Dragon Age Origins

It’s been a while since a game has been reviewed that wasn’t obscure or… well really any game that Julian Horan didn’t review.  I come now to break that trend.  There are many people who have already spent well over a hundred hours playing this game, but that most likely includes all the Downloadable Content (DLC) and the expansion, Dragon Age Origins Awakening – which are four words that qualify for the most seemingly random title ever.   This game, without all the fancy bells and whistles that came after its initial release, is still a fantastic game to play and will take hours and hours of time from your other responsibilities.

Before the game even starts, you may spend an hour or two deciding what exactly you want yourself to look like.  Personally, I think this is overkill, but that’s a common theme to long RPGs nowadays.  There are several beginnings to this game’s story, depending on the race (human, elf, dwarf), class (mage, rogue, warrior), and area you choose to play.  For instance, if you choose a dwarf commoner, you have to escape from the dwarf king who has just killed his brother, but if you choose the human mage, you are resigned to starting in the mage’s tower, a place where you can be watched and kept under lock and key.  Each unique beginning quickly catches up with the main story: to become a Grey Warden and stop the evil “Darkspawn” from taking over the lands.  Things don’t go as easily as planned, however, and you’re left with forming a new army and recruiting party members along the way.  To create the army, you have to go to three different areas and complete a string of quests. Afterwards, you are promised an army when the time comes.  If you already think the story is obvious or find it lacking, don’t worry, the best part of the game is the combat, of which there is much.

Sugar, spice and everything nice.

If you’re used to Bioware’s games (Mass Effect 2, Knights of the Old Republic, even Jade Empire) then you’ll fit right in with this game.  You can have a party of up to four people, three of which you can change around while the main character is always present.  Each party member has their own special skills, spells, attributes, etc.  which you can tell them to use with the tactics option or take full advantage of by playing as that character yourself.  Don’t like that warrior you created after 20 hours of gameplay?  Would you prefer to play as a Morrigan, the saucy spell caster?  That’s ok.  Just always switch to the next member of your party.  To make the combat more thoughtful, you can pause the game every time combat begins, specify every action and directly manage the team.  It’s a great addition and incredibly useful, but can sometimes feel like it gets in the way of the flow.  In addition to the skills available to you through your class, which are many and various, there are also specializations that you can learn through books, party members or side quests.  They also allow for more skills to be learned, although I didn’t much care for any of them.

I'm pretty sure I killed this elf.

If fantasy isn’t your thing, then stay away from this game. There is a ton of stuff packed into this game: codices, letters, quests, side quests, histories, lore.  If you take the time to read everything and try to figure out the context of the world as a whole, you’re in for some long nights.  On the other hand if, like me, you just want to play the game, level as much as you can and then kill some dragons, you’ll still partake in a great gaming experience.  Everything fits well together, nothing seems like it was added without a point and you can do dozens of quests to keep you coming back for more.  The gameplay is a solid, hardcore experience that you’ll come to thoroughly enjoy the more you play.  Each of the abilities you learn are useful depending on the situation, and you can create your party to suit the kind of game you want to play.  The soundtrack also manages to have that medieval feel to it, present in most fantasy games.  There‘s always some lady, singing eerily.  I don’t know why that’s a staple for things like this, but there you go; I can’t fault a game for fitting into the genre, no matter how odd I think it is (chanting) or how much I hate it (elves).  The one thing I feel I should mention about the soundtrack as something just completely out of place doesn’t even happen during the game.  After about 4 minutes of credits rolling at the very end, all of a sudden, without any warning, a rock song comes on:  “This is War” by 30 Seconds to Mars.  My only thought at this time was, “what the hell?”  It doesn’t make the game worse, but it is funny.  Sorry for the spoiler.

4.5/5 Near Perfect Score! Super Good!

A (Non-Zerg) Alien Swarm

Yet another free game being reviewed here on, newly retitled, Super Dope Gaming. Alien Swarm comes from "a group of talented designers at Valve who were hired from the Mod community," which means this is a game made by Valve gamers, for Valve gamers. Fitting. This downloadable game is a 4 player cooperative, online, top-down action game, and as you can guess, not too many other games fall into that specific set of genres, making Alien Swarm stand out among the few.

You play one of eight characters, from one of four classes: Medic, Engineer, Heavy, or Soldier. Probably not the official names for the classes, but at least people who play Team Fortress 2, one of Valve's other online games, will get the idea. In fact, every gamer will most likely know what those classes are, even if they just guessed. That's the beauty of the class system. Anyway, each character also has three things to hold: two are usually weapons and the third is some tool to aid the mission. Whether that third slot is taken by a health pack, ammo pack, or door welder depends on your class and how you want to arrange your set up. People who have played TF2 will no doubt find familiarity in both the controls and load out screen. But, for those unsure of their shooting prowess, there is a way to practice offline.

There is no story here. While Privates attempted to create a story through dialog during breaks between battles, and Team Fortress 2 has enough of a fan base for Valve to make comics explaining the history behind Red and Blue, Alien Swarm starts with a simple plot. "There are aliens attacking the base. Escape." Which lets the player get right into the action, but denies them any meaningful experience. Of course this game isn't trying to be the next Half Life, just an action-oriented and fast-paced shooter. On this point, the game excels. If you're confident enough to venture to the online play, you'll likely end up in a game of "who can get to the end the fastest." I don't think that was the idea the creators had. The point of playing with a team is using teamwork, isn't it? This isn't the fault of the game or creators, of course, but the online community, where the motto is usually All for one.

That's unfair though, since I routinely play without taking the time to ensure the safety of my teammates. For Alien Swarm, I can imagine the most fun and cohesive gaming experience to come from a group of four friends playing it during a LAN party. Also, the aliens seem to never stop coming, which makes the idea of running past the monsters to the goal much more appealing and, honestly, smarter than staying around to make sure every area is cleared.

This game does not represent Valve's finest work, but it is a lot of fun to play. Once you get to know who your favorite character is and spend more time playing in online bouts, you'll be running through the levels as if you were running through each level. Like anything that's free to play, you might as well give it a try. I was impressed with how much fun it was to play and the game's overall quality. You can tell how much time the people from the "Mod community" put into Alien Swarm and how much they wanted others to enjoy their gaming experience. For that, I can't see any reason to lower the score other than it's lack of story -- seemingly not that important for shooters anyway -- and the simple, Team Fortress-esque gameplay, which can also be seen as a plus. Valve has made another game where the key points are the experience of the audience, the enjoyment while playing, and has given the added bonus of zero cost. Download this game, have fun, thank Valve.

4/5 Near Perfect Score! Super Good!

Privates is Now Open to the Public

Hmmm... I'm not sure how to start this review. I guess I should explain what Privates is before I get into anything else. This is a videogame put out by Zombie Cow Studios (free to download here) in which you play as... well, I'm not quite sure exactly what you are. Some kind of team of STI Cops, who all have a British accent. I guess the only ones who know about safe sex are middle school gym teachers and people from the old country. These things from the STIPD (get it?) enter into people's anatomy and take care of nasty infections and viruses. Anything from Herpes to the HIV Virus. Seriously.

You play as the commander of the worst team in the corps, assigned to them in order to toughen these three wastes of "rubber hats" up. The rubber hats keep you safe (get it?). As a commander, your team follows your lead. You walk left or right in this 3d rendered, 2d game and the team follows. You get four types of ammo - mapped to 1-4 and your mouse wheel - with each being useful against certain types of infections or viruses. You also get to shoot sperm. If you missed out on sex-ed or went to Catholic school, and you know nothing of what could come from sex, then fret not! Pressing the spacebar will allow you to scan the enemy, which gives you more information than you needed in order to kill it, but just enough in order to be safe. All done with those lovely British accents.

Privates (get it?) takes you through five levels, each taking 5 to 10 minutes. These levels allow you to become intimate with a vagina, a penis, an anus/rectum, a mouth, and a womb. The one thing in common with all these body parts is that they belong to sluts. Every one of these people have Herpes and sperm just flying around. I'm not quite sure how to react to all that, but my first instinct was to wonder why I haven't met anyone this slutty. The game can be completed in about an hour without much difficulty. The lice proved to be the worst enemies and brought with them memories of the Library level from Halo: Combat Evolved (who really calls it that?). The most frustrating aspect of the game, however, were loose controls. I could fire in a general direction, but quite often was my cursor an inch or two off from where the bullets were hitting. Not unmanageable, but definitely annoying.

The game is free and easy (get it?) to download, so I don't know why you would avoid it if you have some free time. Privates gets points for originality and creativity, adding some important lessons for 14 year-olds who - let's face it - are probably already having sex, and hopefully have a good enough sense of humor. I mean, sure, there are a lot of lowbrow jokes here, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. Even the disgusting bits come with a groan and chuckle. But I can see some gamers playing this not in the right mindset and then ending up hating the whole experience. So let's not kid ourselves, people, the reasons to get this game are because it'll provide a fun, gross-out time, and, more importantly, it's free. Just download it and play and you'll have a better time than most of the flash games out there. Did I mention you get to shoot sperm? While going down a mouth?

3.5/5 Slightly Above Average! Almost Dope!

More Recent, But Still Not New

Not being one with a lot of love for shooters of any kind, I was hesitant to play Mass Effect 2. Even more so on account of my not playing the original Mass effect. I have to say, though, this game made me seclude myself away in my room for about two weeks... all the way to the point that my girlfriend started a new game just in order to spend time with me. Depressing? Yes. Enthralling? Obviously. Did I enjoy my time playing through it to the point where I would play it again? Oh, Yea.

Mass Effect 2 is a third person shooter RPG. That's the best way I can describe it's genre-twisting play style. You gain levels by completing missions and earning experience, and you can make "humanity favoring" choices, for which you receive Renegade (evil) points, or I guess "equality" choices, for which you receive Paragon (good) points. You can also choose from a variety of classes, ranging from brawler, infiltrator (sniper), biotic, or engineer. There are a couple others, but I played through as sniper and then took over my girlfriend's engineer character, so I can't remember all of them or really comment on them. What I can say, is that playing as the sniping infiltrator could have been more fun and that if I were to play through it yet again, biotic (a kind of magic wielder, focusing on special abilities more than weapons) would have to be my choice. As for infiltrator and engineer, they both have many fine qualities that allow the player to stay back and let others do the fighting. I usually like to throw myself into the mess, so these were both a little unusual for me, but nowhere near difficult to get the hang of.

The hardest thing for me to catch on to was what was going on with the plot. This series is so heavily story based that I didn't know what was going on in the beginning of the game and I didn't know who I was supposed to be rooting for. I at first tried to take the stance, "I'm on my own, suck it, everyone else!" But that, for some odd reason, sometimes gave me Paragon points when all I wanted was to be the evil bastard I love being (there will never be a game where going down the righteous path will be more fun than the cruel, heartless, greedy bastard who can do anything he wants). Of course, my straying from the straight path of evil cost me a couple actions that I didn't have enough Renegade points for later in the game, about which I was considerably disappointed. So the second iteration of the game loses some accessibility for those who haven't played the first. Other than that, things come together very nicely.

You play as Commander Shepard (male or female), but you also die in the first five minutes. Cerberus and their leader, the Illusive Man, bring you back to life. Throughout the rest of the game you go on missions for Cerberus: acquiring a team, investigating disappearances, rescuing colonists, killing bad guys. All this, and for some reason Cerberus is still the bad guy. I don't know what they did in the first game, but it must have been bad enough to counteract everything good they do in this one (Reviving the main character, for starters). Even after Miranda, a possible love (or sex) interest and the biggest proponent of Cerberus, makes a solid case for the work they do, siding with Cerberus puts you on the wrong side of the law. Going through the game mission by mission will rush you through it but you'll lose a lot of the extra effects, things of the sort that are provided in most RPGs. Like mining, for instance. There are so many planets in so many solar systems, many of which you don't ever need to go, that it feels overwhelming. The main point to going to any of these extra planets is to find minerals, for which you have to slowly scan the entire planet and shoot probes to, hopefully, collect enough for that next weapon upgrade. I spent a large amount of my time mining because I wanted things that I thought were totally unnecessary (ship upgrades), just because I wanted them and I had excess resources for a little while. I never upgraded any weapon that I did not personally use and this worked out superbly. The team helps, but as an infiltrator, most of the enemies are taken down with one quick shot to the head, so I didn't allow my team to reach their full potential. I did, however, collect everyone I could and made them all loyal to me, which unlocks a special ability for that team member (and something more after the game's completed). And a new outfit. Spiffy.

Most of the missions don't take too long, but there are a lot of them, which keep the game going for a good amount of time. It took me about 28 hours to get through the whole thing, which I think is a perfect amount of time for an RPG. Mass Effect 2 doesn't delve into the excessive time-wasters like so many Final Fantasies. Hell, you don't even need to spend as much time doing the things I did. This game could probably be beaten in 10 to 15 hours in a speed run, which is still a good amount of time. Any game that goes less than ten hours is kinda pushing it. More importantly is that the game stands without the extra missions or grinding-ish mining. Some games tend to rely more on what should be bonus material and fail with the main storyline (Fable II comes to mind).

There are a total of 9 characters to collect to help in the main mission and you can learn about their personal lives or lure a couple into having sex with you, if you're so inclined. This adds a certain amount of depth to the world and, sometimes, makes you actually care what happens to your team. Especially on the loyalty missions do you get a special, inside look at your team members. Now that I think about it, that's really the best thing about them. I think they helped a few times, but I was never in need of their help and I always seemed to have full health packs. They do provide a good source of extra story and many of the missions revolve around your team (at least 2 for each member). And many of them can be seen as a badass accessory for Commander Shepard.

For the most part, this game plays well and almost always has an interesting story. All the choices effect the outcome of Shepard, the ones close to him/her, or even the storyline of Mass Effect 3 if you import the character. Overall, this game was a lot of fun to play, with more than enough things to prolong the experience, and contained both great visuals and excellent storyline choices. The voice acting, I feel I should at least mention, was also great. Never did I cringe at an expression of worry or remorse - I did laugh a few times at some of Jack's rebellious, almost silly and mundane, spouting attitude of "I'm a killer, I don't care about anything". Still, the game was solid every time I picked up the controller. For that, I can overlook a few of the hours I spent mining and the overwhelming feel of the universe.

4/5 Near Perfect Score! Super Good!