Gaming, assorted

I am now attempting to defeat the archdemon and failing miserably, mainly because I have been coasting on easy difficulty rather than developing actual team-using strategies, and it is now coming back to bite me. Also, I was feverish while playing last night, and it didn't occur to me until after my party had been wiped out half a dozen times that I could call up the armies to help. Anyway, persistence will no doubt get me through eventually. For those of you concerned about my romantic life, I have hooked up with Zevran in a tasteful campfire sequence, and then despite Wynne suddenly lecturing me on getting attached to unsuitable people, have managed to have slightly more deep and meaningful conversations, to the extent that he has now given me my very own earring (disappointingly, I don't seem to be wearing it).

I have given up on Alistair (honestly, we wrestled a guard together in our underwear, and he still didn't appear remotely interested) and have metaphorically slapped him about a bit, told him to toughen up and marry himself off to the King's widow in order to secure the throne. I feel that my character is probably doing this for noble self-sacrificing reasons in order to make Alistair "happy", although as a player who is not that fond of Anora (the queen) I suspect I'm a bit more petty.

I now have the Mass Effect 3 DLC extended ending, but what I don't seem to have is a convenient save that doesn't involve me having to shoot ALL THE THINGS again. So in a fit of pique, this evening I downloaded Silent Hill, and have now creeped myself out completely and died twice. Man. I remember watching my flatmate play this, and having it creep us all out then, and it hasn't lost any of that effect. Amplified by having really, really annoying controls, so I can see an awful lot of deaths in my future as I fail to run in anything like the right direction.

Gaming, post archdemon

Oh man, that was so much easier! (the result of spending some time actually reading through all the tactics, and getting everyone to cluster round me but still fight rather than a) run off and die two screens away or b) stand next to me doing nothing). I only lost five dwarves. Anyway. I took Morrigan's deal (after, I must admit, judicious wiki-ing, and then hiding behind my hand for the embarrassing mostly naked bits) so got to hang around and chat to everyone afterwards, although I missed Shale somehow. (also, I could have done with missing Leilana - I know you like her, Patrick, but apart from one conversation with her about shoes I feel we have failed to connect, and the dialogue options tried to get me to hit on her again here). I also hit a bug - Queen Anora announced that she would put up a memorial to "Alistair and all the other Grey Wardens who died in our defence" or similar, and I was quite miffed at the thought that he'd died off-stage, until Arl Eamon talked about him and I then found him lurking on the dais. Grumpily. I was unfortunately not given any dialogue options telling him to get over himself, so instead disappeared off into the wilderness with Zevran and various bits of epilogue.

Overall I enjoyed it, but nowhere near as much as the Mass Effect series - I am still pretty burned out on traditional secondary world fantasy, and I also felt there was a fair bit of filler in the quests that bothered me more than, say, endless grinding in FFIII, for some reason. I probably would play it again, down the line, though, because some of my problems with it involved not working out certain game mechanics and interactions early enough.

I am unsure about Dragon Age II - on the one hand, I like the idea of working through such a large chunk of time in one game (10 years of game-time), and on the other hand at least one gamer friend of mine is very grumpy about the combat system and general mechanics. Hmm. Other recommendations solicited, gratefully!