Roundtable: Our Favorite Games of This Generation

The eighth console cycle is nearing a conclusion and there are people out there who have been lucky enough to score pre-orders of the Xbox Series X or S and the PlayStation 5. Add to this the delay of Halo: Infinite which means that Microsoft is without the ace up their sleeve come November. So with less than two months left until the next-gen launch of Sony and Microsoft’s respective consoles, we here at VGUTV are going to talk about our favorite games of this console cycle.

Allan Muir Site Admin/Enthused Xbox Stan

Dragon Age: Inquisition

I have mentioned on Player’s Club and a long while ago on the LHG Podcast numerous times how much I love Bioware’s Dragon Age series. The Roleplaying Games have made me feel many emotions in Dragon Age: Origins and for a time had made me angry with Dragon Age II. Then Dragon Age: Inquisition released and I was forever changed. I had originally purchased the game for the Xbox 360 despite owning a Day 1 Xbox One and to this day that game copy has been collecting dust ever since.  

*SPOILERS FOR DRAGON AGE II’s Endgame*

In the climax of Dragon Age II, the mage Anders who is possessed by “Justice”, who had both been introduced in Dragon Age: Origins‘ “Awakening” expansion led a campaign of liberation for the mages who had been oppressed by the templars of Kirkwall. This culminated in Anders destroying the Kirkwall chantry killing Grand Cleric Elthina who is presumably killed either in the explosion or by Anders. This lights the fuse on the ticking time-bomb that was the mage rebellion that had been slowly building over the course of Origins and a majority of Dragon Age II. In 9:40 Dragon, three years after the events of Dragon Age II, Divine Justinia called for peace talks at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. The temple itself containing the ashes of Andraste herself which was visited by the Hero of Ferelden and his companions during the fifth blight. This is where Dragon Age: Inquisition begins.

Originally codenamed Blackfoot, Inquisition was a multiplayer-only game that was running on the Frostbite engine created by DICE and mandated by Electronic Arts to be in every game in order to create synergy. This went south for Blackfoot as it would be canceled but BioWare didn’t give up hope and seemed to work with an absolute “cannot fail” mindset. The game would be released in the Fall of 2014 and was praised by fans and critics. When I played it I fell off after a few weeks because it didn’t hook me at first. Then I rediscovered it on PC and let me tell you, that game introduced me to so many characters both good, evil, and in-between. There are fantastic set-pieces and character moments all throughout the game whether you are in Orlais doing political espionage, sieging a fortress, or battling spirits in the fade. There’s a feeling of an epic fantasy adventure that was present in Origins and lacking in Dragon Age II. Here’s hoping Dragon Age IV‘s dev cycle goes well.