I haven't yet tried FH3 beyond the demo, but my cheap ass has been playing FH1 thanks to Games with Gold, and your post really resonated with my experience with that game. It really is a sort of car power fantasy where the entire point is for the player to simply enjoy themselves.
Great review! As a fan of vanilla Forza (and as someone who enjoyed the Fast & Furious Forza Horizon), I've always wanted to jump into a proper Forza Horizon game. Did you happen to play this on Xbox One? If so, how did it run?
@hassun: I'm right there with you. One of my best experiences with fighting games came when I played through the campaign of Injustice on easy mode. I got to feel powerful busting out button mashing combos while taking in a campy superhero romp. Competition and tournaments? F that.*
*Note: I've got no problem with the FGC community and love that they exist. I just have zero aptitude for competitive fighting games.
@bakumatsu: I agree, that meeting with Solas was fantastic. It mirrored the final bit of Origins' Witch Hunt DLC, but did it in a way that felt way more satisfying to fans of Dragon Age lore. I can't wait to see where the story goes next!
@dagas: As a big fan of both Origins and DAII I can definitely see where you're coming from. Bioware is not Bethesda, and I don't come to them for wide-open sandbox worlds, I come to them for well written stories in which I have some measure of agency. There was enough in Inquisition that I don't regret my playthrough but like you I don't see myself replaying the game like I did with its predecessors. Still, the DLCs for the most part are worth checking out, and Trespasser in particular is great if you're a fan of how BioWare used to make their games.
@darth_navster: Good to know. BioWare absolutely has been in the habit of retconning player decisions between DA games, but not within them.
Have they? I can't think of a major decision that BioWare retconned in between Dragon Age games. Hell, it was awesome to see my version of Hawke appear in Inquisition on PS4 even though I played DA II on the 360!
@veektarius: You know, I completely forgot that installing Leliana as the Divine was a player choice. I clearly went that route, but I'm sure Trespasser would be different if you decided differently. BioWare is not in the habit of unnecessarily retconning player decisions, so I imagine someone else would be the Divine in your case.
EDIT: According to the Dragon Age wiki, that is in fact the case. Leliana appears as herself or as the Divine, depending on your choice.
I like your mechanical approach to analyzing video game morality systems. While I appreciate people discussing the morality of the player's actions (i.e. was it right for Shepard to free the Rachni queen), but it's refreshing to consider exactly why we've moved on from the sliding scale morality of KotOR.
Personally, I think KotOR's approach to morality was great because it fit with the setting. In the Star Wars universe, morality is basically black and white (or light and dark), and the movies establish that a person's alignment on that scale is the sum of their actions. Look at Anakin Skywalker's karma progression for instance:
He starts as a highly empathetic boy that wants the best for those he cares about - light side
He then begins Jedi training and chafes under the Jedi Order's rules - still light
He returns to Tatooine and slaughters a camp of Tusken raiders that killed his mother - the light starts to dim
He sides with Palpatine in his coup to kill the Jedi Order - dark side(!)
He redeems himself by betraying Palpatine and helping to bring down the empire - light side, force ghost, the whole nine parsecs
This progression would have been perfectly represented in KotOR's system. I mean, we can argue all day about the excessive simplicity of the morality inherent in Star Wars, but BioWare can't be blamed for implementing such a rigid karma system to reflect that. (On a related note, props to Obsidian for both utilizing and deconstructing the karma meter in KotOR 2).
Anyway, that's just my two cents. I just discovered your blog and already liking what I'm seeing. Keep up the good work!
@freedom4556: I get what you're saying about a lifestyle divide. Certainly, that is a large factor, but it can't be completely divorced from the economic divide. Let's face it, in the modern day, you're pretty much expected to have a smartphone of some sort. They practically give them away nowadays, and most kids have a much easier time convincing their parents to give them a hand-me-down phone or tablet than a new console or PC.
But yeah, there's also a large contingent of people that just want to game on their couch and aren't as constrained my money. I personally know plenty of people that have the means to get into PC gaming but choose console because they don't want to deal with the hassle. For them, the introduction of the PS4 Pro and Scorprio add unnecessary complication to what was a simple purchasing decision.
Darth_Navster's comments