Dragon Age III Inquisition

So we are in the year 2013 and next year holds a special promise for me... Supposedly Dragon Age III Inquisition will come out. As I rub my hands like a greedy dwarf and smirk like a blood mage who has been promised something amazing by a desire demon, I try to keep up with the annoncements of bioware so as to see what they are planning on doing.

I understand that this 3rd series of Dragon Age games will be likely to take place in "Somewhere French" which I can only assume would be Orlais. I dont know where that leaves us with the previous games though. Because:

!!!!SPOILERS!!!!!!!!! (Do not watch the video or read the paragraph below)

At the end of the Dragon Age II we see Lelliana telling Cassandra -the seeker of the Chantry whose surname escapes me though I believe it was something like Pentagust or something- that Hawke is gone just like the Warden. It is so very obvious that they were thinking of a sequel when Lelliana says: "That is no coincidence". You can observe that in the video. According to Bioware it is likely that we will have a new protagonist and so the story of Hawke may be done. If it is true that leaves DAII's ending hanging in the air a little bit. The end of DAO is pretty decided when compared to DAII and so you get a better closure whereas in DAII one would think that they should have gone for a sequel. Oh well we will see. I suppose what we will see next is the open war between mages and the templars. Either way I believe Bioware is capable of producing great games. Besides it will be fun to explore a whole new area.

!!!! END OF SPOILERS!!!!!!!

According to wikipedia here is what the combat will be like:
"Combat is expected to differ somewhat from its predecessors and focus more on a player's ability to prepare, position, and form a cohesive team with his or her party members, requiring fewer repetitive finger strikes but better thinking."

Reminds me of Baldur's Gate a little. An improved BG style combat. I am not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand I do like the idea of being challenged in a fight but my major qualms about having way too many fights in a game which I play for the plot itself is that it prevents me from playing it repeatedly hence preventing me from exploring all the outcomes of various storylines. I guess I wil have to wait and see how much I like or dislike it within the game itself.

What I really liked hearing was how they are thinking of opening the world map for exploring since they liked what they saw in Skyrim and have said so on so many occasions. If there is one thing I miss in other games whilst playing Dragon Age series is the jump button. I am glad to hear that I might get my spacebar back as jump. hehe

No recycled dungeons. That is one more thing they are correcting...permission to go for a high pitched yaaaay...

One of the things which is confirmed is that we will be able to transfer our save files from previous games to DAIII, well I was kind of depending on that anyway.

But above everything else I am jumping up and down in joy because it has been confirmed that the character will be fully voiced and they will make use of the dialogue wheel from DAII. Guilty as charged, as I mentioned it in previous posts, I loved that about DA2 and if there was one thing I really wanted to see in DAIII it was that. So for me what I hear for now really suits the phrase: "So far so good".

Wish I could hibernate till DAIII came out...but thats not an option I guess...

SWTOR Free to Play???

Now that I have levelled my first character to 50, I have got a pretty good opinion on how Star Wars Online works and among the mmorpgs I have tried so far it is the second in line that captured me enough time to care to level my characters and it still does.

Just to be clear though this is not a discussion on whether the game is worth playing or not because in my honest opinion it is a game very well worth purchasing.

But it is it Free to play?

Lately a lot of companies have been playing fast and loose with the term free to play and Bioware/ Lucas Arts' Star Wars has recently become one of them. It is a lovely little marketing trick to lure in more players and earn from quantity rather than quality both game and content wise. My most beloved game LOTRO had been periodically destroyed after it had gone free to play because the company did not care about keeping loyal players satisfied any longer but rather adopted a corporate philosophy of "dont look back and keep 'em coming". But we are not discussing LOTRO here.

The same worries do not apply to Star Wars however because it aint free to play. Guild Wars 2? It is Free to Play, you purchase the game once and then play for free with all essentials and quests intact in the package.

Star Wars? Not so much...

When you have to buy the "hide helmet" option it aint free to play.
When you have to buy skill bars so that you can use your damn skills it aint free to play...
When you have to pay for each and every essential point that allows you to play a game, that game aint free to play.
Unless what you mean by free to play is make rounds to do some sightseeing in your helmet....

So what is it:
It is a delusional lie to excite the expectations and try to entice new customers if you can.

But then again I knew that it would not have been free to play from the beginning; the very beginning when I first purchased the game and for the first time in my gaming life was I subjected to extra 2 months payment to log in to the content I had just purchased. Now that was very very very cheap on Bioware's part. Shame!

Did I do it though? Hell yeah! Their philosophy might be cheap but the game they came up with is simply superb. Lets face it, it is much better than not getting your money's worth. That was the reason why I quit LOTRO and I was not even paying for it due to my lifetime subscription. I was not getting even my imaginary money's worth.



So my point? Game time card or monthly payment in Star Wars, kicks free to play in the crotch.

Merry Christmas

I wish you all from the bottom of my heart a Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays everybody :)

P.S. In the picture are our dog Bailey as "Rudolf the reindeer" and our son Alex :)

21st of December

 According to the general belief and unease because of the Mayan calender, it is now a matter of hours: Doomsday, Apocalypse, The End of the World.

So many people taking refuge in two small towns one in Turkey the other in France. To escape the apocalypse? Seriously??

Lets say for the sake for the argument that the nation who could not predict their own genocide predicted this right...juuuuust for the sake of the argument. Do you really think you are going to escape something of that sort? No logic, no belief in religion, no common sense, no romanticism, no realism, not anything in the world could explain this silly way to escape something which supposedly is inevitable should it happen.Well maybe one thing could...Egoism...

Lets say that the end of the world is on 21st of December 2012. But according to which time zone? If it is according to the Mayans then it is not 21st of December for many countries in Far East...So what sense is there of 21st? Well lemme answer that for you...None whatsoever. Oh oh wait unless of course the apocalypse got wise of the time zones and is going to impend on each region at the exact time of the zone...gimme a break..

I just read some articles on how the little town, which according to the rumours is going to be saved, prepared apocalypse dinner menus, wines and even apocalypse desserts. So am I to understand while the world comes to an end according to their belief, they will be feasting and toasting to the World's Ending? Or will they be having strokes and heart attacks? I think they will go from food poisoning though...

Some claim that they do not believe it is the end of the world but it is the beginning of something big. That the world will adopt a more civilized way of apprehension in one day. And they believe These two towns will be the outlet of that big change...

We are expecting aliens any moment now, eyes on the sky people. Any undefined flying objects and we will be good to go.

Meanwhile the authorities and scientists keep saying that there is no evidence to assume that Mayans recorded the day as the end of the world. The calendar just stopped. So the doomsayers have got a perfect excuse for that too: "Oh they know but they are not telling it to people in order not to cause mass panic..."Well guess what genuises... you cannot keep this thing quiet because people who would find out about something this big would have been the firsts to arrive at those villages...or at least would have had some people they cared about to save, and like ripples in the pond, from one mouth to the other the news would have been officially out by now. So what else you got?

Has it ever occurred to anyone that maybe, just maybe The Mayans simply got bored of keeping track? Oh I can see it now...

"Hey wanna work on the calendar beginning with 2013 now?"
"Come on Dude! Thats like thousands of years from now. Besides I hear they have a new chick at the temple and it will be a spectacular sacrifice. Wanna go watch the priests rip her heart out?"
"Duuuuuuude now you are talking...Besides let the idiots in 2012 figure it out themselves. I am bored of this job..."

Or another scenario...
"Look look! There is a curious looking object on the sea."
"Dont bother me now man! I am about the finish the calendar and Im in the last year, 2012. When I am done we can go to the beach and check it out together..."
And those were his last words before the slaughter by the Spanish...

Gimme a break...

And hey if I am wrong what do you care? You will all be dead by then anyway.

You idiots who are in two specific tiny villages on mountain tops freezing their asses...You are included...







 

 

Spartacus Vs Rome Series

Alright I know that I said my next review will be on Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows but this is more urgent and I have to write this before that!

I watched two seasons of Spartacus and I couldn’t bear to sit through a third. One question comes to mind…Why do Americans almost always ruin ancient Greek or Roman mythologies? Off the top of my head some of the big productions that sucked big time were: Troy(They did not even bother to find a Helen that looked like Helen, they found a German looking one instead!), Three Hundred (word to the wise…when you shout every important thing people tend to tune you out!), Clash of the Titans and the list goes on and on. Seriously don’t touch Greek mythology, you don’t get it so leave it alone!

Going back to the matter at hand: Spartacus series versus Rome Series. Well really there is no comparison whatsoever but I would like to hold a God-awful example against a good one.

The first time I tried to watch Spartacus I left it after the 2^nd episode. One of our friends insisted that it gets better so I tried again. Alright..it did get better only to the point of being watchable if you make an effort. The second season, which is like a backround to the original story, was God-awful and from what I could see in the third season (that is as far as I watched over my shoulder as I played my online game while husband watched it on the couch) simply sullied the good name of God-awful!

What bugged me?

Well to begin with, modern hair-cuts bugged me! The women who wear the fashionable hair of 21^st century in the first season bugged me! Really? Seriously?

The yank looking Spartacus who replaced the actor after he died of cancer bugged me! Yea all Thracians look like Private Ryan for sure!

Thats the yank

The pornography bugged me! I am not against nudity or pornography in series or movies for as long as it is not there because the production seriously lacks insights and so they have to make money through horny teenager audience. Oh they have to throw in homosexuality too! Of course since they are going for the commerce there has to be something in it for everyone right? Oh and lets not rule out girl on girl...thats big money too!! Get some perspective geniuses!

The slow motion- marinara-sauced- screaming-as-if-your-nuts-are-being-squeezed-fight-scenes bugged me!!! Alright it became a hit with Three Hundred (actually I call it Baywatch in ancient times!) but do you have to use it in EVERY frigging fight scene? All I can hear is:

-Rooooaaaaaaarrrrrr!!!

-Grrrrraaaaaaaaaawwwwwlllllll!!!

 -Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!

Ouuuffff just DIE already!

The Amazons coming out of nowhere bugged me! The slave women all of a sudden becoming elven archers after like training twice...yea that sounds real. If women are so much better than men in fighting and are so easily trainable then why the hell have we been sending men off to war???? Train a couple of housewives and you will get the best platoon or so it is conveyed in the series. And this comes from a woman!

Now that I am done, rightly trashing the Spartacus series, lets take a look at a Good example. HBO’s Rome. I am not going to get into the costumes and sets because although they do create the atmosphere you need it is not necessarily essential in a good production for as long as there is merit in the work. Example? BBC’s “I Claudius”. Costumes and decorations are old fashioned but the role acting, staying true to the scenario, Herculic work on part of the director make up for it and after like 30 years the production is still good as a theatrical work on television for those who know a little bit of history.

So what is it about Rome? Did it not have pornography? Did it not have elements that should not have been there? Did it not have commercial fear? Did it not have amazons? Did it not portary Livia with only one son, ruling out Drusus hence ruling out the fourth Ceasar Claudius? Did it not change history according to its wishes? At some points yes. It did but it still was one hell of a production because damn it the actors knew how to act, the director knew how not to base his work on cheap tricks but rather use them to increase his audience and the story was as true to the reality as it gets when talking about the directors’ and scenarists’ obsession to tweak the story lines (and even history) because it aint good enough and they know better (please note my sarcastic tone here!!)

But I watched Rome and I liked it. And then I watched it again and I liked it again. Because it was good work! It was a good story (history actually) with some important-to-the-story- pornography here and there. It lacked fight and battle scenes; I admit that. But hey that did not bother me one bit. The ones that were there satisfied me well enough.

What did Spartacus have? Some story thrown here and there between really tasteless and stupid pornography (FYI if I want to watch pornography I can find tons on the internet!) and fight scenes.

Rome is how it is done. Commercialism and a good work perfectly intertwined.

Spartacus is how it should not be done!

And Now I am done!

    

She-Ra Tattoo

I apologize for my absence in my blog. Well Tinny is back now and will write more on gaming, literature and cinema in no time. Next review will be on Tim Burton's Dark Shadows.

Till the review here is something more personal. I have been toying with the idea of getting a tattoo although I did not know what I would get, something that means something to me. At length I decided to go for She-ra, a cartoon character from back in 80ies, which I used to watch when I was a kid. I can safely say that She-ra and He-man characters are where it all began for me; the whole fantasy fiction obsession of mine comes from these two toons. When we were kids half of us were He-man and the other half were She-ra...Among the cartoons of 80ies my generation watched it like sick kids :)

So "For the Honour of Grey Skull" I present you with my 18cm-long-tattoo:

She-Ra Princess of Power Tattoo

Progressive Rock Radio

Hello everyone;
I have got a personal note. My husband and I will be on a Progressive Rock Radio presenting a show called: Prog & Roll. It is every Thursday between 9pm-11pm GMT. Tune in if you are a rock fan and if you like quality music. Thank you in advance :)