Awaiting Dragon Age

[devilsgrin]

i'm almost finished on my first playthrough. This has got to be BioWare's best game EVER. it tops Baldur's Gate II in terms of epic scope, and talk about immersion... there are points where i almost forget to breathe. Party NPCs... its like they've taken the best traits from the more fleshed out NPCs and made them into even better ones for this game.
Beware... the Dog will steal your heart... its soooo cute...

[thaddeus6th]

Don't think I'm as far done as you, though I'm maybe halfway into the game now.

Got to say that I love the difficulty level (on normal), it's just right. I dislike games that are ridiculously easy, but when you do die, quite often there's a cunning change of plan you can adopt to win.

I'm also a dog fan (named, Kai-dog after my own pet, but on the now removed Bioware forum someone had the great suggestion of Barkspawn). Just wish I had wireless to download Shale.

Never played a Bioware game before so can't compare to Baldur's Gate, but it is a very nice game.

[thepaladin]

Baldur's Gate II is probably my favorite game over all. I've held off on this as I need to be sure my video caard will handle it...Still haven't checked. I noted that the ram requirment s etc. aren't that bad and looks like most machines even a few years old might run it.

[JDP]

Managed to hold off for about 2 days once I got it

Good, fun RPG; well balanced, as Thaddeus says (like him, I've only tried it on Normal yet). I must say I haven't really got the hang of the pause-and-play battles (I'm playing on PS3); I tend to just play through in real time. I tend to just have general tactics that I let my party use rather than changing them up that much from fight to fight.

I've done a lot of dawdling around, and think I'm something like 20% in to the main story.

For me, the game's really fun; solid RPG action. But TBH, it hasn't totally rocked my world. Not sure why; perhaps I'm yet to get the best bits. I'd give it about 8/10.

[thaddeus6th]

I'm about 67% in.

I also generally just play in real time, but sometimes micromanagement can be a real help.

In places I did have to lower the difficulty level. Some fights I replayed repeatedly on Normal (and won), a few I got a little impatient with and lowered to Casual.

[Rahl Windsong]

The characters you can collect to have in your party are really well written, so much so that if you do or say something that upsets them it generally has the same effect on you. There is a male named Alistar that stays with you for the entire game and I really think the ladies will absolutely be head over heels in love with this guy, everything he says is pure gold. He is a rommance option for the female PC, there are also several other rommance options with even some gay rommance options, Bioware caters to everyone...hehe

My favorite quest so far has to be the Deep Roads, the tunnels the dwarfs built underground to connect all their cites, which I might add have been taken over by the Darkspawn...all I will say is CREEPY! very very creepy indeed!

[Pyar]

I just finished the game a couple days. What an amazing, fully developed story. There was nothing left out. And there was so many different directions you could go and pretty much everything you did affected the outcome at the end. I really enjoyed this game. By far the best RPG I've played. If you haven't gotten it GET IT! It took me 72 hours to finish though lol. I might go through another run later if I feel like it.

[Rahl Windsong]

Originally Posted by Pyar

I just finished the game a couple days. What an amazing, fully developed story. There was nothing left out. And there was so many different directions you could go and pretty much everything you did affected the outcome at the end. I really enjoyed this game. By far the best RPG I've played. If you haven't gotten it GET IT! It took me 72 hours to finish though lol. I might go through another run later if I feel like it.

I have been through the game few times now and each time I have found lots of things I missed the first time through...

For instance at the end in the battle against the Archdemon you have the option of calling in the armies you gathered durring the course of the game, first time through I never even noticed this.

[LukeW]

Played about 25 hours of this in the last 5 days (I'm usually lucky to play 1/2 hour a day). I'm absolutely loving DA. It's been years since I've been hooked on a computer game.

[Winters_Sorrow]

I'm quite enjoying this as well. It can feel a bit linear at times but no more so than Fable 2 etc and the story is good enough to keep you interested in developments. I haven't got very far in the game yet (apart from completing all 6 origin stories) but it's pretty good so far. On a par with something like KOTOR or Mass Effect.

[Lostie]

It's one of the best games I've ever played.

As an RPG fan I haven't been blown away by a game this much since the original Fallout in 1997.

I thought Bioware were at their very height with Baldurs Gate 2 but from then on I felt they moved progressively towards picking up popular IPs and watering down mechanics to boost their profile and sell more games.

Not to say Bioware made bad games after Baldurs Gate 2 but it felt like a de-evolution of RPG's rather than progress so even though I played and enjoyed KOTOR, Jade Empire and Mass Effect I felt they were leaving behind seasoned RPG players in favour of making more comercially flavoured games.

I have to admit after playing Dragon Age Origins I feel like a fool for ever doubting Bioware.

I think Bioware do an incredible job with this game and a few points stood out for me in particular:

1: The game is very lengthy in terms of the main story which is a great thing. It's also very absorbing and all your companions are extremely well fleshed out. The back story to each faction is incredible as well. You feel like your sitting in a deeply enriched universe with so many stories its pretty incredible they can create that feeling with the first game in the Dragon Age universe.

2: You actually feel like your choices mean something. I've had companions leave me. I had one companion challenge my authority and then try to kill me. I even had one companion who only joined me so he could set me up and kill me later on.

Also when your out in the big wide world the decisions you make are never easy. In Dragon Age Origins they create an atmosphere of desperation. People are in a constant power struggle at the dawn of a new age and you won't come across very many goody two shoes or outright evil people.

Every decision you make has consequences and you are never going to be right or wrong. I really struggled to make decisions and pick sides during the game when I came to realise just how bad some of the people I was working with were. I love how the game refuses to use black and white stereotypes though and every character has a grey area.

3: The diversity in the game also blew me away. When everything falls apart you have to recruit different races to help you fight the Blight.

It takes you to a variety of places like underground dungeons for dwarves, haunted forests for elves, a grand palace for the human soldiers and a tower for the mages.

They are all very different worlds and they are extremely well fleshed out.

4: Last but not least the presentation of the game is fantastic. It's like playing a movie. Some people want a big world to explore and that is understandable. With Dragon Age Origins being quite linear I know it won't appeal to everybody but regardless the cinematic quality this game possesses is something out of a motion picture.


Having said all of the above while I was first skeptical of the upcoming Star Wars MMO now I simply can't wait for it.

If Bioware can provide this kind of quality for 30 hours with a game that cost ten million dollars to produce I can't wait to see what they can do with the Star Wars MMO and ten times the budget.