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Dragon Age II

So in my Dragon Age review I began by asking “Can Bioware do no wrong?”   Apparently the answer is “Yes.”

I had originally mocked Bioware in my first review for taking 4 years to produce the first game.. Now suddenly that didn’t seem like such a bad idea, as Dragon Age II (DA2) the supposed successor, was rushed out the door in just over 8 months and it shows.  DA2 just doesn’t compare to Dragon Age – Origins (DA:O).

Now I realize that I’m giving the impression that I didn’t think DA2 was a good game, that’s not the case.. I think it was a good game by itself, but it just didn’t meet up with the expectations nor match the precedent that was set with DA:O.

So, I want to say that Yes, DA2 is a good game on its own merits.   But if you go in expecting DA:O version two, you’re going to be disappointed.

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So in a fit of boredom last night I downloaded an indy game off Steam called “NightSky” for the low price of $9.

What a great game!  Extremely simple in concept, elegantly produced with a level of depth and complexity that a lot of modern big company games fail to match.

In NightSky the player controls a glowing sphere that they found on the beach through a nighttime shadowed series of mazes and puzzles.  You have limited and often changing control over the sphere, but most of the time you can accelerate and decelerate the sphere, make it go super fast or have a sticky like brake.  In some cases you can even invert gravity and in others there are pinball like flippers.  Fun!

The goal is to use the physics engine and your limited controls to guide the sphere through all of the different worlds which are divided into a number of three-screen sections with each section containing a challenge or puzzle.

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Tiger II

When I heard a buddy of mine tell me that he was playing a game called “World of Tanks” I thought he was kidding.. I thought he was making some reference to “tanking” in World of Warcraft or something.. But no, he was serious..

Who on Earth would name their game this?! Well.. Apparently Wargaming.net and BigWorld Technology that’s who..

World of Tanks is a real first person shooter style game currently in open beta in which you get to drive tanks, tank destoyers and/or self propelled guns around fairly large maps all with the goal of mass destruction, mayhem and general killing of your fellow man.  Booyah!  Who wouldn’t like that right?

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Mac Book Pro 15"

I have been in the market for a new laptop for a while.  The primary machine I had was a Lenovo w500 and before that a Lenovo t42p..  But both of those machines were property of IBM..  I didn’t own them, and I had to keep IBM software installed, as well as generally not use the machine for personal stuff..  It was time for a new machine.

Now I will say that the Lenovo machines were okay.  Not horrible.  But I did have a lot of issues with them, and the t42p just up and died one day.  It was only 3 years old when it died which I felt was an extremely short lifespan for a laptop.

I have a Sony Vaio that I got in 1999 that still works, it’s just really old at this point.  But that’s the kind of life time I expect of a piece of hardware like these. The only issue with the Sony is it’s age and it has a really small screen.. But still!  These are expensive machines and they should last.  It was completely unacceptable to me that the Lenovo’s didn’t even come close.  And most people I have talked to who had Lenovo’s of their own had a similar experience.

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Greed Corp

I have always liked turn based strategy games.. They used to be “the” game genre, but over the years as time and technology has marched forward they have largely started to decline in  favor of more real time strategy games and first person shooters.

So when W!Games introduced Greed Corp a modern turn based strategy game with a very clever land collapsing mechanic to the PC late last year, I was pretty excited..  This was the first I had heard of it even though the  PS3 and XBox players had access to it since last February.  I don’t follow the console games market at all so it was completely new to me.

I have to admit I really like it.. The best part about this game is that it’s actually a game.. Meaning it focuses on game play not wizbang special effects or graphics..  I really feel that this is a shining example of good game design and salute the W!Games folks.

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Tron Legacy Poster

Note: Spoilers will be announced below.  The first couple of paragraphs are spoiler free.

Easily one of my favorite movies as a kid, Tron was a movie that not only defined a generation but also began the monumental shift in the movie industry towards using computers as a tool.    Without Tron leading the way showing what could be done, many of the movies today would have never been made.

I loved the first Tron for it’s fantastical notion that computers were alive and that programs were people too..  It was great if a little heavy handed, thin in the plot department and some pretty obvious technological issues..etc..  However, even with all the originals shortcomings, I was pretty sure back then even that we’d see a sequel to the movie in short order cause it was awesome..

Set the way forward machine to 28 fricken years and finally we have something to talk about!    I had all but forgotten about Tron to be honest until 2008 or so when I saw that first comic-con shakey cellphone cam footage of the new TR2N trailer at which point I had a tron-gasm..  Then I really thought about it and I was kinda pissed it took this long to come out with a sequel, but then once I realized what they were doing there was a pretty glaring obvious reason why it took that long..

So without spoiling anything yet, I will say that the new movie is probably an 8.5 out of 10.  The visual effects were excellent, the costumes were okay, the acting was good, the plot was still pretty thin though and that might be it’s downfall..  All in all I thought it was good and about as much as they could have done with the film.   It was an entertaining movie, and well worth the viewing.

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