(no subject)
My 19-year-old little brother has become an obsessed Twilight fan. He also has a man-crush on Edward. How did this happen? Did I not raise him well enough? What did I do wroooooong???
*Ahem* Anyway...
I'm feeling really good about life at the moment. I'm finally doing good work at school. For a long while I thought my photography skills weren't going to improve anywhere, but after all that criticism and hard working my effort is finally paying up. I forgot how much it gives you energy to hear teachers actually liking your work without having much things to criticize about. I need to follow my own instincts first of course, but it's still nice to hear encouraging words now and then. Still, I can't forget that I have a long way to go before I can work as a full-fledged photographer. It's pretty harsh out there in the working world for a photographer these days.
I still haven't bought Dissidia 012. I hear it's better than the first one in many ways, but... I dunno. I'm just not that excited to play it. I'm pretty preoccupied with Dragon Age 2 at the moment anyway.
Speaking of DA2... I found myself really liking it. It's very different from Dragon Age: Origins.
What I've heard, a lot of people don't like DA2. Or maybe it's just the very vocal minority. I stopped going to the BSN, because the place was filing up with too much anger :D I can understand a lot of the criticism though. It's not like the game was without faults. Quite the opposite actually.
Two things that disappointed me the most were the bugs and the much talked recycled environments. It wasn't exactly fun to watch your Warden's love-interest walk away to have sex with Isabela, because the import was completely and utterly broken. Also, they pretty much destroyed all the sense of exploration by recycling same areas over and over. They rushed that part of the game and there is no denying that.
Other, not as annoying thing about the game was the elf re-design. I get that Bio wanted to make the elves more distinct-looking, but I... just didn't like them. I mean elves are supposed seem beautiful to humans right? Then why are they so... ugly? Well, except for Fenris. It also bothered me how there wasn't a singe bad-ass looking female elf. They all looked like 12-year-olds.
But thank god for the writing, because it saved a lot. The companions were mostly interesting and well-written. I admit I was slightly disappointed by Isabela. I expected her to be an in-depth character that had many layers to her (something like Zevran for example), but we didn't get to hear as much from her past as I would've hoped. Maybe it's because we get a bit less interaction with the companions than we did in DAO. At least the banter was as fun to listen to as always.
I love the new friendship-rivalry system. And I love rival-romance. I wish we had the system in DAO. I rivalmanced Fenris and he was also my favorite companion. Funny how both of my favorites in DA games are elves and written by David Gaider. I grew surprisingly attached to all my companions and my Hawke. I'm really glad they gave him/her a voice this time.
I thought the battle system was greatly improved for consoles. It was as the developers promised: flashier and more responsive. I get that some people have issues with that, but I found it enjoyable. Though I have to say that playing as a mage was fun from start to finish, but playing as a sword and shield warrior got tedious really fast. Also, the high HP enemies, enemies re-spawning and enemies coming in waves was really tiresome.
I can't decide which DA game I like more. Like I said they are really different. DAO was bigger in scale, in a sense more "epic". DA2 had a more personal, less cliche political story. It has it's problems, but so did DAO. I guess I'll just settle on loving them equally.
*Ahem* Anyway...
I'm feeling really good about life at the moment. I'm finally doing good work at school. For a long while I thought my photography skills weren't going to improve anywhere, but after all that criticism and hard working my effort is finally paying up. I forgot how much it gives you energy to hear teachers actually liking your work without having much things to criticize about. I need to follow my own instincts first of course, but it's still nice to hear encouraging words now and then. Still, I can't forget that I have a long way to go before I can work as a full-fledged photographer. It's pretty harsh out there in the working world for a photographer these days.
I still haven't bought Dissidia 012. I hear it's better than the first one in many ways, but... I dunno. I'm just not that excited to play it. I'm pretty preoccupied with Dragon Age 2 at the moment anyway.
Speaking of DA2... I found myself really liking it. It's very different from Dragon Age: Origins.
What I've heard, a lot of people don't like DA2. Or maybe it's just the very vocal minority. I stopped going to the BSN, because the place was filing up with too much anger :D I can understand a lot of the criticism though. It's not like the game was without faults. Quite the opposite actually.
Two things that disappointed me the most were the bugs and the much talked recycled environments. It wasn't exactly fun to watch your Warden's love-interest walk away to have sex with Isabela, because the import was completely and utterly broken. Also, they pretty much destroyed all the sense of exploration by recycling same areas over and over. They rushed that part of the game and there is no denying that.
Other, not as annoying thing about the game was the elf re-design. I get that Bio wanted to make the elves more distinct-looking, but I... just didn't like them. I mean elves are supposed seem beautiful to humans right? Then why are they so... ugly? Well, except for Fenris. It also bothered me how there wasn't a singe bad-ass looking female elf. They all looked like 12-year-olds.
But thank god for the writing, because it saved a lot. The companions were mostly interesting and well-written. I admit I was slightly disappointed by Isabela. I expected her to be an in-depth character that had many layers to her (something like Zevran for example), but we didn't get to hear as much from her past as I would've hoped. Maybe it's because we get a bit less interaction with the companions than we did in DAO. At least the banter was as fun to listen to as always.
I love the new friendship-rivalry system. And I love rival-romance. I wish we had the system in DAO. I rivalmanced Fenris and he was also my favorite companion. Funny how both of my favorites in DA games are elves and written by David Gaider. I grew surprisingly attached to all my companions and my Hawke. I'm really glad they gave him/her a voice this time.
I thought the battle system was greatly improved for consoles. It was as the developers promised: flashier and more responsive. I get that some people have issues with that, but I found it enjoyable. Though I have to say that playing as a mage was fun from start to finish, but playing as a sword and shield warrior got tedious really fast. Also, the high HP enemies, enemies re-spawning and enemies coming in waves was really tiresome.
I can't decide which DA game I like more. Like I said they are really different. DAO was bigger in scale, in a sense more "epic". DA2 had a more personal, less cliche political story. It has it's problems, but so did DAO. I guess I'll just settle on loving them equally.