Divinity 2 - Dragon Age what?

Ok...my title is QUITE bold, but hear me out.

Unequivocally... I truly LOVE Divinity 2 ...way more than Dragon Age.

There I said it. It is done. Fanboys and Girls may stop here...or read on...

There is no gut wrenching story of love, hate, loss, or even pushy politics (though you DO create some of your own). There is just one goal in Divinity 2. Fun RPG goodness wrapped up into a button smashing, stats controlling, gear swapping, sandbox open world of fun.

Now, do not get me wrong. You have a goal. Think of it like Oblivion in the respect that you have one central story to complete, but you do not have a linear path there, and you do not have a time basis to complete it in (my over 30 hours of addiction can relate to that).
You complete various bits and pieces in the game world as you reach it. You find a dungeon, go in, and do it. You run around the world and activate NPC's as you get near them, then you can complete their quest at that time, or go do another dungeon or etc, etc. It ends up being various random events strung along in the large world map that you get to play in as you get there.

Again, the events are things that can be triggered by a central quest, or just happens as you move through the world. But, once you are done, eventually you can finish a piece of the world, and complete the stories for that zone...then you move on.

Basically, I could twist this around all day, and try to explain it. But, I won't. The underlying theme to me as I did each of these quests or activated NPC's or turned in quests and moved on; these things made one purpose clear...

I wanted to keep going.

What would they hit me with next? Like a good novel, if I wanted to continue reading instead of turning out the light and going to bed, there was a winning formula within those pages. Within this code (that is somewhat large) is a slew of little issues and bugs that would pop up, that most likely would make me quit out, and not boot it back up....if the game sucked. It did not. It does not, as I am STILL playing, and can see the potential for more here.

Ok, ok...this is not your normal review. I could sit here and tell you the in's and out's of gameplay. I could describe features like total control of your stats as you level. You are classless, thus you make your own class, which with my hybrid of Mage, Ranger and Warrior as the example, is so much cooler than the standards of most RPG's or MMO's.
I could go on about the fact that the game is NOT easy (though it may seem so at first), as the mobs become more prevalent and plentiful. More powerful as well. Or that finding the areas you need to go to (thanks to no "leading by the hand" mapping) can prove to be a pain, yet also a delight as you discover new little areas.
I could discuss the interweaving of humor, story, interesting plot twists (wait, I am a Dragon Slayer, yet I have the spirit of a Dragon within me?) or the fact that I take the story at my pace. I can investigate all the little nooks and crannies to find more goodies (OMG...now, how am I suppose to get that key they hid up on that shelf? And why is it that I have found 6 chests within this one zone that do not have keys handy...is there a secret to opening them?)...

Nope, I won't ...for now. BUT...I will leave you with this little video that pretty much gives you an idea of how much fun the developers were having with this game.



Cheers...oh, and I am off...to PLAY some more.

Divinity 2 - Media Blowout

Well, I finally pulled my head up from my screen to take a moment to give you all a post.

As you know, I got a bit lucky and got my copy of Divinity 2 early. Well, thanks to a slower week at work, and some days off, I have been pummeling that disc and playing the hell out of this title.

I am truly addicted.

Anyways, I want to write a bit more on this, and what makes this game work for me as a fun RPG and the type of game I have been wanting since Witcher almost 2 years ago... from my perspective. But, for now, how about some pics and videos instead.

First up, a page of Screenshots over at Xfire. There is no in game screenshot function..but, thanks to Xfires tools, I was able to grab some for you. Hope you enjoy the gallery.

Divinity 2 Gallery

I have posted several videos there also. I just started using Xfire for this purpose, and had forgotten to load the sound interface...so, a few are quiet. But, here is an example of one video that quickly shows an idea of how the "puzzles" work in the game. The lead up to this is one hallway in the dungeon I was in was blocked, so I had to go another way. I reach the end of this hall, and find the following puzzle.



Cool.

Here is another quick combat video. This shows the quick pause and target system, along with my hybrid make up of Ranger, Wizard and Melee.



Hopefully I will have more to show you soon. There is a LOT in this game that we are not even scratching, from your own tower (think of it like housing), basic crafting, demon making and more.

Cheers and Happy 2010!

Divinity 2 - Happiness is...

No "Kill 10 x" quests.

That is right. Not a SINGLE one. And to top it off, I really enjoyed that the game calculated how many of a certain mob it wanted dead in the background, and only told you when the quest was done. I had many quests stating things like "This mob is terrorizing the town, put an end to it...", yet, I never knew how many I needed to kill before the quest was complete...

It has been about 20+ hours so far into the game, and all I can say is...

THANK YOU

Stay tuned for a little report...coming soon.

Their mistake - Divinity 2

So, this weekend, my mail ran rather late on Saturday. I decided to wait and check the box on Sunday morning. To my surprise, my pre-order of Divinity 2 was there.

I know this title hit gold quite a few weeks ago, and  was slated for delivery on January 5th, but it looks like my distributor (who I will not name, to eliminate any issues here) screwed up and sent it too early.

I plan to not argue about it, as I loaded this bad boy up. My Sunday was a major win.

My thoughts about the game still hold, and I hope to get a little more in depth after I get further in the game.

With hints of Oblivion, Witcher, Fable 2, Diablo...I have so much to like here. The game is NOT without issues, but the issues are far outweighed by a great bit of storytelling, awesome voice overs and action like crazy.

Like I said, more as it happens.

Hope everyone had a great weekend also. Now, back to work for me.

Cheers

What is this? Two posts?

And in one day?

ARGH...the insanity.

Anyways, first a heartfelt thanks to everyone with their grats on the game to play. I really feel invigorated again.

Also, as you may notice...here I go again, with the redux of the website. So, be prepared for the changes as they happen. Longasc, in my previous post, commented that maybe I need to kill my single game focus...and he is right. My best stuff was when I was looking at gaming in general, and I really enjoyed the commentary and of course...the comment-ary (uh, you know...people's comments?...lol).

Anyways, another thing lately is my playing focus for games has been with the family. Thanks to all of us having the same likes in regards to RPG's, Renaissance periods, and Fantasy overall...I am looking to focus on how everyone in the family is about the games we play.

We have added my son as an avid gamer, and he is doing an excellent job. The fact our 11 year old RAIDED in Age of Conan should give a clue on how well he is doing.

So, from time to time, I may actually talk to them about adventures we do within games, to get their point of view instead of mine and blog about that.

Should be fun.

This takes me back to the subtitle of my blog. The "Simple and Complex" part will always stand...as that is what it is all about. Gaming can be as simple or as complex as life can be, so this works.

For now, my subtitle is in between the RPG. It seems to fit where I am in the genre (single player and MMO games...in between a rock and a hard place maybe?) and makes me think of discussing the games more so than "scratching the surface". There seems to be more to playing games now that brings about emotion and feeling toward the genres.

Anyways, thanks to everyone who reads my ramblings. You know, I think I need to bring back my RSS feed and stuff. Lets see how that goes. Also, working on a header image. Should be fun to break into the Photoshop skillz again...hehe.

Cheers

Vacation time again

Well, I will be out of town starting Sunday afternoon for several days. Gametime will be at a minimum, and posting any goodies, probably not happening.

But, who knows. I do have some good pics of my various raids and dungeons and may do a screenshot diary....those are fun and easy...and look good.

I am gaming like a monster though. I started a new character in AoC (and still enjoy Tortage, especially if you have done it, leveling goes fast) and it rocks. A Herald of Xotli, who has the capability to breath fire, and uses a two hand sword. The class may be weak armor wise, but death comes swiftly to those who fight me. As an added bonus, this class happens to be a massive fatality hog. I have maybe done 4 times as many fatalities as my other melee based classes I have tried.

As to Amatheon, he is on retainer waiting for another raid. But, after my last attempt Friday evening, I am not sure if I want to go that route for endgame. I know it may be the only way to get tiered armor, but fun is not how I would describe the raid. As long as I am not in tiered armor, I get to be the "Fight the adds" kinda of raider.

I stand back a lot and watch for extra mobs attacking. Hooray.

I need to investigate if any dungeons offer a tier to do, as I much prefer the smaller groups to the 24 mass zergs.

Finally, I fixed another DX10 issue for AoC in Windows 7 . I have been sharing my reports with Funcom, and they actually rewarded me with 2 weeks free game time. How awesome is that? I am thinking of changing my tagline (to make sure to honor the tech support...but, I am still out on the development team).

As to that development team hate, there are rumors that the next patch could take a while to release. This does not bode well for customer retention. But, Craig has Twittered that this may not be the case, but has no clear release schedule for Patch 1.05.

Discussion is that players would be happy if it releases by the beginning of July. I agree with that sentiment. If the patch hits by the first week of July, I think that would be great. Any later, and people are going to start saying goodbye, as they continue to max characters...very quickly.

Anyways, this week I also got my copy of Prototype. With similarities to Crackdown, and the open world Spider Man games, I am having a blast. This is a perfect single player "Hop in and play" sandbox style of game. It was available for the xbox 360, but I found the PC version for over 25 bucks less...wow.

Graphics are not awesome, but has some cool moments (standing on skyscrapers and looking over Central Park is pretty cool), and at first the story seems blah, but the underlying conspiracy is starting to get interesting. The upgrades system is awesome to play with to see what powers you can get, and the unlock missions as you accomplish things is a cool mechanic. Mini games galore also work in the games favor, that you can just jump in, get some upgrade points for doing quickies, and get out.

I like it a lot.

Finally, I am goofing off again with a demo for a game called Drakensang...a single player RPG, that may be fun for myself and the wife to play. It is stat heavy with a lot of babysitting, which we like to do in RPG's, and the place where I got Prototype has it on sale now.

If you are missing some Final Fantasy turn based gaming fun, maybe look at this. It is like Neverwinter Nights, but I think it has better graphics and controls...and more ways to upgrade.

Ok...well, I am chatted out here. This will be my last post until I return. But, Twitter may get some love still, and I need to get back to the games.

Have a good week folks.

Age of Conan - Social clothing preview

As I had mentioned in my previous post, I have ran into some of the changes that are to be taking place through some random sites.

Today, I have a quick show of some of the ideas behind the social clothing (I have no news on an Appearance Tab, but, the clothing is great for those who heavy RP in town).
The developers are opening up ALL lower end clothing (cloth) to be available to all classes, thus we get access to some of these types of looks..

Click any image to enlarge to get a close up detail of the clothing models.

Enjoy

SUWT and the gang wear their bunny ears

It seems we disappointed a blogger out there in regards to how we handled our recent podcast on the issues of the "Bunny Ear" debacle in WoW.

What started as a statement by Tobold, became a disagreement on Raph Koster's website.

We took it upon ourselves to discuss how we felt about avatars on SUWT this past weekend, and it may even have come off that we thought it had something to do with maturity..at least this is what Anjin at Bullet Points wrote..

"Dismissing points of view as immature because they differ from yours is counterproductive and potentially dangerous."

First, I do wish to state, that as bloggers, podcasters, gamers...this is what we do all the time anyways. Have different viewpoints. I do not believe we pushed off those beliefs as immature. But, maybe as we have aged and played these games, we have moved beyond these feelings of the avatar being more than a playing piece. We just may not have the time to delve into it (at least I do not anymore...).

I had stated how I wished we could get beyond "stereotypes" though and just play the game for the game. Maybe we RP sometimes, and want more from those characters..but we cannot expect the developers to want the same.

Before MMO's, were we ever worried in our single player games what our character did or looked like or was represented? Stereotypes were quite rampant at those times, and as we have progressed in our world, so have the games.

But, here we are with Blizzard offering an achievement that may "objectify" women (if they feel this is what it does to them. My wife for example finds it "awesome" and wants a pair)..thus, should the game be allowed to even do this.

We can go back to my previous post about support though and see it in writing on the wall, plain as day "Warranty is implied as such..."

You as a player give up all rights to those avatars as soon as you log into that game. The warranty states as much. Blizzard is allowed to do what they wish, whenever they wish.

If they wish to objectify women? They do not care. Cut off Gay and Lesbians from advertising their guilds? GONE!...

Stereotypes are rampant in the MMO world. Look at Age of Conan as a fine example. (but I digress, there are ugly people in that game as well as beautiful people..). But guess what? Our rights are thrown out the window upon the first step into that world.

This is what it boils down to. No matter how much we want the avatar to mean something more, the developers stop that all from happening due to THEIR control, their DICTATORSHIP of these games.

Heck we can't even get good support, yet we are worried our avatars are being treated unfairly? Gee, our human selves are being treated worse.

In all honesty, I wish it was a place that we had more control of...but we do not. We pay to access those game servers, and the developer controls the rest of that world. No shouting or screaming will fix it either (well, maybe...like in my case with the support issues in Conan).

But, let me say this. Do we not play these games to enter another reality, to leave our real world behind? Should we be dragging real world rules into those games? Should we be jailed every time we kill those small creatures of those worlds? Every time we use "herbs" should we be under suspicion from the guards?

Just some food for thought...

Dinner, a Demo and Delights

Well, after the final recovery, the weekend comes to an end. I enjoyed a wonderful Dinner for my Birthday Friday night, with a reservation at a place called "The Flying Frog Cafe"
With an eclectic mix of Indian, German and Southern cuisine, it was a delight.
But, the main reason we go? One food stands out..

Kangaroo!

Yummy. And it taste like...FILET MIGNON...(bet you thought it was chicken)..

I usually do a set of tastes, with the Kangaroo. I also accompanied this with an Indian Curry and a Lamb Chop.
Yum.
The wife had a German platter, and has learned she loves German, especially something called a Pojarski sauce, a mix of paprika, heavy cream and Cognac...excellent.

For my present I got a wonderful series from a while back, called Hamish Macbeth, when BBC America first launched. The best part is an actor by the name of Robert Carlyle. Search out some major stuff from this guy. He is most famous though for Trainspotting and Angela's Ashes. Also, note, this series is pure Scottish, and I tell ya what, having a clear DVD copy (originals were on VHS), I can actually understand it...well, most of it...hehe.

Another treat this weekend was the release of a new RPG single player Demo for a game called Drakensang.
If you have plated NWN, NWN2 or Baldurs Gate (the originals), then you are in for a treat. With great visuals, faster combat, more specs and attributes than you can shake a stick at, this game delivers.
You can tell how much the game will involve, and for a demo, you get a good chunk to play around with to start.
I like the fact the controls are MMO oriented for movement, which means...yes, the 360 controller rocks. Another aspect for me is proper font sizing, where the 42" LCD Hi-Def TV is usable in the living room...in so many words, I can sit back on the couch and play.
This is a german release, and as I have found out with Witcher and AoC, any games developed overseas seem to have some sensibilites I enjoy.

Finally for the weekend, and for the Birthday, I got some other special treats. Silent Hill and DeadSpace.
We are horror fanatics, and it showed, when we sat down for 5 hours straight and played Silent Hill to start.
I will post more on those games later.

For now, hope everyone else had a good time, and now back to looking at what everyone else is discussing...

Cheers

Fable 2 - Awesome game...but GOTY?``

Huh?

How did THIS happen?



I am very surprised. I really love this game, but I also believe it had some quirks that would have taken it out of the running.

The nominees were

-FABLE 2
-FALLOUT 3
-GEARS OF WAR 2
-GRAND THEFT AUTO IV
-LEFT 4 DEAD
-METAL GEAR SOLID 4:
GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS
-RESISTANCE 2

There are some good titles here as well. Weird...

But, hey, I am all for this, with the hope of more DLC's and development..

BTW, on Fable 2 DLC's, seems tomorrow's was pushed back 10 days....DAMN!

RPG of the YEAR?

This list is mildly shocking. Take a gander. This is posted every year at Voodoo Extreme.
Last year it was the Witcher if I am not mistaken...
This year is pretty easy for the winner. What I wish to share is the #2 here, THAT is the shock..

Who woulda thunk it?

RPG of the Year?

Fallout 3 - 2116

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures - 1779

Mass Effect (PC) - 886

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - 874

The Witcher Enhanced Edition - 664

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning - 302

Fable II - 293

(Now waits for the fevered explanations of those who are also flabbergasted and why this happened....)

The Witcher - And now EVERYONE can play

The big news today, and still has me all giddy inside, has been revealed.

The Witcher is now coming to the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Following the same format as they did for the Enhanced Edition, the developers are taking the original story, enhancing the gameplay, adding new controller mechanics (including Sixaxxis), new models, new creatures and new NPC's....aw hell, even a new enhanced engine and basically will follow the original quest lines and develop it specifically for the consoles.

Not much other info is available, but basically this is major. One of the best RPG's of the last year, with a storyline that allows for alternating decisions that are not felt until later,with no decision being good OR evil, this game will rock. I am already looking at following the alternate storylines in my head...lol.

As more news comes forth, I will post. There is no doubt that this will be a must buy for 2009. What a great way to make a game also. Use what you have, fix it, enhance it, upgrade it, make it a killer title for consoles.

Did I mention EXCITEMENT...

Lost Odyssey - And we're BACK!

Starting Saturday, the family sat down in the living room and played several hours of Lost Odyssey.
The game had been put on the back burner when I signed back up for AoC with the wife and then Fable 2 hit shelves and took priority.
But, I loaded it back up, and we sat back and watched the game take place.

It is interesting in that the wife enjoys the strategies, and we work out ways to approach the fights, which seems to be more complex than Final Fantasy (we have died many a time so far).
The son loves that the game looks cool, and he enjoys the anime based heroes.

It is also like watching a movie at times, so overall it is a good "family on the couch" game with popcorn and snacks for a couple of hours.

A great game, and should be interesting to see how the story proceeds.

Fable 2 - And what will tomorrow be like????

Via Gamebanshee for OXM magazine

The very first review of Lionhead Studios' Fable II is an exclusive for The Official Xbox Magazine.

Fable II really is everything Molyneux promised the first time around. It's funny, deep, emotional epic, and, yes, wildly charming. We're already eager for a second playthrough, and we're betting a lot of you will have exactly the same reaction.

9.5/10

Eurogamer

Fable II will charm you, thrill you, and leave you very, very happy. 10/10

Snappy Gamer

If you own a 360, you simply must own Fable II.
Rating:


Disappointing eh?

WHO AM I KIDDING...

OMG!