BSG

Quick update, my internet connectivity is not so reliable here. I will update things when I get home tomorrow.

Merry Christmas, Gamers!

Holy crap does Dragon Age: Inquisition have a lot of content. Granted, there's a ton of glorified fetch quests, but I'm approaching hour 90 and still have 3 zones I've barely done anything in, one I've mostly finished off, and a bunch I've done about half the stuff in. And I still have at least one main quest to unlock and complete (Not sure how close to the end I am as I'm trying to avoid spoilers.) and two companion quests to do. I've also only taken down one of the ten (optional) dragons.

nice! I've been watching D play Far Cry 4 and it seems to be similar in terms of richness of content. I feel like I watched him play and explore all kinds of territory for at least 5 hours and then he pulled up the map and it looked as if he'd uncovered less than 1/15th of it.

Holy crap does Dragon Age: Inquisition have a lot of content.

It's like Skyrim levels of crazy. And (neither seeking nor avoiding spoilers) I gather that I'm roughly at the end of act 1 of 3. SO MUCH GAME.

Okay, based on how much blank space there is left on Solas' walls, I'd guess I have two major story arcs left.

I did have one immersion-breaking moment which I find incredibly frustrating. (spoiler for elf inquisitor): I made the wrong choice on a War Table mission and my entire clan got wiped out. Which, okay, fine, I made a mistake and actions have consequences, but none of my companions or advisers actually acknowledge what happened outside of the little war table report. You'd think that someone would have a reaction of some sort.

I've been having some bad experiences with Dragon Age: Inquisition. 1) I can't even count how many times my audio has stopped when I approach NPCs. The NPCs will move around, but the subtitles and dialogue no longer play. 2) I lost 5 hours when my saves didn't actually save. No autosaves existed during that time either even though the save icon appeared often. That was so frustrating for me!

On the nitpickly front, it just feels too much like Skyrim. I don't feel like I'm playing a Dragon Age game.

But, I a took a break for a few weeks (for the wedding and Christmas), and I'll probably start playing again this week.

Thankfully the only bugs I've been experiencing have been lack of companion banter at times and companions not where they're supposed to be back at base. (But a quick save and reload typically fixes the latter.)

I do know that the experience has run the gamut for a lot of people, from a completely flawless performance to basically unplayable. Sometimes identical hardware has drastically different performance. Which is frustrating for the players, and I'm sure frustrating for Bioware, since it makes it harder to single out a cause. But losing 5 hours of gameplay would definitely be incredibly aggravating.

I've never actually played Skyrim or the like, so I can't really compare it. The open world bits took awhile to win me over but it still feels like Dragon Age to me. I'm really enjoying getting to know the various companions and I'm finding the storyline interesting. I just wish you could have more than 8 abilities assigned at one time. I miss my mage having the massive spell list from Origins.

BSG

It seems a shame to break back in with such prosaic concerns as the Battlestar while there is gaming conversation going on, but I have returned home (after holiday success!!) with the update. Apollo is once again cavalier with the fleet's supply of mince pies and plum pudding. Food drops to 5!

Next, the raiders activate, and we have 'splosions! That's more like it. The Bugatti has wandered into a raider pack's sights! It contained:

Civilian Ship B: 0 Population

Alas, these 'splosions were full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But you can't really hear any sound in space. And the raiders typically aren't that emotional. So they were full of nothing, signifying nothing. Ok, so that was pretty honest really.

But never mind that, because in other news, we reach the end of the jump track. The fleet jumps! Travel brochures are going out to the Admiral. Admiral Hoshi, when you're ready, please post your choice of destination.

BSG (Admiral Hoshi)

Ladies & Gentlemen of the fleet, this is your Admiral. We have bad news and good news. The bad news is, we lost a ship. Thankfully, it was a decoy, set up to distract the Cylons. We will miss it's spare parts. But we are thankful that no humans were hurt in the battle.

And on to the good news. We managed to spin up the FTL computers, and got a great jump! We have found ourselves at a Barren Planet . Sadly, it looks as if there are no resources for us to harvest. But, there are also no Cylons here either! It was a double jump ! Hopefully, that will delay our pursuers for awhile.

Lick any wounds now. Check your ships for damage. Perform any needed maintenance. Now is the time, while the skies are clear.

Galactica Actual, out.