Many Real Life™ tasks lately, so I haven't had time to paint miniatures, play Space Hulk or enjoy videogames, until last weekend. A lot of awaited games are out, so it's RPGing time!
I still have to finish the two last DLCs for Fallout 3, but I became a bit tired of it so I'm focused on other title, but first, two small deceptions:
Torchlight
A game that while didn't aimed to be something better than Diablo 2, ends up being so similar to Diablo. It improves over a lot of small details, the graphics are beautiful, but the story is very dumb and the game can become easily repetitive.
It features random dungeons, though, and multiple difficulty levels which can help avoid that, but its a pure hack'n slash action RPG.
Borderlands
Another deception... Announced as a first person action-RPG, the result is not much more than a cartoonish, Fallout-themed Quake FPS with experience levels and a stupid, terrible save and enemy respawn system that punishes casual players that don't pump hours into the game without quitting.
If you quit the game, you will restart at the beggining of the area, having to kill again all the foes (like in Diablo); this is fun the first minutes, but after a while you end up tired of killing "the same guys around the corner" for the 5th time.
Main plot like seems to be quite fast to complete, but I grew up tired on the fourth zone. Maybe with the 4-player coop mode is better, I haven't tried.
Dragon Age Origins
At least this one is really nice :)
A real and nice Bioware "creature" and a proud descendant of Neverwinter Nights. Fresh setting (no longer settled in Forgotten Realms), vastly improved graphics (not as impressive as Fable 2, but still really good ones), and the promise of tons of play hours...
The interface is very similar to Neverwinter Nights 2/The Witcher, with some improvements, and Mass Effect's dialog selection system. Recommended on PC for the better mouse handling, but available also in consoles.
Three races, three classes, six backgrounds and hundreds of quests, the game looks like the best RPG out there at the moment along with The Witcher.
I've played only a few hours and I'm hooked, as are all of my friends and colleages. Go grab it!