Above: The author, after the game wiped out an hour of progress because he hadn't saved.At long last, now that I've lost any interest in talking about it further, my review of Dragon Age: Origins is up at thephoenix.com.
I am pretty happy with the way this one came out. It is no fun to feel like the person on the outside, when everybody else seems to be loving a game that you just don't get. Fortunately, thanks in large part to your comments, I felt like I did come to a pretty decent understanding of the whole thing before I had to write about it. Even if that wasn't enough to change my opinion, it did help me to state it more clearly (and Krystian Majewski's Mass Effect essay was a big help, too). Dragon Age is such a big game that it's impossible to cover everything in 600 words and still make a point, but I feel like this one came close.
We are still in the thick of things, reviews-wise. All the whinging about Holiday 2009 delays is laughable in hindsight. This fall has turned out to be stacked. I feel pretty confident that I've already played my game of the year, but with Left 4 Dead 2, Assassin's Creed 2, and New Super Mario Brothers Wii all theoretically on the docket, that could change in a heartbeat. Now if only anybody would send me any of these games...
3 comments:
Sounds like I'm happy to be on PC, where I can get tooltips and click on everything rather than have to remember what buttons do what (a constant struggle with Mass Effect). Methinks Bioware needs to get a console UI expert.
I do not envy the editing work that must have been necessary to get a review of that game down to 600 words. You must have/be a good editor!
I mainly wanted to say that I, too, read Krystian's post about the Mass Effect interface, and even though I loved ME to death, the article was so spot-on, so comprehensive, and so funny that I wanted to throw an additional recommendation out there to anyone hasn't read it yet.
After reading it, it is hard to fathom why BioWare implemented so many inconsistent, bizarre, and just plain horrible UI systems. Weird!
Also, hope you enjoy Assassin's Creed 2. I really liked the first game, but the incredible progress they've made with the sequel is truly remarkable.
It really does make the first one seem like it was a tech demo. I'm obsessed.
It does seem strange that Bioware has been working with consoles for five-plus years, yet they still can't get the interface down. I played Mass Effect once for like 45 minutes on 360 and I couldn't get into it, and I think that's largely due to the interface issues. I think they'd do a lot better if they'd take the extra however long it takes, probably not all that long in the big picture, and figure this out. I think it would help them out a lot.
I think Left 4 Dead 2 is an amazing game, which is strange because I thought the first one was sort of ho-hum. It's like they did everything in this one that they should have been doing all along. It's sort of irksome when you think about it.
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