Game News Dragon Age: Fantasy Event of 2009

[Jason]

Tags: BioWare; Dragon Age

The day thousands of Marilyn Manson fans, people desperate for Baldur's Gate 3, and Volourn have eagerly awaited is here - <b><a href="http://dragonage.bioware.com/" target="blank">Dragon Age</a></b> launch day. Besides being the <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?show=1167" target="blank">"fantasy event of 2009,"</a> it also heralds the arrival of a buttload of reviews. For starters, there's <a href="http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=226557" target="blank">PC Gamer</a> (9.4), <a href="http://pc.ign.com/articles/104/1041792p1.html" target="blank">IGN</a> (9.0), <a href="http://pc.ign.com/articles/104/1040976p1.html" target="blank">IGN UK</a> (9.2), <a href="http://www.giantbomb.com/dragon-age-origins/61-20738/reviews/" target="blank">Giant Bomb</a> (5/5), <a href="http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dragonage/review.html" target="blank">Gamespot</a> (9.5), and <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/dragon-age-origins-review?page=1" target="blank">Eurogamer</a> (8/10). The reviews are primarily positive, as can be seen from the scores, but the less adoring Eurogamer article is the one that stuck in my head:
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<blockquote>Meaningful choices are lost in a near-infinite number of meaningless ones, consequences are only vaguely defined before the fact, and the cold machinations of the cast stir admiration for the game's clever, systematic plotting, but seldom emotion. Uninvolved, you make calls with your head and not your heart, and you never feel like you can escape the gravitational pull of the game's design the way you can in, for example, Bethesda's RPGs.
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It's a shame, because there are fascinating alternate routes through Dragon Age to be discovered. Getting a sense of them halfway through your run through the game, you conceive a desire to play it again to explore its possibilities with more freedom and foreknowledge - and it's true that despite running 50 to 100 hours in length, this game has tremendous replay value.
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But any desire to play it again is ultimately squashed, for many reasons which can be boiled down to one. Although the systems which make up Dragon Age's world are all interesting and well-realised - the companion interaction, the plotting, the character progression, the combat - the world itself is neither.</blockquote>

 

[CrusaderTemplar]

What's up with the fucking loading time. It felt like 5 minutes.

 

[thesheeep]

Seems like a good game to me.

Will get it once the price drops

 

[bhlaab]

What's up with the fucking loading time. It felt like 5 minutes.

It's loading stuff during it

 

[Freelance Henchman]

So I herd dis game sux.

 

[The Vanished One]

you never feel like you can escape the gravitational pull of the game's design the way you can in, for example, Bethesda's RPGs.

 

[Fens]

was innocently looking for a new yahtzee video (i swear) and stumbled upon a review for dragon age on the escapist:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... ge-Origins

especially awesome bit after the "10 hours and my head is full" treatment that risen got there:

"As of the time of this writing I've played the game for just over 30 hours and, according to the game, I've explored less than a third of the game worlds. Even at that my quest log is filled with over a dozen open quests. One side mission took nearly 10 hours to complete and was enough of an adventure that it would have been worth the price of an entire game."

oh... and he didn't finish it before writing a review of course...

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

excepting the final statement(but it's not imotivated, it kinda sounds dumb), i don't think choosing with the brain and not being able to play bunny around the woods and explore random stupid dungeons outside of the real drama are flaws.

I don't like free-roaming bullshit, i want linear narrations. Mass Effect's free-roaming bits really sucked, it was a good move off Bio's to scratch those.

Edit. Well, meaningless choices aren't good either.

 

[youhomofo]

So I herd dis game sux.

So I herd ur mum sux.



Sux on penises that is. HUR HUR HUR

 

[jiujitsu]

you never feel like you can escape the gravitational pull of the game's design the way you can in, for example, Bethesda's RPGs.

This completely discredits the reviewer. Dragon Age is far superior to Bethesda action games with stats.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

volourn is too busy fapping to the DA secks scenes to comment.

 

[CrusaderTemplar]

I was enjoying the 10 minute loading screens.

 

[kris]

I was enjoying the 10 minute loading screens.

In DA?

 

[Dandelion]

Seems like a good game to me.

Maybe even more then good.
Maybe, in the era of shitty fake-RPGs, a game that IS a RPG indeed.

Leaving aside the in-depth and difficult combat, the really good atmosphere (graphic, sound, codex, cinematic feeling), the longevity, it's a game that ALSO has an unusually valid roleplaying component, featuring tons of different dialogues (with different vo), events, quests paths determined by your choice of dialogue lines, sex\race\skills of your character, your actions (and priority of them).

This is a fucking good RPG..and I don't see one since...bloodlines?
Just preordered for 31€.

 

[dragonfk]

Slowly I come to a impression that RPGCodex should apologise Gaider for bad treatment. Seems that even in todays flood of Action RPGs we finally got something worth playing.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Slowly I come to a impression that RPGCodex should apologise Gaider for bad treatment.

If he can't stand the heat he should get out of the kitchen.

 

[kris]

Slowly I come to a impression that RPGCodex should apologise Gaider for bad treatment. Seems that even in todays flood of Action RPGs we finally got something worth playing.

Whoever did treat him bad won't apologise and the others have no reason too. Talking about that, seems like "Warden" vanished, guess he is enjoying the game

 

[Ogg]

The game has been delayed in Europe. At least in box format, due to a problem with some DVD it seems. Digital distribution is unchanged though.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Fuck year, at least one good thing about digital delivery then.

 

[WDeranged]

Slowly I come to a impression that RPGCodex should apologise Gaider for bad treatment.

If he can't stand the heat he should get out of the kitchen.

If the plan to slowly turn himself into a dainty little woman goes well then the kitchen is the best place for him

 

[draexem]

but the less adoring Eurogamer article is the one that stuck in my head:

Written by the same guy who is convinced of Bethsoft's genius, not because he played much of Oblivion (apparently not really his style). No, he was convinced of Bethesda's genius after listening to his friend go on and on about it. He's now so convinced that he contributed to the page on Eurogamer stating that Bethesda is the 3rd best game of all time. His contribution stated that he didn't play the game much, but he's convinced about Bethesda's genius because a friend told him so.

Honestly? I barely played it. I'm just not one for that lonely-sociopath-in-a-cruel-world thing that Bethesda does so well. But I was fascinated when a friend told me how he completely ignored the main thrust of the game, choosing instead to play through the Dark Brotherhood side-quest to completion - and then he left it there, completely satisfied with this deft little whodunnit. That it gave him the freedom to play what he wanted, how he wanted and then move on, without succumbing to videogames' chronic, goal-oriented OCD - that's all the evidence of Oblivion's genius I need.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/eurog ... cle?page=3

Quality Dragon Age review from a quality reviewer