Better Late than Never

Living in my cave I've been able to ignore the noise and eschew the media onslaught of what is the current generation of videogame consoles. Indeed, I have successfully shrugged off the siren call of the HD gaming generation... or had until recently. It is no secret that I have been pressing a keen ear against the proverbial wall for any and all things Dragon Age; for about a year it has been on my radar, making me wish for the promised plunge into a world built by the master artificers at Bioware, the same virtual architects who made me spend hundreds of hours in the Baldur's Gate series and it's representation of Faerun. I must now admit that I caved in and have partaken of the current generation in the purchase of an Xbox360. Though I have not forsaken my soon-to-be-classic gaming ways, I had to eventually embrace the medium's actual vehicles.

My experience so far has been a mostly pleasant one. Having never owned wireless apparati (apparatuses sounds retarded, no matter what the official stance on it is) I struggled slightly with the 360's controller in that I couldn't get it to sync with the system. Normally the controller shipped with the console is pre-sync'ed with it, but since my purchase was a vicarious one, carried out by a friend, said friend tried out the controller on another console while abroad. The result was that the controller needed to be resync'ed to my console. A simple matter, surely, but one that eluded me for a few minutes as the manuals provided with the console did not at any point make mention of utilizing the signal button conspicuously placed near the shoulder button yet designed so that one might otherwise miss it if not actively looking for it. In the documentation I have there are no indications of said button existing on the controller in the diagrams therein. That issue circumvented, I set about creating my avatar. A few short minutes later, logging in to Xboxlive, downloading updates and the DLC for my copy of Dragon Age: Origins.

I must say, I've hit the jackpot with the Black Friday Deal I procured; Fallout 3, Ghost Recon 2, PES 2009, Street Fighter IV, Spiderman Web of Shadows, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lego Batman and Pure.

At the moment I'm mostly playing Dragon Age and have found it to be all it's cracked up to be and more. Bioware have certainly pulled an awesome job and what room there is for improvement upon the current offering is something to look forward to with great delight. My current playthroughs, one on the 360 and another on the PC version, are nothing short of riveting. On the former I play a Dalish rogue male, one whose allignment I've yet to settle upon so I'll leave it as a work in progress. On the latter I play a Human Mage Male of rather dubious intentions, though I play him in as machiavelian a way as I possibly can within the game's constraints; he is outwardly cocky yet incisive and well spoken and won't partake of or incur in any evil unless it outweighs the cons of choosing such an action, but is inclined to being self-serving rather than noble. I am enjoying playing both characters and have found the overlap in certain sections of the game to be interesting points of comparison rather than repetitious segments I must wade through. Perhaps it's that having been weened on good ol' DnD roleplaying I tend to carry this into what games allow me to play the role with some modicum of immersion.

I've played a bit of Spiderman and found it to be a fun beat'em-up reminiscent of 2000's Spiderman on the Playstation One. It speaks volumes on the direction the franchise has taken and the quality of it's offerings that the very first game in 3D is the only one I've actually enjoyed. Web of Shadows seems to be pretty good so far, an hour into the game. I won't be tackling it head on but will pepper my gaming sessions with some of its generally mindless action.

PES 2009. What can I say? I love the series. Truth be told I think Konami really needs to make a serious overhaul of the game, but I can't argue with the basic quality of it. I'm having a hard time getting used to the control scheme on the 360, having spent over 10 years using playstation controllers to play the game and the super nintendo gamepad on the game's first two localized iterations (International Superstar Soccer and ISS Deluxe).

Fallout 3. Been a hardcore fan of the series, owning both original titles in it. Played around with the intro and love the implementation of it into the narrative of the game. Makes you feel like you really own the character.

Lego Batman is pure unadulterated fun and fail to see the lack of humor cited by some reviews. That game's just plain fun.

PURE is simply beautiful as an off-road racer. Have yet to play more than a couple of races but I can already say I'll be playing the hell out of it in the weeks to come.

Sonic the Hedgehog. The runt of the little. Or the biggest turd on the pile. This game is abortine in nature. Nothing to say that would be constructive other than please let the Sonic franchise die... at least in 3D.

And finally Street Fighter IV. I'm in love. I've had a thing for the series since 2 hit the arcades back in the early 90's. 4 is the entry I'd been waiting for and more... I'm still getting the hang of the little nuances of the system but I must say I am absolutely pleased with the way the game got handled.

Well, I'm off to do some questing before heading to Redcliff. C'mon Freki (dog)!