I started playing Dragon Age, mostly because I’m stuck on Mass Effect and I just couldn’t wait anymore. Apparently human rogues can only be nobles, which is weird, and the noble family has a really stupid name. These observations aside, I haven’t gotten very far, but I found some things mighty odd about the introduction. For one, whenever you get in a fight, you are suddenly, inexplicably covered in blood, even when fighting rats, RATS, whose splash radius has to be about six inches. How did the blood reach my shoulders, exactly? And, of course, nobody even blinks. “So, what was up in the larder? Have any trouble? I noticed you’re covered in blood, as you do. Would you like a sandwich?” More later when I get in the mood to play again.I also played through a flash game called Chibi Knight. It was pretty standard, a bit of jumping and swinging, and a rudimentary leveling system. The only really interesting thing about it is its adherence to cuteness. Of course it’s chibi and silly, with a tiny little protagonist without legs, but all the voicework was done by the developer’s 5-year-old daughter. It almost sounds sickeningly sweet, but it’s turned out to just the right amount of cute. I wouldn’t recommend it, I just found its adherence to silliness endearing.
I finally got back to Professor Layton. It’s what it usually was, just wandering around and solving puzzles. I finally got to the big plot twist, when it turned out that something ridiculous happened, and we just went along with it and then walked outside and kept solving more damn puzzles. I keep getting stuck with the peg puzzles, and the game seems to think that they are the easiest thing in the world. They won’t give me any hints! But I’m still trucking, should get through this is a couple of days.
A few friends came down into the area, and we played a few games. We introduced them to Thunderstone, which everyone liked, except me. There was a lot of downtime during a 5-player game, and your plans often get spoiled by the time the turn get around to you again. The thunderstone also came up early, and a lot of heroes were tossed because of some jerk called the Archduke of Pain, so...it wasn’t the best game ever. But they seemed to like it. I still like Dominion a lot better.(There was a great observation made by someone tonight about a completely different game, Munchkin. It was said by a great man that Munchkin can’t get out of its own way, that it tries to hard to match theme that it makes a crappy game, and I completely agree. That’s...all I got to say, but thumbs up.)
We also played Pandemic, and we lost again, even though we had everything completely under control. We ran out of time, which is completely arbitrary and is a bit of a problem when you are playing with 5 players. We just couldn’t get five cards of a color into someone’s hand, and we didn’t draw a scientist or a researcher. There’s a particular role that we draw EVERY TIME, the epidemiologist, which is not a great card, and yet we’re constantly stuck with her ugly mug, and we always lose. I almost want to toss the useless role out, because it never ever works.
No comments:
Post a Comment