Gears of War 3 announced for September 20th. Can't wait!!!

I couldn’t resist anymore and took a break form “Fallout 3” and started playing “Dragon Age: Origins” about 7PM last night. Boy am I glad I did, just wish I’d have popped it in around 1PM when it got here.

So far I like this much better than FO3. At first the control layout looked a bit daunting but I’m getting the hang of it quickly. Well except for the “A” and not the “RT” being the attack button like about 99.9% of the games I’ve played. But in a way it does make sense and keep things simpler in that “A” always initiates the action that has focus.

I really like that you can set ‘loot” to sparkle. I hate having to search around looking at everything and still end up missing something because it’s buried in a box on top of a desk with other boxes partly on top of it. I also like the colour pallet much better. Sorry I live less than 10 miles form desert wasteland and the colours are not muted and dull. Nor do I enjoy looking at monochrome monitors or heads up displays which seem more like night vision goggles.

I also like the character interaction much more than FO3 so far. I would prefer a ME/ME2 style dialogue wheel and it would be nice, read more evolving the hear your characters responses. Just seems sort of half baked compared the ME/ME2 interactions.

I am having a little trouble controlling the movement of my character. I think part of that is switching to the 3rd person view and another part is getting use to not being able to back up since it just turns you around. However, at least so far being precise in moving doesn’t seem to mean much.

I played DA:O - Leliana's Song until about 4:30 AM when I finally got all six pieces of her special armor. Then I went back to the main game (unable to beat a mage in the addon at this point), and played until 7:30 AM.

I think the main character is not voiced in DA:O because there are literally 16 different base versions of the character (8 origins, times male and female), each would have a different speaking style. That would mean recording all the main dialog 16 times. Might be able to thin it down to human, dwarf, and elf, by male/female, but that's still 6, and wouldn't be correct because the different elves you meet in the game talk differently. DA2 solves the problem because you play a human no matter.

DA:O started development before ME, and ME's dialog wheel is pretty revolutionary (at least evolutionary). As I said DA2 is getting it. So all you have to do is wait.

Arrg, stupid little ghost kid. I missed something important, and have the save I have before is way too far back.

Oh well, next play through, I guess.

Gears of War 3 is easily my most anticipated game of the year. I hope the competitive multiplayer plays more like it did in the first Gears of War. They added too many long range weapons (Mortar, Mulcher) to the competitive multiplayer in Gears of War 2, and it really took away from the up close and personal, in your face firefights of the original.

Gears of War 3 and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (11/11/11) are easily my most anticipated as well. As for new weapons, 3 will feature a upgraded Lancer with bayonet, double-barreled shotgun, Digger Launcher (shoots explosive diggers that rips through the ground at high speeds), One Shot (kills enemies with a single round), Gorgon SMG (not the pistol). I haven't heard anything of the Mortar being used in this one.

Other features are new turrets that allows up to four players to be mounted on them (4-player co-op), mech suit (not sure if used in multiplayer) armed with machine gun and rocket launcher.

Multiplayer now includes a mode called Beast Mode (play as Locust upgrading to stronger class as you progress) along with the opposite Horde Mode. Games like Team Deathmatch, Warzone, Capture the Leader, Guardian and Submission have also been slightly tweaked.

Crazy Machines 2 . It's challenging, and lots of fun.

Yeah, but you have to have the right hardware to run Crazy Machines! (I still remember the days of The Incredible Machine from the mid 90's... Loved those games.)

Yeah, Nick; I played Incredible Machines too. This is a more graphic intense version.

Yeah, Skyrim is undoubtedly going to own my soul for a while. So much for NaNoWriMo this year.