Dragon Age II

I will try and not put spoilers in here, but In case I do, consider this a warning.

So I finished Dragon Age 2 this past weekend and I gotta say it delivered on my expectations. Which were pretty high. It was fun, very different from Origins and Awakenings, and had a fantastic story to it.

The biggest change from Origins to 2 is the combat system. It is a more fluid system and is designed I think more for the Console gamer then the PC. I never played the PC version of Dragon Age, but I heard it pauses in combat so you can make your moves. The only thing I wish they had kept from Origins to 2 is the Auto attack button. In the final fight I was facing and enemy with a ton of HP and I was smashint my X button until my thumb was tired.

Also the graphics see a remarkable improvement. The characters look much more real, and the women much hotter and boobier.

The Supporting Characters in 2 are as good as the cast of Origins. There are less playable characters, but they are far superior to the crew of Awakenings. Even Anders, who was in awakenings, is better. The only beef with character interactions is that the game seems to want you to be gay. Now from what I hear the entire party except the Dwarf and your siblings will hook up with you regardless of Sex, but good god! I also remeber there was an Elf Guy in whore house who has a quest marker, ITS NOT A QUEST. its gay sex, luckily I was able to cancel the scene well before anything happened. Still it was disturbing.

Through out the game a lot of the older cast will make Cameos so if you played the first 2 and liked them, its a nice touch to see a lot of the old cast return and say hi.

Anyways, Im looking forward to giving it another go at some point. I am gonna play through Mass Effect 2 first. Then I will either get Home Front or play through DA2 again.

Paul

So last night Ellen and I went out to the movies to see Paul. Its the latest in the Simon Pegg / Nick Frost line of films. If you liked Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, then Paul should be right up your alley. If you haven't seen any of the above movies go see them. If you dislike any of the above movies, then I hate you.

Each time Pegg and Frost do a movie they pick a style or genre and make it their own. The gruesome horror, the slasher/action movie, and now a sci fi geeky alien flim. It has a ton of hilarious moments. Plenty of old school references and a fantastic cast, with Seth Rogan as Paul and Jason Batemen, Jane Lynch, Bill Hader, Christen Wiig, and a suprise appearance at the end. Im not gonna give anything away, but go see it. The theatre was dead last night, I think there were like 8-10 people there.

Brief Tournament report 3-19

I played in a 35 stone Malifaux tourament this past weekend. Im gonna be honest I was really tired all day Saturday and then when Mason got blown out I kinda had a rage black out. Net result is that I don't really remember all that much of what happened at the tourney. So... I'm gonna keep this short and sweet.




Round 1
Seamus and a bunch of hard to kill models vs Zorida and a bunch of speedy models.

He started quick by flinging Killjoy at me. As soon as KJ popped up I sent my Hanged to cut his HP down and prevent him from healing for the rest of the game. KJ then reeled in Bette and killed her with a lot of attacks. Seamus then popped off the fatso with his Pistol. From there the game was pretty much well in hand. His Slurids were taken out as they came in via Seamus and Bette. He did pull a pretty awesome move having Zorida obey Bette to bury herself on the last turn. Our game went WAY too long we played 2-3 extra turns. I ended up winning solidly, like 7-3.



Round 2
Kirai and co. vs Hamelin and his shennanigans
Hamelin is broken as written. Even with an imposed Nerf Hameling activated 8 times by turn 2. Now he was playing this ability wrong which ended up costing me a lot, but whatever. I ended up losing 7-5.




Round 3
Nicodem and pretty much the same dude Seamus ran vs Raspy and her ice buddies.
This was the best gmae all day. It didn't hurt that I wiped my opponent out, but he was a blast to play against. I have never had a person on the table next to me complain that he can't hear what his opponent is saying because we are laughing too loud. Great game. Also the hanged was a MONSTER. He cut Raspy, the Ice Golem, and Gamin's life in half, and then killed said gamin with his range attack. I won 8-1 in a pretty big slaughter.


(Resuing a pic? lazy ass!)

Round 4
Seamus and same as rd 1 vs Pandora and her crew of cheating hookers.
I was pretty far ahead in the standings at this point vp wise, so I was determined to just get my schemes and not worry about anything else. That was probably a really big mistake since thats exactly what happened. I lost 8-4. It really didn't help that every time pandora cast a spell she did so with a high crow so my entire crew spent the game running away. It was a pretty lame game and against a really lame jerk.

quick edit: The game was against Mike and really was a fun game. I'm just a douche.

So in the end, I won. It was a really fun time. and I ended up trading my prize, which was a boxset of my choice for Mike's Marcus crew, which is fully painted, and means I don't have to paint my own now! good times.




A few thoughts on the Format, which people will be playing at Adepticon. first 4 rounds for 8 players makes pretty much no sense. I ended up facing the Ringer in round 4. Shared stake a claim is assholish to end a tournament on. there are points for 1 person in that mission. Really skewed the standins in my eyes. Hamelin is a tool and the adepticon rules are nerfing the wrong problem. And my final thoughts are, I'm great!

Overal MVP of the Day was The Hanged. this wasn't my initial thought. But he cut down, Killjoy, an Ice Golem, Rasputina, an Ice Gamin, and was instrumental in me getting my Kill protege against Pandora. he was a beast!

Video Games

Now I have to say I consider Video Games to be one of the lowest form of Gaming. Its not that I dislike them in any way, but in my years as a gamer I have come to the realization that there are stereo-typical gamers for each Genre. And In my experiences the worst of these Stereo-Types are found either in Video Games or Card Games. And often they are the same people. This sums up how I feel I think



That being said I LOVE video games. I was addicted to EQ for years before I finally kicked the habit... I may have timed it end very coincidentally with the day WOW released. Which I then became addicted to. But after a while, and several different MMO's, Guild Wars, Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes/Villains, Warhammer Online, and maybe 1 or 2 more that just weren't memorable I have decided that I only really want to play Console Games that have a finite ending to them. I just don't have the free time to play an MMO and honestly I didn't really like how much time I had invested in them.

Anyways enough of that. Point is I've been buying games 1 at a time and playing them in my brief windows of free time each day. My current game of choice is Dragon Age II. I really love this series. And i'm hoping they keep going with the franchise, its a lot of fun to see how the entire world shapes up.

Once I finish it (Or maybe beat it 2-3 times) I will start looking for a new game. here are a few I have my eyes on.




Mass Effect 2. This isn't a new game, but its new to the PS3. Same developers as Dragon Age, and a similar style of game. Its set in the future and you control Colonel Shepard and kill aliens. Sounds fantastic




Homefront. This one is a first person shooter set in the year 2027. The U.S has been invaded by a joint evil Asian nation. And pretty much beaten. You take control of a band of rebels fighting guerilla style for their freedom. Very Red Dawn.




Infamous. Your a guy who was in a disaster and afterwards you get electrical powers. You have to say the world or city or what ever, and along they way you make decisions for good or evil. And your reputation and how people percieve you is all dependant on how you make those choices.

Yeah I'm pretty much Awesome all the time

So I've had this nagging little voice in the back of my head that tells me I should try to play Archanists in my next Malifaux tournament. I've done really well thus far and I think I need a new challenge. With that in mind, I've been painting them up and I think that while Im not at my best with them yet I should be able to compete pretty well in the... uhhh





So... Yeah im playing Ressers.

Silent Ones

I finished up the pair of Silent Ones yesterday. I think I have a shot at reaching my goal of a painted Archanist crew by the 19th. We'll see how far I can go with it. Also I've decided that since Im going to be painting them anyways My Coryphee Duet will be my Malifools Month 7 paint contest entry.

The Lovely Cassandra

In an effort to make my Archanists more desirable to play with Im going to try and paint as many of them as I can before next saturday. I got started last nigt with Cassandra. I felt a Blond wearing Black and Red would look good. Turns out I was right.



In order to get all my stuff painted for the Tournament I will need to Paint:

1 Colette
3 Mechanical Doves
2 Coryphee
2 Performers
2 Mannequins
2 Silent Ones
1 Electrical Creation