Category: Games

I have been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition for quite some time, but I kept telling myself I needed to get in to it more before I gave my review.  Well, I have a ton left to play, but I am going to give you my thoughts anyway, why?  Because by the time I am done with this game it will be 2016.  This a huge game, and one worth spending some time in.

The game is technically the third game in a series, but you can tell the developers wanted this game to stand on its own.  Almost a reboot if you will.  The first game Dragon Age: Origins tried to be an old school RPG, but then also be friendly to console gamers, and ended up somewhere in between.  Making neither crowd very happy.  The second game Dragon Age 2 went straight up action RPG, and in the process lost what fans the first game had.  With Inquisition Bioware took a step back and looked at the games of theirs people did like, namely Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect, and then made a fantasy RPG that followed in that style.  There result has been great.  If you don’t want to jump in to this world without knowing what has happened you can go to Dragonkeep.com and customize all the actions that you would have taken in the other games while learning the backstory.

If you have ever played a Mass Effect or Knights of the Old Republic game you will understand how this game works very quickly.  You get three party members with you at all times, and you can just control your character and let them act on their own, or you can pause the action and assign their actions.  What is new this time around is that you can kind of program their automatic actions in the menu, and if you wish you can just flat out control them as if they were your character, so if you are sick of playing your mage for awhile you can play as one of your brawlers.  It is quite fun.  Thankfully you can select the armor and weapons for all your sidekicks, not just a couple of things like the later Mass Effect games.

Like Bioware’s other games, Dragon Age: Inquisition doesn’t take place in one spot like say Skyrim, you unlock different zones and areas as you play, or gain “Power” as they say in the game.  Much like the planet maps of their Sci-Fi games, you have a world map in this game.  Now the zones are plenty large, so there is still stuff to do for you explorer types.  Well, there is plenty to do regardless of your play style.  There are so many quests and areas that you will have something to do for a long time.

There are a couple of downsides to this game.  One, it takes a long time to truly start.  Not until you get your castle “Skyhold” do you really gain access to all this game has to offer, and even if you press through to your castle, it will take you at least twelve hours or so to get there.  That is the length of some games right there, and in this game you are maybe 15% done.  Crazy.  The other problem is that some of the quests are kind of boring (namely the Hinterlands).  Like they were thrown in for filler, but with so much to do they should have just been left out.

I am enjoying my time with Dragon Age: Inquisition, and I can’t wait to play more.  I am nowhere near done with this game, but I have already got my money’s worth.  This game seems like it is always on sale now, and it is well worth a purchase at even full price, so it is a steal now.  If nothing else this game will give you something to do during those long gameless summer months, or at least until The Witcher 3 comes out in May.

Well this is kind of fun, two of my games for 2015 are on my most anticipated games for 2014 as well.  That is the way the video games business works though, and I would rather see them delayed and be good then be like the rushed messes of this year.  So here are my most anticipated games for 2015!

5: Tom Clancy’s The Division

This was my number one game for 2014, but the fact that Ubisoft has been dropping the ball lately made me move this game down the list a bit for this year.  Still it is an open world current day RPG, and that sounds amazing!

4: Quantum Break

The guys behind Max Payne and Alan Wake are making a game where you can control time not just slow it down.  This seems like a natural progression, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.  They don’t have a firm release date for this game, so it may turn up on my top games for 2016 list next year, but I am still excited none the less.

3: The Witcher 3

The Witcher 3 moved two spots up the list this year, and the reason is that not only is it open world now, but it also has multiple playable characters!  It is about time, and I think this is the year The Witcher is going to become one of the premier PRG franchises.

2: Batman Arkham Knight

The Batman games are some of my favorite of all time, and this is Rocksteady’s last time working with the Dark Knight.  In this game you will have all Batman’s tools to work with including the Batmobile, so this should be one to remember!

1: Halo 5

The Chief is back, and he is bring back the multiplayer that everyone enjoyed.  With a few tweaks of course!  This should be the Halo game we have been waiting for, and for 343 Industry’s sake I hope so!  Halo 5 might be the biggest game of 2015!

There is my list, and it should be another good year for gaming!  There are also a number of indie titles coming out that just didn’t quite make the list, but still even more reason to be excited.  What are you wanting to play next year?

Thanks to the Xbox One coming out, and a lot of the indies I have backed on Kickstarter finally getting finished, I got to play a lot of games this year.   That means my list is a little more complete than last year, and that is a good thing.  Here they are my top five video games in reverse order!

5: Child of Light

There were a lot of titles bucking for the number five slot, but I went with Child of Light.  It was beautiful to look at, and charming to play.  I loved just kicking back and letting the whimsy wash over me.  For all the bad press Ubisoft got this year, and deservedly so, it was nice to see that they are still making smaller thoughtful games too.

4: Broken Age: Part 1

Generally if the people at Double Fine release a game, I will play it.  Broken Age: Part 1 makes me glad that I do.  I was very happy that Kickstarter brought back point and click adventure games, and the master of point and click Tim Schaefer at that.  The only reason this game is at number four and not higher is that it is only half a game.

3: Shadow of Mordor

I have barely started to play this game and it lands on my list at number three.  Why?  Because it mixes the wonderful Batman games with Assassin’s Creed, and then moves the action to Middle Earth.  That is like crack-cocaine for me.  Warner Brothers has shown licensed games don’t have to be terrible!  I will do a full review of this game later, so it may come off this list, but I doubt it.

2: Titianfall

Titianfall made me fall in love with first person shooters again.  It reminded the gaming world we didn’t need to make realistic military bore-fests.  Thanks to Titianfall every game now has double jump and more freedom of movement.  Oh yeah it had giant robots too!  Even if some people complained that there wasn’t enough content, this game has changed the FPS genre for the better, and it may just be the most influential game of 2014.

1: Sunset Overdrive

This game is number one because it had one goal: be fun!  And it succeeds in spades.  I am sure that some games that came out this year were technically better, or they had better story lines, but Sunset Overdrive was crazy fun, and anything called a “game” should strive to be.  It also said, “Hey why not use color?!”.  Which is nice since most games these days like to shade themselves in brown and gray or other serious colors.  Meanwhile Sunset Overdrive takes nothing seriously, well except for the aforementioned fun.

There were a lot of good games that didn’t make my list this year, which means that despite what the critics say it was a great year for gaming.  I would love to hear your take on the games of the year!