(When I went to post this, I mis-typed the title as "Dragon Abe"; I now have a vision of a draconic Abraham Lincoln) Around the same time I got Oblivion I also purchased Dragon Age, both highly recommended CRPGs for my new PS3. Dragon Age, also, did not disappoint. There were multiple possible character paths to enter the main plot, and I played several of them. This contrasts with Oblivion (and its sequel Skyrim), which will allow you to do all sorts of customization of your character during [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Fallout Series
October 31, 2012 By 10 Comments
During the Cold War, many people in the USA worried that one day the USSR would decide it was time for the long-fated final war and send the nukes raining down. (Undoubtedly, many people in the Soviet Union worried that the USA would make the same decision). This fear made its way into our literature for a couple of decades, spawning its own subgenre of postapocalyptic fiction which included such classics and less-classics as The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham, The Magic City by Nelson S. Bond, the later Mad Max movies, and TSR's Gamma [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Persona 3 and Persona 4
October 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
While they are separate games, the two most recent entries in the Persona series for the Shin Megami Tensei multiverse, Persona 3 and Persona 4, are connected enough that I feel they're best discussed together. The link for Persona 3 goes to the FES extended play version; and the link for Persona 4 goes to the soon-to-be-released Persona 4 Golden, which is also an expanded version. I actually played a small amount of the first Persona game way back when, but I couldn't play through enough of it at the time to [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
October 25, 2012 By 3 Comments
Having played The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, I looked forward very much to the chance to play Skyrim, the next installment in the Elder Scrolls franchise. Both installments of course share a good deal; they have very similar mechanics, are set in the same world (although in a different portion of it – Skyrim takes place in the eponymous region of Tamriel, while Oblivion took place in Cyrodil), and even begin with your characters in the same position: imprisoned by the local authorities. However, things are a bit more … [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
October 10, 2012 By 1 Comment
The Elder Scrolls is a long-running videogame series, but I had never had any opportunity to play it as the first three installments were for PC and later Xbox, and I've always had Macs as my computers and the platforms I've had were SNES, PS, PS2, and finally PS3. But finally, the fourth title in the series – Oblivion – was released for the PS3. I actually had no real expectations, or knowledge about, the series when I put the disc in for the first time, just that it was a well-received part of one of the [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Chrono Trigger
May 21, 2012 By 2 Comments
When my wife and I were married in 1995, one of our wedding gifts – partly as a joke – was a Super Nintendo gaming system. There were a few games we occasionally played but it was more an in-joke for the group than anything else. At that time we were also heavily into Dragonball/DBZ fandom, with my wife specifically a fan of Akira Toriyama's art. So when, some months later, we heard about a new video game, a so-called "RPG", that Toriyama had done the design work on, we decided to get it, mostly for the neat character [ Continue reading... ]
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