I finally beat Mass Effect 2. It took me around 34 hours counting the Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival DLC. ME2 is definitely a bridge between the first and third games. (Spoilers ahead). The story is essentially: You were dead but back alive and working for the company that funded your revival, you have to build your team, and go on the final mission. The bulk of gameplay comes directly from the missions to get those members and then the missions to make them loyal to you. If you get them loyal, and use a little bit of thinking, you can manage to keep them all alive during the “suicide” mission like I did. Now I’m anxious for ME3 to come out so that I can welcome back the team from ME1 (makes me wonder why I built my team in ME2…) and continue their interesting stories.
Since I’m just that bored, I started a new Dragon Age Origins file. My first play through about a year ago went ~17 hours in but ended when I was simply too bored of the Human Mage gameplay. This time around I am a Dwarf Commoner starting out as a lowly casteless and hated wretch making my way in the world. Smashing stuff with two-handed weapons sounds a lot more fun than standing back and casting magic missiles over and over. If I’m lucky, I’ll find Dragon Age 2 on sale.
Unrelated, I also re-downloaded Battlefield 2142 on Origin and patched it up. Now that it has widescreen support I am much more willing to play, whereas a few years ago I stopped due to not wanting it stretched on my monitor. This was one of the few BF games where I went “competitive” and played in tournaments and ladders. I think the reason for such interest came directly from how much fun it is compared to more recent Battlefield titles. Bad Company 2 isn’t at all bad, but it’s missing something uniquely “battlefield”.
To round off a post that’s all over the place, I’ll add in that I have been fiddling around with the blog’s look (behind the scenes) trying to come up with a new look. I’m not a skilled enough web code guy to make my own, so I would have to find a theme that I like and heavily modify it which would take me dozens of hours to get right. I’m not sure if I want to stick with the expanding to fit any resolution look or go for a “down the middle” style. If you have suggestions, I’ll take them. Bottom line, what we have now isn’t bad, and it’s very functional and efficient, so I’m in no rush to change it.
When you get around to playing DA2, make sure to play a mage or warrior, and just tote Isabella around with you everywhere as the obligatory rogue in some combination with the rest of the party members. Easily the most entertaining Bioware companion since HK-47 IMO.
Whoa – BF2142 still has some active servers?
DA1 and DA2 are two ENTIRELY different games. If you get bored easily then DA2 and it’s constant rehash of the same exact map over and over and over might be tough to stomach. On the other hand DA2 has a better combat system if you like more action oriented stuff. . .if you like the strategy of the DA1 system of combat you will HATE DA2. Overall the two games barely qualify to be in the same genre, both have +’s but you can tell with DA2 that EA forced them to rush it =(
DA2 sux hard
Dragon Age 2 was a very dumbed down DA:O but I loved it for what it was not for what it followed.
I did stop playing at the end of Act 2 though but it’s on my list of 22+ unplayed/unfinished games which I am working through in earnest.
Mass Effect 2 I liked but it certainly felt a lot shorter and easier than ME1.
I’d be interested to hear Keen’s continued thoughts on Blizzard’s disgusting Diablo 3 “online only” decision and their “surprise” that people reacted badly to it. Why can’t they simply have an Offline, Solo Player Only Character AND an Online, Multiplayer Character Only and keep everyone happy including themselves.
As a victim of Assassin’s Creed 2’s DRM farce (I lost all of my early progress) I am wary.
I think BioWare has taken out my Shields too now that I’ve seen that all 8 TOR Classes get a unique Ship….Amazon currently sell it for under £35 so it might be something I’d play for a free month…
It’s funny because DA:O was one of the few games where I found mage much more rewarding than meleeing.
It’s probably because it is the best game since BG2 or IWD2 to really get down the feeling of old pen and paper DnD to me. Mage isn’t about doing damage, its about supreme battlefield tactical control. Deciding what all the enemies were going to do for them and letting your allies take care of the menial “swing the stick to break them” chores.
To each his own though.
Wow, sounds like you are doing what my wife and I are doing. We both are so burned out on MMO’s we’ve gone back to playing through Bioware games. I picked up DA:2 and yeah, its blows compared to DA:O.
Lots of maps for different areas that are the same, every cave uses the same cave map, mansions or houses are often the same house. Only difference is which doors can be opened and which ones cannot – which does make it odd looking at a map and seeing rooms you can’t go in. And the trash mobs are terrible and way too many. Both DA:O and ME:2 had the right feel, DA:2 just throws waves of spawns at you. And its waves of everything. Spiders coming down from the ceiling or undead/demons crawling out of cracks I don’t mind on occasion. But it is every encounter – pirates dropping down or just appearing after the main group is dead. It feels like ninjas are just dropping in from nowhere most of the time, and it gets pretty annoying. I will say least for me, the trash got so annoying would just go into a room, and start typing the “runscript killallhostiles” command. I liked the story, and Isabella is a riot. Least they put some effort into her. There’s some pretty funny bits in there with Varric and some of your old companions, depending on how you played your game in DA:O.
After beating DA:2, I went back to DA:O and loaded up a ton of mods, additional content, and started playing through it. About half-way through I picked up ME:2 for $15, and played through it. WOW is all I could say, it was a great game. I had not played ME:1 so I’m working through that, and then going to go through another runthrough of ME:2 making different choices. I just wish ME:2 had the toolkit/mods like DA:O had, it would be nice to see what the community of modders could do with it.
ah hell I’ll play 2142 with you
@Copptertopper: About 15 servers were full two days ago. There are easily 2-3 64/64. The expansion pack is now free for all owners in the 1.51 FINAL beta patch and they added Karkand 2142 which is a snowy version of the BF2 desert favorite, also coming to BF3. The only downside so far is that a lot of these servers are east coast or euro, so on the west coast I have 150+ ping to most.
@Caleb: The Mage was definitely about control, and good at it. I was looking for a little more pizazz.
@Brad: It’s definitely worth playing ME1. I enjoyed a lot about it that was done away with in ME2.
@Krigare: If you find a good server it’s easily 2-3 hours of non-stop fun.
As you already said, “Bottom line, what we have now isn’t bad, and it’s very functional and efficient, so I’m in no rush to change it.” The current layout works very well already. If anything, play around with new header graphics.
@Misaligned: Tyvm for the feedback. I have a new header in the works to reflect what we are playing/planning to play and will have that up either today or tomorrow.
I really enjoyed ME1 & 2, as well as DA:O. Those are the few single player games I have played to completion in the last couple years.
I’m waiting for TOR to hit, got bored with WoW, again, but I also love me some Battlefield action. I keep looking at my BFBC2 box and thinking about reloading it, but I never do. I avoided BF2142 because of all the BS EA started with the in-game billboards basing advertising based on your location and I avoided it like the plague. But I loved the demo they had for BF2142 and I played that map to death, I loved the mechanics in BF2142 with the ships, etc.
I may take a look at 2142 again, how is it? Has it improved, stayed the same, does it feel old, etc?
BF 2142… one of my favorite FPS games of all-time. Good times.
I just looked, the full version for BF2142 with the new expansion is only $4, I put it in a shopping cart, then stared at my computer screen……..I couldn’t do it, its not the money, but going back to such an old game, I’ll jus sit tight and wait for Deus Ex. Then BF3 is coming right after that which should tide me over till TOR.
Totally understandable. I will say that I was very shocked at how well the game has held up for being 5 years old. It still looks really good — not BFBC2 good, but good. From a gameplay perspective, there are elements of BF2142 that really blow BFBC2 away like the items/gear, vehicles, and maps.
I loved Titan Mode.
@Trimethicon
I did it – $5 on EA’s Origin service (which I am actually liking), and the last 2hrs of play reminds me how I lost hrs on end to this game. Gives me hope for BF3.
Keen – “…there are elements of BF2142 that really blow BFBC2 away like the items/gear, vehicles, and maps.”
I’d like to add that little feedback reticle when you score a hit as being awesome. But what I am finding really amazing is the lack of general chat, and how its not needed because the minimap and Commander give you all the necessary feedback. And keeps me from spouting obscenities when I’m drunk :/
If you mess with the website look, I’ll just create another Chrome extension to shape it the way I want. Currently I have your site with an extremely simple css setup. Willing to share the extension (or the code itself) if anyone is interested.
Regarding the look of the website: I think it looks fine. It’s easy to read, and that’s most important for me.