Monday, April 16, 2012

Dark Souls on PC, Dragon Age III, and Crysis 3

Hey everyone, I'm not dead and the Mass Effect 3 review and Top X list is still coming. I know it's really late and I haven't posted in a while but I have been crazy busy. But here's some news (some of it old I admit).


Dark Souls was one of my Top 10 games of 2011 making the #2 spot right behind Batman: Arkham City. It's difficulty was great and its sense of progression incredibly rewarding. PC players have been clamoring for a PC version of the game since its release back in October. Namco is listening and a PC version of the game will be released on August 24th.

The PC version will have new bosses that weren't in the original version plus some possible other extras. I'm personally hoping that they will add these to the console versions at some point like CD Projekt Red is doing with The Witcher 2.

Controversy has stemmed over the fact that to use online, you have to use Games for Windows Live. Not knowing much about the service myself, I can't really comment. However, I can guarantee that as long as the controls are nailed down, this is definitely a game for PC players to look at.
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BioWare is completely done with Dragon Age II. After two pieces of DLC, one of which was lackluster (Legacy), the other of which was great (Mark of the Assassin), BioWare had planned one more piece of DLC but has decided to drop it in favor of moving onto Dragon Age III.

I replayed Dragon Age II recently and I stand by what I said in my review in comparison to Dragon Age: Origins: better story, weaker game. Many disagree with me on the first part but I have my reasons for my love of DAII's story and my enjoyment of it over Origins. Dragon Age II's story was more personal and on a smaller scale with even grayer morality than the original. It started out slow but the second and third arc were spectacular. Dealing the qunari was fascinating and the mage/templar conflict was very well set-up throughout the game.

However, the rest of the game was definitely inferior and BioWare is trying to assure us that they have listened to our complaints. They have mentioned our complaints about the repetitive dungeon design (one of my biggest complaints), lack of depth compared to Origins, and even commented on our complaints about the Mass Effect 3 ending (my spoiler-free thoughts on that when I put up the review). 

While I do love BioWare, all I can say is to show us, not just tell us. E3 is coming up in a few months and that's your chance to show us what you're doing. I'm still excited for the game and want it to be an improvement over a game that was good but nowhere near the standard I expect from BioWare. All that said, I'm intrigued as to where the story will go. Like I said, the mage/templar conflict was fascinating in DAII and now we've got a full civil war about to start. So I'll keep my eyes open and hope that BioWare justifies their claims.
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When Crysis was released on PC in 2007, it was graphical and design powerhouse. It looked beautiful and map designs were open and gave great freedom to the player. Last year's Crysis 2 was a controversial release that scaled back the graphics and design in order to fit it on consoles. It was still critically acclaimed but many PC players felt gipped.

That will probably continue as Crysis 3 has been announced for a Spring 2013 release on the PC and all consoles including the Wii-U. Another complaint raised by a lot of PC players was that the game took place in New York rather than in a jungle the way the original had. Well, that complaint goes unanswered as Crysis 3 will be taken back to New York. I personally don't get why you would set a game like this in the same city twice in a row in a series. It seems like you'd run out of design options at a point.

I played a bit of both games and did prefer the original from what I played. Based on what I've read, I'm not too excited about getting into Crysis 3. We'll have to see what happens from here but it's just not clicking.