• 1Dec 09

  Horrible Ad Idea

  So is it just me or is this ad implying that people who use Windows are the pricks that send all caps messages?

  

  I hate those people. Makes me not want to buy a PC. This would actually be a pretty good Mac ad.

  • Posted Dec 1, 2009 4:10 pm PT
  • 16 Comments
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• 9Nov 09

  Dragon Age DLC ripoff

  The debate on the value of DLC has been going strong for a while now. Sure, Fallout 3 was a great game, but in the end, I paid nearly as much for about 15 more hours of DLC as I paid for the 60 hour game. This value is debatable since many full priced games nowadays clock in at under 10 hours. However, I have found the DLC for Dragon Age to be a complete ripoff.

  The game itself is an amazing fantasy epic, so it shouldn't be wrong of me to expect the same from the DLC. The first I played was The Stone Prisoner. Luckily, this one came included with my pre-order of the game, but for the less fortunate, it will set you back $15. It contains one small outdoor environment (roughly forty feet wide and two hundred feet long) and an underground dungeon that is slightly longer. There is a grand total of two friendly NPC to talk with. The enemies are all darkspawn, of which I had already killed hundreds of in the main game. The final boss is a demon that I had fought at least ten times before. The real draw is the addition of the Golem to your party after completion, but he is basically a variation of the warrior class, and I already had two of them in my group at this point. There was a cool fire puzzle near the end, but it only lasts a couple minutes. The greatest crime here is that the entire DLC can be completed in under an hour. That doesn't mean you can finish in an hour if you rush, this includes exploring every corner and fighting every enemy. $15 for this is ridiculous.

  Ironically, the second download, The Warden's Keep (which I did have to pay for) is far better and only cost $7, though still only last about an hour. It consists of a slightly larger environment to clear, but still only consists of the same monsters I had battled before. After clearing the keep, merchants with some impressive merchandise set up shop outside and a storage chest is added to the game, which is something that was sorely missed in the retail game. However, I really think the stash is something that should have been included for free. This DLC contains a few more NPCs to talk with as well as a couple possible conclusions that lead to different boss fights. Oddly, once you 'reclaim' the keep, you are locked out of it for no apparent reason since it is basically implied that it is now your base of operations.

  I can forgive the $7 download since it was fun and cheap diversion that added a much needed feature to the game, but one hour of gameplay is still a bit sad. On the other hand, I am immensely grateful The Stone Prisoner was included with my pre-order, because there is no way Microsoft can justify $15 for one hour of gameplay.

  • Posted Nov 9, 2009 4:23 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
  • 8 Comments
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• 23Oct 09

  Finally Tagged, couldn't last forever

  1. My name is Paul Urbach. Like Bach the composer. It's not that hard people. Call me Ur-back and you're likely to get slapped.

  2. I live in Orlando, FL (USA for those not in the know) right near all the attractions. Disney is as fun as expected. Universal gets boring. Sea World is amazingly underrated.

  3. I am currently house shopping with my girlfriend, and hoping to find something in the next month in order to get that $8000 tax credit.

  4. I have two dogs, yet they can hardly be referred to as such. They look more like rats and act like spoiled, needy children.

  5. I've been gaming all my life. The first game I can remember playing is River Raid on my dad's Atari 65XE, which was basically a keyboard and joystick plugged into a disk drive plugged into a TV, but they still called it a computer.

  6. I thought RPGs were boring and too complicated until I played Diablo. Then I tried TES: Daggerfall and was hooked. Now its my favorite genre.

  7. I helped my friend start the gaming website, gamefury.net, but it doesn't have as much traffic as we would like because four times now he randomly decided he doesn't like the look of it, deletes it, then started over from scratch.

  8. I was born in Ohio. We moved to Florida when I was 10 because, well, it was Ohio.

  9. I work for the Department of Transportation watching traffic cameras on the interstates and toll roads in the Orlando area.

  10. I am currently hooked on Borderlands, after which I will go back to Oblivion and finish it up, then give Fallout 3 another playthrough. I'll be busy for a while.

  That's all I got for ya. I'll tag hank 101 since he has been neglecting his blog for the past couple weeks.

  • Posted Oct 23, 2009 3:35 pm PT
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