What Are You Playing: 9 Years since the Last Dragon Age

[LibraryOgre]

I'm half-playing BG1EE, too, but I decided early on "I've beaten this game before, I'm not going to got too techty about things right now." So, I grabbed a party I liked (My Paladin, Khalid, Jaheira, Coran, Yeslick, and Imoen) and am just powering along. Not bothering with the EE characters; Neera annoys me conceptually (she should have been a Sorcerer, given her background of "no one knows why we're like this"), Dorn's quest is annoying, and I'm too good to keep him, and I just don't like monks... they're a character class that has never quite gelled for me. I'm in Durlag's Tower and it remains frickin horrible, but I really want the book on the lower levels so....

I've never gone into Siege of Dragonspear, so that's next. But it's also a "what do I feel like" game, so it might get sidelined for BG3, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, Surviving Mars, or anything else that I want to use to kill time.

[Cygnia]

Just started Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition.

[GloatingSwine]

I will point out if you've only played the Enhanced Edition you've not had the full potential lethality of Baldur's Gate 1. And I say this because EE prevents you from softlocking yourself.

In the original edition you could end up with a 1 HP character. Which makes it impossible to survive Gorion's death.

I'm not sure you could. You always got max HP at level 1 and the minimum CON score for mage was 3, which would give you a 2HP character at level 1. P. sure Gorion always heals you before you set off as well.

[Batcathat]

I'm not sure you could. You always got max HP at level 1 and the minimum CON score for mage was 3, which would give you a 2HP character at level 1. P. sure Gorion always heals you before you set off as well.

That reminds me of the EE change I find the most amusing. Apparently enough people were bothered by the fact that a mage like Gorion could heal you so instead some guy (I don't remember whether it's one of the established Candlekeep people or just some random dude) shows up, heals you and leaves without a word.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

That reminds me of the EE change I find the most amusing. Apparently enough people were bothered by the fact that a mage like Gorion could heal you so instead some guy (I don't remember whether it's one of the established Candlekeep people or just some random dude) shows up, heals you and leaves without a word.

That's pretty funny that they decided on that solution rather than having him pull out a wand.

[Batcathat]

That's pretty funny that they decided on that solution rather than having him pull out a wand.

I don't think the game has any animations for using wands (or scrolls, now that I think about it), so they would have to go with some awkward exposition. "If we ever get separated, make your way to the Friendly Arm Inn. Oh, and let me use my wand to heal you."

Granted, it's not like the solution they did go with is any less clunky.

[Anonymouswizard]

That reminds me of the EE change I find the most amusing. Apparently enough people were bothered by the fact that a mage like Gorion could heal you so instead some guy (I don't remember whether it's one of the established Candlekeep people or just some random dude) shows up, heals you and leaves without a word.

I always just assumed that he was a dual class. Okay, multi-class back when I played the original version, because I didn't know how 2e worked and basically never made a human, but I did just assume he was a Mage/Cleric.

I don't know if people dug into the files and confirmed he's single-class, but he's around for like two minutes and you're not meant to fight him. I'd cut them some slack on the class levels for a guy who's only supposed to cast in cutscenes.


My bigger gripe is that I get the impression that Gorion adventured with Khalid and Jaheira, but is like 6-8 levels higher than them. I'm guessing books really do give extensive XP.

[Triaxx]

I mean I'm happy to reinstall the game but I remember it happening to me

[Mechalich]

My bigger gripe is that I get the impression that Gorion adventured with Khalid and Jaheira, but is like 6-8 levels higher than them. I'm guessing books really do give extensive XP.

Gorion was a Harper as a younger man - Fierkrag reveals this in BGII. He probably adventured alongside Khalid and Jaheira much later in life, serving explicitly as their mentor as they were introduced to the Harpers. 2e AD&D XP methods were considerably more flexible regarding vast level differences, so this kind of arrangement wasn't uncommon.

[Zevox]

Spider-Man 2 came out yesterday. I was too busy with work and my D&D group to play yesterday, but spent a lot of time with it today. And it's certainly damn good at this point.

For the most part, if you've played Spider-Man 2018 or Miles Morales, you know how this game feels already - which is a very good thing, since those games did such a great job with making the heroes fun to control. Swinging around the city and combat both still feel great, and I've spent a fair amount of my time just doing that as a result already. Fortunately, you do start this one with most of the abilities you could gain in those games, and it doesn't seem to take too long the unlock the few that I noticed needing unlocking, and there's a fair few new things to pick up. Peter now gets a new array of special abilities to match Miles' electric special moves, which use some mechanical spider-legs that sprout from his back Iron Spider-style (but without the Iron Spider suit), and they both get upgrades to make those special moves better. They get some shared gizmos, such a grenade that shoots webbing at 4 four nearby enemies and then pulls all together to slam into each other, and a bunch of upgrades to those. In combat, they do feel extremely similar, with Miles probably being my preference for who to play at this point due to his electric powers and camouflage ability that Peter lacks, but I expect that'll probably change once Peter gets the Venom suit. Which is taking surprisingly long to happen, since they showed that off with the first big gameplay demonstration of the game I was expecting it to be a pretty early event, but so far I'm probably 6 hours or more into the game, and it hasn't happened yet.

Story-wise, I am engaged thus far. Definitely feels like they want to build on what they had in the prior games, with Peter dealing with the need to move on from Aunt May's death and the relationship between him and Miles being at the forefront of things so far. Thus far surprisingly little about Miles dealing with Phin's death, even though you'd think that would be affecting him at least as much as Aunt May's does Peter; instead he's dealing with his mother starting a serious relationship with a new man after his father's death, dealing with his anger at Mister Negative for killing his father, and reconnecting with his uncle. But hey, it's still early, maybe Phin will come up more later. They have a slightly surprising (to me at least) angle on this Kraven the Hunter villain though:

Spoiler

Show

seems he's hunting the villains of the city, not the Spider-Men, at least at first. He jail-breaks Scorpion and Mister Negative pretty early, but then in the same sequence where Peter discovers who Kraven is, Kraven himself kills Scorpion, remarking at his disappointment at how little challenge it was the same way he did with the guy in the first scene with him from the trailers. And his hit list seems directed at villains specifically, with the next couple on the list appearing to be Black Cat and Vulture. Definitely didn't call that one, despite all the villains that popped up on his little map in that opening scene, I'd figured he'd be more interested in the Spider-Men that routinely defeat them.

All in all, very much enjoying it thus far. It does lack some of the punch of the first one, but that's because it's not really so new of an experience this time, being a sequel and all; Miles' game had the same thing. Definitely looking forward to reaching the point where Peter gets the Venom suit though, I want to see what playing with that will feel like.

Oh, I will say, switching between Peter and Miles, as well as fast travel once you unlock it, is indeed insanely quick in this game. Like, a matter of a second or two quick. No more short scene of Peter on a subway train for a load screen like in the first game, fast travel is practically instantaneous, and switching between Spider-Men barely takes any longer.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Spoiler

Show

seems he's hunting the villains of the city, not the Spider-Men, at least at first. He jail-breaks Scorpion and Mister Negative pretty early, but then in the same sequence where Peter discovers who Kraven is, Kraven himself kills Scorpion, remarking at his disappointment at how little challenge it was the same way he did with the guy in the first scene with him from the trailers. And his hit list seems directed at villains specifically, with the next couple on the list appearing to be Black Cat and Vulture. Definitely didn't call that one, despite all the villains that popped up on his little map in that opening scene, I'd figured he'd be more interested in the Spider-Men that routinely defeat them.

Sony is or was planning a Kraven movie along the lines of Venom or Morbius, that might be why.

[warty goblin]

Back to messing around in Age of Wonders 4. I find to get the most out of it I kinda have to pick a theme and RP that, rather than go for strict optimization. Today I'm back to magic elves, who run around shooting everything with lightning, arrows, poison, and arrows that are also poison and lightning. It's so electric you'll be sick!

Anyway, by leaning in on the RP theme the game becomes a really excellent fantasy scenario generator. You get to play at city governing and watch these increasingly mystical cities spread across the map, there's basically questing and dungeon delving, and the combats always look like some really cool battle from a mass market paperback with a name like "The Fire's Tears, book 4 of the Cycle of the Elements" that came out sometime between 1995 and 2004. So pretty much 100% engineered for me, personally. I kinda wish the endgame was better, but I'm hoping the DLC next month fixes that, Seals are pretty much the best victory condition I've ever seen in a game like this.

[Zevox]

Sony is or was planning a Kraven movie along the lines of Venom or Morbius, that might be why.

That is a thing, yes, although how closely his depiction there will match his depiction here is an open question. And in any case, turns out there's probably an in-story explanation for this.

Spoiler: Spider-Man 2

Show

Kraven has a death wish. He's dying of cancer anyway, and seems to prefer to die on a hunt instead, so he's seeking prey that will be able to defeat him. They haven't said explicitly, but I imagine that made him avoid the Spider-Men initially since they tend to capture villains and turn them over to law enforcement, not kill them, whereas super-villains are much more likely to go for a kill.

Though perhaps not - Peter does get his attention upon acquiring the symbiote, despite him not (yet?) having an indication that would change how likely Peter is to kill him.

Speaking of, day 2 of the game, and I have finally gotten to the point where Peter gets the symbiote suit - definitely took much longer than I expected. And I'm mildly disappointed gameplay-wise, to be honest. It doesn't actually change your core moves at all, it changes you special ability options (you can use symbiote abilities in place of the Iron Spider-esque ones), and gives you a new super mode which does change and empower your base moves, but not for that long, and can't be used too often. So most of the time, playing symbiote suit Peter is like playing regular Peter, just with different special ability options. At least it looks cool. Can't help but wonder how they'll handle it when Peter inevitably loses the symbiote though, since you get a skill tree to power up his symbiote abilities, and that super mode is mechanically a counterpart to Miles' big electric burst super move.

On the other hand, I'm getting the hang of the new web wings and how they can contribute to your mobility, and they're a very welcome addition to that. Just mixing them in with regular web-swinging is good to begin with, get a horizontal launch at a good height and you can glide a long ways, but they really shine when you're conveniently going the same direction as one of the wind currents around the city, which can propel you so much you're basically flying for quite a distance at quite a good speed. The map might be bigger than in the previous games, but I wouldn't be surprised if that in particular means you can cover it even faster than before. It's really fun.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

That is a thing, yes, although how closely his depiction there will match his depiction here is an open question. And in any case, turns out there's probably an in-story explanation for this.

Spoiler: Spider-Man 2

Show

Kraven has a death wish. He's dying of cancer anyway, and seems to prefer to die on a hunt instead, so he's seeking prey that will be able to defeat him. They haven't said explicitly, but I imagine that made him avoid the Spider-Men initially since they tend to capture villains and turn them over to law enforcement, not kill them, whereas super-villains are much more likely to go for a kill.

Though perhaps not - Peter does get his attention upon acquiring the symbiote, despite him not (yet?) having an indication that would change how likely Peter is to kill him.

Speaking of, day 2 of the game, and I have finally gotten to the point where Peter gets the symbiote suit - definitely took much longer than I expected. And I'm mildly disappointed gameplay-wise, to be honest. It doesn't actually change your core moves at all, it changes you special ability options (you can use symbiote abilities in place of the Iron Spider-esque ones), and gives you a new super mode which does change and empower your base moves, but not for that long, and can't be used too often. So most of the time, playing symbiote suit Peter is like playing regular Peter, just with different special ability options. At least it looks cool. Can't help but wonder how they'll handle it when Peter inevitably loses the symbiote though, since you get a skill tree to power up his symbiote abilities, and that super mode is mechanically a counterpart to Miles' big electric burst super move.

On the other hand, I'm getting the hang of the new web wings and how they can contribute to your mobility, and they're a very welcome addition to that. Just mixing them in with regular web-swinging is good to begin with, get a horizontal launch at a good height and you can glide a long ways, but they really shine when you're conveniently going the same direction as one of the wind currents around the city, which can propel you so much you're basically flying for quite a distance at quite a good speed. The map might be bigger than in the previous games, but I wouldn't be surprised if that in particular means you can cover it even faster than before. It's really fun.

Spoiler: Kraven's Motivations

Show

Kraven thinks he sees enough "feral" in Symbiote Peter to draw it out of him. Also, if you die to hunters, sometimes they say "Leave the body. Take the suit." Indicating he may also see the symbiote as a cure for his cancer and want it if Peter turns out to be a dud.

Also if Peter just got the suit, he's technically not "Symbiote Peter" yet. Though I still don't think the moves change. There may be a few Finishers you get, but maybe I just hadn't seen those animations up to that point.

[warty goblin]

Well my magic elf Agoe of Wonders 4 game ended in a loss, I simply couldn't produce enough stacks of enough power to win the war. Not even turning into dragon-elf hybrids was enough, though it was very cool.

So time I'm back to another staple concept, very evil cannibal rat people. Our first order of business is researching the spell that shrinks all your dudes, because more rats in a horde means getting eaten by more rats. While researching, I met a neutral city of like-minded evil rat people. Normally I establish diplomatic ties, but that's not evil at all, so instead I declared war and conquered them. During the very brief war, we caught a spy from the enemy city, and I had the option to turn him, pardon him, or nail his corpse to the city gate. Obviously I had to do the third option. An evil utilitarian might argue that's ineffective, and delays me delivering the greatest evil to the greatest number, but I opted for a virtue anti-ethics. After all its wrong to treat people as means to evil ends, when we can treat them as their own evil ends.

I then met another AI leader, who was like "you seem kinda evil" and I responded with a threat. The game doesn't say what but I like to think it was debating with The Voices about whether it was worth peeling him to use as a hat, or just eating him, so the leader called me a "dark lord" and signed off.

Naturally this seemed like an excellent time to start researching necromancy. Eat an enemy alive and torment him for a few minutes, but forcing their tormented spirits back into their gnawed bones is forever. Long term of course, my horrible rat people face a difficult choice: do we turn into demons or the undead? Or more accurately, does my despotic nightmare ruler prefer demonic serfs or undead thralls.

[Errorname]

BG3 has got me on a bit of a CRPG kick and I'm debating starting up a Pillars of Eternity or Dragon Age character, and I was reminded of how similar the pitfalls both those settings ended up falling into were. They really feel like settings held back by the desire to do stock D&D stuff in them because that's what they think players expect

[LibraryOgre]

Been playing the original Baldur's Gate (well, EE), with two different characters.

My Cavalier is a pretty standard run. Then there's my gnome cleric-thief. And HOLY COW does the game play different as a solo cleric/thief. I pretty much run through all the different areas. Mines? I hid my way through, killing maybe 5 kobolds, before I snuck up to Mulahey and fought him. Then I used sanctuary in the Bandit tent to free the prisoner and get the letters. Walked through cloakwood, then through the mines. Fought Daveorn's guard, popped a protection from magic scroll, and beat Daveorn in melee. It was EASY until I hit the Sarevok fight.

[Batcathat]

My Cavalier is a pretty standard run. Then there's my gnome cleric-thief. And HOLY COW does the game play different as a solo cleric/thief. I pretty much run through all the different areas. Mines? I hid my way through, killing maybe 5 kobolds, before I snuck up to Mulahey and fought him. Then I used sanctuary in the Bandit tent to free the prisoner and get the letters. Walked through cloakwood, then through the mines. Fought Daveorn's guard, popped a protection from magic scroll, and beat Daveorn in melee. It was EASY until I hit the Sarevok fight.

Yeah, Baldur's Gate (and Baldur's Gate 2) is pretty fun as a solo something/thief, though personally I prefer mage/thief or fighter/thief.

I kinda suspect some designers share my preferences, considering it feels like half the NPCs in BG2 are multiclassed thieves. (Okay, so that's a wild exaggeration, but it's certainly more common than most classes. )

[ArmyOfOptimists]

Been playing the original Baldur's Gate (well, EE), with two different characters.

My Cavalier is a pretty standard run. Then there's my gnome cleric-thief. And HOLY COW does the game play different as a solo cleric/thief. I pretty much run through all the different areas. Mines? I hid my way through, killing maybe 5 kobolds, before I snuck up to Mulahey and fought him. Then I used sanctuary in the Bandit tent to free the prisoner and get the letters. Walked through cloakwood, then through the mines. Fought Daveorn's guard, popped a protection from magic scroll, and beat Daveorn in melee. It was EASY until I hit the Sarevok fight.

Yeah. Surprisingly, with the way a solo run lets you hoard experience, the game becomes much easier past the start. Once you've cleared that initial hurdle of fighting things equal level and designed for a party, the level advantage steamrolls through most of the encounters. It's almost impossible for the game to challenge a solo character that's running several levels above the expected one. It's really funny in BG2 when you can get to epic levels halfway through the game and start killing dragons in a single round.

Of course, there are still certain pitfalls. Anything that casts Imprisonment, instant death spells, or has a no-save effect can be even more frustrating to deal with than normal.

[LibraryOgre]

Yeah, Baldur's Gate (and Baldur's Gate 2) is pretty fun as a solo something/thief, though personally I prefer mage/thief or fighter/thief.

I kinda suspect some designers share my preferences, considering it feels like half the NPCs in BG2 are multiclassed thieves. (Okay, so that's a wild exaggeration, but it's certainly more common than most classes. )

I suspect that they have so many thieves based on the assumption that the PC wouldn't be a thief.

As for preferring a mage/thief, I do, too, and I really missed some of the cooler wands... the game would have been a LOT easier with a wand of fire or lightning... but cleric/thief is a fun combo.

[Cespenar]

I'm trying something called Shadow Gambit, made from the fellas that did Desperados 3 and the other commandoslikes.

It's quite enjoyable if you like the stealth tactics genre. There are some new DOTA-like abilities on account of having a fantasy setting this time, so that's fun too. Also, the writing, VAs and all that are one step above what the genre IMHO necessitates, so that's a plus.

[warty goblin]

I continue my evil rat person campaign in Age of Wonders 4. I met an evil barbarian fire sorceress, we're now allies against the despicable hordes of virtue that ring us round. I'm winning a war against some piratical crocodiles, I just need to find and destroy their last city or two, which will give me enough power to go after the real menace to evil everywhere, the revolting and just hafling Ham Binger.

The best part of this build is I've got a bunch of skills and traits that give me resources and units whenever I win a battle; money from looted corpses, food from BBQ corpses, souls from corpses for more undead, and just random dudes joining up to get in on the fun. So my enemies quite literally keep feeding my war machine, it's very convenient.

[Sapphire Guard]

So I finally finished Dragon Age Origins.

Spoiler

Show

Any sense of accomplishment is removed by the fact that I had to lower the difficulty for the archdemon. I have disgraced my name. 75 hours, to fall at the last hurdle.

I stand over my decisions, including the wrong ones. Killing Connor wasn't the best outcome, but it was rather implausible that the desire demon would just sit and do nothing while I cleared out the mage tower.

Spoiler: Landsmeet

Show

I still love Logain, and he finally got some scenes to justify it, voice actor aside. He has a very good speech in the Landsmeet, and it took several attempts to get the Landsmeet to my side (except for that one bald guy). Then we had a duel, and I tried to spare him but Alistair wouldn't go for it. Fair enough. There was a strange closeup of a random bird in the rafters that I thought would be relevant, but it never came up again.

Anora got locked in a tower, which meant she was probably slaughtered when the Darkspawn came, but may not be if they need her for sequels.

Spoiler: Endgame

Show

It was a bit strange, because the party keeps bouncing back from Redcliff to Denerrim and never notices where the Darkspawn are really going, despite having to make multiple journeys through their territory. Also, if the horde got all the way to Denerrim (a northern port) from the Korcari wilds in the south they have already crossed most of Ferelden anyway.

I turned down Morrigan's third option. She's not much of a liar, but I suspect she was holding back some important detail about her solution, and this was too important to leave to chance when we have a solution we know works. And, honestly, having the lead sacrifice themselves to stop the blight seems like the most appropriate ending anyway. Preumably there is some way to have Logain do it, but apart from that, I got the ending I wanted. Obviously Alistair couldn't be let do it, we'd just end up in another civil war, unless we crown that weaponsmith clerk who has his face and so is probably another of Maric's bastards. Losing my mainstay mage just before the final battle was a huge loss, Wynne is good but mostly a healer, and she goes through lyrium like a drunk Templar.

My 'no gifts' policy meant most of them didn't have quests, I only got Leliana's and Morrigans and didn't do either. (I did Lelianas but forgot to save after)

The battle was good, they make good use of Darkspawn grunts to make the numbers appropriate without being overwhelming. I ended up with 50 Daelish, Dwarves, Redcliff Knights and 12 mages. The Templars never showed up for some reason. Fighting my way across Deneriim was tough but compelling.

Final boss disappointing but possibly that's my incompetence. I was expecting some kind of dialogue but it just roars and attacks, just me, what's left of my armies, and some very jam prone ballistae. Seems like it could have just flown away or at least glided off the towertop out of our reach.

Interestingly, at least in the story options I chose, there was no grand plot apparent. Most of the random catastrophes we had to resolve every time we asked for help appeared to be genuine coincidences, Logain sent blood mages to Redcliff and the mage towers, but the subsequent demon invasions seemed unintended. If he was possessed by a demon or something I never saw it. The archdemon seems to have just got freakishly lucky that all the realm's defences were disabled at once. The cinematic in the menu screen opens with somebody with random glowing blue eyes, is that supposed to be (presumed human) me?

I enjoyed it overall, not very motivated to replay most of it at the moment, might try and marry Alistair and Anora just to see what happens. I imagine there is a Bioware perfect ending, but I think I probably prefer the one I got.

I will probably try DA2 again to see if I like it more now, but it might be a bit soon for another giant timesink. We'll see.

[Zevox]

I imagine there is a Bioware perfect ending, but I think I probably prefer the one I got.

There is not. There are fairly obvious best results to most of the sub-plots - most people can be saved without sacrifice if you try hard enough - but as far as the main ending, goes, what the best outcome is is debatable. Partly because we still don't know the consequences for Morrigan's ritual; there was some follow-up on that in Inquisiton, and may be more in Dreadwolf if that ever actually materializes, but for the most part, it's yet to have any impact on anything.

[Corlindale]

I've been dipping my toes into Moonring, a newly released retro-rpg by one of the Fable co-creators. I'm having a lot of fun so far, even if it's early days. It's a good mix of perfectly capturing the nostalgia of old rpgs while including the QoL features expected from more modern games (autosave, hotkeys that make sense, etc...).

It also has an interesting progression system, in that there is no xp. Instead you level up by completing tasks that align with one of the five gods, which grants you both active abilities and buffs to the stat associated with each god. For example, I've been doing some tasks for the Lords of Dust, who are all about studying ancient technology and magical artifacts, which has boosted my intelligence stat and given me related abilities. You can mix and match powers from each god, but you can also gain extra bonuses by devoting yourself especially to one of them.

I'm still mostly running around exploring the overworld just around the first city, trying to earn enough money to upgrade my weapons and armor for exploring the first big dungeon I've found. I'm already quite invested.

If any of this sounds interesting, I recommend checking it out. It's notable completely free on Steam. No paid anything, no strings attached. Apparently the developer just wanted to give a gift to the world in a time of stressful events.

[Anonymouswizard]

So I finally finished Dragon Age Origins.

Spoiler

Show

Any sense of accomplishment is removed by the fact that I had to lower the difficulty for the archdemon. I have disgraced my name. 75 hours, to fall at the last hurdle.

I stand over my decisions, including the wrong ones. Killing Connor wasn't the best outcome, but it was rather implausible that the desire demon would just sit and do nothing while I cleared out the mage tower.

Spoiler: Landsmeet

Show

I still love Logain, and he finally got some scenes to justify it, voice actor aside. He has a very good speech in the Landsmeet, and it took several attempts to get the Landsmeet to my side (except for that one bald guy). Then we had a duel, and I tried to spare him but Alistair wouldn't go for it. Fair enough. There was a strange closeup of a random bird in the rafters that I thought would be relevant, but it never came up again.

Anora got locked in a tower, which meant she was probably slaughtered when the Darkspawn came, but may not be if they need her for sequels.

Spoiler: Endgame

Show

It was a bit strange, because the party keeps bouncing back from Redcliff to Denerrim and never notices where the Darkspawn are really going, despite having to make multiple journeys through their territory. Also, if the horde got all the way to Denerrim (a northern port) from the Korcari wilds in the south they have already crossed most of Ferelden anyway.

I turned down Morrigan's third option. She's not much of a liar, but I suspect she was holding back some important detail about her solution, and this was too important to leave to chance when we have a solution we know works. And, honestly, having the lead sacrifice themselves to stop the blight seems like the most appropriate ending anyway. Preumably there is some way to have Logain do it, but apart from that, I got the ending I wanted. Obviously Alistair couldn't be let do it, we'd just end up in another civil war, unless we crown that weaponsmith clerk who has his face and so is probably another of Maric's bastards. Losing my mainstay mage just before the final battle was a huge loss, Wynne is good but mostly a healer, and she goes through lyrium like a drunk Templar.

My 'no gifts' policy meant most of them didn't have quests, I only got Leliana's and Morrigans and didn't do either. (I did Lelianas but forgot to save after)

The battle was good, they make good use of Darkspawn grunts to make the numbers appropriate without being overwhelming. I ended up with 50 Daelish, Dwarves, Redcliff Knights and 12 mages. The Templars never showed up for some reason. Fighting my way across Deneriim was tough but compelling.

Final boss disappointing but possibly that's my incompetence. I was expecting some kind of dialogue but it just roars and attacks, just me, what's left of my armies, and some very jam prone ballistae. Seems like it could have just flown away or at least glided off the towertop out of our reach.

Interestingly, at least in the story options I chose, there was no grand plot apparent. Most of the random catastrophes we had to resolve every time we asked for help appeared to be genuine coincidences, Logain sent blood mages to Redcliff and the mage towers, but the subsequent demon invasions seemed unintended. If he was possessed by a demon or something I never saw it. The archdemon seems to have just got freakishly lucky that all the realm's defences were disabled at once. The cinematic in the menu screen opens with somebody with random glowing blue eyes, is that supposed to be (presumed human) me?

I enjoyed it overall, not very motivated to replay most of it at the moment, might try and marry Alistair and Anora just to see what happens. I imagine there is a Bioware perfect ending, but I think I probably prefer the one I got.

I will probably try DA2 again to see if I like it more now, but it might be a bit soon for another giant timesink. We'll see.

You must have missed a lot of content, I'm no completionist but my average playthroughs last about 120 hours. Also

Spoiler: Endgame

Show

Morrigan is pretty much 100% honest about her plan: she intends to get pregnant, have the soul of an Old God go into the child, and then bugger off and raise it away from Flemeth. That's basically the extent of her plan.

That's not to say that she's not being manipulated, but it's probably the one time she's actually honest.

For added lulz you can IIRC

Spoiler

Show

do the ritual and then leave her at the Denerim gate instead of bringing her to the Archdemon. It's incredibly cruel, but somewhat hilarious because of the cruelty.

Plus if you've slept with her she's probably already pregnant.

I also recommend reloading a save just before the ritual and seeing the scene where you convince Alastair to do the ritual while telling him the truth, it's funny.

[Cygnia]

I've been dipping my toes into Moonring, a newly released retro-rpg by one of the Fable co-creators. I'm having a lot of fun so far, even if it's early days. It's a good mix of perfectly capturing the nostalgia of old rpgs while including the QoL features expected from more modern games (autosave, hotkeys that make sense, etc...).

It also has an interesting progression system, in that there is no xp. Instead you level up by completing tasks that align with one of the five gods, which grants you both active abilities and buffs to the stat associated with each god. For example, I've been doing some tasks for the Lords of Dust, who are all about studying ancient technology and magical artifacts, which has boosted my intelligence stat and given me related abilities. You can mix and match powers from each god, but you can also gain extra bonuses by devoting yourself especially to one of them.

I'm still mostly running around exploring the overworld just around the first city, trying to earn enough money to upgrade my weapons and armor for exploring the first big dungeon I've found. I'm already quite invested.

If any of this sounds interesting, I recommend checking it out. It's notable completely free on Steam. No paid anything, no strings attached. Apparently the developer just wanted to give a gift to the world in a time of stressful events.

Ooooh...*yoinks it for the library*

[Psyren]

So I finally finished Dragon Age Origins.

Spoiler

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Any sense of accomplishment is removed by the fact that I had to lower the difficulty for the archdemon. I have disgraced my name. 75 hours, to fall at the last hurdle.

I stand over my decisions, including the wrong ones. Killing Connor wasn't the best outcome, but it was rather implausible that the desire demon would just sit and do nothing while I cleared out the mage tower.

Spoiler: Landsmeet

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I still love Logain, and he finally got some scenes to justify it, voice actor aside. He has a very good speech in the Landsmeet, and it took several attempts to get the Landsmeet to my side (except for that one bald guy). Then we had a duel, and I tried to spare him but Alistair wouldn't go for it. Fair enough. There was a strange closeup of a random bird in the rafters that I thought would be relevant, but it never came up again.

Anora got locked in a tower, which meant she was probably slaughtered when the Darkspawn came, but may not be if they need her for sequels.

Spoiler: Endgame

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It was a bit strange, because the party keeps bouncing back from Redcliff to Denerrim and never notices where the Darkspawn are really going, despite having to make multiple journeys through their territory. Also, if the horde got all the way to Denerrim (a northern port) from the Korcari wilds in the south they have already crossed most of Ferelden anyway.

I turned down Morrigan's third option. She's not much of a liar, but I suspect she was holding back some important detail about her solution, and this was too important to leave to chance when we have a solution we know works. And, honestly, having the lead sacrifice themselves to stop the blight seems like the most appropriate ending anyway. Preumably there is some way to have Logain do it, but apart from that, I got the ending I wanted. Obviously Alistair couldn't be let do it, we'd just end up in another civil war, unless we crown that weaponsmith clerk who has his face and so is probably another of Maric's bastards. Losing my mainstay mage just before the final battle was a huge loss, Wynne is good but mostly a healer, and she goes through lyrium like a drunk Templar.

My 'no gifts' policy meant most of them didn't have quests, I only got Leliana's and Morrigans and didn't do either. (I did Lelianas but forgot to save after)

The battle was good, they make good use of Darkspawn grunts to make the numbers appropriate without being overwhelming. I ended up with 50 Daelish, Dwarves, Redcliff Knights and 12 mages. The Templars never showed up for some reason. Fighting my way across Deneriim was tough but compelling.

Final boss disappointing but possibly that's my incompetence. I was expecting some kind of dialogue but it just roars and attacks, just me, what's left of my armies, and some very jam prone ballistae. Seems like it could have just flown away or at least glided off the towertop out of our reach.

Interestingly, at least in the story options I chose, there was no grand plot apparent. Most of the random catastrophes we had to resolve every time we asked for help appeared to be genuine coincidences, Logain sent blood mages to Redcliff and the mage towers, but the subsequent demon invasions seemed unintended. If he was possessed by a demon or something I never saw it. The archdemon seems to have just got freakishly lucky that all the realm's defences were disabled at once. The cinematic in the menu screen opens with somebody with random glowing blue eyes, is that supposed to be (presumed human) me?

I enjoyed it overall, not very motivated to replay most of it at the moment, might try and marry Alistair and Anora just to see what happens. I imagine there is a Bioware perfect ending, but I think I probably prefer the one I got.

I will probably try DA2 again to see if I like it more now, but it might be a bit soon for another giant timesink. We'll see.

IIRC judging by the Keep, any outcome for Anora except becoming Queen means she doesn't show up or ever gets mentioned again, so I'm guessing "eaten by Darkspawn while trapped in prison" is accurate, or possibly "flees the country."

You must have missed a lot of content, I'm no completionist but my average playthroughs last about 120 hours. Also

Spoiler: Endgame

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Morrigan is pretty much 100% honest about her plan: she intends to get pregnant, have the soul of an Old God go into the child, and then bugger off and raise it away from Flemeth. That's basically the extent of her plan.

That's not to say that she's not being manipulated, but it's probably the one time she's actually honest.

For added lulz you can IIRC

Spoiler

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do the ritual and then leave her at the Denerim gate instead of bringing her to the Archdemon. It's incredibly cruel, but somewhat hilarious because of the cruelty.

Plus if you've slept with her she's probably already pregnant.

I also recommend reloading a save just before the ritual and seeing the scene where you convince Alastair to do the ritual while telling him the truth, it's funny.

She's honest but pretty damn vague. "Old things should be preserved" tells us nothing about what she was actually planning to do with it. (Not that it matters anyway, since she doesn't get to keep it no matter what.)

[Zevox]

Finished up Spider-Man 2. It's a damn good game - not that that's a surprise, given how good the first game and Miles Morales were, but still well worth saying. Gameplay remains as fun as it was in the previous games, and some of the new mobility stuff (the web wings, super jump/run) are very nice additions to a game series where mobility was already a highlight. Combat's largely same-y, especially if you played Miles Morales and already got to use his eletric special moves before, but still very good, and there are a few new additions. Side quests remain quite strong - a couple got a little repetitive (the EMF stuff in particular comes to mind), but for the most part each instance of each questline is individualized enough to keep them worth doing. Even collecting all of the Spider-Bots wound up being something I did the whole quest for; although the last couple of those were a pain to locate, really wish they'd have added them to your main map with that one upgrade, not just the mini-map.

Story-wise, nothing groundbreaking, but solid, kept me interested the whole way through.

Spoiler

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So the main plot is really the Venom one, not so much Kraven, who is mostly there to provide you a conflict up until the point where the symbiote becomes the problem. Still, Kraven himself worked fairly well as a villain, getting to see him hunting after other villains was a neat twist, the reveal about his family was as disturbing as I'm sure it was meant to be, and the big confrontation with him was very satisfying. And then he gets to be the guy who proves what a big threat Venom truly is after. Well-handled all around I'd say.

As for Venom himself, they did manage to have me wondering who it would be midway through the game. While Harry was the obvious pick since he had it initially and had been the one shown with it at the end of the first game, the fact that Norman had it before him had me thinking that Harry might die of his unnamed disease after giving the suit to Peter, and Norman would find out and blame Peter, later leading to the symbiote bonding with him, but no. Also I gave some consideration to it maybe ending up on Kraven, who at least physically fits Venom more and has his cancer that the symbiote could suppress, but not terribly surprised that didn't happen. Harry wound up working pretty well, though I'm surprised they kept him kind of alive at the end there. Similarly surprised that they did not tease the Venom symbiote surviving - I would figure that Venom as an anti-hero is too big a part of the character now for them not to include that in the next game now that they've done him as the main villain, but maybe they're genuinely not planning that.

I will say, the "Anti-Venom suit" thing does strike me as pretty silly. I had to look up whether that was something they made up for this game or not; and I'm not sure if it actually being something from the comics makes it better or worse. Though apparently the comic version was a symbiote itself, which it isn't in this one, it's just Peter getting all the powers with none of the drawbacks. I think that's my main problem with it, aside from the goofy name.

Also, despite the story clearly focusing more on Peter - mostly because this is first and foremost an adaptation of the symbiote suit/Venom storyline, after all - they did a pretty good job integrating Miles into it and making him feel like he belonged. Him saving Peter from the symbiote after the Kraven fight was great, his plotline with Martin Li/Mister Negative was quite good, got a near-equal role in the final boss fight with Venom, and he got more side-quests specific to him than Peter did to help make up for being in the secondary position in the main plot. Though granted I'm not clear on why the Mysteriums side-quest was Miles specific, but eh. Also, it was great seeing each Spider-Man interact with the other's supporting casts - Peter with Miles' mom and friends, Miles with Mary Jane and Harry.

And there's of course setup for the next game, which is interesting at points. Had to look up who that girl from Miles' post-credits scene was; apparently she's another spider-hero who gets bitten by that same radioactive spider, who goes by Silk? Odd choice of name, but with Peter entering a pseudo-retirement and letting Miles take the lead on spider-manning, I guess the idea is to introduce her as the newcomer to the Spider-squad next time and let Miles be her mentor, which could be neat. Not that I wouldn't expect Peter to be involved in the next game anyway, especially given the villains they've teased, but giving him a smaller role intentionally to focus more on the other spiders would probably be a good idea. Speaking of villains, what I can see they've got no less than three villains they've teased for the next game: Norman as the Green Goblin, the return of Doc Oc, and Carnage from that one side-quest. Not thrilled with that last honestly; Venom works fine as a villain to me, but Carnage is just Venom stripped of the interesting parts and made (more of) a psycho, IMO. No surprise Norman as the Goblin would be next after this game, but the return of Doc Oc is an unexpected possibility, leaves me wondering how they intend to handle that, given he was already the main villain of the first one. I guess just make him more of a supporting villain to Green Goblin's main villain, maybe, but hopefully that's not all there is to it.

So yeah, had a lot of fun with that. I'm actually strongly considering doing another run on a higher difficulty (did normal/"Amazing" for my first run), just because the game's not that long and I think I'd enjoy doing it again with a bit more challenge. The call of returning to my second BG3 run is also strong though. We'll see.

[AlanBruce]

While I wait for Alan Wake 2 to be released, I decided to try a few indie games.

I found Röki and Bramble The Mountain King to be very good entries. Both deal with Scandinavian folklore, but the tone is somewhat different. Visually, both are very good. And there is a particular set piece in Bramble with a fey bard called a Nokken that was rather memorable.