Dragon age is coming...1 week.

[YOY]

Are you ready for Bioware's latest? A supposed spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate?

Preordered and ready to rock on Steam.

[Joe the Liberal]

1. I can't wait.....

Bioware makes really good games, Mass Effect to Star Wars KotOR are some of my personal favorites. From what I've seen Dragon Age is looking pretty good, if it's anything like their previous work I may just buy it.

[YOY]

2. I'll let you guys know by tomorrow. I may take the day off...

I doubt it though...

[Joe the Liberal]

3. Looking forward to it. n/t

[YOY]

4. Oh where oh where do I start??? ...It's good...it's VERY good.

Well, they said it's Baldur's Gate's "spiritual successor"...yes. Yes it is. IT feels a whole lot like BG without that old familiar 2nd Ed D&D mechanic that reminds me so much of my teen years and also it's not set in Faerun...it's not really set in anything D&D would dare...

Game play is very similar to BG I and II. Although it is 3d and you can move that camera to wherever you'd like. I perfer an isometric view but you can really zoom in on the action. You can't zoom too far out though...I kind of dislike that. The skill tree is a little different but not overtly complex. THere are only 3 races and 3 classes you can pick from but there is certainly a lot of focus on specializing both personally and with "elite" kits. Combat works similar to BG and the tactics settings are much easier to pre-program...but frankly I hate auto tactics myself.

The music...Celtic...sad and mournful is perfect...much like as much of the plot as I have witnessed. I started the game as the "human noble" and am playing as my goody goody self. I've seen my whole family butchered (save my older brother who still does not know of their fate...but his wife and child were slaughterd...I have to deliver the news myself when I see him) by an envious lord I am traveling to see (what I fear will be) the last stand of a king who thinks his army has the upper hand when the enemy army is most likely 10 times as large as he thinks it is.

Compared to the brightness of BG I and II this is really dark. BG was fantastic with some dark moments but they never felt too realistic for the sake of being fictional fantasy...just like all D&D. This one has Tragedy, sadness, ignorance, hatred, sin, begging for forgiveness...great storytelling elements...and it's dark in places WoC/Hasbro/TSR would never let D&D go...blood spatters on you and your party after fights. It stays for story elements afterward too. Gritty look.

The baddies are well beyond "orcs and goblins" although they look the part. They are really twisted elves, men, and dwarves. THey look fugly...I am not too sure just how many types they are...I suspect this game may not have a ton of types but so far I haven't noticed. BG had this habit of throwing in an oddball monster every now-and-the like a Carrion Crawler or an Ettin even if they weren't part of the central story. (Shame on you if you know what those are.)

Interestingly the world forsakes pantheons of gods for a weird sort of monotheism centered around "The Maker". Worship of the maker (who much like the real world never actually shows up and is mostly myth) revolves around repenting and begging forgiveness for imagined sins...reminds me of Catholic School but it does send a tone of Dark Ages bleakness.

I have only witnessed 2 of the "regular" NPCs: my loyal Mabari war dog and Alastair...a cocky and smart assed "Templar" (Basically they kill the mages when they get possessed) I anticipate some serious characters. Apparently you can have up to 4 in your party (a major complaint...sorry Bioware but 6 is the ideal number) there are more than a few "temporary NPCs" in addition to a crew of characters that become your "main followers". So far I have seen temporary part members including a house knight, my own mother, 2 other candidates for the "Grey Wardens" (an elite club of protectors that enlisted me), and a mage I rescued. THey won't gain levels but they are needed to help kill them thar baddies! A vast improvement over Jade Empire (I loved the characters but there were so few and the party was only 3 big (you and 2 NPCs) if I recall correctly. Also an improvement over Mass Effect which had great environment and NPCs...but jeeze half the time I spent running around in the fricking space station with only 2 other characters in my party...

The voice acting is GOOD. I expect nothing less from Bioware. They do not fuck around. I hope they have the banter like in BG. I loved it when we were adventuring and then a semi-lewd conversation pops up between the psychotic dwarf and the halfling pseudo-paladin.

I don't think I have even scratched the surface here...it's complex and it changes by which one of the 6 origins you pick. I have a feeling this one has some massive fricking replayability.

I so fucking WISH this company released a new game every 1/2 year to year.

So far I am giving it 9 out of 10 and that missing 10 is for the party size.

[RoyGBiv]

5. Thanks for this ...

There goes the next couple months of my life. :)

[semillama]

6. Great review !

You just convinced me this game has to go on my xmas wish list this year.

[YOY]

7. If you buy one RPG game this year, this is it.

If you buy two: Fallout 3. I really don't want to compare too much...they're both very very good. So far I have not seen sandbox action like FO3 though.

[semillama]

8. I liked FO3 but I encountered a personal problem when replaying it

I just found myself not getting into it as much as the first time around. In fact, I haven't picked up the game in months. I played the hell out of Oblivion, so I'm not sure why I'm having a hard time with FO3, but I do get a general feeling that I've seen a lot of the landscape and done a lot of missions, so maybe the novelty wears off sooner with FO3. Of course, I also have a baby in the house now, which makes it more difficult to play long game sessions, too, and so it's very hard to get absorbed into the game world as I was able to with Oblivion and Morrowind.

[YOY]

9. I could never finish Oblivion. Just didn't like it.

I have yet to replay FO 3. You may be right. Then again I found the game creepy as fuck since I happen to live around the "Tricycle Factory".

[Ignis]

10. I started reading your review, but ...

I had to stop and go buy the game before I finished. :D

I'll be back in a week...maybe two....

[YOY]

11. May A. forgive me for what I have done to you!

n.t.

[Ignis]

12. It's worse than you think.

I got the collector's edition because they were out of the regular one.

:blush:

[YOY]

13. So did I...Steam.

:rofl:

Wotcha think? What's A think?

[romana]

14. Loving it

I'm loving it so far. It's definitely the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate II (a game I loved more than pie).

[YOY]

15. Deeper in I see more flaws...still a 9 out of 10 though.

The inventory system is idiotic...sorry Bioware. A diamond and a suit of plate mail take up the same place. Looting was an afterthought as random loot gets dropped as opposed to say....all the baddies drop exactly what they were equipped and I have to use my eyes to get the good stuff like in BG. A patch could fix that...

The quicktabs need about 10 more slots. There is room. Maybe this is possible but I haven't figured out how to yet.

The AI seems to drop the ball and stop doing what I told them to do...alot. It does keep my on my toes for the next order on second thought.

The story is still fantastic. Utterly so. The depth of the NPCs is just wonderful. The music is GRRRREAT!

[romana]

16. Inventory

Yeah, I liked NWN's weight system for inventory much better, even if I managed to get over-encumbered a lot of the time. DA:O's inventory stacking seems to be finicky as well. Also, has anyone discovered they can't put more than one type of health poultice in the quick bar? I wanted to put a Lesser Health Poultice, and a Health Poultice in and it wouldn't let me. Was this by design to keep those slots open for other things?

Despite this, however, I'm loving the game. Loving, loving, loving!

[YOY]

17. Really? I can use a lesser and a regular in two seperate tabs.

Are you on the PC or console version?

[romana]

18. PC version

PC, and I figured it out. Must not have lined the icon up carefully enough when I tried to drag it down.

[YOY]

19. Won it.

I committed the "Ultimate Sacrifice"...screw you Morrigan...you don't use YOY...but that was some sexy sexy sorceress bootay...

[YOY]

20. kickle

[ZombieHorde]

21. I just got the game. I am loving it so far.

The graphics suck, but the game is great.

[realisticphish]

22. it looks like

they may be inverting those two factors for the next one...

[ZombieHorde]

23. Awesome graphics with bad gameplay?

What have you heard?

[realisticphish]

24. well, first of all

you are now "Hawke," a male or female human. Setting aside the ridiculous name, I do not like the removal of choice about your backstory. One of the best parts of DA:O was the variety of origin stories.

A lot of people who have tested it are calling it "Dragon Effect." Now, I LOVE Mass Effect, but Dragon Age was something different for me. I won't judge until I play it (because, yes, I will play it), but I keep hearing hints that it will be a shorter game. Things like, "the world in DA:O was so big, the graphics were hard to nail down, but this time it will be much better" (paraphrased)

Things like that make me VERY worried. I will ALWAYS sacrifice graphics for gameplay and depth.

On the other hand, they did a great job of taking almost everything wrong with ME1 (which was quite a bit, honestly) and fixing it in ME2. THEY ACTUALLY LISTENED TO GAMERS. So maybe it'll turn out fine, I dunno

[romana]

25. ME1 to ME2

I liked a lot of the story in ME1 but I absolutely loathed and despised the Mako. I was so happy they got rid of that for ME2, and it's been a far better game because of it.

Played through DA:O as a paladin, now playing it through as a mage. Mage is way more fun.

[realisticphish]

26. I didn't like the mage

too boring; a lot of running around gulping potions and pecking at people. I know you can eventually get uber powerful, but it was just tedious at first; I hit level ten, got the achievement, and changed it up. I did like being an archer, so it's not just the range thing.

the Mako was my fucking nemesis. Before the patch, though, ME2's mineral scanning came close. Now, it's a hell of a lot better.

[romana]

27. Mind bomb

Mind bomb and Inferno made Mage totally fun for me! :) You get mind bomb fairly early.

I didn't get ME2 until after the patch. I kind of like mineral scanning--it's oddly soothing and a nice break from the action.

[realisticphish]

28. oh man

before the patch, it was a nightmare. It took about 5-6 full minutes of careful scanning on each planet. It moved as fast as a glacier, and the target size was tiny.

It was ok at first, but eventually your fingers start to hurt from holding buttons down for so long