Serrano

Well who would have guessed that would be a possible party member in Dragon Age: Origins? Dare to dream, my friend. But in most playthroughs he's stone cold dead. Deceased. An ex-parrot. Considering how Zevran, Leliana and Morrigan can also be dead but still turn up anyway over the various games I'm starting to wonder if the Warden Commander was just really incompetent. It reminds me of that Robot Chicken Vader sketch;

Origin is having a sale on loads of titles at the moment, some up to 70% off. The most noteworthy one as fas as I can see is Titanfall for £22

http://youtu.be/fBeLvLJTygo

You guys are so unbelievably cynical about everything. And coincidently welcome back, Morgoth . It wasn't Bioware's most exciting trailer but I'm more optimistic about the game now that I had been. It looks like this will easily be their best told game, the cinematography, animations ect were all very convincing so hopefully they've written a story to match. Do you think they've finally gotten past the uncanny valley? I also really dug the music.

I've just had two days off and I've played so many things. I burned through The Banner Saga at long last and I loved it so much, if I had one complaint it's that even cycling through characters there weren't enough battles for me to use everyone and develop them all in one play-through. I've also been playing a lot of games in 3d because I realised that I just haven't been doing that much lately. I looked up a list of games that work well on the latest drivers and basically gorged myself on 3d goodness. It's funny how games like Modern Warfare that seem to have way too many unnecessary "dramatic" close-ups actually make more sense with 3d glasses. It's not just the developers being lazy melodramatic hacks like I used to think, they're actually showing off a bunch of really cool effects you only notice in 3d which makes each scene where the players gets a hand-up or a gun shoved in his face ect. different from each other and entertaining. "Oh look, look at the smoke effects whisping around Price as he comes out of the smoke" or "Oh look at Ghost dragging me while bits of the lawn fly everwhere and smoke and explosions and gunfire are going off all around us" with the added depth, the sensation of real depth, it just changes the perspective of a lot of these scenes entirely, they come across as being much more vivid. Also. Witcher 2 which is one of the games I had actually bothered to play in 3d during my abstinence. It looks damn near perfect basically. At it's worst it looks like Geralt is a little man you could reach forward and pickup, who is performing on a stage with other slightly seemingly less 'real' looking actors. At it's best it's literally like you're looking through a window. Other 3d games worth a mention, Doom 3 BFG edition. Doom 3 is one of those games that looks okay in 2d but it looks a bit like, I dunno, well sculpted claymation? It doesn't look at all bad but it's not spectacular either. In 3d, it can look pretty damn real. All those tight indoor environments and the enemies look and move very naturally in 3d, it creates a better illusion than a lot of other FPSs that do textures and models well but are still animated like Unreal Tournament bots and don't use as high quality and numerous dynamic lighting. You quickly appreciate just how fluid and life-like the animations and effects are. Humans still look a bit meh but I was stunned as the massive impact the glasses have on that game, the quality shoots up sharply as it makes a big difference to creating the lone survivor immersion feel ID were aiming for. Battlefield 4 also works in 3d now, it still doesn't quite live up to battlefield 3 simply because the content rather than the engine itself isn't as good. But man is it fun seeing skyscrapers in 3d.

Witcher 2 is one of those games that actually does 3d as well as it is possible to do so. It looks incredible, Geralt looks like an action figure you could reach into the screen and pick up.

Well yes and no, by waiting you get a cheaper and more polished game and extra content all in one go. With new releases you get to experience the thing while it's new and before people talk your ear off about the ins and outs of the new game mechanics and spoil things like the "A man chooses" part of Bioshock which really, really annoyed me since it's one of the big payoff moments in the game. There are pros and cons to both but definitely swatting publishers for throwing in tacky pre-order DLC iteams that break the game (which can be a downside of game of the year editions by the way since they tend to include all of that crap) or things like Shale where a large swathe of the audience can't access that part of the game for the first few weeks need to be addressed. On the whole I like getting things right away though, and keep in mind if everyone did wait for the enhanced editions then we'd all have to settle for sequels with lower budgets or perhaps no sequels at all because everyone bought the original at discount well after the whole metacritic rating and first month sales gluttony resulting in the series making less money for investors.

You can now pre-order on Steam. At the moment the game unlocks in 9 months, 1 week, 3 days and 0 hours. That's some kind of record for steam isn't it?

Do you think there are indie developers out there that see that and get very sad? I mean, of all the things to make money.

I've spent the last month or so listening to a man do Yen's voice (pretty well actually). I'm not saying it's the easiest role but I don't think it will be that hard to find a good actress for it either. I just... I almost want them to cast Peter Kenny so I don't have to make that mental adjustment.

Really, really looking forward to Yennifer's biting sarcasm, her parts in the books were always a highlight.

Edit: Nevermind.

Xenonauts is officially finished and ready for your perusal. It's X-COM (No not that XCOM, the real X-COM) only in glorious high resolution with better air combat and a cold war aesthetic.

Battlefield 4's campaign was terrible. It wasn't even very showy compared to the last game which had much better scenarios and vista moments for showing off what Frostbite is capable of.

I was thinking it looks almost exactly like Alan Wake.

Have they said anything more about Dragon Age Keep since the vague announcement some months ago?

It's actually pretty savvy, they've rebooted in a way that they can still draw from the previous films without being chained to them.

Careful Monte, all of Wodan's girls are armed.

Battlefield 3 (and it's expansions apparently? This is an insanely good gift, BF3 is one of the best multiplayer games around) and Plants vs. Zombies are free giveaways on Origin until June 3rd. Both of them are excellent, you really should get in on this now.

Most evil company in America Bruce. My payment from the tooth fairy was also suspiciously absent so my working theory at the moment is that it was some kind of heist and that Dragon Age 2 was a hastily put together diversion.

Monte is a published author and a fighting in tunnels enthusiast, you should at least take a look at his review before deciding imho. Nice project by the way, I wish you luck with it.

I call your stomach bug and raise with my 2 week holiday (all i got this year) and sinusitis. When I had sinusitis it was just after a filling which became infected leading to a root canal, but not before the weekend when the dental surgery isn't open, all while I was on my first playthrough of Dragon Age 2.

Apparently it was even more ridiculous when they tried to negotiate having the Oscorp building in one of the cityscape shots of the Avengers movie. And Shady, yes it was. The next movie is subtitled with that characters name also.

Apparently it was even more ridiculous when they tried to negotiate having the Oscorp building in one of the cityscape shots of the Avengers movie.