Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello. Has anyone played this, has anyone enjoyed it, has anyone hated it? Didn't it get Game of the Century or something when it was released?

I'm playing it (hence the topic) and I can't for the life of me figure out whether I'm enjoying it or not. The only way to figure this out is to keep typing and see what my brain spills out about it. Maybe a list will suffice:

1) It's kinda pretty. It's rather detailed as well. And yet how come I keep noticing things popping up in the background or characters popping out when I get close or it loads a level up or something? This is Next Gen, man, and I'm playing it on a Pee Ess Four. They're only minor annoyances but they are annoyances nonetheless.

2) I've never played a Bioware game but I can tell you this much about my gaming preferences: I DON'T LIKE READING VERY MUCH. Oh look, there's masses upon masses of text from item descriptions, to things that just pop out the ground to slow boring conversations about boring things voiced by a character that has about as much inflection as Ma$e did when he was rapping.

3) I'm not too keen on that bloody dialogue wheel neither. Not that it isn't a good idea but that the dialogue is dragged out so slowly that I can't help but bust through it with the square button so I don't have to hear about fucking elves and shit. Less yadda yadda would be better so a dialogue wheel is shit because I'm not engaged enough to want to pick from three options of replying to "D'ya like elves, kind Sir" in some old woman's crone voice.

4) WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? Is the heading for my major complaint about this game. There are so many fucking systems and inventory options, four fucking characters at the same time, missions and subquests and bollocks, a potion table, a requisition table, modify armour, modify weapons, buy/sell merchants, fast travel, blah blah blah. I swear to the Almighty God that I do not know what the fuck is going on and the menu system is so shit and user unfriendly that I am having a tough time not throwing the fucking thing in the face of the next old crone that I meet. I've done a load of missions and I don't think any of them were main quest missions which annoys me because I'm not sure if I'm enjoying myself and I would get a better of idea of whether I'm enjoying it if it would let me advance the story until I know what the fuck is going on. But the fucking Main Mission Quest is shoved somewhere in some fucking menu that I literally had no clue what the fuck I was doing or how the fuck to find the main mission. Turns out that it's shoved in a stupid menu called Journal. Journal? Y'mean not that thing that keeps coming up and telling me that I've read some more book text crap and if I want to access it it's in the book text crap? No, turns out that's the Codex. LIKE I WANT TO FUCKING READ ANYMORE. Seriously, there's a lot of boring text for boring cunts to pour over. Anyway, I found the main mission thread after ELEVEN HOURS PLAYING. Eleven fucking hours. During that time I picked up a horse. The slowest horse ever conceived in a computer game - so how come when I'm riding along wind is coming off the back of that thing like it's got Speed Gonzalas shoved up his rectum? No idea. Anyway, the Main Quest then said talk to some guy but where was he? Back at the start in a different zone altogether. How'd I get there: fast travel. But how do I fast travel out of this zone? I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE. Turns out that you have to go to the world map but that relies on you pressing a button that isn't shown up you zoom out the map. Fucking imbeciles. Anyhoo, then I find the guy and I have to speak with Lord Vellic about the Hinterlands. The star that tells you where to go shows he's in the War Room. But you get in the war room and you are then sent to another fucking stupid system where you have to send people on quests on this chess board style thing where you allocate people to send on missions and, erm, how'd I talk to the guy. I couldn't figure it out. It's been turned off now. I'll try later. Fucking stupid mumble mumble.

5) Oh and a big nay to the inventory system. Seriously, it's the worse inventory system ever designed. It's difficult to tell what you're holding and what the rest of your team are holding, or wearing because there are sub menus for clothing, valuables, fucking something else, there's about 8 of them. Anyway you have to cloth and arm all 4 people. And make them wear rings and JUST FUCK OFF. What about a system where you can see what people are holding clearly. I don't want a big image of a character that fills up half the screen with fucking nothing whilst the rest of the screen's real estate is cramped up or used inefficiently. I swear Dungeon Master on the Amiga, which dealt with inventory management of 4 characters, was clearer and easier to use than this bollocks. A game that is over 20 years old.

6) This is how I fight: Wade in and smash stuff. The other characters can fuck off or help me up either way I'm a one man army. The others are nothing to me. Oh, but here's a system of slow down time and attribute different attacks to different characters in what must be the most labourious RPG fashion. No, computer can sort itself out and let me bash stuff.

That being said, I'm sort of enjoying it in a kinda-like-dragons-dogma-kinda-way. Maybe it gets better. It can't get any worse. And it does sort of look pretty.

Funny thing is, it's so much like Dragon's Dogma that it should be masses of fun but it has looked at all the problems of that game and made them much worse. Idiots.

I've got it for the Xbox, and... it was good, but I've never finished it. (Had it since I got the Xbox - last Christmas) Every time I'm looking at what game to play, I just don't want to play it for some reason. I think I just bored myself by doing all the side mission/filler rubbish. (Of which, it has way too much of the same thing, over and over)

That's what is doing my head in. Finding the thread to the next mission is obtusely hidden in the sodding awful menu system.

Bioware games have interesting plots and characters, but are usually bloated and mechanically not very good. I tried many times but I never could get myself to finish Mass Effect.

This ain't quite so annoying now I've played 20 hours of the bloody thing. I'll bloody make myself enjoy it.

It's still a tedious frustrating bore with the God awful menus being so poorly thought out but, I gotta say, it's certainly a looker and there's been a few epic looking scenes now I've finally worked out where the main quest line is. If only they could have cut back on some of the bullshit that adds very little to the overal game it would have been so much more accessible. For example, There's a Risk-like table where you choose how to resolve disputes with neighbours which I'm flummoxed about. Not because it's complicated (it's actually quite basic) but just of its inclusion.i just wonder if it's a remnant of the old Dragon Age games (which I've never played so I'm just guessing).

Stop it! Just stop playing the sodding thing!

Seriously dude, if I've learned anything in the last few years it's that there will always be more games than you can ever play so don't waste your time on stuff you already know you don't enjoy. Life's too short dude. Serious.

It's not. At least from the 1st, because i never played the 2nd.

This reminds me also of the keep management from Pillars of Eternity which was completely redundant and worthless. This is probably just something to put on the box or on the sales pitch.

The second didn't, either. They were both quite linear games, from what I remember. Inquisition is Bioware's first attempt at a more open world. I don't think they did very well with it, though.

I've pushed the story until it's made sense now. Big baddie wants to kill everyone and become a god. Your mission: kill him.

See? It was ain't that hard to make everything nice and simpleX now I've got the gist of what's going on, a main mission to accomplish and, in a nice fancy turn, a new castle to doss about it.

Would I like to do the following though: change the engravings on the castle? Change the throne? Change the banners displayed? Have a different bed? No. For fucks sake. Why?

So why don't I go in this room where there's the following options: craft armor, craft weapons, modify weapons, modify armor, but and sell, put stuff in storage, speak to some cunt. No. I want to crack on now that I've a big baddie to kill and we've had to find a new place to stay since he's wrecked our last place.

Tell you what I'll craft some armor: pick an armor, now you have three or four spaces to fill with items. Fill the items to modify your armors qualities. Do you want 5% melee block damage reducer? Do you want 3% cunning? Magic defence, coldness defence, 5% damage increased? Yes. No, hang on, what kind of fucking stat is "cunning?" Fuck it, yes, extra damage. *you don't have enough bear furs* you need 20. You have 5. Oh for fucks sake. I'll click on whatever you want. Done. Now what? Fill up the other three slots for additional modifier. No. Just one. I'm done. Oh, I can't because I have to select an absurd amount of modifiers based on an equally absurd amount of items to be collected!? Fine. I'll just keep this pointy select metal stick I picked up anyway.

It's just too much bulllshit. I'm going to ignore it as learning too many systems for a game which is about hitting thing until they fall over is nonsense.

And while I'm here, why can't I tell my team what to do beyond: attack my target or disengage? Why can't I hit someone and they hit someone else? For a game about multi layered systems - especially one that has a tedious top-down RPG lite add on to the fighting - the fighting commands are either basic and shit or too fiddly and boring for somebody who just likes hitting things.

Still, my enjoyment has risen slightly.

Also, it's not open world.

..........................................

I didn't mean completely open world, but - to me, at least - it seems a bit more open than the previous games.

Talking of beautiful (in a completely different thread I just read) the Storm's End area is super pretty. It is quite a densely detailed area that has bits that look like Giant's Causeway except they rise high into the mountains. It's a shame that the game is a bit lacking in atmosphere because the people who made these lands so detailed and interesting have done a really splendid job. It must have taken absolutely ages. Well done graphics guys.

27 hours in and I finally 'get' how the mission structure works. Basically you have missions that unlock some areas. Each area is "locked" behind a paywall. You pay in Inquisition Points. You get Inquisition Points by doing sub-quests and junk.

Main quest lines aren't highlighted (dicks) but these tend to have a high cost of Inquisition Points. So I had 8 Inquisition Points and two quests were 20 Inquisition Points and 30 Inquisition Points respectively. These are main quests even though they don't fucking say that.

You can unlock new areas with a lower cost. Completing those will get you Inquisition Points to spend on the big quest tariffs to pursue the main quest lines.

Inquisition Points are fucking stupid. As is the User Interface.

The game is quite nice though...

Can you edit out the spurious "'s" in the thread title? It's annoying the crap out of me.

I've done a video so you can all relish in how pretty it looks. I don't know if you get the full HD experience on YouTube but, trust me, it's pretty.

This one is called: "LOOK AT THE FUCKING GRASS ON THAT"



You don't even need to go here. It's just, here. And look at that background. You'd think you could walk up there. WELL YOU MAY/MAY NOT BE ABLE TO. Cause I went somewhere else. Looks nice though, right?

This one is called "STOP FUCKING DANCING ABOUT WHILE IM DOING A VIDEO. AKA: LOOK AT THE FUCKING SAND AND THAT."



Yeah, so what if nothing happens, I'm showing you the scenery, init. Facking lovely it is. Until your band mates so starting around all over the shop like a bunch of tits on coke. I reckon that's why this game is lacking in atmosphere: the other cunts that come with you.

It's like going to the museum with your mates on a stag do the night after a big piss up. Who does that? Exactly.

41.5 hours done.

Me likey.

I still loath the hateful menus but after so long with the game I can get by just fine.

I still haven't done a single telescope mini game that makes you draw the constellations in one continuous line. BECAUSE MINI GAMES ARE SHIT. Plus there's really no reason a) that they're in the bloody game and b) there's really no reason to even attempt them.

46.5 hours done and I've got three new areas unlocked that I haven't even been to and, I think, the mission for the final boss.

I can safely say that this game terrific. Absolutely great. Seriously. I hated it, I stuck with it, I learned its foibles and overcame the rubbish menus. From not playing since Christmas, and not wanting to even fire it up, to suddenly wanting to play it everyday is surprising to me. I've even started doing side quests just because I want to. Just because something pops up on the radar and I want to go and have a peek, I want to destroy big fucking monsters, I want some kick ass swords and a spell that makes farting noises out the end of my fingers.

I've been pottering around in the Hissing Wastes which must be some of the best desert I've wandered through since Journey. The entire thing is set against a backdrop of a massive full moon and looks beautiful. The deserts go in for miles and there's plenty of places on the map which are just rolling desert yet it does that awesome Dark Souls thing where you see stuff off in the far away distance AND THEN YOU GO THERE. Just go there. It's awesome (ok, that doesn't sound it but it is). You can see a massive mountain range to the east and then you walk next to it and are dwarfed by the size of the thing. THEN YOU FUCKING CLIMB IT. You see distant twinklings of camp fires where enemies may be camping out. THEN YOU WANDER OVER AND SLICE THEIR FACES OFF. You see rolling deserts that hide huge craters with stuff in it. AND JUMP IN. You see the broken remains of a giant causeway running throughout the map; crushed and broken for decades, but with huge broken statutes intermittently surviving the desert storms. SO YOU FOLLOW IT TO SOMETHING AWESOME. There's a massive chasm that has split in the floor of the desert. WHATS IN IT.

And so on with intrusive capital letters.

The best thing about all this? It's all pointless. I spent the last 6 hours here because it's interesting. There's not a single main quest line in all of this yet it's so bloody beautiful and excellently realised that it'd be a massive waste not to wander about a bit and do some missions. And there's a cool main mission to find some dwarf kings treasure. I got there yesterday and there's a dragon sat outside. A FUCKING MASSIVE DRAGON. It was sleeping so I went and nicked the Kings goods and saved my game.

Then I had a go at the dragon which promptly crushed me. Maybe when I've levelled up some more I'll be back to rip his dragon tits off with my bare hands.

This is on offer at tesco. Is it worth 24 quid?

It really depends on how patient you are and how much gaming you get done. It's worth £24, for sure, but it's massive and takes some getting into. If you've got time: go for it. If your gaming time is limited: I'd probably give it a miss.

It's marginally cheaper in the PSN sale at the moment, if you have PS+ (22.49 I think)

I've only gone and bloody done it.

54 hours and there's two areas I haven't even sodding been.

A corking little game this (but not actually very little). It's kinda weird that I've enjoyed this as there would have been a time (probably before Demons Souls) that I would've given this a wide birth.

That does tend to make it easier.

This game is best described in my own head (since I feel the need to categorise it somehow) as being exactly the same as Dragon's Dogma.

Ive had a similar experience too. First I hated it, then it was just annoying and the menus and items sprawled about a horrible menu system, and then it was ace, then it was brilliant, then I was slicing faces off and zapping magic in whatever cunt came around the next corner.

Dragon's Dogma didn't have half the padding of side quests though, and voice acting and stupid reems upon reems of text. Nor did it have some sex and romance stuff neither (not that I did any of that despite cracking onto the woman who introduces you to each area. She was a ginge but you could tell she was totally into me), nor the crafting, and certainly not the Risk bit, and all the other bits that Dragon Age has. And multiple endings too. Loads of the bloody things apparently. I got a load of depressing ones whereby everyone fell out after I'd kicked the baddie up the rump. Anyway, it didn't matter cause I was only in it for the big pay off and the win. Except once it was all done I was a bit gutted that I didn't try and understand some of the other stuff going on. I think it was those first 11 hours of play that did it for me - all the relationships and stuff were introduced during that stage where I want even sure I was enjoying it because it was trying it's hardest to throw some much crap at me. It has more crap and junk to do than a GTA game.

So DA:I is, actually, rather spiffy. I'd never go back and start again but I think if I did ever do that that I'd have a much better time playing it and I might even revel in some of the relationship building stuff and side quest stuff. Now, to do a few side quests and explore some new areas!

Freddie Prince Jnr voiced Iron Bull!? Dufuq.