Zero Punctuation: Dragon Age: Origins
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Kinda offtopic, but not really, I love Dragon age for its trailers, notably the Sacred Ashes and "This is War" made from that. It's probably the best trailer that I've seen since the original WoW trailer. Then again I am a sucker for fantasy+RPG.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2903GwmMEA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmYfRt-hGpI
That's them if you haven't seen them.
Also, I don't think he was really complaining about the length, just giving it a mention, personally I think every game should strive to reach 60+ hours. Considering I pay 109 bucks for most console games, and 100 bucks for PC games I think I deserve that kind of playability. Anyway, back to Assassin's Creed 2 for me..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2903GwmMEA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmYfRt-hGpI
That's them if you haven't seen them.
Also, I don't think he was really complaining about the length, just giving it a mention, personally I think every game should strive to reach 60+ hours. Considering I pay 109 bucks for most console games, and 100 bucks for PC games I think I deserve that kind of playability. Anyway, back to Assassin's Creed 2 for me..
On that note, I wonder what we'll get next week. Assassin's Creed 2 only came out today for Aussies, so I guess that's a possibility, personally I think he'll do MW2 next week. Which will be hilarious for me.Tanfastic said:
He still hasn't done Borderlands though, I'd love for that to get ripped apart.
Yahtzee always points out the flaws of a game. But like he said before, its the immersion of a game that always makes up for its shortcomings.
The "stop credits so I could berate the Stonking Great Game Contest winner" thing was hilarious.
But something struck me during the review: load up on quests, do all of them at once, go to dungeon, kill monsters, steal their stuff, turn in quests, rinse and repeat, that sounds remarkably like World of Warcraft, doesn't it?
But something struck me during the review: load up on quests, do all of them at once, go to dungeon, kill monsters, steal their stuff, turn in quests, rinse and repeat, that sounds remarkably like World of Warcraft, doesn't it?
Fantastic TV Burb reference.Catkid906 said:
OT: I could see this coming, obviously because the game had mountains of hype and I'm betting that people who bought probably have only just gotten through their first play through.
But the "Review" for the winners of the contest.
Seemed a bit half-arsed and not really worth the time it took to make them, much like some of the games that were put into the running, but the "reward" seems heavily overshadowed by the effort put in to make the games.
(Which would be the right way round, if and only if this were an after school special.)
Having actually beaten the game, I can say that its good in the way psychonauts was described as good. Simply recalling the adventures I had makes me think the game is incredible and actually fighting in those battles was hectic and exciting.
The mage origin story is, in my opinion, a lot better than the others. The game is punishes you for not being a magic fanboy...also making a warrior use taunt so that everything in the zone attacks him then making him invulnerable with a mage is too op.
The mage origin story is, in my opinion, a lot better than the others. The game is punishes you for not being a magic fanboy...also making a warrior use taunt so that everything in the zone attacks him then making him invulnerable with a mage is too op.
I love Dragon age to death. Got it midnight the moment it came out and I am still playing. Beaten it twice, gotten three different endings so far, Sadly the fact that I own every bioware game made so far except for that Sonic one and anything made before Baldurs Gate gets all my opinions pushed aside for being a bioware fanboy. I am sadly. Still I found Yahtzee's Dragon age review funny as usual but incredibly lacking. I want his opinion on the characters, Endings, tacticts system, what he thought of how warped those so called "stereotypes", and what he thought about the voice acting and dialogue. Sadly he hasn't finished the game so I guess I can't complain to much It's long, time consuming, and deep as hell. So Yahtzee I implore you to do a review that goes deeper into the game in Extra punctuation or even that little site you have for yourself. If you don't I guess I'll just live wondering what could have been.
Sounds very much like the Oblivion NPC interaction system.
"Hello Nord" "Hail there Nord" "YOU ARE A NORD!"
This game does sound like something I dearly wish to invest in, but I have had a recent dry spell of games for the past month or two and it doesn't seem like the ends in sight. If Yahtzee likes it as much as his implications convey I may just have to ninja myself a copy. Que Mission Impossible music!
The generic Tolkien set lore that dictates nearly all fantasy literature needs some revamping, not because it's bad, but because redefining the standard accepted basis for fantasy lore if done well opens a whole new realm of possibility for literature, games, etc... In essence we need a second Tolkien. A new innovator of the genre.
"Hello Nord" "Hail there Nord" "YOU ARE A NORD!"
This game does sound like something I dearly wish to invest in, but I have had a recent dry spell of games for the past month or two and it doesn't seem like the ends in sight. If Yahtzee likes it as much as his implications convey I may just have to ninja myself a copy. Que Mission Impossible music!
The generic Tolkien set lore that dictates nearly all fantasy literature needs some revamping, not because it's bad, but because redefining the standard accepted basis for fantasy lore if done well opens a whole new realm of possibility for literature, games, etc... In essence we need a second Tolkien. A new innovator of the genre.
I honestly don't know what to do about this game now. It's had good and bad reviews (admittedly mostly good or excellent), and yet most if not all of them consider it to be very similar to ME. The only thing that puts me off DA:O is that, that it is remotely similar to ME.
I hated ME with a vengeance and thought it was complete shit, so i'm unsure of what to do...
On a lighter note, thoroughly enjoyed the review and congrats to the game contest winner
I hated ME with a vengeance and thought it was complete shit, so i'm unsure of what to do...
On a lighter note, thoroughly enjoyed the review and congrats to the game contest winner
Cyanide are making an RPG and an RTS, which seems a bit ambitious for a company whose only claim to fame are the BLOOD BOWL games (as fun as those are). BioWare said they loved AGoT and were 'inspired' by it in making DRAGON AGE, to the point of having some references to it (like the knights being addressed as 'Ser'). However, they weren't going to pony up the money for it since they decided after KotOR not to do licenses any more (unless offered tons of money by LucasArts to do an MMORPG, apparently).
Similarly, the lead designer of COMPANY OF HEROES said he loved the books as well and would be 'interested' in doing them as a game, the prospect of which (Relic doing a GoT game) got a lot of people excited until it turned out to just be an idle thought and Relic/THQ weren't going to spend money on the licence. Then it went to Cyanide and that was the end of that.
What made giving out the license a bad idea was that literally days later HBO bought the TV rights to A GAME OF THRONES. They just finished filming the pilot episode today. If it goes to series and becomes a big hit on HBO like TRUE BLOOD, then someone like BioWare or Relic would have been fifty times more likely to pick up the game rights, which of course can't now happen.
In the meantime though, there is an early release for a mod based on MEDIEVAL II: TOTAL WAR available:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=256115
What books published in the last 10-15 years have you been reading?
No-one in their right mind does elves and dwarves any more in fantasy literature, apart from those who started out with them and are continuing to write the same series (Brooks and Feist, basically).Let's see, we have George RR Martin as mentioned above. Very few non-human races and low magic, much more heavily based by real history. Joe Abercrombie's FIRST LAW TRILOGY and its sequel, BEST SERVED COLD, are in a similar vein, as is Patrick Rothfuss' NAME OF THE WIND and Scott Lynch's LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA series.
If you want to go in the opposite direction you have Steven Erikson's MALAZAN series, with absolutely tons of non-human races and insane levels of magic. No elves or dwarves but races like the T'lan Imass, a race of undead neanderthals who committed racial suicide and then came back in a magic ritual to pursue their ancestral enemies (who had made themselves immortal to escape them) through time.
Then you have R. Scott Bakker whose PRINCE OF NOTHING trilogy is halfway between the two. Based on real history, few non-human races (although one of those is elf-like, but the other one is a bunch of rapist space aliens and their genetically-engineered slave race) and very few magic-users, but those who do exist are very badass and can level cities.
For something a bit more out there you have China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels, beginning with PERDIDO STREET STATION. Much more technologically advanced, mixing steampunk and trains with some more traditional fantasy ideas. Lots of nonhuman races but they're more offbeat, such as a race of clockwork robots and sentient cactus-men.
Compare this review to reviews of games Yahtzee hates. You will find that this review is glowing.Vault boy Eddie said:
Yahtzee hasn't given a game a strong pat on the back since Portal, and admits (Bioshock review) that being mean = more viewers. So yeah, glowing review. Also, fantastic game... if you love fantasy.