What do you do when you release a very successful (commercially speaking) game that nevertheless gets some raspberries from fans of the preceding game? You tread carefully:
"We have some new DLC that's upcoming that's going to try and address some of the comments and try and provide the fans with the things they're looking for, both the core fans and the new fans," BioWare boss Ray Muzyka told Eurogamer. "We're committing to making sure all the products in the franchise going forward are going to appeal to a wide audience, both the core and more."
While there were flaws in the game (reuse of maps, anyone?), it was enjoyable, and the story went somewhere interesting. Personally, I'm very curious to see where they take the core story - both in DLC and future games.
I've been hearing nothing but negativity about Civilization V
since it came out - so last night, when my daughter sounded interested in it, I couldn't muster any enthusiasm. On the other hand, I haven't seen it myself so - she created a Steam account and downloaded the Mac version. So far, she likes it a lot. Maybe I'll give it a try, so we could play multi-player....
An update on the official Bethesda Blog explains that due to the recent troubles with PSN, the Honest Hearts add-on will be delayed for PS3 versions of New Vegas. No other information has been given, though Bethesda promises to keep folks informed in the meantime.
Honest Hearts is an upcoming add-on for Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks. Unlike Dead Money, it will be released simultaneously on all platforms[1] on May 17, 2011.
I wonder if the botched patch delayed it more than Sony's PSN shutdown due to the data breach...
From hate to love back to unmitigated odium, it looks like Portal 2 customers are gaming review aggregator Metacritic in an attempt to both sabotage and rehabilitate the average user score by playing “score tennis,” tagging the physics puzzler with extreme scores and pithy appeals.
That happens to be about Portal 2, but you can see the same dynamic at work with Dragon Age 2. Probably with other games I haven't looked into as well. To see this for yourself, just google "XX Review", where XX is the name of the game you want to know about. Other than universally loved or hated games, picking through the plethora of results isn't easy.
Relying on the "major" sites isn't necessarily an answer either; I was listening to the Joystiq podcast on Dragon Age 2 yesterday, and it was clear that their knowledge of the game was superficial - at best. The best you can do is read widely, then make up your own mind as to whether it's worth taking the plunge.
Now that I'm well into my second playthrough of Dragon Age 2 on both on both my Mac and the XBox, I have a few more thoughts on the game
First, I should address some of the complaints about the game I heard on The Dragon Age Podcast. I had a long talk with my daughter about the podcast while we listened to it (she's a big fan of the game as well) - I should have recorded the conversation :) Basically, I have to say this: the guy who complained so much about the combat wasn't paying attention. Why do I say that? Well, his primary complaint seemed to be that lots of the battles involve endless waves of lower level foes. That's only true if you don't find the boss and kill him. Each of the big battles has a boss; the waves of reinforcements keep coming until you deal with that boss. How have I been dealing with that boss?
Keep two tanks in the party, one mage with healing, and one rogue
Focus the tanks on the boss, peeling one off if the mage gets attacked directly
Have the mage heal - especially with "Aid Allies" - often
Buy lots of elfroot potions to fill in the cooldown gaps with healing
Keep hammering the boss until he or she dies
There's exactly one battle in the game where I had to kite (on normal difficulty) - the duel against the Arashok at the end of act 2. I was playing a mage in that battle, so kiting would be expected. Heck though, you can avoid that dual and just fight the room (and that ends up being easier, as you have your whole party).
Ultimately, it sounds like the host wanted to play a rogue like he was able to play one in DAO. In DAO, you could level a rogue's dexterity up high enough to make them effectively unhittable, and basically play the rogue as a tank. You can't do that in DA2 - you have to run your battles more tactically, and make use of one or two warriors. By the same token, I found warriors to be really hard to play in DAO (underpowered compared to rogues and mages), while in DA2, they are on an equal footing. Yes, the map reuse is annoying. But if you hate the combats, I strongly suspect that you're doing it wrong.
We picked November 11, with the unofficial tagline 'us too'," writes the game's creator, Markus "Notch" Persson on his official blog. "It's the same date as a few other games and movies, and the one I'm the most excited about is Skyrim, so that will be a nice reward for me if we actually manage to hit that date!"
since it came out - so last night, when my daughter sounded interested in it, I couldn't muster any enthusiasm. On the other hand, I haven't seen it myself so - she created a Steam account and downloaded the Mac version. So far, she likes it a lot. Maybe I'll give it a try, so we could play multi-player....
DLC will be delayed on PS3 - 
is on the way soon:
on both on both my Mac and the XBox, I have a few more thoughts on the game 
