20524″ and fail to update properly. *We apologize for the inconvenience, but if . . . → Read More: How to break things]]> I was just reading a list of known issues for Final Fantasy XIV and laughed out loud at the last one:

-If a player has viewed the credits, the game may display the error message ” An update error has occurred. Error 20524″ and fail to update properly.
*We apologize for the inconvenience, but if this error occurs we ask that you please reinstall FINAL FANTASY XIV.

Holy hell that’s a bug and a half! Whatever you do, don’t view the credits or you will need to go through the pain of reinstalling/patching. Maybe it’s ok to run them and not look at the screen (this is a Japanese game after all).

Can you imagine this sort of thing ever occurring with World of Warcraft?

I tried FFXI in the past and thought that it not only looked drab and ran like . . . → Read More: Final Fantasy XIV]]> I downloaded the FFXIV open beta over the weekend to check it out and what a chore. Despite the updater using Bittorrent tech it was quicker to open the torrent files in uTorrent than to use their downloader.

I tried FFXI in the past and thought that it not only looked drab and ran like crap, but it had a very high barrier to entry in terms of gameplay. It also was a game that forced you to group. My experience with FFXIV has shown me that Square-Enix have learnt very little. While the graphics engine has received a much needed overhaul, the interface is mostly exactly the same as before, and it is very unresponsive down to the very mouse pointer itself.

The game opens with you on a boat and a room full of NPC’s. There is no indication at all of what to do. There is no tutorial telling you how to move with your character or how to interact with NPC’s. Once you figure out for yourself how to interact with NPC’s you realise they provide just two completely meaningless conversation options (which are repeated for every NPC I’ve encountered so far). There is a door on the other side of the room why you can use by walking close to it, but of course there is no indication that you need to walk close to it or that it is even something you can interact with.

Once on deck the in-engine cutscenes ensue and at one point you are expected to work out how the battle system works with no help whatsoever. You eventually arrive at a town and are stuck at a dock until working out that you need to talk to a certain NPC (of which there are about ten in the area). Not just any conversation will do, you’ll need to select the correct option before the game will send you to a zone in which you have more freedom.

After more cutscenes you are dropped into the world and instantly expected to know where to go, what to do and how to do it. Even worse is that after you’re dropped into the world and after each time that you interact with anyone it takes a full minute before everyone else will reappear, including NPC’s!

It’s games like this that make you appreciate the value of quest indicators which are completely missing from this. There is no direction (that I’ve seen), no tutorial, and the games interface is slow as hell.

I’m honestly shocked at how bad it is but in retrospect it is, perhaps, a good thing considering I have little time in my life for another MMO. Thank you Square-Enix for letting me see the game for the shit it is before I laid down actual money for it (and got myself in trouble for doing so).

PS I neglected to mention the biggest mistake of all – putting Australian players on European servers!

For two players with 2 Move navigation controllers, I believe the price is far above Kinect. Even though Move has far . . . → Read More: The Console Wars Rage On]]> Ars Technica posted an opinion piece today stating that Sony’s Playstation Move is better than Microsoft’s Kinect (link) which in itself wasn’t exactly eye-opening. What was interesting was the third comment, posted by ArcaneAmoeba:

For two players with 2 Move navigation controllers, I believe the price is far above Kinect. Even though Move has far better launch titles than Kinect does, it’s not enough to make me even consider buying a PS3 yet. Since I already own an Xbox I really hope there’s gonna be some good titles that would make it worth buying. Casual games aren’t gonna cut it. The technology is great, but the games are terrible.

Seriously? I mean, how long have both consoles been out? Doesn’t he think that if there’s been nothing to make him purchase one after all this time that there probably never will be? I am simply astounded at the guys line of thought that there still might be, after all this time, a chance something would come out on PS3 only which would tip the scales and convince him to buy a PS3.

Incredible!