malvasia bianca

Final Fantasy VII Remake really hadn’t been on my radar before it launched. I had played the original, it’s actually the only Final Fantasy game I’ve finished and I do recall basically enjoying it; but I’ve only played it once, and it’s probably approaching two decades since I played it? (I never owned a PS1, […]

Preamble So: after that grab bag of impressions of Dragon Age: Inquisition, what do I think about the game as a whole? One question is: what do I wish the game was? Given the importance of relationships and romances in the game, “a dating sim” is a not outlandish answer. I don’t think it’s my […]

I recently listened to the first episode of the Border House podcast (there’s also a transcript available if you prefer), which focused on romance in BioWare games, leading off in particular with a long discussion of the romance options in Mass Effect 2. I very much enjoyed their discussion, but I also got the impression […]

I’ve already talked about the puzzle gameplay in Catherine; what about the rest of the game? For me, the tone was set with the very first question I got asked in the confessional: “Does life begin or end at marriage?” Which is an analysis of marriage that I would never for a moment consider performing: […]

I try to write here about every full length game that I finish, but for better or for worse I don’t have a formal policy about DLC. I thought I might blog about all of the Mass Effect 2 DLC, but I never got around to doing so; and, indeed, I don’t think my brain […]

In a role-playing game, you customize your character’s abilities, refining that customization as the game progresses. Your character will typically have a class (fighter, mage, priest, rogue, etc.), which you pick at the start of the game and generally doesn’t change; this sets broad limits of your character’s abilities. You also typically have cross-class attributes […]

So. Dragon Age: Origins. I’m a pretty big BioWare fan, though more on their action RPG side: Jade Empire was the game where I fell in love with them, and of their two recent games, it’s not due to chance that I played Mass Effect 2 first. But I enjoy their games in general, and […]

Here’s a summary of what I’ve done in Dragon Age so far. Note: when I say “city” or “dungeon” in the following, I don’t mean a literal city or dungeon, but rather a relatively free-form inhabited area (with other traditional associated trappings, e.g. shopping) versus a relatively linear combat-focused area. I decided to play as […]

The original Mass Effect was one of the games that pushed me into buying an Xbox 360. I played through it quickly and had a great time, though for whatever reason I haven’t spent much time thinking about it since then; BioWare seems to make games that push my buttons very well but don’t put […]

When Michael reviewed MySims Agents, I knew I had to get it for my daughter for Christmas, and my hopes for the game weren’t misplaced: it looks both fun and charming, she loved it, my wife blazed right through it, and I’ll give it a spin as soon as I’m done with Mass Effect 2. […]