Review Vault Dweller reviews Dragon Age

[Chinese Jetpilot]

(spoiler) speech before charging into the Darkspawn horde - terrible lines with some of the worst deliverance of all time.

That was pretty bad, but plausible; she is royalty after all, and most likely aloof. She would have no idea how to inspire men before they go into battle. I will say it can't be worse than the speech given by one of the commandos on Virmire in Mass Effect ("the line held"). One of the most uninspiring I've ever heard. For future consideration, Bioware really should just modify one of Thucydides speeches

During a second playthrough, and as crazy as it sounds, I couldn't help but think the game would have been far better if it were designed in a sort of hybrid Kingdom Under Fire/Dynasty Warriors/traditional Bioware game mold, particularly with regards to the themes present throughout the game. Civil wars, invasions, etc are very serious perturbations, and I don't think a traditional RPG framework can do those kinds of themes serious justice (or with great difficulty). At the very least, it would have greatly reduced enemy combat every 10 meters that plagues the game.

 

[Ogg]

Besides, I once again don't see a word on the fact that, for a warrior most peculiarly, character development is quite straight forward. Once you've decided wich spcialization you'll take (damage dealer or tank), you know you'll end up with all the talents of your group and that's it.

And? That's a lot of talents and using the talents effectively can make quite a difference.

What word don't you understand in "character development"?

Yes, that's all I wanted to add.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Good review. Mentions points about the game instead of telling me it rox / sux. Nosy reviewers just make me skip the paragraph, in a feverish search for actual info

 

[KalosKagathos]

Well....

First, the difficulty on Normal isn't very high. If you can't beat 95% of the game's fight on Normal without a mage - any mage - than you aren't a very good player. It's hard to reach any other conclusion.

I'm pretty bad at RTwP, I won't deny it. I did feel that the game became significantly easier with Morrigan aboard, though.

Like I said the game gives you plenty of tactical options and with a bit of thought and planning, you can mow through everything the game throws at you.

And what options are they? Warriors and rogues can disable an enemy for a couple of seconds and manage aggro (what the hell is aggro doing in a single player RPG, anyway?), but you need a mage if you want real crowd control options. Then there are archers who can turn the life of a mage-less party into a living hell.

Second, you have Wynne, who provides the opposite personality if Morrigan is too bitchy for you.

Wynne is a healer, something that I didn't really need. My rogue had several points in stealing and herbalism, which allowed me to buy and brew a lot of healing potions. Sure, I could give her more useful spells like hexes, Paralysis or the sleep line, but she wouldn't feel like, well, Wynne then. Glyphs and Grease are nice, but they alone don't quite cut it.

Third, when a game provides you with party members, it's always hard to get exactly what you want (which is a very subjective experience).

Shale, Oghren and Leliana are three companions that I could tolerate. Unfortunately, a party of two warriors and two rogues isn't particularly effective in combat.

If you feel that you must have a mage in your party and you can't stand Morrigan, then restart the game as a mage.

That's what I eventually did, but that's bullshit, isn't it? Party members are the ones who complement my character, not the other way around.

 

[denizsi]

Now if BioWare could only learn to design normal women instead of these bee-stung-lipped freaks we'd be getting somewhere.

Wynne looks and talks like any normal person so far, being a female character.

 

[Ogg]

Now if BioWare could only learn to design normal women instead of these bee-stung-lipped freaks we'd be getting somewhere.

Wynne looks and talks like any normal person so far, being a female character.

Sure...

 

[sheek]

Magic powers? I thought Morrigan was an interesting character actually. only ones I can't stand are Alistair and Leliana sometimes.

Leliana is actually a bigger problem, being the only rogue / companion in the entire game who can pick locks (zevran will neverpick the hardest locks). As a Reaver/Warrior I lost Wynne and almost Leliana (invested heavily in coercion).

I could have been left forced to take morrigan and zevran for the rest of the game. There are too many fighter companions who are totally interchangable, not enough of the other two classes.

 

[Lesifoere]

(spoiler) speech before charging into the Darkspawn horde - terrible lines with some of the worst deliverance of all time.

That was pretty bad, but plausible; she is royalty after all, and most likely aloof. She would have no idea how to inspire men before they go into battle.

If you make him king, a certain character gives the exact same horrible speech. I assume that if you're a human noble and make yourself king/queen, you too will give the exact same dumb speech.

And DA:O will probably win story of the year on GB, and probably deservedly so.

"Deservedly"? Good lord, no. As Gragt pointed out, sit down and give The Void a try.

 

[denizsi]

If you make him king, a certain character gives the exact same horrible speech. I assume that if you're a human noble and make yourself king/queen, you too will give the exact same dumb speech.

But it won't be the same because the PC doesn't have voice acting!

 

[Tolknaz]

http://nofunallowed.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/dragon-age-is-the-new-shit-review/

this is the best da review anyway

That "reviewer" is (probably unintentionally) a fucking comedian though...

First of all I’m playing on Hard
For example, the first Boss you fight, the Ogre. Its impossible to win without perfectly picked skills or without enough potions, seriously.
The difficulty can get really high at some points, even at the beginning.
You have different backgrounds depending on the race or the class, even if some don’t make much sense, like Noble rogue.
And you have all the well known fantasy races: Human, elf and dwarf plus a non very original new one, the Qunari. Pretty much big humans.

 

[Elwro]

@ Twinkle

"It's not my problem that BioWare can't write a high-tech engine, offering Aurora with shadurs instead. The fact that you can easily mow down the darkspawn without "army"'s assistance only contributes to an anticlimatic feel of a battle for Denerim."

Do yourself a favor and never, ever play Dark Sun: Shattered Lands.

You'd consider the final battle "anticlimactic"? Really? I'd say it may be quite easy for someone who planned his party knowing everything about the game from the start, but I'd expect a newcomer to have big problems with it. Or are saying that the whole idea of the battle is anticlimactic?

 

[Brother None]

And DA:O will probably win story of the year on GB, and probably deservedly so.

"Deservedly"? Good lord, no. As Gragt pointed out, sit down and give The Void a try.

I'm a huge fan of Pathologic. And I mean huge, and from before the days when Rock Paper Shotgun made it hip for snobs to like Pathologic. I haven't tried the Void yet because, well, I want to make sure I can sit down and give it its due time.

It's a survival horror, tho', genre-wise. Pathologic might've inched into consideration with its scant RPG elements, but probably not, The Void is not up for awards on GameBanshee.

As you said, their reputation is pretty much unbreakable and no mainstream journalist will dare to go against that by fear of becoming unpopular — also those people have the bad tendency to come up with the wrong arguments when they do go against the flow. So my guess is that as long as Bioware doesn't make some outrageously stupid move, and then all those same people who praise them will jump on the same bandwagon, they will still be viewed as best video games storytellers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not expressing an elitist opinion that BioWare's mode of storytelling is "wrong" and all games should be super-intelligent like Pathologic, or even that games like Pathologic should be put on a higher shelf for that intelligence than BioWare.

I'm saying BioWare's own grasp on storytelling is slipping, and rather than becoming better with the years, they're becoming worse.

 

[Black Cat]

@ Elwro

Ow, sorry. My bad, i was taking in consideration that entire line of, like, exchanges about that thingie but only quoted the last one.

"The whole "army" stuff is just laughable - four beggars in your camp + 30-40 soldiers at once in the final battle who are nothing but a cheap meatshield. All "mass" fights are relegated to the pre-rendered cutscenes and thus irrelevant to actual gameplay. "

""It's not my problem that BioWare can't write a high-tech engine, offering Aurora with shadurs instead. The fact that you can easily mow down the darkspawn without "army"'s assistance only contributes to an anticlimatic feel of a battle for Denerim."

His concern about the whole army business being just a joke, the big battles happening only in cutscenes, and engine limitations affecting how relevant the massive fights are to the gameplay could be pretty well said about Shattered Lands. The final, epic battle between the alliance and the evil army thingie is your party plus three non player character heroes representing the three armies versus several waves of evil stuffies while text pop ups try to immerse you in the idea of you fighting a massive, epic battle.

But, like, we are playing role playing games. The final battle in Shattered Lands would totally not have been better if there were thirty thousands of non player characters rolling dice against some humongous army of evil thingies and stuffies. It would have been worse: Role playing games do not have the mechanics for that kind of stuffie, and even most pen and paper system that actually have some kind of massive battle mechanics involved usually abstract it a lot and then get the player characters in events from which they can affect the big picture, so in the end it is reduced to fights among player character and non player character allies against villains, subvillains, and nameless minions while the game master tries to immerse you into the idea thousands of guys and gals and trannies are dying all around for the glory of whatever.

If anything Bioware did it wrong by throwing large amounts of crap enemies instead of making it a fight among the, like, officers of your army and the strong evil dudes and dudettes of the evil thingie, throwing in some cinematics here and there with lots of guys going for the emperor and freedom and that kind of thingie.

It is totally not fair to say Bioware suck because of, like, what he mentioned when not even many pen and paper role playing games do it better. Do not misunderstand me: Bioware usually sucks a lot, and stuffies and thingies. But they do not suck a lot because they decided to abstract the epic battles or had not the technical prowess to make, like, Total War scale battles from the perspective of a role playing game.

Though now that i see it from this point and perspective and stuffies... My memory is kind of fuzzy, but wasn't get four allies and fight the evil army thingie Shattered Lands plot thingie too? DX I smell inspiration, nya.

 

[Gay-Lussac]

" I don't give a shit really. The game is bad. I didn't enjoy it. "

Nobody worthwhile gives a shit if you didn't enjoy it. FFS Stupid tard thinks everytghing should be haned to him on a silver platter., FFS

FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS FFS

 

[Lesifoere]

I'm a huge fan of Pathologic. And I mean huge, and from before the days when Rock Paper Shotgun made it hip for snobs to like Pathologic. I haven't tried the Void yet because, well, I want to make sure I can sit down and give it its due time.

It's a survival horror, tho', genre-wise. Pathologic might've inched into consideration with its scant RPG elements, but probably not, The Void is not up for awards on GameBanshee.

Technically, I'd say The Void has as many RPG elements as say... Mass Effect. What the hell, you can level up. Sort of. No dialogue choices, alas.

I'm saying BioWare's own grasp on storytelling is slipping, and rather than becoming better with the years, they're becoming worse.

Sure, but I think that's something most people here at least can agree on, Princess and VD aside. Everything after KotOR, or even starting from NWN, has been getting blander and blander, more and more predictable. They've admitted it, though, I recall. Something like "yeah, our shit is just as formulaic as romance novels. We like it, deal."

 

[Volourn]

"zevran will neverpick the hardest locks)."

No true.



"Technically, I'd say The Void has as many RPG elements as say... Mass Effect. What the hell, you can level up. Sort of. No dialogue choices, alas."

Technically, you just proved hjow retarded youa re. You claim that the Void has as manyN RPG elements as ME but then admit it has no dialogue options which ME has IN SPADES. FFS You are dumb. Dialogue options is a huge part of rpg elements along with C&C (which ME has), and stats effecting game play 9which ME also has). Fucknutz.



"Everything after KotOR, or even starting from NWN, has been getting blander and blander, more and more predictable. "

Stop lying.

 

[Chinese Jetpilot]

Hey DarkUnderlord, when are you going to post mine?

How do you know they'll print it? You can walk...but how far if they don't print it?

If you make him king, a certain character gives the exact same horrible speech. I assume that if you're a human noble and make yourself king/queen, you too will give the exact same dumb speech.

I was being an apologist, but I acknowledge as much with their previous efforts. Though the person who shall not be named and cannot be named is certainly no better, abdicating a leadership role when the shit hits the fan. Maybe Bioware should pull a page from Rome Season 2's Octavian speech, "they owe us a great deal of money", and just go with that whenever the need arises for these inspirational speeches.

Everything after KotOR, or even starting from NWN, has been getting blander and blander, more and more predictable. They've admitted it, though, I recall. Something like "yeah, our shit is just as formulaic as romance novels. We like it, deal."

I think it goes beyond just them liking it, which I do believe is the case, but moreso they are tapped out creatively. I don't mean that as an insult, and I don't doubt they have creative people working for them, but figuratively speaking, they've made the same type of game for over a decade now. To give just one tiny example, they've gone from you taking the effort to find side quests and and at least coming up with some effort to interweave it within the main game, to you being beamed them upon entering a system, and now to have them on a job board somewhere (if you want to do fetch quests so bad, here they are!). They seem to be focusing their efforts on other aspects (main storyline, characters...okay, maybe not characters), but they refuse to get rid of this dead weight filler that they have clearly given up on, because its codified somewhere that RPG's have to have side quests and they must be 60 hours in game length. All that seems to do is expose the flaws in these games exponentially.

 

[sheek]

"zevran will neverpick the hardest locks)."

No true.

OK technically. He starts with 0 in lockpicking/"Deft Hands" tree, I found him at about level 13. If I spent no other talents it would take until level 17 for him to pick the best locks (most of them by that stage in the game). Leliana with lock picking level 4 and 20+ cunning failed to open some chests until recently (got some +dex/cunning amulets/gloves).

So yes choosing Reaver can kind of cripple your party.

 

[Volourn]

"they must be 60 hours in game length."

Must explain why JE, ME, and KOTOR were all 40 hours or less. LMAO



"You mean like the dialogue choices that lead to the same responses? "

Many don't.



"The Void has about as much C&C as ME does, by the way, not that I expect you to have played it or anything."

Don't need to. According to you, it doens't even dialogue options. So, let me guess. If you go right you fight x monster, and if you go left, you fight y monster? LMAO

Sorry, but if youa re trying to pimp The Void, youa re doing a piss poor job.

ME has dialogue, C&C, and stats that effect game play. That's the very defintion of role-playing.


"So you'd say you still find Bioware's writing scintillating and their plots a feat of one shock after another?"

I find their writing a lot better than it was in BG. That's for damn sure.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Besides, I once again don't see a word on the fact that, for a warrior most peculiarly, character development is quite straight forward. Once you've decided wich spcialization you'll take (damage dealer or tank), you know you'll end up with all the talents of your group and that's it.

And? That's a lot of talents and using the talents effectively can make quite a difference.

What word don't you understand in "character development"?

Yes, that's all I wanted to add.

Considering that most games have this problem, it's a bit pointless to bitch about it in DA.

In Fallout, for example, you don't have much to do with your skill points after getting your favourite weapon skill to 100 (which doesn't take long) and overall the character system is pretty weak. It seems to offer a lot, but half of the skills are useless. The best aspect is the perks.

In Witcher you end up getting all the skills and they are a lot less useful than DA talents. Same goes for KOTOR and all DnD CRPGs. In much loved Gothic and Risen the character system was always the weakest aspect.

Arcanum had the most interesting system but it was horribly broken. Etc.

 

[Volourn]

"BG1? That... doesn't take a lot. Are you delivering some backhanded praise or are you too self-unaware to realize?"

You claimed their writing is getting worse as time goes on. BG was their first RPG (I didn't even bother with SS or MDK2) so if you are claiming they're only getting worse that is presuming that their first - BG1 - was their best right?

Fuckin' moron.

 

[Ogg]

And what about wizardry or even DnD games?! DA:O being the spiritual successor of BG2 really fails here. I'm one of those who loved building their team in SoZ thanks to the great amount of option given. You keep comparing DA:O with action RPG. Do you regard as one? Then you didn't really make it clear in your review.

As for calling FO character system "pretty weak", I must take it as a trolling attempt.

 

[Lesifoere]

"BG1? That... doesn't take a lot. Are you delivering some backhanded praise or are you too self-unaware to realize?"

You claimed their writing is getting worse as time goes on. BG was their first RPG (I didn't even bother with SS or MDK2) so if you are claiming they're only getting worse that is presuming that their first - BG1 - was their best right?

Fuckin' moron.

No, sweetie. BG barely had any writing.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

I can't say anything bad about BG writing.

 

[Fowyr]

Though now that i see it from this point and perspective and stuffies... My memory is kind of fuzzy, but wasn't get four allies and fight the evil army thingie Shattered Lands plot thingie too? DX I smell inspiration, nya.

Two allies (villages) and one unexpected ally (shadows).
Strange, but final battle in Wake of the Ravager was pretty meh. Tarrasque was raped by two El's Drinkers. End of story.