Both Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 are Bioware creations, albeit by different development teams with clearly different goals. Dragon Age: Origins is touted as the spiritual successor to Bioware’s first major success, Baldur’s Gate. Mass Effect 2 is an action/RPG hybrid, building on the first game, but enhancing the action bits while streamlining the role-playing.
Both games offer extensive storylines, lots of spoken dialog and some excellent voice acting. Both also allow you to take your character in different directions. Once you get beyond those Bioware tropes, the two games diverge pretty significantly.
I’ve played through both games once, and working through second run-throughs on both games. Given that both games have been reviewed and discussed substantially, I’m going to narrow in on one aspect of the two games: how characters are developed. (Note: there may be spoilers ahead.)
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I’ve got my second day CES coverage up at Tom’s Hardware.
One of the funnier bits I ran across was the dueling AMD / Nvidia booths in the North Hall foyer. I’m not sure if this was intentional, or an accident, but they’re almost right next to each other.
The potentially coolest thing I saw was Nvidia’s FG100 DX11 graphics card actually running in a PC. No word on final specs, pricing or power consumption, though. Now it’s off to CES Thursday and more meetings.
My first day coverage of CES has gone up at Tom’s Hardware.
CES is a strange show in some ways. It’s really a show for buyers, the people who decide what to order for store (and virtual store) shelves for the coming year. There are also classes, mostly targeted at those buyers. But it’s also a giant show for media. There are way too many journalists and bloggers trolling for too few stories.
Perhaps more accurately, there are too many journalists trolling the same ground. In some respects, that’s why blogging is great. A blogger who only cares about Internet connected fitness gear, for example, can just write about that.
On the other hand, if you’re a casual, but interested, reader, you’ll find vast numbers of articles on various web sites and newspapers about the same stuff. There is a definite herd mentality, particularly among the tech-focused, mainstream press. That’s the nature of the beast, though, so I’m not sure how it could change. Good writing makes up for this, and if I come across some really good articles, I’ll either post links here or in my twitter feed.
I’ll be at the Consumer Electronics Show, the annual confab for all things electronic, for the rest of this week, through Sunday, January 10th.
If you want to read my impressions, I’ll be posting daily reports at Tom’s Hardware. I’ll also be posting tweets from my twitter account, @loydcase.
I’ve got a busy schedule, mostly focused on enthusiast PC technologies. I’ll be talking to Intel, AMD, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and many more. I’ve managed to squeeze in a little show floor time, too.
I’ve got some plans for Improbable Insights, too, but I’ll share those upon my return from Las Vegas.
We have Dish Network satellite TV service here at the Case House. The HD service costs a little less than the equivalent DirecTV or Comcast HD cable service, and I’ve really liked the DISH DVR functionality. (There is an ongoing patent dispute between Dish Network and TiVo regarding Dish’s DVR software, which has been dragging on in the courts for several years now, but that’s not what this is about.)
We’ve had a Dish Vip622 DVR running for several years now. The 622 is an HD DVR, which can record standard definition and high definition content. The day after Christmas, we were watching a DVD when the audio was almost completely drowned out fan noise. Have you ever heard a PC graphics card when its fan spun up to full speed? That’s similar to what we were hearing.
I paused the Blu-ray player and discovered that the Dish Vip622’s fan was spinning at full speed. Using the Logitech Harmony One to switch to TV mode revealed… nothing. No picture, no audio, nada. The Vip622 had bit the big one.
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I was cruising the forums at Quartertothree.com when I came across this gem. It’s a video that ostensibly comments on what games might win Spike TV’s VGA award for best game of the year. However, I’m not going to comment on the game choices, but rather this bit of ignorant commentary that begins around 57:45 in the show.
It’s in response to a question: “What are your thoughts on how PC gaming is dying?”
My first thought: way to pick a loaded question. But then oft-quoted analyst Michael Patcher goes on to demonstrate his ignorance, by saying: “Nobody has a PC that’s faster than a PS3.”
Say what?
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I’ve been somewhat… obsessed with Dragon Age: Origins lately. The voice acting is entertaining (Claudia Black as Morrigan and Steve Valentine as Alistair, in particular.) The story is engaging. The slightly dark take on yet another Tolkien-esqe fantasy world provides and interesting, if somewhat overwrought, spin on the old fantasy tropes.
I’m also having more fun with combat than I often do with computer-based RPGs. Maybe that’s because I’m treating the combat as if it were really a tactical mini-wargame. Because of that, I’ve been having a blast – and been successful – even in some very tough fights. Here’s what I’ve been doing to be successful.
What follows is my take on effective combat in Dragon Age for the PC version. Combat in the PC game becomes much more of a tactical strategy game than the console version, so bear that in mind. I’ve avoided any plot spoilers, focusing on tactics to take down enemies as effectively and quickly as possible.
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The dearth of blog posts here is not alarming. It’s a good sign. No, really.
Actually, I’ve just been busy. Here’s just a few things I’ve got cooking:
- Radeon HD 5970 performance preview at Maximum PC online
- The eight card roundup I wrote for Maximum PC (print) also went online
- And in a trifecta, my column on the state of AMD also went up at Maximumpc.com
- I just wrapped up a formal book proposal and submitted that (more details if it gets approved)
On a related note, it looks like I’ll be writing a couple of articles a month, plus blogging for Anand Shimpi over at Anandtech. I’m looking forward to that.
More stuff to come here as well, so stay tuned.
I’m not much of an online gamer. That’s not to say I don’t play online games. It’s just that, when I’m alone, I generally gravitate to single player games. On the other hand, I do like a good multiplayer game, and I get to indulge my desire for playing with others on a weekly basis.
The problem is, though, I’m spoiled.
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So Intel and AMD settle their antitrust litigation for a cool $1.25 Billion. With a “B.”
The timing is certainly interesting, coming so soon on the heels of New York State’s recent filing against Intel on that same topic. Toss in the European Union judgment, and you get a picture of a beleaguered Intel, fighting a battle on multiple fronts.
What does the settlement really mean for consumers and OEMs? How will it affect AMD going forward?
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