Video Game Review: Dragon Age: Inquisition (Game of the Year Edition, PC)

Score: 8.2/10. 

I recently played this game, a long time after it was originally released. Visually, the game still holds up. I love the art style and the design of the characters. They look slightly cartoon-y, but still realistic. Face animations during dialogue are also great. Skin is textured real good. The design of the world is also full of details and great to look at.

Gameplay is your standard massive multiplayer online RPG style, which is that you run around, number keys apply to different spells, and mouse 1 does your normal attack. It’s somewhat fun. They should’ve adopted final fantasy-esque ultimate or something, to break up the monotony of battle.

Another element of gameplay that’s worth a mention is the War Council. It’s basically a click on a quest, then wait in real time for it to complete on it’s own, then get bounty type of thing. Kind of pointless and unnecessary in my opinion.

An element of the gameplay that was not pointless and I wish there was more of was the Sit In Judgment. In these optional parts of the game you get to judge a character you fought against and captured prior. It’s fun and adds a little more to the story.

Music is fantastic. Classic orchestral stuff you expect for the fantasy genre.

And in regards to the strongest part of an role playing game — the story — Inquisition has a great story with a number of very big decisions. You still generally walk down a preordained path set by the game developers, but there are sufficient options to make it feel like your decisions matter.  Dialogue is the real shining point of Inquisition.

Noteworthy story elements that I am a fan of are the romances, humorous moments (Iron Bull), character development, and someone trying to assault the castle with a goat.

The DLC’s were better than I thought. With the exception of Trespasser, they are generally unnecessary and you don’t miss out on much if you skip them. I did find them fun regardless.

Finally, a common complaint I read online was about how many of the side quests were fetch quests and this lowered the quality of the game. These complaints arose during the release of the Witcher 3 and quests which were more meaningful in the opinion of many. Personally, I don’t hate that this game was loaded with so many fetch quests. Yes it is kind of tedious and turns the game into a kind of checklist rather than an immersive narrative experience. However, I’d much rather they keep this content rather than throw it out. It’s an issue of boring content versus no content, and I will also side with having content even if it’s not as exciting as the main story. Additionally, I enjoy collecting stuff so it was fine for me.

Score: 8.2/10 Spent over one hundred hours in the game. Great game. Great visuals despite its age.

Video Game Review: Fallout 4 (PC)

I played the crap out of the previous Fallout games, namely Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. I spent hours wandering the world, looking for things, playing with mods. It’s safe to say I came into Fallout 4 with great expectations. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.

Fallout 4 is not a bad game. It just isn’t as great as it’s predecessors. It doesn’t improve on any of the old Bethesda tropes and gets worse in many ways.

First and foremost is the amount of content. There feels like there is a lot less content in this game than other Bethesda games. I spent about sixty hours playing this game and felt like I exhausted just about everything. In prior games, I spent hundreds of hours.

There is also the inclusion of infinite repeating quests. These just suck and I wish Bethesda would label them or indicate them in some way so that I could skip them.

Combat has no real changes from prior games. You use the Vats system if you don’t like first person shooting, which has a random chance of striking certain areas of an enemy’s body based on a predefined percentage.

Conversations are even worse. Not karma system. Conversation choices are simplified.

Graphically, it is only slightly better than it’s predecessor which came out over five years ago. The art direction is amazing and is the strongest aspect of this game. The detail paid to every inch of the landscape is incredible. However, technically, the game looks like a game for the last generation of consoles. I played on my computer, and it still looked like disappointing. It looked like Skyrim. I expect each game in a franchise to improve at least somewhat graphically. That they just got cheap and lazy and decided to use the same game engine as the prior Bethesda game is pathetic. In the era of Witcher 3 and Star Wars: Battlefront, you need to push the technological envelope and Fallout 4 does not.

Additionally, building a settlement is fun, but too simple. It seems ripe for DLC or fan made mods.

Score: 7.6/10 Fun, but was expecting so much more. Feels like a game that was made five years ago.

Video Game Review: Dragon Quest VIII (PS2, iOS, Android, 3DS)

Dragon Quest VIII was recently re-released on iOS, Android, and 3DS, pretty much all the mobile systems. It originally came out on PS2 and that is the version I played. It was also English dubbed.

Before playing, I read many reviews on the game. Most of them were very positive with the same specific caveat: this is a classic/old school Japanese role playing game. What I found during my playthrough was that this was a euphemism for grinding, repetitive, unoriginal, primitive gameplay.

But first, let’s go over the good parts of this game.

The first thing that amazed me was that all the music in this game is fully scored by a live orchestra. Even in this day and age, synth music is popular and practically much cheaper and less of a hassle than hiring a full orchestra play your music. Dragon Quest VIII ignores that and opts for the live orchestra for every song, something even Final Fantasy X did not do even though it was a system seller back when the PS2 was released. You need to also remember that this was years ago, back during the time of the PS2. Games were far less popular than they are now. Even still, they opted for the orchestral music and I am glad they did.

Voice acting is all right. Everyone has some kind of accent from the United Kingdom for some reason.

Graphics are all right. It’s an old game. I do appreciate the nostalgic Toriyama art style.

I think most people agree that the strength of a good role playing game is its story. The story here is satisfactory. It’s a classic tale of a nameless hero saving the world.

I also think most people would agree that the greatest weakness of role playing games is the gameplay. Even with the years of progress made in this genre of video games, I think most people would agree the weakest parts of games like Witcher 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition was the unimaginative combat and gameplay. The same is absolutely true here.

Dragon Quest VIII self proclaims that it wants to remain true to the “old style” of Japanese rpg’s, but what comes across to me is old primitive it is and how lazy the developers must have been not attempt any improvements to the old formula.

The games basic structure is this: you travel through an open world from town to town, dungeon to dungeon. Each town has  plot point. Each dungeon has a boss and an associated plot point. Town’s are safe areas while everywhere else is not. That means that if you walk through these unsafe areas, you are subject to random encounters (based on the number of steps you take) with enemies who you have to battle. Battle is turn based. You have up to four playable characters and you and your enemies take turns casting spells and performing attacks.

It’s a tried and true system… except role playing games have come leaps and bounds since the inception of this genre and playing into these outdated systems leaves much to be desired. For instance, there are only four playable characters. A remedy to the old problem of how boring only four playable characters are is to add more character to the plot who play differently. Further, there aren’t that many spells nor are they sufficiently flashy. In the past, old role playing games would create massive, cinematic spells to help ease the boredom of turn based combat and alleviate the repetitiveness of seeing the same spells over and over again. In Dragon Quest VIII, I’m just bored. There aren’t enough spells. Furthermore, the lack of a journal or some method of keeping track of quests just makes playing the game a hassle. I literally have to memorize or write down what I was doing or else be completely lost in what I’m supposed to do. As an adult who takes breaks between gaming sessions, this is a hassle.

And I haven’t even gone into the time consuming grinding required to progress in the game. At many point in the game, the difficulty of the game spikes and there is no way to progress unless you spend substantial time grinding out levels and items so that you can be strong enough to defeat the enemies in that area. Normally, you can attribute this to bad or lazy game development. Developers are supposed to organize the pacing so that players get some kind of payoff as they play through the game, be it in items or story progression. Subsequent games after the old Japanese rpg’s, like Dragon Age: Inquisition or Witcher 3, have introduced many side quests with meaningful storytelling instead of requiring dull, repetitive combat. In Dragon Quest VIII, there is none of that. I just waste time grinding out levels. It’s extraordinary frustrating as I am working adult and I just don’t have as much time to attribute to such mind numbing game play.

Score: 5.9/10 A fun game, if not for the grinding. I spent around sixty seven hours playing this game, maybe thirty hours of it just grinding and leveling so I can progress. I don’t have the time for this. There are plenty of better role playing games to play that reward the time spent much better. I would only recommend this game if you’re looking for a time killer, feel nostalgic about old Japanese role playing games, and you have a 3DS, android, or iOS device. Otherwise, avoid it and go play Witcher 3, Dragon Age, or any of the other million role playing games that that better respect your time.

Video Game Review: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition (2011)

Details: Played on PC for about twenty eight hours.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is an action, role playing game released back in 2011. The Enhanced Edition was released in 2012.

As I played through the game, it was clear that the developers tried to create something many games try to: they tried to create a large, complex story that gave the player choices with real consequences. They also tried to make it so that there were no correct choices. Whatever you choose, there will be consequences both good and bad. Consequences will not be what you expect them to be. In this regard, the Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a resounding success and wonderful adventure.

That’s not to say there aren’t flaws. The primary flaw is unfortunately related to this games greatest accomplishment: its story. There is just so much story and the Witcher 2 does not spoon feed you its lore or its story. It instead throws you into the deep end head first. So many names and countries come your way that it is easy to get lost and to feel apathetic to everything going on. You really have to try to care and remember what things are and — if you do — you will be rewarded with a deep story and a detail oriented world. I did not play the first Witcher game, but I imagine that would have also helped in immersing myself in this world. There are also a series of books the game is based off of if you want even more immersion.

With that said, the story is pretty great. It’s all very Shakespearean/Lord of the Rings-y/Game of Thrones-esque with all the blood, guts, nudity, and sex you’d imagine. There are numerous choices which branch out in meaningful and distinct ways. One decision in particular during the first act/chapter drastically changes the whole story for the rest of the game. To truly get the full experience from this game, you would have to play through at least twice so as to make both decisions and see how they play out.

It’s an impressive and daring way to design a game. Most games of this genre often have choices in them, but build into the game a canonical story line. This is sometimes called the “true,” the “complete,” or the “perfect” story line which the player only achieves if he makes the “right” choices and completes all the necessary quests provided in the game. The Witcher 2 does away with that by creating a story line where bad and good things happen regardless of the choices you make. There is no right choice in this game, no “perfect” course of events and that is an amazing things. When I played this game I played it a little like real life; I made my choices to the best of my ability and I lived with the consequences. Some players might play the game twice so that they can see everything, but I did not. I treated my choices and this story with respect because the game treats the gamer with respect. There is no definitive right or wrong in the world of Witcher 2 and no matter what you choose, things often don’t turn out the way you expect.

Also worth mentioning is that this isn’t an open world game. This is a linear story and you travel to new locations as you progress through this story with no option to return to prior locations. There is some element of exploration, but it is very minor.

As for gameplay, the Witcher 2 is an action RPG somewhat reminiscent of Dark Souls/Bloodborne. You run around, swing your sword, do a dodge role, cast magic, lay traps and throw bombs. It’s all very fun and maybe a little simplistic. There is certainly some difficulty involved and the player is expected to treat the combat like they would treat the story: with respect. With that said, all I really did was hit the dodge button, roll around, attack, rinse and repeat. The gameplay could use some tweaking.

The graphics and art direction are amazing. Easily the best part of this game. It is a very detailed, gorgeous world and pleasure to look at. The only thing that bothered my were the shadows. I thought something was wrong when I saw them but, after searching the internet, it turns out they were intended to look that way. They look kind of cross-stitched at times. I mostly forgot about it as I progressed through the game.

The music is wonderful. Large orchestral pieces as expected of the fantasy genre. The more action-y parts were well scored, too.

Score: 8/10 Great game. Hyped me up for The Witched 3: Wild Hunt. I will probably get Witcher 3 sometime in the future, after the two expansions are released.

Video Game Review: Jade Empire: Special Edition (2005)

Details: Played on the PC for about twenty four hours.

Jade Empire is an action role playing game (RPG) created by Bioware and released for XBOX, XBOX 360, and PC back in 2007. It hasn’t aged well, but it is still fun.

First and foremost, it needs to be said how annoying it was to install this thing. This game has not been updated or patched for years. I run Windows 8.1. In order to get the old game up and running, you need to install it in compatability mode to a version of Windows that can support it. I think I used Vista. Even then, it may not work for you. I’ve read many forum posts on the internet on how people cannot get the game running. So, purchase at your discretion.

As for the game…

Graphically, it is pretty old. The textures have aged, but with anti-aliasing it is more than playable. Despite the aged textures, the art direction used in the game is great. It’s obviously Chinese, with a little steam-punk. Further, I was surprised that there is support for 1920 by 1080 resolution, which is the resolution of my monitor.

Voice acting was great. Thoroughly surprised and elated when I heard Nathan Fillion in the game. Love that guy.

Music was good.

The story is classic Bioware. Not as complex as other Bioware titles, but there are the standard story changing decisions, good vs. evil decisions, romance options, and side quests. Took me about twenty hours to beat.

As for gameplay, the combat system is a little simplistic. The AI is not programmed particularly well and you can tell this is the best job a company known for making RPG’s can do in pursuit of an action-y game.

Throughout the game, you learn styles (e.g. sword style, drunken fist) which are equip-able fighting style. Some have weapons, some let you transform into a demon. Some styles can only hurt certain enemies, like rock-paper-scissor. The goal — as seemingly intended by the developers — is to mix different styles during combat and mid-combo, thus yielding a harmonic combo that increases the damage and effects of your attacks. With that said, I never used harmonic combos. They were unnecessary. I just dodged around and hit people with my sword. Further, there really isn’t a lot in terms of level progression. You don’t really get to equip items, you get gems. The weapons are tied to their respective styles. It’s a very simple system.

Score: 6.8/10 Like the game. I’m sure it was great for its time, but that was years ago. Still playable though if you’re in the mood for a Bioware RPG. I’m more excited about the possibility that Bioware is going make a modern sequel with all the new game mechanics and visuals that they’ve developed since 2007.