Review Yet Another DA: Awakening Review

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: BioWare; Dragon Age

... or two reviews to be precise.
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ExplicitGamer gives an abysmal rating of 7.6/10. <a href="http://www.explicitgamer.com/blog/2010/03/dragon-age-origins-awakening-review/">They dare?</a>
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<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">Despite the fragmented story in Awakening, it was still rather fun to play. However the short play time, coupled with the various bugs and the generally uninteresting new characters make me think I paid too much for it. Charging Forty Dollars for less than Fifteen hours of gameplay is a bit on the absurd side. And putting it on a disc was a complete waste. I know it’s available as DLC as well, but that should have been the only place it was. And it should have cost no more than Twenty dollars, and even that’s a little bit of a stretch.
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<a href="http://www.explicitgamer.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Oghren_portrait.jpg">Oghren disapproves.</a>
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And 2404 <a href="http://www.2404.org/reviews/dragon-age-origins-awakening-review">rates it slightly better</a> with 8.1/10.
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<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">Still, when distilled down to its core, I did enjoy Awakening a little bit more than I did Origins. I found the focus in the story to be very strong, and I always felt like what I was doing was important or building towards some goal. Perhaps Origins would have benefitted from a bit more focus and less needless map screen marching, which still makes an appearance here but is far less annoying. I would love to describe and discuss the ending and my observations about the importance of the decisions you make within the game, but that would add far too many spoilers to a simple review (expect an upcoming blog discussion). Overall Awakening is an expensive but fun extension to a quality game and easily recommended to fans of the series.
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Did the Bio Intelligence Service forget to enforce proper ratings?
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/97409-dragon-age-origins-awakening-reviews.html">GB</A>

 

[Volourn]

A > O

 

[Wyrmlord]

Did the Bio Intelligence Service forget to enforce proper ratings?

The tragic truth is that there is no "buying off" of reviewers.

They really do write what was their honest impression of the game.

Should this have everyone concerned even more?

 

[DraQ]

Did the Bio Intelligence Service forget to enforce proper ratings?

Hitmen will be dispatched.

 

[Thrasher]

And new review sites just keep popping up. It's a virus of unprofessional journalism.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Did the Bio Intelligence Service forget to enforce proper ratings?

The tragic truth is that there is no "buying off" of reviewers.

They really do write what was their honest impression of the game.

Should this have everyone concerned even more?

In the U.S., reviewers are hired to write what some committee somewhere in its infinite wisdom believes that the masses want to read. Game magazines are a big business there, it's not something you do out of enthusiasm for games, something comparable to a hobby, like it used to be here. Nope. When you're doing big business, you don't hire people to write stuff that the masses don't want to read. People don't, in general, want to read that their favorite game sucked, or that something they thought sucked was actually a rare masterpiece they simply haven't got the brains to appreciate.

Of course, that's just the rosy-glasses version of the story, and only the happy part of it anyway.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

her is my review of it.

NWN 2:OC did it better.

The end.

 

[Volourn]

"her is my review of it.

NWN 2:OC did it better.

The end."

Bullshit. The end.

 

[Lothers]

DAO was solid but certainly not a classic. Awakening in Poland costs about $30, it's not that much but also not cheap (DoW2 costs $25) and only >15 hours of gameplay? I'll rather pass on this one.

 

[racofer]

At least Dragon Age is playable and polished unlike that piece of shit NWN2 Obsidiantard farted on a dvd.

 

[hoochimama]

Aside from the weak opening and quest-breaking bugs I liked it.

New and varied environments to see and felt like it had a lot less repetitive filler combat compared to the OC. Maybe because of that it also felt like I was doing quests and making choices that could have repercussions at a faster pace than I ever did in the OC.

The story is also more interesting than the one in the OC, although I wish the whole architect vs mother thing had a little more exposition especially near the end.

As for value it's worth noting that when DA came out I saw it sold in shops for over 70 euros, 40 bucks is more expensive than what I'm used to when it comes to expansions, but so was the original game.

Finished it at the 15 hour mark after doing every single side quest that popped up, making it more expensive than watching movies in a theater( considering 2.5hours per movie, 5 euros per ticket) up till this point I always thought rpgs won in that comparison.

 

[Micmu]

her is my review of it.

NWN 2:OC did it better.

The end.

NWN 1:OC did it better. That huge of a shit dragon garbage is.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

"her is my review of it.

NWN 2:OC did it better.

The end."

Bullshit. The end.

The keep in NWN2 was better implemented then the retarded keep we get in Awakening and there for it is better.

The end.

PS. Bring cake.

 

[Sceptic]

NWN 1:OC did it better. That huge of a shit dragon garbage is.

I draw the line here. DAO and A are still better than the total clusterfuck that was NWN1 OC.

 

[Micmu]

Bullshit.

Stop the lies, start the truth.

 

[Volourn]

"Awakening in Poland costs about $30, it's not that much but also not cheap (DoW2 costs $25)"

OMFG A whole $5 difference! CALL THE PRESSES CALL THE PRESSES CALL THE PRESSES


"The keep in NWN2 was better implemented then the retarded keep we get in Awakening and there for it is better."

Not by much considering NWN2 OC was a full game. On top of that, there's a lot to mroe both games than just the retarded keeps. Moran.


I do love all the bragging about speed gaming. Hilarious!

 

[Nightjed]

Did the Bio Intelligence Service forget to enforce proper ratings?

The tragic truth is that there is no "buying off" of reviewers.

They really do write what was their honest impression of the game.

Should this have everyone concerned even more?

I can give you some evidence they are at least buying metacritic, go there and try to post a negative user comment, it will never get posted

im pretty sure they paid to freeze the comments when they were averaging 8, every other game has hundreds of comments, Awakening (PC) has 36 and that number has been frozen for at least a month

ive noticed other games with suspiciously low user comment count and in all those games the user average is about the same as the review average

 

[Sceptic]

OMFG A whole $5 difference! CALL THE PRESSES CALL THE PRESSES CALL THE PRESSES

If we were comparing two full games or two expansions I'd agree with you. A full game and an expansion being priced the same is already taking the piss. The expansion being more expensive, even by 5 cents, is just ridiculous.

 

[Volourn]

No. Value is not about expansion vs full game fucktard.

It's why going to the theatre is $10 while renting the same fuckin' movie for 3 days is $5. FFS

 

[Sceptic]

So you think that you should pay the same price for watching a movie on a cinema screen vs watching it on your TV?

Sometimes I don't understand you Volly.

 

[Jaesun]

 

[Volourn]

"So you think that you should pay the same price for watching a movie on a cinema screen vs watching it on your TV?"

Same fuckin' movie. And, the experience is muchw orse in the theatre iwth the bullshit munching, the whiny babies, the slurping of gosspinjg abotut he movie while youa re trying to watch, or the inability to jerk off to some sexys cene without jdugemental freaks eyeing you in disgust.

Fuck that shit.

It's why it's been 6+ years since I've been to the theatre despite being bugged to go.

FFS

 

[Thrasher]

oh, right, who would bug you... bugger maybe...

 

[hoochimama]

Jerking off right there in the theater deprives the film developers of potential DVD sales, it's fapping piracy.

 

[DraQ]

Heh, "Awankening".