Dragon Age vs. Oblivion

It's difficult to say which I like better. They're very similar in some aspects. It's not turn based, the whole based in ancient times, dragons, demons, magic, very deep stories.

· Oblivion has better graphics. The view is panned out a bit more in dragonage (have 4 people to control instead of 1) and I do like that, but oblivion was just better though.

· The quests in dragon age are epic. Too long for me. Honestly, if you're only playing 2-3 hours a day like you should, don't expect to beat a storyline quest. I liked how oblivion set it up where there were more quests and they were slightly shorter.

· The leveling in Oblivion was tricky. If you level up to quickly enemies get nearly impossible, so you didn't want a skill you used a whole lot to be a major skill. The big reason I had to go from normal to easy.

· Oblivion is open ended after you beat it, da is not. this is huge to me. If you've just spent 100 hours playing a game, you should be able to explore around w/ your guy(s) and encounter some more enemies somewhere. Not necessarily quests, just places to go.

· Both have 2 things to level up at each level up—attribute and skill for oblivion, skill and spell/talent for da.

· Oblivion you can spread your character as you want more—in the end you can be a good melee and a good mage. With da you have to pick your class and stick w/ it (mage, warrior, and rogue). This makes sense w/ da because you have 4 people and you can diversify as you wish. That's how the old school final fantasies were.

· Now, the obvious thing to compare here is the format—playing as one player or playing as 4 players. Huge difference. I love both games. But I'll have to give the edge to the 4 player format. True, it is quite painful to manage 4 people instead of one, more time consuming, much more to worry about. But it helps that they're specialized so that you have to go in certain ways with them. Also, the game kind of puts them on auto-pilot so the others don't really need to be a main priority. There's something about working as a team that is intangible. Also, managing 4 people well gives great satisfaction when you win tough battles.

· Both games are real-time, not turn based although you can pause and give actions in DA. Haven't really played a modern turn-based game yet. Real-time puts more emphasis on setting things up right. In DA, make sure tactics are solid.

I'm very happy with how EA sports did FIFA 10 as opposed to Tiger. They didn't change much-the graphics are better, gameplay is more realistic, and rosters are updated. That's about it. of course, online play is a huge part of it for me, and I have no major beefs with it, but I think 10's ranking system might not be as good as 9's. I think they overcomplicated it w/ "performance points", "final points", etc. If I had a choice, the things I would want to know is-score of the game, my opponent's level, my level, how many points I gained/lost (and they should gain/lose the opposite of me), how many points I currently have, and how many points to level up. They have some of these, but not all of them.