Various Thoughts

Leliana’s Song is a stand-alone adventure that endeavors to tell the tale of how Leliana was betrayed and found her way into the Chantry. It’s fairly straight-forward and doesn’t provide much of a challenge. The main point in playing it is for the backstory, which while somewhat interesting, does not exactly encourage multiple playthroughs. It does contain some surprising good voice acting though and is, in general, worth the purchase price.

Golems of Amgarrak is billed as ‘extremely challenging’ and it actually is quite challenging if you’re playing on hard (or above) difficulty. If you have any increased difficulty Mods installed,  some fights can end up nearly impossible to win. This has three main causes; nearly all the enemies you fight are Elite rank or higher, your party members aren’t very well equipped, and the Golem party member cannot heal itself in battle. This module is good mainly for proving to yourself that you’ve created a devastating Warden-Commander, and in that respect it’s definitely worth picking up.

Assassin’s Creed II is in most ways similar to the first. The main differences are a larger variety of weaponry (though you’ll probably find yourself sticking with the Hidden Blade most of the time), many more things to collect, faster travel between areas, and an economy of sorts that requires you to buy health and repair your armor.

The game is centered around collecting things. If you don’t like searching high and low for various pieces of a collection… you’ll have a far shorter playtime then those that do like it (and miss out on some story elements). What is there to collect? Lots: Eagle Feathers, Armor Sets, Weapons, Paintings, Codex Entries, Truth Symbols, Tomb Seals, Keep Upgrades, Target Portraits, and Treasure Chests.

Whether or not to play the game basically boils down to whether or not you liked the first, and whether or not you enjoy scavenger hunts. If ‘yes’ applies to either of those, you’ll probably like it.

This is just done from memory and referencing the last saved game of my first playthrough. As I play through the game for the second time, I plan to do a couple of quests differently to find some other Perks and double-check a few NPC dialog choices.

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Perks
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Combat
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Assault Rifle Marksmanship: AR Recoil Control +1
Requirements: 100 AR Head Shots

Assault Rifle Precision: AR Accuracy +1
Requirements: 50 AR Head Shots

Black Belt: Martial Arts Damage +5
Requirements: Defeat 50 enemies with Martial Arts

Limited Bloodshed: Endurance +10
Requirements: Defeat 50 enemies with Non-Lethal methods

Lurker: -20% Movement Sound
Requirements: Evade or silently Takedown (with Martial Arts) 75 enemies

Merciful: Endurance +25
Requirements: Defeat 250 enemies with Non-Lethal methods

No One Left Behind: Endurance Recharge Rate +20%
Requirements: Rescue Albatross from Brayko’s Mansion

Pistol Mastery: Pistol Damage +1
Requirements: 100 Pistol Critical Hits

Pistol Proficiency: Pistol Accuracy +1
Requirements: 50 Pistol Critical Hits

Professional Courtesy: 10% Discount on Armor purchases in Rome
Requirements: Used Non-Lethal force against the CIA

The Better Part of Valor: Increased Shadow Operative Duration
Requirements: Evade 75 enemies

Tough as Nails: Endurance +5
Requirements: Taken 1000 Damage over the course of your career

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Dialog
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Agent of Change: AP +5
Requirements: Convinced Marburg to abandon Leland during the Endgame

Aggressive: Martial Arts Damage +5
Requirements: Choose the ’Mission’ option at end of first conversation with Westridge

Any Last Words…?: Reduced Weapon Ability Cooldown
Requirements: Kill Nasri

Camaraderie: 5% Discount on all non-Intel purchases
Requirements: Have a favorable Disposition with 10 people

E-Mail Enhancement: AP +2
Requirements: Reply to 10 E-mails

Friends in Low Places: 10% Discount on Armor purchases from Grigori
Requirements: Befriend Grigori

Gentleman: Endurance Recharge Rate +20%
Requirements: Politely turned Madison down

Green: AP +2
Requirements: Choose the Recruit dialog stance 3 times

Hand of Al-Samad: Endurance Recharge Rate +20%
Requirements: Do not kill Shaheed in the Endgame

I Don’t Hit Girls: 5% Discount on transactions with G22
Requirements: Let Sis live

Office Romance: Endurance +5
Requirements: Romance Mina

Professional: Endurance +5
Requirements: Choose the ’Ready’ option at end of first conversation with Westridge

Secret Service: Reduced Hard to Kill and Iron Will Cooldown
Requirements: Prevented Ronald Sung’s assassination

Social Butterfly: 5% Discount on all Intel purchases
Requirements: Have a favorable Disposition with 3 people

Stay of Execution: Favored Weapon Recoil Control +1
Requirements: Let Shaheed live in Saudi Arabia

Stick to Business: 5% Discount on Armor, Armor Mod, and Gadget purchases from Steven Heck
Requirements: Use mostly Professional responses in your first conversation with Heck

Surprise Attack: Favored Weapon Damage +1
Requirements: 150 Surprise Attacks

Testing the Waters: AP +1
Requirements: Used all three dialog stances in the same conversation

Textaholic: XP +250
Requirements: Reply to 5 E-mails

The Big Picture: 5% Discount on all Weapon purchases
Requirements: Let Nasri live

Variable Approach: AP +2
Requirements: Used multiple Dialog Stances in 15 different conversations

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Handler
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By the Book: -5% Cooldown Bonus on all Abilities
Requirements: Westridge as current Handler with Neutral/Liked Disposition

By the Book II: -10% Cooldown Bonus on all Abilities
Requirements: Westridge as current Handler with Trusted Disposition

Constant Encouragement: Endurance +5
Requirements: Mina as current Handler with Neutral/Liked Disposition

Constant Encouragement II: Endurance +15
Requirements: Mina as current Handler with Trusted Disposition

Tech Savvy: Gadget Damage +10%
Requirements: Darcy as current Handler

The Subtle Approach: Enemy Sight Distance -5%
Requirements: Albatross as current Handler

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Miscellaneous
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Always Listening: 5% Discount on all Intel purchases
Requirements: Listened to all of Sung’s speech while fighting Omen Deng

Be Prepared: Increased Ammo Capacity with all Weapons
Requirements: Purchase majority of all available Mission Intel (I bought all but the Maps and Easier Difficulty ones)

Behind the Lies: XP +250
Requirements: Uncover the truth behind the Triad defectors

Betting Man: 5% Discount on all Gadget purchases in Saudi Arabia
Requirements: Completed Darcy’s bonus Orientation task

Birds of a Feather: Reduced Chain Shot and Shadow Operative Cooldown
Requirements: Work with Albatross for the assault on Brayko’s Mansion

Breaking and Entering: XP +100
Requirements: Lockpick 10 Locks

Cage Match: 5% Discount on all Weapon purchases in Saudi Arabia
Requirements: Completed Mina’s bonus Orientation task

Circuit Breaker: XP +100
Requirements: Bypass 20 Electronic Devices

Custodial Work: 5% Discount on all Intel purchases in Saudi Arabia
Requirements: Completed Parker’s bonus Orientation task

Data Theft: XP +100
Requirements: Hack 10 Computers

Experienced: Endurance +5
Requirements: Completed third Mission Location

Intelligence Analyst: AP +1
Requirements: Completed 10 Dossiers

Know Your Enemy: Damage vs. Brayko +5%
Requirements: Complete Brayko’s Dossier

News Conscious: 5% Discount on all Intel purchases in Saudi Arabia
Requirements: Watched all of Shaheed’s News Broadcast

On the Guestlist: 5% Discount on all Intel purchases
Requirements: Identified all guests at Jibril Al-bara’s Mansion

Profiler: AP +1
Requirements: Completed 5 Dossiers

Psychological Warfare: AP +2
Requirements: Completed 15 Dossiers

Seasoned: Endurance +5
Requirements: Completed second Mission Location

The Basics: 5% Discount on all purchases in Saudi Arabia
Requirements: Completed all Orientation courses

Tour of Duty: Endurance +5
Requirements: Completed first Mission Location

World Traveler: Endurance +5
Requirements: Completed fourth Mission Location

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NPCs
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Alan Parker: Likes Professional, Dislikes Casual

Albatross: Likes Professional, Dislikes Aggression/Taunts

Ali Shaheed: Likes Professional

Brayko: Dislikes Joking/Taunts

Championchik: (Never talked to)

Darcy: Likes Professional, Dislikes Aggressive

Grigori: Likes Casual/Joking

Hong Shi: Likes Professional

Jibril Al-Bara: (Never talked to)

Leland: Likes Professional/Realist

Madison: Likes Casual/Reassuring

Marburg: Likes Professional/Straight-forward

Mina: Likes Professional/Casual

Nasri: Likes Professional, Dislikes Joking/Taunts

Omen Deng: (Unsure)

Ronald Sung: (Unsure)

Scarlet: Likes Professional/Compliments, Dislikes Joking

SIE: Likes Aggressive, Dislikes Joking/Charming

Sis: (Unsure)

Steven Heck: Likes Aggression/Professional, Dislikes Casual/Joking

Surkov: Likes Professional, Dislikes Joking

Yancy Westridge: Likes Aggressive/Professional, Dislikes Joking/Casual

Alpha Protocol is not bad, not bad at all. It has some combat-related issues that prevent it from becoming great mind you, but its general non-linearity and the way your choices directly effect later events are well done. Not only can you choose which order to do missions in, that order can effect what happens in those missions; choosing the ‘right’ order tends to open up options that wouldn’t have been there otherwise or make certain situations easier to navigate.

The dialog system is similar in appearance to a timed version of Mass Effect‘s, but plays out more like a game of rock-paper-scissor; each person you talk to tends to have a preferable tone, a neutral tone, and a disliked tone. Interestingly, it’s remarked in the opening interrogation (for a Recruit anyway) that you were partly chosen due to your ability to manipulate people… so power-gaming the dialog system is actually in-character role-playing. Most of the espionage minigames start out easy and end up insanely difficult if you don’t max out the Sabotage skill. Lockpicking is similar to Oblivion‘s, the bypass one is similar to Mass Effect 2‘s, and the Hacking one is unique and scales in an opposite manner; it starts out obscenely difficult and gets far easier as time goes on.

The leveling system is basically a set of active abilities and passive bonuses that bears a strong resemblance to Mass Effect‘s. Pistols are insanely powerful for two reasons; the Chain Shot ability and the way you can aim/fire them from behind cover. SMGs and Shotguns I have not tried yet, but they appear to be the weakest of the combat skills, while Assault Rifles are very versatile. Their active ability is crap, but they have a silenced ammo option and can be used as sniper rifles to pick-off targets that are out of pistol range while easily having the power to mow down targets at medium range. For short-range, Martial Arts pretty much decimate anything. If you come out of stealth, a single hit will take down an enemy, and there are a few hidden ‘non-lethal takedown’ perks that will permanently increase your Endurance by a nice amount.

Stealth is definitely powerful, but honestly you shouldn’t need to go past Master Awareness rank. However, an argument can be made for grabbing Shadow Operative to make certain missions (such as when you infiltrate the CIA) a complete cakewalk. Sabotage is basically essential unless you plan to pass up most of the later locked-up items and hidden data and don’t happen to be carrying a ton of EMP Grenades. Technical Aptitude and Toughness I did not use at all in my first playthrough as a Recruit on Normal difficulty. Perhaps they are useful on Hard difficulty?

Now, we come to Alpha Protocol‘s problems. It has two main ones:

• Firearms are horrifically inaccurate. Similar to playing Mass Effect with no weapon skills.
• The AI, while not completely retarded, only has two moves in its playbook; "Charge!" and "Take Cover!".

These issues combine to form a real problem. Most enemies cannot hit you reliably from any distance greater than 10ft (due to the accuracy issue, which affects both you and them), and if they charge into close-combat range so they can hit you… you can mow them down with an automatic weapon or just martial-arts them to death fairly easily. So combat is not exactly all that challenging and it’s quite possible to run through a hail of Assault Rifle fire to jumping-knee-strike someone in the face and beat them unconscious. Although doing so is made a touch more difficult by the at turns over-sensitive and sticky controls and sometimes erratic camera movement.

So, while Alpha Protocol is not a great combat game, it is a great role-playing game. Although… I may end up revising that statement after I play through the game again. It’s quite possible that events play out exactly the same regardless of your choices, and a single playthrough may be specifically designed to trick you into seeing depth that isn’t there.

Bioware’s most recent Dragon Age DLC offering appears to be blatantly ripping off Fergus Macpherson’s Emissary Mod.

The Good:

• It’s somewhat refreshing to be able to play things from the antagonist side.
• The interactive ’arson spots’ in the Alienage indicate greatness could be on the way.
• The enthrall system is sort-of fun.
• Fairly difficult on Nightmare Mode (although that’s because there’s little healing available).

The Bad:

• No character customization.
• Next to no new locations/models/textures.
• Extremely linear.
• Essentially one extended battle; there’s no dialog and you do nothing but continuously fight.
• Effectively no replay value.

All things considered, if you want to try playing as a darkspawn you’re probably better off just trying out that Emissary Mod for free than actually spending money on Bioware’s version. Perhaps even donating a couple dollars to Macpherson to encourage expanding it.

This is a surprisingly fun game. Sort of a combination of Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy XII. It is not without issues, such as the extremely shallow characters and highly questionable dialog and voice acting, but the combat (which makes up the majority of the game) is engaging and there are plenty of customization options. I had feared this would be another Ogre Battle, with more time spent watching the AI play then playing yourself, though that’s not the case. While you may not have direct control over exactly what action a character will take, you do have control over what type of attack they make and who they attack. As well as being able to see what actions those attack types will trigger before committing to them.

Visually speaking; the game looks great. It does use the Unreal engine however and so suffers from severe texture pop-up… but when those textures finally do pop-up they look quite good. The movement animations are somewhat awkward, though the combat attack animations are quite good. The various weapon moves actually look like they could be conceivably preformed in real combat. The counters as well.

Technically speaking it’s just a bare-bones console port; the mouse doesn’t even have a cursor to point and click with. So while using a controller is something of a necessity, the control scheme isn’t that difficult to get the hang of despite having multiple commands attached to the same buttons (mainly thanks to the visual reminders on-screen). It curiously installs itself to a windowed mode resolution and, somewhat annoyingly, shuts itself down if you alter certain configuration options in order to implement them.

I’m not sure how well the main storyline holds up just yet, as I’m not very far along it right now, but the item collection aspects and perpetual leveling-up have kept me involved despite the storyline being just downright ludicrous. The somewhat visceral thrill of watching your characters wipe out a group of 2-5 enemies with a single attack may also have something to do with it.

While not perfect, this is definitely a move in the right direction concerning Bioware’s recent slew of DLCs.

The mission itself is acceptably sized and decently challenging combat-wise, although it is more linear than Zaeed’s. The new SMG is desperately needed to give non-soldier’s some weapon-choice options and works well. The new casual-wear (for a female Shepard) is refreshingly different from the default options, albeit with the caveat that the default walking/running animation looks terrible with it. Kasumi herself, while not looking or sounding Japanese, is quite a nice addition to the character roster and comes with two unique abilities.

The only real problems with the DLC are the aforementioned linearity, the casual wear animation issue, and Kasumi’s similarity to Zaeed in having no conversations on the ship or any upgrades. Minor issues for the most part. A potential problem may be a lack of interjections in other missions, Zaeed did not have this problem but was released at the same time as the main game, so it could go either way. I’ll update this accordingly once I’ve played a few default missions with her.

Update: She appears to have the same amount of interjections as the default characters.

First, the good:

Unlike most previous DLC, the Firewalker doesn’t magically appear in your cargo hold. You actually have to travel somewhere and do ‘something’ to acquire it… although that ‘something’ is just perform the simple bypass minigame.

Now the bad (yes, only one good thing):

It handles worse than the Mako. Sad, but true. One feature of the handling that could be viewed as an improvement is the infinite boosters; the Mako gave you only a second or two of available boost before it had to cooldown a bit, the Hammerhead can boost/hover all day long to whatever height you want. I do not view this as an improvement, as it removes any sort of challenge that might have been gleaned from having to traverse the map from checkpoint to checkpoint.

Which bring up the next problem… checkpoints. The Firewalker missions consist of driving around the map hovering over glowing symbols on the ground to vacuum up their contents (which are invisible). Making this idiotic task slightly more complicated is the fact that the vacuum function, for one inane reason or other, causes you to jerk and jitter around like a crack fiend. If you slip off the circle, you’ve got to start the vacuum up all over again. A simple mini-map pointing out the locations, like a radar system, would have been exponentially better. Rounding out the issues are the unlimited supply of guided missiles (you can have unlimited missiles, but not unlimited bullets?) and the inability to get out of the damn hovertank and walk.

If you got the Cerberus Network DLC for free with the game, this may be worth a look if you’re desperate for new content. If you did not, then Zaeed is still the only reason to buy it.

The story definitely feels rushed all the way through… particularly at the end when the whole Architect portion of the story gets dumped on you. Quests you pick up rapidly jump from one to another and there’s very, very, little outside the three main quest areas. The <charname> issue ended up persisting throughout since many characters outside your Keep refer to you as ‘Ser’ for some reason. A distressing amount of bugs were encountered as well; Ander’s quest being uncompletable, the Smuggler and City Guard quests becoming uncompletable if you talk to both parties, permanently losing my PC’s equipment in the Silverite Mine, the Warden’s Keep DLC overriding certain weapon models and the other official DLCs’ resources not showing up (used a Mod to fix these), and Oghren’s quest seemingly being uncompletable (or I just missed something).

The companions are a (mostly) decent grouping. Oghren is well-known so I’ll only discuss the others. Anders has an extremely annoying personality, like Alistair on crack. Justice is basically a slightly more talkative version of Sten. I originally wanted nothing to do with Nathaniel because he looked like a combination of Howe and Loghain, but his personality was believable and grew on me after a while. Velanna is your average xenophobic mage who lapses into mother hen behavior any time she sees/mentions her abducted sister. Sigrun I recruited last, then proceeded to not use because her ‘optimistic fatalist’ personality grated and a Rogue with a tank Specialty is ridiculous. Speaking of Specialties; let’s move on to those next.

Battlemage isn’t very impressive due to it not really adding anything that would help your Mage survive better under fire. Elemental Chaos, though, might be interesting to try with an Arcane Warrior. Keeper is another underwhelming Specialty since its core ability immobilizes you. I ended up testing out Shadow on my PC and was pleased by the results. I never had to use Decoy, but the other three abilities are quite good and complement an Assassin or Duelist well. Legionnaire Scout, on the other hand, I avoided completely since I see no benefit in having a Rogue try to be a tank. Unlike the Mages and Rogues, both of the Warrior’s new Specialties are quite good. Spirit Warrior gives evasion, damage enhancement, and a Spirit-based AOE attack while Guardian is a massive tank.

Length/content-wise I’d put this expansion somewhere between Mysteries of Westgate and Storm of Zehir. It’s nicely sized, but does not actually expand the OC in any way. It’s essentially completely self-contained; all of the new Specialties, Skills and Talents are only available when playing the Awakening campaign. Thankfully, I got it on sale from Dell for $25 and so I’m relatively happy with the purchase. If I had paid the full $40 for it I’d likely be quite upset. I’m definitely going to give it at least one more playthrough to grab the last achievement I need… but probably not until after either a patch is released or certain specific Mods (Auto-Loot, No Helmet Hack) are updated to work with it.

It feels… rushed. Not the gameplay, but the storyline. The dialog is rather clipped and awkward as well, particularly whenever someone is referencing your character. In the OC they tend to rely on pronouns or just lump you in with the Wardens, and that works to make the dialog feel somewhat specific despite being nothing more than <charname>. Awakening doesn’t seem to like pronouns and instead uses ‘Commander’ and ‘Hero of Ferelden’. Unlike in Mass Effect, this does not feel natural (possibly because the OC’s style is so different) and just screams <charname>.

The first companion you get sounds disconcertingly like Anora, the second is a Mage version of Alistair (which is really annoying), and the third is Oghren… who does not have the same Skills/Abilities you gave him in the OC and whose appearance felt forced. The whole Joining ritual also felt forced. Incredibly so considering that none of your OC companions needed to officially join the Wardens to decimate hordes of darkspawn.

The areas seem more tactically complex (I’ve only just finished the opening mission), but also suffer from some pathing issues. Combat is pretty much exactly the same. Most of the new abilities are minor variations on the old… but there are a couple interesting standouts. The new Specialties start out locked, so I have no comment on them just yet. The new Skills are questionable. Runecrafting is great, but quite lore-breaking in the fact that Mages can learn it. The other two new lines are just simple generic Health/Mana/Stamina buffs that bear no resemblance to Skills at all.

Difficulty doesn’t seem to be much different. I imported a character who recently completed the main campaign, and a level 23 character dual wielding the Meteor Sword and Keening Blade is apparently quite overpowered for the opening area. For future playthroughs with imported characters, I believe I’ll deactivate the Memory Ring Addon and avoid the Archivist’s Sash in order to hopefully be less over-leveled initially (new characters start at level 18). Time will tell if this initial 5-level boost persists in making the game too easy.