Star Wars: The Old Republic (Beta) Impressions

Sorry for the many typos. I'm sick with a cold, and have been playing an MMO all day. Bad combination.

It'd be hard to properly describe the resounding sigh I managed when it was announced the "sequel" to the Knights of the Old Republic games would be an MMO. I remember thinking, "This is it. The series is finished. They're going to get caught up in making silly, standard MMORPG quests that boil down to Kill Ten Rats or Collect Three Eggs or Flip That Switch. Oh, and BioWare's bringing back their voiced protagonist, just like in Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2. Because, you know, that was my favorite part of those games."

tl;dr - "God dammit!"

So, I casually checked up on it, never really seeing anything that I particularly clicked with. The quests did look standard and did boil down to shutting down three relays, or what have you. And the voice acting never really blew me away. I just never saw anything that justified an MMO over KotOR 3. Regardless, I still signed up for the beta, thinking that I should at least give it a try before I wrote it off completely. Similar thinking went into my purchase of The Old Republic: Revan, which has, indeed, been written off.

As of right now, I've put about ten hours into Star Wars: The Old Republic (in one day, sheesh) and I've just gotten off of the intro world, which put me at about level 12 if I remember correctly. What surprises me right now is that, on the whole, my experience has been largely positive. After all the ranting that I've done and all my talk about how BioWare is pretty much dead to me, I'm sitting here honestly contemplating purchasing this game. In my eyes, there's been a decline in quality output from BioWare, but if this game's any kind of evidence: the BioWare that I loved isn't gone for good; they've just been busy making this game.

Getting Started (Races and Classes):

It's that thrilling intro to any good RPG: making your character. In Star Wars: The Old Republic, you have a respectable list of both classes and races, making it every possible to create the kind of character that you've always wanted to play in a Star Wars campaign. There are eight classes in all, with two from each faction (Sith and Republic) being blaster-oriented, non-Force users, and the other two being Jedi or Sith, with one focusing on Force-based abilities and the other more combat/lightsaber-centric.

The cool thing being that you won't be at a disadvantage picking the class that you want. Picking a smuggler won't make you easy pickings for any Sith that happen by, since, if you play your cards right, you can pretty much take down anybody as anybody... Yeah, that made sense.

Not wanting to instantly go Sith or Jedi, I went with the Human smuggler, not expecting to like it a whole lot. The customization was pretty good, so I was able to end up with a character that resembled me a little bit (at least in the goatee region). The game starts out with the standard opening crawl that's specific to your class and you get introduced to what the main storyline (also class-specific) will end up being. With the smuggler, you essentially receive the biggest kick to the crotch the galaxy can conceive for such a character: you get your damn ship stolen.

Welcome to Ord Mantell:

Both the trooper and smuggler classes both end up on the same planet when they start out, and that planet is Ord Mantell: a place that is beginning to tear itself apart as Separatists clash with the ruling Republic in a brutal civil war. My smuggler, Revanth, was dropping off a shipment of weapons when his ship was taken my a separatist spy. Left for dead, I had to make for the nearest Republic outpost, which acted as my main quest hub for the remainder of my stay.

Basically, getting my weapons shipment stolen effectively pissed off the planet's main crime lord, marking a few of his associates and myself for death if we couldn't come up with a solution to the problem. My main contact, a big man named Viidu, sent me on a few missions of appeasement while the location of my ship and its contents were tracked down.

Most of the quests that I experienced were fairly basic when you got right down to it - but then they weren't. For instance, one quest had me going to investigate a crate of medicine that had been stolen. Soon after, I meet another NPC, a Cathar nurse, who admitted that she had stolen the medicine to distribute it to the Mantellian refugees, specifically the children who sat around her. As if that wasn't enough, then you're given options. Help her retrieve more medicine for the refugees, or threaten one of the kids at gunpoint to force her to surrender what she has.

Awesome.

See, the dialogue options for this game aren't altogether deep; you typically only get three responses for any given conversation. But having any way to respond to a given quest was amazing to me, since if you've played as many MMOs as I have, you've never had that ability before. Not only that, there are sometimes more than one way to finish a quest. Once, I was tasked with breaking a guy out of prison, then on my way out of the outpost, I was stopped by a soldier and asked to kill the guy instead (for reasons that seemed justified). So now, an MMO is toying with you, asking that endlessly-intriguing question: Do the ends justify the means?

Or another question: Which one of these refugees, do you wager, will make it through the minefield without dying?

Yeah, that happened. You get to bet on whether or not starving refugees can make it through a minefield without exploding - thus earning the food and water rations they so desperately want.

Awesome.

The game, so far, is simply rife with hundreds of little decisions, ranging from minor to major. Your character never talks out of turn or carries on the conversation without your input, and sometimes you're even given the option to simply react to certain things. I don't want to spoil too much, but there's a bit concerning an encrypted instruction manual that had me cracking up.

Is it as immersive as, say, Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout: New Vegas? Not really. The paraphrasing system drives me insane sometimes - and it's not like Mass Effect where if something like THIS happens, you can just reload the game. There's no reloading an MMO. I dearly hope there's an option to see how your character is going to respond (i.e. -Deus Ex: Human Revolution) implemented in the future.

Still, I think I've made more decisions, no matter how small, than are available in all of Mass Effect, and I've just gotten off of the tutorial level. The game finds ways to keep you involved.

The Smuggler's Guide to Combat:

The first time I kicked a guy in the crotch, I laughed out loud. World of Warcraft did a really good job of making sure each class had their own unique play style, and I'm really glad The Old Republic has made that attempt, as well. As a smuggler, I can really play like a smuggler. Cheap shots, taking cover, tossing grenades, charged blaster shots, causing internal damage. Giving a smuggler these abilities makes sense to me.

The cover system is your friend with this class, since some of your abilities rely on it. Initially, I couldn't make heads or tails of how to work it, but trial and error eventually helped me realize that it's pretty fluid. Ironically, it actually works better than in Mass Effect, since you can take cover behind a lot of things, not just conveniently-placed chest-high walls. It feels more real in that sense, because sometimes cover won't be that obvious.

So I'm having a blast playing as a smuggler. I've been in a party composed entirely of Jedi, and I didn't feel helpless or useless in comparison. In fact, I gave some of them a run for their money, and bailed them out a few times when they got a little ahead of themselves.

I stop laying down covering fire for a few seconds, and suddenly everyone's getting delusions of grandeur. Heh.

Knight's First Flashpoint:

There are instanced "dungeons" in The Old Republic, but not in the conventional sense. In your average dungeon, in WoW or RIFT or what-have-you, you run through with your party or raid to kill all of the enemies, defeat all of the bosses, and pick up some XP and sweet, sweet loot along the way.

That basic format remains unchanged for this game, but with the addition of many of those decisions that saturate the rest of the game. Each dungeon, or "flashpoint", has its own story that stems directly from your own, along with a series of developments that you and your party will have to talk your way through.

My first flashpoint was "The Esseles", a Republic transport on its way from Ord Mantell to Coruscant. En route, the transport is attacked by a Sith star-destroyer (or whatever they're called in this Era) and subsequently boarded. Their demand is that we hand over a Twi'lek diplomat, or else. You can make the decision to hand her over willingly, but I'm not sure if it amounts to anything. The other three people in my party were all playing their strictly light side Jedi.

So, we decided to defend the ship instead of handing the diplomat over, which led to a bunch of fighting and story progression. There are a few twists and turns, which I won't spoil, but overall it was a fantastic experience.

When it comes to the cutscenes (and there are many), the entire party is involved. You'll be given your list of responses, but the game rolls to see whose will actually be chosen, so everyone gets a chance to respond to NPCs over the course of the flashpoint without everyone talking at once. This also means that crucial decisions can be decided by the minority. In one part, we were asked to sacrifice one member of the crew in order to save the rest. My Jedi buddies immediately chose the light side option, which was to refuse, while I selected the dark side option, to agree. I won the roll, which meant that part of the story progressed how I wanted.

This gives the flashpoints a sense of unpredictability, since the decision of one player can throw the story in an entirely different direction, giving you different results each time. It also added another facet to what would otherwise be your standard dungeon, since we all began discussing what we should do, how we should react. You can pretty much have a BioWare-style moral confict as a group, which was very, very fun.

That little chat window also offers you a chance to maintain a running commentary with your group throughout the cutscenes, which only added to the fun.

And it really was fun.

To Sum Up:

I'm having a blast with this game, which is really, really not what I was expecting. At all. The lore of the Old Republic Era is constantly making an appearance, both through dialogue and visuals. Unlike Dragon Age 2, the universe isn't experienced through codex entries alone; if you want to visit the Galactic Senate on Coruscant, f**king go there. Tatooine, Alderaan, Nar Shaddaa, Hoth, the ruins of Taris. They're all here! And honestly, I can't wait to see them if what I've seen of Coruscant is any indication of their quality.

What I've seen is a small portion of the game, and arguably the beginning of any game is always the most polished, so I'm not sure how my opinion will swing down the line. But for now, this about sums up my current feelings on The Old Republic:

Awwwww, yeaaaaaah!

First Impressions: Fable III

The Fable series has had a rough go of things over the years. Thanks to numerous instances of over-hyping the games, the insanely high expectations people have going into it, and the fact that although Lionhead Studios deliver a good product every time, they're not game-changing, and I think for that anything carrying the Fable brand will have undue stigma upon it.

Now, I absolutely LOVED Fable II. I cannot begin to describe how much I loved that game (though, a while ago, I tried), it was just the perfect blend of the fantastical, British humor (humour), and a level of customization that really let you feel like you were a part of the world. Fable III had A LOT to live up to in my mind. Still does. I think I'm roughly about six hours into this newest story. So far, I'm getting those same warm feelings I got while playing F-II. But Lionhead have also made a few changes to the formula: some of them welcome, some of them rather frustrating.

One of the major changes is the story. It's so totally simple, you don't even have to think about it. Which, I think, is a good thing. A reviewer on Joystiq asked, "How many of you can actually remember the story of Fable II?" and at first, I was like, "Shit, I can remember that in like three seconds ago. Let's see, you had the sister getting shot by that one dude, then you, ah..."

Damn. Doesn't matter, I played more for the real estate, exploration, and sidequests, anyhow.

In Fable III, you play as "The Prince" or "The Princess," one of two children of the Old Hero King (or Queen, depending on who you played in F-II). The other child is your brother, Logan, who is now the King of Albion. He is King amidst Albion's industrial revolution, and he is perfectly a-okay with allowing child labor, political assassinations, and standing by while the lower class crumbles into absolute poverty.

Yeah, I guess you could say he's...*sunglasses*...a royal dick.

So, after King Logan handles a certain situation with just the right amount of plot-catalyzing evil, which is actually really messed up, the Prince(ss) must embark on a journey to start a revolution against the throne. This is where I'm still roaming around as I type this.

Thus far into the game, I'm really pleased with what I've seen. The environments are just as beautiful and absorbing as they were in Fable II, if not BETTER in some cases (Brightwall Village, for instance, is amazing), and Lionhead has taken things a step further by designing little cultural differences between each town. Mountain dwellers will mostly wear heavy fur clothing, and people down in Bowerstone will mostly wear fancy garments, depending on which part of the city you're in. I liked that.

The writing is better, the humor is more prevalent, and the voice actors are very top-notch. Bernard Hill (King Theodin from Lord of the Rings and Captain Smith from Titanic) is fantastic as your teacher/companion, Sir Walter. You'll also run into Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) and Sir Ben Kingsley, who also gives a great and very, very funny performance as a ruler of a village of mountain dwellers.

And let's not forget John Cleese, who plays the part of the royal butler, Jasper. He is a part of a new feature of the game which I adore: when you press the start button, you are instantly transported to a sanctuary where you can save the game, look at your various outfits, weapons, trophies, and gold stockpile. It is amazing to me how seamless this feature is. You'd think you'd have to fight some sort of loading screen, but there is almost no transition at all when you press that button.

Now, onto the things I'm taking issue with: the bugs, there are a lot of them. Surprisingly, they're a lot more noticeable than some of those I discovered in Fallout: New Vegas. Your dog will bark about a dig spot, you follow it, and suddenly it decides to forget where it was going. That golden breadcrumb trail that leads you from quest to quest will sometimes disappear and not return, or will appear as just a few sparkles that you try to keep track of. You will hear vendors talking as if they're standing right next to you, but they'll actually be across the town somewhere.

And there is lag at times (mostly during cutscenes). I'm not sure what causes it. The minigames (jobs) will stutter as you play them, making it very difficult to keep that multiplier going.

All of that is manageable. I could live with those bugs, because they don't, by any means, make the game unplayable. But the one thing that I'm just not liking are the expressions. In Fable II, you had a radial menu where you could choose what you wanted to do, and then do it. You could play a lute out in public and people would gather around to listen to you play, or dance, or fart, whatever you felt like doing at the time. This time around, there is no menu. There are no expressions you can perform for a group at large; you will have to interact with each person individually, which is made all the more worse by the fact that there is a slight transition/loading screen each time you want to interact with someone.

And if that wasn't bad enough, you can't actually select what you want to do with people. You are literally given two or options - good, bad and neutral interactions - and you have to choose between them. Then, after you've performed one, the options will refresh and two or three new options will appear. I'm hating this, mostly because I don't like not being able to actually choose what I want to do. It all makes interacting with people an actual inconvenience, which is a sharp contrast to a feature I adored in F-II.

Anyway, I'm dealing with it, and I can always hope for a patch in the future, can't I.

Meh.

That's the game so far. Gripes aside, this is a marvelous game. At this point, I wouldn't dare hesitate to say that if you liked Fable II, you'll like Fable III. It's got everything that made the last game great, a few new/welcome surprises, and only the slightest of road bumps...so far.

First Impressions: Fallout: New Vegas (#1)

Fucking Fallout: How does it work?!

I had never heard of it before Bethesda was suddenly talking about how they'd bought the rights to make Fallout 3. I didn't even know there was a 1 and 2!

But, it comes out and I hear rave reviews for it, but I don't get it because: 1) I didn't have an Xbox 360 at the time, and 2) ???, 3) Profit.

Anyway! When I finally got an Xbox on Christmas of '08, the first game I bought was Mass Effect. I mean, literally, got home, jumped in the car, and bought it with a gift card I had gotten. It was the best Christmas ever. I messed around with that game for a good long time, but I soon needed something else. I held out on buying Fallout 3 until the summer of '09 (I think), which was longer than I should have waited.

I poured 80 hours into F3 and its expansions, all told. It still stands as one of the most immersive, compelling, and down right fun games I've ever played. It was a game that told you, pretty much, "Go do...you know...whatever. I don't care." So, I did. I walked out of Vault 101 and fucked around for 80 hours. When I could simply find nothing more to enjoy myself with, I was devastated. I couldn't wait for some kind of sequel. I just couldn't. I tried replaying with a new character, but it's never the same; it feels like you're reliving a good dream, but you already know how it ends.

Luckily, I only had to wait a year for a sequel, thanks to my procrastination in buying F3. But it's only a sequel in the sense that Obsidian were given all the tools Bethesda used to create F3, and nothing else. Everything else about it, though, is original. It's a stand-alone experience, and has almost no link between it and its predecessor.

This is Fallout: New Vegas.

The reason I labeled this as (#1) is because I'm only roughly 6-7 hours into the game, and as we all know, these games go on for a while. Because if you find that this game is your cup of tea, you will get distracted very easily. There are a plethora of sidequests, a MASSIVE map to explore and chart, and a whole lot of loot to sift through. This is in addition to a main quest that will probably take you the better part of 20-30 hours to complete.

Now that the introduction is out of the way (have to do it) here's what I think of the game so far:

Personally, I think this is Fallout 3 (2.0). There are very few things in this game that are a step above its predecessor, mostly on account of what I said before. They're using the same tools in different ways, and it shows. The graphics are in no way better or worse than those of F3, the gameplay has been tweaked, but not much, and you'll still be wandering a post-apocalyptic wasteland. That last one's a given, but still.

But! Even though Obsidian didn't change up the formula very much, you still get that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" feeling as you play through it. Everything that was fun and absolutely game-changing about F3 is still here. It's still addicting, it's still beautiful at times, and you'll still be rummaging through soda machines.

At first, I wasn't getting into it. The "Mojave Wasteland" seemed a lot more barren than the "Capital Wasteland" as I was just leaving the tutorial. But then I was sent on a quest that had me walking for a while, and I started passing up a few old buildings and gas stations when, suddenly, that light in my head (that hadn't been on since Fallout 3) and told me, "Hey! You can go in there!" And so I did, which kicked off an hour long rummaging spree. The magic had returned.

I was glad. Obsidian didn't do anything to shoot itself in the foot. The game is fun, the quests are well-written and they're slowly getting darker as I progress, and the voice-acting is top notch (Mr. New Vegas is a fine replacement for Three Dog). One quest line in particular sent me through this town where an organization called Caesar's Legion (pronounced "kae-sar") had indulged in a little carnage at the town's expense: forcing them to participate in a macabre sort of lottery. I'm pretty sure you can fill in the blanks a little there. I was stunned by what I found. It was a little reminiscent of the end of the Dark Brotherhood quest. A little.

One moment in particular really hooked me even more, though. I live for those moments in games where they just allow you to achieve ultimate immersion. I was on my way to another town (forgot its name. The one with the dinosaur) when I took a slight detour through this farm. There were some crops that were ready to be harvested and a small shack at one end, which I took to be the farmhouse. I looked inside and no one was there. There was no one on the entire property. It was completely abandoned, as far as I could tell, and I reflexively thought, "Ah, must have been the work of the local bandits. Damn scum."

After a few seconds, I was like, "Wait a minute...I'm role-playing here!" It gave me so much hope for this game, and it's shaping up to be one of the finest games Obsidian has produced in a very long time. Look forward to more updates as I continue on through the Mojave Wasteland.

Seven hours in, and I haven't even gotten to New Vegas yet. I like.

First Impressions: Stargate Universe

Stargate was an interesting movie. I remember it being something of a crazy-awesome action flick when I was younger, and only recently re-watched it and found it to be...good! It was actually pretty good! I mean, the concept was fascinating, well thought out, and the execution was sufficient. Watching it today, dated visual effects and all, wasn't as amazing as it might have been back in the day I imagine. Long story short: it was original, and I would dare say it's a sci-fi classic.

Now, on to something I wasn't really aware of until somewhat recently: That Roland Emmerich's film spawned a series that's been compared to Star Trek in the best of ways. My friend was a rabid fan of Stargate SG-1. Still is, to the best of my knowledge. He would sing its praises all day long, but I never really bought into it. Don't know why.

But here we are, several years and a couple spin-offs later, and I've been watching a new show called Stargate Universe on Netflix. I sort of added it to my queue at random. Sort of. I am a very big fan of Roland Emmerich's movies, and I felt that I wouldn't be fulfilling my role as said fan if I didn't watch at least one of the spin-offs of his movie. Oh, man, I am so glad I did.

I don't pretend to know what the Stargate lore has turned itself into these days. Actually, I can honestly say that I have no rutting clue what happened beyond the events of the movie. So, starting this series, I was a little thrown off by a few things. The pilot was NOT made for newcomers like myself, as I could easily pick out references to the other shows. It was also kind of odd that the show just expects you to accept that, yes, there is an offworld colony somewhere out in space, we also have spaceships, and the power to teleport humans, but no one on Earth knows about it.

Needless to say, there was A LOT to take in, but once it got going, and the show's overall premise began to present itself, I was almost instantly hooked.

We begin with the activation of a stargate somewhere on a very, very...very large alien spaceship. Just as the portal opens, dozens of people begin flying out, crashing into each other, flying into walls. It was very cool. There was that frantic "What the hell's going on!" feeling that I haven't gotten since the first episode of Lost, and I was loving every second of it. Eventually, the layers begin to get peeled back, and you're brought up to speed as to how the people got there, why they're there, and where they are.

And where they are is on a ship that has been traveling extra-galactic for thousands and thousands of years, putting them well outside the Milky Way and into some other mystery galaxy. Very nice. Not to mention the ship's resources have all but vanished in that time, so the crew has to figure out how to survive, just where the ship is taking them, and how to deal with each other.

If you mashed Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: Voyager together, it would've looked exactly like this. These guys are lost, their alien ship, Destiny, is on autopilot, and it only drops out of FTL when it thinks there's a problem. Sometimes those problems are a mystery even to its crew.

Also, this series is beautiful, and I mean beautiful. The visuals are astounding and in line with some of the best that BSG had to offer, sometimes better! They didn't skimp on the CGI budget. At all. There were times when I was awestruck by visuals. It's part of the reason why I'm still watching.

The main reason, thankfully, is that the characters are very likeable - most of them, at least. Robert Carlyle (28 Weeks Later) is brilliant as the...brilliant scientist, Doctor Nicholas Rush. He's very much the Gaius Baltar of the series, with ulterior motives that serve to either get everyone in trouble, or save the lives of everyone aboard Destiny. He brings a lot of passion and intensity to his role, which is a breath of fresh air in a show where I thought cheesiness would dominate.

Another favorite of mine is the young, awkward geek-cum-genius, Eli Wallace. He's the show's comic relief and the resident lawful good character. He may not be hysterical or anything like that, but you can always expect him to do the right thing in any situation, even if doing good gets people in trouble. I'm also digging the Star Wars references and a time when he introduces himself as Philip Fry. Nice.

Anyway, I'm only about halfway through the first season, and it's still holding my attention. The writers seem to be having trouble thinking up where to go, since sometimes a lot of time is taken up in each episode by bullshit sequences of random drama (BSoRD, I don't know). For instance, on a mission to harvest ice for water, a crewman randomly falls into a crevasse and gets stuck. The rest of the episode revolves around getting him unstuck. Yeah, there's some stuff happening back on the ship, but still. Come on.

This show is sort of what I wanted Battlestar Galactica to become, before it started getting up its own ass with religious overtones. Which was fine, but it made it hard to enjoy it for long periods of time. It tried to turn itself into art, when I just wanted to watch good characters stick it out for as long as they could and get back to Earth. In the end, there was no happy ending...for anyone. Which sucked.

Stargate Universe is off to a good start with a not-terribly-original premise, but it does have some great characters, some great drama mixed in the middle of it, and visuals that are simply beautiful. What's more, it doesn't take itself too seriously, which can make for a little give and take sometimes, but it's still a rewarding experience if you grin and bear it. I'll be keeping my eye on this one.

Draw, Partner: Red Dead Redemption Impressions

I'm a Wild West aficionado. Living in California, ground zero during the Westward Expansion, has certainly helped that interest. Thirty minutes away, you can visit a region near the Merced River where the hills had been blasted away by hydraulic mining during the Gold Rush. Thirty minutes more, and you can visit one of the oldest Wells Fargo offices, the store where Ghirardelli Chocolate got its start, and where there's supposedly an abandoned Pony Express station (though, I dunno where it is). So when I heard this game was actually enjoyable and provided an immersive Wild West experience, I went out and bought it the very next day. And I am not one to impulse-buy brand new video games these days.

My teacher asked us during one of our classes: What is the West? Is it an actual location? Is it California? Oregon Country? Nevada, Utah, or Colorado? Or when we say "West," are we actually talking about a certain essence of it? The gunfights, the saloons, tumbleweeds, and train robberies? The hats and spurs? Maybe, maybe not. We all sorta decided it encompassed everything west of the Mississippi, but it's up to interpretation.

Rockstar Studios has chosen to give us a quasi-realistic interpretation of the Wild West for their game, Red Dead Redemption, because, more often than not, people can't help but think of Clint Eastwood or John Wayne movies whenever the subject is brought up. To most, it was a place where a man's revolver was the only law of the land. Where the day wasn't done until someone was killed in a duel and bleeding out in the sand. By putting this all in a game, they've given us the Western adventure that we've always wanted, or didn't know we wanted.

The story revolves around a man named John Marston, a man hired by the government to bring a wanted outlaw to justice. Things, of course, don't go according to plan. Marston goes and gets himself shot, gets fixed up by a local ranch owner, and proceeds to conjure up a plan to get revenge by enlisting the aid of some of the craziest characters to ever be put to disc. They are the reason the term Motley Crew was coined.

The story leaves much to be desired. It's a MacGuffin-driven plot, for sure, but its enough to allow for some truly great character development. Marston himself is great, but even though he's meant to be the badass gunslinger (kinda), he gets pushed around A LOT. Nearly everyone in this game gives him the runaround and even with the scars across his face, he starts to look like a pussy as the game goes on. Everyone else in the game outshines our main character, unfortunately. You've got the snake oil salesman, a man who's lost his livelihood looking for buried treasure, a lawman, and a drunk weapons expert by the name of Irish. As I said: a motley crew to be sure.

Though the plot is simple and the main character is meh, the twists and turns are great. The voice acting is comparable to the best moments of any BioWare game, and the expert use of motion capture adds quirky realism. It's odd not to be able to react to these cutscenes, since I'm coming down off another playthrough of Mass Effect 2 ( I keep waiting for a Paragon or Renegade option to pop up), but the cutscenes are still magnificent, and manage to draw me in like a really good movie would.

But let's get into the bread and butter of the game, which is the environment. Rockstar practically invented all that a free-roaming sandbox game should be, and they've push it to the limit with RDR. This game is vast, dreary, yet alive. Time passes; day turns into night. Some days will be cloudy, others completely clear. Sometimes you'll be able to see a storm begin to roll in from afar and overtake you with rain as lightning crashes all around you. Trees sway with it, trails become muddy. You could sit there and just watch it all and still be entertained. I know I did for awhile.

Though what you're mostly going to be dealing with the most are trails and open, dusty plains, there is still plenty to see. Sometimes, you'll stumble upon a group of rabbits jumping away to their warren, or deer bounding along, hawks soaring over your head or circling a corpse of something off in the distance. And, yes, you can kill 'em all. Animals of every shape and size can be shot and skinned for hide and other bits so's you can sell them for cash money. You can even get various awards depending on different hunting challenges the game provides.

So, that's the environment, now on to the gameplay. RDR plays almost exactly like GTA 4, so if you're still familiar with those controls, you probably won't have to think to much about it here. Everything handles very well. Most of your traveling will be done on horseback, and though I STILL have some troubles getting the horse to do what I want it to, 90% of the time everything works out.

Throughout the world, you'll have various missions to attend to at your leisure. You have: the main quests, which will open up different parts of the world as you progress; sidequests such as stranger requests, bounty hunting, horsebreaking, or nightly patrolling; games like poker, blackjack, horseshoes, and that one game where you stab a knive between the gaps of your fingers really fast like; then you have the random events. When these random events occur, you'll be given a task on the spot. For instance, you might come upon a bunch of thugs hanging a man who didn't deserve it. You can choose to ride on by, help the man, kill the man, or kill everyone. Which touches on the amount of freedom you have in this game.

Very much like GTA, you can kill just about everyone. You can rob banks, stores, and even trains. You can get your lasso, strap people to the back of your horse, or be a complete douche and drag them behind you for awhile (which I did, yes). You can even do that dastardly deed no villain should ever neglect to accomplish, and that is to tie a woman to the railroad tracks. You can do all that, or you can be the honorable sort, and help people that need it. Stay out of temptation's way. It's all up to you. The game leaves a lot of room for role playing.

But even with the 20 hour campaign, the sidequests, the free roaming, the bounties, the hunting, all of which could keep you busy for 20 hours more...there's still a multiplayer mode. This is basically where it becomes awesome. The world is completely opened up to you, and you're set loose to complete various challenges, missions, or just goof off. By the way, ANYONE can kill you. This whole thing reminds me a lot of the PvP zones of World of Warcraft. You could be sitting there, trying to shoot a certain amount of birds for a challenge and you'll randomly get your brains injected with a bullet. It's certainly not as bad as WoW, where you could get camped for hours, but the game does encourage grouping up.

The first time I tried this, I entered the game and was immediately chased around the world for hours by these two guys. I was alone, but I put up a fight, killing them enough so that I was able to get the high ground every time. Eventually, they invited me to their posse, and we then ran around killing people, completing missions, getting achievements, and riding around in a stagecoach, taking shots at any player who happened to pass by. It was amazing. And you gain XP and levels by doing just about anything, be it riding on your horse, walking, or shooting things.

Basically, I'm really liking this game so far. The story leaves much to be desired, but I wouldn't trade away the marvelous characters throughout. The missions are fun (expect shootouts aplenty), the world is fantastic and creatively designed, and the multiplayer is practically an MMO in itself. (Also, the game gives you items for your Xbox avatar as you unlock certain things! Yeah!) You're getting a huge package when you buy this game, and the sheer amount of things to do will all but convince you that the $60 you shelled out for it was well worth it.

See you, space cowboy.

(EDIT: I should also point out that the soundtrack is spectacular! Case and point: the game's opening scene.)

(ANOTHER EDIT: There's a settlement in the game called Plainview that's packed with oil derricks. Fucking win.)

Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening: "The First Ten Hours

If there's one thing that can be said for Dragon Age: Origins, it's that its graphics aren't up to par with the current generation. This is probably how we've gotten this expansion, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, so quickly; the game is easily thrown together. But if what I've played is any indication, I wouldn't mind an expansion every six months. This game is marvelous.

The expansion picks up a short time after the main game left off. You are now the Warden-Commander of the Ferelden army. The Crown has sent you to the Arling of Amaranthine to oversee the beginning stages of a Grey Warden-ruled countryside where the now-deceased Arl Howe (see: Tim Curry) used to be in control. But as soon as you arrive, something is amiss. The darkspawn haven't retreated back underground like the entire plot of the last game insinuated they would. Now, in fact, they are more organized than ever. It sucks to be you.

I'm about ten hours into it right now, and I've seen no indication that it could be ending anytime soon. There is so much to do here, and I'm almost happy to do all of it. The new party members are a joy, comparable to those of the main game. The storyline is more believable, if I might use that word to describe a fantasy setting. It's a bit darker, more cohesive, more confidently-written.

It also seems that Bioware took a page out of Assassin Creed II's playbook and have literally given you a small country to rule over. Everyone in Amarantine answers to you, and to you alone. You will solve disputes over land, family feuds, military deployment, defense...it's all up to you. This expansion does a fine job making you feel LIKE A BAWSS! In this sense, it also seems that Bioware have been looking to their own Mass Effect 2 for guidance, since there is a threat on the horizon that will do some major damage if you aren't properly prepared. So, take no quest for granted, and do your best to keep everyone in line for when that time comes: or else. Or else what? Exactly.

There are other small improvements that make a really big difference (see what I did there?), such as an increased level cap, more unique weapons and armor, more specializations AND talents, the ability to runecraft, and so on. I didn't know how much I wanted these things until I had them. And, last but not least, a chest where you can store your items. Yes! Equipment management is made that much easier by this alone! Gah!

My grievances with the game are the same as what they were before. I don't so much mind the graphics, but the lack of significant detail here compared to say...Oblivion, really makes me aware that I'm playing a game at times. Add this to the ever-present loading screens, the inability to walk over some hills, the detached and sometimes reused zones, and it feels like I'm playing a series of stages akin to Super Mario or some such, certainly not fantasy-adventure. It doesn't feel like I'm adventuring anywhere.

That's what I like about Bethesda's games. The loading screens are few, the worlds are vast, and there's a slight chance that you can get lost. And that's the whole point of traveling and exploring, isn't it?

All that aside, I really am enjoying this expansion. It honestly doesn't even feel like an expansion; it feels like a sequel. Time will tell how I'll really feel once this comes to an end, but I'm loving how my story is continuing on so seamlessly within the context of this world and lore. I'll be posting a full review as soon as I finish it.