An Age of Awesome...

It's been a really long time since I've played a game that really grabbed onto me and kept me playing for days and days on end. I thought I found one last year when Ben got me Final Fantasy XIII for me for my birthday. While I enjoyed it, the game was a bit linear and held my interest for a while, but not for the entirety of the game. I liked it, but it did not become one of my favorite games.

I did not get Dragon Age when it first came out. I had heard good things about it, but living on a part-time retail salary keeps me from buying games all the time. A few months ago I finally decided to get it, and since I kept hearing such good things I made sure not to play it until I was done with all my school work for the semester. Good thing I waited so long because once I started, I didn't stop.

I'm a big fan of the LOTR series, both the books and the movies, and this game reminded me of the movies right away. An epic adventure against a great evil that would destroy everything unless properly taken care of. A typical scenario that led to greatness. I was glad my main character had a decent amount of personalization. I knew I could play the game more than once and not get bored since I would be trying to create a different type of person throughout the game play. For my first play through, I made a good elven mage. I'm currently working on a good (yet sometimes sassy) human rogue and an evil dwarven warrior.

The characters in this game are amazing. You can tell a lot of work was put into creating characters, their stories, and the voice acting. Once I met Alistair, I fell in love. He was definitely one of the best characters in the game; a silly, yet noble warrior. There was not one character who was badly created within this game. Each playable character is given a specialization from the start, but the player still has control on how each character ultimately turns out. You are able to customize each character and make them specialize in certain fighting style or magic use. A character can be different through each play-through.

I also love a game with choices, and this game is loaded with them. You chose everything. You chose what your character will say and what your character will do in each situation. The different choices that are made affect the people and places around you. All the choices that are made ultimately determine what the ending will be as well. I had to sit and think quite a few times in order to decide which side to take or how to answer someone I was talking to. If you want things to turn out one way, you better hope you're reacting in a way that will help you get what you want. It killed me whenever I chose something that made Alistair upset with my character.

It's a good thing I wasn't in school when I got the game. I would have failed out of college. I spent a good few months playing though this game. I only took a few breaks. I bought a few other games that took up my time for a little while. I also would stop once I realized I was getting headaches from staring at the TV screen too long.

I sadly do not have any of the downloadable content at the time, but I do plan on buying it all. I need to get some more money coming in before I can buy the many different additional stories I need to play.

It's now almost March, and I decided to get myself a birthday present: Dragon Age II. The game comes out a day before my birthday. I already preordered and paid for my game. I very much plan on waiting on line for the midnight release and barely getting any sleep the day it comes out. I'll also be pretty miserable that day since I'll be going home for a few days. My mind will be occupied by other things, but deep down inside the gamer will be pleading with me to go back to Buffalo and continue playing Dragon Age. I'm beyond excited to finally start playing this. I need to play and beat this game before I start graduate school.

I played the demo for this game and I'm already impressed. It's a new and improved version of the old. Faster paced fighting, better graphics, and the ability to keep conversations flowing like normal people (like in Mass Effect).

I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of March 8th. That day will be bringing me much good in my life.

It's a scary world inside the console...

I love the horror genre in video games. I also hate it at the same time. Two weekends ago, I went to Gamestop with my friend Jim where he bought Silent Hill: Homecoming for the Xbox 360. I was jealous, but he said I could borrow it when he's finished with it, and also when I'm finished with the current horror game I'm borrowing, Alan Wake.

I takes me a long time to beat games unless it really catches my attention, like Persona 4 for the PS2. I like to take my time and get as much enjoyment as I possibly can out of a game. I also have a super bad habit of playing many different games at once. It takes me even longer to beat any game I come to own in the horror genre. I enjoy the dark themes and the intriguingly suspenseful stories that come along with these types of games, but I'm also kind of a wimp. I can't ever play these games after dark, or else I get super freaked out. I also don't like to play alone. There has to be someone in the house when I'm playing or else every little sound I hear will make me super paranoid. The current apartment I'm living in likes to make odd noises, so playing these games will constantly remind me that there might be some sort of presence within my house.

I really like the game Alan Wake. It's not one of the scariest games I've played, but I still have issues playing it alone. I also seem to like the games with the normally weak female lead characters that find themselves in a terrible situation. Clock Tower 3 only truly scares me when the murderers come out of nowhere. The deformed guy in Haunting Ground chases you in hope that he will get to have you for dinner; fun, fun. The minds of children gone awry makes me want to figure out the mystery behind The Rule of Rose. I see more horror games all the time that I want to play, but I know how badly they'll react with me.

I don't know why I freak out so much about anything related to horror, but I do. I'm beyond aware of the fact that it is all fake. Certain images will be stored in my mind and as I let my mind rest, it wanders to those images and I start to panic slightly. Of course, this happens mostly before I go to sleep. Thanks to my wonderful subconscious, I dream about morbid things that wake me up in the middle of the night and force me to think happy thoughts for a good hours. I know this happens, most of the time, and yet I still continue to do it.

We all want to know what happens past all the fear and the terror. We hope for an answer, we hope for justice, and we hope for a happily ever after. We take our nerves through hell in order to see a story of survival. We are happy as long as one main person is able to live through the catastrophe. We forget all the others that suffered and died as long as as one person is victorious. That's why getting the "bad endings" in these games are so disappointing. You spent hours trying to make it through alive only to come across anger and sadness in the end. It just doesn't seem worth it unless something positive comes from the end.

I watched Silent Hill last night. It's a terrible movie. The acting is awful and it's not nearly as scary as the original game for the Playstation was (or so I've heard...never played the original game but I plan to). I got my fill of gore and creepy no-faced creatures for the night though. I also saw the mother and daughter "saved" in the end. I still went to bed with the creepy, tied up, dead guy from the bathroom in my head. I still watched the movie even though I know I don't really like it. My love/hate relationship with this genre will continue.

I need to beat Alan Wake so I can give it back to Jim. I will push through the darkness and help Alan Wake figure out why his horror fiction is coming true. I will scare myself towards the happiness that wouldn't exist in the end if all of this was really happening.