Day 128: Leonardo: Dragon Rider!

Inspiration for this one comes from a couple of different places. First, Skyrim came out yesterday. I haven't played it and I don't plan on playing it for a while, but I really want to. The big thing about that game, besides the scope, is the whole "infinite dragon" gimmick. Honestly, I don't care so much about fighting dragons forever as long as the story is good.

On top of that I'm still playing Dragon Age 2. I beat it once (came in right around 52 hours) and I loved it. I started a second playthrough as a warrior who's a little bit more to the point. Partly I'm doing a PS3 trophy clean-up run, but I'm also doing it for a different side of the story. I'm about two thirds of the way through right now I believe. It shouldn't take me nearly as long to finish my second playthrough, though. I've already read all the codex entries.

The last reason I drew this is just because dragons are awesome and who wouldn't want to ride one? This one is kind of stupid looking because I'm a terrible artist, but even so I'd ride that thing. Did you see How to Train Your Dragon? It was great and I think every little kid wishes they could tame a dragon to ride into battle on the playground. For some of us those dreams don't die with age.

Day 99: Day Off (3 of 3)

And here we come to the end of my days off. Well, really I'm off Saturday and Sunday, but we have things to do those days so I don't consider them really days off in the same sense. Let's just say I won't be sitting around in front of the TV all day.

I've been playing Dragon Age II pretty solid for three days now and I'm not nearly as far into it as I thought I would be. I do love that it's such a dense game inside such a full world. I don't mind sinking a ton of time into a game as long as it's engaging. I love all of the characters so far. The Dwarf, Varric, is probably my favorite secondary character, but I'm also a big fan of the pirate captain, Isabella. She reminds me so much of my wife's D&D character it's a little uncanny. She's even said some things that I'm pretty sure my wife said during a game. Well, three days in and I'm around the 30 hour mark. That's not too bad I guess. I'll let you know what my total time is if I ever finish this game.

Day 98: Day Off (2 of 3)

Today is day off number two. Yesterday wasn't totally what I said it would be. I did play a lot of Dragon Age II but I also did some laundry and some other things around the house. Today will probably be more of the same: A lot of Dragon Age with some minor chores to break up the day and keep me from feeling totally worthless. In today's picture you can start to see my impression of the progression of how sitting around is making me look.

Day 97: Day Off (1 of 3)

My job is making everyone take five days off this quarter. That might sound like a good way to cut down on costs when things are slow, and it is in general. The problem I have with it is that I worked almost 60 hours last week and will probably be working more next week. So being forced to take time off to save on payroll costs makes a lot less sense when everyone is working 50-60% overtime, especially considering we probably wouldn't be working so much overtime if everyone wasn't taking time off. Whatever. It's not my job to point out the stupid shit my company comes up with. I intend to enjoy my days off anyway.

And by "enjoy my days off" I mean I'm going to sit on the couch and play Dragon Age II from the time I get up until the time I go to bed. So far I'm doing pretty well. I played the "Mark of the Assassin" DLC featuring Felicia Day's character. It was a lot of fun and pretty substantial I think. The writing is excellent and the voice acting is great. Felicia Day's character Tallis has some great banter and in case you're wondering, yes, you can romance her. Nothing serious since she's only in this small DLC mission set, but if you side with her and help her out you can make out with her at the end. I thought this would be funny to see, but let me assure you, it was mostly just awkward.

I'll be upfront with you about this. I am not the kind of nerd that gets excited for virtual boobs. While I appreciate games like this adding romance options for the sake of trying to recreate a wider scope of emotional attachments in the story it's really not something I get excited about, especially not in that way. Dragon Age: Origins tried to handle the whole romance/sex thing too seriously, I think, and the cut scenes were just weird and unnatural. It's the whole "uncanny valley" thing. Dragon Age II is better about it for sure, but kissing still looks weird. Basically it's two pixelated faces kinda smashing into each other. Anyway, the whole thing with Tallis was still funny but as I tweeted later it was also weird and I felt like I had crossed a line that can't be uncrossed. I should probably take my virtual romances more seriously in the future.

Day 96: The Turtles Get Their Party On

Does everyone remember that time I met Felicia Day and wrote a really long blog post about it? Well this one kind of is about her too, but not entirely. And I didn't meet her again, unfortunately.

The title of today's post might be a bit misleading. The Turtles aren't partying, but they are in a party. Party in this instance referring to an RPG type party of characters. This post has a couple of inspirations. I first thought about drawing the turtles as fantasy/RPG style characters when I was talking to my friend Mandy about which Hunger Games district they would be assigned to. I gave her a brief character synopsis in which I assigned them each to an RPG player class.

The second and more immediate inspiration comes from Dragon Age II. I loved Dragon Age: Origins much to some of my friends' dismay. I really credit Dragon Age with being the game that taught me not to be so serious when playing an RPG and that it's OK to give your character a little, well, character beyond being the stoic hero. I haven't played the second one yet, but today's the day. I borrowed it from a friend and I'm finally ready to start. As a matter of fact it's installing an update on my PS3 as I type this.

But that's not all! Not only is today the day that I'm starting my first Dragon Age II playthrough, but it's also the premiere of the Dragon Age: Redemption web series written by and starring Felicia Day! I just watched the first episode. It's pretty good. I'm a little confused about the Qunari because they don't look like I remember Sten looking from Dragon Age: Origins, but maybe it will make more sense when I've gotten into the game. I found myself looking closely at little details on the costumes and weapons. Felicia's costume has been all over the internet the past few months and it is pretty impressive, but the other costumes look like they were taken straight out of the game. The series is only running for six weeks and I can't wait to see where it goes.

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I have a confession. I had this mostly typed up and the picture scanned and added to the post and ready to go, but I put off finishing it so I could play the game. I'm only a few hours in, but it's really good so far. It's a slightly different feel from the first game and maybe a little brighter and more animated art style, but I think it works well. The combat is much more fun for sure. I haven't gotten much into the main story because I've been playing the "Mark of the Assassin" DLC that was released yesterday in conjunction with the Redemption web series.

BioWare wrote an entire side quest around Felicia Day's Tallis character and even included her as a party member. I'm not sure how this compares to the rest of the game because as I said I haven't gotten very far in it yet, but the writing is really good and often very funny. It is a little weird seeing Felicia Day as an elf in-game, though. They did a good job, but being an elf her features are slightly out of proportion to her human self so she looks like her, just... a little off.

Her character is a great addition and the voice acting is great all around. I've even met up with a few old friends from the first game. Of course they don't know me since the player character from Dragon Age: Origins is gone, but I remember them. It's a lot of fun and I'm excited to have the next three days off to put in some time. Speaking of which I better wrap this up so I can get back to it.

To finish I'll talk a little about the picture. These are the roles I assigned the Turtles when describing them to Mandy. Starting from the left Raphael is definitely a rouge. He's hot headed, but sneaky and he duel wields dagger-like weapons. Donatello I made a mage. There are usually engineers in fantasy, but that's really more of a profession than a class. His science is closer to magic anyway so I figured he would make a good mage. Leonardo I think of as a paladin with swords. Dragon Age doesn't have a paladin class, they have Templars, which are sort of the same thing. He's a pious warrior in charge of keeping mages from using their magic for evil, but Templars can do some holy magic themselves which seems to go against their beliefs. I guess even in Thedas the power of religion allows for servants of the church to get away with these things for what they perceive is the greater good. Michelangelo is pretty much just a brute-force warrior. He's the tank of the party.

There you have it. The Ninja Turtles as RPG characters. If you disagree with my assessment feel free to draw your own picture and submit it. I'll leave you with episode one from the Dragon Age: Redemption series. Enjoy!