Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age = Win
Started playing it yesterday after I got home from work at 5:30pm and didn't stop playing it till 11:30pm. (Although I did slow down when the first episode of V came on).
But it's an amazing game! Combat is VERY satisfying and you need to use stragety when fighthing big groups of enemys. The story line is very good too, I cant wait to get home and start playing it again. I hightly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good RPG!
Started playing it yesterday after I got home from work at 5:30pm and didn't stop playing it till 11:30pm. (Although I did slow down when the first episode of V came on).
But it's an amazing game! Combat is VERY satisfying and you need to use stragety when fighthing big groups of enemys. The story line is very good too, I cant wait to get home and start playing it again. I hightly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good RPG!
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I've got it for the 360.
Graphics are a little lack luster. I like the size of the characters on the screen and the environments are cool. But everything looks a little chunky and the colours/lighting don't pop out. I have to say, it's dated looking. The animations though are fairly decent and the sound effects are good and there are lots of voice dialogue.
Gameplay the 360 version controls well. If you've played KoTOR or Mass Effect on 360 then you'll feel at home. I much prefer this then point and click as it makes the game feel more action based and I've grown to prefer that to point&click play.
Combat is more action based then previous games. You have more freedom to run about. You press the button to swing and the animation of the swing lets you know when you can swing again. Alternatively you can just hold the button down with a target selected and go at it. You have special attacks that you can attach to other buttons and trigger them as well. You can have two weapon sets to flip between and if that's not enough you can pause combat to issue orders to your party or let the AI control them. So far I've been letting the AI do it's thing (as I'm not particularly attached to any of them) and it's been working well enough.
Inventory management isn't bad. It works well for handling equipment between the party but it's a little clunky looking compared to say Fallout 3, which provides more information on the screen at once. The ability to flag items as junk though and then auto sell all your junk at once though is awesome.
The story. Haven't played enough to really get a grip on it. However so far it feels pretty organic. Let me explain that. In past Bioware games you generally knew exactly where you had to go. Hell you practically only had one place to go. You'd go there, they'd give you a quest, you'd go to the next pointer etc... There were very little other things to do that cropped up along the way and the whole time it felt like you were a dog on a leash.
This would be the opposite to games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 where you are basically unleashed into the world with little direction of where to go. You stumble into quests, people proposition you for help, you are free to choose what you want to tackle and often how you want to tackle things. The game flows very organically around you.
I'm happy to say that Dragon Age has much more of this organic feel to it. It feels much more like a breathing world and less like a game on constant pause waiting for you to do something (that is still often the case mind you, but it doesn't feel like that).
Overall I'm very happy with Dragon Age thus far. It's not the best looking game, not in a long shot and it's got a few rough edges. But if things continue to progress I can easily see myself putting the 50+ hrs into this game that they say are typical for an average play.
I'm also seeing myself already playing through it again with a different character or even as the same type just to see how different choices play out. They dialogue choices are probably some of the best I've seen in a CRPG yet. There are some obvious good/evil responses. But most of them are gray. There are plenty of choices you make early on that have longer reaching results and it's awesome to see a game play out that way.
Ugh, I want to go home and play the game!
Cheers to you who get to play it now though! I'm quite envious.
Mostly I got it for 360 because I just find I do more gaming on the couch and on my tv. Not necessarily because it's better quality. It's a case of if I'm dropping $70 for a game where will it get it's most use and that is 360.
The engine feels very Mass Effectish to me, especially the facial animations.
I'm happy with it so far. I am curious, what backgrounds did you guys end up taking? I did City Elf my first time through
Human Noble here.
Anyone play both the PS3 and Xbox version? Notice any differences?
I dunno, the graphics look better to me on the PC. Take a look http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http://www.4players.de/4players.php/tvplayer/4PlayersTV/Alle/4397/44923/Dragon_Age_Origins/PC_Konsolenvergleich_2.html&sl=de&tl=en&history_state0=
Only about 3 hrs into it now but enjoying it more and more. Really liking the more action oriented interface when it comes to combat. Really missing that there is no jump button. Not that it's game changing, but I just keep expecting to be able to jump and I can't and then I'm sad
We're here for you.
I found the origin stories to be a lot more fun than the rest of the game. It feels like actual roll playing then as soon as you become a grey warden everything becomes generic.
OH YOU'RE ONE OF THEM WARDEN THINGS. GUESS YOU BETTER SAVE MY BABY.
<h3>Good things</h3>
Engaging story: Didn't throw me any curveballs, but it was so well-supported with historical material and character/faction narratives that I felt really sucked in.
Faction interactions: The relationship between the Chantry/Templars and Circle of Magi really intrigued me. The well-developed backgrounds for the two groups made their tense peace very convincing. The Dwarven situation was also good, as was the Arling positions towards the end of the game.
Combat: Combat with your character felt rewarding, but not overly easy. Revenants remained suitably difficult until the late game, dragon encounters required perfect execution and the pause/act system worked very nicely in the chaos of mass combat.
Non-linearity: I spent as much time talking about how I went about completing the game as I did the game itself. The multiple avenues/single destination design was really fun.
In short, I felt compelled to play through every point in the game. The story was good, the voice acting was good, the characters were good, the plot was good, the lore was convincing and the game world was so damn rich.
<h3>Bad things</h3>
Ranged party AI: If I had a dollar for every time Leliana (archer) or Wynne stood around in melee getting their face pounded, I'd be a very wealthy man. Despite configuring their tactics correctly, they frequently failed to stay at range or find safe ground in the event of a melee attack. I found myself manually moving them to range before difficult encounters in the late game so they wouldn't get blended.
Stamina/mana: This entire situation was much improved in Awakening, but vanilla DAO's stamina/mana pools were frustratingly tiny. It felt as though I was chugging lyrium pots or standing around and white swinging through most of my encounters. Don't even get me started on how frustrating it was to have Wynne go OOM after 3-4 spell casts.
Space bar: It's for jumping, not for pausing.
The Fade: I'm just glad I only had to enter it twice.
Awakenings: It felt very abrupt; you're cruising along, and all of a sudden the game is over with a hell of a lot of questions left unanswered.
(I played the Human Noble origin.)