Tag: videogames

Dragon Age: Veilguard thoughts

I love a Dragon Age. I love Bioware-style narrative RPGs in general, to be honest. Dragon Age is a bit weird for me as I really don’t like dark fantasy. And, at some level, Dragon Age is trying to be all dark, with blights and demons and slavery and dead bodies strewn everywhere. But it’s it’s also strangely a goofy hang with friends.

I really like the goofy hang with friends part. To the point where I’ll forgive the grimdark. And seeing past the grimdark, I actually came to really like the worldbuilding. I’ve read a bunch of the spin-off novels and I bought the TTRPG (with no real intent of running a game, but I’m all about having RPGs sourcebooks for crap I like.

It’s been a minute since the last Dragon Age game, and Bioware has stumbled a bit since their heyday. I liked Dragon Age: Inquisition well enough. I was kind of looking forward to Veilguard, but put off getting it until I got the Steamdeck. And then it was on sale after Christmas. That gave me enough time to learn that the Internet wasn’t super into Veilguard.

The Internet, as usual, is dumb.

Is there anything very revolutionary here? No. Is it a perfectly serviceable Dragon Age? Yes.

Is the non-binary coming out story wedged into this thing a bit cringe? Yeah, sorry. But it feels sincere. Just wedged in there without a lot of thought to the in-world cultural context. Here’s a bit of criticism from a trans perspective that I will use to replace any criticism I might have. And move on.

It was fun to see parts of Thedas we haven’t seen before. I liked the deep-dive into Dragon Age cosmology we get. I liked my Rook’s northern accent (voiced by Bryony Corrigan). I liked the streamlined loot system and the narrative seemed well-paced. I liked that I got to make out with Scout Harding, although I didn’t feel like the romance aspects of the game were quite up to Dragon Age standards. I did like all my goofy friends, tho. Even the oddly charming necromancer.

Anyways, I just finished the game today, and I had a good time. It’s been years since I’ve gotten this deeply invested in a game.

It’s possible if I’d played Baldur’s Gate III, Veilguard might pale in comparison. That’s the impression I’m getting from the (non-shitty) reviews. But I haven’t played BG3, so I’m quite happy with Veilguard.

New Year; New Bullets. 2025.

  • Well, 2025 is the year I turn 50. That feels like a big number.
  • I got myself a Steamdeck for Christmas. I mean, a combination of Ellen and my parents getting it for me, in what has become creating Christmas gift-giving accounting. But it’s mine now. I like it.
  • I got the LCD version because I couldn’t really justify an additional $200 for the OLED screen. If I’m missing out, I don’t know it. It’s great.
  • The house isn’t done yet. We got hung up on bureaucracy, mostly. But we waded through it and we’re out the other side, so things are happening again. That’s nice. I’m fairly confident we’ll actually be able to move in this year. Maybe I’ll post photos. Would you like to see photos?
  • I started the work to migrate this blog off WordPress and onto (unless I get even more frustrated) 11ty. It’s not as plug-and-play as I would like. But I do think the flexibility it gives me will pay dividends. I guess. I’m not convinced anyone is reading this.
  • I did turn off comments a long time ago. So it’s not like anyone can tell me otherwise. Hit me up on Mastodon!
  • Hot on the heals of the Steamdeck, I picked up Dragon Age: Veilguard. I may need a whole post for my thoughts on that. It does feel nice to be rummaging around seedy, blood-stained basements in Thedas again, tho.
  • I’m not really looking forward to 2025 for reasons you might be able to guess on your own, and probably aren’t looking to me to get into too deeply.
  • As of May, Ellen and I are living together. Unfortunately, we’re living together in the house her parents are renting that she’s allergic to. That’s not great. But I’m glad we’re together.
  • The little guy is delightful as ever. Although I did just have to deal with a half-hour tantrum about wanting to keep wearing a very wet diaper. (Yeah, he should be toilet trained by now, but we’ve been holding out till we’re in the new house which will have no carpets).
  • Doctor Who was mildly disappointing but generally in line with my expectations of Russel’s showrunning. So it’s fine. I like Ncuti as the Doctor. I wish other people wrote for him more. But that’s been true of all Russel’s Doctors.
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks was pretty much the best.
  • I had high expectation for The Acolyte and was mildly disappointed (not that I thought it was bad and I’m sad it was cancelled, but I was hoping for a bit more).
  • The Skeleton Crew is exceeding my expectations, tho. That thing is great.
  • I guess I mostly watch very old franchise television.
  • I’d like to find ways to spend more time with friends this year. I’m not going to call that a resolution because calling it that pretty much guarantees I won’t do it out of spite.

It’s May. I should post something

Not to belabour the obvious, but I’ve seriously gotten out of the habit of blogging. I’m not going to beat myself up over it or anything. Suffice to say I’m still around, and still doing stuff. I’m reasonably contented with my lot in general, so it’s not like I have lots of pent-up frustrations to vent about.

Little things, though:

* Went to see Iron Man last night. The first movie I’ve seen in ages and ages. Well, since the film festival last year at least, but that’s a different sort of experience. I went with a couple people from work. Iron Man’s good, silly fun. Thus, I heartily recommend it.
* We had a wonderful team-building exercise thing at work in Toronto on Tuesday. I suck at team-building exercises. This is probably not news. I took the opportunity to slip away and check out the windmill at the CNE grounds.
* I finished Phantom Hourglass last night. Good little game. The side quests seem kinda tacked on, but it’s neat going around solving puzzles and collecting stuff. I never did figure out how to get to the chest on the first island, though. Maybe I should look that up, since it’s been taunting me since the beginning of the game.
* I have Mario Kart for the Wii! I haven’t played that much, though. Supposedly it’s good for multi-player, but I’ve never been all that excited about playing against strangers on the Internets.