HoonDing

Selective memory aside, if they'd compare with the quest quality of the Dark Brotherhood & Thieves Guild, then very few games would indeed compare with Oblivion.

The Saboteur. Main missions are fun, story is interesting, but "freeplay" is boring and repetitive. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to put thousands of AA guns, searchlights, sniper towers, armoured divisions and what not all over Paris, and make it pretty much necessary to blow them up to be able to buy ammo & weapons.

Hack 'n slash is now mostly used as a derogatory term for action games where one can mindlessly click through hordes of enemies withotu any strategy or tactics. This is nonsense. Hack 'n slash games like Blade of Darkness, Demon's Souls, Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, God of War and even Bayonetta require plenty of tactics and different strategies to beat different types of enemies, which is ironally unlike DA:O where one suffesful tactic wins the entire game. It is untrue, anyway, that DA2 is going to become a full-fledged fantasy action game. Jade Empire already proved that BioWare cannot do action combat right.. even Mass Effect 2 combat is largely just Gears of War with nicer bricks to hide behind. Going down teh action route in earnest would be just shooting themselves in the foot. BioWare knows what they do best (notice how on the BSN Jade Empire has already been dumped in the "legacy" section) and will keep doing what they do best.

Ah, that explains the high marks of the Scandinavian nations then. People automatically think "hot blondes".

Gather all those nutcases and shoot them to Gleise 581g.

Maersk is Danish, I think.. Strange that Germany isn't number 1, though.

In Mass Effect one can at least insta-kill most enemies with the right combination of powers. In Dragon Age, this is impossible without a mage spamming Cone of cold or Cloudkill Storm of the century. Level-scaling & painfully slow animations make non-mage combat as exciting as watching the traffic lights change. Fighting even the lowliest Genlock grunt as a warrior feels like chopping down a tree. A very big tree, like a baobab. At least BioWare got the right idea with speeding things up (although, it seems fanboi butthurt might make them slow it down again).

Yo Brent, I'm really happy for ya and I'ma let ya finish, but Dragon Age can only incline if it becomes more like Mass Effect. If DA2 cuts back on the single-player MMO combat/sidequest design completely, it can only improve. Also, it should be 'Dragon Fantasy' or 'Dragon Warriors', rather than 'Dragon Effect'. I don't think Hawke will hide behind bricks shooting mooks with a crossbow.

What's Canada's biggest national brand? BioWare?

Worse, you can get killed by moths.

This is like that time Gwen Stacy died.

Mentioning the death of Hawke's brother seems very specific, though. IIRC BioWare only mentioned and showed Hawke had a sister, the mage Bethany. Also, I thought the game started with the Dynasty Warriors sequence. It's possible BioWare showed the destruction of Lohtering to the previewer.

They're racers, so it makes sense. But they have nothing on the SS babe.

Don't mess with an Irishman.

Witcher 2 interview

70 sidequests? Wow. Vanilla Fallout 3 had only around 20, IIRC.

Evil Bethesda lying at the root of Obsidian's (supposedly the only hope left that can provide us with "true" AAA RPGs) future smash hit. Ironic?

Does Morrigan get pregnant without the Dark Ritual, then? Without the Dark Ritual, isn't there an ending where she becomes the advisor of the Empress of Orlais instead? All I'm saying is, it's useless to have an ending where the Warden can sacrifice herself, when the story is clearly supposed to continue in an expansion & DLC (and most likely in DA3). It's like Mask of the Betrayer, which assumes that for some reason evil characters would always choose to defeat the King of Shadows rather than joining him.

I forgot how much I hate xkcd. But do carry on.

Huh? It does? Since when? Awakenings & Witch HUnt.

Is she dancing?

Guess what... there is no nation in the world that hasn't lost a war yet.

Funny to expect meaningul consequences in a game that revives dead characters and assumes all Wardens agreed to the Dark Ritual. So in DA3 Morrigan is likely to return with her little Bhaalspawn. If there is a canon story, they should just say so. :butthurt: