um hello everyone oh fucking hell hello and welcome to what's the buttons
turkey and stuffing crisps that's what these are i'm not gonna eat them fucking
no go on there you go hold on no balls there he is get that rustle in oh perfection
oh no here we go gold what gold wonder gold golden wonders golden wonders where the fuck
did you get them from oh i don't know if i get the crisp oh my god
asmr for you fucking like that ain't you
all right um really upset mark with them connor's here hello as you can hear it's me um
um and yeah he's gonna basically carry this podcast it's monday it's not friday it's monday
it's post work we're all here um so yeah it's terrible really not supposed you're supposed to
have a mute button for when you want to eat i can't hear you move him not eat him obviously
not on this podcast let me just lick my fingers raw unedited footage tasty uh
um you want to talk about valguard can do how much playtime have you managed to get into it um
somewhere around 15 hours in two days in two days which is a decent amount of time
they only came out friday and i didn't play it friday i've never played any of the dragon ages
i have played all of them all of them so every single one is this one vastly different to the
others 100 okay absolutely go ahead so the first game was origin second was just called two then
it was inquisition and now we're on the veil guard um this one plays a lot more like god of war
oh really or even that even kind of like um new world that we're all kind of playing at the minute
quite similar but i would say it feels more like god of war because it's um you have quite linear
yes so they've so they've changed it drastically on um so i'd say the first game was very
was quite linear it had obviously sections that and missions you would go through you you traveled
you only had a set area that you could go around in but this is talking about a game that came out
in 2009 so game gameplay was different but it was very much more um you picked your team so you could
have three companions which now you can only have two with you at all times which is much more like
mass effect because that used to be your you could only carry two squad mates with you as your little
fire team which is now it i suppose it does feel thinking about it that way it feels more like mass
effect because mass effect used to be you would have your class and then you would have abilities
within that class and like when i played them on console it would be you know like right bumper
and left bumper and then obviously shooting zooming whatever else but you would have your
abilities on that and then say like why or triangle would have another ability it feels a lot more
like that now because you pick your class and you've got um certain abilities inside of that i know
for the whole game or the whole series you've had different ones you've had different abilities in
the main classes there's only three classes warrior mage and rogue so each one has something
different the the warrior can be sword and board or big big sword there's different specializations
in it which they did in the old games i love sorting board i love that as a terminology then
rogue's got uh daggers or bow and then mage has got like fire ice uh and i think they do like
necrotic and then blood i'm just having a look at it now um but yeah but it plays a lot more
from what it used to be where you just used to like spam your abilities and have like all you'd
have to do is go to an enemy and you click like a or whatever the your attack button would be
and you'd just be doing an attack like like on wow almost but you'd only have you'd have a short
rotation of abilities you could do so for like fighter you'd have like a cleave a stomp and
whatever else but it used to like new world where you've only got three abilities per very weapon
pretty much basically um yeah very similar actually because you only get three three main abilities
and then you get like an ultimate move that builds up over time yeah um which before you used to be
able to have almost sort of like wow where you'd have a short key between you had like your main
three or four because i think it used to i haven't played these games in a long time even though they
used to be like some of my favorite games but again it's been inquisition came out in like 2013
2014 so it's been long yeah well i i looked at it this morning when we all while i was waiting
for you earlier the dragon age origins the first game came out in 2009 i remember playing the like
ultimate game of the year version of that fucking loving that as a young teen then dragon age 2
came out in 2011 and then 2013 2014 inquisition came out and then the the whole series went dead
that was it for ages and then obviously inquisition wasn't wasn't uh a bad game was it no it was so
some people didn't like it i don't really know why because i enjoyed it but then i know people are
bragging on veil guard for it the only thing i'd say about inquisition it was one of those
kaiper games that gets a bit too big for its boobs yeah not in a sense of like it was you know you
had so many different areas that you could visit but then they had i don't know like two dozen
missions in one area and big areas to explore like sort of valhalla but you know it was all um
a little bit too much for certain areas so it'd be like in the mission to take you there for doing
a main mission and then you could still go back and visit and do whatever else in this sandbox area
but it was up but there was nothing to do it was up to you what you wanted to do
because there'd be a lot of like puzzles and enemies to fight and little like chambers and
dungeons and bits and pieces that i found like looking back at it i probably didn't do a lot
of areas just because it was such a big game yeah because i remember playing origin and i'd play
that again and again and again and again and it was all that it wasn't as big and there wasn't
big sandbox areas it was just you're doing like i always remember there was you had to go to
certain areas to get certain allies and build your power back up in origin and you'd go to
places like the circle which was this mage tower and you'd have to go through all of that but it
was very straightforward it was only like forward and back in level design that you could move
around it but it wasn't like okay you know you're going to be running across a field for four minutes
to get to the other side of the map sort of thing yeah yeah yeah two was very linear because it would
just apart from being in certain places you didn't really visit anywhere it'd be like there's a
mission you're going to a cave here's a mission you're going around the streets you could then
wander around certain places in town but it didn't really let you do much more than that which kind
of kept you on the rails three obviously then got bigger and now in four in valguard they've
brought it kind of back to that and it feels more like that's why i say it feels more like god of war
because it's got areas you can visit but you can't really deviate yeah you've got you've got like
exploration but of a well it's got the the way i say it's like valga god of war at least number
one because i haven't played ragnarok yet even though i want to play it because it's only recently
come to pc is that you've got very similar sort of themes where obviously you think of um the
idrisil and like the the sections where you teleport off you get to the hub in the middle
and you can go to areas this has got that in a sense of that as you get through the start of the
story you uncover this place called the crossroads yeah which the your main hub is called the
lighthouse which is an area of the crossroads you go into the crossroads and it's like a
an area you can explore and fight enemies kind of similar to um like as you're exploring midgard
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah sure you may and you go off to different sections of that and you find
these alluvian which are portals that you use to take to the areas of the game you're playing at
and essentially once you unlock an area you can go there repeatedly back and forth as many times
as you want you can explore it but it's more like um more like god of war because you can go back
there you can explore it there might be a door or a passage that's locked or barricaded that you
can't get through without it's that that standard like level design where where it gives you the
the idea that you're in an open world area but you're not in an open world area it's sandbox
like um it's more sandbox than but that return that that typical recipe of like here's here's
a starting area oh there's there's a cave that you like covered in bramble or some shit and you
can't get through the bramble yet and then in like in 40 hours worth of gameplay yeah you go oh look
now i can fucking burn this bramble away so let me go back that's essentially what's happening
because as as you get more companions they've each got their own like special yeah so you know one
can once the story progressed far enough one can move certain stones that you couldn't move before
so you couldn't like jump on top of them to get to the next bit yeah and like one can one one
breathes yeah one breathes fire and breaks walls and um like it detonates like explosives that break
walls and another one can bring like these the big aspect in dragon age is this thing called the fade
yeah which is like the the place between the real and the not real is that what they call it the real
and the not real not this they've got so you've got reality the veil and the fade and the fade is
the dream world basically and the veil is the the barrier between it because in in the fade there's
demons monsters all sorts of things that try and get over to it's mostly demons and spirits that
try to get over to the material and um that like this one person can bring like aspects over in
terms of like terrain so you can jump up to get to places and uncover items and bits and pieces it's
all like a multi-layered type yeah um but that you could you don't need to have that companion to be
able to use those abilities once you've unlocked them because you do it through you've got like a
magic item oh clever so you're not locked to that fucking companion but obviously you then get to
pick between i think there's six total companions now i believe but yeah but you can only the weird
the difference of it before as it was before is that now you used to be able to pick three
companions now you can only pick two i've got a um i've got an article here and it says uh from
forms it says the main thing dragon age the veil guard gets wrong which would be somewhat interesting
because obviously where you where you've already played parts of it says uh i liked dragon age the
veil guard quite a bit i gave it an 8.5 out of 10 and was engaged enough to now run second playthrough
with a new glass because i'm because i mainly want to see how combat would evolve what i'm not
expecting is seeing the story evolve in new ways simply because it can't not to any great extent
it seems i have one major problem with so he's angry because he's got when he plays a another
character he's not got so many choices right um that's just bio where i have one major problem
with dragon age of our garden no it has nothing to do with the endless culture wars surrounding
the game rather i think they played it way too safe with the tone this is a game with close to
zero edge to it a lack of conflict a lack of truly tough choices and a lack of letting your
letting your rook be anything close to ruthless if not actually sort of evil which is of course
possible in many rpgs and past dragon age games allowed for more gray areas than what we see here
i've seen that come up before um because we were talking a little bit about about in the discord
and i've seen quite a few people talk about how obviously well i i don't play it so i'm i'm on a
bit of a skewed i can only go by what i've seen you can't be bad in the interactions in the in the
in the in the conversations and stuff like that that's that seems quite bio wary in the in the
sense that you are technically playing a hero so and repeatedly you're playing heroes in dragon
age games that ultimately they're probably not aiming for you to do outright evil shit most of
the time but yeah yeah i can see why i can see why they're even so far i can see that they've
then it's toned down a little bit from what it could necessarily be but then it's a difficult
one to balance though if you're if if you want to play an evil character like play a game that's not
an offshoot rpg do you know is there i'd imagine there's different endings to it yeah i believe
there's five right i think but i don't know if that's like good ending bad bad versus good ending
like evil ending like say you took all this guy you can just be objectively evil like what ash
is doing at the moment yeah yeah which but then i suppose that's the difference of the fact that
this isn't uh i feel like if you're trying to compare something like like veil guard to
i feel like that is that thing like that is you've objectively uh but boulder's gate is pure pure
fantasy yeah that is you're that that game is such a masterpiece in itself but also gives you the
absolute freedom to do and be whoever you want because that is what dnd is pretty much you
you make your character how you want to they're happy to give you like four different like 14
different dialogue options for yeah because that's that's the fantasy that's the game that that's
that's what it if you if you had boulder's gate and then limited it yeah you would then you'd be
kicking off because you go well that's not fucking dnd universe is it yeah no yeah dnd is the option
of free choice whereas full like fucking role play yeah you know i mean it's like you're going to
strangulate me on my role play like what the fuck's that all of a sudden i've got to be i've got to be
a hero and not be like oh yeah you've got the option to do a dirge run and which is like you
know that's there's an extra little bit of spice and you think is is veil guard falling into that
sort of not through veil guard's fault of his own but there will be comparisons yeah comparing
that if you if val guard came out before boulder's gate had a full release and let you play through
everything and i feel like you wouldn't have that level of criticism yeah because ultimately
the dragon age games are about you fighting adversity not not necessarily you you know
every time you play a character in dragon age you're essentially fighting a bigger threat it's not
um where um do you know the different um definitions of fantasy by any chance so when
no by that look i imagine no so when so when you talk about fantasy there's varying different
levels of it so there's high fantasy which is like dnd which is obviously has your typical spread of
spread of um what we do yeah is essentially you know there's there's the world is heavily influenced
by magic and that kind of sets the tone for the ability to do more bigger and grander things so
you would say lord of the rings i've literally about saying the rings and dnd is high fantasy
yeah then if you flipped it and said would star wars count as high fantasy uh star wars is a space
opera fucking hell right okay which is his own thing right okay um
no so and then there's dark fantasy yeah which is um i'm struggling warhammer no warhammer is
the next one oh okay so dark fantasy is i will have to look it up because i can't remember the
exact definition of it but essentially it means that your um the setting is obviously darker and
grittier but it also is that your um the stakes are a little bit higher in terms of um it adds
um disturbing and frightening themes but then also for as horror and i think it says that it's the
um the fact that you're typically always up against a great bigger and greater evil that has
the potential to um it's such a weird one because i can't i remember the i remember looking it up
before because i wanted a classification so it's great it's grittier more horror and you're
constantly against a higher enemy that could annihilate you is that is that um distinct in
the presence of dark elements such as horror fear apocalyptic or magical threats to a realm that
lead the plot so would you say and what was on what was that that's dark fantasy so would you
say that the last of us yes is dark fantasy yes right okay and then like days gone so that that
higher threat apocalyptic the yeah days gone last of us control probably because there's a greater
power there the the hiss oh okay essentially so you know that's quite gory gritty so it's something
that will be more so it'd be say if so the the way i would look at it is if you joined my home
brew campaign for dnd that i argue is dark fantasy to me right because of the way that i still have
all the dnd elements but i try and tone down the like make the tone a lot heavier yeah or if you
played there's a good um adventure module cursor strad that is a level between dark fantasy still
keeping the dnd elements but it's dark fantasy leaning into the third category grimdark that's
and that's warhammer warhammer 40k and stan and um old world warhammer is grimdark which is essentially
it's a fucking meat like meat slog there is no there is no end to it no happiness there is no
no solitude there is no overcoming it it is this is our life and we are you know we are slave to
it we have no control over it because that is warhammer isn't it's just constant war yeah a
state of constant war regardless where you go there is there are small motes of light in this
of light in this situation but there is ultimately the setting is just your you exist you suffer you
die great essentially it's great that is fantastic so so of that logic i would say that technically
boulders gate is high fantasy but then i know i understand you would turn around go yeah but
it's dark fantasy because there's a magical threat but you go yeah but that's only for a certain area
so if you think of the grand scheme of things of boulders gate is set in and around boulders gate
whereas the dnd universe faerun is a whole planet and you turn around and go oh there's a situation
going on in boulders gate or it's not going to affect someone in fucking the other side of the
world like you know but do you not have do you not have the the freedom to turn your playthrough of
boulders gate into yeah dark fantasy yeah essentially you can but if you pick the evil
route in boulders gate you essentially you're i don't really want to spoil anything but you
essentially just give rise to the problem no so let it all in yeah so you let the bad thing happen
which i obviously don't know what what the end of valguard is i imagine that probably is an option
because i could imagine bioware from from having played most of their games is you know as you go
through that it'll be right well we've got to stop the big bad and then otherwise probably going to
be okay we stopped the big bad but now we're gonna like we're going to go through with their plan now
we are the big bad yeah essentially like oh it wasn't their plan wasn't that bad after all let's
just go with it what's what's the art style like because that's another thing that i've i've seen
people uh talking about it's not different it's not as gimmicky as it was in the trailer because
i know everyone went oh it's fucking forknight graphics but i'm struggling to it is maybe a
little bit more cartoony but it's not um hold on i'd imagine they're using a different engine
yeah well that for this if you're comparing the fact you're comparing a game that's 10 years old
to its predecessor yeah yeah so i don't have a way to unless i was to look up the last one but i took
a cap took a screen cap of my me when i made me yeah there's there's the lineup so the
the art style why they all look the same oh so you're picking your class yes the class
so there is a moment where you do look at some of the characters and you can tell it's a video game
versus but i kind of prefer that i don't see a huge amount of difference between that some of
the older games it's almost um the the only thing i will it's almost like guardians of the galaxy
sort of esk type the only thing i would complain about is is the armors because some of them do
just look goofy yeah but that's been that's been the style of the that's the way they they've made
things look from the very start is that armors looked a certain way they always looked a little
bit more fantasy than they looked functional see what you mean see what you mean it's hard to
it's hard to compare you go oh it doesn't it doesn't look like a dragon age game the last
dragon age game came out 10 years ago yeah you have to adjust to the times to then turn around
and say oh it looks shit and you go yeah but you complain about fucking hyper realism in like
starfield and even then you get i was looking when i played the very little bit of starfield
that i played i got uncanny valley and just was like this is shit yeah i was like i hate the way
these characters look it's too it's too weird yeah and then like when um one of other bio-wears other
ones andromeda came out they were like oh yeah it's all look shit like it doesn't matter everyone's
going to complain about something in regards to the graphics of the game whether it doesn't look
one way or it doesn't look another way i would say that valguard looks very artistic in terms of
everything else because it's quite uh not controversial because i don't i don't i don't
believe it to be a controversial thing um but i know a lot a lot of people are i feel like a
lot of people are complaining about certain aspects of the game and then that just in turn
means that right well i'm just going to complain about every aspect of the game because i'm angry
about the game wetties pretty much it's just fucking i will say i've been i'll say i'm definitely a
dragon age veteran in terms of i've played them since the start or very near the start like when
maybe not played dragon age when it first came out but considering i would have been what fucking
13 like and didn't have adult money to buy my own shit yeah you know and trying to get a i think
like dragon age was even a 16 or an 18 at the time no like managed to get hold of it at whatever age
like 14 15 obviously before dragon age 2 released so yeah probably what 14 that's fucking illegal
then isn't it your parents should be ashamed who cares disgusting who cares the government doesn't
take no notice of the ratings asshole i do what i want so yeah go on but um forgot what i was
saying now but um yeah that playing all the games through and even here now at the last game i'm
enjoying it yeah i'm just glad to have dragon age content that i haven't had in years granted
they've had like comics and whatever else but there's been no game since since the last one
i wonder if i can just look at a comparison between inquisition and veil guard and i imagine
it won't be much different i feel what else we got from this is that this is an m rated game
um that very much plays an accent sounds like a t for teen rated game yes here and there you'll
hear an f-bomb or see a boob mania in the character creator only but there's little bloody violence
and the entire thing just feels like see that i don't like it i thought so that yes i can kind
of so far i can kind of see where there that isn't really an m yeah but but then yes here and there
you'll hear you'll hear an f-bomb and see a boob and then in brackets mania in the character creator
only it's that that that sort of shit yeah where it's i don't know man i don't know i don't know why
i don't know why that kind of shit is just i just find that a bit creepy you know what i mean so
okay here we go here's a comparison of one of the the previous npcs to now one of like the mainline
companions in terms of how they've adjusted the the art style so obviously which one's which
this is the older one and the other the right hand side is the newer one so it looks way better on
the new it just looks nicer cleaner and cleaner oh no oh god forbid so like yeah compare the two
so that would have been i don't know if that's um gonna be game footage for the right hand side
but it looks basically on my pc it looks very fucking similar so if you can turn around and
say people it looks better on the on veil guard so people are complaining saying it doesn't it
looks too cartoony or the graphics are fucking whatever it just looks like it's for a current
gen i don't get that at all thing so the game just looks good but you'd but you you would if
10 years 10 years which in the graphical world is fucking ginormous if you release dragon age
veil guard and then it were to look the same as inquisition what would people be doing yeah they'd
be complaining because you go oh you've been 10 years and the graphics look no different i'll say
that probably like the like the lip sync is probably out a little bit but i know that's
difficult in games anyway yeah yeah so and that might just be i know i'm running on like ultra
or high to ultra so it might i don't know if it's something to do with the tearing but i'm getting
like at least 80 frames most of the time so but like someone said is it's just all too happy go
lucky um yes i do really like like my team and most of the quest lines and the overall story
and lore but it feels bizarre that your rook cannot be anything but mildly blunt and there are a few
if any real conflicts that last more than two than a minute or two whether it's between you and your
team your team members with each up with each other or more of a handful of snooty authority
figures you encounter along the way the worst thing i ever did was punch an annoying guy
this is not bad writing in terms of the literal lines of dialogue i'd argue it's a problem with
the story structure and character arcs the game will sometimes give you a hard decision
in a way that is that is cheating like an early no win call um oh isn't it says spoilers follow so
i'll see i have made one um i've seen i have made one major choice so far and it's
essentially an a or b type of situation i feel that that's what that's what they mean of that
no win situation where it doesn't matter which one you pick you're gonna something it's good
for one situation and bad for the other yeah yeah yeah this is an m rated game and i really
don't understand why they didn't insert more conflict more actual violence more sex apart
a big part of bio-ware games more sex yeah the tone is all wrong all the edges have been totally
sanded down it's very difficult for me to to speak um a whole lot about because i've never played any
of the dragon age games they don't they don't draw me in in in any way shape or form um and it's
it's just difficult to hear and read people complaining about a game which which they obviously
they obviously have a lot of affinity with um as an outsider that doesn't really understand it
because a lot of the whining to me sounds like you're whining for the sake of whining yeah
i'd argue even in the last games the fact they're turning around and going now they want more sex
in them and stuff like that they weren't even that present in the other games
like they were there's romances yeah but in true bio-ware fashion the romance is like you know you
you interact with the power of the character you pick the romance option like the little love heart
dialogue option and you follow that for x amount through the arcs and then you have the big romance
scene which you know probably they got away with it i don't as far as i'm aware they haven't really
gotten away with it that much right in the last few games that probably the most like raunchy one
that i can think of is probably fucking mass effect one which is like you know a bit of side boob
and like definitely the witcher does it more heavy like i say it's a difficult one because
i think as for the rest yeah maybe they could like i feel so far that it's been maybe a little
bit light in terms of the mature themes but even then like it's been so long since an old an older
game that i can't really remember what they're trying to compare to isn't there a setting as
well that means that you cannot die uh yes i've never heard of that before other than like it like
an invincibility cheat but there is a setting i think it is in the setting for yeah you can't
get knocked down so like your health can't go below like one percent yeah yeah yeah which i
don't necessarily think that's a bad thing no because i don't i don't i don't really give a
fuck sure i don't know how you're you you're that kind of person in terms of a gamer that you're
being that exclusion that exclusive that you turn around to someone who wants to play the game
but isn't necessarily as good because it because the combat plays more like
more like god of war where it's instead of you just pick a target there's you know you've got a
dodge you've got a parry yeah you've got to manage your little abilities and whatever and you've got
heavy and light attacks which you never used to have in the old game but if some people don't
like that kind of game which you turn around and go i want to play drake i know that's probably
an element of this is the new style of dragon age that we're moving to that sort of combat system
because that just seems the way of it now that you turn around and go okay that you will find
people who can't can't play that way yeah and you turn around and say well if they're struggling
they enjoy the story it's also relatively similar to just playing a game on easy mode yeah majority
of games that haven't have a difficulty setting and you switch over to easy most of it's pretty
pretty brain dead yeah for for a lot of that me like me personally have always felt like you
could die on easy mode yeah yeah yeah there's enough there's like there's so obviously in dragon
age there is dragons yeah you do come across them and they are tough shock horror yeah shock
horror that they're tough that you could turn around and go i don't really want to have to go
through all this again to get to the same point even if you are playing on fucking easy mode you
turn around and go okay i just don't want to die i feel like that will be um it's that one again of
yeah what kind of soy boy is out there going oh there's a setting in the game that says i can't
die and i'm never going to use it but i'm i'm i'm furious that it's there there'll be loads of people
because that is the exact same people that get pissed off that there's different pronouns in it
you don't have to fucking use them you don't have to use that setting you don't have to you
you don't have to use that type that that bit in the character you don't have to do this you
don't have to do that that is that's there there it's the same type of whenever you said it they
have either i don't know if it was last week or if it was at whatever point you said that there was
people upset about the pronouns and the the wokeness of it and i just looked at it i was like
i've played like 15 16 hours or whatever it is now apart from the character creator i've not come
across anything like that i don't know there was an article saying there was a two-minute cut scene
about talking about pronouns like what two minutes is going to kill you to just be like
okay whatever the um the fucking field guard woke up the bit that's always bugged me about it is
over it is the art of the argument for it is um is it's oh you're you're you're spoiling the fantasy
i can't i can't relate to this because it's not part of the fantasy and it's what fantasy
in their world that there's only exactly two genders and man woman it's such a fucking wind
up because it doesn't matter if you if you're if you're like us and you genuinely don't care
yeah like i don't like it doesn't bother me whatsoever i do not care then perfect it's not
it's not an issue makes oh yeah it was when we text it yeah makes me laugh because dragon age
origins had male and female relationship options like same gender but that but this is the then
this is the thing that people are getting so wound up by number two but dragon age two all of the
um romanceable companions were bi so it didn't matter if you were male didn't matter if you
you were female you could romance them yeah yeah then number inquisition locked you out of certain
options based on gender but most of the time there was more than a few characters that just
didn't care it went either way there was like maybe one of each gender that didn't go for
gay relationships and it's like and there was a trans character in inquisition so you can't turn
around and go oh i don't like it because it's been shoved in my face and i go look at it and go
i don't think any of the main cast is like the companions or are they them but people have that
that mindset that that oh this is this is what gaming is gonna gonna gonna turn into and you
look at from the other side you go what in just just inclusivity it's annoying because that's
that's the main thing that people are wound up about is is things like the the pronouns and the
being in in today's day and age and then inserting it into game and then going oh gaming's not
political it shouldn't be like that and you go it's not a political thing to get involved in i think
i read that that they were like oh i don't like the fact that they're using like modern vernacular
in a in a fantasy game it's like why not who cares it's a fantasy game it's like it's a fantasy
game they're not talking about fucking guns and fucking cars like the thing that the thing that
always always gripe me about it's the same with with god damn it lord i'll take you up the river
yeah it's the same with whinging about only being able to play uh a woman or a bloke in a game and
having a fucking tetch about that in in that you've predominantly as gaming as a whole is male
dominated heavily as the main thing i know it's getting it's getting better now but definitely
at the beginning of game and it was a fucking male male dominated industry so fucking 95 of the games
you play you play as a geezer yeah through most of it and it's like all the all the people that
didn't want to play as a geezer it's like no no push you in the corner let's not worry about you
but then the minute it's switched around the other way that's when it's all they're throwing it in my
face what's happened to gaming don't understand it from from a dragon age fan do not have any
understanding of why that's a big deal but when you go back to the first game second game third
you can play male or female and you can play like first game you could play as different species
um second game you could only play as human but you had male male female option what i don't
understand about it is things like third and fourth you can play all of the species in the game
things like world of warcraft with the ervendorf race that come out you can be a woman with a beard
no one's whinging about that yeah no one's fucking whinging about that new world and the
character customization you can have female hairstyle on the males the women can have
fucking beards as well cyberpunk the fucking you can put a dick on a woman and vice versa so you
can literally make yeah you have the freedom to to make whatever person you decide to make
no one whinging about that you know all of a sudden the dragon age game that's had the
the option of genders oh not in my dragon age which is crazy because i go well but no one's
but no one's making you play if you don't need to play if i play a game you give me a game where i
can make different characters right typically i'm gonna pick a guy right they're gonna be tall
they're gonna be somewhat heavy built yeah right and they're gonna have a beard yeah because that's
what i like to play and i'm not discrediting the fact that if you're if you're into the
the role playing side of a game that having a character that that resembles either yourself
or what you're trying to perceive like play as this game nothing wrong with that whatsoever it's
the incessant whinging that people do for anything other than what you it's it's a game it's just so
annoying play what you want stop crying about it i'm adamant and i'd say as well that the
character customizer is actually pretty good yeah there's it's some of it's a little bit like hit
miss in terms of like the obviously like hairstyles and beer styles are just whatever they've modeled
yeah but in terms of the the actual face design you've got face presets but then you've got like
a build slider so obviously like muscular heavy skinny and it's the triangle you can flick around
too but then you can like slightly adjust the the height of the character based on the race and then
you flip down through and you know there's a full section i know it's not necessarily like sims level
of like you can pull sections out but you can essentially pick different faces you might like
and then you can run it does the same sort of slider beyond the presets and you can like slide
towards whether you'd want to have like a skinny face a heavy face or somewhere in between it's
pretty good ultimately and then you've got the sub sliders so it's you know play whatever you want
and then don't don't complain about it especially when it's not like who else is playing it's a
single player game no one else is going to see apart from you i didn't even think about that
side of things either single player game yeah who's crying about it it's not like you're going
around like wow or any other game that's got like co-op features no one's complaining about space
marine where you can replace men it was just a it's just a fucking heavier point because we
was talking about in the discord having a discussion about it and there's there's some
people that sit on one side of the fence and then there's other people that sit on the other side
of the fence and it's just trying to trying to understand the the mindset of it which i suppose
is the same the other way around the people that that whose whose thoughts don't align with ours
are in the same camp that we are just on the other side where i don't understand why you've got an
issue with having to play as a woman or whatever but at the same time i guess those people don't
understand why we don't have an issue with it i for them types of people i need i would need to
sit down and say what is your underlying issue with it yeah who hurt you like what's happened
in your fucking head where there's an issue is the reason that you don't like the fact that they've
added a they them aspect to the character creator that was the worst bit like someone pointed out i
don't use i don't use pronouns you you do yeah because you're a he there you go you're a he and
they dickhead he him i always feel like that that that's what it's going to be with a lot of games
now with that sort of stuff is that you're going to see more and more of of yeah of the inclusivity
but at the same time whilst that's great you're also going to get more and more of the people
fucking whinging about it because for some reason people feel that whinging about it is going to be
the thing that stops that yeah but that's just not going to happen because it's such a for for
people like ourselves that aren't affected by that it's such a minute thing whereas for for the
person that the the is non-binary is trans is a woman is black is whatever yeah is monumental
to them that's what it should be it mean it don't really make a difference to me
like even in my friends group the other nerds that i that i play dnd with there's a there is a they
non-binary is staying non-binary and i've had one that's gone from female to
was had top surgery and is now more identifying as he they
so it's like i feel like that would be ideal for them in terms of the the inclusion i know they
don't really care and they're quite easy going with it but the fact that that's there is what
it's refreshing from some perspective and it again i don't see if they're pretty wide for the fact
that i've got those types of friends that i'm not bothered by it yeah versus you have mark manister
if there's if there's a character customization i just feel like
like you should have the especially in a in a fantasy it's game especially where
is one that's giving you more free choice for making who you want to play as
do you play you play a human you play a dwarf you play an elf you play the the
kunari which are basically like horned they're meant to be related to dragons but they're
technically become more human appearing um you play a fucking horn dude if you want and you can
be a day or them or whatever you know it's not a big deal you play a game because you want to enjoy
it like granted i made the the first character i made is basically me and i'm playing sword and
board but then yeah i'm part of me's like i'm not really loving the ability of the the warrior
because it's a shield toss yeah and i fly that's gimmicky that's very marvel fucking yeah not
fucking i'm not loving it like captain america yeah comparing to other other bits and pieces and
i know for a fact i'm sitting there going i know who i'd make as a second character if i were like
if or when i'd do a second thing playthrough and it is well i'd make my like main dnd character
which is an elf ranger but i make him an elf rogue and that would be my playthrough and it'd
be slightly different we've we've all got our own um preferences to i'm the same i play a new world
big fucking axe and a hatchet that i can slice into people's faces please you give me start
giving me the range stuff i've tried it out i don't like it same with world of warcraft get me up and
close into someone's face with some fucking knives or something i want to i want to be in there but
you you you turn me into a warlock or a mage or fucking whatever i don't like it i don't like
being at a distance it's not it's not what my play style is no matter how fucking no matter how good
a ranged class is compared to a melee class i just can't do it because i don't find the same
excitement just to i don't know everyone's got such different opinions on things and then to be
bashing a game just about like i don't even really want to look at reviews because
or i didn't what knew i wasn't it was annoying because when i first i wasn't gonna i was going
to hold off for a bit necessarily and then seeing obviously it was like IGN gives it like nine out
of ten i'm like doubt and then and then whoever else giving it like eights nines i'm like hmm
even more doubt you know this this game that i've not really followed but been interested in because
i don't really watch trailers or follow game news particularly it's quite loosely despite you know
coming on here and needing to talk about games it's like i follow it quite loosely because i
always find that you know the games you follow like even you said it today that you're not
interested in um old assassin's creed shadows anymore because of whatever because of whatever
has been going on with it which is like that's what puts you in their moods as you go oh yeah
you see gameplay or you see whatever and i just don't i think it i think it looks very good
um and i'm still excited for it i just don't think i'm 250 quid's worth of excited for it
yeah it's sort of i yeah i bought the the mirage um collector's edition but that was like 130 quid
yeah still a lot of money but for a collector's edition it's not bad um whereas yeah 250 for for
this it whilst i would love to have the statue it's sort of like i'm in the middle of moving house
i'm fucking yeah it's a little bit much it's been delayed the yeah that's the next one if i was a
fucking stock market i'd gone down a little bit when that delay got announced because i was like
oh fucking hell like fair enough if you delayed it that's a smart thing i'm not one of those people
that says i want it now now now but it is it is ubisoft at the end of the day and ultimately
they're not very good no that was my concern for valguard because guess who's in charge of it yeah
yeah which we know what they do yeah yeah and ubisoft are just fucking i remember the highlight
of the the grand days of ea yep but they're not anymore ea ubisoft microsoft and you think oh
we're starting to get a bit fucking creepy we're starting to fuck things up here um a little bit
of money grabby here yeah and you know seeing the reviews and being everyone being like oh
it's gonna be fucking woke guard and fail guard oh it's shit the game looks shit it looks terrible
the characters look goofy and i'm looking at it going they look decent they look better than
fucking starfield oh yeah and like some of the other games that come out and you think like and
then obviously ultimately it came down to me as like dragon age veteran is like i want to see what
this game's got if i i said it to you if i don't like it in the first 10 hours i'll fucking give
it back yeah or i'll just because it's dragon age i'll slog through it but everyone used to everyone
said that dragon age 2 was shit i don't know what the opinion of it is now but at the time everyone
was like oh yeah it's the worst dragon age is terrible it's terrible you can't make choices
and fucking whatever i enjoyed it it's the same as i think the assassins creed origins was fucking
awful for a lot of people that's there that's one of their favorite ones like i i genuinely hated it
i hate it yeah the turn of the i turn of the get the style of assassins creed was the one
yeah it's it's it's not for me and i've said it multiple times but for a lot of people they
really really enjoy it um the only difference is is that rather than fucking write a review i sat
on a podcast instead and whinged about it and slagged it up instead yeah on episode 79 84
but that's it at the end like that was my commitment i said it's a dragon age game
and i've not played the dragon age game in so long i want to see what it's got going for it and you
know basically across the weekend i couldn't stop playing it yeah obviously which says on it's good
which says something for it for the fact that yeah granted my time's limited so the weekends is
pretty much the only time i get to play but the fact i was happy to go no it's like as soon as
i'd sorted stuff out on saturday you know food shop and whatever else it was like no i'm gonna
play this game now and then played it through till dinner and even played it after and then eventually
got to a point where i was like i'm in a new area i'm like i'm so tired single player
semi-linear game who gives a fuck yeah the thing is it's my it's my perfect type of game
that is exactly what i want out of a game for the most part i still want i still like co-op stuff
and would like to have more co-op stuff but annoyingly a lot of co-op stuff's fucking survival
which is the why so sick of it which the only problem is i wouldn't want to play it solo you
don't like it and then all my other mates are like they they only play at like nine o'clock till later
and i'm like that i need to go i hate survival aspects i hate survival mechanics and i hate
building yeah i hate it i just don't like survival games not my cup of tea which then leads us into
what else am i gonna play i'm not gonna play like massive like granted playing new world but
considering the last two weeks i've not played a lot of it getting fucked over at work being busy
and then instead instead playing a single player game that i can essentially you know i probably
won't play tonight more than likely by the time i know it's not that late but by the time i get
back home and have dinner i'm not gonna really want to get pulled for an hour that i can leave
that for a little while till i get a better day i don't know i won't really necessarily be doing
much this week because i've still got a pack to go away next week but like you know it's much better
for me especially without having to do all the if you turn around and go oh it's a sandbox map
i'm like oh fuck yeah so that's gonna be me running around looking try and find shit and find all the
bits and all the hidden areas and all the loot and if you turn around and to the top of the map tells
me oh there's 12 out of 24 chests here oh fuck i gotta find the others in there oh you bastard
you bastard like granted this valguard does that but the maps are smaller yes if it's linear
like in the in the time that i've played it i've pretty much there's at least one area that i'm
like 95 percent cleared and that's one of the hubs then another one's like 80 or percent
and it's nearly clear there's like two more chests to find yeah and you know it's just a lot easier
for me to to play that style of game because it just goes okay there's a few little hidden areas
and you might have to come back here but we're putting fast travel points everywhere so it's so
much easier to just drop into that map that that's far more up my street than fucking like valhalla
or a lot of the well any of that trio of assassins craze that i just went yeah they're too big too
big i can't i can't deal with them and that's your fucking review pretty much it's worth it
you know i don't know i don't know if it will apply to everyone but so far i've put a lot of
hours in in two days so i've been loving it and we'll see how it goes in the fucking
next well when i eventually finish it because they say it's at least
40 to 50 hours to complete just straight station i mean then it's like 70 if you were to do
everything which you know if you're factoring that game's 50 quid as standard the deluxe is
like 70 quid that if you get 70 hours out of it and i'm likely to do a second playthrough
when you fucking when i when i get time money for values here then yeah it's a bit like value for
money when you turn around and go oh how many hours you got in boarders game like 300 yeah
you go well i've played that game over x amount of years would love to go back to it but it's just
there's so much other stuff to get through yeah all right well that's that we're going to do the
patreon now yeah buddy see you later everyone