Dragon Age: Inquisiton

In a somewhat desperate move to stay ahead of the curve I've decided to review a game that isn't out yet. Not only is it not out yet, but I haven't played it. So hold onto your hats for wild speculation and horrifically untrue facts about my most anticipated game this year:

This a real game. It's a pigeon dating simulator.

So, Dragon Age: Inquisition is the third installment in the Dragon Age games where once again you step into the shoes of extremely important person whose name we can't remember. This role was shaken up slightly in DAII when it was only your forename they couldn't remember. It's good to see them going back to their roots. This game also sees the return of a few other notable things they dropped from DAII including multiple playable races. Which is RPG speak for species. As well as the standard fantasy races of racist humans, downtrodden elves good at archery, and mining dwarves for the first time you can play as a race of beings unique to the dragon age world: the Qunari. They are a race (read: species) of beings who tower over humans with skin the colour of stone and giant horns protruding from their head. Or dreadlocks, whichever.

Here we see a horny qunari inquisitor.

Speaking of horny! The game will, of course, feature bioware's signature romances. Now, if this is anything like other bioware games I've played what this means is there will be multiple partners you can potentially seduce and sex up, and I'll compulsively seduce the same one on multiple playthroughs. Tali, Merril, I'm looking at you. And I always will be. There is a new development in the romance department, however. For the first time in a Dragon Age game there will be romances who are solely homosexual. A great leap forward for equality! There will also be romances who have racial preferences. A great leap...wait, what? Boy, I sure hope they meant species that time. If there are romances who you can only romance if your skin is the right colour it might get a little awkward.

Shameful use of yellow-face to try and seduce someone.

A whole host of new tactical abilities are also in play for the new game. Including being able to set fire to enemy ships to prevent retreat, or throwing jars of bees at enemies. In order to have a sufficient supply of bees to cast at your enemies you actually have to set up one of your keeps as an apiary. The collection of different flowers from around Thedas also gives the bees different abilities as well as slightly altering the taste of the honey they produce. Honey in the game serves no real purpose, but does taste nice on toast. 

Now, one point of contention I have about the game is the return of a certain character. Namely the heartless witch/love of my life from Dragon Age: Origins that is Morrigan. Now, while many people weren't happy with how things ended in witch hunt, I was. I'd had a child with Morrigan, she then vanished, I found her and we voyaged into the unknown together. Perfect. Except, never mind because she's back and I'm not there. So, I guess she killed me or something? I'm guessing this is another one of those times where they decided to allow a choice then decide for you later on regardless of that choice. As was the case with Leliana who you can totally end up murdering in origins. It won't stop her from appearing in DA:I though. Who knows, maybe these things will be explained. Actually, I know. I'll let you in on a secret if you keep it under your hat.

The game series takes place in Tommy Westphall's head.

There is a lot to like about this game, even if it doesn't allow you to romance and date pigeons. Yet. As a bioware fan, and someone who prefers DA to ME I'll be buying this game day 1. Hopefully my review has persuaded you to give the game a try, or at least buy Hatoful Boyfriend on steam next month. I may consider writing a revised review having played the game, but then I'd be able to give an informed opinion and that's not what the internet is about.

As always all rights retained by original posters of these images. Please right-click the image and open in a new tab to view website and if any of the pictures are yours and you would like them removed just drop me a message and I'm more than happy to oblige, provided you have proof of course.

One console. One game. One week. Dead Rising 3

So, the xbox one has been out for a little over a week now, and I was lucky enough to get mine on launch day as well as my copy of Dead Rising 3. I was always going to get the xbox one over the PS4 because of personal preference, but still I feel that Dead Rising 3 is a strong title to have as exclusive. I feel it improved on the first games in many ways.

Adding a motorcycle steamroller with flamethrowers makes everything better.

I played dead rising one and while I enjoyed it to begin with I didn't stick with it for long because for me it made killing zombies boring. That is an impressive feat for a game, not a good feat sure, but damned impressive. Dead rising 2 improved on this with the addition of combo weapons, not that I know as I never played because of the time limit. Not everyone cared about that, but I like to explore a game; I hate being forced to rush past stuff. Thankfully in Dead Rising 3 there's the option to play without this timer, or to play "Nightmare mode" where it's more prevalent. That doesn't mean there's never timers. A lot of the side missions have to be completed within a set amount of time or they disappear, I assume. Similarly there is a countdown to the bombs dropping, but I took my time and that never expired for me.

What bombs?

So, first thing's first. This game is just fun. There are lots of combo weapons to allow you to kill zombies in whatever fun ways you want. For me the best weapons are: The laser sword because light sabers, the Z.A.R because it's a powerful gun that'll help you in psycho fights, and the Jazz hands because you get to be wolverine with guns, sadly you don't get that one until later on. There are just so many fun weapons though. So many that when I finished the game I had a kill count of 50 000. Now, most of that was with the Turret rig, one of the combo vehicles because you can get hundreds of zombies on screen at a time. Yes, literally. I can't even find a picture to show how many can appear at any one time, but it's so many they're packed wall to wall crammed together like crazed Americans hunting for a black friday deal.

In terms of storyline,  I can guarantee this game has one. Is it good? I guess, I mean I enjoyed the little twists and reveals and the pacing. The enemies don't really get harder, they either have more health or there are lots more of them it's well done. I did enjoy the plot, though I did get a bit of a sense of needless increase of the story. You know the type of thing. You have to go get X, but when you get back Y has now happened and needs fixing and then Z rears its ugly head and a slutty fascist is trying to kill/fuck you. 

You have to motorboat her to death?

There are also psycho missions, optional boss fights with crazed survivors who embody the seven deadly sins. It's a fun side mission, even if it is pretty much identical each time they are generally humourous. In fact, the game as a whole is just funny. It does a great job of combining gritty realism of a zombie apocalypse with the crazed, manic energy of a truly funny Monty Python sketch.

I have really only two major complaints with the game. The first is the achievement for completing all pp trials. Now, there's an achievement for killing 53,597 zombies, which I have. However, i do not have the pp trial for killing 53,597 zombies because you can't begin that challenge until you've first killed 10,000 zombies. Now, I hope that doesn't mean that when I complete that trial, there will be another for 72,000 and then for 100,004. Either way, annoying. A minor annoyance though.

My other problem was a strange glitch that triggered sometimes due to...something. It caused Nick to continually dodge roll. He wouldn't do anything else, and because he was always dodging he couldn't be hit so there was no way I could think to break out it besides just quitting the game.

It was precisely as annoying as this

Speaking about the Xbox one console for a moment, I have to say I really like it and it shows a lot of promise. The improved kinect voice command is great, though I wish it was integrated with the youtube app and some others. I only have the one game for it at the moment so I'm limited about what I can say about it as a gaming platform. I will say that I enjoy the new controller. And that the fact you have to download an app to watch blu-rays is fucking stupid. But, as soon as Bethesda announce that Fallout 4 is coming out next year i won't care. Watch dogs, Halo 5, Witcher 3, and Dragon Age: inquisition already make next year a very good year for games, but a new fallout game is overdue. 

Any day now.

To date, Fallout: New Vegas is the only RPG i've completed and only needed to hit something once. Yes, I want Fallout 4 so I can have Dave, the conscientious objector back to sell all guns everyone gives to him because he doesn't believe in carrying them.

Of course I made him a frowny hipster.

All rights retained by original posters of these images. Please right-click the image and open in a new tab to view website and if any of the pictures are yours and you would like them removed just drop me a message and I'm more than happy to oblige, provided you have proof of course.