What We Played #185: Dragon Age, Assassin’s Creed, And Destiny

Kicking off the new year in style, we’re back for another round of what we played, the segment where we tell you (wait for it)… what we played in the previous days. I know, the name of the article only barely fits the content of the piece but stick with us, we’ve got gaming experiences to talk about.

Jim put his holiday break to good use by logging some serious time in Assassin’s Creed: Unity, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. Although he began Unity with a bit of hesitation after reading about all the bugs plaguing the game, he was happy to note that the most talked about problems, missing faces and performance hiccups, were pretty much gone after the several patches that have landed since its release, though he did note that a variety of smaller bugs still remain. Bugs aside, while not a bad game, Unity just didn’t turn out to be the true next-gen experience Jim was hoping for from Assassin’s Creed.

On the other hand, Dragon Age: Inquisition definitely tickled his fancy in the right way and he even managed to get the platinum trophy, a feat only 0.2% of gamers who have played it on PS4 have accomplished so far.

As much as I kind of enjoyed Dragon Age II, Inquisition complete blows it out of the water with its jaw-dropping vistas and tactical approach to combat. With days to spare during the Christmas break (and a good measure of self-loathing) I was able to batter my way through on Nightmare difficulty, completely obliterating the final boss to take home my 48th platinum trophy. It’s one of my proudest to say the least.

Speaking of Dragon Age, Aran has also been playing it, and noted that the game is so big that he found it to be a bit overwhelming, with so many areas to explore and quests to complete.

Inquisition is but one of several games Aran has been playing, as he’s taking 2015 by storm, trying to complete the story mode in as many games as possible during this calendar year. He’s already finished Octodad, Valiant Hearts, and Escape Plan, and he intends to have Contrast finished very shortly. You’ll be hearing more about Aran’s conquest of games this year so stay tuned in the coming days.

Peter didn’t end up with as much time to play games over the holidays as he had hoped but he did continue along with Elite Dangerous, and he’s been mixing his football up a bit by playing PES 15 rather than FIFA.

I got PES 15 in the pre-Christmas PSN sale so I’ve been playing the Master League on that. It’s still some distance behind FIFA in terms of presentation, user interface and those finishing touches. The commentary is abysmal, the faces on all but the super-famous are laughable and the grass texture is generally pretty bad too. The way it plays, though, that’s back to being quite special and it’s one very important area where I think it just about beats FIFA this year. It’s great to have some serious competition back between the two major football games.

Next up is Teflon, who dabbled a little bit with Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D Land, Dungeon Defenders 2, and Don’t Starve Together’s early access. But of course, at the end of the day, he played far more Destiny than anything else and even included a fancy picture of his crew shortly after they completed the ‘flawless raider’ trophy, which is awarded for completing a raid without dying. This was also the final trophy he needed for the platinum, so that popped up for him shortly thereafter. If you’d like to read a bit more about their mastery of the Vault of Glass with no deaths, one of his clanmates wrote a nice piece about it on Reddit.

Here are the triumphant heroes (geofduke is the unlabelled guardian in the centre):

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Dom is up next and has been using his PlayStation TV quite a bit, playing Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag as well as a variety of older Vita and PSP titles just to see how they look and work with his new toy. He noted that Black Flag works well via remote play with the PSTV because there’s not a lot of worry about lag, and he also mentioned that Patapon 3 looks fantastic on a bigger screen. Outside of that, he’s also been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition and Forza Horizon 2, both of which he described as “brilliant.”

Tuffcub played a bit Destiny and GTA V but it was Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark that really got his attention, and not in a good way. His recommendation is to stay as far away from it as possible, even if you find it for dirt cheap. He noted that the timing of the game within the Transformers universe doesn’t make any sense, and he also stated that the controls, shooting, and voice acting all fall far short of the previous Transformers game.

High Moon, who created the first two games, were Transformers fans and it showed. From the dialogue to the locations, everything was created with love. Dark Spark has been created for cash, a horrible tie in to the movie. I imagine High Moon are horrified that their excellent work has been sullied by this pile of trash which recycles 80% of it’s content from the previous games.

TC was even nice enough to supply us with a couple of screenshots that visually show just how far short of today’s standards this game lands. Yes, that’s a PS4 game.

As for me, I was inspired by Aran’s desire to beat as many games as possible in 2015 and decided to keep better track of what games I beat throughout the year. While I doubt I’ll be able to match his number, I already managed to finish both Race the Sun, and the first season of the Walking Dead, both of which were well worth my time. I know it’s odd to say I “beat” Race the Sun since the world rebuilds every day, but I put several hours into it and hit the max rank, so there’s not much left for me to do other than check in with the new world each day. Which I might do because it’s pretty fantastic.

So that’s it for us but what about you? Let us know what you managed to play or beat over the holiday break.

28 Comments

  1. Got all the stars in Super Mario 3D World, now I just need a handful of stamps and golden flags.

    Played a round of Mario Party 7, I still think 6 is the best on Gamecube.

    Played through The Wolf Among Us, it’s wonderful. The Xbone port is a bit shoddy though, with frequent stuttering. I think my laptop ran it smoother. Still, it wasn’t gamebreaking.

    Captain Toad is everything I expected and more. The perfect game to play with a cup of tea. It’s incredibly charming.

    • Congrats on 3D World mate! The last few levels are a real doozy! Don’t forget to finish every level with every character too lol.

      Pfft, the N64 Mario Party games were the best :-) the later ones have been a bit meh unfortunately.

      Captain Toad is brilliant, not too challenging and not too easy either. Lovely for a bit of relaxed gameplay.

  2. Got the platinum of sleeping dogs, that’s a massive 7 (SEVEN) plats! There’s not many games which have grabbed me to plat, but sleeping dogs never left my ps3 since the moment it entered. Onto the dlc now. SEVEN! Woo!

    • Congrats mate

      • Cheers pal, don’t get many plats so chuffed when I do ;)

  3. my new game lists consists of:
    shadow of mordor (nice but geeky? too open world for me)
    destiny (hype train derailed..but pretty fekin sweet!)
    drive club (kick ass racer now the patches have sorted it!)
    alien isolation (buggy scare fest change of underwear essential.)
    evil within (meh! gory generic bloodfest)

    plus the plus stuff

  4. I beat the final boss of Tales of Xillia on Christmas Eve, just in time to play the hell out of Rayman Legends for the Vita which I unwrapped the next day. Just finished that and I’ve started another one of my xmas gifts, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky on PSP.

  5. Dragon Age Inquisition is taking up most of my time, 28 hours in and the game seems to be just opening up. it’s not perfect and i would really prefer just to manage one character but i’ve become happily entrenched in it all the same – and i didn’t like the previous games at all.
    I’ve also had time to enjoy more Driveclub ,managed to get 3rd the semi-pro trophy event – so now i can move along in the tour – and pressed Restart numerous times in Binding of Isaac,but managed to unlock Eve , somehow.

  6. I’ve played a fair few games since last update. I’ve finished but not platinumed LBP 3 yet. Started but not finished TWD2 Ps4. A bit of Driveclub, Forza horizon 2 and PvZ :GW . I finished D4 and completed the chapter on Tales from Borderlands on Xbone, which I surprisingly like as I don’t particularly like Borderlands.

  7. Right, where to start…

    Prior to Christmas it was all about Diablo 3 on PS4. I’ve got most of the trophies but I don’t think I have the patience to go back for the platinum – I’ve very little interest in levelling all characters to 70 and completing so many bounties, which I think is all I’m missing now. I might go back when I’ve got nothing else to play and try to grind it out… We’ll see!

    Been playing Murdered: Soul Suspect and Far Cry 4 on the PS4 since Xmas. Got the platinum on Far Cry 4 (awesome game!) this morning and I’m about half way through Murdered. I don’t know why Murdered got such a hard time from the critics. I’m really enjoying it so far, it’ll probably be my next (and 40th) platinum :-) Once I’ve finished Murdered it’ll be on to my other Christmas present; Dragon Age. Really looking forward to that but wanted the shorter games out the way first! But then there’s Infamous which came out on PS+ this month… Maybe I should get that out the way first… Argh, too many games!

    Also been playing Captain Toad on the Wii U and polished that off yesterday – just the timed runs to go which look to be a bit challenging, to say the least!

  8. I have been playing dragon age inquisition on ps3, minecraft ps3 and loads of minecraft ps4, driveclub destiny, unity, warcraft and soon I’ll be playing ducktales-remastered on ps3 and first light

  9. After playing DA:I for an entire month straight, i’ve finally decided to play something else due to me being unable to use custom world states and the default one gets a bit boring after a while. I decided to give RPGs a break after playing DAO for a few hours and deciding to enact my one main account for everything plan by wiping out all my saves on my existing account. I intend to have my main account on the PS3 serve as just that. My previous PSN accounts will stay as long as the passwords still work. I virtually have no access to the accounts if the passwords stop working due to expired email addresses.

    So, i’ve been playing Metal Gear Solid:Snake Beater. Mmm, Eva. Joking aside, i discovered that i am crap at MGS due to how long it’s been. I could go back to easy but that won’t be a challenge. I intend to restart and be more stealth. And stare at Eva’s lovely boobs and arse. What? The game throws them in your face, quite literally! (Tis the HD collection)

    I picked up AC:Quick, get another game out so we can make more cash on the franchise. Also known as AC:Rouge. I’m unsure how to feel about this. It’s pretty much AC:BF with a few improvements but that’s just it. I loved Black Flag however, do i really want BF 2 with a few improvements? The game seems to just want to get it over with and for something that is shorter then the previous game, that’s not a good sign.

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