Daimon's Lair

For some reason, Blogger's not letting me upload images, but I still want to post this. I recently purchased with the vast majority of my Christmas money Onkyo's HT-S3200 home theater system. This is a GREAT buy.

What it Replaces:
I had a several years-old Samsung all-in-one (which included a 5-disc carousel changer) which relied on a cooling fan--whose bearings were shot. Kinda pointless to have a surround system when any time you try to use it, whatever you're trying to listen to gets drowned out by the squealing of a bad electric motor.

Plus, the sound was decent, but not great. Not a huge advantage over my TV's own speakers.

Impressions:
One of the reasons I chose this system is that, unlike systems that also are disc players, this uses a conventional (read gloriously bulky) amp as its centerpiece. This means I have conventional 8-ohm speakers and the amp can handle additional outputs.

The various sound processing filters are nice and it's been so long since I've heard my music and games on quality speakers, I actually have to get used to how everything sounds again. Love having surround sound for my gaming. Funny how people make all this crap about THX and stuff for movies, but I've honestly watched very few movies that really take advantage of 5.1 sound. EVERY game does. Serious gamers need a sound system. And gamers who, like me, have some (but not tons) of money should take a look at this system.

I picked it up for a little over $300 on Vann's (through Amazon), but it's been worth every penny so far.

Bioware has to be one of my favorite developers. I've played a good chunk of their games, with my particular favorites being Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. Now they've successfully sucked me into another masterpiece effort. So, what's so good about Dragon Age: Origins?

Here's my effort to capture some of the top things I'm really liking about DA so far.

1. Great Character Design

2. Plot Twists

The story is settling down now about ten or so hours in, but the first six were filled with interesting twists. (Not that the story so far isn't--far from it.) I have no desire to get into spoilers, but so far this is my favorite RPG from a story angle. KOTOR and Mass Effect were good games, but the stories were B efforts. So far DA is a solid A in my book. Even great games like Fallout 3 and ES IV: Oblivion suffered because they were too sprawling. We'll see, of course, how it all comes together, but so far DA has struck the balance between offering a compelling main storyline and offering occasional diversionary quests. One in particular, the 'Urn of Sacred Ashes', which is semi-optional, is incredibly well-designed.

3. Combat Mechanics

As usual, my first playthrough is on the default difficulty setting, and while certainly not crushing like Demon's Souls is reputed to be, there are points of the game that have been. . . challenging. The mechanics, however, are well-designed and bear close resemblance to KOTOR's system of being able to pause and switch between characters. I wish (sometimes) I could queue up commands like in that game, but the tactics menu eliminates some of the need for micromanagement. If, that is, you're patient enough to update it as characters level up to new talents and spells.

One small thing I like: the radial menu can be set to toggle on/off, rather than requiring you to always hold down the left trigger. This is AWESOME. I hate having to hold down buttons while using radial menus, especially here because of the need to frequently switch between characters.

4. Critical Disagreements

Two things had me skeptical about DA after reading reviews. One was the amount of gore in the game. Luckily, a la Gears of War, there is a setting to toggle off what Bioware calls 'persistent gore'. While some of the cut-scenes have near-adolescent male levels of gore, in-game gore is quite tasteful-realistic. It's definitely playable in front of kids.


The second was the 'unoriginality' of the world. Yes, the darkspawn are clearly inspired by Tolkein's orcs, but there are so many other aspects of the world that are richly detailed and quite original (e.g. the elves having been enslaved by humans long ago). So far, not only have the excellent characters and plot drawn me in, but also the allegedly 'unoriginal' world.

Those are my thoughts for now. Stay tuned for more impressions and the final review!

This is going to be an attempt on my part to create a recurring feature on my blog. Here will be where I put regular updates on the games I have in progress, with first impressions and such. Reviews, news, and single game specific posts will always, of course, be put under separate headings.

Playstation 3

Resistance: Fall of Man

XBOX 360