Gaming Medley

It’s the summer and this means that Steam and other digital retailers have sales. I’m not immune to super cheap games. So I bought a few and found the time to play some of them. Crusader King II and Saints Rows: The Third are both sequels of games I’ve never played before. Both are super awesome in their own way. I also bought DLCs Dragon Age II: Legacy and Mark of the Assassin. People said they were good, so I tried them.

Crusader King II

Crusader King II is a strategy game with the whole point of having your dynasty survive for about 400 years. You do that by marrying, having babies, and conquering lands. There’s also a good dose of randomness, backstabbing, and planning. I don’t think I was lucky so far with my Count of Dublin. I had three generations of underage rulers, three female heirs, and one character killing the one I played to replace it. Although, this one was a good thing because I was excommunicated. I lost more land than I gained as well.

The game doesn’t have a good tutorial. I watched a few tutorial videos on youtube to learn how to get the ball rolling. Now I think I “get it.”  Anyhow, the game is addicting, because you always do “just another year” while playing to see what will happen. Also greedy siblings and family members are extremely dangerous. There’s not that much emphasis on war, beside the Crusade, but my army is alway too small for me to do anything about it. Which mean I will probably end up the duke or count of nothing really soon.

Saints Row: The Third

Saints Row: The Third was a blind buy. I had no idea what the game was, except that it looked like a shooter. Now, I know that it’s the best place to learn all the beeped words in movies and songs. You technically play the leader of a group of gangsters called the Saints, but so far, it proved to be mostly a car stunts sim on drugs. It’s also a shooter, but really, killing people with tanks and armored trucks is not what I’m used to. There’s a story as well, but I don’t care about it right now. I’m much more interested in trying to steal a plane and getting good at flying it, but I’m not having much success in the flying part. I do have a parachute, though; safety first, you know. The Steam Sale game came with a few DLCs as well. I tried two: the movie one is really funny, while the clone one is more in the ridiculous category.You can customize your character, too, both in look and clothing. Currently my lady looks like a pirate. Stealing cars in style!

I expect the game to get boring at some point; the sandbox feel is good, but most of the activities feel similar after a while.

Dragon Age II DLCs: Legacy and Mark of the Assassin

I also decided to buy Dragon Age II DLCs: Legacy and Mark of the Assassin. People keep on saying that they were better than the main game. So I said, why not. I must say that they are improvements when it come to having puzzles and, you now, no more waves of monsters. Except in one or two cases. The final boss’s battles are also interesting, if not annoying. I’m not a fan of what I call gimmick bosses.

Legacy is about Hawke’s father helping the Grey Warden secure a prison that is containing a secret. Well, the whole prison is secret. What happened there will probably have major repercussion in the next Dragon Age games as well. The game is worth it to do with a sibling since they’ll have a lot of input in the story if there. We learn quite a bit about the Hawkes and the Warden here. Also, the Chantry version of the creation of the Blight is pretty much true, well they got the Magister trying to enter the Golden City correct at least. After this DLC, I really wanted to see what Dragon Age III will bring to the franchise.

Mark of the Assassin introduces the player to Tallis, Felicia Day’s character from Redemption, the Dragon Age webseries. You know, I love her much more as Zojja in Guild Wars 2 than in Dragon Age. Tallis is also too much of a fourth wall-breaking character. If you have Aveline in your party, you’ll get a quest that end with a “black vial.” Anybody who played Dragon Age: Origins knows what this means. Well, Tallis does too.  Kind of annoying to have a know-it-all in the party. Beside this, Mark of the Assassin felt like a mini-expansion. It has a couple of side-quests, including followers specific ones. Lots of banter. It also have a few DAO cameos. Finally, it’s a great way to see another point-of-view of the Qun, the religion feel really compelling when shown like that as well.

Others

I also, played a good dose of Guild Wars 2  at the last Beta Weekend Event. I’m not going to talk too much about it. It will cause the article to explode because of all the fangirlism. All I will say that I love the Asura! I also found a Kickstarter game with the cutest little builder ever. It’s called Castle Story and it’s like a merge of Minecraft and Stronghold games.