Dragon Age

[J_Th4ng]

As always, this time of year is difficult. After months of fuck-all in terms of new games to play, a shedload of them all arrive at the same time. Between Borderlands, Left4Dead, Modern Warfare 2, etc. there isn't going to be much time for a complex, old school RPG. And of course that's just what's arrived, in the form of Dragon Age.

Bioware have just released the 'spiritual successor' to Baldurs' Gate, one of the finest RPG's ever made.

When will I find the time to play it??? :(

I'll post a couple of reviews to follow...

[J_Th4ng]

This is the lowest scoring review available on Gamerankings (80%): http://www.videogamer.com/pc/dragon_age/review.html


It is a giant leap back in time. It is an old school fantasy RPG for old school fantasy RPG fans. It is a 100 hour epic for those with the time and patience to experience it. It is a step in the wrong direction for some, but, for a chosen few, it is a step in the right direction.

Not for them is the third-person cover-based shooting of Mass Effect. Not for them are radial dialogue wheels. Not for them are cinematic camera angles and film grain effects. Not for them are trendy science fiction shotguns and power wheels mapped to controller shoulder buttons. For them, top down camera angles, text-based dialogue and spells and swords and rings and Dwarven chainmail are as welcoming as a camp fire set in an elven forest.

This is Dragon Age: Origins, BioWare's latest RPG epic. It is a game that modern day BioWare fans, schooled on the Canadian studio's skill in making console RPGs accessible without sacrifice, may have imagined as Mass Effect in Oblivion's clothes. They were wrong. Dragon Age is archaic. It is the spiritual successor to BioWare's own Baldur's Gate series, which last saw a release in 2001 with Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. It is a game that reeks of decade-old PC mechanics, both good and bad. It is a game designed for the mouse and keyboard interface of the PC, and for PC fans familiar with the genre's jargon. Pause-and-play combat, spell combinations, aggro, tanking, dispelling, buffing, ranged DPS, melee DPS, talents, skills, willpower, constitution, rogues, warriors, mages, humans, dwarfs, elves... for the Dragon Age fan these terms are as familiar as the simple act of clicking on a line of unspoken dialogue.

This is not to say Dragon Age is a poor game - it is superb, in fact. It sucks you in from the moment it begins, and, like the best page-turners, leaves an itch in your mind. In the shower, on the bus, at work, in meetings, over dinner, Dragon Age's gargantuan world is there, compelling you to return like an addict seeking a hit of relief.

This addiction sets in remarkably quickly, which is testament to the gravity of the game's opening. Your first act is a choice; one you know will affect all that follows. Which Origin story do I wish to play? There are six: human noble, magi, city elf, Dalish elf, dwarf commoner and dwarf noble. Your starting area, your first hour with the game, and how the game's many non-player characters react to you, is changed as a result of this choice. It's a remarkable effort on BioWare's part. If we were to score replayability, Dragon Age would get a 10.

I am Alexia, a female human noble. She is tall, beautiful and blonde. She favours coercion over brute force, despite her proficiency with one-handed blades and shields. She is a herbalist, able to concoct healing potions by combining flasks with Ferelden's many plants. She began her adventure as a warrior in training - fearsome, but privileged. Her family are aristocrats, admired and respected as members of the noble house Cousland. But their cosy peace is about to be shattered: there is a darkness coming. The Blight is here. The darkspawn, evil mutant monsters, wish to purge the land of all that is good and green. Some wish to ignore the threat; others, including the mysterious and powerful warriors known as the Grey Wardens, know the truth, for they faced the darkspawn hundreds of years ago. Their mission is to first convince the races of the world to mobilise for war, then send the darkspawn back into the hole from which they crawled.

Whatever your Origin story, you end up recruited into the Grey Wardens and fighting the darkspawn in the Battle of Ostagar. It is a scene airlifted from The Lord of the Rings' Battle of Helm's Deep: As the battle rages below the fortress' stone walls, as the night sky spews a relentless rain, you, along with three party members, head to a tower to signal a flanking force. Inside, darkspawn defend. You make your way to the top and slay an ogre. Blood and guts adorn your sword, armour and face. But aid does not come: You are betrayed as your ally turns its back on the battle. You escape, but only just. You find the Grey Wardens' good name tarnished - you are blamed for the defeat. From there, you set out to spread the truth and mobilise bickering factions into action. The darkspawn have arrived, and their fury will be without mercy.

It is a familiar setup, one high fantasy fans will have seen before. Indeed, Dragon Age is a familiar game, one that does nothing new or groundbreaking. The PC version (the version tested), is particularly old school, with a tooltip-based user interface and a panned-out top-down perspective - one the console versions do not include - for easier party micro-management. The combat is a brutal, bloody, and slow clash of steel and magic. The mechanics are as they were a decade ago. The space bar pauses combat - your four-man party frozen in time as you dish out precise actions. What buffs should I trigger? What abilities should I use? What spells should my mage cast? Where should I position my rogue? Who is tanking, and what? Dragon Age on PC is unforgiving. BioWare violates the Trades Description Act with its "Easy" difficulty setting. The game demands careful planning, flanking tactics and clever use of skills. A word of advice: quick save as often as your F5 button can withstand.

Dragon Age is best, however, outside of combat. There is no judgemental morality system to suffer, no Paragon or Renegade points to earn, no Light side or Dark side of the Force to turn to. This is refreshing, especially at a time when karma systems are in vogue. Without such statistic distractions, you're left to resolve quests with only your morals for company. Should I slay an entire race of werewolves at the behest of an Elven race whose favour I covet, or should I hear the beasts out? Should I send Morrigan, the wonderfully-voiced witch bitch mage, into the Fade in order to exorcise a boy from a demon - even if this will rob the child of his mother? If Dragon Age does one thing brilliantly, it is that there are no obvious right or wrong answers. When you reckon you've got the game sussed and have foreseen an outcome, that's usually an indication that events will take an unforeseen twist. The game often surprises you. NPCs are stubborn, unflinching in their ideals and realistic in emotion. Try as you might to resolve conflicts peacefully, sometimes there is no option but to draw your sword and stick it in someone's gut, even when that someone doesn't deserve it.

Your decisions affect not only the game's plot, but your relationship with your party members. Leliana, the girl-next-door rogue, approves of what you might consider "right" decisions. So does Alistair, the Templar warrior. But Morrigan, the aforementioned mage, has a mean streak. She favours chaos. Piss a party member off too often and they may desert you. Go even further and they may try to kill you. This adds risk to the acceptance of every quest and how you tackle it. If I take the time to help this random NPC out, will Morrigan disapprove? If I slay first and ask questions later, will Leliana be disappointed with me? Keeping everyone happy, massaging egos and dominating personalities, is the stuff of the Premier League manager, and a role-player's dream.

Why should I care? Sex. Yes, Dragon Age has sex. Lots of it, in fact. You can go to a brothel in Ferelden's capital and pay 50 silver to shag a human, an elf, or a dwarf, of any gender. Prostitution, however, is all too easy. There is no challenge. Bonking your party members is the true test of your sexual prowess. Strangely, this overshadows most other desires, including saving the world. This is your true motivation throughout your quest. Every action and decision boils down to this most basic and feral of desires: to shag. Dragon Age does not have a karma system; it has a sex system.

Unfortunately, sleeping with the object(s) of your affection is anti-climactic. The sex in Dragon Age is not sophisticated, hot or steamy. The game has an 18 rating, yet women keep their underwear on during sex. This is like the worst Hollywood sex scene: a pointless tumble where A-list actresses wear bras while simulating sex. It's not helped by the graphics, either. Dragon Age's sex scenes are horribly animated - Morrigan crawls around your tent like a turtle poking its head out of its shell. Faces contort as if skin is controlled by a puppeteer. The voice-acted moans and groans are the stuff of badly dubbed porn. Some will play Dragon Age purely for juvenile titillation, and the game will answer the call appropriately. And yet your sexual desire is mostly the result of genuine affection, cultivated over tens of hours spent conversing and courting and killing countless darkspawn.

The game's visuals are generally unimpressive. Bland isn't the correct term, nor is uninspiring - indeed the environments and characters are well detailed - it is more that there is a lack of variety and pizzazz. There is a sense that the many dungeons have been designed not by human beings with imaginations, but by complex computer programs with elaborate subroutines. Perhaps the game suffers from the bar set by BioWare's own Mass Effect, or perhaps it's the result of the game being over five years in the making. Whatever the reason, Dragon Age lacks the wow factor Mass Effect had in spades. It's a Lord of the Rings aesthetic, well executed but never jaw-dropping.

It's a fault easy to forgive, however, because the game is impossible to put down. Its world is so vast, engrossing and in depth that all but the most critical of fantasy RPG fans will find it irresistible. Your party members, all brilliantly voice-acting and with varied and interesting personalities and intriguing motives - steal the show. Levelling up comes rarely, which makes the geek-out pleasure of fussing over what to spend points on all the more potent. The world is huge, full of clever main quests and engaging head-scratchers. Combat sequences can last hours as you battle through overrun castles, underground caverns and trap-filled hideouts. There is always something to do, somewhere to go, people to speak to and monsters to slay - qualities that dull any disappointment the KOTOR-style linear structure might bring. The combat is always challenging, which more than makes up for the lack of variety. Dragon Age pushes the well-worn RPG buttons with such experience that fans of the genre will lose entire evenings to the game in what feels like a blink of an eye.

Others, however, will wonder what all the fuss is about. They will find the silent protagonist, aka you, a poor substitute for Commander Shepard's fully voice-acted third-person personality. They will find selecting unspoken lines of dialogue an evolutionary regression from Mass Effect's dynamic conversation wheel. They will find the combat requires a pause too often. In short, they will find the game… old. Of course Mass Effect fans are capable of enjoying Dragon Age - I am one myself. This is merely a warning. Do not buy the game expecting Mass Effect in Oblivion's clothes. Do not create a character expecting an adrenaline-pumping 20 hour Hollywood adventure. Do not pick a fight with an NPC expecting your skill with a targeting reticule to carry you to victory. You will die, quickly. "Your journey will end," as the game says, often.

Instead, expect hundreds of hours of fan service condensed into a familiar experience. With Dragon Age: Origins BioWare is giving something back to lovers of Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate. Its role-playing is superb, but not revolutionary. It is a fantasy RPG so obviously crafted for the PC that it seems pointless to consider playing it on an alternative platform. It is an experience as compelling as it is archaic. This trip back in time to the glory days of the PC is welcome, but it makes you appreciate the advances made by modern day RPGs Mass Effect and Fallout 3. They don't make them like they used to, grumpy 30-something PC gamers claim. BioWare does, and you should be grateful.

[J_Th4ng]

And from Gamespot (95%): http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dragonage/review.html


When was the last time you felt totally lost in a fantasy gameworld? When was the last time you played a game with such a well-crafted and enjoyable story that you knew you’d remember it for a long, long time? Dragon Age: Origins is that kind of game, so rich and involving that you are powerless to resist its wiles and whims, so touching and triumphant that your mind and heart will be moved. In the fictional land of Ferelden, you meet memorable characters and fight for a cause you believe in, and it's this backdrop that makes developer BioWare's newest role-playing game so extraordinary. Dragon Age is more than a well-crafted story, however: It's a lengthy, intricate, and thoroughly entertaining adventure that's easy to fall in love with.

Dragon Age's plot, which deals with the impending invasion of a horde of demonic creatures called the darkspawn, isn't where the story's biggest surprises lie. The shocks, the joys, and the disappointments spring from the repartee among a number of remarkable characters; they lurk within books of lore and stories of martyrs; and they burst forth during spine-tingling moments when you must choose from a selection of difficult choices that affect the tale's direction--and the way your associates interact with you. Ferelden is a colorful and fascinating kingdom that takes enough cues from well-known fantasy tropes to be familiar, but bends enough conventions to feel original. Dragon Age features dwarves, but their caste-based society and the social paragons that rise above it twist the norms enough to keep you intrigued. Mages remain under the constant watch of templars, a restriction that doesn't sit well with those who view such policing as virtual slavery. The role of religion in human circles is of particular note. Chantries provide refuge to those worshiping the all-powerful Maker, and chanters recite the holy word near their houses of prayer. But lest this world sound too serious, don't despair: One such disciple slides food references into her chant, and a few dwarves warn you not to fall into the sky. Small, humorous touches like this are plentiful. Even if you aren't the literary sort, Dragon Age may inspire you to read every note, every character bio, and every creature description, thanks to the richness of the world and the consistency with which it's presented.

You'll learn even more from the companions who join you, and you'll grow to care about them on your quest for glory. There's Morrigan, the cynical apostate mage bound to your cause for reasons that become clear only late in the journey; Sten, the strong, silent type who isn't so quick to reveal his innermost thoughts; and Zevran, a darkly mischievous would-be assassin with a wild streak and a playful disregard for the law. There are others too, including Alistair, a wisecracking, vaguely insecure member of the Grey Wardens, an elite group of champions that recruits you early on. Great dialogue and fantastic voice acting make these characters leap off the screen as if they were real friends, and the way they interact with one another feels authentic. Morrigan and Alistair banter about the role of templars in the lives of mages, and the sweetly devout Leliana tries to communicate with your trusty canine cohort in some amusing exchanges. You may even develop a romance (or two) before all is said and done. The course of love isn't always a smooth one, though it can be a bit steamy, in a PG-13 sort of way.

Relationships must be nurtured; in the world of Dragon Age, love doesn't develop at first sight. Rather, you must improve your standings with available party members by giving them gifts and fulfilling quests in ways that please them. Doing so opens more dialogue options and may even reward you with unexpected gifts beyond the private pleasures of your tent. Your personal relationships aren't all you need to worry about when facing a difficult decision, however. On significant quests, you'll encounter complex choices that force you to weigh the risks against the rewards, even as you try to stay true to your own vision of your character. Are werewolves heartless killers, or is there a method to their madness? Should you wholeheartedly embrace a political candidate, or will some unexpected information have you playing double agent--or just killing the opposition? Such open-ended quests have become staples in many similar RPGs, but few make these decisions feel so momentous. The anxiety that results when you encounter important choices is a result of superb writing and character development: When you care about your destiny, decisions have more weight.

Even Dragon Age's initial moments present important decisions that affect how your adventure plays out. You'll customize your own avatar's look from a variety of presets, but more importantly, you'll choose a race and class. The choices may seem initially limited, but your options eventually expand. Later, you can choose up to two subclasses once you reach the necessary level requirements, and there are a few different means of unlocking additional skill trees. Your initial race and class choices don't just determine the kinds of skills and spells you will have access to, however; they influence how the first few hours of the game progress. You will experience one of six different "origin stories" that follow the events that lead you to the elite Grey Wardens. Every origin story leads to the same place, but that doesn't mean you leave these events behind for good. Characters you met early on will cross your path again, and crucial moments of your origin story will continue to haunt you. The varied origin stories not only provide plenty of replay value, but allow you to see familiar characters from a different angle. A prisoner you meet within a dank dungeon may not have much impact on you if you are playing as a Dalish elf, but if you play as a human mage, this encounter is a bittersweet reunion.

You aren't a lone adventurer, however. You can take up to three companions along with you, and eventually you will meet more willing (or unwilling, as the case may be) darkspawn slayers. You can switch out party members back at your camp or in other friendly areas. Party members you don't use will remain at camp, though they thankfully level up even when you don't take them along. Your comrades aren't just AI-controlled henchmen; you can take full control of any party member at any time, though how you do so depends on the platform. PC owners get the most versatile and rewarding experience in this regard. You can zoom the camera in to a close third-person view when exploring and conversing with non-player characters, or pull the camera back to a tactical view, which makes it a breeze to quickly and easily micromanage every spell and attack, in true Baldur's Gate tradition. On consoles, you always view the action from behind a single character, and you use a shoulder button to switch among them. It's a great way of experiencing the buzz of battle, though occasional pathfinding quirks are more apparent in the console versions, simply because you experience the action from a single perspective at a time, rather than while managing four characters simultaneously.

If you've played a BioWare fantasy RPG in the past, you'll feel right at home with the combat system. By clicking on your target or pressing the attack button, you don't just swing a sword, but you approach your target and queue up your attack. Once your party has gained access to a good number of spells, stances, and skills, battlefields explode with bright colors and raucous sound effects, and it's a lot of fun to switch back and forth between party members, managing your abilities and taking advantage of various spell combos to wreak havoc. There are dozens of different types of enemies to slice up, from giant spiders and darkspawn, to ghosts and walking trees, to demons and, of course, dragons. Allies will join you in the biggest battles, and the best of these, particularly those toward the end of the game, are thrilling. On the PC, they're particularly challenging, and many battles benefit from frequent pausing and tactical thinking, so that you can queue up attacks across your entire party. The same battles on consoles are noticeably easier.

Nevertheless, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions have their challenges, and no matter which platform you choose, you can customize your cohorts' AI behavior to be more effective in battle. Using the tactics menu, you can set characters up to drink potions when their health gets low; have Morrigan cast helpful crowd-control spells when enemies are clustered together; and program sturdier characters to draw enemies' ire when more vulnerable party members are under attack. As you level up, you will earn additional tactics slots, allowing you to implement even more intricate actions. You can also apply basic behaviors to your team members, making them more aggressive or defensive, and you can switch them around on the fly if an experimental custom tactic isn't working as you intended. When things come together as you plan--such as when Morrigan freezes a hurlock in place and Alistair smashes it to smithereens--battles are even more rewarding.

All of these elements coalesce wonderfully, making for a memorable and exciting adventure that keeps you on the move. The flow of loot and pace of leveling are both highly satisfying, and because you have four active characters to consider (in addition to others back at the camp), you spend a lot of time poring over armor and weapon choices. The tempo is even quicker than the Dungeons & Dragons games that preceded Dragon Age, thanks to important tweaks that minimize downtime. For example, you do not need to rest between encounters to replenish your health and recharge your spells. Instead, health and stamina are replenished quickly once the skirmish ends, allowing you to string encounters together without unwanted breaks in between. Should a party member fall during battle, he or she will be resuscitated once the battle has ended, albeit with a stat penalty applied (though it can be cured with an injury kit). These factors, and more, give Dragon Age an excellent sense of forward direction.

All the spells, tactics, and skills sound like a lot to organize, but the interface does a great job of helping you keep track of things. The PC interface is brilliant, letting you browse through your inventory and tweak your quickbars quickly and easily. The console versions do a surprisingly great job as well, making it simple to sort through your quests, and to queue up actions while battle is paused. One particularly useful feature is the ability to identify inventory items as trash and sell them all with a single button press once you're back in town. There are some console-specific interface irritations that could have been cleaner, however. For example, identifying new codex (that is, lore) entries can be troublesome, because the list doesn't scroll down until your highlight cursor reaches the bottom of the window. As a result, you can't always distinguish new entries from old ones, which is an issue that doesn't plague the fantastic PC interface. The consoles' radial menu, on the other hand, is an excellent way of letting you access every battle skill, and it works somewhat like the similar interface in Mass Effect--albeit with a few more layers.

The differences between versions aren't limited to the interface. Dragon Age doesn't look amazing on the PC, but it's an attractive game nonetheless. Zooming from an isometric view to a third-person perspective is slick, and while environments don't hold up quite as well when viewed up close, they're consistently lovely when viewed from above. On the flip side, the Xbox 360 version looks positively disappointing. Textures are highly compressed and colors are washed out, though the upside is that this version maintains a smoother frame rate than on the PlayStation 3, where things might get jittery when swiveling the camera around. The PlayStation 3 version features higher-quality textures than those on the Xbox 360, better color saturation, smoother facial animations, and shorter load times. Minor visual hiccups, like corpses that disappear and reappear, are a bit more common on the PS3, however. The PC version is the superior experience, but if you're choosing between the two console releases, the PlayStation 3 has the upper hand. Some minor glitches are shared between the console versions, however, such as rare occasions when the soundtrack or voice-overs disappear. We also ran into a few quest malfunctions that could be replicated on all three platforms, though they were relatively minor and did not interfere with the progress of the main quest.

No matter which version you choose, however, there are plenty of audiovisual details to note. In many ways, Dragon Age looks and sounds like other high-fantasy games, but while the towers, forest paths, and underground caverns are what you've seen before, the art style is attractive, and a few sights, such as an underground dwarven city, are particularly eye-catching. Character models don't exhibit Mass Effect-level expressiveness, but they look good and animate smoothly enough. Also of note are the splatters of blood that appear on your party members after battle. It's a nice idea, but the splotches look like they've been splashed across you with a paintbrush. The crimson stains are a cool thematic touch, however, because blood plays an important role in Dragon Age. The sound effects are excellent, console glitches notwithstanding, and the soundtrack, while typical for a fantasy game, swells and murmurs at all the right moments.

Few games are this ambitious, and even fewer can mold these ambitions into such a complete and entertaining experience. You might spend 50 or more hours on your first play-though, but there are so many paths to follow, so many details to uncover, and so many ways to customize your party that you'll want to play again as soon as you finish the first time. PC owners even get an extra dash of depth via the downloadable toolset, which lets you create new levels, spells, skills, and even cutscenes. But any way you slice it, here's the fantasy RPG you've been waiting for, the one that will keep you up late at night, bleary-eyed, because you have to see what happens next. Like the best fiction, Dragon Age will sweep you up in its world, so much so that when you're done, you'll want to experience it all over again.

[Stu]

I have just gone through the review on Gamespot and it received an editors choice award!

It also seems that Gamespot also feel that you get the best bang for your buck with this game... This I can understand such as Oblivion where there is SO much more playability in that game.

I know what you mean... But I have bought my title for the month and I will have to settle for Dragon Age in December or at a later stage...

But as you know Drag finding the time to put into titles like this is becoming increasingly more difficult as life gets on. I think I need to win the lottery, retire and then write useless game reviews for the rest of my days while spending a copious amount of time playing games... :psycho:

[J_Th4ng]

I think I need to win the lottery, retire and then write useless game reviews for the rest of my days while spending a copious amount of time playing games...


You'd need to learn how to write first...

Actually, I see you had that covered with the word 'useless', although you may want to change it to 'illegible' :p

[Stu]

^ ^ ^

I've noticed the older ppl get the more anal retentive they become...