W♥M (Archive)

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Game of the Year

Did you get a PS4 for Christmas, but can't get online to play Destiny? Both Playstation and Xbox are under a DOS attack over the Christmas holiday. That's why I would never buy an online-only game (or any game that requires an always on connection). It's like you own the game, but can only play it whenever the service is available... Imagine buying a car, but it will only work if it gets approval.

Anyway, if you're looking for offline games on the Playstation 4, have I got some games you should check out: Dragon Age: Inquisition and Far Cry 4. Both games came out in November.

Read More Dragon Age One of my favorite role playing game, Dragon Age: Origins is available for FREE until October 15, thanks to origin.com. I love Origins, and had issues with its sequel Dragon Age II for its repetitive game play and …

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION
dragonage.com

Remember how I beat Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare in just a few hours? I complained about how short the campaign was... Well if you're in the same boat and want a game that is meatier, you need to check out Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Just to give you a little background, I am a fan of Black Isle/BioWare, the company that created some of my favorite games: the original Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights series. BioWare went on to produce games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. The first Dragon Age: Origins is my #2 favorite RPG game, just behind Skyrim.

The game will take you about forty hours to complete, I've already sunk in about 37 hours and I'm not really that far in the game! Of course, I also played the game wrong because I spent about 20 hours in the first area (the Hinterlands). I had no idea I can leave that map and go to other area of the game. The game did not make it obvious that I can easily access the world map or that I can always return back to the Hinterlands. From my previous experiences, sometime when you leave an area, you are not allowed to go back, so I basically completed everything in the first map before I moved on! And that took a long time!

The fighting mechanics is a cross between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, and although you can pause the game, I found myself not using the pause tactical screen simply because navigating between characters on the controller is not a great way to play. On the PC, accessing characters is a click of a mouse, but on the game console, you have to press up and down to select each characters. Basically I played the game as more of an action RPG.

The game is good, but I wouldn't put it on my #1 or #2 list, as there are some key things that I hated. First of all, the world does not feel open or epic. Part of the fun for me is travelling from town to town, but in Dragon Age, you can only access it via maps. Areas are only available to you once you unlock them. The other big issue I have is how limited the skills are. For example, I am playing a rogue, and once I maxed out my archery skills, there is not a lot for me to go. I guess, I can always develop my sneak attacks ... but that is not my play style.

Plus, the game is buggy! Here are additional issues I had:

Characters holding a torch will not fight automatically.

Sometime rifts will not allow to close (especially when you leave the rift area and try to come back right away).

Characters cannot swim (you fall in the deep water and you instantly die).

The jump button is also the interact button by default, so I found myself jumping a lot.

Traveling by mount is faster, but you never use it because enemies can attack the horse.

Auto-targeting enemies (at least on the console) does not guarantee actually fighting them. You will attack the enemy you are facing instead of attacking the targeted creatures.

On the console side, you are only allowed the use of 8 buttons - due to the limitation of the controller. The problem is that you will eventually develop more skills than you can use. I don't think this is a problem for the PC version, since you can probably assign a skill to any buttons on the keyboard.

Anyway, I am really enjoying Dragon Age: Inquisition at the moment. Even if the game is not my all-time favorite game, it is certainly my favorite game of 2014!

Dragon Age: Inquisition is currently on sale on EA's Origins system for $39.99. It's the standard edition, which is fine for most people.

Personally, I never saw the value in paying for digital goods, unless the price is too good. Sometime if the price is only marginal, I don't have any problems a little paying more for physical discs. I like the idea of lending, giving it away, re-selling it, or using it as backup.

Child of Light

Child of Light Ubisoft Read More Video Games I launched my PS4 the other day to see that there was a pending system update (1.7.1). I was so excited, thinking perhaps this was the much-needed update for DLNA and media support …

I just finished the side-scrolling role-playing game called Child of Light on the PS4. I didn't check the game log, but it didn't take me long to get through the game. I'm not complaining because the game was reasonably priced at only $14.99.

There's a lot of reading, so I spent a lot of time pressing the X button just to progress in the game. From my understanding, there is a princess called Aurora, who is under some mystical sleep spell. You spend the game playing as her in this weird dream-like world. Along the way, you meet other characters and you're on this quest to save the world from Umbra.

In combat mode, you can only control two characters at a time. Maybe it's the way I play these type of games, but given all these various characters and their unique talents, I tend to only use a few characters when I am in combat because of my play style and sheer laziness. Of course, the game setting was also on normal, so I am assuming using different characters are the key to winning the game on a much harder mode.

Once you've beaten the game, your character is set back to where the game started, only all your powers and friends are intact. I haven't bothered to try and finish the game a second time, but it's tempting to try and max out all my characters.

The music of Child of Light is by Cœur de pirate (Béatrice Martin), from Montreal. In a recent interview with the 'pirate heart', she mentioned how she was inspired by "a bit of Danny Elfman" and "lots came from what I liked from children’s tv shows."

Cœur de pirate's latest release is the soundtrack to Season Five of the Canadian medical drama series Trauma.

Child of Light is available right now on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One (with support for the Sony Vita soon), via Ubisoft.

vu () ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic