judyonthenet

As I mentioned before, I splurged on games upon returning from Hawaii, two of them being Bioware games: Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. I started playing Dragon Age: Origins because it’s new and shinier, using my Dalish Elf rogue Judith I created a month ago with the character creator. (I go for “Jude” or “Judith” as often as I can in these games.” I’m so original.)

My character in the character creator

In the beginning of the very first dungeon for my origin, two giant spiders fall from the ceiling and attack my party in the game, scaring the sh*t out of me and causing me to yelp and panic and stop playing the game in real life. My characters manage to kill the creatures while I have a freakout on my bed. I’ve been working on getting over my phobia, but that was too much for me. It was like playing the first dungeon in LoZ: Ocarina of Time all over again. I remember asking Kelvin very specifically before starting the game if there were any spiders in that game.

Spiders? There’s no spiders in Ocarina of Time.

Yeah, except for the infected tree dungeon at the very beginning that’s ALL SPIDERS. FALLING FROM THE CEILING. F*ck. Rodney eventually played through that dungeon for me, but I never went back to finish the game.

As I was saying, the dungeon surprise in Dragon Age made me feel ill, so I instead started Mass Effect. Which seems similar to Dragon Age, except in space. That said, aliens look awesome in this game. I can’t stop staring at Wrex; he’s so nice and detailed on the outside of his aggressively violent insides.

Wrex (left) is so cuddly wuddly. btw, this game has WAY TOO MANY ELEVATORS

Humans look meh in Mass Effect. And my character apparently can’t figure out how to put on her fake eyelashes in the morning.

I hope she’s talking about her makeup

I dunno if women in the future are insecure about their eyelashes or something, but all the females have an overdose of mascara, eyeliner, and fake eyelashes.

I like Mass Effect, though I’m still in the beginning and still a non-Spectre. I think I’d be farther if weren’t for all these damn crashes I kept getting. I think something is up with my computer’s memory; my computer occasionally randomly restarts and bitches about DRAM speeds. Outside of this, the game likes to freeze. And when it’s not freezing, it crashes and complains about rendering exceptions. After restarting the game a dozen times, Kelvin told me to play Dragon Age again, so I did.

Because I can’t play that spider dungeon without a babysitter, Kelvin sat next to me while I had my views zoomed all the way out so I wouldn’t vomit at the sight of the disgusting eight-legged creatures. I managed through the intro dungeon, and I’m hoping my friends will warn me of other encounters so I don’t have a heart attack.

Dragon Age is pretty decent so far. Western RPGs are one of my favorite game genres, if not the favorite, and this is a classic Western RPG. I enjoy the banter between characters, the customization options, and how many of your choices directly affect your game. The story is typical fantasy fare so far, but it’s too early to tell for certain. What I love is how awesome this game runs. My rig isn’t particularly ancient, but after Mass Effect, I’m glad I’m not having any issues. In fact, it hasn’t even crashed once since I started playing, and I think I’m maxing all my settings.

I’ve heard people complain about graphics. Sometimes things look a little plain or blocky (like when a tree branch gets annoyingly stuck in your face when you’re trying to work on your party’s combat), but nothing in particular bothers me. Except for maybe the people. Humans weren’t too great in Mass Effect, and Dragon Age has done little to improve on it. All humans move and look like freaky marionettes, tho they are better looking than the Ugly-ville that was Oblivion. (Man, that game was full of ugly.) I also like the touch of putting as much blood as possible on everything, especially your party members. Makes the conversations a lot more fun to watch.

The Grey Warden crew

You know what’s more fun to watch? Try stripping your characters naked before talking to anyone!

Speaking of not ugly, you know who’s not ugly in this game? Alistair. Alistair is hot. Sure, he’s kind of an overly-sarcastic and whiny goodie-goodie sissy templar boy that constantly gets destroyed in combat, but he’s totally hot. I’m definitely gonna “romance” him.

*sigh* dreamy

Some more nitpicks about Dragon Age: Origins, outside of the disgusting giant arachnids:

1. Retarded party AI… or “I don’t f*cking get these tactics” – If I turn on tactics, I can’t micromanage them well and get them to focus on people, as they get ADD and immediately start doing their own thing. If I turn off tactics, you need to babysit them every waking second. Oftentimes I see a guy or two just standing around, doing NOTHING, while their buddy right next to them is getting pummeled. (ALISTAIR I’M LOOKING AT YOU.)

Occasionally, enemy AI is equally retarded.

And why the f*ck are my mages switching to daggers when their staffs are way better? I just want you to hold the weapons, not use them when you SUCK at them!

Use your damn staff, grandma!

Which leads me to…

2. Lack of inventory slots – I’m a natural horder, and this is not a game for horders. I understand if my backpack can only carry a certain amount of junk, but I can’t even store it anywhere! Apparently no one in Fereldon is clever enough to rent out space for storage. Just give me ONE chest in a room somewhere to put all these freaking ingredients and presents! Lack of inventory makes me cram as much junk into people’s action slots, hence my mages carrying swords, daggers, and shields.

3. Imprecise click areas – I see the object I can click. I see the word of the object I can click. Why can’t I click the freaking object? Why can’t I just click the word if I can’t figure what retarded invisible boundary box are I’m supposed to click?? If you’re gonna show it to me, make it easy for me to click the damn thing!

4. Telling me to buy DLC in the middle of the game – Penny Arcade did a good comic on this. It’s times like this I get sad that this game isn’t open enough that I can just kill these people so they can stop ruining my immersion with their advertising.

5. Points of no return – I missed out on completing several sidequests because the story would advance to the point where I couldn’t do them anymore. I wish there was some sort of warning. It greatly bothers me that I have to start the game over in order to do these missions, as minor and insignificant as they are. I just wanna know what happens, man.

Nobody liked Lothering anyway

Anyway, if you’re wondering why I haven’t been responsive via IMs or phone past 6PM, it’s because I’m glued to my PC playing this game. And don’t expect anymore from Kelvin because he’s doing the exact same thing next to me. (Yay for computers keeping our bedroom warm.) If you’re got a lot of free time and enjoy western RPGs, Amazon has the game for $39.99 right now ($10 below retail), but who knows what crazy Black Friday deals there may be. Here’s my Amazon link if you’re feeling impulsive and/or supportive:

New thing I learned today: The plural form for the noun “staff” is “staves” in British/International English and fantasy literature. Only in American English is the word “staffs” commonly used instead.

Video games and other gaming related purchases:
Phantom Brave: We Meet Again (Wii) – $36.12 at Fry’s
Disgaea DS (DS) – $13.40 at Fry’s
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS) – $15.13 at Fry’s
Total: $64.65

I’ve been getting impulsive with the clearance games at Fry’s, especially since we’ve made a couple trips to get miscellaneous tech necessities. Kelvin’s been wanting to replay Phantom Brave on the Wii since he never finished it on PS2, so he got the game. Much to his disappointment, improvements he thought the Wii version would have (improved graphics, widescreen support, using the Wiimote to place your characters) were all nonexistent. He probably should have done his research.

Call me needy, but I like to be in the same room as him, including when he plays games. But if he’s playing single-player games, my activity choices are limited in the living room to using my iPhone or a portable game console. (I should probably get a netbook.) Watching him play Phantom Brave made me want to play something similar. I found out my Fry’s had one clearance copy of Disgaea (DS) left, so I went to grab it. I also found the same Fry’s had one more clearance copy of Henry Hatsworth left, so I grabbed that too.

On a related note, the 10% off Amazon games ECA discount is officially dead. My guess is that Amazon and ECA had some major miscommunication issues on the deal, and after all the craziness from ECA making their memberships free, Amazon completely killed the discount. I’m hoping Amazon will have their own version of a gamer’s discount that’s a hybrid of Amazon Prime and GameStop’s Edge Card, like pay X amount and get 10% off games for a year. That’d be sweet.

Games I beat:
…

Okay, at the beginning of the month, I swear I was trying. I’ve actually put a bit of time into Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. The problem is I’m not liking it as much as I liked the previous games. I still enjoy the game’s humor and concept, and I love that you can play Bowser. The game just, I dunno, seems a bit drab. The environments are all blocky and uninteresting, especially Bowser’s insides. I don’t remember it being much different than previous games, so maybe my tastes have changed? I just find it discouraging, going through all these boring lands as Bowser and seeing these things that only Mario and Luigi can reach, which means I eventually have to go through all this crap at least a second time. Meh. So this one is going kind of slow for me.

I tried to play Scribblenauts, but the lack of story and wonky controls made me give up on it.

I started Disgaea DS to preoccupy myself while Kelvin plays Phantom Brave. I don’t get all the intricacies of it yet, so it seems like any other Japanese strategy RPG I’ve played. So far, what I do dig is the humor of the main character and his dark minions. Especially the prinnies. Dood.

Towards the end of the month, I spent more time going over some college material for a phone interview and researching (and buying) things for the Hawaii trip. Then Valve came up with the Team Fortress 2 Halloween update, so I played that for my remaining time on the mainland. I thought I’d get some DS playtime on the plane or at the hotel, but instead I’d read this awesomely informative Hawaii guidebook I had bought at the last second before leaving.

New thing I learned today: Prinnies are created from the souls of worthless or sinful people.

Well, kind of. We got back from Hawaii Saturday, and I’ve spent all my time since then doing quick cramming for an interview I had today. I’m pretty sure I did absolutely awful. (Scheduling an interview during my vacation for right after my vacation… so cruel!) I guess that just means more time for video games! I impulse bought, like, 3 games in the last 24 hours. Which reminds me, I need to get October’s video game tab up.

Hawaii was pretty great! We hit a few snags at the end (cramming too much stuff in at the last couple days, resulting in exhaustion leading to grumpiness and big time arguing with the spouse about miscommunication). Avery and Kelvin took some pretty pictures and videos of the trip. We don’t have Avery’s pictures yet, but you can see some of the video footage that was taken on Kelvin’s Youtube. I’ll have to discuss the trip at some point. How about after I finish those damn honeymoon posts?!

New thing I learned today: What the C function calloc does.