For a moment I thought that I had accidentally logged on to the wrong forum.
Comments?
I feel this is relevant to this thread because it is going to be a serious liability to my performance come this November.
Forget performance. This is research or even dissertation material. How about looking at the archetypal imagery and the psychological valence of the various characters?? How about using the quests as a metaphor for the therapeutic journey and having the game function as a sandtray type therapeutic intervention!! 🙂🙂🙂 I bet there could even be a grant to study that! I am fully convinced that fantasy role playing games can be used as therapy if only because of the major coolness factors involved.
OK so I can't go to Dragon Con this wekeend and I am in geek withdrawal.
Why does Skyrim have to come out a month after I start grad school!? Its just not fair. I've been waiting for this game for years now, but I don't think I should embark on this mammoth time sucker of a game while I try to adjust to life as a first year doctoral student....
Video games in the fantasy genre are never a waste of time. Ever. They are an archetypal exploration into your psyche and will make you a vastly better psychologist than anything else. 🙂 They will push your individuation process ahead at warp speed! 🙂 Ditch learning ANOVA's, Hierarchical Multiple Regression and Factor Analysis. Instead, learn spell casting, interacting with dark elves, rune reading, dragon riding and those all important weapons skills. You will need all of these abilities in dealing with the journal peer review process or your dissertation committee. And no I am not joking! My beloved Carl Jung would approve.
Video games in the fantasy genre are never a waste of time. Ever. They are an archetypal exploration into your psyche and will make you a vastly better psychologist than anything else. 🙂 They will push your individuation process ahead at warp speed! 🙂 Ditch learning ANOVA's, Hierarchical Multiple Regression and Factor Analysis. Instead, learn spell casting, interacting with dark elves, rune reading, dragon riding and those all important weapons skills. You will need all of these abilities in dealing with the journal peer review process or your dissertation committee. And no I am not joking! My beloved Carl Jung would approve.
I like the way you think.
And I will resist buying skyrim until Dec. 1st when my winter break starts...I will have one month to get through this thing before the fall term starts so I plan on having some late nights.
Despite my avatar, I'm actually not a huge gamer. I just started playing my first RPG this month. However, I felt the need to post in this thread to say that I am now thoroughly addicted to Dragon Age and it is ruining my life--well, my productivity at least. Curse you, Bioware!
Origins or II? My last winter break I plowed through 80% of Origins in one gaming binge.
Origins. I've already finished the game once and am now on my second play-through using a character with a different origin story. DA II and Awakenings are both on order, though I've been warned not to expect them to be as good. I'm pretty sad to hear the warden is barely mentioned in DA II.
Origins. I've already finished the game once and am now on my second play-through using a character with a different origin story. DA II and Awakenings are both on order, though I've been warned not to expect them to be as good. I'm pretty sad to hear the warden is barely mentioned in DA II.
I was kinda around for my roommate's recent playthrough of DA II and it didn't seem as bad as I was thinking it would be. I think it benefits from low expectations after most reviewers called it a let down because it originally had high expectations :/
Dragon Age sucks.
No really though, it totally blows.
I haven't played beyond Dragon Age I...but when people went nuts about it I wanted to get on a spaceship and abandon humanity because it had certainly lost all touch with me.
Also I hate the conversation system. It's like my companions do not say anything unless I talk to them. What are they like agoraphobics or something? And then if I don't talk to them they get pissed, who would want to hang out with someone like that? I am forced to become a people pleasure. And when they talk it just feels so god damn forced. I NEVER flash through dialog when playing an RPG. But dialog needs to be on a track (story telling hello) and not this ridiculous convo system. The only way to make a deep character is if that character is created by the developer, not superficially forged through boring dialog that can end in me f***ing another dude. To that regard, this game is for virgins.
It's a perfectly good game, just as not as great as the original. Most of the professional reviews were actually pretty positive, but there was a lot of fan backlash against it. It has some good ideas and does manage to significantly improve on some things, but it also falls short in some other areas and in the end is more of a B+ then a A.
No, I haven't, as I have stated in this thread twice already.You have not played many RPGs have you?
Play xenogears or ff tactics and then have an opinion.
This is not really debatable. The art style rocks, but the setting and theme is childish and petty.
No, I haven't, as I have stated in this thread twice already.
Ah, I unaware that liking/disliking a game was not a matter of opinion or debate. Clearly, having a respectful conversation with you about it is not going to work. Carry on, then.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Honestly no I don't. I thought the controls were fine, the themes were interesting and engaging and the combat was the most balanced and challenging I have seen in a Bioware title. Individual maps were long and combat filled enough that I had absolutely no desire to see random encounters draw them out even more.
There will always be something other people like which you don't, whether it's a game, movie or book. Just because it doesn't follow your personal tastes doesn't necesarily mean that it sucks or that the people who enjoy it must be hyperactive or immature. Personally I didn't like Witcher 2 anywhere nearly as much as the rest of the world, but that doesn't mean that I think the game sucks or that people must be crazy or stupid for liking it. It just means it wasn't to my taste.
I liked Dragon Age I. I didn't play Dragon Age II because I tried the demo and it was bad. I thought Dragon Age I was more similar to the old Baldur's Gate games in feel than more recent RPG genre efforts. The genre I feel that has been most abused recently is the FPS games. I don't like the new cover based games (too easy) and prefer twitch/skill shooters (i.e., Quake).
RPGs of merit in my opinion:
The Witcher
The Witcher 2
Baldur's Gate series
Planescape Torment
Fallout 1 and 2. . . didn't like 3
Neverwinter nights was ok
I don't really like the Morrowind/Oblivion engine/platform based games. The monster scaling is annoying. I'd rather be able to walk into an area and die or obliterate everything than have the battles scale up with my level.
Hybrid's:
System Shock 2
Bioshock 1 and 2
Deus Ex (original) Deus Ex 3 (skip 2)
Classic RPGs of note:
The Bard's Tale series
Sentinel Worlds I
Pools of Radiance (gold box, not that mess they released later)
Ultima
Wizardry
Hero's Quest (or Quest for Glory. . . whatever)
Oh yeah, I'm old.
You see the problem with forums is there is no prosody to the conversation. Just pretend I'm being friendly and fatuous.
One thing I really hated was it did not use frequent random encounters. Yes, this is old school, but it would have made the Forest zone in DA I (with the werewolves) a little more immersive. I could be like "Ok it's supposed to be a big deep forest, the map is just kind of a layout." However, instead it's just like "Oh it's the worlds smallest forest with a bunch of werewolves hanging out."
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Wo Wo Wo "The maps were long" Girl you gotta be ****ten me right now.
The whole reason I said it needed random encounter, that is, swooshy screen and then fight, is because the maps were so micro sized which killed any chance at immersion. A guy would ask me to go in a forest and retrieve something for him and it would be like 35 seconds into the map. I wanted to just keep the damn thing because the dude was so lazy for asking me to go in there and get it.
Please address my "pause potion pause potion" remark. The battles are only challenging on hard mode and when this happens your forced to just constantly pause to gurgle down 5 potions and then reset your dumb ass party members. And don't say you can program them because that is ridiculous. Any game that has a few set algorithms to beat enemies is not challenging enough.
Now, let me say I don't really care for Diablo style games. However I liked KOTOR. This game is just some ****ty hybrid with weebo graphics.
Wo Wo Wo "The maps were long" Girl you gotta be ****ten me right now.
The whole reason I said it needed random encounter, that is, swooshy screen and then fight, is because the maps were so micro sized which killed any chance at immersion. A guy would ask me to go in a forest and retrieve something for him and it would be like 35 seconds into the map. I wanted to just keep the damn thing because the dude was so lazy for asking me to go in there and get it.
Please address my "pause potion pause potion" remark. The battles are only challenging on hard mode and when this happens your forced to just constantly pause to gurgle down 5 potions and then reset your dumb ass party members. And don't say you can program them because that is ridiculous. Any game that has a few set algorithms to beat enemies is not challenging enough.
Now, let me say I don't really care for Diablo style games. However I liked KOTOR. This game is just some ****ty hybrid with weebo graphics.
I'd like to let you know that I disagree with nearly everything you say about DA:O. But I'm not going to go into why because I am right and I know it.
Never played origins. Got too turned off after I blew $50 on DA 1
And you are right and you do know it.
Xenogears FTW
Yes I thought the maps were a little on the long side. The forest on it's own was not long, but there was a lot more to that map then just the forest. But of course I was more into the story, if you hated the story (like you clearly did) and just wanted lots of mindless combat and loot then I can understand how you'd want it to be longer.
DA 1 is Origins.
I agree Orzammar was too long, but I'm not sure if thats exactly what tripped me up because spring semester started while I was in the deep roads. Then I took a 6 month break.
p.s. when I typed in 'Xenogears' I just knew some big-eyed, pointy-haired anime crap was going to be staring back at me. I wasn't disappointed.
Clearly anyone who wants to play a high fantasy game involving sex, war, politics and betrayal must be immature or hyperactive but someone who wants to play a big eyed teenager blowing things up with a giant robot must be mature and down to earth 🙂.
In all seriousness though some of the Japanese RPGs really are quite good ever if they are generally filled with overly cute spikey haired adolescents.
Play the game first.
Sex? No. DA is marketed to sexually repressed adolescents. I stated that liking the game did not make you immature.
As for Xenogears, it has all of what you mentioned including a very controversial religious element and huge moral questions about poverty and *spolier* genetic testing and cannibalism. It's a pretty sweet title.
It is a classic and is coming to Playstation Network.
Play the game first. BTW, I'm pretty sure Xenogears did not have sex SCENES or chicks with huge breasts and ridiculous midriff...petty.
The sexual element in DA is marketed to sexually repressed adolescents. I stated that liking the game did not make you immature, but if this bit gave you a hard on well...you probably missed out on a few things in your teen years.
As for Xenogears, it has all of what you mentioned including a very controversial religious element and huge moral questions about poverty and *spolier* genetic testing and cannibalism. It's a pretty sweet, very gritty title.
It is a classic and is coming to Playstation Network.
I think you can buy DA for like $6.89 on amazon. Even the download for Xeno is more than that. What does it cost new? $100...Classic
As anyone who didn't stop playing after five hours can tell you, sex was definitely not irrelevent to the plot of DA, it played a major part in the overall story.
And note that I didn't say that Xenogears was a bad game, it was pretty well rated. In fact on metacritic it has the exact same user and reviewer scores as dragon age. So we know it must be great 🙂.
I was just pointing out that it features wide eyed pointy haired teens in giant robots. Which you can't exactly deny.
But I do note how quickly you got defensive when you thought someone was saying something even slightly bad about YOUR game, as you continue to find insulting things to say about anyone who would dare to like a game that you don't.
The fact that you can f a dude or some goth chick, each which with no real background, and that this was totally optional, makes it irrelevant.
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The fact that you can f a dude or some goth chick, each which with no real background, and that this was totally optional, makes it irrelevant.
Like FadedC, I'm ready to agree to disagree about liking the game, but I'm still curious about your disapproval of the sex scenes. They are so tame they wouldn't even garner an R rating on film. There's no nudity involved unless you count shirtless males. I mean, if sexually-repressed teens can't find anything more stimulating than that on the internet, then I truly do feel sorry for them. If it was simply a marketing ploy (but, as mentioned, it does become very relevant in the ending of the game), then I'm not sure it was a very successful one.
You've brought up a couple times the fact that, yes, you can romance someone of the same sex as your character. Is that so offensive? Really? I call it progressive. You make it sound as if players accidentally wind up having sex with someone. Was your character just so irresistible that the male NPCs were ignoring their dialogue programming and throwing themselves at him? If so, why wasn't your approval rating higher? 🙂
OK...sure the scenes are are tame, but the themes are not. The game is not filled with sexual themes...its completely soaked in them. The game is practically hentai.
Comments?
I feel this is relevant to this thread because it is going to be a serious liability to my performance come this November.