To experience this game in its full glory you will need a reasonably high end PC  for its a pretty demanding game. The collectors edition has a added CD called “Elite GFX” which enhances the graphics even further and will make your eyes water from its beauty. The music is astonishing and very atmospheric with the power metal band Blind Guardian also making the theme song and an appearance in a video sequence. Make sure you set a few good hours aside if you plan on updating your game (which I highly recommend you do due to the excessively large amount of bugs) because many of the patches don’t seem to work and won’t apply to your game. (even the ones from the official site.)

The gameplay itself is rather repetitious as you would come to expect from any hack ‘n’ slash, where grinding through quests and new areas is a major element to the game. The quests themselves are your typical “collect some items” or “kill some people causing trouble” which don’t seem to hold much uniqueness at all. The main storyline itself is a little more involved yet it still lacks in depth and most likely won’t keep you interested. The AI (Artificial Intelligence) isn’t very intelligent at all and you will find enemies randomly spread out throughout the map walking around aimlessly. I may be a bit harsh on the game but once you put all those negatives aside and look at the game in its entirety you have yourself a addictive, fun, beautiful and massive environment to play around in.

Once you start the game and are ready to go you will have the option of 6 classes to pick from, with each having their own pros and cons.

The classes are:-

Seraphim – Skilled with weapons, technology and magic this is your typical Paladin like character.

High Elf – Your pure caster class. With the click of a finger or a wink of the eye the High Elf can cause massive destruction.

Dryad – The hippie tree hugging caster/bow user who is one with nature.

Temple Guardian – A ancient cyborg robotic creature with a gun arm specializing in melee and ranged physical damage.

Shadow Warrior – The deadly heavily armored melee fighter using brute strength and force to chop your foes.

Inquisitor – The evil priest/necromancer class summoning the dead and casting dark magic.

After picking your class you can choose your deity and which campaign you wish to play (good or evil) then the epic cut scene appears and your thrown into the wilderness. As you eradicate foes you will gain your much loved experience points and before you know it you will DING! and the ability to specialize and tweak your character will become available. When leveling you will have several attributes to choose from including Strength, Stamina, Vitality, Dexterity, Intelligence and Willpower. Depending on your level you may also have the ability to pick an extra Skill and Combat Art Slot. Once you get going it can become very difficult to put down and losing sleep may become apparent in some gamers.

All in all if you have some spare time up your sleeve and are looking for something to keep you going until Diablo 3 is released next year then Sacred 2 Fallen Angel may just be your best bet.

Rating 8.5/10

The short review

This game is a cross between: Neverwinter Nights/World of Warcraft

It’s good because: • Great story • In depth NPC relationships • Cool combat animations

It’s bad because: • You must travel with a balanced party

The long version

Kick ass storyline

The storyline of Dragon Age: Origins is by far one of the best story lines from any RPG that I have played. For starters depending on your race and class the first chapter of the game is different.

I went with a Human Noble in an attempt to recreate my character from the original Neverwinter Nights. That’s all I’ll say on the matter as to not give away any spoilers.

Sex?!?

One of the rather odd things I found about Dragon Age: Origins is the ability to have sex with your companions. Som

e companions even swing both ways depending on how you want your character to act. These sex scenes are accompanied by some absolutely awful cinematics (with great ‘O’ faces) that just made me cringe.

On the other hand, the fact that the developers took the time and effort to allow you to do this did add an extra level to the game in terms of relationships.

[It doesn't get much cornier then this]

Great combat

I thoroughly enjoyed the combat and not once got bored of killing mob after mob. You are able to employ great tactics using the ‘Tactics’ options and you also have the ability to pause the game at any point and give each person their next order. I only wish that you were able to stack orders like The Sims.

Visually the combat looks fantastic. Each attack looks different and accurately reflects the description of the action. I also love how you can stun or knock down characters and then just bring on the DPS.

The only downside is that the characters I enjoyed traveling were all weapon users rather then magic users. While this was fine in terms of healing (you can make all the potions you want), it made some bosses quite difficult because I simply didn’t have the DPS needed.

Gameplay

In terms of class customization, you can really make your character exactly how you want it to be. Classes have access to both unique and universal class sets. You will however want to only select one combat/magic skill set to max out on initially as you will easily finish the game before being able to max out a second set.

The hardware running of the game was great. I haven’t done any major upgrades to my computer in 2 years and I had a smooth running game.

One thing I really liked was that I never got bored during any of the cut scenes or dialogues. The stories and information was genuinely interesting and I enjoyed finding out more about my companions stories.

[Dual weapon sweep]

Conclusion

This game brings a whole lot to the RPG genre. A lot of time and effort has been put into this game to create an easy to learn fun RPG with an in-depth story. On top of that it looks absolutely fantastic and features some of the most interesting NPCs I’ve ever seen in an RPG.

For all of these reasons and more I give this game an 8.5/10. Pick up Dragon Age: Origins on Amazon.com today for only $36.14

Dragon Age: Origins

[My character and his best friend before the finale battle]

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It’s  been out for around 3 weeks now and after much playing I feel that I can give this game a proper review. For simplicity I’ll refer to Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as BFBC2. I’m not going to bore you with long paragraphs about gameplay and sound.

You can see from the video’s that it looks good. My PC (which is not state of the art) can run it on medium at 1920×1080 fine with no lag. Sound is fantastic. Nuff said. Let’s talk about the cool stuff.

Comparison to previous Battlefield games on PC

• While the max server size is only 32 players, the maps are designed so that 32 still feels like 64.
• Having scenery to hide behind that doesn’t disappear from a distance provides hundreds of sniping positions making the sniper an actually useful class.
• While there are general unlocks for your player, class specific unlocks can only be realised by playing that specific class. This makes it a bit rough at the beginning until you get some better weapons and things like a Med Kit, Ammo Kit and Defibrillator Paddles, but it also serves to toughen you up for whats to come.
• A new points system gives you points for just about any team action.

tanks provide an integral part of all Battlefield games

Let’s get hardcore!

BFBC2 features an all new mode called Hardcore. This mode disables your cross hair and HUD map making it harder for the players and giving it a more realistic feel. As a Medic you need to stay super alert to any of your team mates being killed as you will no longer be able to check for them on the mini map.

Losing the cross hair makes aiming with the 40mm GL a lot more difficult. Which is good as it prevents people from spamming them or using them excessively over their rifle.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Explosive power

Being able to take down the wall of a building that a sniper is hiding from comes in super handy. The 40mm Grenade Launcher and rocket launchers punch a nice hole in the side of buildings. If too much of the wall is destroyed, the building eventually collapses, killing anyone inside who isn’t quick enough on the keys.

Squad up

One of the best new features of BFBC2 is the ability to spawn on any person in your 4 man squad, rather than just a squad leader. This makes being in a squad crucial if you plan on your team winning the round.

A single squad, with a good balance of classes (Medic, 1-2 Assaults, 1-2 Engineers), can flank and rip through and enemies base wrecking devastation. With the Medic to revive any fallen team mates and the ability to respawn on a team mate if that fails, your squad can stay alive a long time.

If you try to be a solo hero like in Call of Duty… you will die… real fast.

An important Public Service Announcement from EA

Game modes

There are four game modes in Battlefield: Bad Company 2:

Conquest

The typical style of Battlefield game. Capture the flags, first teams tickets to reach zero loses. All conquest maps have 3 or 4 flags that are spaced out evenly between each others home bases.

Rush

This a completely new type of game for Battlefield. There are two teams, attackers and defenders. The attackers must attack and destroy two objectives in the defenders base. If the objectives are destroyed the defenders must move back to the next base where the process is repeated through 5 bases. The attackers goal is to destroy all objectives at all 5 bases before their tickets run out. The defenders have unlimited tickets and instead must simply prevent the attackers from progressing to win.

Once you get the rules down and learn to play with a squad this is a very fun game mode.

Squad Rush

Same as rush except there are only 8 players in the server. Just 1 squad for each team. You get a special pin if you win one of these rounds.

Squad Deathmatch

This is for all those players who are new to the Battlefield games and prefer lone wolf to playing in a team. 4 vs 4 vs 4 vs 4. Sticking with your squad has it’s benefits but can also get you killed as a larger group is more obvious. If you go lone wolf, keep moving around and always check your back. If you can find a squad that sticks together, hole up somewhere and pick off any lone wolfs on the other teams.

Conclusion:

While this game did not fail in including EA’s usual long list of problems it has proved itself as a great sequel to the Battlefield franchise. Plenty of variety is enabled through multiple game modes and dozens of guns and equipment. The customization level is beyond that of any other FPS online game. It also proves itself visually with a great engine and special effects. This is also a genuinely fun game that will provide you with 100′s of hours of entertainment. I give this game 8.5/10 for kicking serious butt. Criteria rating: 7/12

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is on sale at Amazon:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Advice and Tips

• Like I said before, be sure to squad up to stay alive.
• Throw a lot of ammo packs and med packs around. Not only will this give you a heap of points but it will greatly assist your team.
• If your team is already half filled with snipers, you don’t need another one.
• Keep moving unless sniping. Sniper rifles do a lot of damage and you can’t afford to get hit.
• Use the scenery at cover and flank around the side of your enemies base, even if your attack fails it will hopefully cause enough of a distraction to allow the rest of your team to move up.
• Rocks provide more stable cover than bushes… of course.
• If hiding inside a building, keep clear of the inside of walls. An RPG hitting the outside will result in your death.
• Spot all infantry, especially if you are a sniper and can’t make the shot. Spot, spot, spot.
• If you are in armour, hang back and support the infantry by picking off and spotting enemies. Moving in close to the objective will usually result in you taking several rockets up the ass.

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