Monday
Mar082010
Van Hemlock Episode 93
Jon Shute | Monday, March 8, 2010 at 2:28AM 
This week we return with more of what we've been playing. Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars, DDO and Eve dominate the MMOs, while the console games reach the heady heights of Dragon Age: Origins, Heavy Rain and, um, The Wheelman.
We also have the final(ish) word on if PCs are dead. The definitive word. Please note devs: pay attention to what Jon says and act accordingly.
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Reader Comments (6)
Great Show!!! I love Dragon Age... I am TRYING to get through Mass Effect 1, but I feel the same way about ME as you do about DA. I wish I could talk to my party members more. I don't really feel attached to them yet. Oh... I recommend you go for Zevron Over Alastair btw... he is far more... experienced. ;)
Aye, great podcast as always!
Don't think I could play Dragon Age on the 360. The PC version, however, is fantastic. I love being able to pause, take an isometric view of the whole battlefield and control my party with just a few mouse clicks.
Adding in mods that give respecs and more tactic slots (programmable squad AI !) meant I could crank the difficulty up and play it like the tactical RPG that I'd always wanted.
Hope you give Bad Company 2 another shot, I played the beta and it's my fav squad-based shooter in years. I think the unlocks are tied to mini achievements within each class rather than your overall level too. Sadly I'm skint and don't own the box yet so I can't double check that one.
DAO:
I've heard there are pretty big differences between the console and PC version in how you could pan the camera. I think I've heard that the console version could not zoom out and up as mucj. What ever.
PC gaming is dead:
The reason Jon lists is the reason I've always meant is what makes the PC superior to the consoles. But I totally disregard the fact that such upgrading is expensive and often require some aptitude at building the machine yourself. I consider the money I plow down into my machine(s) "hobby expenses".
Pretty much agree with most of the BFBC2 stuff - the XP grind is, i think, too steep at the start - and it doesn't do enough to teach you how to GET experience, how to work properly as a team - ie, putting down an ammo kit when playing Assault (or a medpack as Medic) will get you a lot of points - but you have to experiment to get to it. If you want to get into BFBC2, there's a youtube video called "How not to be a noob in BC2" that's very good.
Dragon Age:
I did actually pick up Dragon Age on PC yesterday (for £10!) so I can have a play with the modding tools. I'll let everybody know how I feel about the differences in the next "what we're playing" show.
Battlefield:
I'm going to keep chipping away at it, I do enjoy shooters online it's just I'm not good enough to do that well :)
I'm thinking about getting BC2 so I can shoot Jon in the face... ;-)
Jon: Disregard the above... Please tell us more about the DAO tool kits. As an old RPG gamemaster I'm adept at doing adventures/story, but I have very little experience with tools for games. How hard is it?