I love Fallout 3, spent a large amount of last year replaying it, and before too long will be going back to that game to continue pottering about the Capital Wasteland.

Yup. Love this game and it’s “mathshammer” combat system, with so many different ways of approaching things (so long as you do actually use tactics). Which is why I replay it so often.

Pretty much. It’s interesting how one of the things about upping the difficulty in this game is that big mob fights get harder, but boss fights not so much. I’m playing a DW warrior - she and Al soak up aggro while she murderises things and Morrigan mostly crowd controls. Only slight problems are that enemy mages tend…

Sadly not. It’s up there on my list, it’s just that I have so little time for videogames now that I just don’t want to pick up something which takes that long. No matter how well written it is, if I’m only playing about 5 hours of it a week, it’ll completely lose any narrative drive.

More Dragon Age: Orognins. Pretty much at the point of obtaining the Hold Hand Grenade of Andraste now, which means I’m maybe about half way through.

I haven’t played DA:I yet, mainly because of the time-sink nature. Nevertheless I empathise; the last game I played before we had our first child was Kingdoms of Amalur, which sure is pretty, but has an utterly unmemorable plot, utterly unmemorable characters, and you can’t move ten feet in any direction without…

“there’s no actual consequence to the actions you take; some minor story beats, some offscreen action”

Not yet. It’s on my list, it’s just that currently I don’t really have time to do a lot of game playing, so the problem with a properly massive game like DA:I is that it’d completely lose any kind of narrative drive at the rate I’m playing it. Same reason is why I haven’t played Witcher 3, or Fallout 4 yet. 

And at any time, at least one of the Alpha Centauri system’s suns is sure to be past the yard arm. Hurrah! 

Also, I recently got the PS2 version of GTA III (via its port to the PS3) and found it unplayable because it was so hard to control. I may well follow your route of getting a PC version and modding/patching it.

Having not played E:D yet, am I correct in understanding that what happens here is that you get a fetch quest to a location which is a really long way from your jump arrival point, for an item which is completely trivial?

We ignored Athelstan too, who as the first King of England you might have thought would be worth a mention.

Originally, right? Somehow I’d placed you in Sunderland.

Not much videogame playing this last week, as instead I’ve mainly been playing Let’s Have Decorators In, Filling Your House With Dust. I’ve made a bit of progress on Dragon Age: Origins though; both the Redcliffe and Circle of Magi quests are completed. Next I’ll be off to fetch the Holy MacGuffin.

Until a friend of mine moved there, I’d always assumed Surbiton was a made up place.

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

More Dragon Age: Origins, very slowly. Done the first part of the Redcliffe quest, had a few conversations, that’s about it.

Oooh, I got one!

Honestly don’t know, as I haven’t played it. I didn’t have a SNES - around the time it came out I was probably playing X-Wing or Frontier: Elite II.

I first remember seeing it in the reduced price games in HMV and thinking that I’d never heard of it but it looked pretty good.