What are you playing?

[Captain Russ]

The on foot stuff in first person mode is crazy good. I'll upload a clip tonight that I took last night that started with me rolling up to a street corner in first person mode, flicking a guy off, and then for whatever reason the guy started a gangwar with the cops. I just ran around like I was a wartime reporter. It was great.

There are worse ways to roleplay Frank West.

Also, GTA's driving has always been clunky, if not due to the controls, the camera would be in that no man's land of being fixed at the worst possible angle.

Ironic, when that's your main mode of travel that it is still hot sexy garbage after all these years.

[Abraham Smashington]

Inquisition - man. Im over 10 hours into this.. Still in the very first spot on the map, the hinterlands. It's gorgeous, huge, I want to keep wandering around just looking at the environments. Havent even explored the entire zone yet after all this time and the areas i have are still littered with countless things to do and collect. No exaggeration, countless things. I could probably spend another 10 hours in this area before its done. I've already unlocked 2 other zones from doing missions at the wartable and have so much to do that i havent looked at them yet. These zones are 3 little markers on a big world map that keeps getting more and more markers added. Theres a SECOND MAP. There's other classes to try, differet races to roll, different story-changing decisions to make, multiplayer, lewts, characters to sex.

Few games can offer this kind of value per dollar ratio. Sorry FarCry, you were pretty fun the other night but I probably won't see you until the new year

Now here's the million dollar question. I didn't like the first one. I heard nothing but bad things from the second. Would I enjoy this?

Keep in mind I LOVED Mass Effect but I'm usually luke warm with fantasy games. The gameplay footage I saw looked awesome and I have some credit at gamestop that's burning a hole in my pocket.

[Abraham Smashington]

Put in some more time with Lego Bats 3 last night. Really fucking digging this but it's not sucking me in like Marvel Lego if only due to the fact I'm not well versed on DC characters as much as I am with Marvel.

Just make it past the first 2-3 levels or so. Once you make it to space it's legit.

[Abraham Smashington]

Played some GTA Online last night. I hope some of you guys with the PS4 version can get online because I hate playing with randoms. I need some drunken fun with you guys.

[Trejo]

Now here's the million dollar question. I didn't like the first one. I heard nothing but bad things from the second. Would I enjoy this?

Keep in mind I LOVED Mass Effect but I'm usually luke warm with fantasy games. The gameplay footage I saw looked awesome and I have some credit at gamestop that's burning a hole in my pocket.

That's a tough one. I loved the first DA so I guess it would depend on why you didn't like it. Just because it's a fantasy game? The combat system? The party management? The general gameplay? Racist against elves?

The second DA was terrible. The less said about it the better, however a lot of the story I've experienced so far relates to #2 and things that happened in it, so you might be a bit clueless on some of the references. I think that Dragon Age Keep lets you see/make all the major story decisions that happened in the prior games instead of importing a save file, so that might get you up to speed on what happened, haven't checked it out though.

If you don't like Fantasy stuff in general it's going to be an uphill battle. So far it's very much more of the "damn you, templars you are all evil" "no no it's the mages that are evil, they dont follow this particular god" "fuck you, youre an elf and i dont like you" and this king, that faction, this race, that god.

I guess Mass Effect is an easy gameplay comparison, but it's definitely not ME with swords and dwarves as you may remember. Combat system much deeper, you can still set your party members with specific rules like, use a health potion if you fall below 50% health or protect this specific character. I'm lazy so I've been doing all the fights in real time rather than using the pause system and manually telling each character what action to take, but I'm playing on Easy so it's a bit more forgiving to play that way. They took out healing spells so you do need to manage your health potions, but you get free refills from camp or can craft them.

I found in Mass Effect you generally would land on a planet, follow corridors from A to B and do some minor side-tracking for hidden things on the way then go back to space and rinse/repeat (and i LOVE ME). In Inquisition I didn't even finish the first story mission after the prologue until over 4 hours in because I was too distracted exploring, and constantly stumbling onto new sidequests and collectibles, trying to find certain supplies to upgrade my potions or army supplies for the inquisition. I love that shit. I need that shit all day.

They also added a system similar to what Assassin's Creed Black Flag had where you can send your advisors on timed or resource based missions to unlock new areas or get more allies/resources etc so if you liked it in that game, there's more of it here.

Did you like stuff on the ship in ME where you would go and chat to all your crew members after every mission, hear all their new stories, try to win/lose their favor with dialogue options, try to sex them up? There's a LOT of that kind of stuff.

To summarize, I have no idea. But I'm loving it.

[Trejo]

Trejo attacks with Huge Post. Critical hit. It's super effective!

[Abraham Smashington]

Shit man, that's quite the write up. Much appreciated. I guess I didn't like DA because I played it on a console and found it dumbed down compared to the amazing PC release. It was an ugly game with a story that did nothing to hook me in right away which made it harder to give a shit. At least Mass Effect hit the ground running right away plus I am racist against elves. Fuck those pointy ear cunts. Guess I may have to keep an eye on this though. I like the bit about playing for hours and not doing much story stuff. I was also a fan of the old school turn based options. I think I was just not a fan of the ugly ass game on the 360.

[Trejo]

The original was really ugly on console, totally agree, though I really dug that you could not just play a dwarf, but play a dwarf royal from an important family, or a slum dwarf from the streets, or a dwarf from above ground who doesn't fit in with the others and it would add a lot to the role playing aspect of the game. I literally rolled a character for every race and background and did their prologue until I decided which one I wanted to continue the game with. Sadly, they don't have that part of it anymore, but in dialogue they definitely reference your race or class and it affects dialogue and peoples opinion of you.

The second one was ugly, confined and constantly reused the same couple environments throughout the whole game.

I think a significant portion of the 10 hours I've played of Inquisition were spent climbing (they added jump button!) to the top of a hill and just slowly panning the camera around taking in the beautiful vistas, wildlife, distant waterfalls, sunlight glistening off a stream as it flowed, the textures on ruined castles and armor. My character (elf mage) still feels dainty and stiff but the environments are spectacular and from what I hear quite varied.

[Abraham Smashington]

NOOOOOOOO I CANNOT COME HOME WITH ANOTHER GAME LESLEY WILL MURDER MY BALLS NOOOOO

[Matt]

I still can't get fucking DA:I to launch. Same fucking issue that I had with ME: SOM, so I'm waiting for a fucking patch to get released to fix the fucking problem that's keeping me from playing the fucking game.

[Abraham Smashington]

Don't you have an Xbox One sitting in a closet?

[Matt]

On the GOOD NEWS front, though: the wife unit has given me permission to buy a new computer. I don't necessarily need one, ut I'd like a new one to be able to enjoy DA: I at its full graphics capabilities.

For that matter: what's the best gaming rig out there for around $600? It needs to be, at a minimum, a quad core processor.

[Matt]

Don't you have an Xbox One sitting in a closet?

Nope. I gave that to my brother so that he'd have a blu ray player.

[BillyG]

I still can't get fucking DA:I to launch. Same fucking issue that I had with ME: SOM, so I'm waiting for a fucking patch to get released to fix the fucking problem that's keeping me from playing the fucking game.

My roommate had same issue. He got Origin to refund him and he bought it on PS4.

[Matt]

My roommate had same issue. He got Origin to refund him and he bought it on PS4.

Except I have a physical copy of the game, and I'd need to return it to Gamestop.