Pendleside Dingbats C/D 6 January 2025
Quizzes & Puzzles0 min ago
Disappointing Finale
4 Answers
Just want to rant, I need to moan somewhere and here seems good.
Some years back I bought a PC game called Dragon Age Origins. I hadn't bought a computer game in some while as so few seemed worth it at the time, so I was a late purchaser for it. But it was brilliant.
Ok the graphics were a bit cartoon like, but the storyline, the characterisation, the amount of variation, the relationships you could build up with the other characters you met, the multiple small tasks you could gain score (and your character ability) for.
No difficult finger gymnastics, one could just use the trackball to move, and simply indicate where you wanted to go (within the ability of the programme to distinguish those places on the screen that were reachable). Much was instinctive, and whilst the course of the game was guided to an extent, things could be accomplished in any order. I was hooked on it for ages.
Then they brought out a second in the series. Dragon Age II. A good game but a disappointment after experiencing the brilliance of the first in the series. It pandered to those youngsters who prefer lots of visual action no matter how ridiculous, and copied the same bits of location to use elsewhere so one got to see what seemed to be the same place umpteen times over. But one got over its shortcomings and it was ok.
I have now just bought the third in the series. Dragon Age Inquisition, and it has taken me just a few minutes to realise I've wasted my money.
It was a bad start when the screen kept flashing and eventually decided not to be full screen but in a window. Plus the cursor was not detected in the right place and I had to keep clicking about half an inch under where I wanted to click. Eventually some work around was found by changing the display setting from full screen to fell screen window.
Bad enough, but checking the keyboard settings I see the spacebar is no longer pause. It was the dreaded "jump". Now I've tried enough games in the past to know if a game needs you to jump you don't touch it with a 20 foot bargepole. At some point a jump will be necessary, probably at speed and under duress, and no matter what you do, for hour after hour, you are going to watch your character jump up and down on the spot again and again, instead of leaping somewhere, until something comes along and kills them for the umpteenth time, then you reload and have all that fun again. It's one of the sickest sickest sickest jokes these low rate games designers can come up with.
That was hinting that this was probably not worth it already, but the clincher was to find the morons had removed the movement via mouse/trackball, and yet kept the inferior, immersion breaking keyboard control. I have no desire to consider keyboards when I'm supposed to be immersed in a game. Well that's it. I may as well pack it back into the box. I got conned again then. And I'm not in a happy mood.
Some years back I bought a PC game called Dragon Age Origins. I hadn't bought a computer game in some while as so few seemed worth it at the time, so I was a late purchaser for it. But it was brilliant.
Ok the graphics were a bit cartoon like, but the storyline, the characterisation, the amount of variation, the relationships you could build up with the other characters you met, the multiple small tasks you could gain score (and your character ability) for.
No difficult finger gymnastics, one could just use the trackball to move, and simply indicate where you wanted to go (within the ability of the programme to distinguish those places on the screen that were reachable). Much was instinctive, and whilst the course of the game was guided to an extent, things could be accomplished in any order. I was hooked on it for ages.
Then they brought out a second in the series. Dragon Age II. A good game but a disappointment after experiencing the brilliance of the first in the series. It pandered to those youngsters who prefer lots of visual action no matter how ridiculous, and copied the same bits of location to use elsewhere so one got to see what seemed to be the same place umpteen times over. But one got over its shortcomings and it was ok.
I have now just bought the third in the series. Dragon Age Inquisition, and it has taken me just a few minutes to realise I've wasted my money.
It was a bad start when the screen kept flashing and eventually decided not to be full screen but in a window. Plus the cursor was not detected in the right place and I had to keep clicking about half an inch under where I wanted to click. Eventually some work around was found by changing the display setting from full screen to fell screen window.
Bad enough, but checking the keyboard settings I see the spacebar is no longer pause. It was the dreaded "jump". Now I've tried enough games in the past to know if a game needs you to jump you don't touch it with a 20 foot bargepole. At some point a jump will be necessary, probably at speed and under duress, and no matter what you do, for hour after hour, you are going to watch your character jump up and down on the spot again and again, instead of leaping somewhere, until something comes along and kills them for the umpteenth time, then you reload and have all that fun again. It's one of the sickest sickest sickest jokes these low rate games designers can come up with.
That was hinting that this was probably not worth it already, but the clincher was to find the morons had removed the movement via mouse/trackball, and yet kept the inferior, immersion breaking keyboard control. I have no desire to consider keyboards when I'm supposed to be immersed in a game. Well that's it. I may as well pack it back into the box. I got conned again then. And I'm not in a happy mood.
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Not really. It's opened, one has to register to install or even to play on one's own PC (something I hate as I think it is a intrusion of civil liberties to insist on keeping tabs on those who bought from you); plus I hate returning stuff anyway. I only do so when I feel particularly conned, or if something doesn't work; otherwise I avoid putting myself in a position where I feel awkward. In this case I simply trusted they would come up to the previous standard, and not abandon some of the very things that helped make it special.
It's now dropped back to be like a lot of other IMO inferior games. Ones I've taken no interest in. (I'd describe them as two a penny, but they aren't that cheap.) Sure the graphics have improved again (although time does not seem to have been kind to well-known characters from the previous games) and apparently the virtual world one can explore is much larger, but that isn't really compensation.
Maybe it's for the best, I should stop being addicted to the series and go do something more worthy. I'm most disappointed though. It’s not the first time I've bought something only to find almost immediately it isn't what it seemed/was expected to be. These things ought to have demo versions downloadable free. Only for some I believe. But I had waited for this launch for some time, and for what ? shrug
It's now dropped back to be like a lot of other IMO inferior games. Ones I've taken no interest in. (I'd describe them as two a penny, but they aren't that cheap.) Sure the graphics have improved again (although time does not seem to have been kind to well-known characters from the previous games) and apparently the virtual world one can explore is much larger, but that isn't really compensation.
Maybe it's for the best, I should stop being addicted to the series and go do something more worthy. I'm most disappointed though. It’s not the first time I've bought something only to find almost immediately it isn't what it seemed/was expected to be. These things ought to have demo versions downloadable free. Only for some I believe. But I had waited for this launch for some time, and for what ? shrug
1 to 4 of 4
