Which video game should I play next?

[lizbee]

I'm at the start of a four-day long weekend, and although I have a fairly terrifying to-do list, I'm pretty confident I'll be able to finish Dragon Age: Inquisition in this time.

So! What should I play next?

My options:

The Dragon Age trilogy, again

Pros:

• I have the whole thing ready to go on the XBox
• There are so many origins options for Origins and Inquisition
• I just wanna be a dwarf this time, okay?
• Or an elf
• Maybe even a human who's not a mage?
• Nah, that's ridiculous

Cons:

• It's so long
• Soooooooooooo loooooong
• I miss science fiction

The Mass Effect trilogy, again

Pros:

• I love it so much
• This would be my first playthrough post-The Expanse and Star Trek: Discovery and I can really appreciate the aesthetic inspiration
• GARRUS
• Maybe this time I'll end on Control instead of accidentally choosing Synthesis

Cons:

• I've played it so many times already
• It's also quite long
• There are so many other games out there
• I only have the first game in XBox format, I'll need to find 2 and 3 secondhand somewhere
• Now I'm mad about the endings again

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Pros:

• I mean, my expectations are pretty low, I can hardly be too disappointed
• I have it all ready to play
• It's been a while since I played ME, so the force of comparison will be less

Cons:

• My expectations are really low
• I strongly suspect it's another big game that will take me over 200 hours to play

Assassin's Creed: Origins

Pros:

• I've never played a Ubisoft game before!
• I've heard it's really good
• I got a free copy with my XBox

Cons:

• I've never played a Ubisoft game before!
• I don't think you can play as a woman?
• Will have to dig up the XBox box and find the sheet of paper with the code and download it and ugh, work

Star Trek: Online

Pros:

• The new Discovery-era setting is out, with Mary Wiseman as Tilly
• I do love Star Trek quite a bit
• You may have noticed
• Already downloaded
• Free to play, too

Cons:

• It's multiplayer
• If I wanted to interact with people, I wouldn't be playing video games, now, would I?
• I think there are in-game purchases, which is the sort of thing for which I'm a sucker

I'm strongly leaning towards Assassin's Creed, despite the lack (I assume) of female player characters. I'm in the mood for something new! That doesn't involve interacting with people!

There are a lot of games out there, you guys. TOO MANY. Especially if you're also kind of going, "Man, I'm in the mood to play Portal again, but the first game is super-duper exxy even secondhand for XBox so I'd have to go back to playing on my computer like some kind of chump?"

I'm keen to play Fallout 4 one day! The new one comes out next week! How do you keep up, while still having a full-time job, a creative hobby, regular TV consumption, and also trying not to live in squalor?

I realise that I could ... play more than one game at a time. I feel like I should have done that with DA:I, which is a bit draggy. But I don't know if my brain works that way.

Comments

[isis]

If you haven't gone through all the origins in DAO it's fun just playing to Ostagar with them.

[sqbr]

Seconded! But there is the danger of getting attached to your character and just continuing.

[silverblade219]

Star Trek Online is playable as solely single player, despite being a MMO. All the episodes are designed to play by yourself, though you are able to play / team up with other players for them if you wanted. You play with other players is during a PVE queue, but the queue system is automated and don't actually have to talk to the other players for that instance. There are also fleets, sort of like guilds in other mmos i think?, but if you do join one you can be a silent contributor.

There are in game purchases, but are not necessary in order to play the game, and there are giveaways during the holidays/game anniversaries. Also can convert one of the in game currencies to the currency that is bought with money, so theoretically don't have to use any real life money for the game.

[prof_pangaea]

i vote for assassin's creed: origins just because i want to live vicariously through you and the AC series is one of the series i wish i had a console for but do not. in origins you mostly play as a man named bayek but you also play a few missions as his wife, aya, towards the end of the game. but depending on your mood you might just want to wait a month or two for assassin's creed: odyssey to drop in price and start there, where you can definitely play as a female character through the whole game. or grab a cheap second hand copy of assassin's creed: syndicate, where you can play as a female main character (and there are apparently a number of female bosses and villains throughout the game as well).

[lizbee]

GOOD NEWS, I finally downloaded my free copy of AC:Or yesterday! (And I'm very keen to play Odyssey at a future time, because I hear that Ubisoft has adopted some of the character and romance type options which Bioware has inexplicably abandoned.)

But I may not start it this weekend, because when I made this post, I had forgotten about the Trespasser DLC, and I need to play that to find out why everyone in Dragon Age fandom hates Ianto Jones the Elf. OTOH, I'm skipping a lot of the side quests in that, so who knows?

[prof_pangaea]

random (but also not) drive-by rec -- if you're looking for a good video game podcast may i recommend the polygon show which is four women (with both POC and queer representation) talking about video games and they are all very silly and funny but also smart and relatably fannish (last year one of them was doing NaNoWriMo and it was cleeeeeear she was writing an assassin's creed novel-length fic which as delightful and also her enthusiasm for AC is part of what is making me want to play it). the website hasn't been consistently updated for some reason but ALL the episodes are available on whatever podcasting app you may use. ANYWAY I LOVE THEM and it has been my most consistenly fun and angaging fannish space this year so far. :D

[lizbee]

Okay, that sounds GREAT, and I definitely have room for more podcasts.

(I've played a couple of hours of AC:Or now, and so far my impression is that it's extremely beautiful, and I'm very glad I have a giant TV to appreciate it. And beyond that, I'm still trying to get my head around the controls and skills, because figuring that stuff out is where I struggle with video games.)

[prof_pangaea]

also i truly need more info on ianto jones the elf because wat

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT IANTO JONES THE ELF

[lizbee]

This is Solas, one of the companions in DA:I. He's voiced by Gareth David-Lloyd, who manages to be simultaneously unctuous and condescending. Solas could tell me the weather was nice, and I'd still be cross with him for mansplaining.

THIS IS UNFORTUNATE, because Solas spends a lot of the game explaining stuff. He has esoteric knowledge of magic and spirits, and is also a major source of exposition about how magic works in this universe. (Since this was my third consecutive game as a mage, that just felt like more mansplaining.)

He says that he was a wanderer, a student of arcane magic, who volunteered to help after the sky is opened at the beginning of the game. And he's useful, because he knows a lot (MORE MANSPLAINING), and he's useful in your party because he can sense Elven artefacts. He's also a romance option, but only for Elves.

(Although why an Elf would date him is beyond me. He spends an awful lot of time explaining Elven heritage to Sera, who is city-raised and extremely humanised, and doesn't care. And Sera has a lot of internalised anti-Elf prejudice which isn't really addressed, but he just. keeps. on. talking at her.)

Then you get to the end of the game, defeat the Old God who caused the rift in the sky ... and Solas is really bummed that you destroyed the Old God's orb. And then he takes off, and no one knows why.

Cut to the Trespasser DLC, which is set two years later. Various things happen, and it TURNS OUT that Solas is not in fact a mild mannered Elven mansplainer but A FUCKING ELVEN GOD, specifically Fen'Haral, the Dread Wolf, who is on the one hand a trickster, but on the other hand the god of betrayal. Aeons ago he created the barrier between the earthly and magical realms, and now he's out to destroy that barrier, and also every person who isn't an Elf or spirit.



He also killed Captain Janeway the Witch, but I killed her, too, way back in Origins, I feel like she'll be okay. And he cut the Inquisitor's arm off, but that saves their life, so I guess that's okay.

ANYWAY, HE'S THE FUCKING BIG BAD FOR DA4, AND HE'S BEEN HANGING AROUND IN PLAIN SIGHT ALL ALONG. I'd probably love him for his sheer epic bastardry if he was voiced by literally anyone else, but I lost the ability to take him seriously when I realised it was Ianto.

Meanwhile, this is Gwen Cooper the Elf:



She is a perfect angel who has never done anything wrong, ever, in her entire life. *pushes blood magic under the bed* EVER, IN HER ENTIRE LIFE.