Sorry, man, but if you can't help me get this Black Friday promo merchandise in doors on time you are no good to me.

Explain to them that killer robots seek their destruction. Surely they will recognise where your priorities should lie!

Anyone heard of or played Artemis? One of my grad students was telling me about it. Pseudo Star Trek bridge crew game. Multi player. [link]

Ok, only three people have signed up for BSG so far. The time is clearly not auspicious. I'll put plans back on hold until after my exam, and see how people are placed then.

Co-optitude does Buffy

Unfortunately it's the inferior second game. (Which was still okay, but not excellent like the original.)

"A Dark Room", a text based game for iOS, is marked down to free. Quite addictive game. Old school. Give it a try.

So I'm about 30 hours into Dragon Age 2. I don't hate it, but I can definitely understand the rage of folks who felt betrayed at how different from Origins it is. I do appreciate what they were trying to do: I think the storyline flows a lot better than it did in Origins (outside of the titular parts of said game) and I like that you actually build Hawke's personality based on your responses wherein it actually informs your later dialog options. I also like that it feels like your companions actually have lives and relationships with each other outside of adventuring with you.

My only real complaint with the companions is how hard to please Merrill is and that your companions rarely weigh in when you're about to make a choice they disagree with; you just suddenly get notified of their disapproval after the conversation.

That being said, I hate the loss of the tactical camera and the simplified class advancement and the fact that you're forced to run through the same exact maps over and over again with only randomly unopenable doors or random debris blocking certain routes to vary them. It certainly makes the game feel like it was rushed.

I didn't hate Dragon Age 2, but it was definitely a let down after Origins. Origins was EPIC with save-the-world storyline. While DA2 was about... making money? Plus, I liked the companions in Origins so much better! (Alistair still makes me swoon!)

I'm so excited for Inquisition! I really hope the Dragon Age Keep is able to accurately represent the past storylines because I'm playing on a different console this time, and the callbacks to previous storylines and decisions was one of my favorite parts.

I finished DA2 over the weekend. I found the ending kind of disappointing and forced. I think that's one complaint about the game I agree with in that the ending is pre-determined regardless of what choices you make or who you support. The story is just more logical and fleshed out if you make the "right" choices. Which is aggravating.

I actually liked the DA2 companions, about on par with DA:O ones.

Got DA:I installed yesterday and ran through The Keep to set my world state. It's pretty in-depth in some spots, though there's a couple times it expects you to remember a minor NPC without sufficient context, which is annoying, though that's what Google is for, I suppose.

It could use a couple more layers, though, on some subjects.

Haven't got past first getting control of my character in Inquisition, yet. I was trying to figure out how adjust the graphics settings to fix the fact that everyone's hair and armor looks like it's made out of plastic. The suggestion I found (set Meshes to High) didn't help.

BSG

No that Thanksgiving is receding in the rear view mirror, I've been putting out the call for a crew for BSG 22 - The Return of King Fatmouth. We have three names so far:

Polter-Cow
omnis_audis
NoiseDesign

Who else would like to play?