First impressions: Dragon Age II

By Andrew “WorldDude” Passafiume

BioWare’s latest, Dragon Age II, seems to be quite the point of contention among many die hard fans of the developer. People generally accepted the changes made to Mass Effect 2, despite some protest, but when some of those changes were made to their beloved fantasy RPG? People were outraged. Some fans have accepted the changes and moved on, while others outright refuse to buy the game. I’m not here to comment on the status of the controversy or if either side is right or wrong though.

Dragon Age II has definitely gone through some major changes. It still feels like Dragon Age though, despite the overhaul. I just want to make this point clear (although I doubt anybody will actually listen): Dragon Age II is worth playing, even if you are upset with the changes made or have never touched the series before. It has a lot going for it. Is it as good as Origins though? About that…

Downloadable game round-up! (October and November 2010)

By Andrew “WorldDude” Passafiume

Although it feels like I say this every year, this has been a real great year for games. Although it seems this case becomes more and more apparent for  downloadable releases, with many of them standing out among a crowded field of big, $60 release titles. Here are all of the downloadable games I’ve played these past two months!

The games I’ve been playing recently (September to November)

By Andrew “WorldDude” Passafiume

I really didn’t want to do this blog post, but there are so many games I’ve been meaning to write about and 30 Days of Gaming prevented that from happening. But now I think I’m going to briefly touch on a few games that I think are worth mentioning, but not worth dedicating entire blog posts for separately. Keep in mind, these are just some of the games I’ve played recently; the rest will get their own blog posts.

Admiral’s 2010 Games…So Far: Part II

by admiralsandwich

Yet again I find myself thinking about the games I’ve played this year, as well as the ones that are yet to come. 2010 has been a great, great year for games so far – no doubt about that. I’m happy that in this post, I get to write about two games that are definitely in the running for my Top 10 of 2010: Alan Wake and Deadly Premonition. Oh, there’s some Heart Gold in here too.

Random note 07: Why do people like Lost Planet 2?

By WorldDude

I have to know. Having played this game about a week ago with a couple of friends, I just don’t understand the appeal. Keep in mind, I’m not the biggest fan of Lost Planet in the world. I thought the first game was average at best, but at the time, it was saved by a very fairly  solid multiplayer component. It hasn’t aged well at all, mind you, but when it first came out, it worked. Lost Planet 2 does away with the strong story focused single player and instead is heavy on co-op. This should have been a good thing, right?

Games I played in the last three months

By WorldDude

This is hopefully going to be the last one of these epic posts for quite a while. I’m going to try to get back on the ball in terms of talking about games as I’m playing them in separate blog posts instead of trying to put together a rather large, clunky post like this. I have one planned for three downloadable games that I’ve played recently, so hopefully that will be a bit of a better read than this. Until then, here are the games I’ve played recently!

Final Verdict: Torchlight

by admiralsandwich

I’m generally not into dungeon crawlers, but Torchlight sparked some fond memories of Diablo II as well as at the time of purchase was only five whole buckaroos. Steam sales for the win.

The game as a whole is a pretty solid experience. It offers quite a few hours of gameplay – thirteen hours for my playthrough – and an endless dungeon as post-game content. It’s kind of like a watered down Diablo game, but a lot nicer to look at. Everything is a lot simpler, which can be at times detrimental. It’s pretty streamlined with some simple quests which really are just trying to push you through the dungeons. It was a pretty fun past-time, and I’ve been playing it on and off pretty heavily in short bursts for the past few weeks and enjoying it.

Until the last day I was playing it.

Admiral’s 2010 Games…So Far: Part I

by admiralsandwich

Unlike WorldDude who is a cool guy and tends to keep up with the hot new games, I tend to move at a slower pace and play a lot of new releases months, even years, later than they were released. It’s a bit of a surprise when I manage to play more than a few releases in the year they came out, but somehow I’ve managed to play exactly the right amount of games to make a top ten list at the end of the year. What a surprise! Of course there will be a few more games I might get to play by then, so for now I will just write about the games of 2010 I’ve played so far!

Once again, long blog post. Read everything or pick and choose, it’s up to you! The games I am covering this time are: Bioshock 2, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, and Splinter Cell: Conviction. Don’t really expect any comments on multiplayer aspects of any of these games, because I haven’t had a Gold subscription all year.

The Big Final Fantasy Marathon Post: VII, VIII, and IX

by admiralsandwich

Writing this a whole second time because I had a mishap with the previous post that involved the post getting nuked and then autosaved. Much rage ensued. But enough RPG-nut friends expressed disappointment about it that I feel like I can give a rewrite another go.

This is gonna be a big post, but I’ve sectioned it off by game so you can skip around if you like. Now, to don our nostalgia goggles and talk about some Final Fantasy!

Past Month in Games: May 2010 for Admiral Sandwich

by admiralsandwich

I hardly expect my past month to be particularly interesting compared to WorldDude seeing as how I spend more time playing old games from years past than freshly released ones – but this month was an exception! I’ve never done a post like this before, but in an attempt to keep the blog up to date and because I won’t be able to update again until mid-July, I figure I might as well seize my chance. We’ll start with the new releases, which consequently are also the ones I actually managed to finish in a timely manner.