LittleBigPlanet and Burnout Legends on PSP and That Game on PC

I have been neglecting my blog writing duties lately.  I should have by written that LittleBigPlanet on the PSP failed to do the one thing that I asked of it and have plenty of content.  I think this is a great shame.  If I had played the PSP version first I would never have known that LBP was special and I never would have bothered to play the PS3 game.  Every game in a franchise advertises every other so every one should have the same time and attention put into it as every other.

I have now started Burnout Legends and it seems okay but I have not played much yet so don't feel I can really comment.  More later, hopefully.

As much as I was enthusing about only playing games in specific categories in my previous entry I have caved in and played on the PC before my two months of playing on handhelds had expired.  What was the game which caused me to weaken in this way?  What was the game which has kept me as it's slave since and not even allowed me to write this blog for over a fortnight?  It was the same game I previously forsook and swore never to play again, even after over 220 hours playing time had been clocked up on Steam.  Perhaps because of those 220 hours.

I had been playing a character who looked ridiculous and I hated him.  He was a mage and a useless one.  His physical makeup was pathetic, his ginger suede-head was ludicrous and the cowl he was adorned with was absolutely the finishing touch.

There were long periods in the game when I could not remember what my ultimate goal was.  I just seemed to do side-quest after side-quest and was so bogged down with so many incomplete quests in my codec that that my head spun as I trudged from room to room dreading to open the next door because there would always be an impossibly difficult fight behind it.  Could I not just open one of these doors and find some excellent loot and move on?  I think I have earned it.  No, you will find seventeen enemies any one of which will be able to beat any member of your four member party.

My ultimate goal was, of course, to unite the peoples of Ferelden and defeat the Darkspawn and the game was Dragon Age: Origins.

Going back to it now as a more experienced gamer I can see that it is excellent and did not deserve my hate.

The pieces of data that you find in books around the game world separate it from the herd.  They don't need to be there but they flesh out the culture and history of Ferelden and its neighbours so effectively in a few short paragraphs each.

This time I am a rogue.  "Rogue's have more fun," I said to myself.  I am a male human.  It almost felt like the radical thing to be.  While I'm not overjoyed with the way my character (pictured left) looks he is at least not totally crap.  He is not a constant reminder of my own stupidity.  I was going for safe, and I think that's what I managed.  Also, he's not an Elf!

I chose to be a noble and in this storyline you spend quite a bit of time messing about in your dads castle, and then it gets overrun and you have to get out.  That all happens pretty suddenly; but I suppose these things do.  It is decided by your father that you are going to go with Duncan, an experienced Grey Warden, who it seems you will meet whoever you are, and become a Grey Warden yourself and fight the Darkspawn.  I seem to remember that at this stage you go into the fade as part of your training if you are a mage but I could be remembering that wrongly.  I might go into the fade at a later stage.

For a human noble rogue the stage prior to initiation involves going into the Wilds (these wilds have a name beginning with K which I cannot remember, it's Kunari or something like that).  You are part of a group of four initiates.  Here I ran into a side-quest which I did not complete and seems to have been kicked into touch on the codec.  You are looking for an artefact which belongs to the Grey Wardens and you do find it and you also find Morrigen (also in the picture) and after a certain amount of messing about you take the artefact back to Duncan, leaving her behind.

It is known that the Darkspawn are soon to attack the area near your camp and you are to be initiated prior to this attack.  At the camp you also meet several other relevant people.  One is the King and another is Teyrn Loghain; a Teyrn being a type of noble.  You also meet an aging Mage called Wynne.

To cut a long story short, initiation involves drinking darkspawn blood.  This can kill you.  You do not die.  Neither does Alistair, who is one of the other initiates.  You also meet a Mubari warhound who takes to you so you take him along with you.  I called him Dogmungus.

In  the battle the King's forces are to take on the Darkspawn directly.  You and Alistair have to go to the top of a nearby tower to light a signal fire to let Teyrn Loghain's forces know that it is time to attack.  The tower is already overrun with darkspawn who you have to fight including a demon at the top.  You light the fire but Teyrn Loghain turns his army away, leaving the King (and Duncan) to their fate.  What a git!